Exploration Policy Discussion

[Eagle Pursuit]

i don't see any "blithe" or "stumbling" or "bumbling" in the image. i think people are placing some preconceived notions of british people or explorers or something on the image.

i see a guy pushing through some plants to a clearing, probably containing something impressive. it's the culmination of hundreds of years of naval exploration dominance that led to ability of explorers to discover these regions.

i don't see how it's any more immersion breaking than the other images. of course different people could see different things. but maybe the issue is just that the image is new. or maybe it's just personal associations, which the game obviously can't consider (without allowing custom images, which i guess is what mods are for).

Don't be silly. Of course he's stumbling. He's British. Moments before, he was involuntarily sitting on an anthill. Once you pull the camera out, it's all dignity and stiff upper lips.

 

[mistermoo33]

From the "What We Know" thread:

Exploration Social Policy Tree

- 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.
- 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.

I feel like "Exploration" doesn't really describe this policy tree at all. Having seen the reworked commerce tree I was hopeful they were doing away with a dedicated naval policy tree but exploration is just that.

I guess my questions are: Are you pleased with the direction of the exploration tree? and, What would you change if not?

Frankly I don't like it. Depending on how strong it ends up being I see only a few paths it can take:

1. It's very strong, and a total no-brainer if you're coastal.
2. It's moderately strong and offers a choice between it and other trees, but you'll not use it at all if you're not coastal.
3. It's on the weaker side and is only ever worth using on water-heavy maps.

Basically I feel like this tree is just too situational compared to all the other trees and should be reworked into something that's more generally applicable and not so map-dependent. Exploration as an in-game action that you do to discover new civs, new strategic resources and new city states is something that's in your control whereas the current tree is basically just Carthage: The Social Policy.

Thoughts?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

We have a thread for this already:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=496441

Moderator Action: Threads merged.

 

[Ryoga]

My thoughts is that I stopped connecting words and effects in social policies since vanilla.

The way I see it is that they split commerce in "naval commerce" and "land commerce" which isn't bad in itself. Obviously you'll take the first in sea based maps and the second in land based maps, the other non specific perks aren't that great so I wouldn't bother with them unless you really wanted the wonders at all costs.

That's just that.

 

[EricTheGreat12]

We have a thread for this already:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=496441

But it hasn't been used in a while has it ?

 

[Calouste]

There are 9 policy trees in BNW, not counting the ideologies, and you can at most fill in 4 or 5 of them, so it's not an issue that some of them are situational. And if you're coastal, Exploration is a no-brainer.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

But it hasn't been used in a while has it ?

That's not a free pass to make a redundant thread. The search function isn't that hard to use.

 

[Veneke]

That's not a free pass to make a redundant thread. The search function isn't that hard to use.

Actually, in normal circumstances it is - generally speaking you're not meant to dig up old threads. That said, CFC seems to be much lenient on gravedigging - there was a thread somewhere else dug up with a five character post from 6 months back I think? Anyway, that's all rather beside the point as the problem here was that this thread (the one Eric's got merged into) had only been idle a week.


@topic: Exploration is looking like what half of the old Commerce was always meant to be - the perfect SP for water-heavy maps.

That said, I'm still wondering why they've linked the hidden dig sites to it and why they've called it Exploration - when really the tree has almost nothing to do with the exploration mechanics (apart from the finisher and the opener). Perhaps water-heavy maps have a smaller selection of dig sites and so the hidden ones are relatively more important? Even if true it still looks odd. I can't help but think that the hidden dig sites should be in the cultural social policy tree (Aesthetics).

 

[askia53]

From the "What We Know" thread:

Spoiler :

Exploration Social Policy Tree

- 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.
- 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.

I feel like "Exploration" doesn't really describe this policy tree at all. Having seen the reworked commerce tree I was hopeful they were doing away with a dedicated naval policy tree but exploration is just that.

I guess my questions are: Are you pleased with the direction of the exploration tree? and, What would you change if not?

Frankly I don't like it. Depending on how strong it ends up being I see only a few paths it can take:

1. It's very strong, and a total no-brainer if you're coastal.
2. It's moderately strong and offers a choice between it and other trees, but you'll not use it at all if you're not coastal.
3. It's on the weaker side and is only ever worth using on water-heavy maps.

Basically I feel like this tree is just too situational compared to all the other trees and should be reworked into something that's more generally applicable and not so map-dependent. Exploration as an in-game action that you do to discover new civs, new strategic resources and new city states is something that's in your control whereas the current tree is basically just Carthage: The Social Policy.

