Social Policies in BNW

I'm not happy with them. Some are just underwhelming, others too situational or simply illogical. This is what I would suggest to change:


Forbidden Palace: I totally fail to see where the Patronage requirement and the extra World Congress Delegates come from .
I'd rather associate Taj Mahal to Patronage (not because it made any more sense apart from maybe it being unlocked by Architecture and
you might argue it needs the architectural influence of Patronage just like PT and Uffizi need Social Policies unlocked too to be build).
FB instead gets 2 copies of the unique luxury resource "Jade" (-10% Unhappiness from Citizens remains too). Concerning the delegates see the reworked SP tree:


old Patronage:
new Patronage:
Adopting Patronage will cause Gifts of Gold to a City-State to generate 25% more Influence. Unlocks building the Taj Mahal.
Adopting all policies in the Patronage tree will cause allied City-States to occasionally gift you Great People.

-Philanthropy: Influence with City-States degrades 25% slower than normal.
-Scholasticism: All City-States which are Allies provide a Science bonus equal to 25% of what they produce for themselves.
-Consulates: Resting point for Influence with all City-States is increased by 20. (requires Philanthropy)
-Cultural Diplomacy: Happiness from gifted Luxuries increased by 50%. Grants 1 additionnal delegate in the World Congress. (requires Consulates)
-Merchant Confederacy: +2 Gold for trade routes with City-States. Gain 1 influence per turn with City States you have a trade route with.

Switching the Opener with Philantropy seems a no brainer as calling Gold gifts being more effective "Philantropy" seems somewhat cynical. That's probably what they
meant to do, but some last second change got us this weird defined Philantrophy we currently have as it probably was forgotten to be given a more appropriate name.
Double resource quantity always was stupid; nobody needs 50 horses and 100 oil (when you commit to Patronage, you will be allied with most of the CS).
This gets replaced by an extra delegate (as FB has something more suitable to it now).
Finally Consulates and Scholasticism switched places which makes the incredible powerful Consulates commit you to Patronage with 3 SPs instead of only 2. Fair enough.
Maybe pledging to protect needs further adjustments, but it's at least a start in nerfing this overpowered SP/game mechanic combo.




old Piety:
new Piety:
Adopting Piety allows you to build Shrines and Temples in half the usual time. Unlocks building the Great Mosque of Djenne. Adopting all Policies in the
Piety tree causes a Great Prophet to appear and Cities with a majority religion also get the Pantheon belief bonus of the second most popular religion.

-Organized Religion: +1 Faith from Shrines and Temples.
-Mandate of Heaven: 20% discount on all purchases of religious units and buildings with Faith.
-Theocracy: Temples increase a city's Gold output by 10%. Holy Sites provide +3 Gold and +3 Culture. (requires Organized Religion)
-Religious Tolerance: +1 happiness for every city that receives religious pressure from a religion other than it's majority religion. (requires Organized Religion)
-Reformation: If you founded a religion, gain a bonus Reformation belief. (requires Mandate of Heaven, Religious Tolerance)
(old Religious Tolerance pissed me off a lot: As a side bonus to the Great Prophet with the finisher now it's much more bearable and my new idea for Religious Tolerance seems useful but not too powerful).

