Exploration Revamp

In theory, I really like the idea of Exploration as being a Social Policy Tree. It definitely captures something of the 'psychology' of nations (as all the other Trees do). In practice, apart from unlocking Hidden Antiquity Sites (of which I greatly approve), the tree is almost the Commerce Tree adapted for coastal cities. Whilst I definitely see the importance of the Sea and its relevance for Exploration, I feel that having it dominate the tree (especially when the picture of a ship is deemed relevant for commerce!) doesn't feel right.

Does anybody have ideas for alternate policies? Here are some ideas / seeds of ideas:

• Expeditions - Newly founded cities start with 6 extra tiles and 2 extra population
• Word of Mouth - Units set to Explore are far more likely to head to move to the location of as-yet undiscovered cities
• Cartography - Civilisations gain +1 Delegate at the World Congress for each of A) Circumnavigating the Globe, B) Discovering all Coastal (as in land bordering sea) Tiles, C) Discovering every tile in the map
• Legendary Tales - When a unit returns to home territory after discovering many tiles, it provides a one-time culture boost proportional to the number of tiles it revealed

Other thoughts I have had include granting movement / LOS boosts to civilian units, and effects which help in the Space Race, though none of these seem particularly worthwhile.

Wow, these are some great suggestions! I also liked the concept of a SP tree that would reward the exploration and colonization of far away lands, but I think that the game original Exploration tree came quite short on that. As for your suggestions:

Expeditions - Newly founded cities start with 6 extra tiles and 2 extra population => A much needed boon for mid and late game expansion

Word of Mouth - Units set to Explore are far more likely to head to move to the location of as-yet undiscovered cities => Hmmm, this one I don't like. Doesn't it prevents the whole purpouse of exploration?

Cartography - Civilisations gain +1 Delegate at the World Congress for each of A) Circumnavigating the Globe, B) Discovering all Coastal (as in land bordering sea) Tiles, C) Discovering every tile in the map => Ok, this is great and it ties nicely with the requirements for founding the World Congress

Legendary Tales - When a unit returns to home territory after discovering many tiles, it provides a one-time culture boost proportional to the number of tiles it revealed => I like this one for it encourages exploration, but I don't know how you could you mod such a thing

Ok, here are my suggestions for the Exploration SP tree then!

Opener: +1 movement and +1 sight to sea units, new cities are built with 3 popullation instead of 1 => Early access to this opener will make founding new cities during the mid game a far less costly investment and it will arrive just in the time you need it rather than during the industrial age (resettlement SP... what is it good for?)

Maritime infrastructure: +1 production in sea tiles next to your city, +1 production on atolls => A bonus created in order to improve your coastatal cities but specially aimed to add a huge incentive in order to colonize these small far away islands that always ends up empty

Naval tradition gets renamed "cartographic tradition": +2 to the happiness granted by discovering natural wonders (4 instead of 2) => A mechanism that increases happiness and rewards active exploration in one fell swoop!

Navigation school: A Great Admiral appears. Great Admirals are earned 50% faster, can perform expedition missions (think of GM trade missions, but obtaining science and culture instead of gold, the further the CS is, the greater the yield) => A boon in order to increase the utility of the almost useless GA and further rewarding exploration, its placement on the SP tree will help you to gain faster access to the world congress

Merchant navy: +2 food to each foreign international sea trade route => A more interesting production bonus that will help you to develope your coastatal trade hubs and that will reward the location of your coastatal cities

Treasure fleets gets changed into "colonialism": Doubles the amount of luxury and strategic resources generated by cities founded in landmasses other than your initial one (occupied cities do not count) => So you guys wanted a huge incentive in order to push a mid-game expansion and overcome science and culture penalty, huh? Well, there you have it. This policy will greatly encourage you to expand your empire overseas for the same reasons that European powers did it: grabbing more resources in order to trade with, and lo and behold, it would also encourage actual colonial behaviour: arrive to an already inhabited new continent, raze the native's cities, and plant your own in order to get MOAR RESOURCES that if you would have them just annexed them. Oh, also, massive boost for Indonesia as well. Am I a genious or what?

The problem I have with the tree (Besides being a choice between Rationalism) is that it doesn't promote exploration/colonization in any way.

I like the idea of Legendary Tales though I'd probably simply it and make it every revealed tile gives X. I'd also be tempted to have it give science so it competes with Rationalism.

A colonial policy that either reduces/eliminates the penalties for founding new cities (Science/Culture).

A policy that unlocks building a Nau like unit could be interesting as well.

Cartography is a good idea, expeditions is nice but steps on the toes of order too much. Legendary tales would be difficult to implement, and penalises players for exploring before getting the policy (whereas cartography could be applied retrospectively). The other one I don't think would work. Generally nice ideas though! I also think thetree needs a bit of a rework to distance it from just being the naval tree.