Thoughts?

I think it's an pretty good tree, I like some benefits a lot and dislike others. With a few changes, it can be awesome.

Here are my ideas:
-Opener: +1 movement and sight for all naval units. This is good as is.

-Maritime Culture (changed Maritime Infrastructure) +3 production in coastal cities, +5 XP for naval units, Naval units fighting at least 2 tiles away from the nearest coastal tile get +10% strength (applies to melee and ranged)
What I did here is added some bonuses to the actual power of naval units, and renamed to encompass (see what I did there?) all of these bonuses

-Surveying: (replaced Merchant Navy) Land units ignore terrain cost and have the survivalism promotion when they are on landmasses you do not have a city on.
Here you get a benefit to land exploration.

-Treasure Fleet: +4 gold from all of your sea trade routes. Fine as is.

-Colonial Riches (replaced naval tradition) Each new type of luxury you acquire on new landmasses not found on the continent with your capital gives +2 happiness, and +3 gold.
This is situational depending on how many types of luxuries are found on your starting landmass, and it encourages you to make cities on other continents and to have resource diversity in these cities.

-Advanced Colonialism (replaced Navigation school) All cities founded on landmasses that do not contain your capital start with a free monument, walls, and granary. They also get a +15% bonus (stacks) to the production of buildings. However, these cities produce 7 unhappiness when founded. This effect decreases by 1 unhappiness every 10 turns until it rests at 3.
This policy also encourages colonizing, but gives a penalty to prevent being too OP.

-Finisher: Shows hidden antiquity sites, can purchase great admirals with faith in the industrial era.
Good as is.

So, the tree has:
3 Maritime Policies
2 colonialism Policies
2 land exploration Policies (surveying and the finisher)

My ideas would make exploration really unique and diverse, so anyone wanting to expand across oceans or looking for naval power would definitely pick it. It might even be a little OP, maybe.

Give me your feedback!

 

[MadMage86]

My gripe about it is that it seems to be exclusively naval; it's entirely pointless in a Pangaea map, which is what I most often play [quick multiplayer games].

Granted, after I made a modified script for Pangaea that forces all starts on the ocean this might be more useful, but still only marginally as 'sea exploration' isn't really a requirement. I tend to ignore water altogether until late game simply because landmasses that aren't near me aren't of much consequence beyond meeting the inhabitants. *shrug*

 

[Inhalaattori]

I really cant understand why they didnt give old Commerce picture to Exploration and then make new one for Commerce. Now Commerce picture does not make any sense. Picture of a ship for a policy tree that does not have anything to do with ships. I guess they could make picture of caravan for the new Commerce.

Small things like this are irritating. So easy to fix.

 

[kaspergm]

I really cant understand why they didnt give old Commerce picture to Exploration and then make new one for Commerce. Now Commerce picture does not make any sense. Picture of a ship for a policy tree that does not have anything to do with ships. I guess they could make picture of caravan for the new Commerce.

Small things like this are irritating. So easy to fix.

Agreed, if they had taken the ship picture to Explore and made another picture for Commerce, I would have less of an objection to the tree as it is - well, it would still be one of the worse trees in terms of what it offers, but at least it thematically would seem consistent. The picture of the "explorer" on the tree, along with the current name, is completely false advertising in terms of what the tree provides.

This seems like a suitable target for a mod. Perhaps something like this as background for new Commerce?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Given that the Current Exploration picture is the same as the "European" one from Africa scenario, they could probably use the "North African" (camels in the desert) one for Commerce

 

[kaspergm]

Good thinking, do you by chance have a link to a shot of this?

EDIT > Nevermind, found it, it's in the video around the 46 minute mark. Btw. Europe has Exploration, not Commerce.

 

[gunnergoz]

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

Because the explorers had to get to the newly discovered continents and islands by sea?

I agree that it is maritime focused and could probably be better named. A real "exploration" focus would, IMO, give perks for explorer units and for making discoveries first. But it might be OP for civs like Portugal and Spain...which would be sort of historical but perhaps a bit too much for the game world.

 

[mistermoo33]

Because the explorers had to get to the newly discovered continents and islands by sea?

I agree that it is maritime focused and could probably be better named. A real "exploration" focus would, IMO, give perks for explorer units and for making discoveries first. But it might be OP for civs like Portugal and Spain...which would be sort of historical but perhaps a bit too much for the game world.

If the current tree isn't OP for carthage I don't see how a true exploration-focused tree would be OP for Spain, especially considering Spain is pretty mediocre to begin with.

