Let's discuss balance and possible fixes

KrikkitTwo said:

Since Liberty is for wide empires, and the problems for wide empires are

1. getting out settlers fast
2. having enough happiness

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Agree, but careful, this was made difficult because developers didn't want ICS. LIberty should ideally allow this early a bit more than tradition, but SHOULD run into growth problems to be balanced. They can't have both.

KrikkitTwo said:

As for Happiness, possibly make Meritocracy -5% apply to ALL sources of unhappiness (city and population). Or just -50% unhappiness for connected cities (similar to Monarchy's -50% to capital pop)

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-50% unhappiness from all sources to connected cities? That would be ridiculously OP. Better than India's entire ability. Maybe if it was just the "from number of cities" but that'd still be real powerful, allowing you to ICS a bit with small cities, and allowing India to cancel their penalty immediately. What we need is a few extra early smileys from a source that doesn't snowball over time.

KrikkitTwo said:

Since Liberty is for wide empires, and the problems for wide empires are

1. getting out settlers fast
2. having enough happiness
3. having space (which means the first 2 need to be fast)

Moving the Settler bonus up in exchange with republic
or improving it
(say 1 Free settler and +100% building settlers in all cities)

As for Happiness, possibly make Meritocracy -5% apply to ALL sources of unhappiness (city and population). Or just -50% unhappiness for connected cities (similar to Monarchy's -50% to capital pop)

One thought I've had is a little rearrangement

Opener: +100% to building settlers (instead of +1 culture)..helps a little bit for a REX
Left #1: +1 culture/city (instead of +1 prod, +5% to buildings)
Left #2: +1 prod +5% to buildings (instead of Free settler +50% to settlers in Capital)

So you would start out going to the right (fast Settlers.. then Workers for the Luxuries).. and then go left to get those workers going.

And then Modify Meritocracy so that it is -50% city unhappiness and -5% population unhappiness in each connected city

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You cannot put settlers bonus in the opener, especially if it's on top of culture bonus. It would make the opener overpowered to the point where n matter what tree you want taking Liberty opener would be the best strategy every time.

No, a strong settler policy has to come with an investment in the tree. I think Collective rule is at the right place, it's also the reason why I'm reluctant to switch Republic and Collective Rule, it makes Collective Rule come very fast.

I do not really believe Liberty should have 3 cities before everybody That would create a huge imbalance. I think every tree should have the same opportunities to make settlers at the same time, liberty already has a free one on top of faster production when comes the time to make multiple cities at once. If someone wants a very quick first settler he can always produce it very early (pop 2 or 3) like every other trees. You will even get 1hammer bonus which makes a lot of difference at such low population already speeding up settler production.

I agree liberty needs room, but not at the expanse of screwing everyone before turn 30. I think happiness bonus (or other bonus) should be enough to already promote city spots you would never have considered with the current BNW version. If we develop the likelihood of average spots to become a city we de facto "increase" the room you have to expand without having liberty just grab everything before other people have a single settler out. I hope you get my meaning.

Acken said:

You cannot put settlers bonus in the opener, especially if it's on top of culture bonus. It would make the opener overpowered to the point where n matter what tree you want taking Liberty opener would be the best strategy every time.

No, a strong settler policy has to come with an investment in the tree. I think Collective rule is at the right place, it's also the reason why I'm reluctant to switch Republic and Collective Rule, it makes Collective Rule come very fast.

I do not really believe Liberty should have 3 cities before everybody That would create a huge imbalance. I think every tree should have the same opportunities to make settlers at the same time, liberty already has a free one on top of faster production when comes the time to make multiple cities at once. If someone wants a very quick first settler he can always produce it very early (pop 2 or 3) like every other trees. You will even get 1hammer bonus which makes a lot of difference at such low population already speeding up settler production.

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There I disagree, Liberty probably should have 3-4 cities before anybody... but those should be weaker cities (because you spent your early production on settlers and you have limited happiness). ie Tradition is for growing, liberty for REXing.

However I could see the point to it being late in the tree.