What I'd like to see are benefits for colonization on other continents; perhaps something which increases resource diversity modifier for trade routes for such cities, though I don't know if this would work in practise. Maybe resources on other continents from your cap provide double if owned rather than bought? Hmm...

Crafty Bison said:

Cartography is a good idea, expeditions is nice but steps on the toes of order too much. Legendary tales would be difficult to implement, and penalises players for exploring before getting the policy (whereas cartography could be applied retrospectively). The other one I don't think would work. Generally nice ideas though! I also think thetree needs a bit of a rework to distance it from just being the naval tree.

What I'd like to see are benefits for colonization on other continents; perhaps something which increases resource diversity modifier for trade routes for such cities, though I don't know if this would work in practise. Maybe resources on other continents from your cap provide double if owned rather than bought? Hmm...

Click to expand...

At the end of the day there are many penalties in place to keep a player from expanding too much (Global Happiness, Science and Culture penalties), so if you want the tree to usher in an age of rapid/long distance expansion you need to address the things that are holding it back. Those are happiness and science penalty.

The reason to keep you from expanding too much is probably the map size. Players like exploring and expanding but the game limits them from achieving a large empire by imposing these social restraints. Solution is to expand playing map sizes to allow players to grow their empires, especially overseas. There should be no penalties for expansion, colonization, or occasional aggression-for that matter, the United Nations(World Congress) wasn't around in 1000 AD(for example) to punish you in any sort of a way. All these penalties are quite simply unfair, why would your culture or treasury suffer from colonization? The only adverse effect of colonization is the possibility of rebellion(colonies declaring themselves free countries-perhaps supported by your enemies).
All coastal cities should be able to produce a unit called colonist, which unlike the standard settler, would be able to found cities on other continents.
(Also, nations historically great at exploration could get some bonuses in this area, such as Vikings(in this game that would currently constitute Denmark), Portugal, Carthage(or rather Phoenicia), Greece, Polynesia, Spain or England (Britain).

Thanks for the feedback / ideas!

I agree that the Word of Mouth idea isn't particularly great, but am glad you appreciate Expeditions and Cartography.
I agree with Crafty Bison re: Legendary Tales. I initially though it'd be nice that every time a tile of FOW was lifted a small Culture boost appeared, though again this does penalise players who have explored more earlier. Giving a lump of Culture on adopting the policy proportional to however much has already been discovered seems open to abuse. And the only reason I thought of sending a unit out and having them return was to create some Marco Polos on the map.

I like Ikael's Cartographic Tradition idea, Natural Wonders are fairly central to exploration. Maybe there can be an additional Happiness for owning Natural Wonders too. As for Merchant Navy, I would personally merge Treasure Fleets in with Wagon Trains (probably +2 Gold for each). The new role of the Great Admiral is also interesting. I don't know if I'd want him to do it, or a new civilian unit, but I can definitely see the appeal either way. I shall have to give it some thought!

Other things that can forge into policies:

• Reducing , & penalties for new cities
• Increasing resources from Cities on other continents
• Creating for cities far away, or having multiple tile types (tundra, desert etc)
• Various boosts to naval units / coastal tiles

I'm sure we could craft a new Social Policy tree out of all that!

Consider what the blurb for Exploration would be on the Social Policy screen. When I strained myself to come up with new text for it, I figured this:

I would like to connect this concept, and the finisher of the Hidden Antiquity sites, to the design of Exploration being worked on here. It seems that Exploration involves

• (1) Counteracting the limitations of super-wide explosion in the later game (mid-late game)
• (2) Helping you reach and influence the furthest reaches of the map
• (3) Getting more out of this newly found territory

The Hidden Antiquity Sites can be seen as an example of (3), but (3) could also be used to justify the (clever!) suggestion to gain something extra from natural wonders. I think, for this reason, I am right to suppose these three elements as defining what Exploration 'should' be.

Did I miss anything? Or perhaps I could be less vague. (2) would explain the opener bonus to naval units. It could also still justify the Treasure Fleets policy, in the sense that trade routes with the discovered cities are a prize of exploration. I think a little bonus to City State relationships would not be too far out of the way here, either.

founding new cities should be rewarded in the late game, not penalized..
and i dont think it should only be an effect of the exploration tree policies

maybe, in later eras newly-built cities should get all the basic infrastructure like a granary, monument, lighthouse etc. later the era - more buildings are given, and maybe a free worker on top of that.

so, later policies (or techs?) should give free buildings for every city, happiness and science per city bonuses to combat the penalty.

