What if Liberty Removed the Science Penalty?

[bcaiko]

Hey folks -

So, most of us agree that the game's scales have tilted a bit too much in favor of small empires. Tradition now towers over Liberty as the thoughtless choice in most games. My, how the game has changed since Vanilla.

Liberty suffers on several fronts: the penalties for founding cities are harsher than Liberty overcomes; Liberty provides for no ability to faith-purchase a great person, making the finisher underwhelming; the Pyramids is a duplicative and unnecessary wonder for Liberty; ect.

I realized the other day that one answer may be to have the finisher eradicate the science penalty for additional cities. It would keep the pain of going wide in the early game, stifling unnecessary city spam, but players committed to a wide strategy would ultimately see a pay-off by actually finishing Liberty.

What are your thoughts?

 

[PhilBowles]

Bad idea - BNW did get the balance wrong, but they might as well remove the science penalty altogether if they're just going to add it and then allow it to be removed by the only policy tree aimed at supporting wide empires. It would introduce a novel balance problem: wide empires would have no choice but to go Liberty to be optimal, just as Tradition is currently forced on tall empires.

The problem lies not with the penalty, but with the way the Library works. With the culture penalty, a wide empire gets an immediate compensation - more cities = more culture buildings = more culture to offset the penalty. Happiness works the same way.

But science doesn't until you hit Education. Libraries give no base science at all, only an amount based on population - while wide empires will ultimately have more population than tall ones, the payoff takes a while to be apparent due to the production cost of all those extra libraries and the food cost of building extra settlers. By the time it does kick off, both the science penalty and the cost of new techs have become large enough that population alone won't offset it - you need the extra science from specialist buildings and % modifiers.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Perhaps if they Reduced it rather than eliminated it (like the culture penalty) then it might work.

 

[Mudrac]

No I don't think that is the thing. For me the thing is that Science buildings need a buff, not all of them, but some of them, especially Library which needs a buff, perhaps very small, but still needed buff.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Maybe one of the later liberty policies should reduce the penalty, but certainly not remove it.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Liberty is fine as it is and don't need to be stronger then it is now.
Removing the science penalaty would make it way way to strong.

 

[reddishrecue]

If the science penalty could be removed to balance out liberty then it could be done through the pyramids since most people agree that the extra worker, citizenship and the worker speed increase from the pyramids is already an excess. So if the pyramids could remove the extra worker and keep the worker speed increase or remove the worker speed increase and provide an additional worker, then you could add a science booster with the pyramids such as a -33% research cost increase when founding a new city.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I think it's closer to a great idea than horribly misguided. Maybe halve the penalty. As it is, even if I open with Liberty I generally prefer ducking back into Tradition instead of finishing the Liberty tree. Monarchy is just too good. With this change ...

 

[ilikepie333]

This idea could be the thing that tips Liberty into being a competitive policy tree (along with Tradition).

 

[njmfff]

Nope, no need for that for the sake of balance.

but what I would love to see is old policy order "Collective rule" first, then "Republic". I mean, if I want to go Liberty, that means expending fast. Currently, I have to spend culture on Liberty Opening, then one policy that I really don't need that much at the start of the game, and finally "Collective Rule" which would be around turn 30-40 if you have no luck with runes.

Now that is way too slow for fast expansion... Then again, why should I pick Republic when I can pick much more useful Citizenship? Not only it will improve titles faster, but I will also get free worker - saves built time for it (about 10 turns) which I could use to train another settler for fast expansion.

or at least change some order to it, like Citizenship->Collective Rule, and Republic being req. for other two policies in Liberty. It makes much more sense, and it makes Liberty really worth picking up.

Currently, Liberty is only good for picking up free Great Person. Otherwise, Tradition is much more powerful and I prefer it over Liberty even if I play Wide. In a long run, Tradition is much more powerful. (Bigger cities-> more culture, more specialist, more science)

also Monarchy > Meritocracy .

 

[kaspergm]

Removing the science penalty with Liberty is not the way to go. The science penalty is there to control large empires, so removing it with Liberty would be contraindicated. Imo. the problem is not with the science penalty itself (while I might reduce that a bit) but with two other things as others have also mentioned:

1) Tradition gets too much of a happiness and gold bonus compared to Liberty. The gold bonus in tradition is a relic from old times and should be scaled down, and the happiness bonus in Liberty is less than that of Tradition which in itself doesn't make sense. So definitely a balance tweak needed there.

2) National College provides too big of a bonus. +50 % science in [your capital] is a massive, and going for a very early expansion can easily put NC off by a long time. The accumulated science you miss from this plus the snowball effect that has from putting you behind the others in the science race will have massive impact on the game. So National College should only be +25 % science (the remaining +25 % being moved to Oxford University), as this will mean an indirect nerf for tall empires and as such a boost for wide empires.

I do agree with what others mentioned above, one might also add a small flat science bonus to the Library. The Library is as now a significantly better investment for tall empires than wide empires, and again, we have a negative feedback circle going for wide empires here, because you will have worse economy which means building many libraries with little payback is a bad investment which again holds back national college.

If one wanted, the flat science from Libraries could even be a part of Liberty, i.e. for instance related to Meritocracy: +1 science from library when city has a connection. If one also has Meritocracy reduce the maintenance cost of roads, one will start having a very nice synergy going in the Liberty effects, because the free worker(s) will be faster in building roads, the reduced road maintenance will help you economy, and having your cities connected will give you additional happiness [ans science] from Meritocracy. This would definitely go a good way in making Liberty more competitive with Tradition in the early game.