However it should be really good, ie
So more like 1 Free Settler, +100% (double building Settlers) in all cities
(maybe +1 move for Settlers)

[and not -50% from all sources... either -5% form all sources OR -50% from cities... effectively 1.5 unless Gandhi or easy difficulty levels]

Simplest for Meritocracy is probably just +2 from connected cities (no -5% from pop..which is still better if your average city is less than 20 pop).. maybe +1 gold from connected cities as well

That might be enough... for Collective Rule to be worth more than just the free settler (ie it lets you really REX if you have the Happiness)
And Meritocracy to really allow REXing...

saw your add on, makes sense Liberty gets a lot of "Second wave" filler cities...well I think for that you need a much better Collective Rule (+100% for all cities instead of just +50% for capital) and a better Meritocracy ( +2 and +1 or 2 gold per connected city.. remove the reduction in population unhappiness)

Acken said:

I do not really believe Liberty should have 3 cities before everybody That would create a huge imbalance. I think every tree should have the same opportunities to make settlers at the same time, liberty already has a free one on top of faster production when comes the time to make multiple cities at once. If someone wants a very quick first settler he can always produce it very early (pop 2 or 3) like every other trees. You will even get 1hammer bonus which makes a lot of difference at such low population already speeding up settler production.

I agree liberty needs room, but not at the expanse of screwing everyone before turn 30. I think happiness bonus (or other bonus) should be enough to already promote city spots you would never have considered with the current BNW version. If we develop the likelihood of average spots to become a city we de facto "increase" the room you have to expand without having liberty just grab everything before other people have a single settler out. I hope you get my meaning.

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Good points. I'm still in favor of letting liberty possibly get a single settler option first, but certainly the 50% in opener is way too much, and it's true that a free settler early would just encourage ppl to take the opener just for that. If we are just trying to make liberty utilize average spots better in the beginning, then the easiest way is to reduce city number happiness penalty, meaning you wouldn't need a lux or horses near every city to make it worth the investment early game. If the penalty was reduced 25% you'd need 25% less luxes per site and so on. This might be all the happiness tweak liberty needs given the presence of luxuries and trades could make up the rest. The 50% reduction on the third policy would then be better utilized as you could maybe found an extra 2 cities or so.

danaphanous said:

Good points. I'm still in favor of letting liberty possibly get a single settler option first, but certainly the 50% in opener is way too much, and it's true that a free settler early would just encourage ppl to take the opener just for that. If we are just trying to make liberty utilize average spots better in the beginning, then the easiest way is to reduce city number happiness penalty, meaning you wouldn't need a lux or horses near every city to make it worth the investment early game. If the penalty was reduced 25% you'd need 25% less luxes per site and so on. This might be all the happiness tweak liberty needs given the presence of luxuries and trades could make up the rest. The 50% reduction on the third policy would then be better utilized as you could maybe found an extra 2 cities or so.

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Actually a good alternative opener wouldn't be a reduction in # cities penalty but just a straight boost..

So

Opener: +1 culture /city, +2 (flat not per city)
Collective Rule: Free settler, +100% production to Settler (in all cities)
Meritocracy: +2 and +2 gold in all connected cities

[and then a truly Free Great Person]

Note that ive added an average of 1.45 happiness for city with my mod, assuming EACH city has a luxury:

the -15% happiness from number of cities is 0.45 happiness per city on standard size maps (and less on bigger maps)
and assuming each city has ONE luxury resource, citizenship would add 1 happiness on top of that.
so it basically lets any city with a unique luxury resource have 1-2 more pop.

My reasoning behind this was that collective rule should add quick happiness to allow for instant 2nd city, while making it more favourable to settle many cities, but i didnt want to give too much "free" happiness for simple ICS, so instead of making a big bonus i just gave it -15% (from city number only) and extra happiness from luxuries (so you have to settle smartly and not just spam cities everywhere).

As for 50% in the opener being too strong, its possible to change that to 25% and move the other 25% to somewhere else in the tree.

Ok, took a long break but back playing again.

I enjoy both branches but tradition seems better because of science and happiness. That is because science and happiness are everything, which is something that would have to get fixed first before I'd play with the policy trees.