 

[damnyankees]

I think the big problem in terms of excitement is that while historically speaking, naval exploration was more important and world-changing than land exploration, in gameplay terms, naval exploration is far more boring and less consequential. Land exploration happens early in the game, you can find city states, you can get ruins, and you scout where you want to expand into. Naval exploration happens later in the game when you already know the layout of the world, ships can't pop ruins, and you've probably found every civilization and city-state (or at least most of them) by that time unless you're playing a continents or terra map.

The reality is that in Civ V, water-based units aren't for exploration. They are for war. Trying to build a system of exploration around a game mechanic not designed for it doesn't really work, at least based on this SP tree. So what you have is a tree that's not really about exploration, it's just about buffing naval games in uninteresting ways, making cities and units generically stronger and richer, but not inventively.

 

[kaspergm]

I think the big problem in terms of excitement is that while historically speaking, naval exploration was more important and world-changing than land exploration, in gameplay terms, naval exploration is far more boring and less consequential. Land exploration happens early in the game, you can find city states, you can get ruins, and you scout where you want to expand into. Naval exploration happens later in the game when you already know the layout of the world, ships can't pop ruins, and you've probably found every civilization and city-state (or at least most of them) by that time unless you're playing a continents or terra map.

The reality is that in Civ V, water-based units aren't for exploration. They are for war. Trying to build a system of exploration around a game mechanic not designed for it doesn't really work, at least based on this SP tree. So what you have is a tree that's not really about exploration, it's just about buffing naval games in uninteresting ways, making cities and units generically stronger and richer, but not inventively.

Wow, that was a really well-written post!

 

[Securion]

I think the big problem in terms of excitement is that while historically speaking, naval exploration was more important and world-changing than land exploration, in gameplay terms, naval exploration is far more boring and less consequential. Land exploration happens early in the game, you can find city states, you can get ruins, and you scout where you want to expand into. Naval exploration happens later in the game when you already know the layout of the world, ships can't pop ruins, and you've probably found every civilization and city-state (or at least most of them) by that time unless you're playing a continents or terra map.

The reality is that in Civ V, water-based units aren't for exploration. They are for war. Trying to build a system of exploration around a game mechanic not designed for it doesn't really work, at least based on this SP tree. So what you have is a tree that's not really about exploration, it's just about buffing naval games in uninteresting ways, making cities and units generically stronger and richer, but not inventively.

Nicely written, and I agree 100%.

 

[damnyankees]

Here's an idea that I think would both make exploration more fun and provide for more opportunities for creativity.

No more rule that you can't explore ocean tiles until astronomy. Rather, you can go onto ocean tiles, but every time you pass through an ocean tile (not each turn, but each tile), you take X amount of damage, similar to how Carthage ends on mountains. And it would be a fixed amount of damage, meaning that as you increase in technology and your boats get stronger, they take the same amount of damage, but have a higher strength so they can withstand more.

This makes things much more interesting, IMO, and makes naval exploration actually much more fun. You now can take your boats to the edge of the coast and venture into the ocean, not knowing how many turns it will take for them to find new lands and end the damage. If you head off the coast of portugal thinking its only 5 tiles to the New World, and you're right, you will get there early. If not, you'll die, and you'll need to improve your ships capabilities until they can make the voyage.

This system would also allow more SP experimentation in the exploration tree. Maybe a policy which cuts down on the damage taken per tile. Maybe a policy for increasing the sight specifically in oceans. Great admirals would have special skills relating to crossing ocean tiles. Maybe a policy unlocking a unique unit, a scoutship, which has double movement in ocean tiles. I don't know, just spitballing.

This system would also play into the trade routes system. It seems insane to me that there's no overlap between exploration and trade routes, since the whole reason Europeans embarked on exploration was to open up trade routes. Maybe there should be a rule that trade units can't cross ocean tiles at all until either technology X or you pick the right social policy (and the SP would come long before the required tech, making it really worth it). This would basically make inter-contintental trade routes impossible unless you were an exploring nation, which is both historically correct and adds a big boost to the gameplay aspect of exploration.

This actually ties into a much more basic idea I have that all units should always take damage when outside friendly territory. Period. And that amount of damage should be proportional to the number of tiles that unit is from a friendly tile (calculated in the shortest possible line), which would represent supply lines. This basic idea would make exploration much more useful as a social policy, but also really make the world 'smaller' until later in the game, as it should be. I shouldn't have good knowledge of the world until the 17th century.

Sounds more fun.