(13) Proposal: Artistry OVERHAUL

[pineappledan]

Current Artistry: link to wiki

Problems:

• Artistry and Tradition are stacked up, and have a few overlapping bonuses that make Tradition/Artistry a bit Too optimal for tall, safe, GP focused play
• W.R.T. Artistry, it has 2 GP-related bonuses that contribute a lot to this overlap. Both of these bonuses are shared with at least 2 other policies, so there is also unnecessary repetition of mechanics
• Outside of CV, which is overtuned in general, Artistry is lacklustre and doesn't offer much outside sharpening Tradition's tall playstyle. Giving Artistry less overt GP bonuses and more wide bonuses would make it feel viable for other playthroughs
• In particular, Artistry has a on Great Person expend bonus. There are too many of these GP expend bonuses to be interesting. They get repetitive and they can make GP births into a torrent of instant yields, which is both making GP-focused games too optimal, and too samey.
• Artistry has 2 policies in particular which are just awful:
  • Refinement (+1 from all Guilds, and for every 3 in a City) is boring, 1-note, and is nothing but a tall-centric happiness bonus, which itself is an oxymoron. There is nothing wrong with these bonuses per se, but both of them and nothing else on a policy makes Refinement possibly the least useful policy in the entire game. This is also Artistry's only happiness policy, and none of it scales with wide.
  • Humanism ( Art gains +2, Artifacts +2, Music +4, Literature +3. +1 to Specialists). It's just ugly and busy. It's 5 small bonuses piled into 1 policy, making it hard to read and a bit of a pain.

Proposal:
Opener

• +25% GWAM rates in all cities
• +10% in all cities during Golden Ages
• +100% construction rate of all Guilds.

Scaler - unchanged
Finisher - unchanged
Humanism

• +3 Golden Age Points from Great Works of Writing
• +1 Happiness from all Guilds
• Amount of Golden Age Points needed to trigger a Golden Age reduced by 25%

Refinement

• +2Culture from Great Works of Art
• +1 Culture from Specialists
• 1 Specialist in all cities does not produce Urbanization

Heritage

• +4 Gold from Great Works of Music
• +4 Tourism and Golden Age Points from Universities.
• 25% of the from World Wonders, Natural Wonders, and Improvements is added to the Tourism output of the city

National Treasure

• +2 Science from Artifacts
• A Great Person of your choice appears near your Capital.
• Gain 250 Gold when you Construct World or National Wonders, scaling with Era.

Cultural Exchange

• +1 Happiness for every 3 Great Works in a City
• +2 Culture and +2 Production from Amphitheaters and Opera Houses
• The Tourism modifier for Open Borders with other Civilizations is Increased by 10%.

 

[pineappledan]

all the changes proposed here can be done with sql, and I could submit all of them myself.

The possible exception is the 25% tile / converter. I can do this entirely in sql with a dummy building, but it would require a dll addition to make it a policy ability.

 

[Rekk]

Alternatively, you could make it an actual building like the observatory.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm going to ponder this change in 3 ways:

The overall balance of this new tree

• We lose Golden Age bonuses on constructing wonders/national wonders, but gain it on every great writing. My gut says on the whole I will be gaining more GA points overall..maybe, I have often that per turn bonuses are surpringly strong compared to instant ones (its easy to overestimate the instant ones because they are large numbers but when I've actually crunched numbers the per turns often look really good, but part of that is due to multipliers, and that doesn't exist here.
  
  
• The +10% culture on GA is now in the opener, which is earlier, so I may activate this ability quicker than before. While the bonuses to artifacts and works of music is pushed back in teh tree, by the time I actually gain those kinds of works I should easily be able to fill the tree out so I think that's a completely neutral change. It looks cleaner on the screen, but in the long run its a non-change.
  
  
• -1 urbanization is pure buff, as PAD said its unlikely to affect Tradition too much but its still there nonetheless, resulting in a smattering of more GAP for the tree. It also takes away a bit of the shine from fealty.
  
  
• +25% culture of WW/NW/Tiles to tourism is a pure buff...plain and simple.
  
  
• -25% GA points needed is likely stronger than the +25% GA duration that Tradition had and lost, so overall this is a slight buff.
  
  
• Probably the biggest change is in christmas-tree style, as the opener is now even better than it was before. I have always liked to encourage xmas tree, and I still think its generally sub-optimal as compared to filling out a tree, so anything that makes it an option I like.

