When should I build a new district? Still a bit confused

[marshill88]

Ok I know about how districts provide jobs, but what I can't figure out is when I should make a new district.

Total buildings are based on pops alone. My intuition keeps telling me "when you build a new district you can get more buildings" but this isn't the case.

My planet has no unemployed pops, but I have yet to make a new district. When, exactly, is it strategically wise to make a new district on a planet? Do I wait for housing to drop or happiness? Is it a good idea to jump ahead of the game and make a new district if I can afford it, even though I have no one unemployed and everyone is happy? I'm not quite getting this

 

[Sirbab]

Ok I know about how districts provide jobs, but what I can't figure out is when I should make a new district.

Total buildings are based on pops alone. My intuition keeps telling me "when you build a new district you can get more buildings" but this isn't the case.

My planet has no unemployed pops, but I have yet to make a new district. When, exactly, is it strategically wise to make a new district on a planet? I'm not quite getting this

You want to build (standard) districts in one of two cases.
A: Housing districts, you build these when you need a lot of housing, and/or don't want to use building slots for housing. Good for reaching building pop thresholds. It has the side effect of giving clerk jobs which produce trade value and amenities. You do end up with more housing than jobs with this district. So, make this when you need more housing basically.
B: Job districts: build these when you have no more free job slots, or if just ahead of time if you can't be arsed to micro the planet like i do.

There is the school of thought that having more free housing increases immigration to some extent, improving growth speed, but i'm not yet sold on filling a planet with districts that both have upkeep and won't provide a return on investment for a long time.

 

[marshill88]

Hi Sirbab, thanks for replying. So lets say I get to a point where I have unemployed pops, but can't make a new building yet... is that a good time to consider a new district?

 

[daisha]

There are two main things that should motivate you to build a new district. The first and easiest case is when you have an unemployed pop (exception: egalitarians can get unity from unemployed pops with good social policy, but it's not much.) generator mining and farming districts each have 2 jobs and 2 housing, so they're not very disruptive to build. If you build with 1 unemployed pop, by the time it's done you will be well on your way to having a second unemployed pop to fill the extra job with.

If you need to build city districts because you're having a housing crisis, you need to be aware that you're also taking on clerk jobs, which may drain labor from other vital industries, so don't just spam city districts for immigration bonuses.

 

[Delthor]

You should build districts as you need the housing or jobs from them. So when you're around 0 unemployment, consider what jobs you want to be filled next and whether you have the building slot or deposits needed. Then build what you need to get those jobs, whether it's a district or building. Similarly, if you're at 0 or negative housing, it's good to build a housing district or building depending on what you have available.

Rural worlds have most pops employed by districts while urban worlds have most pops employed by building and the city districts mainly provide housing.

I'd suggest avoiding building extra districts far in advance, as it leads to issues that need pop micro to deal with. You're also paying for the district upkeep even if you're not making use of the jobs or housing they provide. The exception is when you're a bit later in the game and trying to create immigration pull, which available housing and jobs increases.

 

[Sirbab]

Hi Sirbab, thanks for replying. So lets say I get to a point where I have unemployed pops, but can't make a new building yet... is that a good time to consider a new district?

If you have enemployed pops you should absolutely be building districts, likely job districts unless it's a trade planet. Unemployed pops not only are unhappy and reduce stability (read planetary global resource production), increase crime, but also are not producing anything of worth unless you have welfare or utopian abundance species rights for unity or research. Buildings (as in the ones in the building slots) are great for increasing jobs, especially when upgraded.

If it helps, I plan out what i want to do with a planet around the time when I colonize it or survey it. If it has a large amount of potential energy/mineral/food districts, i try to fit as many of those as possible onto that planet, then the other resource districts, while supplementing housing with urban districts as i go.
If i think a planet is either well suited for trade, or just doesn't have many natural resources, that's when i usually plan to make the planet specialized into trade or refineries.

 

[marshill88]

thanks for the help! you guys are great.

 

[Bouchart]

I'll add one more thing. In my experience you're going to need to demolish and redevelop districts and buildings on some planets eventually. Early on, you need to stuff buildings and districts wherever you can fit them just to cover resource shortages and expand. Later on, you can better closely specialize your planets to take advantage of buildings that give +% production.

 

[Dalwin]

I think most of you are not really answering his question. Things like unemployment or housing shortages are why you build something on the planet, but what the OP is really asking is when should he build a district instead of a building.

The fundamental difference is that a district (other than city) produces raw materials and employs the lower working class. Most buildings employ specialists and many of them also consume raw materials. Therefor the deciding factor on district or building should come down to your resource flow and stockpiles. For example, go for the research building if you have enough consumer goods to support that, but certainly not if you are short of them.