Basically, I find it unfortunate that you always have to be at the top or near the top science wise. Happiness = population and as other shave pointed out affects where you have to place cities if you go liberty (basically next to lux instead of maybe near a good growth spot). Granted after mid-game you can grow and place cities because of various buildings plus other stuff, but by then it is not because you need to but just because you feel like it (well, sometimes you need more coal or aluminum but that is an outlier).

Obviously science should be important but I would like it lowered somewhat, so that it isn't quite so critical (there are a number of ways to do that). And I'd rather new cities don't hit you for -3 right away but only as they can start demanding stuff like a coliseum, or they cost more to maintain due to the bureaucracy of managing a large empire, ect. They used to have more involved mechanics in the past but for some reason tossed em and now it is all about happiness, which is pretty lame.

Civ5 has some good gameplay but I think they should ressurect some ideas from past Civs as well as some new ones to make the gameplay great. It is very close. Alas, they don't seem all that interested.

KrikkitTwo said:

saw your add on, makes sense Liberty gets a lot of "Second wave" filler cities...well I think for that you need a much better Collective Rule (+100% for all cities instead of just +50% for capital) and a better Meritocracy ( +2 and +1 or 2 gold per connected city.. remove the reduction in population unhappiness)

Click to expand...

I don't have an addon yet. I've opened this thread only to discuss balance while I slowly make a minimalistic mod.

The two mods already discussed in this thread are: Balance mod by Ninakoru and a liberty mod by layelaye

BrokTheFanatic said:

Ok, took a long break but back playing again.

I enjoy both branches but tradition seems better because of science and happiness. That is because science and happiness are everything, which is something that would have to get fixed first before I'd play with the policy trees.

Basically, I find it unfortunate that you always have to be at the top or near the top science wise. Happiness = population and as other shave pointed out affects where you have to place cities if you go liberty (basically next to lux instead of maybe near a good growth spot). Granted after mid-game you can grow and place cities because of various buildings plus other stuff, but by then it is not because you need to but just because you feel like it (well, sometimes you need more coal or aluminum but that is an outlier).

Obviously science should be important but I would like it lowered somewhat, so that it isn't quite so critical (there are a number of ways to do that). And I'd rather new cities don't hit you for -3 right away but only as they can start demanding stuff like a coliseum, or they cost more to maintain due to the bureaucracy of managing a large empire, ect. They used to have more involved mechanics in the past but for some reason tossed em and now it is all about happiness, which is pretty lame.

Civ5 has some good gameplay but I think they should ressurect some ideas from past Civs as well as some new ones to make the gameplay great. It is very close. Alas, they don't seem all that interested.

Click to expand...

I hear you but making the game less science oriented would require a revamp of the tech tree and victory conditions. This is too much of an overhaul for me to consider doing it and not really in the spirit of a minimalistic mod.

This would require a big overhaul.

However, for the sake of the discussion I agree that the game could have been better when it comes to science. The problem isn't really that science is king, the problem is that there is only one way to make science in the game. Get pop, get the 4 science techs, run scientists. You have some minor bonus like scholasticism and RA but that's a minor thing that you'll just add on top of a very static strategy. The game could have benefited to reward with science other form of play, more techs scattered in the tree that give a bit of science depending on something else than population number, etc.

Acken said:

This would require a big overhaul.

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True

What would be very cool is if the policy trees changed as you entered each new era. In fact, that would be awesome. Is that possible to mod?

And my main point is to not overthink it. Playing with the trees is fun so can just make the mod based on your ideas and ideas here and see what people think .

And heck, throw something good into piety while you are at it, since like you and otehrs have pointed out, it gets used alot by some AIs and I am for anything that makes the AIs play better.

I apologize Acken for my fast reading and reply.

Some piety thoughts:

Opener: +100% prod towards shrines and temples, 1 or 2 faith in the capital (this will help get a pantheon)

Organized religion: +1 faith and culture from shrines and temples. (or +1 culture to shrines and temples, +2 faith from temples [+0 faith for shrines in this approach])

The rest of the policies: i think about 2 other policies should give some buff to temples (such as more food/science/production/happy from temples) to make it worthwhile to build temples in any city you have, which is what i envision a piety empire to be like. those buffs should be mainly applied to temples and NOT shrines, to prevent too strong a-synergy with liberty and wide.

any creative ideas are welcome, but remember modding has its limitations : D

First, could a mod just rename my thread with: Let's discuss balance and possible fixes.