Reformation Beliefs:
-Charitable Missions: Influence boosts from Gold gifts to City-States are increased by 30%. --> I don't even...? One uses gold gifts so rarely these days. So useless. I say make it +100% - then it at least becomes situational useful.
-Evangelism: Missionaries' Spread Religion action erodes existing pressure from other religions. --> phew... would I ever take it? NO. It just seems to be there so an AI that has it will annoy you with their endless stream of Missionaries. I really don't knno what to do with it.
-Heathen Conversion: Missionaries convert adjacent barbarians to this civilization. --> Seems like a Belief you'll be trying not more than once in your CiV life just because you feel like toying around. I haven't done that yet, but it sounds like it's either super useless or highly exploitable.
-Jesuit Education: May build Universities, Public Schools, and Research Labs with Faith. --> Pretty good one.
-Religious Fervor: Use Faith to purchase Industrial Era (and later) land units. --> I think these units are actually kinda cheap to buy with faith, so it is an (still kinds weak) option I guess.
-Sacred Sites: All buildings purchased with Faith provide 2 Tourism each. --> needs fix so CV isn't possible 2000 years before the first hotel/airport is build. Maybe 4 Culture instead of 2 Tourism?
-The Glory of God: Use Faith to purchase any type of Great Person starting in Industrial Era. --> Pretty useful, especially if you went Liberty.
-Underground Sect: Your spies exert religious pressure on the cities they occupy. --> there are too little spies for that to be of much use (and the pressure it too little). Maybe if the pressure is quadruppled it becomes an option. Then again the AI will annoy you with it (a lot). My idea: Keep the spies exerting 1 times the pressure but also add this: "Cities of this religion also gain the founder and enhancer belief bonuses of the second most popular religion".
-Unity of the Prophets: Inquisitors and Prophets reduce this religion's presence by half (instead of eliminating it). --> What is this good for? I only see mass Missionaries with occassional Prophet battles between AIs where a city will switch religion 5 times per turn. It doesn't help any way, I will need to use an own GPr to make me get my religion back. Can't think of a way to make it somewhat competable with the good beliefs.




old Honor:
new Honor:
Adopting Honor gives a +33% combat bonus vs Barbarians, and notifications will be provided when new Barbarian Encampments spawn in revealed
territory. Gain Culture for the empire from each barbarian killed. Unlocks building the Statue of Zeus. Adopting all policies in the Honor
tree will grant Gold for each enemy unit killed. It also allows the purchase of Great Generals with Faith starting in the Industrial Era.

-Warrior Code: +15% Production when training Melee units and a Great General appears outside the Capital. Great Generals are earned 25% faster.
-Discipline: +15% Combat Strength for melee Units which have another military Unit in an adjacent tile. Flanking your units is 25% less effective than usual.
-Military Tradition: Military Units gain 50% more Experience from combat and defensive buildings are build in half the usual time. (requires Warrior Code)
-Military Caste: Each City with a garrison increases Local City Happiness by 1 and Culture by 2. (requires Discipline)
-Professional Army: 1 free promotion for every newly built unit. Free Barracks in every non-puppet city. Free Armory and Forge in the Capital. (requires Military Caste)

As Honor needs some buffs, Statue of Zeus now also grants +2 faith. The changes to Professional Army are a larger buff to army strength overall
and it also enables you to build Heroic Epic more easily. The reduced enemy flanking bonus applies to all of your units (not just melee).
Great Generals (not related to Honor): GG experience. A GG earns the same experience as the military unit on the same tile as him and he can earn the following promotions:
-Tier1: Command1 (+5% combar bonus for nearby units (total 20%)) or Overview1 (+1 movement and +1 sight for the GG)
-Tier2: Command2 (+5% combar bonus for nearby units (total 25%)) or Overview2 (+1 movement and +1 sight for the GG)
-Tier3 (needs either Command2 or Overview2): Medic (same a on normal units) or Cover (-10% dmg from ranged attacks for nearby units).
Max GG lvl is 6. Lvl1 is reached at 20 xp, lvl2 at 40 xp, lvl3 at 80 xp, lvl4 at 160xp, lvl5 at 320 xp and lvl6 at 640 xp.




old Exploration:
new Exploration:
Adopting Exploration gives +1 Movement for Naval units and +1 Sight for Naval Combat units. Unlocks building the Louvre. Adopting all policies allows you to see Hidden
Antiquity Sites and establishes a free permanent embasy to every known civ. It also allows the purchase of Great Admirals with Faith starting in the Industrial Era.

-Maritime Infrastructure: +3 Production in all coastal Cities.
-Navigation School: A Great Admiral appears. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Great Admirals are earned 25% faster and can build Canals (and thus disembark).
-Naval Tradition: +1 Happiness and +1 gold for each Harbor, Seaport and Lighthouse.
-Merchant Navy: +4 Gold from all your sea trade routes.
-Age of Discovery: Two free Archaeologists appear. Each completed Archaeological Dig grants you 100 gold.