 

[Sinister2202]

This is how I usually go about doing things, but not all people will agree.

Don't build a district if you still have jobs and housing left. For example, total Pop count is 18, there are 4 jobs available and 2 housings available. Don't build anything just yet. A non-city district gives 2 housing and 2 jobs. When the total Pop count hits 20, you are now left with 0 housing and 2 jobs. That's when you should build a district, but of course that's if you want to focus a planet with certain district (mining, city, agri etc).

If the Pop count is 18 and there are 2 jobs available with 4 housings, you should probably build a specialist building on the slot that unlocks when the Pop hits 20. Because 20 Pops will have 0 jobs available with 2 housings left. I usually build a alloy refinery because it gives 2 more jobs. Now I am left with the even 2 jobs and 2 housing. I don't outright start building specialist buildings because promotions cause sudden drop in income of various raw resources.


However, and I believe this is very important for long term status quo of the planet's stability, if that planet can't grow any further - You should probably want to end up with more HOUSING than JOBS when the planet reaches the point of full development and emigration/unemployment/overcrowding becomes rampant.

Because first of all, overcrowding is the one that causes stability to lower. Increasing housing gives you a bit more time before that overcrowding starts hitting the planet. Nobody really cares about unemployment as long as they live off handouts like social welfare or utopian abundance + plenty of food. Unemployment in this game, you can think of it as excess resource for you to utilize.

Second of all, continuing on that note, you can resettle (even as egalitarian fanatic) more available unemployed workers to other colonies to fill vacant jobs for faster resource gathering and growth.

My capital planet ended up with 142 or so housing and 132 or so jobs. The 10 unemployed people can be dished out to other colonies to fill other urgent worker jobs. (Especially to ecumenopolis they desperately need people to fill all those vacancies.) Now, as long as I have vacant housing and jobs elsewhere, my capital will have plenty of time and enjoy 100% stability. But even that will eventually end if you stop expanding and all of your colonies are fully developed like your capital.

And due to plenty of housing still available, the future-unemployed Pops will grow rather speedily.

If my capital had 132 housing and 142 jobs, 10 jobs would still have to be filled while taking stability hits due to overcrowding. And then you start to get 1... 2... 3... unemployed pops for you to dish out, while still maintaining the hit on the stability. Not only that, they will grow very slow due to overcrowding/emigration and etc.

 

[Azhcristokos]

So lets say I get to a point where I have unemployed pops, but can't make a new building yet... is that a good time to consider a new district?

Yes. That is a good time.

One thing to note: your people are organized in a basic hierarchy of job types: Rulers, Specialists, and Workers (not getting into slaves). If you open up a Ruler or Specialist job, a Worker (such as a miner or a farmer) will immediately jump into the spot to fill it...which means you'll suddenly see a drop in your energy, food, or mineral production. Make sure you can afford to lose a few Workers before you create more Specialists (researchers, priests, etc.) or Rulers (administrators, merchants, high priests, etc.).

Edit: In regards to that, just bear in mind what others have mentioned: districts provide Worker jobs while buildings usually provide Specialist or Ruler jobs.

 

[Incompetent]

Edit: In regards to that, just bear in mind what others have mentioned: districts provide Worker jobs while buildings usually provide Specialist or Ruler jobs.

The big exceptions are hydroponics farms and commercial zones.

Hydroponics means that you can really go all out on farmer jobs on your agri-world, even if the planet isn't exceptionally well-equipped with farm districts: once you run out of farm districts, you can make the rest city districts (or as many as needed to house 75 pops total on the planet) and fill the slots with hydroponics. You only get 2 farmers per building though, so if you're not deliberately making an agri-world, you can probably do something better with the slot.

Commercial zones employ clerks, who are your urban working poor: each pop makes a bit of trade value and a pitiful amount of amenities, which is not very useful early on when you're trying to make every pop count. On the other hand, their output really adds up on high-population worlds due to the sheer number of clerk jobs you can create compared to anything else, and specialized Charismatic/Thrifty clerks can actually be decently productive (especially slave-clerks, who are pretty much the only way to make the Slaver Guilds civic work in the mid to late game). The only kind of pop that cannot do this job is a tier 1 robot, so the clerk row is also a useful 'buffer zone' to keep your generic labour pool off the streets until you find better jobs for them.

 

[Matoro_TBS]

If there's unemployment, build a district.
If there's going to be unelpoyment after the next pop, build a district.
If you need housign, build housing districts.
If you need base resources, build districts.
It's basically same decision as it is with buildings. If you need the stuff you get from its jobs, build it. If not, then no.