Ikael
King
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2005
- Messages
- 873
Well, this is pretty much a tread to make suggestions about how could our beloved SP trees get buffed / twitched / reworked after the doable (but in my opinion, insufficient) changes of the fall patch, so here we go! 
>>> Honour
Opener: Adopting Honor gives a +25% combat bonus VS Barbarians, and notifications will be provided when new Barbarian Encampments spawn in revealed territory. You gain gold for every unit killed => People clamoured for a boost to the Honor opening, so there you have it. The strategies that can be built around this early honour opener now are endless: combine it with liberty for maximum wide expansion, or stick to it for reaping economic benefit.
Warrior Code: +15% Production when training Melee units. One melee and one ranged units appears near the capital => A nice boost for the policy, making it a must for early rushes, it will loose its shine the later you pick it, though
Discipline: +10% combat strength for military Units which have another military Unit in an adjacent tile. A Great General appears outside the Capital => A hard choice between picking warrior code early for rushes VS discipline in order to make your units more effective via great general and the discipline promotion
Military tradition (requires Warrior code): Military Units gain 50% more Experience from combat, great Generals are earned 50% faster => A small boost to solidify the SP tree and make military caste a not so obvious "tier 2" choice
Military caste (requires discipline): Each City with a garrison increases empire Happiness by 1 and Culture by 2 => Stays as it is (best current policy on the tree, me thinks)
Professional army (requires military caste): Gold cost of upgrading Military Units reduced by 33%, Barracks, Armories, and Military Academies has no manteinance costs => A rework from its previous incantation, it still synergizes well with autocratic policies, but its bonus is more benefitial on the long term
Finisher: You can buy Great generals with faith starting on the industrial era. Your army can adopt one "combat doctrine", a special promotion that will affect your melee and lancer type of units. Unlike, say, reformation beliefs, these promotions are not exclusive (you can have two civilizations sharing the same combat doctrines)
Resilience: -25% to ranged and airstrike attack damage
Shock and awe: Gain one extra movement and HP after defeating an enemy unit or capturing a city
Solidarity: +20 HP regen if spent its turn next to other melee unit (stacks with HP regeneration promotions)
Officer in command: +50% to the strenght conferred by great generals, +25% to the generation of GG (stacks with previous bonuses)
Experimental weapons: -33% to upgrade costs (stacks with previous bonuses), your units yields science when destroying enemy units
The idea behind the combat doctrines is not only to give the Honour Tree a much needed boost, but to give it as well to what are arguably some of the lesser types of units in the game (melee and lancers) in order to give them a better edge against the now dominant ranged and siege units
>>> Exploration
Opener: +1 extra sight and movement to naval units, one GA appears near your capital. Unlocks building the Louvre => With the addition of the GA, Opening early the exploration tree makes it more of a far more high risk, high reward proposition due to its help for funding the World Congress
Maritime Infrastructure: +1 production on each coast tile surrounding your coastatal cities => A variant of the straight +3 bonus, this instead rewards city placement and the colonization of distant islands
Merchant Navy: +4 Culture and +4 Production in the city with the East India Company => Stays as it is
Cartographic tradition (previously Naval Tradition): +2 happiness per discovered natural wonder => An alternative way to provide happiness while encouraging exploration and avoiding far too vainilla policies
Treasure Fleets: +4 gold from all your Sea Trade Routes, Requires Merchant Navy => stays as it is
Antropologic institute (previously navigation school): You gain one random artifact. Artifacts generates +1 extra tourism => Seriously, noone wants nor likes Great Admirals, they are crap. And considering that this is suppoused to be an exploration focused tree, I think that it would be great to have a policy that buffs archeology, not to mention that there is only one single SP granting bonus to it (this tree finisher)
Finisher: You can view the 10 hidden treasures, +25% GA generation => Just added the relocated GA buff. Albeit another different route could be the introduction of unique ancient artifacts...
>>> Aestethics
Opener: 25% faster production of Great Artists, Musicians and Writers. Allows building of the Uffizi. => Stays as it is
Fine Arts: 75% of excess happiness is added to culture. => A much needed buff to one policy with a great concept but a pretty weak execution
Artistic Genius: A free Great Artist and a free great work appears => A way to buff to a very weak policy, while keeping its "artistic" flavour
Cultural Centers: Your national wonders gets one extra artifact slot, along with new theming bonuses for them. => Cultural gameplay already favours wide empires and production bonuses are >>dull<< so I think that a change is in order. This way you tackle these two issues, providing a cultural boon for tall empires and much needed extra slots for any type of empire. Also, new theme bonuses are always fun to figure out!