whats the need in this penalty really? why expansion is penalized in a 4x game? scrap it
to help tall empires there may be later NWs, e.g. supercomputer: +100% science and +3 science per specialist, reqs research lab in every city

possible exploration effects:
* +3 gold per turn from cities built on other landmasses;
* 2x speed of building harbors and seaports
* get science from killing barbarians, science from artifacts and landmarks
* increased speed of archaeologist production
* +4 happiness and science from Natural Wonders in city radius
* less unhappiness in cities captured from backwards civs (having less techs than you)

Darwins Voyage world wonder: +3 science from atolls and NWs; +6 great scientist points per turn

Horseshoe_Hermi said:

• (1) Counteracting the limitations of super-wide explosion in the later game (mid-late game)
• (2) Helping you reach and influence the furthest reaches of the map
• (3) Getting more out of this newly found territory

Click to expand...

That's certainly one element of it Horseshoe_Hermi, though I think there's a bit more to it than that. The tales of Marco Polo spread like wildfire throughout Europe, and inspired countries to look beyond their own borders. Much later on, there became a passion to chart every portion of the planet, be it discovering new countries or racing to the South Pole. This inspiring effect of Exploration could manifest as boosts to and ; and could result from discoveries of natural wonders, or of just general exploration of the world.

I might therefore add:

• (4) Rewarding players for discovering the map

And tweak your blurb to say

True. So Exploration must, in part, be a bonus for exploration the way Piety makes faith more useful and Commerce makes Gold more useful. And making this take the form of culture or science makes sense.
Some things come to mind. Perhaps providing culture per turn for each major or minor civilization discovered. Perhaps providing from Museums with slots filled (just as the Royal Library does something extra with a filled slot). This could be like a first or second tier policy in the branch, and the culture would just help recoup the cost of the tree - much the way Fine Arts is of course never taken to speed social policies, but it increases the value of the whole tree.

We would still want one having to do with gold. The luxury yield increase is doable. I would hate to see Cargo ships go unmentioned in the branch, though.* (*See, I'm a believer in cross-tree synergy. I don't think there's a problem if Commerce gives bonus gold from trade routes, and Exploration gave a bonus for Cargo ship lanes too.) As well, some happiness would be good. I'm noticing an overlap with Liberty, or at least, what Liberty needs to be. Is it any big problem if part of Exploration is like double-dipping Liberty's wide boosts?

So we've got happiness per city, culture/science from "exploration", luxury yields, water movement and sight, Natural Wonders in your territory, Cargo ships/Harbor connections, Coastal city... something benefit, helping Archaeology (Archaeologists faster), and combating science/culture penalty directly. The Great Admiral for ocean exploration, too. How about a border expansion increase? Actually, I'd rather go into the DLL and increase the base border expansion rate because it's atrocious without Tradition.

If one thing could be kept it would be the happiness from Lighthouses and them.

By the way, I think we shouldn't get bogged down with considerations of how to implement any of these features. That's for a different time. This is brainstorming. edit: that said, I'd like to stay away from anything done by an ideology tree.

What do you think of the East India Company policy?

killmeplease said:

Darwins Voyage world wonder: +3 science from atolls and NWs; +6 great scientist points per turn

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Would the +3 science to Atolls and +6 scientist GP from NWs be for the city only or all your cities?

Doktor Vic Tim said:

Would the +3 science to Atolls and +6 scientist GP from NWs be for the city only or all your cities?

Click to expand...

i think 3 science from atolls everywhere, and 6 GS points locally.
exploration may give science from ocean tiles btw, (+2?) to make founding of island cities more appealing

killmeplease said:

i think 3 science from atolls everywhere, and 6 GS points locally.
exploration may give science from ocean tiles btw, (+2?) to make founding of island cities more appealing

Click to expand...

Pardon my confusion, but the local +6 GS points, that only goes for the city which the wonder is built in, so you have to settle near an Natural Wonder AND build the wonder. Would there be a "City must have a Natural Wonder within its borders" requirement? Otherwise I could see the AI building it to deny everyone else good benefits.

I do like the more science aspect of exploration, as it does make sense, but there's the risk of it becoming a little too good, considering how important science is.

I could imagine Japan and SPAIN jumping in joy. Speaking of the latter, will the GS generation actualy be DOUBLED for Spain, since their UA is all about doubling NW yields?

+6 Great Person Points is a lot of GPPs. Is there some reason for that number? Why not 2 or 3 points? Or why not a (non-free) Great Scientist appears? (We could even make it so it's always Darwin).
As for the requirements, I think just making it a coastal city, and the science yield being for anywhere in your empire is one way to do it. The GPPs wouldn't be a yield of the NW, just points on the wonder. Putting this ability on the unique wonder is a way to check off the "science from wonders, bonuses for unique terrain types" on the growing list of things for Exploration to do.

