So you would make anomalies a bad thing rather than a good thing? I don't think anomalies need to be weakened...

nytmre wrote:
So just to throw a random new idea out there related to districts, why not split the district mechanic up. So you have the option of building a burrow street, but once it is built, you choose a specialization for that district. Either food, industry, science, or dust.

That's already kinda how it works, expanding your exploitation tiles so you use them to get to the tiles best suited for what you want. Though I do like the idea of making a bit more complex. Maybe some improvements should also act as districts like the docks do for water tiles.

And for balancing issues, you cant re-search the ruins once they are a part of your city.

I think the bigger problem there would be that everyone is supposed to be able to search ruins separately, but if it becomes part of another players city, what then? Though I suppose you could already block others if you built districts all around the ruin...

So just to throw a random new idea out there related to districts, why not split the district mechanic up. So you have the option of building a burrow street, but once it is built, you choose a specialization for that district. Either food, industry, science, or dust. To me, that makes the most sense, like how we have cities in real life, or at least the large ones, that have separate sections of the city.



At that point, leveling up a district increases the original bonus. You could even incorporate bonuses based on the original stats of the tiles so that in a placement of a city you have to think long game as well instead of just, "oh crap, there is a ruin, that's going to ruin my triangle."



On top of the above mentioned, why not incorporate anomalies and ruins into the actual production of the city as tiles themselves! From what ive seen, each anomaly has a specific FIDIS that they boost, meaning that if you build for example, an industry focused district next to some rumbling stones, you get a higher boost to industry. As for ruins, give them a tile boost to influence. Write it up as a tourist attraction for your empire and the empires around you. Because so far i don't recall there actually being a tile that boosts influence what so ever. And for balancing issues, you cant re-search the ruins once they are a part of your city. Though honestly they found some roman artifacts in the middle of london either last year or the year before so thats up to the devs and popular opinion.



I think if this was kept with the current system of how districts upgrade, along with the approval rating system, it would add some thought process to city building instead of just simple, can i build a good straight line, or can i build a perfect triangle.



(Honestly, i should probably make this idea its own thread, but ill see how you guys like it)



I personally feel that with so much detail in other aspects like building armies and what not, why not give some love to the peeps who like to focus on having amazing cities.

I feel I must point out that people who want maximum benefits don't only use the stick or triangle forms, so the idea that the current solution forces those two simple forms as the optimal solution is wrong.



They are good and easy forms to use and they maximize the availability of level 2 districts and approval which is why they are great to use when laying out the districts in the early and mid-game, but for large cities further into the game the answer is not so simple. (And if lucky with +approval anomalies, not in the early game either, but that's a special case.)



Upgrading a district from level 1 to level 2 gives 15 approval, 2 dust, science, and influence for most of the game, but going for maximum L2 districts via triangle or stick means losing out on exploitation hexes, and in the later mid-game and all the end-game most hexes produce more than 6 points of FIDS production, and many provide twice or thrice that, with Anomalies providing even more. In other words, once you start getting the expansion disapproval reducing techs, approval increasing buildings (and earlier than that if you are lucky with anomalies in a region), empire plan, and possibly also luxury boosters, you may very well be in a situation in some regions where you'll be at 100 approval rating even if you aren't maximizing the number of level 2 districts.



In the endgame of era 5, L2 districts can give 15 influence extra with the appropriate tech, which is also a consideration as the L2 district ends up giving 21 FIDS that way, which is comparable to some of the better non-anomaly exploitations and some of the mid-range anomalies.



As a simple example, consider the case case of a city center and 9 districts, i.e. 18 population, which is a considerable mid-game or early end-game city.



A triangle gives you:

7 L2

3 L1

15 Exploitations

+5 Approval



A 5x2 stick gives you:

6 L2

4 L1

16 Exploitations

-10 Approval



A 3x3 with a single edge sticking out optimally gives you:

5 L2

5 L1

17 Exploitations

-25 Approval



A 4x2 stick with two edges sticking out optimally gives you:

4 L2

6 L1

18 Exploitations.

-40 Approval



Which of these four is the best in a given situation depends entirely on whether you need extra approval and on which FIDS the extra exploitations provide compared to those provided by a L2 district. This is one of the good consequences of dropping the ability to get level 3, 4, 5... districts that was in the game earlier. Now there's a meaningful choice involved in whether you've got enough upgraded districts or would prefer more exploitation.



