(4-NS) Amphitheater Split (resubmission)

[pineappledan]

This is a re-proposal of this proposal that failed 2 congresses ago. It has some significant changes and updates, but is substantially similar.

Problem:
- Cultural victory is too strong. Increasing the production and gold cost of cultural buildings may help address this by raising the infrastructure cost of CV
- Historic events also contribute tourism for CVs. Deferring and Locking some of the HE triggers behind infrastructure could help slow CVs down more too
- Amphitheaters do a bit too much, and are boosted by too many different policies/wonders/beliefs.
- The constabulary is a poor and ill-suited base building for Siam's Wat

Solution:
Split the Writer bonuses from buildings into 2 buildings, like how Musician bonuses are split between the Opera House and Broadcast Tower.
There is also an approved (but not implemented) split for Great Artists/GWArt into Gallery and Museum. Splitting the GWriter guild and theming bonuses completes the set.
Remove the global Historic Event Triggers for Wonders and GP births on empire on the palace, and replace it with local HE triggers on this new building.

Proposal:


Archive (New Building)
Unlocked at Civil Service
350
3 maintenance
1
2 Great Work of Writing Slots (4/4; +3 if themed)
Building Wonders and Generating Great People in this city triggers a Historic Event

Palace:

Global Historic Events trigger for new wonders and Great People removed​

Amphitheater/Acropolis:

1 Great Work of Writing slot (down from 2)​

no theming bonus​

All other bonuses unchanged​

Wat (Siamese UB)

replaces Archive​

no espionage or distress reductions​

2 Great Work of Writing Slots (4/4; +3 if themed)​

Building Wonders and Generating Great People triggers a Historic Event​

Still unlocks at Theology (now 1 tech earlier than base building instead of 2)​

Bonuses to temples/shrines/jungle/forest unchanged​

Workshop
move Unlock to Machinery

Creative Expression (Freedom Tenet)
+4 to Archives, Museums, and Broadcast Towers on empire (total yields unchanged, but on 3 buildings instead of 4)
+2 to Great Works

 

[pineappledan]

I would like to note that we already have precedent for historic events tied to and deferred on buildings: Caravans and Harbours (and Arabia's Bazaar)

These buildings trigger a local historic event when a trade route from their city completes. They are the only examples of HE triggers on buildings that aren't the Palace right now.

The Palace would retain the HE triggers for entering a new era and winning a war.
There are also the policy-locked HE triggers for entering a Golden Age and completing an archaeological dig.

I should also note that this proposal would be a considerable nerf to Arabia in Particular.

 

[KlHannibal2]

I don't think amphitheraters are too strong. Esp. compared ro baths that come at the same tech level.

 

[pineappledan]

Amphitheater will lose its theming bonus and have 1 less GW slot, but is otherwise untouched. That’s a very small portion of the amphitheater’s loadout.

I never said amphitheaters were too strong, I said they do too much, ie. they are too polyvalent. We need a base building with 2 GWWriting slots just so we have enough slots to put them all, but it Doesn’t necessarily have to be the amphitheater that gives them. The main building my proposal nerfs is the palace.

I also said the amphitheater is piled on by too many different policies/wonders/beliefs. I believe it’s the single most-augmented building for empire bonuses. Splitting the amphitheater this way also let’s us spread out some of that bloat.

 

[zeofig]

This would have almost zero effect on CV, because you get most of the tourism a lot later than civil service. Why not nerf CV in a more direct way? Or otherwise change its conditions.

I personally like buildings that do more than one thing

In my opinion there are already too many buildings, and you end up building 95% of them in every city. Splitting a building into two where one is sometimes useless is annoying, because now I have to think "does this city need an archive?" every time I look at it. You can see this with lodges and caravansaries, which are nearly useless in a large proportion of cities. I often end up just building them so I can stop thinking about it. The fact that nearly every building (mostly excluding a handful of lategame expensive ones) gets built sooner or later is inherent to VP without massive changes. IMO it would be more interesting to lean into this fact and avoid introducing yet more buildings, and instead add more gameplay around processes or projects.

