GEM Stage 4: Cities & Policies

The basic principle is to let rapid expanders purchase 1 item quickly in a city of our choice. I really like this effect and love the freedom it provides. There's three things we want to do when expanding quickly. I get them in a different order depending on my surrounding terrain:

• Settle cities - settler policy first
• Improvements - worker policy first
• Develop cities - gold policy first

Sometimes I'm not ready to settle or improve tiles, and those are situations when I get the gold boost first. It's like the thrill of getting a gold Ancient Ruins. The excitement I feel about gold doesn't seem like a common view, however.

What if it gave a fixed amount of gold, or an amount that depends on era? I think that would avoid your concerns about exploits.

What if it gave a fixed amount of gold, or an amount that depends on era? I think that would avoid your concerns about exploits.

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My main concern is about the merchant and customhouse effect, which does belong in Commerce and does not belong in Liberty.
An instant flat gold burst, or based on era, accompanied by some long-term effect would be fine.

The instant gold effect I don't think is as good as a long-term production effect but is probably fine otherwise. I worry about game-ability such that it ought to be more firmly defined as x gold instead of 10 turns of gold. The era adjustment is fine too.

I haven't tested those instant yields yet but are they multiplied/divided by game speed if they're flat "x" bonuses instead of a bonus over x turns (or the equivalent of such)

My main source of objection was likewise to the merchant/CH bonus which seemed misplaced and not very useful in an early tree, especially an early wide tree (same with the engineer/manufactory bonus in honor).

[to_xp]Gekko;11755857 said:

I definitely agree that meritocracy fits Commerce a lot better than Liberty.

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Agree!

\Skodkim

mitsho said:

The Gold Policy does seem very susceptible to manipulation. Say I find Cerro di Potosi near by, adopted that Tall policy that gives you higher in the capital and sell all my ressources for high gold-per-turn (would that work?) to an AI? How much gold could I theoretically make?

The lower culture costs per city also seems strong on the opener, seems like a must-pick for warmongers as well later on? I don't know what it could be combined with though for that policy place...

Has it always been 2 free workers btw.? Seems.... I don't know if I always would need two workers this early. Or is that to balance it with the free settler?

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Two workers change happened when thal took out requirements. It was balanced because it opened up two good policies before. I think its fine. A couple workers means you can get the road network up faster for happiness boost and can get a head start on tiles. Consider vanilla pyramids gave two.

I agree culture cost could be moved. Probably paired with instant gold instead of merchants/CH and the opener left at +2 would be fine.

Potosi isn't as ridiculous in GEM so there are several possible production tiles equal to its gold. I don't think there is a capital gold boost either in gem. But. I share the concern that these are gameable boosts. I think they'd be okay as flat bonuses roughly equal to a golden age worth boost of one yield (something like). As long as they were paired up with other boosts. Honestly gold or faith are the only ones that would impress me as policies (and science and culture are too powerful it was better to do those as techs and a policy). Extra food or production would be spread across cities such that the CS conquest bonuses would be more impressive.

right, there's no gold policy in Tradition anymore. It's really hard to keep up with the proposed changes A fixed amount of gold may be better, but I guess, we can try it out a bit more. At the moment, I can not really judge it correctly...

Thalassicus said:

Most cities have an average of 2 science slots and 2 feasible engineer slots. Science buildings are useful for all cities and all players. The smithy has universal value, but the other production buildings are useful only in specific circumstances. Barracks/armory/furnaces are typically good only for a military production city, and peaceful empires usually do not build such a city, instead relying on militaristic citystates to provide a defensive army. Workshops are limited to flat terrain. This means most cities will have 1 smithy and 1 furnace or workshop.

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Barracks/armory/furnaces are good for military cities, but that doesn't mean they should *also* make production better for free. That's like saying "high population cities are good for science, let's give +20% production to the library and university to help them build stuff better". You should have to make a choice to help boost your production in military cities, not get bonus production for FREE from buildings you were already going to build!

Okay, another round of changes.

I revised things based on feedback here, and the ideas JohnS talked about in the other thread. He suggested specialists play different roles for different playstyles. I was attempting to accomplish that, but I think making individual specialists better for wide wasn't working; what we needed was two different approaches at a more basic level. I think this policy arrangement reaches that goal better.