Flourishing of the Arts: 33% culture in cities with a WW. Starts a Golden Age. Requires Fine Arts and Cultural Centers. => Stay as it is
Cultural Exchange (increase Tourism modifier for Open Borders, Shared Religion and Trade Routes by 15% each). The policy now gives bonuses to Open Border and Trade Routes. => Stays as it is. A great replacement for ethics
Finisher: Doubles the Great Work Theaming bonus you receive from Museums and wonders, great works of writting yields tourism as well as culture. Allows purchasing GWAMs with Faith in the Industrial Era. => An added small incentive for finishing this SP tree which greatly synergizes with the Exploration SP tree
>>> Autocracy
Leader cult => 5th column
You gain a +15% tourism bonus against any civ that you are at war with, increasing an additional 15% each 3 turns that said war keeps going, up to a maximum of +100%. If the war ever stops, its "clock" resets back.
The name of the policy alludes to the existance of a "5th column" of secret nazi and fascist sympatizers inside many democratic socities during the world wars and the Spanish Civil war. Flavour wise, it ties very well with real historic events such as the French collaborationists or the failed coup d'etat in the US. The idea is to keep the whole "archieving cultural victory trought war" theme of the Autocracy SP, but with a more effective and involving implementation.
This way, whenever you are waging war against an autocratic regime, the stakes will be dramatically upped, since you cannot just drive the war into a standstill nor content yourself with just reppealing an invasion: if you don't outright anhilate the autocratic civ that you are fighting, your own civilization will be destroyed from within due to the cultural preassure exercised by the 5th column. Also, this increases much more the rewards for being at war while being an autocratic civ: you will either outright win the war, or enjoy a massive cultural advantage over your oponents, much bigger than the one that you would obtain by just keeping open borders and being friendly with them (just a measly +60% VS the whooping +100% provided by the 5th Column). The
only requisite is that you wage war and keeep pushing foward no matter the odds, unlike the previous insta-influence win leader cult.
And well, that's pretty much it! Thoughts? New suggestions?
>>> Honour
Opener: Adopting Honor gives a +25% combat bonus VS Barbarians, and notifications will be provided when new Barbarian Encampments spawn in revealed territory. You gain gold for every unit killed => People clamoured for a boost to the Honor opening, so there you have it. The strategies that can be built around this early honour opener now are endless: combine it with liberty for maximum wide expansion, or stick to it for reaping economic benefit.
Warrior Code: +15% Production when training Melee units. One melee and one ranged units appears near the capital => A nice boost for the policy, making it a must for early rushes, it will loose its shine the later you pick it, though
Discipline: +10% combat strength for military Units which have another military Unit in an adjacent tile. A Great General appears outside the Capital => A hard choice between picking warrior code early for rushes VS discipline in order to make your units more effective via great general and the discipline promotion
Military tradition (requires Warrior code): Military Units gain 50% more Experience from combat, great Generals are earned 50% faster => A small boost to solidify the SP tree and make military caste a not so obvious "tier 2" choice
Military caste (requires discipline): Each City with a garrison increases empire Happiness by 1 and Culture by 2 => Stays as it is (best current policy on the tree, me thinks)
Professional army (requires military caste): Gold cost of upgrading Military Units reduced by 33%, Barracks, Armories, and Military Academies has no manteinance costs => A rework from its previous incantation, it still synergizes well with autocratic policies, but its bonus is more benefitial on the long term
Finisher: You can buy Great generals with faith starting on the industrial era. Your army can adopt one "combat doctrine", a special promotion that will affect your melee and lancer type of units. Unlike, say, reformation beliefs, these promotions are not exclusive (you can have two civilizations sharing the same combat doctrines)
Resilience: -25% to ranged and airstrike attack damage
Shock and awe: Gain one extra movement and HP after defeating an enemy unit or capturing a city
Solidarity: +20 HP regen if spent its turn next to other melee unit (stacks with HP regeneration promotions)
Officer in command: +50% to the strenght conferred by great generals, +25% to the generation of GG (stacks with previous bonuses)
Experimental weapons: -33% to upgrade costs (stacks with previous bonuses), your units yields science when destroying enemy units