Overall: I would say this is a minor buff to the tree overall, with one exception... the +25% culture -> tourism. Its just a pure buff to the CV tree in getting CVs, we don't need that. I'll note some more things about it specifically in my next section, but I don't think that does anything for you other than just making the tree EVEN MORE focused on CV.


How does Tradition + Artistry look now
When the dust settles, how does the original combo look now?

The two trees together now get a -25% GA point requirement as compared to a +25% GA length duration. I think that will very slightly increase the amount of GAs, but probably not noticable. The -1 urbanization won't mean anything for the capital, but it might help the satellites of tradition which do suffer from unhappiness here and there. The +25% culture -> tourism is pure CV buff, and that's a problem I think. Tradition + Artistry is already the premier CV combo....and this just makes it even more so, not less. Sure a wide civ might get a bit more benefit, but the real change is that the CV play now gets even more CV power than it did before, and if I'm not going CV than I won't care. I do think that's a problem.

Overall: The combo gains a slight buff in a few ways, but the real difference is the improvement of CV, which I don't think is warranted.

Does it do what the OP wanted?: Make Aristry less (Tradition only?)
So do these changes actually make Artistry wide appealing? I do think it has a few new bones for wide.

Do these changes make me want to go Artistry when going wide? Eh.....no I don't think so. If I want to go wide CV (which is rare but I play around with it), I already use Artistry....because Artistry is the CV tree, and now its even stronger as a CV tree. And if I'm not going CV, would I still ever choose artistry? Not in any new way. For example I play with wide artistry when playing Persia due to their GA bonuses, and I will continue to do that. Do I see any new plays that I would consider with this new artistry tree....not really. Yes my wide CV play is a bit better, but I'm not going to play any differently than I would before. And I don't think this closely the gap between Tall CV and Wide CV in any noticeable way and its price is making main CV play even stronger compared to other VCs, which is already a big problem.




Overall Assessment: When the dust settles, I think this is a number of changes for really no gain. Honestly the only thing that excites me here is that the opener for xmas trees is a bit better (and again might be a slight buff to the tree as you'll snag it on an earlier GA now than you would have before...but that's slight). Ultimately I think in the pursuit of making wide CV better, all this really does is make the Tradition + Artistry CV combo even stronger, and that is NOT something we need.

Adjustments: If you really want to give Wide CV a chance, I think you need to go a bit more radical here, something like "+50% culture for NW/WW/Tiles in NON-CAPITAL cities". Or "+1 tourism for all specialists outside the capital". Or possibly the big one: "-1% to empire size penalites for tourism". Now do I think that's a little gamey...yep. Do I think that probably needs new code...yep. But if you wanted to be serious about boosting Wide CV without just turning it into a stealth buff for Tall CV, I think that's what you would have to look at.

 

[pineappledan]

Your analysis gets a few things wrong.

We lose Golden Age bonuses on constructing wonders/national wonders, but gain it on every great writing.

I didn't change the 3 on Great works of writing. This already exists on Humanism.
I changed the 200on wonder construction to 250on wonder construction and moved it to national treasure. It's not gone, but it is changed slightly, because I dropped the 50on GP expend, and I wanted to keep the instant gold somewhere.
Your feedback doesn't mention the loss of the 50on GP expend at all, and I think you're missing the loss of that bonus in your overall assessment.

The +10% culture on GA is now in the opener, which is earlier, so I may activate this ability quicker than before.

You also don't mention the loss of +25% rate to all GPs, down to just +25% to GWAMs. Moving the +10% culture to the opener is partially to compensate for the loss of the bonus to GEMSD.

The two trees together now get a -25% GA point requirement as compared to a +25% GA length duration. I think that will very slightly increase the amount of GAs, but probably not noticeable.

This comparison also ignores that I removed the 50 on GP expend from Tradition. I also reduced the bonus on Universities from 4 6 to 44. So overall I took a chunk of GAPs out of both trees.
a 25% GA meter reduction is also stronger than you give it credit for. 25% cost reduction means that every GAP counts for 33% more. Also, a 25%GA length modifier on a standard 10 turn golden age rounds down to +2 turns, so that's only +20% stronger in practice. While 33% is more than 20%, also consider that a GA length modifier works on free GAs while a meter reduction doesn't, so it's not quite apples to apples.

The +25% culture -> tourism is pure CV buff, and that's a problem I think. Tradition + Artistry is already the premier CV combo....and this just makes it even more so, not less. Sure a wide civ might get a bit more benefit, but the real change is that the CV play now gets even more CV power than it did before, and if I'm not going CV than I won't care. I do think that's a problem.