• Tall empires get specialists for great people.
• In wide empires, one specialist in each city is the local elected Representative guiding production.
• Moved +50% from the Garden to Tradition finisher (Garden was 100% -> now 50%).
• Specialist basic yields dropped from 4 -> 3.
• Great Improvement bonuses will be somewhere else.
• Changed the instant gold to a fixed amount based on era and gamespeed.
• I included Ahriman's idea about +5 in the Liberty tree to help early expansion.

I would much prefer that Ceremonial rites boosted culture buildings rather than constructing them. Otherwise Tradition is ok (though see following posts).

I don't like the +2 production in cities with a specialist. I don't think the AI will understand the effect, and it still feels like you are forcing me into playstyles I don't want to take. Boosts for Merchant in Commerce, Engineer in Order, Scientist in Rationalism are already sufficient to get me to use some specialists in a wide playstyle.

[But I think this effect is less objectionable than the merchant boost.]

I think I would boost the opener back to 2 culture per city, and move the per-city modifier from the opener to representation, and remove the specialist effect.

Alternatively, the happiness boost could go to the opener and meritocracy could be culture per city? I'm not sure.

I also don't like the free defense buildings; I really dislike free buildings effects on policies, I would prefer they give you something you can't already get.

Honor seems fine.

Re: new trees. Yes yes yes I really want to try out those ideas now! Tradition and liberty really excite me now. The only one (in honor) I'm slightly worried about is if the bonus on citadels has too little worth. Since you almost never build them within three tiles of a city it may not be valuable, but the GG portions of the policy probably make it powerful enough already.

EDIT: And production for using a specialist has precedent, see the Guruship belief.

The bonus to culture buildings on monarchy feels weird seeing as the other bonuses are science, sort of a weird combo. I'd rather see the culture building bonus on ceremonial rites and boosted rather than the free buildings. Buildings are less important for Tall i feel due to more production in the city. The better bonuses are those that make the culture buildings better cause most likely ill build them anyway.

EDIT: And production for using a specialist has precedent, see the Guruship belief.

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So? That's a particular belief that you can voluntarily choose.
It isn't a general effect that you're pushed into from a generic wide/rapid expansion tree.

The bonus to culture buildings on monarchy feels weird seeing as the other bonuses are science, sort of a weird combo

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I don't see a problem with science and culture boosts in Tradition.

Buildings are less important for Tall i feel due to more production in the city. The better bonuses are those that make the culture buildings better cause most likely ill build them anyway.

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Right. Tall empires are more likely to run out of buildings to construct; hence free buildings are not so useful. +2 culture on monument, ampitheater, opera house maybe?
Adding the culture bonus onto Monarchy is probably too strong along with all the other benefits.

For the specialist yield boosts, I like the idea that Order and Commerce offer policies that just give +2 production/gold and boost customhouse/manufactory, while Piety and Rationalism offer +1 bonuses combined with landmark/academy and secondary effects.

This is because science and culture go more directly to victory conditions, so there are more balance risks with boosting them too much directly.

Ahriman said:

So? That's a particular belief that you can voluntarily choose.
It isn't a general effect that you're pushed into from a generic wide/rapid expansion tree.

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I guess he means that if Firaxis included it, the AI is supposed to know how to use it

Anyways, we can take a look at how the AI uses this belief, not? to conclude if the AI can use such a policy...

I guess he means that if Firaxis included it, the AI is supposed to know how to use it

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Ah. I suspect that may be overly optimistic....

But its possible. The AI might look at the total marginal effect of adding the first specialist, and see the benefit, and use it. That doesn't seem that hard.

Ahriman said:

I don't like the +2 production in cities with a specialist. I don't think the AI will understand the effect, and it still feels like you are forcing me into playstyles I don't want to take. Boosts for Merchant in Commerce, Engineer in Order, Scientist in Rationalism are already sufficient to get me to use some specialists in a wide playstyle.

[But I think this effect is less objectionable than the merchant boost.]

I think I would boost the opener back to 2 culture per city, and move the per-city modifier from the opener to representation, and remove the specialist effect.

