Recent content by Ampharos

I want to create a sponsor that gets a research bonus for killing aliens, identical to Scavenging from the Might tree. The code is this, taken from the possible bonuses for virtues. <ResearchFromBarbarianKills>100</ResearchFromBarbarianKills>...

Green, Progress, and Defensive looks like a winning combination. The Health and Science bonuses should make rushing Cognition and then building Academies everywhere so much faster than the base game. Compound that with the no road maintenance from Supremacy and that one Wonder that gives no...

The Statue of Liberty has associations with the "Land of Opportunity" which has associations with achievement ideology or the belief that hard work and education lead to success. Thus, the construction of the Statue of Liberty increases production because people believe that working hard will...

Are you American? Not many Americans think of their national identity and immediately think of Manifest Destiny. Not to mention, Manifest Destiny has some inherently racial undertones due to its association with the Mexican-American War, the Trail of Tears, and the establishment of Native...

To be fair, most things that we define as "typically American" didn't come into existence until the 20th century. That's fair. How useful is tile buying though? It's an interesting feature, but how often does one want to buy enough tiles that America's UA has a noticeable effect on gameplay...

I don't understand the WoW reference or what you mean by "unique" tree since Liberty and Republic are policies available to everyone. If the goal is something related to Washington and the Washington Administration, that's probably the best UA that America could have since his administration...

Bump. I notice a trend where UUs coincide with the leader of a civilization such as Gustav and Lion of the North and Isabella and the Reconquista. If you are interested in doing something like this for America and George Washington, then you might want to get rid of Manifest Destiny and...

If you go with a non-hybrid system, then I would go all the way and not allow access to other trees in the same category. Otherwise, you make the game unnecessarily complicate, which may turn players away. It's also why I advocate a hybrid system. Going into entirely one category isn't all that...

This philosophy is the fast track to bankruptcy. You should never expect the player to be experienced with the genre and never expect them to do more work than they have to. That means putting just enough of the lore front and center and having everything else a click away, all of which being...

This is incredibly helpful. Thanks!

If you need to, you could revisit the idea of non-mutually exclusive branches. You can have a government that is simultaneously democratic and authoritarian or democratic and totalitarian. These are referred to as authoritarian democracies and totalitarian democracies, respectively...

The BNW Policy Screen Notice that the illustrations fade to black(ish) a third of the way down and that the icons are gold with white borders which contrasts with the black background. There needs to be contrast between the icons and the background and emphasis on the icons over the...

I like the stars more than the illustrations. The illustrations look busier while the stars keep it simple and maintain focus on the choices themselves, not what's going on in the background. Though, it would be nice to use the pictures somewhere. They're really nice.

As a concept, social engineering isn't something the developers came up with. It's a real concept which refers to the manipulation of attitudes, behaviors, and resources to produce desired changes within society. However, the term has many negative connotations. It is most often used to refer...

I might have some insights on this. In sociology, we define power as the means to exert authority over others. There are several theories of where power comes from and how it is derived, but most argue that some combination of social, cultural, and economic influence determines how much power...