Your assessment here ignores that tourism from tiles is not contributing to CVs in the current game. The win data backs this up; civs that add culture on tiles (with the exception of Brazil, who has other CV mechanics) are not winning CVs. Furthermore, the next round of balance changes is set to nerf and push back a lot of the existing tile converters, making this wide CV mechanic even weaker. I have already said as much in your CV overview thread.

Given the win data we have, adding more tile culture is necessary to compensate for nerfs that have been made elsewhere. This is already not a viable CV playstyle, and the next version is going to go from taking existing tile / converters from life support to burying them. We do want to reduce the number of CVs overall, but we are not going to accomplish that by smothering the 1 CV mechanic that isn't contributing to the problem. Adding another / converter is not only not a balance concern, I consider it necessary to rescue this mechanic from irrelevance.

So do these changes actually make Artistry wide appealing? I do think it has a few new bones for wide.

It's my own opinion that there was a lot less work to make Artistry viable for wide than people give it credit for. Artistry already has the best scaler of all the medieval trees (12per city), and it's much wider than Statecraft's scaler. It also has the most building yield bonuses of the 3 trees (4 with amphitheater/opera house/university).
The point was never to out-wide Fealty, but to give more support for civs that can do wide, and that care about GAs, and not so much about faith.

Also, the point of these changes is just as much to make Tradition not Artistry-only as it is to make Artistry not Tradition-only. The point of removing the GAPs from Tradition is to make Authority and Progress more viable for a civ that will prioritize Artistry, and thus not force GA-centric civs into the ancient tall tree.

There is also a small stretch goal in reducing the overall sources of GAPs. Between the scaler and the university bonus, old Artistry gave 20GAP per turn per city, plus +GAP on GWWriting and an instant GAP trigger. Meanwhile, Tradition also had a GAP instant yield. Especially in the context of adding a -25% GA meter reduction, there's already too much GAP yields floating around, and getting permanent GAs ought to be a bit harder than this.

 

[balparmak]

Alternatively, you could make it an actual building like the observatory.

I like this. I feel like in general people like policy-specific buildings, so yeah. The tree as a whole looks smoother too.

 

[pineappledan]

Alternatively, you could make it an actual building like the observatory.

Not much of a fan, tbh.
We'd have to come up with an idea for an appropriate building, and art, and text for pedia entries. It probably can't just be the 25% yield converter; it would need other bonuses on it too. There is already a medieval policy building unlock that it would undercut (Fealty monasteries)
It's not as clean an idea, and I suspect it would end up being harder and more labour-intensive to implement and balance than adding the tile converter as a policy column.

 

[Stalker0]

I didn't change the 3 on Great works of writing. This already exists on Humanism.

Yes I got the word literature confused for writing.

I changed the 200on wonder construction to 250on wonder construction and moved it to national treasure. It's not gone, but it is changed slightly, because I dropped the 50on GP expend, and I wanted to keep the instant gold somewhere.
Your feedback doesn't mention the loss of the 50on GP expend at all, and I think you're missing the loss of that bonus in your overall assessment.

I didn't ignore this one, just assumed the 250 gold on WW was comparable to the 50 gold on GP expenditure, feels like a wash.

You also don't mention the loss of +25% rate to all GPs, down to just +25% to GWAMs. Moving the +10% culture to the opener is partially to compensate for the loss of the bonus to GEMSD.

This is a big change, a huge change actually. I just missed it.

Your assessment here ignores that tourism from tiles is not contributing to CVs in the current game. The win data backs this up; civs that add culture on tiles (with the exception of Brazil, who has other CV mechanics) are not winning CVs. Furthermore, the next round of balance changes is set to nerf and push back a lot of the existing tile converters, making this wide CV mechanic even weaker. I have already said as much in your CV overview thread.

The win data shows that civs focused on this are not winning, but we have no understanding of how much tile culture is really playing into the CV. So its either one of two things:

1) Tile tourism is relevant. In this case, you are pushing CV up higher with artistry for tall play. Yes you are doing it for wide, but wide is already handicapped here, so the net result is the bar is higher. We aren't trying to nerf CV just to buff it back up again.

2) Tile tourism is irrelevant. In which case the mechanic is pointless and probably should be removed, not sprinkled in as a ribbon.


