The two new policy trees

[fuzzatron717]

There is indeed two new policy tree according to ed beach Exploration and Aesthices what do you think there policys are based upon? What bonuses are they going to provide we will find that out in time.

This link below is a shortcut to the actual link because couldn't get the actual for some reason.


http://www.civilized.de/www/content/index.php?cat=reports_civ5_bnw_ed_01_en

Edit: never mind it is the actual link after checking it.

 

[kaspergm]

YES! YES YES YES YES YES!

This will hopefully mean a split of Religion (Piety) from Culture (Aesthetics), something I've been screaming for for a long while! I'll also guess that Exploration will consist of some of the current Commerce policies, which will be great because Commerce currently doesn't really have a lot of actual commerce-oriented stuff - so new Commerce will probably buff trade routes and stuff!

So basically, I expect we'll see:

PIETY: Left side of current Piety tree (Opener, Organized Religion, Theocracy, Closer) + new policies.

AESTHETICS: Right side of current Piety tree (Mandate of Heaven, Reformation, Free Religion).

COMMERCE: Right side of current Commerce tree (Opener, Trade Unions, Mercantilism, Protectionism, Closer) + something related to trade routes.

EXPLORATION: Left side of current Commerce tree (Naval Tradition, Merchant Navy) + something related to Archeaology/Tourism probably.

 

[Loucypher]

I think an Exploration policy tree will take the two left policies from Commerce (the one with the great admiral and the +3 production in coastal cities one) and add a few more tricks there, both for land and sea exploration. I'd wager one that gives recon units more sight and maybe even more movement would be a shoe-in.
At the same time, the Commerce tree will likely have a few policies replacing them that will deal with the new Trade Routes.

 

[Gucumatz]

So seems like a fixing of Piety/fleshing out of a religion tree and a rework of commerce and removal of the left side of the tree (probably to go into exploration)

 

[Bad Wolf]

I do hope this means you get to pick more social policies. Between adding two new trees and expanding Freedom/Autocracy/Order, that's a lot of policies to choose from!

 

[Haig]

Got to say that (lead designer) Ed Beach is THE man, I think a perfect choice for the lead designer of Gods & Kings and Brave New World.. hope he gets to make the 3rd expansion too.

Good fresh ideas combined with big historical knowledge and probably the experience of board game designing doesn't hurt either!

 

[Inhalaattori]

These are definitely good changes. Piety and commerce had in a way two different trees in them so this is logical. Its also interesting to see if exploration will be one of the trees that you can open early in the game. I would think so, but its also possible that it refers more to the Age of exploration so ti would open later.

 

[jacktannery]

YES! YES YES YES YES YES!

This will hopefully mean a split of Religion (Piety) from Culture (Aesthetics), something I've been screaming for for a long while!

This has an important implication: the new expansion will either require Gods & Kings, or else include Gods and Kings, since it is not possible to remove culture from the piety tree without the G&K religion system.

 

[Ikael]

Awww yeah, great news

Looking for the interview, it seems that ideologies open up extra additional social policies for each tree depending on your ideology. For example:

Piety tree
Regular SPs: Ye old ones
Liberty SP: Religious freedom
Order SP: Religious hierarchy
Autocracy SP: Holy war

 

[Babri]

With the addition of Exploration tree, I hope that there will be addition of some explorer units to which scouts can upgrade to. Conquistador replacing a renaissance explorer unit would make much more sense.

Also explorer tree could provide increased boosts received when discovering national wonders, CS, also it could have options such as improving military capabilities of explorers & perhaps making them better against barbarians etc. Perhaps the barb boosts of honour could be shifted to exploration, as the biggest threat to exploration is generally barbarians.

 

[bite]

I would assume the exploration tree would also buff archeologists

 

[Matthew.]

No doubt Commerce will be changed to cater to trade routes. I suspect the left side of the tree may be moved to exploration.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I am sceptical about exploration. We still don't know nothing about it, but the name just suggests to me that it will be most useful in the early game and won't be able to really compete with Tradition or Liberty, or that it will buff archaeologists which will make it a bit redundand since Aesthetics willl likely be the go to tree for culture victories. I think it will need some cold, hard, economic benefits like increased yields from natural wonders or extreme terrain (tundra, deserts, jungles ?) to make it viable.

Then again you'll have much more freedom in your poicy choices if you're going for a cultural victory than before now that it's divorced from policies. You won't need to adopt rather useless policies just to complete a tree.

 

[Pizzaspy]

I am sceptical about exploration. We still don't know nothing about it, but the name just suggests to me that it will be most useful in the early game and won't be able to really compete with Tradition or Liberty, or that it will buff archaeologists which will make it a bit redundand since Aesthetics willl likely be the go to tree for culture victories. I think it will need some cold, hard, economic benefits like increased yields from natural wonders or extreme terrain (tundra, deserts, jungles ?) to make it viable.

Then again you'll have much more freedom in your poicy choices if you're going for a cultural victory than before now that it's divorced from policies. You won't need to adopt rather useless policies just to complete a tree.

Don't forget archeology!

 

[anandus]

Awww yeah, great news

Looking for the interview, it seems that ideologies open up extra additional social policies for each tree depending on your ideology

The ideologies don't have social policies, but 'ideological tenets', and there are 3 tiers of tenets.

So I guess we end up with one policy tree less than we have now, but we have the ideologies as well next to social policies.

 

[fuzzatron717]

I wonder if the tenets of ideologies will be similar to social policies.

 

[anandus]

I wonder if the tenets of ideologies will be similar to social policies.

Yes, but less rigid:

Ideologies are a little bit different but they are more free-form than the social policy trees that are in the game right now, where there are five different choices, and the way they branch is all kind of hard-wired into them. With the ideology system, we just have level one, level two and level three social policies, we actually call them ideological tenets, and you can mix and match those and configure them. You can’t get a level three tenet until you have a certain number of pre-requisite level one and level two tenets, but you can kind of build up your own ideology.

 

[Ikael]

The ideologies don't have social policies, but 'ideological tenets', and there are 3 tiers of tenets.

So I guess we end up with one policy tree less than we have now, but we have the ideologies as well next to social policies.

I am re-reading the article, and you are right. The system still sounds mightily confusing, I would need to see an in depth look at it in order to have some kind of accurate potrayal.

 

[Calouste]

The Exploration tree probably means that exploration is going to be harder (I was never a fan of being able to contact all other civs in the BCs), other wise it would be fairly useless on a Pangea. So my guesses are that:
1) You can't build Scouts any more. The ability to build Scouts is now granted by opening the Exploration tree. (And you maybe get a free Scout as well, depending on balancing.)
2) The happiness granted for the discovery of Natural Wonders will now only be granted by a policy in the exploration tree.
3) Goody huts will give lower yields and/or are less visible (for example, you will only see them if your unit is in an adjacent tile) unless you adapt a certain Exploration policy.
4) The +1 Sight/Movement for Naval + Free Admiral that is now in Commerce will be the closer for the Exploration tree.

Obvious civs to adapt this tree: Arabia, Polynesia, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal (if they're in)

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think the Exploration tree is probably going to be a renaissance era tree and it probably means that there are new scout-line units like the Explorer later in the game.