Keeping the science in check is a matter of balance, Vic. It's not going to be a problem just from the fact of science being increased if we're smart about it. The bonuses suggested are all situational, except the science penalty modifier.

Horseshoe_Hermi said:

+6 Great Person Points is a lot of GPPs. Is there some reason for that number? Why not 2 or 3 points? Or why not a (non-free) Great Scientist appears? (We could even make it so it's always Darwin).

Click to expand...

+2/3 is barely noticeable in the late game imho, moreover it will come from an exclusive exploration wonder.
while the Darwin GS idea is good, i like it

Here are my SP suggestions for turning "Exploration" into a real exploration/colonization tree.

- +2 happiness for each land mass where at least one city has been founded (not captured).
- Several hidden antiquities provide would reveal major archeological sites and give a larger bonus. The choice would be given between turning it into a natural wonder or provide a large culture/tourism bonus. Given that they are discovered much later and that they require a lot of unsuccessful digging, they would provide a bigger bonus as the standard natural wonders. It could include Omo Valley (+12 to science), Pompei (+6/+6 to culture/tourism), Burgess shales (+10 to science), Dead Sea scrolls (+12 to faith), ...

There are some good ideas here! This is turning into some rather productive brainstorming. Just to keep the process moving in a reasonably efficient manor, I thought it'd be worth putting in a little summary to keep track of the ideas so far:

Policies aiding expansion

• Cities start with extra Population or Territory
• Science and/or penalties for having a wide empire are reduced or eliminated
• All sea trade routes provide additional Food
• Border growth rate increases

Policies rewarding "exploration"

• Extra delagates are rewarded for discovering the world
• A Happiness boost for Natural Wonders
• Discovery of tiles produces Culture and/or Science
• A production boost for Archaeologists

Policies boosting Naval Units & Coastal Cities

• Increasing Gold of Sea Trade Routes
• Cheaper / improved Great Admirals
• Production boosts from coastal cities, Sea Tiles, Atolls, etc
• Increased Gold, Happiness, and/or Production from Lighthouses, Harbours and Seaports

I can edit this list later to make it easier to keep track of what's been brainstormed.

Personally I like the first two lists more than the last one. Whilst it would be mad to completely ignore the effects that Seafaring had on the world, much exploration & expansion happened without the use of a Navy (e.g. the Russians' massive expansion throughout Siberia; later exploration and colonisation of the "Dark Continent").

I also rather like EpsilonEridani's idea re: Hidden Antiquity Sites. I've been scratching my head for a while thinking of a mechanism to create/reveal new Natural Wonders but couldn't think of anything feasible. This mechanism definitely has some merits. However, I would ask - are you forced to make a new Landmark/Natural Wonder, or could you extract an Artefact as usual? The former might be more interesting, but it might also result in you giving Natural Wonders to other Civs!

Actually considering how many new SP ideas there are, I've made a first draft of the new Exploration Tree. This is (imho) the best of the ideas so far that covers all the bases we want it to:

• Adopting Exploration - All Naval Units have +1 Movement and +1 LOS. The range of Sea Trade Routes is greatly extended.*
• Cartography (1) - Civilisations gain +1 Delegate at the World Congress for each of A) Circumnavigating the Globe, B) Discovering all Coastal (as in land bordering sea) Tiles, C) Discovering every tile in the map
• Expeditions (2) - All newly founded cities start with +2 Population and 6 additional tiles
• Cultural Discovery (3) - Museums containing at least one Artefact belonging to another Civilisation** provide a +20% Science boost
• Seafaring (4) - Atolls provide +3 Production, and all Sea Tile provide +1 Production provided the City has a Seaport***
• Bountiful Lands (5) - Discovery of each Natural Wonders provides an additional +1 Happiness. An additional +2 Happiness for each Natural Wonder within your boarders; and an additional +1 Happiness for each Landmark within your boarders.
• Completing Exploration - Reveals Hidden Antiquity Sites. 25% reduction in Production cost of Spaceship Parts.

(1) and (2) can be taken once Exploration is adopted.
(3) requires (1)
(4) requires (2)
(5) requires (3) and (2)

*Extending Sea trade routes doesn't directly add Gold, but will nonetheless improve their worth
**Just artefacts? Or perhaps Art as well - or will that make it too easy?
***Probably plenty of policies of a similar scope that could be put in here.

As I say, this is just a first draft, as ultimately we have to cut down our list of ideas to our top 5 (or 7) candidates! There are a couple of policies I'd really have liked to have included (e.g. Great Admiral performing an expedition, or tiles giving +1 +1 when discovered), but they can't fit in!

What do you all think? Is there something else that should be substituted in for one of the existing choices? Any more new ideas for Policies? Is the balance between aiding Exploration and rewarding it good? Of course feel free if you think it's crap to change the whole thing!