(Finisher gets a little bonus as the old one is only useful for culture victories: A free embasy with every civ you've met.
Canals: You all know what this is and does and that it is needed, don't pretent you don't. (makes a land tile passable for naval units).
Now gold from sea trade routes gets moved to Merchant Navy just for making space and also for how the ability is named).
Navigation school switches places with Naval Tradition (the latter gets the former effect of Merchant Navy added to make up for it's later arrival.)
And finally the rework of Treasure Fleets to : ).

I also suggest some changes not truly related to Exploration:
-Units that are healed by a Great Admiral get +10 experience. [I've disbanded countless Great Admirals due to having to many and not needing any; this way they are at least useful in some way.]
-Privateers could be improved to be really interesting units: The enemy will not be able to see which Civ they belong to and they're allowed to plunder trade routes or attack units without declaring war.
-Hidden Antiquity Sites need to not be just regular Antiquity Sites:
--Good chance to dig up a (Dinosaur) Fossil (2c 2t). Museeum of Natural History (2 Fossils) = Double Theming bonus.
--Small chance to dig up a Mummy (4c 4t).
--Good Chance to dig up generic Ancient Scrolls (work like regular artifacts), for example 'Sacred Scripture', 'Holy Scroll', 'Vellum Writings' 'Scroll of Parchment'. These would give 2c, 2t and +1 Faith.
--Landmarks from Hidden Antiquity Sites produce 1 more culture than they normally would.



Commerce changes:
-Wagon Trains: +3 Gold from all your Land Trade Routes and +20% range for land trade routes.
-Trade Unions: Maintenance paid on Roads, Railroads and Civilian Units reduced by 50%.
-Entrepreneurship: Great Merchants are earned 25% faster and +1 gold from merchant specialists. (requires Wagon Trains)
(just some minor buffs to make it a tad more attractive (and in particular to strengthen land trade routes to make them less awful compared to sea trade routes)).



Rationalism changes:
Sovereignty: All Science buildings are maintenance free. (requires Humanism).
(Rationalism has taken quite a blow in particular from the loss of a free tech in the finisher,
so the already super weak Sovereignty could use a buff to make taking it more worthwhile.)


What do you think about the Social Policies in their current state and about the proposed changes?

Some things i like first

Changing Sovereignty in rationalism. The maint. free science buildings is def more powerful than the current +1 bonus but i feel like it would still leave that policy the weakest link

I also like your ideas for "unique" antiquities, maybe some of them could even be worth more tourism/culture than others! Id like to see it definitely as it would make the tourism game more interesting without drastically altering anything.

Yes canals might be useful, but i dont think hobbling them on to policies/GA's is a good idea, then youll need 1 GA for every tile you need a canal on! Workers should be able to build it but IMO they should take like 20+ turns to complete on STANDARD speed

Im not sure i see the point of a permanent embassy either, the AI is always down to make one

The whole forbidden palace, I also dont like how i HAVE to take patronage to get the wonder which is critical to controlling the WC. What if i dont want to play a diplo victory, but also dont want the AI to be able to embargo me/CS'es or ban my stuff? Im not sure making the taj mahal its replacement would be any better though it just simply shouldnt be locked to patronage if it has that ability. IDK why im whining about that though because i frequently take patronage

Thats all i like

Things i dislike

The patronage branch really needs no other reorganizing outside of the forbidden palace so IDK why you went there

Your fixes on piety seem strange. Why no sacred sites? I have never seen anyone win a tourism victory "2000 years before hotels" even with that belief. If they are then you were simply not generating enough culture. Overall though your reorganizing of the tree is thoughtful but it is still a lousy choice of a tree with the other options available.

kingofsealand said:

Your fixes on piety seem strange. Why no sacred sites? I have never seen anyone win a tourism victory "2000 years before hotels" even with that belief. If they are then you were simply not generating enough culture. Overall though your reorganizing of the tree is thoughtful but it is still a lousy choice of a tree with the other options available.

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It is possible with a civ that has high potential for faith output (celts, ethiopia, maya) or as byzantium to get a third religious building, and then just ICS and buy religious buildings in your many cities: 4 (or 6 as byzantium) tourism per city.
I recently tried this as maya and was able to get about 60 tourism per turn without great works or hotels. Not a complete victory though.