Alternatively, the happiness boost could go to the opener and meritocracy could be culture per city? I'm not sure.

Honor seems fine.

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I'm not entirely sure why tradition would get/need the 50% GP rate, but it's not objectionable to spread out the sources of that to two mostly tall trees, a building, and a couple wonders. I agree honor seems fine now (is that military units or military units and military buildings too?)

I think I agree the free culture building is boring or weak, and a little game-able, but there's already a culture building bonus in the tree as is.

I'd put aristocracy or landed elite as requiring something as those seem more powerful (I'd cherry pick either of them). Possibly monarchy too as the culture and science bonus are cumulative over longer term anyway rather than being immediately powerful such that it doesn't matter if you get it right away or not but it does offer potentially substantial long-term power (25-30% and +10 base per city is a lot, but that's only late game).

I might prefer moving the culture city cost out of the opener (because it now is very attractive for warmongers too), and moving culture on the opener back to +2 because of culture costs being higher. Ahriman's proposal to swap the happiness and culture cost isn't bad there either.

I think of the objections to the wide specialist part, whether the AI uses it intelligently is interesting, but it seems like the AI left to its devices uses specialists in cities. That might be hard to check for sure. But if your own city development is left alone, you can end up with a lot of random specialists. Getting a passive bonus for that behavior sounds like it would help the AI at random intervals but would still help the AI. If they're noting the additional production too, then that would be better still.

I don't know if this would be a huge incentive for wide, but it's far better since a typical use is one or two specialists for temporary yields (and it's effectively +3 per city as a result, combining that useful bonus). It's a far better implementation of a proposed goal which I am still skeptical of certainly. (presumably the merchant/engineer bonuses went back to commerce and order yes? You could split those up across other bonuses if necessary as they're not inherently related.)

Liberty Opener:

I'm concerned about removing one of the more significant disadvantages of Wide empires with the opener. As a closer it seemed more like you earned it, and had to experience the disadvantage for a significant portion of the game.

Someone going Tall might not need it... but of course a committed Tall civ lacking Liberty is still going to suffer a larger per-city policy hit than the Wide empire running Liberty. So in effect only Tall empires will suffer a per-city policy cost increase.

Well, and militaristic Honor-using civs lacking Liberty. But as the opener of an Ancient tree the policy removing the cost increase couldn't be any easier to cherry-pick.

Err... I guess change that from "concerned" to "strongly disagree with."

Representation: I don't think Representation so much changes the role of the specialist as it simply encourages a Wide civ to use a few. How about... each specialist knocks a little off a city's building maint. cost? A Happiness bonus of some sort would also be a role-changer. As would a defense bonus, a trade bonus... anything not connected to a straightforward yield bonus.

Tradition Opener:

Another very strong one... but with culture spread around it makes it easy for anyone to pick up a policy that - if you arrainge a lot of extra happiness - can give a lot of culture. So if that's the intent that's good. But I'd rather see this one buried a bit, too.

Monarchy: I'd much rather see a gold or culture increase instead of science. I seem to remember a discussion about this but don't remember where it is... perhaps someone could supply a link so I can see the reasoning.

Finisher:
+50% GP rate strikes me as too strong, and impinging too much on Freedom.

Honor:
Perhaps shift to +2 Happy/+2 culture? Though I guess I don't really like 2 culture policies in Honor. I'd rather have an xp bonus return, or another bonus with regard to Great Generals. (They generate gold? They continually give xp to units around them, or a very small amount to all units per general?)

A concern I have with the trees in that IMO they've moved further away from some sort of (admittedly loose) depiction of the virtue or strengths they're supposed to represent and more toward mere collections of useful bonuses: The science and GP bonuses in Tradition, the relatively high culture in Honor. In the long-term I think that erodes the sense of playing the historically flavored Civ rather than "Resource Manager V5"

So in effect only Tall empires will suffer a per-city policy cost increase.

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Keep in mind that the tooltip is just a summary; it only reduces the per-city policy cost increase by 20%, it doesn't eliminate it. Thal is loosely summarizing this with "new cities don't slow the policy rate", but this is only true so long as the new cities are significant culture producers.

I agree that the opener is a bit odd and vulnerable to cherry-picking, but I think the finisher is too late, I'd prefer to see it 1 picks in (ie no pre-req, but requires the opener).

