Very nice. 10x

Agree.

But also agree that they need to rethink the exponential scaling of district costs in general. It tried to solve a problem, but this particular solution did not make the game more fun. Since basically now I only build EQs until mid/late-game when I run out of infrastructure to build and then I'm just building them to have something in the queue, not for any real strategic goal.

Infrequently, I do get the feeling that I need to build a district, either because I'm low on food or need money/science. These cases should happen more often. Ideally, you should be building because you have a specific challenge to overcome.

The cost scaling needs to go. Production (already by far the most important yield) also gets to be the thing throttling city growth, that's just silly. Food and stability could be much more sensible bottlenecks, and are desperately in need of purpose. Stability already technically throttles it, but since production throttles it harder it doesn't matter, take away the cost scaling and stability can be a proper roadblock. Food could be as simple as "you get a malus for having less pop than districts".

It won't happen though, because removing the cost scaling would expose how annoying it is to queue districts without being able to use the queued ones as anchors.

In its current state I feel like I need to mass makers quarters at the expense of other districts because it gives far more value and they help offset their own scaling cost.

It just feels weird to play this way though, food needs more purpose.

I'd like to add the natural reserves in that bag with the resource extractors.
I'd like also to see different « prices » for those extractors, getting some horses or some oil could be equivalent 5 eras apart, not during the same.

@SpacesuitSpiff : Adding a food for districts ratio/cap/whatever would simply tipp the meta from mass production to mass production with a bit of food, not correcting the core of the problem.

Maybe, it could be addressed with an emphasis on the specialists. If the quarters would give less FIMSI and the specialists way more, adding a bit of cost to any specialist or district would push the game into a balanced repartition : food to grow and maintain population, gold to pay the maintenance, science would be a necessity the whole game not to lag behind and production, of course, would stay.
I see, however, two main problems. 1) It feels like a forced situation, and that production might stay king but, a bit like with the previous proposition, the meta would shift from production to production + whatever it needs to be as high as possible. 2) It takes away the possibility to design different cities, putting them all in some kind of balanced mode. I like to play without making any makers quarters and would not like to have to built some, I wish for every player to have that kind of liberty to some extend.

I wonder if it would be worth it to try to experiment with district limit on per territory basis (as in, each territory expanding it, rather than limit for each individual territory), increased by tech, civics, infrastructure and maybe some LTs. Cost scaling is a way to introduce soft cap on production instead of using such a hard cap, but I'm not sure it's really working.

But then not sure how well AI would deal with it, what with their garrison spam necessary to even stay afloat half of the time.

Soft caps by number would create more competition between quarters but I fear we'd know right from the start which would be the winner.
Maybe, a good way to address the problem would be to make the terrain more important. We could even imagine changing resource extractors to quarters : sage or coffee would need a farmers quarter but stone a makers.

Adding some bonus from other type of quarters would also be useful to get less monotyped cities. Soft caping the bonus from the same type of district might be the way for some (but could help other -> I'd have liked to see one for garrisons placed in lines or only one case away from each others)

I pretty sure we should not think of the AI. First, it has to be correct for humans, then fix the AI to get a decent behavior.

Ansive wrote:

Whenever I encounter a territory with more than 3 resources (luxury and strategic) I keep it as an outpost and avoid attaching it to my cities (if I can protect it from aggression).

See Meleph and Alrescha in the following image:

https://i.imgur.com/eUoskuC.jpg

I don't attach the territory because it makes all districts (makers, farms) much more expensive without providing much in return.

A city with 10 districts on normal speed will have a district cost of about 370.
If you attach an outpost with 5 resources, the city will now have to pay 690 industry for a district. That's a significant price to pay.

Resource extractor provide the FIMS bonus even in Outposts so there is little benefit to attaching the territory to a city.
Sure, if I'm starving for Money or Science I might attach it to build Markets and Research quarters next to the extractors for adjacency bonuses, but that's a rare encounter. Or if I'm starved for land, but that's rarely an issue.

It's elegant that EVERYTHING is a district and more districts increase the production cost of a district. But this mechanic encourages the player to avoid attaching such territories to their cities.

I think it would better if Resource Extractors would not increase the construction cost of regular districts. Extractors could have their own cost formula so they would get more and more expensive to purchase in outposts or build in cities.

Note: I attach those outposts from time to time to claim their population or build an emblematic or market district.

+1 It was suggested many times that Resource Extractors shouldn't count as a district as it has a constant industry cost.

Also the scaling of district still must be reworked.

IMO there are two main problems:

1. Districts cost and Infrastructures cost are not connected well. 

   If we'll look at normal speed game (basing on my own game):

• district cost in the end of Ancient Era (in a city with 10 disctricts) is about 400 industry, while Infrastructure cost is about 200.
• district cost in the end of  Classical Era (in a city with 15 disctricts) is about 700 industry, while Infrastructure cost is about 400.
• district cost in the end of  Medieval Era (in a city with 22 disctricts) is about 1200 industry, while Infrastructure cost is about 800.
• district cost in the end of  Early modern Era (in a city with 30 disctricts)  is about 1500 industry somehow, while Infrastructure cost is about 1900 already!
• district cost in the end of  Industrial Era (in a city with 35 disctricts)  is about 1800 industry only, while Infrastructure cost is about 3200!!!
• district cost in the end of  Industrial Era (in a city with 43 disctricts)  is about 2400 industry only, while Infrastructure cost is about 4600 or even more!!!

2. Infrastructures are unbalanced.

Some Infrastructures in Ancient era give the same amount of industry/food/money/science/influence as Infrastructures in Medieval or Early modern era. Also most of the Infrastructures in all Eras give less FIMS than 1 district.

This bad FIMS scaling leads to slow production, when you have only 600 industry, while you need 2400 to build a district and 4600 to build an Infrastructure. The game in the end becomes slow and boring.

Light_Spectrum wrote:

2. Infrastructures are unbalanced.

Some Infrastructures in Ancient era give the same amount of industry/food/money/science/influence as Infrastructures in Medieval or Early modern era. Also most of the Infrastructures in all Eras give less FIMS than 1 district.

This bad FIMS scaling leads to slow production, when you have only 600 industry, while you need 2400 to build a district and 4600 to build an Infrastructure. The game in the end becomes slow and boring.

tbf these Ancient Era techs tend to rely on districts (well, exploitations) anyway, so +2 food per river on a small city isn't as much as +2 per river on a larger city.