TSG66 (and some other postings in these forums) shows that people can win CVs in 130 turns easily where a regular Culture Victory usually needs a good 100 turns more to achieve. It is done by exploiting Sacred Sites and extreme ICS. Sure it can fail if you're very unlucky or screw up and then you're doomed, but you're forced to abuse this if you want a competitive victory as the normal CV is impossible before Hotels arrive (no Win before the end of the Modern Era, while with Sacred Sites you win with maybe not even reaching the Medieval Era!).

I kinda agree that maybe Canals should be doable without SPs, so the Admiral might get it by default (or be able to make a better Canal with that SP (maybe one that works similar to a citadel (damages nearby enemy units and grabs land)).

About the free embassies: Well technically you have to pay 1gpt per embassy or you lose on getting 1gpt for selling your them an embassy in your capital in exchange for one with them, so it's not about being unable to get an embassy, it just saves you a bit of gold.

You would need to get extremely lucky to get sacred sites on high difficulty. It is one of the first to go, and the AI LOVES piety. Sub turn 130 is also pretty much impossible outside of a very narrow set of rules, because you can't meet all the AIs right away, and you can't influence them if you don't know them. Just saying -- if this "competitive" group you refer to sanctioned those rules, they can also ban sacred sites from their competition if it that overpowered.

@OP

What you're not taking into consideration is that social policy trees need to work for various starts (from Ancient to Modern) and for various map sizes.

Due to this it's impossible to create a single balance point for all social policies. For example, +1 GPT per science building might seem trivial for a 2-city empire, but consider empires with 30 cities on huge maps.

Vidszhite said:

You would need to get extremely lucky to get sacred sites on high difficulty. It is one of the first to go, and the AI LOVES piety. Sub turn 130 is also pretty much impossible outside of a very narrow set of rules, because you can't meet all the AIs right away, and you can't influence them if you don't know them. Just saying -- if this "competitive" group you refer to sanctioned those rules, they can also ban sacred sites from their competition if it that overpowered.

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Sadly, you're correct in that Sacred Sites goes quite quickly. I might've been en route to an incredibly early CV in my current Immortal Egypt game - I was cranking out some ridiculous Faith (think ~60 Faith late Medieval and ~80-90 by the late Renaissance from Desert Folklore and Pilgrimage) and had both Mosques and Pagodas in all 5 of my cities.
My REXing took too much of a toll on my policy cost, though, and Pachacuti grabbed Sacred Sites 6 turns before I was about to reform.

But yes, with the correct religious combination, you could potentially score a ridiculously-early CV.

Why are people turning away from gold gifts to city states? Quests are awesome, and I still strive to do them whenever possible (getting good culture and faith is really important in befriending city states), but quests aren't going to get you allied with every city state in the game on their own. Late game especially, if you get a good economy, gold gifts are awesome when you have the patronage +gold influence. When you have patronage, city state gold gifts can win you the world congress, give you about a +25% increase in science, gift you a ton of great people (which in turn, fulfill more city state quests), and give you a ton of additional happiness aside from their basic benefits, which are still fantastic. Then you can win a diplomatic victory if you're still playing with that on. I've started to turn it off because it's too easy. I could probably have done it on the only deity game I've ever played if the condition was still on (it was close, admittedly), despite being well a bit behind in science and having 0 tourism.

@redwings1340: You forgot though (maybe), that you need to spread your religion to every single one of those CS you want to make use of the Gold Gift Reformation. And that will be near to impossible on a high difficulty game unless you've already won and are swimming in money anyway, so why would you need the reduces gold amount for allying the two or three city states that aren't already allied to you when you have a bank of over 10.000 gold? You want that reformation belief if you can only ally a few city states and it needs to be this effective to enable you to do this in a game where you haven't signed a single RA due to lack of money. For e.g. getting 26 influence instead of 20 for your 250g instead doesn't change anything and there's no way you'll pick that reformation belief if there are still useful ones available.

It would be better if OP separete ideas in different topics with strict theme. Like one for exploracion, and other for great admiral. Since now im not sure where should i start, should i point every idea which is unnessery or change nothing or for worse? It will anyway never hit live.