The idea behind the combat doctrines is not only to give the Honour Tree a much needed boost, but to give it as well to what are arguably some of the lesser types of units in the game (melee and lancers) in order to give them a better edge against the now dominant ranged and siege units
>>> Exploration
Opener: +1 extra sight and movement to naval units, one GA appears near your capital. Unlocks building the Louvre => With the addition of the GA, Opening early the exploration tree makes it more of a far more high risk, high reward proposition due to its help for funding the World Congress
Maritime Infrastructure: +1 production on each coast tile surrounding your coastatal cities => A variant of the straight +3 bonus, this instead rewards city placement and the colonization of distant islands
Merchant Navy: +4 Culture and +4 Production in the city with the East India Company => Stays as it is
Cartographic tradition (previously Naval Tradition): +2 happiness per discovered natural wonder => An alternative way to provide happiness while encouraging exploration and avoiding far too vainilla policies
Treasure Fleets: +4 gold from all your Sea Trade Routes, Requires Merchant Navy => stays as it is
Antropologic institute (previously navigation school): You gain one random artifact. Artifacts generates +1 extra tourism => Seriously, noone wants nor likes Great Admirals, they are crap. And considering that this is suppoused to be an exploration focused tree, I think that it would be great to have a policy that buffs archeology, not to mention that there is only one single SP granting bonus to it (this tree finisher)
Finisher: You can view the 10 hidden treasures, +25% GA generation => Just added the relocated GA buff. Albeit another different route could be the introduction of unique ancient artifacts...
>>> Aestethics
Opener: 25% faster production of Great Artists, Musicians and Writers. Allows building of the Uffizi. => Stays as it is
Fine Arts: 75% of excess happiness is added to culture. => A much needed buff to one policy with a great concept but a pretty weak execution
Artistic Genius: A free Great Artist and a free great work appears => A way to buff to a very weak policy, while keeping its "artistic" flavour
Cultural Centers: Your national wonders gets one extra artifact slot, along with new theming bonuses for them. => Cultural gameplay already favours wide empires and production bonuses are >>dull<< so I think that a change is in order. This way you tackle these two issues, providing a cultural boon for tall empires and much needed extra slots for any type of empire. Also, new theme bonuses are always fun to figure out!
Flourishing of the Arts: 33% culture in cities with a WW. Starts a Golden Age. Requires Fine Arts and Cultural Centers. => Stay as it is
Cultural Exchange (increase Tourism modifier for Open Borders, Shared Religion and Trade Routes by 15% each). The policy now gives bonuses to Open Border and Trade Routes. => Stays as it is. A great replacement for ethics
Finisher: Doubles the Great Work Theaming bonus you receive from Museums and wonders, great works of writting yields tourism as well as culture. Allows purchasing GWAMs with Faith in the Industrial Era. => An added small incentive for finishing this SP tree which greatly synergizes with the Exploration SP tree
>>> Autocracy
Leader cult => 5th column
You gain a +15% tourism bonus against any civ that you are at war with, increasing an additional 15% each 3 turns that said war keeps going, up to a maximum of +100%. If the war ever stops, its "clock" resets back.
The name of the policy alludes to the existance of a "5th column" of secret nazi and fascist sympatizers inside many democratic socities during the world wars and the Spanish Civil war. Flavour wise, it ties very well with real historic events such as the French collaborationists or the failed coup d'etat in the US. The idea is to keep the whole "archieving cultural victory trought war" theme of the Autocracy SP, but with a more effective and involving implementation.
This way, whenever you are waging war against an autocratic regime, the stakes will be dramatically upped, since you cannot just drive the war into a standstill nor content yourself with just reppealing an invasion: if you don't outright anhilate the autocratic civ that you are fighting, your own civilization will be destroyed from within due to the cultural preassure exercised by the 5th column. Also, this increases much more the rewards for being at war while being an autocratic civ: you will either outright win the war, or enjoy a massive cultural advantage over your oponents, much bigger than the one that you would obtain by just keeping open borders and being friendly with them (just a measly +60% VS the whooping +100% provided by the 5th Column). The
only requisite is that you wage war and keeep pushing foward no matter the odds, unlike the previous insta-influence win leader cult.
And well, that's pretty much it! Thoughts? New suggestions?