With all due respect PAD, I feel like some of these proposals are motivated by aesthetic concerns like symmetry rather than how people actually play the game and what increases fun vs tedium. Asymmetry and occasional redundancy IS fun and leads to interesting gameplay. I see buildings like the amphi, forge, arena etc. and think "Hmm that's cool", not "Hmm, I wish that was split into two less interesting buildings so I could spend more time clicking buildings to build"

 

[DeAnno]

I don't think we need another building in this period, and I don't think Amps need nerfing, but either way, if this building is to exist at all it needs to do more. As is, this building is bad. Unbuildably so, everywhere but the capital maybe, until an age later or maybe even more. Historic Events barely do anything at that point in the game, and 1s1c is absolutely pathetic returns for 350h and 3gpt. Getting the capital one for one a single extra writing pair and events in the capital might be worthwhile, though hammer poor civs probably delay it all the way until their 4th GWW. I guess you might build a couple more in like, Industrial or something, or perhaps even later.

Compare to Universities, a thoroughly mediocre buildiing that gives 3s, a scientist slot, jungle bonuses, and is a whole tier cheaper/earlier. It's like night and day.

 

[pineappledan]

It’s meant to be a niche building, like Hotel. It’s intended that if you don’t care about themes and HEs for a CV then you can skip this building.

The entire point is to raise the infrastructure / Burden of CV-focused games.

Other people have voiced frustration that there aren’t more niche buildings that allow you to specialize cities; that VP has too much of a “build everything everywhere” ethos. we can at least have some more niche tourism buildings, because tourism doesn’t spill into other benefits much.

 

[zeofig]

I think niche buildings that are desirable but limited in quantity (or other limitations) would be more interesting. Like national wonders and guilds. I enjoy thinking about where to build my NWs and guilds. I don't enjoy thinking about whether city X should build a hotel/caravan/lodge/herbalist/castle or just pump units/process. Buildings that I actually have to 'skip' are not fun because there's no way to hide them in the interface, and if they're skippable they are necessarily rather weak buildings. I end up making the same "decision" over and over again, and it's a rather trivial decision. I can accept it with things like airports which are late-game, expensive, and strategic, but piling up essentially trivial buildings is just annoying.

 

[spinx_911]

Zeofig hit it right on the money, and I agree with everything that was said in counter of this proposal.

 

[hokath]

I come down on the "I want more niche buildings" side of the debate. I would vote for this.

Also, did I miss it... why is the Workshop moved to a different tech?

 

[pineappledan]

Workshop is on the top of the tree right now and isn't in line with the other forest boosts like lumber mills.
Machinery lost a component with the consolidation of logging camps and lumber mills onto metal casting.
This proposal adds a building onto civil service, so Workshop is free to move down and cover the gap that opened on the bottom tree.

 

[KlHannibal2]

I think niche buildings that are desirable but limited in quantity (or other limitations) would be more interesting. Like national wonders and guilds. I enjoy thinking about where to build my NWs and guilds. I don't enjoy thinking about whether city X should build a hotel/caravan/lodge/herbalist/castle or just pump units/process. Buildings that I actually have to 'skip' are not fun because there's no way to hide them in the interface, and if they're skippable they are necessarily rather weak buildings. I end up making the same "decision" over and over again, and it's a rather trivial decision. I can accept it with things like airports which are late-game, expensive, and strategic, but piling up essentially trivial buildings is just annoying.

I fully agree. I even preferred the old herbalist, before the lodge was introduced. It was still situational, but had more applications than after the split.

 

[Slyceth]

I believe culture victory requires a complete overhaul.
Adding that extra step of the eye-pyramid structure only delays the victory by a few turns, but doesn't do anything to allow other players to interrupt it.
With space ship parts, unless you take the slow route of building all parts in your capital, you are vulnerable moving the pieces to your capital, this is so cool and clutch especially on archipelago maps where you have to occupy all tiles around the ship protecting your part, and move in a formation to carry the piece to victory.

Proposal: Add a way to "destroy' accumulated tourism somehow, at the cost of diplomatic hate.
Basically, as long as you're not sanctioned, you can feel free to commit negative diplomatic actions, like proposing world congress proposal that everyone hates, attacking a civ everyone is friends with, or simply denouncing your friends.
This makes sense because why would tourists want to visit a country that commits war crimes and has a very poor world standing?
The counter to this would be sealing the civ off by having the culture victory contender either reaching a certain science (internet perhaps, which would allow the citizens to "tourist" without visiting physically), or by sanctioning, or by having them lose their capital.