However some ideas like canals are decent, and i bet i have seen them before somewhere.

FeiLing said:

@redwings1340: You forgot though (maybe), that you need to spread your religion to every single one of those CS you want to make use of the Gold Gift Reformation. And that will be near to impossible on a high difficulty game unless you've already won and are swimming in money anyway, so why would you need the reduces gold amount for allying the two or three city states that aren't already allied to you when you have a bank of over 10.000 gold? You want that reformation belief if you can only ally a few city states and it needs to be this effective to enable you to do this in a game where you haven't signed a single RA due to lack of money. For e.g. getting 26 influence instead of 20 for your 250g instead doesn't change anything and there's no way you'll pick that reformation belief if there are still useful ones available.

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I took that reformation belief once, and if I remember correctly, the city states don't need to be your religion for the policy to work. I found it to be a fantastic policy.

Also, 250 gold gifts are basically worthless. 1000 gold gifts on the other hand, give quite a bit of influence if you save up the money for it. I think it's one of the best beliefs, actually.

I think that giving the Honour tree buffs to combat is missing the point of why it's bad. Conquering cities is easy - the problem is that once you've conquered another civ, you're often in a worse position than the guy who went Tradition and is getting a bunch of free happiness and money for it.

So, if you're going to buff Honour, I'd say give them some happiness bonuses for conquering cities, and maybe a discount to unit maintenance.

Fixing Sacred Sites is trivially easy. Activate the bonus at Flight, like Mughal Fort and Chateau.

new Patronage:
Adopting Patronage will cause Gifts of Gold to a City-State to generate 25% more Influence. Unlocks building the Taj Mahal.
Adopting all policies in the Patronage tree will cause allied City-States to occasionally gift you Great People.

-Philanthropy: Influence with City-States degrades 25% slower than normal.
-Scholasticism: All City-States which are Allies provide a Science bonus equal to 25% of what they produce for themselves.
-Consulates: Resting point for Influence with all City-States is increased by 20. (requires Philanthropy)
-Cultural Diplomacy: Happiness from gifted Luxuries increased by 50%. Grants 1 additionnal delegate in the World Congress. (requires Consulates)
-Merchant Confederacy: +2 Gold for trade routes with City-States. Gain 1 influence per turn with City States you have a trade route with.

Switching the Opener with Philantropy seems a no brainer as calling Gold gifts being more effective "Philantropy" seems somewhat cynical. That's probably what they
meant to do, but some last second change got us this weird defined Philantrophy we currently have as it probably was forgotten to be given a more appropriate name.
Double resource quantity always was stupid; nobody needs 50 horses and 100 oil (when you commit to Patronage, you will be allied with most of the CS).
This gets replaced by an extra delegate (as FB has something more suitable to it now).
Finally Consulates and Scholasticism switched places which makes the incredible powerful Consulates commit you to Patronage with 3 SPs instead of only 2. Fair enough.
Maybe pledging to protect needs further adjustments, but it's at least a start in nerfing this overpowered SP/game mechanic combo.

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I agree with most of this, but am not so sure about the replacement of the world wonder & its effect.

Piety: I like the current version as is. Main thing is the tree works best with a culture pantheon.

Honor: No comment. No matter how you improve it, I'm not picking it.

Exploration: Sounds good.

Commerce:
Wagon Trains: Wouldn't be enough of a boost to get make the policy worth taking. It would need to be a full 100% income boost to land route just to get equal to base sea route.

Entrepreneurship: That would still be on the rating of 0 (never, ever take due to slowing down Great Scientists & Engineers.) Now if each of these were given its own separate counter that increased, it would make the original policy ok.

Rationalism: As a tree is strong enough already. No need to give a boost to even the weakest policy within it.

----------------
If I were improving BNW, my minor tweaks would be:

1. Pledge to Protect: Remove the +10 boost, the city state quest associated with it, and the AI bragging about having bullied one of your city states. I might leave what's left (telling the AI you like that city state) just because it is sometimes a factor for the AI in determining who to bully. Or I might change that factor to city state ally.