The larger the city, the greater the deviation from the simple L2 maximizing forms is possible without dropping out of fervent as every two L2 cancel out one L1 where approval is concerned.

Jojo makes a good point. Personally I like the region system (to an extent) - however, there's no trade-offs or meaningful choices. Every city becomes good at everything, given enough time to grow.



I've written a bit about my thoughts here:

Tigregalis wrote:
It's not THAT powerful: the bonus is capped at 6 villages of the same type. So, say, 6 or 9 pacified Geldirus villages would in both situations give you +30% damage. It's rare to have that many villages though.



The problem with the above is that you cannot reliably target certain minor faction villages. In theory, you could explore the whole map, and colonise the regions that have the right minor faction villages, but considering how random it is, you would have one hell of a patchwork empire.



So you get lucky (and you have the right minor factions within reach), or you don't. You can't really plan for it. I'm still not how you would change that mechanic, but anyway... (I also think minor factions need to be more interesting generally.)



That same issue applies to capturing regions with the right strategic or luxury resources. Here, the only time you make trade-offs is when you're colonising regions - but, because of the mid-game scarcity of regions, you lose that decision very quickly. There's also a fairly big investment required there.



I find that cities don't specialise much, either. Every city you possess becomes an industry, food, dust, science AND influence powerhouse, given enough time to grow. Perhaps the solution is: limit the number of city improvements to the number of districts so you have to choose between city improvements (say, 2 city improvements for your capital, plus 2 city improvements on any city centre, plus 1 city improvement per district), and have many more specialised once-per-empire buildings.



I also agree that unit costs should be lower, especially early game. Actually, I would also say that unit costs should be higher late game. (Or dust and industry income should be higher early-game and lower late-game)



On combat, I believe it has potential but it leaves a lot to be desired. The main problem with combat is that initiative is king, and combat is not reactive at all.



One other issue I have with the game is the requirement to research every thing that you do and these are also limited by tech era. Peace and Alliance diplomatic options must be researched. Talking to minor factions must be researched. Building stockpiles (so as to use idle industry) must be researched (and is not the greatest implementation IMO). Using the mercenary/hero market must be researched. Using the resources/stockpiles market must be researched.



All that said, I really enjoy Endless Legend and I think it's a good game. But it does have a lot of room for improvement - and in a way that's a good thing.

Why is everyone obsessed with having a district adjacency system?



Not everyone is obsessed with it. Only players who want to gain max benefits. And if you play lazy and focus more on combat, you stop managing your cities to a minimum. Of course i only play on normal for now

I am totally agree with the author of this topic.



- The district system which force a triangle construction is not interesting, repetitive on all games, not realistic, esthetiquely not diversified. The concept of sneaky city has been created by the invention of the system of one region = one city. This sytem reduce (again) the user choice of a region, for a non intereting effect. One of the great pleasure in Civilization, was to analyse a region and pick it for your city. Now it is poorer. Region should just be automaticelly claimed with the creation or the developement of a city I think.



- District should be planned too. Boring to add a new district each time.



- To go deeper in the critic, I think the whole system of district and exploited hexagones is not interesting because nearly all hexagones are interesting. If you got dust but not food, it is good, if you got food but not research, it is good. There is no bad region to colonise. There are excellent land to take, but no real frosty or desertic shitty land. Morover, buldings can add bonus to anyland. For exemple you can have a desert +2 hammer and +4 food with three buildings.



- I am a bit sad of the game because the more I go in, the more I find the factions developpement very similar, and the less there is less difference choices from game to game. I am not motivated to give advise to developpers to change the things, because If they have not see the big problem of this before, I don't think the will change anything about these problems now.

Intuitively, I think happiness should be roughly inversely proportional to the ratio of population to districts.