Overall though my mistakes do change my assessment... I now consider this a pretty big nerf to Artistry. the loss of +25% GP for most things is pretty darn huge, I think it pigeonholes the tree even more into CV than it already was. That's a bad change imo.

 

[pineappledan]

I didn't ignore this one, just assumed the 250 gold on WW was comparable to the 50 gold on GP expenditure, feels like a wash.

It's far, far weaker. The trigger type is more relevant than the yield type. You birth GPs much more often than you build wonders and NWs. The good thing is that successful WW constructions giving gold effectively refunds you for the investment you probably did to rush the wonder, so it turns the trigger from a win-more to more of a cost-reduction. I think it's stronger than the old wonder construction reward, but it's weaker than the GP expend that was removed.

Overall, the big changes are:

• loss of +25% GEMSD
• loss of GP expend bonus
• Gain of -25% GA meter reduction
• Gain of 25%/ tile converter
• Gain of -1urbanization reduction per city

Yes you are doing it for wide, but wide is already handicapped here, so the net result is the bar is higher. We aren't trying to nerf CV just to buff it back up again.

Whatever the case, the culprit for CV win percentages is not tile converters, so we should be directing our ire towards GPs, GWs, and historic events. The strongest indicator of this, to me, is that science and GP civs like Maya, Korea, and Babylon are much more consistent at winning CVs than Polynesia or France (lol) is.

I've also nuked a major source of wide tourism in the next patch by removing instant on construction. We've got to throw wide culture a bone somewhere.

2) Tile tourism is irrelevant. In which case the mechanic is pointless and probably should be removed, not sprinkled in as a ribbon.

The first step was unhooking +% GWs from % Tile converters, which until this coming patch were in lockstep. There's more things we can try to save tile tourism than just assuming that its useless and giving up on it just like that. My National Parks improvement is another attempt.

 

[Stalker0]

Overall, the big changes are:

• loss of +25% GEMSD
• loss of GP expend bonus
• Gain of -25% GA meter reduction
• Gain of 25%/ tile converter
• Gain of -1urbanization reduction per city

So...why would I ever take this tree? There is literally one reason and one reason only.... CV. As you say, it gives less gold, less GP (which means you lose a ton of benefits you were getting before), the -1 urbanization is mostly useful for tall, the tile converter isn't that strong if you are correct.

Its not like artistry is topping the charts on strength right now... so it feels like its the tree you go to for CV, but now with less other yields than before. I guess that's one way to nerf CV.

 

[pineappledan]

So...why would I ever take this tree?

For the reasons that it says on the opening descriptor: Golden Ages and Great Works.

• I reduced the number of GAPs, but also made each GAP stronger and more consistent
• I made the wonder bonus stronger and more consistent
• I also took all the GAPs off Tradition, which makes the GAPs on Artistry more rare/valuable

The point was not to make Artistry stronger and it wasn't to stop it from being the CV tree, but to make it more tall/wide agnostic than it was previously. I did set out to make Fealty slightly weaker with my Burghers proposal, however.

Artistry already had a lot of things going for it:

• strongest medieval scaler
• lots of building bonuses
• strongest yield on specialist modifier (+1 )
• Strongest victory condition focus

It just needed a little finessing, like making humanism and refinement less ugly, and replacing some tall-centric bonuses with wider ones without radically changing the overall power of the tree. Refer back to the OP

 

[Laz0r]

• Artistry and Tradition are stacked up, and have a few overlapping bonuses that make Tradition/Artistry a bit Too optimal for tall, safe, GP focused play

What exactly is the gameplay/user enjoyment issue with these two trees being the best match for each other? (Similarly, do you consider it also an issue that authority and imperialism or statecraft and industry are the most optimal combinations with one another?)

• W.R.T. Artistry, it has 2 GP-related bonuses that contribute a lot to this overlap. Both of these bonuses are shared with at least 2 other policies, so there is also unnecessary repetition of mechanics.
• In particular, Artistry has a on Great Person expend bonus. There are too many of these GP expend bonuses to be interesting. They get repetitive and they can make GP births into a torrent of instant yields, which is both making GP-focused games too optimal, and too samey.

Why is repetition of policy mechanics such as on-expend GP yields and GP% production modifier an issue? How does it detract from the gameplay/user enjoyment?