2. Eliminate the 100% bonus sea routes have in income over land routes. (Or alternatively cut it down to only 25%)

3. Each of GS, GM, and GE would be on separate counters (like the new guilds)

4. Commerce & Exploration Trees: That Commerce tree's policy that increases gold routes to carvans would instead increase to all trade routes. Exploration would no longer have the policy increasing gold to cargo ships but would get a new policy to compensate.

5. Aesthetics opener and first policy, have the main effect of the opener be increasing construction rate of cultural buildings. I would also consider allowing this tree to be opened in Ancient era.

And not so minor:

6. National wonder requirement would change to require a flat 4 copies of X building instead of needing to be in 100% of all buildings (excluding puppets). (No 2 city NC for you; you must acquire 4 cities first) But in mid and late game you could build more cities if happiness allows as long as you're willing to reduce your Golden Age frequency and slow down policy acquisition rate.

joncnunn said:

I agree with most of this, but am not so sure about the replacement of the world wonder & its effect.

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Forbidden Palace is fine where it is. I have no idea why the OP objects to it being linked to Patronage. Honestly, it's one of the more thematically sensible links.

Commerce:
Wagon Trains: Wouldn't be enough of a boost to get make the policy worth taking. It would need to be a full 100% income boost to land route just to get equal to base sea route.

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This is a problem. International land routes are only useful when you can't reach another civilization by water, but you still want to trade with them for diplomatic or tourism purposes. A policy that buffs them to be on par with sea routes might be too strong, though, because land routes are easier to defend and Caravans are cheaper than Cargo Ships.

Entrepreneurship: That would still be on the rating of 0 (never, ever take due to slowing down Great Scientists & Engineers.) Now if each of these were given its own separate counter that increased, it would make the original policy ok.

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Unlinking the Great People would result in too many of them and would remove some strategic choice. I don't like that idea.

1. Pledge to Protect: Remove the +10 boost, the city state quest associated with it, and the AI bragging about having bullied one of your city states. I might leave what's left (telling the AI you like that city state) just because it is sometimes a factor for the AI in determining who to bully. Or I might change that factor to city state ally.

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That's too much. The mechanic needs to mean something if it's going to exist. I don't see why we can't just move the Patronage policy into the second tier so that you can't get it without investing a bit more into the tree.

2. Eliminate the 100% bonus sea routes have in income over land routes. (Or alternatively cut it down to only 25%)

3. Each of GS, GM, and GE would be on separate counters (like the new guilds)

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See above.

4. Commerce & Exploration Trees: That Commerce tree's policy that increases gold routes to carvans would instead increase to all trade routes. Exploration would no longer have the policy increasing gold to cargo ships but would get a new policy to compensate.

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Honestly, making the two types of trade routes equal isn't a good idea. It's horribly unbalanced.

5. Aesthetics opener and first policy, have the main effect of the opener be increasing construction rate of cultural buildings. I would also consider allowing this tree to be opened in Ancient era.

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I would like to see the construction rate be the opener for Aesthetics. I would actually move the GWAM bonus to somewhere near the end of the tree. Maybe move the -10% cost policy up? There are enough Ancient Era trees, though.

6. National wonder requirement would change to require a flat 4 copies of X building instead of needing to be in 100% of all buildings (excluding puppets). (No 2 city NC for you; you must acquire 4 cities first) But in mid and late game you could build more cities if happiness allows as long as you're willing to reduce your Golden Age frequency and slow down policy acquisition rate.

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That's a huge nerf to tall empires and a huge buff to wide ones. No way!

1/2/4: Yeah, somethign about pledging and making sea and land trade routes more equal should be done.

3/6: Totally agreeing on these. That would be so much better.

5: Maybe. Its probably more balanced if you dont really get to build your monuments with the bonus (lol Ethiopia with that...). What I personally dislike of Aesthetics is that you only ever take it for a CV and you ll never ever take it if you pursue another victory type. And ehm... Exploration kinda has the same problem, you take Maritime Infrastructure and ignore the rest - unless you go for CV -0 then you must finish it for the Louvre and the Hidden Sites.

