- Does the Stonehenge needs a number of policies unlocked? By the time you get 2 policies, it's likely you already got your pantheon up.
Stonehenge is slightly problematic in the new system, as its effect is so focused around the first few turns. The policy requirement also prevents the free council from being useful (councils are too important to wait until you have 2 policies).
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Generally, the very early game science still needs fine-tuning IMHO.
While doing some research, I found that gaining science might dominate our early tech choices too much, mostly through the absence of other immediately important things to unlock (paradoxically, establishing a science source during the first few turns is less important than it seems!).
Here are the details:
Current early sources (TC = tech column):
- [TC 0]3 free science from palace
- [TC 1]1 science from council (plus some minor instant science)
- [TC 1]10% food to science conversion from granary
- [TC 2]10% gold to science conversion from market
- [TC 3]10% production to science conversion from forge
- [TC 3]2 science from library (plus scientist slot)
- [TC 5]3 science from university (plus scientist slot, plus science from forest/jungle)
- [TC 5]10% culture to science conversion from garden
Tech cost per column:
- [TC 1] 29
- [TC 2] 64
- [TC 3] 134
- [TC 4] 234
- [TC 5] 292
- [TC 6] 525
As we can see, the free science from the palace will take you through the first (and maybe second) column techs at reasonable speeds. From column 3 upwards it becomes negligible however. I first underestimated this, thinking that we need to establish science just as fast as culture or faith. But contrary to those two yields you'll have a solid influx of science even when not immediately focusing on it (for comparison, palace has only one free culture and zero faith).
Of course, even if we may ignore science for a few turns, we'll need to improve it very soon to stay competitive.
If we compare the first few techs for immediately useful/desirable unlocks, this is the current situation:
- To get the immensely important early faith (pantheons!) and culture (tile acquisition!) we don't need any tech - shrines and monuments are already unlocked.
- Unlocking military units isn't a priority while the first few techs are researched. During the first few dozen turns you don't have settlers or workers needing escort, no improvements to be protected from pillage and the AI won't usually rush you.
- Unveiling ressources is often a lottery - you might not benefit at all from techs like animal husbandry.
--> If your start doesn't have resource tiles worthy of an immediate unlock, getting science or rushing a settler (or stonehenge once its policy requirement is fixed) is what will drive your first tech choice.
This leads us to an situation where the wheel and pottery are logical first techs far ahead of the others.
Getting science is the (overly) dominant issue of the first few turns, reducing choice.
This doesn't change anytime soon:
- There is no culture or faith building to be unlocked during the first 3 tech columns (except wonders and the situational arena).
- The library provides so much of the essential science that other sources can't compete, forcing you to beeline it
I guess a first attempt in fixing this would be allowing to build the Council immediately.
This would take away some pressure to rush tech-boosters when picking your first technologies.
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There is another significant problem:
The 3 previously most useful buildings to improve the 3 primary yields
c5food:
) have been changed into science buildings with an situational side-effect on those yields! This is somewhat confusing and hard to get used to given the previous role of these buildings.
Granaries only significantly improve food if the right resources are nearby. Forges are also dependent on ore tiles or running a specialist, the more generally useful mine yield bonus has moved to barracks. Markets have a similar problem, the per-pop gold is gone for good while the merchant slot went to caravansaries (IIRC).
This leaves us with a lot of situational multi-role buildings which are to understand and use, and also with several buildings that have a much different role than their name suggests and what we associated them with before.
- Barracks is for experience and (situationally) production
- Granary is for science and (situationally) food
- Market is for science and (situationally) gold
- Forge is for science and (situationally) production
- ...
(BTW, I actually really like the garden change for some reason!)
I'm not quite sure how to improve all this yet, but I'll try to post some suggestions soon.