Moderator Action: Done.

Would be appreciated, thanks.

Gamewizard said:

I apologize Acken for my fast reading and reply.

Click to expand...

No problem

To resume the discussion, I think the best idea would simply be a boost to happiness for Liberty. That's the main thing that seems out of shape in that tree and which go counterproductive to the aim of the tree.

Cromagnus raised some very interesting points in "defense" of the tree.

Reasoning for proposed changes:
-Settler production is at the right place, it allows Liberty to make more cities in the "expansion phase" but not earlier. An earlier settler boost would be imbalanced, making these early policies a requirement rather than an option. Liberty still has the option, like any tree, to build settlers before turn30.
-Growth in the tree is fine but I still think all the trees beside tradition would be better balanced with a more accessible Aqueducts. It's a major boost to growth and a reduction in cost seems a good option to help all trees at once in this area. Tradition is still king of growth (and should remain so) having straight bonuses and earlier aqueducts.
-Culture is also fine in the tree, your second and third cities will come early enough to put you on par with tradition and in my experience Collective Rule comes at the right time. I've however wondered if Liberty could use a form of border expansion boost, maybe in gold reduction.
-However when it comes to happiness, a quick calculation proves Tradition is by far the better tree. Monarchy is a killer policy and even Aristocracy by the end game will probably be worth as much as Meritocracy. The problem lies in the fact that tradition is a tree already helping tall empires by a good margin while Liberty doesn't help wide empire as much when it comes to happiness. A boost to happiness would be a better balance in my opinion. A better Meritocracy and I'm thinking about helping happy buildings too. Making Colosseums better for Liberty alongside Aqueducts (for everyone) would at the same time promote the bottom of the tech tree. Making Construction and maybe engineering, a more worthy detour for liberty player before going education. Since these policies come late also, a flat +2Happy from one of the standard first 3 policies also seems appropriate. It also fits the theme that people under liberty should be happier
-The finisher could use the extra help by being a really free great person. It would help Liberty in the long run with no great impact for fast strategies involving liberty.
-I'm still unsure about gold. A wider empire will make more through city connections and with how easy Machu Pichu is to get with Liberty the tree doesn't seem to really require a better gold input. However, the early game gold is a bit sad for every tree besides tradition. Like Aqueducts a possible change is to make early game maintenance a bit easier on the player. Reducing the maintenance cost of Monuments and Shrines. This should help all trees. Yes even tradition but the relative upgrade this create should feel stronger for Liberty/Piety/Honor than Tradition that was already having a good amount of money. If Tradition ends up swimming in money Monarchy could go to a 1GPT per 3pop instead which should bring that tree approximately at the same spot it currently is (with reduced maintenance). Again thematically shrine and monuments don't require much maintenance

To sum up, proposed changes I'm very confident about:

1. General
   • Aqueduct now cost 70 (down from 100). Gold cost is unchanged
2. Policies Liberty
   • Meritocracy now reduces unhappiness by 10% (up from 5%).
   • Representation now also reduces the build time of Colosseum by half.
   • Finisher now gives a truly free great person.

Additional proposal I'd wish people input:

• Monuments and Shrines no longer cost maintenance.
• +2 from either Opener, Republic or Collective Rule.

Please discuss those changes and your input.

Sorry if people think it's a very slow process. I'm taking my time testing and really weighting in the different options and letting people share their experience to see if I'm missing a clear data so thanks for everyone participating so far. I've also only recently finished Dark SOuls 2 which was putting Civ5 on the side this past week
________________________________________________________________________

I'm currently moving on to think about Piety. I will reread what this thread already has said about Piety. I deliberatly wanted to avoid talking about it because I wanted to only think about Liberty.