 

[sendos]

I voted no but I support this kind of addition to liberty. Instead of removing it, it should reduce the penalty itself, otherwise liberty becomes best SP tree again.

 

[reddishrecue]

The -33% science increase per new city would be useful because the extra worker in liberty with the pyramids make the workers so fast that roads are built in 1 turn. Roads are usually built in 2-3 turns which usually causes idle, sleeping workers.

 

[Mudrac]

Maybe, Liberty Finisher: every trade route with another civ provides +2 additional science until the discovery of Education.

 

[direblade99]

I think they should upgrade meritocracy to give + 1 (maybe 2) science per city connected via road as well as the happiness bonuses.

 

[Furret]

Or what if we replaced the Rationalism policy (+1 for science buildings) or whatever it is with: " Science penalty per city halved". Obviously whether you halve it, quarter it, or remove it entirely is it's own balance issue, but that number is arbitrary. That, and they should move faith buying great engineers to liberty, where you're less likely to have a 30 , 150 city as a capital during the crucial mid-game wonders.

 

[njmfff]

If one wanted, the flat science from Libraries could even be a part of Liberty, i.e. for instance related to Meritocracy: +1 science from library when city has a connection. If one also has Meritocracy reduce the maintenance cost of roads, one will start having a very nice synergy going in the Liberty effects, because the free worker(s) will be faster in building roads, the reduced road maintenance will help you economy, and having your cities connected will give you additional happiness [ans science] from Meritocracy. This would definitely go a good way in making Liberty more competitive with Tradition in the early game.

Well, you can have that in theory, with Messenger of the Gods pantheon, +2 Sc per city connection. Of course, that will mean you'll probably miss on some good faith pantheons.

Also, +2 Happiness per lux could be moved to Liberty, or include it as permanent perk for completing Liberty. Yeah, free GP is nice, but it's one shot thing, while you definitively feel the power of other complete policies, especially ones like Patronage... and even Tradition, +15% city growth to a tree that already gives enough food?

 

[PhilBowles]

Well, you can have that in theory, with Messenger of the Gods pantheon, +2 Sc per city connection. Of course, that will mean you'll probably miss on some good faith pantheons.

I've pretty much stopped using Messenger of the Gods. It's not well-timed, and you have to be focusing on religion in order to use it, since otherwise you run the risk of losing your pantheon to foreign religion at much the same time as it will start to be useful.

And if you want religion, as you point out the faith pantheons tend to be better.

Also, +2 Happiness per lux could be moved to Liberty, or include it as permanent perk for completing Liberty. Yeah, free GP is nice, but it's one shot thing, while you definitively feel the power of other complete policies, especially ones like Patronage... and even Tradition, +15% city growth to a tree that already gives enough food?

Happiness is only a problem with Liberty when first expanding - it's not really an issue by the time you'll have finished Liberty since you can build more happiness buildings than in tall civs. Economy is the more important limitation; if you want to take a policy from Commerce, how about Wagon Trains (50% discount on road maintenance, extra gold from land trade routes)?

 

[njmfff]

I've pretty much stopped using Messenger of the Gods. It's not well-timed, and you have to be focusing on religion in order to use it, since otherwise you run the risk of losing your pantheon to foreign religion at much the same time as it will start to be useful.

Yeah, I also stopped using it. It's not that great anymore as was in GnKs when you could do ICS. now I found that more pantheons are lot more useful, especially ones giving that extra faith to grab first GP. +1 prod. from sea resource is also very good early on if you have coastal cities with lot of fish\sea lux. That becomes really powerful once you get Lighthouse and rest similar buildings later on (up to 3 hammer per fish, eg)

Happiness is only a problem with Liberty when first expanding - it's not really an issue by the time you'll have finished Liberty since you can build more happiness buildings than in tall civs. Economy is the more important limitation; if you want to take a policy from Commerce, how about Wagon Trains (50% discount on road maintenance, extra gold from land trade routes)?

hmm, economy is bigger trouble when you want to expend fast. You can always settle right on luxury to get instant +4 happiness. Of course, sometimes that's not a good plan, because you can snag better title\location if you move just one title next to that luxury... but low gpt is lot bigger problem in early games, and I don't think you can get to Commerce fast enough if you plan on dropping several cities at first 50-60 turns (which is the point of Liberty, to grab as much as land as possible before Tall empires simply outdo you)

 

[PhilBowles]

hmm, economy is bigger trouble when you want to expend fast. You can always settle right on luxury to get instant +4 happiness. Of course, sometimes that's not a good plan, because you can snag better title\location if you move just one title next to that luxury... but low gpt is lot bigger problem in early games, and I don't think you can get to Commerce fast enough if you plan on dropping several cities at first 50-60 turns (which is the point of Liberty, to grab as much as land as possible before Tall empires simply outdo you)

Exactly my point - economy is now the real limiting factor on expansion, and to promote wide play Liberty needs to offer some kind of gold increase or maintenance reduction, more than it needs to offer excess happiness. Now the way the economy works has been changed, you don't get substantial increases in gold just by building markets and later economy-chain buildings in every city, because only trade cities are going to have enough of an income to make those buildings worthwhile. So gold, like science but unlike happiness or culture, does not scale well with increased numbers of cities, while maintenance costs increase substantially.