• Outside of CV, which is overtuned in general, Artistry is lacklustre and doesn't offer much outside sharpening Tradition's tall playstyle. Giving Artistry less overt GP bonuses and more wide bonuses would make it feel viable for other playthroughs

wide is already the most optimal playstyle in the game so making tall-dedicated trees less tall-dedicated would only serve to shoehorn players into having to go wide. With that being said, i don't think artistry is a bad wide tree especially considering:

1. Culture income from artistry/GA's/writers and per-city culture cost modifier scale in such a way that means a wide artistry civ will always earn more policies than a tall artistry one over due time.

2. golden ages come far more frequently to wide empires using artistry than tall because of how GAP needed for golden ages does not scale with empire size, but the GAP income from GA's (empowered by artistry's extra tourism/GWAM/GAP's) and Artistry's per-city GAP bonus does.

3. golden ages are so much better for a wide civ than a tall one simply because snowballing production and gold is a win condition, and wide civs simply gain more of it out of golden ages than tall civs, and more of it than the other two medieval trees.

• Refinement (+1 from all Guilds, and for every 3 in a City) is boring, 1-note, and is nothing but a tall-centric happiness bonus, which itself is an oxymoron. There is nothing wrong with these bonuses per se, but both of them and nothing else on a policy makes Refinement possibly the least useful policy in the entire game. This is also Artistry's only happiness policy, and none of it scales with wide.

It is pretty useless outside of the optimal range of cities which would require the happiness but not completely overwhelm it's bonuses.

• Humanism ( Art gains +2, Artifacts +2, Music +4, Literature +3. +1 to Specialists). It's just ugly and busy. It's 5 small bonuses piled into 1 policy, making it hard to read and a bit of a pain.

In terms of pure vanity I think it's a lot more attractive to look at than having the great work bonuses cluttered amongst the other policies. It's the great work yield buff policy, and it's very distinct as a result. I think moving the +1 culture on specialists to the happiness policy would be warranted, for that policy's sake.

• +25% GWAM rates in all cities

Very bad change. All this serves to do is remove synergy with rationalism and industry and tall play. Removing inter-tree synergies will only serve to make combining them less interesting in my opinion, and nerfing tall play is an even worse idea given how desperately it is in need of buffing.

• Amount of Golden Age Points needed to trigger a Golden Age reduced by 25%

In the context of the Tradition changes this is also a very bad idea for the same reason stated before but for the tradition tree, and also in regards to tall play. Tradition has plenty of reasons not to take artistry as is with how statecraft and fealty provide unique value to a tradition capital and a tradition empire.


Everything else changed seems fine though, as not much has really substantially changed about the tree besides the issues mentioned.

Overall, I'm against this change and against removing inter-tree synergy. Both artistry and tradition have (in my opinion) enough reasons as-is to not be a must pick with one another as they both have interesting and valuable synergies with the other policy trees outside of their GAP and GP overlaps. A better way to incentivize people to pick other tree combinations with tradition or artistry would be to incorporate more synergies with other trees, rather than strip these trees of their own synergies. In concert with the tradition changes this is also an unnecessary nerf to tall play which is already very underpowered.

Inter tree synergies and having to choose to lose synergies with some trees to gain synergies with other trees is what makes policy choosing so fun. Fun is forged in the conflict of having to sacrifice something to gain something.

 

[pineappledan]

Why is repetition of policy mechanics such as on-expend GP yields and GP% production modifier an issue? How does it detract from the gameplay/user enjoyment?

Tradition currently has 3 different yields on GP expend bonuses, and then a 4th with artistry. There's numerous other GP expend bonuses sprinkled across other policies, wonders, beliefs, and civ traits.

You might have no issue with it, but I like a diversity of bonuses. I think having a wide variety of mechanics is a good thing in and of itself.

What exactly is the gameplay/user enjoyment issue with these two trees being the best match for each other? (Similarly, do you consider it also an issue that authority and imperialism or statecraft and industry are the most optimal combinations with one another?)

I think w.r.t. tall culture they still are. I haven't done anything to Artistry's GWAM or GW bonuses except move some of them around. I don't have any issue with the other trees, no. My issue was that Artistry and tradition are both the "tallest" trees of their respective eras and they are both the only trees in their eras with any Golden Age bonuses too. If either the Artistry or the Tradition tree changes I propose are approved, I think both trees benefit from having 1 less point of overlap that lets players mix and match other synergies.

wide is already the most optimal playstyle in the game so making tall-dedicated trees less tall-dedicated would only serve to shoehorn players into having to go wide. With that being said, i don't think artistry is a bad wide tree especially considering:

Very debatable. The most recent AI game feedback, and my own personal experience, would support the opposite conclusion. Tall, GP-centric play is the king right now.