All three require more steps to deal with troublesome excluded civs, and all three are severely detrimental to being in danger of being attacked.

 

[Little Billy]

Amphitheaters do a bit too much, and are boosted by too many different policies/wonders/beliefs.

All that is removed from the amphitheater is the theming bonus and a writing slot. What "too many boosts" are you aiming to target here?

I will echo DeAnno here in that I'm also not sure why I would build the archive anywhere until at least industrial. Even if I'm going for CV, this wont be needed for a long time, and when I do build it, it will delay me by what? 3 turns in the capital where it matters? That doesn't seem like much of a nerf

Workshop is on the top of the tree right now and isn't in line with the other forest boosts like lumber mills.
Machinery lost a component with the consolidation of logging camps and lumber mills onto metal casting.
This proposal adds a building onto civil service, so Workshop is free to move down and cover the gap that opened on the bottom tree.

I really don't see how this makes the workshop change at all related to the discussion of either CV or amphitheaters. Imo these are two completely separate issues that need to be discussed independently and including them in the same proposal without mentioning workshops in the title is misleading.

 

[pineappledan]

Like I said, the point is to increase the number of buildings needed for the full compliment of CV buildings in a way that doesn’t impede or tie bonuses down for other victory paths. You are all correct that this won’t really slow a CV player down, but it will add Infrastructure costs that other players don’t need to worry about. That makes the CV more brittle, because it sinks those yields into narrowly focused GW buildings instead of other buildings with more flexible uses or units to defend itself.

Combined with the proposal to greatly reduce late game tourism modifiers, these proposals are less geared towards making CV slower and more aimed at making it riskier

If I have some time today I will repost the proposed change for museum’s split, and show the whole scope of the changes together. Maybe that would give a better sense of it.

 

[pineappledan]

I really don't see how this makes the workshop change at all related to the discussion of either CV or amphitheaters. Imo these are two completely separate issues that need to be discussed independently and including them in the same proposal without mentioning workshops in the title is misleading.

Disagree. Moving the workshop only makes sense in the context of another thing being added to civil service in its stead. Neither change makes sense in a vacuum.

 

[Little Billy]

Disagree. Moving the workshop only makes sense in the context of another thing being added to civil service in its stead. Neither change makes sense in a vacuum.

I suppose, but this would assume that the archive is worth about the same as the workshop, which I don't think it comes close to doing. So much so that I don't actually consider this proposal to actually add a new building. It just nerfs the amphitheater and palace slightly

Combined with the proposal to greatly reduce late game tourism modifiers, these proposals are less geared towards making CV slower and more aimed at making it riskier

Aren't most of the complaints about CV that it is too fast? Tall CV especially is already relatively risky and I don't see this affecting the risk level enough to make a difference.

 

[der_weihnachtsmann]

maybe the dissatisfaction with many useless buildings is more focused on the early buildings, because their costs is so low that the decision to build it doesnt change anything lategame. they also fill the very full buildings list even more. so maybe its a better idea to make situational buildings more a lategame thing with costs that have a meaningfull decision.

i also like the guilds or national wonder mechanic a lot because you dont have to repeat the decision making process for every single city. or additionally the buildings which exclude each other like the energy builds (solar pannels). these are all very meaningful decisions.

 

[Anarcomu]

Does anyone believe that having to choose between buildings could be a solution ? In the enlightenment mod (AFAIK), there is two mutually-exclusive buildings. Maybe we could extend on it ?

 

[axatin]

In my opinion this proposal goes in the right direction to address the issue that the players currently don't have to sacrifice much to gain tourism, which makes CV too easy as an alternative option for players who originally went for another victory condition. I would go further and give the Archive also the +1 Tourism for every 4 Citizens bonus from the Arena.

But it's true that adding more buildings can only be a small step to solving the issue, as it will still be easily possible to build every building in a city. Reducing some of the late-game tourism sources and instead adding a tourism process at some point around modern/atomic era would be better. That would make gaining enough tourism for a CV something you have to invest in, not something you get for free anyway. (wasn't there a proposal some time ago to unlock a tourism process in one of the order policies? what happened with it, did it fail?)

Does anyone believe that having to choose between buildings could be a solution ? In the enlightenment mod (AFAIK), there is two mutually-exclusive buildings. Maybe we could extend on it ?

This is also an interesting idea. having to choose between tourism and science, for example