Exploration Policy Discussion

Is it just me, or is Exploration awful?

The policies themselves are weak. The existing Commerce version of Naval Tradition has essentially been divided into 2 policies, and Exploration gives half of Trade Unions by boosting gold from naval buildings. The finisher boosts Archaeology, but nothing else about the tree really effects the new system. It's a mess.

TBH, I dont think that its that bad:
Unlocks in the Medieval Era.
- Opener; +1 movement and +1 sight to Naval Units. Unlocks building the Louvre.
- Maritime Infrastructure; +3 Production in all Coastal Cities.
- Merchant Navy; +1 gold for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport; Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Naval Tradition
- Naval Tradition; +1 happiness for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport.Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Merchant Navy
- Treasure Fleets; +4 gold from all your Sea Trade Routes. Requires Merchant Navy.
- Navigation School; Free Great Admiral. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Earn Great Admirals 25% faster. Requires Naval Tradition.
- Finisher; Show hidden Antiquity Sites. Purchase Great Admirals with Faith in the Industrial Era.

With all of this, I think that its actually usefull..

My main concern is Merchanct navy effectively just reduces building maintenance for lighthouse, harbor, and seaport. Seems like a boring bonus.

Opener: can build louvre. boats get +1 sight and movement
Maritime Infrastructure: +3 Production in all coastal Cities.
Naval Tradition: +1 Happiness for each Harbor, Seaport, or Lighthouse.
Navigation School: A Great Admiral appears. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Great Admirals are earned 25% faster. Requires Naval Tradition.
Merchant Navy: +1 Gold for each Harbor, Seaport or Lighthouse. Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Naval Tradition.
Treasure Fleets: +4 Gold from all your sea trade routes. Requires Naval Tradition.
Finisher: reveals hella antiquity sites. Can buy great admirals with faith

I like the idea of going down the exploration path and using your radmiral to explore other continents without unlocking caravels

You can do that now with admirals if you get an early one.

I reserve judgement until we know what kind of consistent cash flow to expect from Trade Routes. And what the Colossus does, and if the Great Lighthouse stays the same.

depends on the map but on continents I think it will be balanced compared to the other medieval policy trees. +3 production, gold, and happiness per coastal city. Also you will want to open exploration if your going for a culture victory because then you can build The Louvre.

EricTheGreat12 said:

- Merchant Navy; +1 gold for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport; Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Naval Tradition
- Naval Tradition; +1 happiness for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport.Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Merchant Navy

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Is that really how it's worded?

Anyhow, I can see how the +3 Prod per coastal city could be a lot better if you can get it earlier.

If anything, the picture on the policy screen looks awful. Typical British twit stumbling through the jungle--"dear me, I say!"

If you got Liberty and then Maritime Infrastructure and Naval Tradition, you can pretty much spam cities any place that has two or three sea resources. Your cities start out with 5.25 the moment you found them, and when you have completed the Lighthouse and the Harbor you have 3 happiness (one from Meritocracy) for free. You can get a bunch of size 6-10 cities for hardly any investment.

Calouste said:

If you got Liberty and then Maritime Infrastructure and Naval Tradition, you can pretty much spam cities any place that has two or three sea resources. Your cities start out with 5.25 the moment you found them, and when you have completed the Lighthouse and the Harbor you have 3 happiness (one from Meritocracy) for free. You can get a bunch of size 6-10 cities for hardly any investment.

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Carthage!

It'll depend on how much better sea routes are than land. With an automatic 2x modifier, the ability to get longer distance bonuses and more variety to ensure local resource diversity they could be quite useful. Add on an additional 4 gold which is double what commerce gives land routes and they could become a cornerstone of a strong economy. If they are really powerful it might make navies useful to an extent on Pangaea and great on continents. If I have to constantly be patrolling my sea lanes for pirates and enemy ships faster ships with more vision could be very useful. It could also make coastal cities quite nice. With exploration's coastal bonuses and the ability to have very powerful internal trade routes to boost coastal cities they might become valuable beyond their terrain.

Of course the more water you have the better the bonuses so it will likely be competitive on water maps at least. And for culture victories both its opener and finisher are very useful and could be quite powerful. The Louvre is a very powerful building for culture now.

I think it's kewl. It might be bit of a misnomer since it's mostly about setting up naval dominance except for the finisher. People did do exploring by land too. I think the cognomen will be "The Adventurous".

mdl5000 said:

If anything, the picture on the policy screen looks awful. Typical British twit stumbling through the jungle--"dear me, I say!"

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They should've gone with Lara Croft !

Understandably, this is not possible for the same reasons as Indiana Jones.

Why it's called Exploration when all the focus is on Seafaring is my only question.