In other words, more districts with same pop OR same districts with less pop = more spacious, happier; less districts with same pop OR same districts with more pop = more boxed in, less happy. City



A formula like... say...

City Base Happiness = k*(Number of districts + 1 + m)/(Number of population + m)

where k and m are arbitrary constants.

k should be around 60 (the basic happiness currently).

m exists to reduce the net impact that a change in the number of districts and/or a growth in population have on happiness.



This results in a happiness that starts at 60, and always falls as the city grows. Because even as you build more districts, the population is at least twice the size of the number of districts (so the ratio of the above term relative to the lower term as both become large tends to 0). Only the necrophages wouldn't have this handicap, as they can match the number of districts to the size of their population.



In any case, however, unchaining city layout from happiness will surely improve the value of decision-making there. You could decide whether to go tall (by levelling up) or wide (increasing the exploitation of the city). Each option should provide differing bonuses to have a meaningful trade-off, and this is already the case: district levels give dust, science and influence, while expanding exploitations allows greater coverage for more FIDS in general (but especially FID). Perhaps the numbers need to be tweaked to provide more significant district level bonuses relative to exploitation bonuses (say, 0 DSI on city tile and +3 DSI per level, or -1 DSI on city tile and +4 DSI per level), but a strong foundation exists.

I really hate the current system. Two main reasons:



(1) It's a massive "Guide dang it". It's explained nowhere within the game, so this pretty much screws you over on your first few games until you take the time to read it up in forums. AHG. It gets even worse because you are pretty much required to understand this system before you fund your first city. That is on turn 1, first game, when you have no idea what the game is about yet.



(2) The ideal city setup (straight line, two hexes wide) is boring as hell, and impractical.



Frankly, I would prefer the other extreme (no bonus whatsovever for neighboring districts). Snake cities may not be that interesting either, but at least it's intuitive.



Maybe we can have a much simpler system instead?



-1 food (flat penalty)

+0.5 dust, +0.5 science, +0.25 influence per adjacent built tile (borough, city, village, pillar, watchtower, extractor (?))



NO adjustment to approval (boroughs don't give a penalty, and leveling them up doesn't give a bonus)



Also, I'd love to see specialized boroughs (as suggested in other threads) like



* farms (food bonus and bonus to stockpile food)

* craftsmen district (production bonus and -5% building cost)

* market quarter (dust bonus and bonus to trade routes)

* fortress (+1 militia, fortification bonus, +1 XP to garrisoned units, -5% unit cost)

* aristocratic district (influence bonus and approval bonus)

* academy (science bonus)

* slum (zero production cost, -10% food required for population growth, but -10 approval)

* water mill (production and food bonus, requires river)

* subterranean quarters (no winter penalty)



Name, specific bonus, availability and costs of these could vary by faction. Obviously the lords don't need farms, necrophages would call the craftsmen district "worker quarters", ardent mages don't build fortresses but gain unit XP from academies and so on.

Andy_Dandy wrote:
I think the current system is brilliant. It makes the city building more complex then just expanding it brainlessly to the next best tiles availble. It also counters the efficiency of snaking cities. The current sollution is pure brilliant.

Totally.

nightbasilisk wrote:
If that's directed at me, the suggestions I made would make them stronger. Anomalies at the moment are just "first 5 turns boost"

Anomalies are game changers. Also +15 science on anomalies does not hurt.

No, that was in response to making anomalies act like ruins - unbuildable, and thus weaken your city if built nearby.



Your solutions doesn't really affect anomalies at all - except a slightly more efficient exploitation growth (always 3) makes them slightly easier to get.

EcthelionHelm wrote:
So you would make anomalies a bad thing rather than a good thing? I don't think anomalies need to be weakened...

If that's directed at me, the suggestions I made would make them stronger. Anomalies at the moment are just "first 5 turns boost"

[whatthetitlesays]



It's cute, but really no matter how you tweak it you end up with "cookie cutter templates" since they emphasize layout (build X next to Y) over context (Map).



Why can't we just have...