FeiLing said:

Forbidden Palace: I totally fail to see where the Patronage requirement and the extra World Congress Delegates come from .
I'd rather associate Taj Mahal to Patronage (not because it made any more sense apart from maybe it being unlocked by Architecture and
you might argue it needs the architectural influence of Patronage just like PT and Uffizi need Social Policies unlocked too to be build).
FB instead gets 2 copies of the unique luxury resource "Jade" (-10% Unhappiness from Citizens remains too). Concerning the delegates see the reworked SP tree:

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I honestly don't understand why you feel this way about the Forbidden Palace. A wonder that gives delegates is linked to the tree that focuses on diplomacy. It's entirely logical. Further, you don't need to control the WC to win. In fact, I don't think that I've ever once controlled the WC in any of my games. Not even when I got a diplo win! Anyway, the two Jade thing is too similar to Indonesia's UA. Eh.

Adopting Patronage will cause Gifts of Gold to a City-State to generate 25% more Influence. Unlocks building the Taj Mahal.

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Why the Taj Mahal?

Adopting all policies in the Patronage tree will cause allied City-States to occasionally gift you Great People.

-Philanthropy: Influence with City-States degrades 25% slower than normal.
-Scholasticism: All City-States which are Allies provide a Science bonus equal to 25% of what they produce for themselves.
-Consulates: Resting point for Influence with all City-States is increased by 20. (requires Philanthropy)
-Cultural Diplomacy: Happiness from gifted Luxuries increased by 50%. Grants 1 additionnal delegate in the World Congress. (requires Consulates)
-Merchant Confederacy: +2 Gold for trade routes with City-States. Gain 1 influence per turn with City States you have a trade route with.

Switching the Opener with Philantropy seems a no brainer as calling Gold gifts being more effective "Philantropy" seems somewhat cynical. That's probably what they
meant to do, but some last second change got us this weird defined Philantrophy we currently have as it probably was forgotten to be given a more appropriate name.
Double resource quantity always was stupid; nobody needs 50 horses and 100 oil (when you commit to Patronage, you will be allied with most of the CS).
This gets replaced by an extra delegate (as FB has something more suitable to it now).
Finally Consulates and Scholasticism switched places which makes the incredible powerful Consulates commit you to Patronage with 3 SPs instead of only 2. Fair enough.

Click to expand...

I'm OK with the one extra delegate and with moving the Consulates policy, but I don't like the idea of moving the Science bonus up so that it's easier to get. Science is already too powerful compared to the other victory conditions (except for Diplomacy, which they'll (hopefully) fix in the patch).

Maybe pledging to protect needs further adjustments, but it's at least a start in nerfing this overpowered SP/game mechanic combo.

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This ridiculous mechanic has been in the game since long before G&K. Why the sudden hate? Is it because MJ did it?

new Piety:
Adopting Piety allows you to build Shrines and Temples in half the usual time. Unlocks building the Great Mosque of Djenne. Adopting all Policies in the
Piety tree causes a Great Prophet to appear and Cities with a majority religion also get the Pantheon belief bonus of the second most popular religion.

-Organized Religion: +1 Faith from Shrines and Temples.
-Mandate of Heaven: 20% discount on all purchases of religious units and buildings with Faith.
-Theocracy: Temples increase a city's Gold output by 10%. Holy Sites provide +3 Gold and +3 Culture. (requires Organized Religion)
-Religious Tolerance: +1 happiness for every city that receives religious pressure from a religion other than it's majority religion. (requires Organized Religion)
-Reformation: If you founded a religion, gain a bonus Reformation belief. (requires Mandate of Heaven, Religious Tolerance)
(old Religious Tolerance pissed me off a lot: As a side bonus to the Great Prophet with the finisher now it's much more bearable and my new idea for Religious Tolerance seems useful but not too powerful).

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Works for me.

-Jesuit Education: May build Universities, Public Schools, and Research Labs with Faith. --> Pretty good one.

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Too good, in fact. The cost of these buildings needs to be increased by quite a bit.

-Sacred Sites: All buildings purchased with Faith provide 2 Tourism each. --> needs fix so CV isn't possible 2000 years before the first hotel/airport is build. Maybe 4 Culture instead of 2 Tourism?