Huh. The opener lets you build the Louvre? I mean, I get the whole archaeology/exploration getting you artifacts to put in a museum concept but the rest of the tree gives you no archaeology benefits at all. I just hope that the Louvre isn't so important for a cultural victory that you'd have to dip into this this tree and get a naval bonus you might not want just to get it.

Emperor Steven said:

Is it just me, or is Exploration awful?

The policies themselves are weak. The existing Commerce version of Naval Tradition has essentially been divided into 2 policies, and Exploration gives half of Trade Unions by boosting gold from naval buildings. The finisher boosts Archaeology, but nothing else about the tree really effects the new system. It's a mess.

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It feels more "Coastal cities" and not necessarily "Exploration" (which doesn't always have to involve the sea).

Unlocks in the Medieval Era.
- Opener; +1 movement and +1 sight to Naval Units. Unlocks building the Louvre.

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Opener is okay. Probably weaker than the current Commerce opener. Right now Naval Tradition gives you the new Exploration opener *plus* the free Admiral. I guess the Louvre is pretty good from what we've seen.

- Maritime Infrastructure; +3 Production in all Coastal Cities.

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This can be very strong, especially if most/all of your cities are coastal. Right now you need to invest 3 policies to get this.

- Merchant Navy; +1 gold for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport; Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Naval Tradition

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Weak. Helps defray costs by generating a little bit of gold. Useless for non-coastal cities.

- Naval Tradition; +1 happiness for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport.Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Merchant Navy

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I assume there must be a typo since Naval Tradition requires Merchant Navy but Merchant Navy requires Naval Tradition.

Okay, but probably much weaker than the current happiness for science buildings (Rationalism), happiness for defensive buildings (Honor), or even the vanilla happiness for cultural buildings (vanilla Piety).

- Treasure Fleets; +4 gold from all your Sea Trade Routes. Requires Merchant Navy.

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Hard to say how useful this is. Depends on how well trade routes are implemented.

- Navigation School; Free Great Admiral. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Earn Great Admirals 25% faster. Requires Naval Tradition.

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Great Admirals are very, very weak. Unless Brave New World significantly boosts Admirals, then this isn't all that great. Even Great Generals are better because at least you can use them for a land grab. With Great Admirals, there's little incentive to have more than a couple.

- Finisher; Show hidden Antiquity Sites. Purchase Great Admirals with Faith in the Industrial Era.

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Seeing antiquity sites may be helpful. Worst case scenario is you send a random unit to the tile to guard it.

Great Admirals are one of the weakest Great People though (I'd argue the weakest - worst than Merchants) so being able to purchase them is not very good. The finisher definitely seems weak (unless Admirals get a major boost).

For "Exploration" I think it would have been nice to have stuff like:

- Extra movement for Scouts and civilian units
- Extra sight for *all* land units
- Access to "Ignore terrain" promotion for your land units

Etc.

mdl5000 said:

If anything, the picture on the policy screen looks awful. Typical British twit stumbling through the jungle--"dear me, I say!"

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Hah thanks for the comment, made me laugh imagining the noble sir in the picture stumbling and saying that.

Personally I love the pic even though the policy tree is mostly naval and trade oriented than exploration.

It bothers me endlessly that the tree has essentially nothing to do with exploration other than the finisher and maybe the opener, and now the commerce tree is stuck with a boat picture despite having nothing to do with the navy.

There seem to be some misstatements about how the tree is laid out. It is thus:
- Opener; +1 movement and +1 sight to Naval Units. Unlocks building the Louvre.
- Maritime Infrastructure; +3 Production in all Coastal Cities.
- Naval Tradition; +1 happiness for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport.
- Navigation School; Free Great Admiral. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Earn Great Admirals 25% faster. Requires Naval Tradition.
- Merchant Navy; +1 gold for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport. Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Naval Tradition.
- Treasure Fleets; +4 gold from all your Sea Trade Routes. Requires Merchant Navy.
- Finisher; Show hidden Antiquity Sites. Purchase Great Admirals with Faith in the Industrial Era.

I see this as a great "dipping" tree when you have a lot of coastal cities - both tier 1 SPs are strong, especially since most happiness SPs have been moved to Ideologies (take note, Halcyan2, your analysis is flawed here). Treasure Fleets seems mediocre as a third-tier SP, Navigation School mediocre in general (unless GAd has changed) and Merchant Navy downright poor. Finishing the tree depends on whether the hidden Antiquity Sites yield special/more powerful Artifacts to make it worthwhile; if not, forget it.

I take responsibility for the typo.

I was also disappointed that none of the policies have anything to do with Archaeology, but I guess I can understand it, because Archaeology doesn't unlock until the Industrial era, and if you actually want "exploration" policies they need to be available before the Renaissance. Unfortunately, this kind of makes the Archaeology-related openers and finishers seem a bit out of place. Your reward for building a might navy and merchant empire is... your Archaeologists can find hidden artifacts?