I agree that it's unfortunate that we're losing the links between the policy names and their actual effects.

Ahriman said:

Keep in mind that the tooltip is just a summary; it only reduces the per-city policy cost increase by 20%, it doesn't eliminate it.

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Ah, thanks.

but I think the finisher is too late, I'd prefer to see it 1 picks in (ie no pre-req, but requires the opener).

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I agree that it needn't be the finisher.

The specific effect of the Liberty opener is "founding a new city with an Amphitheater is revenue-neutral for policy rate." I want to explain that in an understandable way for people who don't have time for the crazy amount of in-depth research and analysis of game files I do.

I felt like I always had to go for the liberty "reduces city cost of policies" bonus first, since it helps get the rest of the policies faster. I like getting the culture bonus out of the way right away so that anxiety is gone. I have trouble with anxiety; it's why I don't watch horror movies. The effect also rewards development more than +2 culture per city, and I like rewarding development. I also kind of like how the 3 openers provides culture in a very different way:

• Killing units
• Happiness
• Developing cities

@rhammer640
The instant culture buildings effect lets people who research Drama immediately build 4 amphitheaters in their first 4 cities, and start construction on a National Epic right away. This is a powerful and exciting strategy I've often seen people say they like. I don't think passive bonuses would get people as excited, or get us to try some fundamentally different strategy. Passive bonuses just get us to build things we'd normally build in a different order.


@mystikx21
The best openers for warmongers are in order of priority:

1. Honor then liberty, conquer citystates then expand (CS nearby)
2. Honor then liberty, conquer major civs then expand (no CS nearby)
3. Liberty then honor, expand then conquer (no major or CS nearby)

I don't know the best openers for peaceful empires... it probably depends on if you go for religion?


@Tarquelne
Each policy tree has a few policies with universal appeal at the top of the tree, and some more specialized policies at the bottom of the tree. I like this approach and talk about it more in the main goal thread.

Peaceful empires get more science than militaristic empires, so peaceful empire units are more advanced to counter the greater experience+quantity of militaristic troops. I'm okay with +25% rate if the game can handle the fractional yield of +0.5 per specialist. The 50% rate is +1 per specialist.

Warfare is a big disadvantage to getting policies, so conquerors lag behind peaceful players even with the culture bonuses in the Honor tree.

The specific effect of the Liberty opener is "founding a new city with an Amphitheater has no effect on policy rate."

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Except of course, that this isn't true.
Suppose that my next policy costs 3000 culture.
I have a supercity with 100 culture per turn because of stacked landmarks, wonders, etc., and three other cities with 20 culture per turn.
So it will take (3000/160 =18.75) turns to get my next policy.

Founding another city with this policy active will increase policy costs to 3,600 (I think?), and this city with monument and ampitheater will generate 10 culture per turn. Now it will take (3,600/170 = 21.17 turns to get the next policy.

I don't have a problem with the policy effect or the simplifying language, but recognize that it is only literally true under a whole some particular assumptions. It isn't true generally.

I like getting the culture bonus out of the way right away so that anxiety is gone.

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Ok, but not everyone has to play like that. There *should* be interesting tension in tradeoffs; if I get the reduced policy cost policy now then I will get the policies after that faster, vs if I get the other policy now I will get the useful effects now but will be slower in generating later policies.

The effect also rewards development more than +2 culture per city

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It reduces the effect of building cities on getting more policies; it doesn't reward other kinds of development, like tile acquisition.

I also kind of like how the 3 openers provides culture in a very different way:
Killing units
Happiness
Developing cities

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If by developing cities you mean "building more cities", the +2 culture per city does this too; it gives a larger benefit when you have more cities.

The instant culture buildings effect lets people who research Drama immediately build 4 amphitheaters in their first 4 cities, and start construction on a National Epic right away. This is a powerful and exciting strategy

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I don't find it powerful or exciting. And to do this I would have to get 4 cities up in my slow-to-found-new-cities Tall empire *with* monuments built before I built an ampitheater in my first couple of cities. I'd rather build the ampitheaters earlier.
I don't find it exciting for a policy to just give me something I could build on my own.