To me one of the biggest need of the tree is a faster faith boost to make at least creating a religion early a more sure thing. A bonus of 1 or 2 FPT in the capital should do the trick.
Another issue raised by many is that the tree lacks culture bonuses making it a very very poor opening tree. A culture bonus from shrine (and maybe temple) would do the trick. I'm also toying with the idea to make that tree give better culture than the 3 other. This would easily be the case if both shrines and temples were giving +1 culture as we would be looking at a +2 per city in medieval era. This would allow the Piety tree to mix itself easier with one of the other to compensate in needed areas, growth or expansion(production bonuses).
Another consideration I've been wondering is if it would be a better idea to make Stonehenge the Piety Wonder. This would make that tree's wonder earlier and at a time it is greatly needed for it's additional FPT. But I'd like people opinion on that.

More on this later at a later time.

Acken said:

• Monuments and Shrines no longer cost maintenance.
• +2 from either Opener, Republic or Collective Rule.

Please discuss those changes and your input.

.

Click to expand...

I think changing Meritocracy to 2 would fit far better instead of
1 and -10% population

It makes cities closer to neutral for that second wave (and you wouldn't need an additional +2 happiness)


No Maintenance Monuments sound like a good General Change

No Maintenance Shrines.... would be good for Piety Opener (I've thought of making the Opener +2 fpt in capital, and Free Shrines in All cities [current and new])

As for Piety ideas
As for Culture, what about ~25% of your faith going to culture (similar to Aesthetics with Happiness)

I think It is a good idea to keep Stonehenge separate from Piety so that you can still get a religion without opening Piety.

You need to be careful with buffing shrines too much with piety, to prevent overwhelming synergy with wide empires. it would be better to give most of the bonuses (except culture) to temples.

"Balancing" a strategy game takes out the strategy part of the game. Why?

Part of the point of a strategy game is to reward the better player for making better decisions, that's why some choices (depending on when they're made) are sub-optimal and purposely so! If the entire game was balanced ... all the game comes down to is pushing buttons.

The player who does not read, think and calculate should not be equal to the player who is reading, thinking and calculating.

The bad moves are in there on purpose ... and should stay in.

orasis said:

"Balancing" a strategy game takes out the strategy part of the game. Why?

Part of the point of a strategy game is to reward the better player for making better decisions, that's why some choices (depending on when they're made) are sub-optimal and purposely so! If the entire game was balanced ... all the game comes down to is pushing buttons.

The player who does not read, think and calculate should not be equal to the player who is reading, thinking and calculating.

The bad moves are in there on purpose ... and should stay in.

Click to expand...

The better decisions need to not ALWAYS be better. If they are always better then it is not strategy.

Imagine a strategy game with 2 options A + B

The game has 2 situations which can come up (1 and 2)

This is BAD strategy
Situation 1: A is better than B
Situation 2: A is better than B

You always choose A


This is BAD strategy
Situation 1: A is the same as B
Situation 2: A is the same as B

It doesn't matter what you choose


This is GOOD strategy
Situation 1: A is better than B
Situation 2: B is better than A

A good player will have to determine the situation and make a judgement based on that



Now of course that is only one choice, for a really good strategy you need to have multiple choices like that, which affect the situations and the other choices.

However, each choice should depend on the situation, or it is not a choice.

I agree that the goal of the strategy game should be to have the most viable options available to the player that leads to interesting gameplay decisions.

From your example-

Situation 1: A is better than B
Situation 2: B is better than A

Including the above we should also be presented with

Situation 1: A is better than B short term
Situation 2: B is better than A long term

and

Situation 1: A is better than B, C for science
Situation 2: B is better than A, C for economy
Situation 3: C is better than A, B for military

I know Soren talked about how he didn't like that the removal of the sliders took away some of this balance. I don't know if there is a better way to implement sliders but at the least we could reinstate them. As it is science tends to progress unless you lose cities. Gold just comes in unless you lose trade routes. As is there isn't a lot to slow down a human player once the establish a lead.

Acken said:

I'm currently moving on to think about Piety. I will reread what this thread already has said about Piety. I deliberatly wanted to avoid talking about it because I wanted to only think about Liberty.