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Just attach the Tourism bonus to Flight like with other similar bonuses.

-Underground Sect: Your spies exert religious pressure on the cities they occupy. --> there are too little spies for that to be of much use (and the pressure it too little). Maybe if the pressure is quadruppled it becomes an option. Then again the AI will annoy you with it (a lot). My idea: Keep the spies exerting 1 times the pressure but also add this: "Cities of this religion also gain the founder and enhancer belief bonuses of the second most popular religion".

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Definitely not this! Founder beliefs are for the founder, no exceptions. And why would you want to help the AI spread his religion with his Enhancer? Bah.

-Discipline: +15% Combat Strength for melee Units which have another military Unit in an adjacent tile. Flanking your units is 25% less effective than usual.
-Military Tradition: Military Units gain 50% more Experience from combat and defensive buildings are build in half the usual time. (requires Warrior Code)

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You know, I do like these changes, but they don't really solve the problem. Honor really works well with a larger military force, but it doesn't provide me with the funds to support that force. Something needs to decrease the unit maintenance cost or provide additional Gold.

-Professional Army: 1 free promotion for every newly built unit. Free Barracks in every non-puppet city. Free Armory and Forge in the Capital. (requires Military Caste)

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Too powerful.

Great Generals (not related to Honor): GG experience. A GG earns the same experience as the military unit on the same tile as him and he can earn the following promotions:
-Tier1: Command1 (+5% combar bonus for nearby units (total 20%)) or Overview1 (+1 movement and +1 sight for the GG)
-Tier2: Command2 (+5% combar bonus for nearby units (total 25%)) or Overview2 (+1 movement and +1 sight for the GG)
-Tier3 (needs either Command2 or Overview2): Medic (same a on normal units) or Cover (-10% dmg from ranged attacks for nearby units).
Max GG lvl is 6. Lvl1 is reached at 20 xp, lvl2 at 40 xp, lvl3 at 80 xp, lvl4 at 160xp, lvl5 at 320 xp and lvl6 at 640 xp.

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Way too powerful. Also, I don't think that we'd see such a large change this late into the game.

new Exploration:
Adopting Exploration gives +1 Movement for Naval units and +1 Sight for Naval Combat units. Unlocks building the Louvre. Adopting all policies allows you to see Hidden
Antiquity Sites and establishes a free permanent embasy to every known civ. It also allows the purchase of Great Admirals with Faith starting in the Industrial Era.

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I don't like the idea of forcing diplomatic actions onto other players. Why should you get an embassy in my capital just because of the policy that you adopted? I'll just keep burning it down!

Besides, how is that related to exploration?

-Navigation School: A Great Admiral appears. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Great Admirals are earned 25% faster and can build Canals (and thus disembark).

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Canals are a major change. They shouldn't be linked to a social policy. Also, they're not going to happen.

-Age of Discovery: Two free Archaeologists appear. Each completed Archaeological Dig grants you 100 gold.

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Archaeologists, yes. Gold, no. There's enough Gold from the other policies.

-Privateers could be improved to be really interesting units: The enemy will not be able to see which Civ they belong to and they're allowed to plunder trade routes or attack units without declaring war.

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Only if we can also kill them without provoking an automatic war.

-Hidden Antiquity Sites need to not be just regular Antiquity Sites:
--Good chance to dig up a (Dinosaur) Fossil (2c 2t). Museeum of Natural History (2 Fossils) = Double Theming bonus.
--Small chance to dig up a Mummy (4c 4t).
--Good Chance to dig up generic Ancient Scrolls (work like regular artifacts), for example 'Sacred Scripture', 'Holy Scroll', 'Vellum Writings' 'Scroll of Parchment'. These would give 2c, 2t and +1 Faith.
--Landmarks from Hidden Antiquity Sites produce 1 more culture than they normally would.

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Neat, but too complex for what it is.

Rationalism changes:
Sovereignty: All Science buildings are maintenance free. (requires Humanism).
(Rationalism has taken quite a blow in particular from the loss of a free tech in the finisher,
so the already super weak Sovereignty could use a buff to make taking it more worthwhile.)

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Rationalism is fine. No changes needed.