• Every district you get 3 exploitation you can place as you choose (can be replanted if you place a district on one of them).
• Every 3 districts you can choose to build an upgrade for one of your districts. Place on any district, purely aesthetic choice where you place it.
• Placement distance for exploitation is limited to 1/3 of your total number of exploitations rounded up (so you can't build snakes to resource).
  
  

Solves all issues.

• Natural and more realistic, cities
• Minor Faction villages and ruins don't matter (since adjacency doesn't matter)
• Terrain you place your city and directions you expand into actually makes a difference. So its' different each game so long as map generation is doing its job.
• Cities look more natural, not 1 potato farm feeding 20mil people.
• More aesthetic and strategic options by being able to just make actual decisions rather then "well I need to plop here and here to finish up my triangle"
  
  

-



So anyone can explain why the entire community is obsessed with cookie cutter cities?



Looking at this thread: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3236-another-alternative-to-the-district-leveling-mechanic we might as well have cities be Civ 5 in nature where they just grow on their own.

Why do we even need to have the ability to expand cities when there would be only 1 ideal layout. Everyone seems to be more then happy with one-single ultimate design (that just happens to look exactly like the Civ 5 city expansion system)



/end rant

North2 wrote:
At least for starters, I'd make all Anomalies unbuildable terrain. Speaking of natural, building a city right on top of a giant geyser looks totally natural.

100% agree with this. It makes anomalies a strategic choice, and keeps things from looking... odd.

Honetly I think that first we need to address the nature of "buildings". The problemn with 4x games in my experience is that building have no meaningful trades, so I'd honestly like to see some more meaningful building maintenance than dust cost.



Other than that.



I have nothing against boroughs being anle to be built on top of each other rather than adjacent. You balance the benefits and it could get rather entertaining.

I'm not fond of the current system, either, since it leads to triangles and sticks. I've actually been suggesting a system in which districts can be leveled up manually since before release, in which spreading your city or upgrading it would have different opportunity costs. The approval penalty for spreading out could stay, but improving a district should also have a cost, perhaps a large sum paid in maintaining all those nice residences.

We need to see real decisions about city shape, and about whether or not to spread out at all.

I think the current system is brilliant. It makes the city building more complex then just expanding it brainlessly to the next best tiles availble. It also counters the efficiency of snaking cities. The current sollution is pure brilliant.

I guess to forbid turtleing, and to have the need to expand. The cultist should be unique with that mechanic i guess. But its still true that there is work do be done since:



A: Citys arent that unique midgame anymore where you build almost the same stuff on every city and

B: The best option is alway going aggressive there.



There is a lack of choices and viarity without making it too complex. I still think the best solution for this would be to specialze Citys. "Do i get that land with high research and build it up purely on research to make the bonus even larger or should i build defenses first since im at cold war with the player that is next beside it". I miss thoughts like that but to get to this point other things of higher priority sould be done first i guess.

"More aesthetic and strategic options by being able to just make actual decisions rather then "well I need to plop here and here to finish up my triangle"

This being my biggest flaw so far is why i highly vote for being able to place different kinds of districts, making terrain not only good or bad but just viable and a strategic option.

The system used to work in a way in which districts could continue leveling far past level 3. The devs eventually removed the system and restricted leveling to level 2 for most factions and level 3 for the Cultists.

Maybe there should be a reason to expand. I mean something like to decide either to expand or getting more ressources. there could be city tiles and worker tiles. A lvl 2 Worker district could brin luxus income of 0,2 but no influence and food. the costs raise for both whichever district you buy. you can lvl up district only with the same districts. When it comes to the placements: +1 prod -1 food for worker and the other way for normal districts at forest tiles for example. (hunting for food or cutting down the trees heh)

Maybe adding another title which gives science but is reducing prod ( they cant work with noise xD)



what i mean is if, then i would go more on this kind of direction since it gives mor choices of how to place. If you make it to dependend on enviroment then its more essential to have just a good starting point or atleast nearby.

they just removed most city leveling as it totally broke economy, but then didn't ever come back and put something interesting in its place.

what do you mean by that?