To me one of the biggest need of the tree is a faster faith boost to make at least creating a religion early a more sure thing. A bonus of 1 or 2 FPT in the capital should do the trick.
Another issue raised by many is that the tree lacks culture bonuses making it a very very poor opening tree. A culture bonus from shrine (and maybe temple) would do the trick. I'm also toying with the idea to make that tree give better culture than the 3 other. This would easily be the case if both shrines and temples were giving +1 culture as we would be looking at a +2 per city in medieval era. This would allow the Piety tree to mix itself easier with one of the other to compensate in needed areas, growth or expansion(production bonuses).
Another consideration I've been wondering is if it would be a better idea to make Stonehenge the Piety Wonder. This would make that tree's wonder earlier and at a time it is greatly needed for it's additional FPT. But I'd like people opinion on that.

More on this later at a later time.

Click to expand...

The first thing I'd do is switch Reformation with the free Great Prophet from the Finisher. The way it currently stands you often Reform before the Religion is even Enhanced which makes 0 sense.

Making the Prophet come earlier would also mean a better chance at founding that last Religion. It could also encourage using culture pantheons since that would help get the prophet potentially faster than a "weak" faith pantheon.

In terms of adding faith I think you have it backwards. The problem isn't that Piety doesn't help enough, it's that with the right terrain a Tradition/Liberty player can found a religion with a minimal investment in shrines/temples. So rather than adding Faith to Piety we should remove the Faith Pantheons (Or weaken them a lot) to make it harder/longer for non-Piety Civs to found a religion.

Sorinth said:

The first thing I'd do is switch Reformation with the free Great Prophet from the Finisher. The way it currently stands you often Reform before the Religion is even Enhanced which makes 0 sense.

Making the Prophet come earlier would also mean a better chance at founding that last Religion. It could also encourage using culture pantheons since that would help get the prophet potentially faster than a "weak" faith pantheon.

In terms of adding faith I think you have it backwards. The problem isn't that Piety doesn't help enough, it's that with the right terrain a Tradition/Liberty player can found a religion with a minimal investment in shrines/temples. So rather than adding Faith to Piety we should remove the Faith Pantheons (Or weaken them a lot) to make it harder/longer for non-Piety Civs to found a religion.

Click to expand...

That I Really like... (you could even keep the name of Reformation (ie you "reform" your Pantheon and gain a religion, or you "reform" your religion with enhancer beliefs... and open up the possibility of Reformation beliefs... which you still only get if you have Reformation)
It was one of the problems, given the religion race, Reformation beliefs could be useless... but if you got a Prophet first.... then even if you missed out on the Pantheons, it would be better.

Move the Free Great Prophet as well as the +3 culture from settled Great Prophets, and that is good.



My other thoughts on Piety (pressure numbers at standard speed)

Theocracy... add a +6 pressure for your Religion (or Pantheon!) to all your cities.

Free Religion... add a +2 ?or +1.5? pressure for every Religion with 1 or more followers anywhere in your empire in all your cities, and you get the Pantheon beliefs of All Religions with 1+ followers in a city

(potential OPness balanced by the fact that many pantheons are terrain specific.. and also won't be present in your empire in the early game)

KrikkitTwo said:

I think changing Meritocracy to 2 would fit far better instead of
1 and -10% population

It makes cities closer to neutral for that second wave (and you wouldn't need an additional +2 happiness)


No Maintenance Monuments sound like a good General Change

No Maintenance Shrines.... would be good for Piety Opener (I've thought of making the Opener +2 fpt in capital, and Free Shrines in All cities [current and new])

As for Piety ideas
As for Culture, what about ~25% of your faith going to culture (similar to Aesthetics with Happiness)

I think It is a good idea to keep Stonehenge separate from Piety so that you can still get a religion without opening Piety.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure 25% faith converted is a good idea. It doesn't fix early culture problem and has the potential to be too good later on. Doesn't seem to fix where things are needed. 2FPT AND Free shrines seems a bit too much for an opener. The current one already reduces build time of 2 buildings in half and if I add 1Fpt on top of it you are guaranteed an early pantheon.

layelaye said:

You need to be careful with buffing shrines too much with piety, to prevent overwhelming synergy with wide empires. it would be better to give most of the bonuses (except culture) to temples.

