I know the logic of why city-center doesn't change, but I really wish I could change the design of city-center when I change civilization.

Or at least I wish I had a choice.

For example, we could have a building ("Infrastructure") that we could do (free or not) and which would change the design of the city center to correspond to that of our current civilization. That way, we would have the choice to keep our city-center design or not throughout the game.

Oh really, you do know the logic? I want to hear. I was asking myself the same question, why city centers do not change, when I was watching some gameplay footage.

As I understand, the city centre would be the oldest part of your cities. One of the core gameplay attractions is the sight of your evolving cities. As a heritage site, I see little reason for the centre to change. Of course, arguments can be made contrary, that cities as a whole changed with the eras depicted in game. I don't see any reason for this topic to become a pivotal issue, in either direction.

If it's any consolation, the name of your cities doesn't change with culture. So, when you establish your first roman city, and get Rome, you can shift your capital to roma, and have a roman city centre in a city with a roman name

I understand the concept the developers have chosen, but I believe it would be good if we had an option to "update" the city centers and also the names of the cities after switching cultures, and this option could be linked to one of the best mechanics of the game, its event system.

In this way, we could have an event that appears after a set of given conditions, suggesting the player to update the name of one of his/her cities built in a previous era with a previous culture to one of his/her current culture. The player can have a choice in that and it could lead to rewards and/or penalties (realted to boosts in stability, spending of money and having and impact in the civics axis). For example, there could be events suggesting the re-building of the city center after a big fire, a big flodding, after a siege... and allowing the player to chose to rebuild the city center with its "historic" architechture (the one from the original culture when the city was built) or with a "modern" architecture (the one from the current culture)...

I don't really think something like this will be implemented in the game at release but I hope it could be modded somehow.

julianosofskingrad wrote:

An interesting idea - but an annoying one for modern ages. It simply looks awkward to have stone Ziggurat in an industrial German city. Or to have a Harappan city center next to greek columns. I understand the idea, but there should be at least the option to change. 

I see myself never picking the Harappans because I dislike their city center - but I am forced to live with it ... for an entire game ... not somewhere in some non important city, but in my capitol ... And I could imagen that huge fans of the Romans would like to see a roman city center in "Roma".

In fact, I don't see much problem with a ziggurat in a German city, it's pretty much like the modern Cairo surrounding the Giza pyramids, the acropolis inside modern Athens, and so on.

But I agree in the first eras there are less monumental city centers that simply doesn't make sense they can survive untouched even to the next era. Examples: Celts or Olmecs city centers.

Every culture has a unique city centre graphic which is very nice but how often will we even be able to see the later era ones? I'd like some kind of option for it too. The emblematic districts already serve as a visual reminder of you're previous cultures, you can choose to replace them or keep them which is a nice choice if you'd like to keep your Roman circus into the modern era.

Veah wrote:

julianosofskingrad wrote:

An interesting idea - but an annoying one for modern ages. It simply looks awkward to have stone Ziggurat in an industrial German city. Or to have a Harappan city center next to greek columns. I understand the idea, but there should be at least the option to change. 

I see myself never picking the Harappans because I dislike their city center - but I am forced to live with it ... for an entire game ... not somewhere in some non important city, but in my capitol ... And I could imagen that huge fans of the Romans would like to see a roman city center in "Roma".

In fact, I don't see much problem with a ziggurat in a German city, it's pretty much like the modern Cairo surrounding the Giza pyramids, the acropolis inside modern Athens, and so on.

But I agree in the first eras there are less monumental city centers that simply doesn't make sense they can survive untouched even to the next era. Examples: Celts or Olmecs city centers.

Well first: the Pyramids do fit in modern Cairo cause both are egyptian. The same with the Acropolis and Athens. But does the Harappan city center really fit to a modern US-american city? The answer to this brings me to the second part of my reply: Some people like the system. And some don't. And moreover: There are city centers for every culture. If I move from the Hittites to the Greeks and the Byzantines ... do I have to found a completely new city just to see their city center?

+1 for upgrading city centers. It sucks to go through a culture with mediocre architecture and have that remaining the entire game. Like if I want to do a Mesoamerican run and start with the Olmecs I'll have a pile of dirt with a hut on top for my capital instead of a brilliantly painted palace or pyramid.

Perhaps you could have an option of either renovating your to replace the old architecture or building a new city center and have the old one become a new "cultural heritage" district.

julianosofskingrad wrote:

Well first: the Pyramids do fit in modern Cairo cause both are egyptian. The same with the Acropolis and Athens. But does the Harappan city center really fit to a modern US-american city?

Well, we do have Harappan ruins inside modern cities in India and Pakistan (and no, modern Indian culture is not the same as Harappan, just like modern Egyptian has nothing to do with 4000 years-ago Egyptians). And in the game any contemporary culture (US, India) are equally unrelated to any ancient culture, that's what the game is about, so I don't see the fitting problem there, more alike what Slipslime said:

"Does it make sense that this building has survived 4000 years?"

If its a massive structure made of stone, yes, but if it's a bunch of wooden cabins I find it very unrealistic.

Slipslime wrote:

 It sucks to go through a culture with mediocre architecture and have that remaining the entire game. Like if I want to do a Mesoamerican run and start with the Olmecs I'll have a pile of dirt with a hut on top for my capital instead of a brilliantly painted palace or pyramid.

Some talk about "shifting your capital". I am looking for the button left and right. Please, tell me: Where is it?

I believe it's an option in the cities menu after u research the Imperial Power tech in the Classical Era.

moving your capital doesnt actually update any of the main plazas unfortunately

I think the only way to update the cities is by making them outposts. The ancient era stuff looks so out of place as you progress. It really kills it for me when the nexus of my modern empire is a relatively small olmec pyramid. I really want to push for this to be changed, with city centres and names going unchanged it undermines the evolution mechanic. City names can be changed at least. 60 unique city centres in the game but we will only see the same 10 for most of time.

I would like to see a completely different approach rather than just updating my palace. I would like to see my cultures adding up together, not only for the palace but for all the buildings (I know that what I'm about to say is a bit too ambitious, but I can dream, right?) so the idea is that each era adds something on top of what's already there, so in the first era if I choose egypt I'll get simple sandstone houses without many details, then I move to the greeks and that adds some greek details to the houses, but the main body is still sandstoney then, I move to the nords, and they add a wooden/tatch roof (I'm making this up by now if you haven't realized) and so on and so forth, and the same could apply to the city centre. In my eyes this would really help with immersion 

I just went full Nero and razed my capital so I could build it again with a new city centre. I just got the medieval colony upgrade so I at least got all I-II infrastructures in there for free.

Dont let me go full Nero again, let me update cities!