Click to expand...

Yes I know but I need to find a way to make early Piety give some amount of culture. 1CPT per shrine doesn't seem too strong. Yes it will synergize well with wide empire but that isn't such a problem in my mind, you will have to invest 2 policies more to get 1FPT and 1CPT per city (assuming you built a shrine everywhere) that is approximately the same value as investing 2 policies in liberty (1hammer, 1culture per city) or tradition (3culture, faster border, 4 free culture buildings (or 15% wonder production and some happiness).

It's possible that it makes Organized Religion a bit too good though I agree.

orasis said:

"Balancing" a strategy game takes out the strategy part of the game. Why?

Part of the point of a strategy game is to reward the better player for making better decisions, that's why some choices (depending on when they're made) are sub-optimal and purposely so! If the entire game was balanced ... all the game comes down to is pushing buttons.

The player who does not read, think and calculate should not be equal to the player who is reading, thinking and calculating.

The bad moves are in there on purpose ... and should stay in.

Click to expand...

I wholeheartedly disagree. The purpose isn't to make every option viable in every situation, which would be bad you are right, the purpose is to make the option viable in the first place in a reasonable amount of situation.
For example, I'm not trying to make Honor a good science tree. I'd try to make honor a good war tree. So that it rewards an agressive player picking an agressive tree. If you end up being peaceful you will perform less well than someone picking something else. As should be.

When a strategy game is full of traps, it fails hard at being strategic since the only thing it does is to limit your choices to a static state where you don't even look at some options anymore. (Civ V is gladly not reduced to such extreme)

I want the player to have some tough choices to make all game long and trying to come up with the best solution in a situation. Developing the tools at his disposal is the way to do it.

Iberian said:

I agree that the goal of the strategy game should be to have the most viable options available to the player that leads to interesting gameplay decisions.

From your example-

Situation 1: A is better than B
Situation 2: B is better than A

Including the above we should also be presented with

Situation 1: A is better than B short term
Situation 2: B is better than A long term

and

Situation 1: A is better than B, C for science
Situation 2: B is better than A, C for economy
Situation 3: C is better than A, B for military

I know Soren talked about how he didn't like that the removal of the sliders took away some of this balance. I don't know if there is a better way to implement sliders but at the least we could reinstate them. As it is science tends to progress unless you lose cities. Gold just comes in unless you lose trade routes. As is there isn't a lot to slow down a human player once the establish a lead.

Click to expand...

I'm glad some people agree with me ^^ So that this thread doesn't appear to be useless.

I wouldn't reinstate slider though, like I said I want this to be minimalistic. Playable right off the bat by a Civ V player without having to relearn new mechanics. I also want to preserve Firaxis philosophical ideas (no matter how much I sometimes disagree).

A slider mod or stacking units for example is a lot more work and I'm sure some people are interested in providing such a mod.

Sorinth said:

The first thing I'd do is switch Reformation with the free Great Prophet from the Finisher. The way it currently stands you often Reform before the Religion is even Enhanced which makes 0 sense.

Making the Prophet come earlier would also mean a better chance at founding that last Religion. It could also encourage using culture pantheons since that would help get the prophet potentially faster than a "weak" faith pantheon.

In terms of adding faith I think you have it backwards. The problem isn't that Piety doesn't help enough, it's that with the right terrain a Tradition/Liberty player can found a religion with a minimal investment in shrines/temples. So rather than adding Faith to Piety we should remove the Faith Pantheons (Or weaken them a lot) to make it harder/longer for non-Piety Civs to found a religion.

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I agree that a 1 policy faster great prophet would be a good solution.

For faith, I'm not willing to remove faith pantheon that seems way too harsh. I don't want to make religion a monopoly of Piety, I want Piety to give the most out of Religion. It already has some strong bonus for spreading (better faith, the mosque and a discount). The little bonus to the capital in the opener would be there only to ensure an early pantheon which seems like a good idea. Limiting something like Desert Folklore is however a possibility.

An option I have been toying with would be to offer Piety a unique building available through faith purchase that would increase Happiness and or culture. I think the tree need some form of happiness and giving it through faith seems a good idea.