1. Culture income from artistry/GA's/writers and per-city culture cost modifier scale in such a way that means a wide artistry civ will always earn more policies than a tall artistry one over due time.

2. golden ages come far more frequently to wide empires using artistry than tall because of how GAP needed for golden ages does not scale with empire size, but the GAP income from GA's (empowered by artistry's extra tourism/GWAM/GAP's) and Artistry's per-city GAP bonus does.

3. golden ages are so much better for a wide civ than a tall one simply because snowballing production and gold is a win condition, and wide civs simply gain more of it out of golden ages than tall civs, and more of it than the other two medieval trees.

No argument there. I think Artistry has a lot of wide potential

Everything else changed seems fine though, as not much has really substantially changed about the tree besides the issues mentioned.

So pretty much the wonder construction bonus changing from to . That's the only thing you didn't object to

 

[Stalker0]

For the reasons that it says on the opening descriptor: Golden Ages and Great Works.

GAs are not enough (with the exception of Persia). Great works = CV.

Ultimately this is a nerf to a tree that I don't think anyone is saying is OP, primarily due to the opener nerf. I get the desire, but the execution is ultimately nerfing one of the core aspects of the tree, and not giving you a lot in exchange.

 

[pineappledan]

Yes and landmarks = CV too.

I guess you could view the 25% / converter as compensation for the fewer historic events that will be triggered without the GEMS rate bonus, but Tradition will also have stronger GEMS with the +1to GPTIs on the finisher, and that's where a GEMS bonus belongs
It was my intent that the 25% GA meter reduction compensate for the GP expend. People keep comparing this bonus to what was lost in Tradition, but I think that's a red herring.

Between more wide happiness from the urbanization reduction, shifting some late bonuses (eg. artifacts and music boosts) later and some other bonuses earlier, and making the wonder construction bonus stronger. I hoped it would be a wash.
I also want to propose adding 2 new culture buildings that split the existing bonuses for GWriters and GArtists from the theming bonuses, like how Musician bonuses and themes are split between Opera House and Broadcast towers. This would be an opportunity to add +2 to a third building at Cultural Exchange.

I guess this proposal is finalized and submitted, so the time to suggest other things was last month, when I proposed this in the old general balance forum. Between the addition of 3 bonuses and the reshuffling, I think Artistry is fairly compensated for the loss of 2 bonuses.

 

[Stalker0]

Very debatable. The most recent AI game feedback, and my own personal experience, would support the opposite conclusion. Tall, GP-centric play is the king right now.

From my own experience, I think part of the problem is the death of peaceful wide. The new spy system does not make up for the lack of the old tech stealing system. So when you go wide (like 10+ cities on standard), you envitably fall behind the ball in terms of science, and you can't use tech steals to rubberband.

So you have one option.... war. You have to leverage your superior production to kill the runaway. If you don't, you get left in the dust. And as we noted, conquest seems difficult for the AI right now.

As far as GP centric play goes, to me there is no such thing as "no guild" play in competitive VP. You always need to work those guilds to have a reasonable culture rate. So all styles are pushing GP, its just tall tradition does it even more.

 

[Zanteogo]

Current Artistry: link to wiki

Problems:

• Artistry and Tradition are stacked up, and have a few overlapping bonuses that make Tradition/Artistry a bit Too optimal for tall, safe, GP focused play
• W.R.T. Artistry, it has 2 GP-related bonuses that contribute a lot to this overlap. Both of these bonuses are shared with at least 2 other policies, so there is also unnecessary repetition of mechanics
• Outside of CV, which is overtuned in general, Artistry is lacklustre and doesn't offer much outside sharpening Tradition's tall playstyle. Giving Artistry less overt GP bonuses and more wide bonuses would make it feel viable for other playthroughs
• In particular, Artistry has a on Great Person expend bonus. There are too many of these GP expend bonuses to be interesting. They get repetitive and they can make GP births into a torrent of instant yields, which is both making GP-focused games too optimal, and too samey.
• Artistry has 2 policies in particular which are just awful:
  • Refinement (+1 from all Guilds, and for every 3 in a City) is boring, 1-note, and is nothing but a tall-centric happiness bonus, which itself is an oxymoron. There is nothing wrong with these bonuses per se, but both of them and nothing else on a policy makes Refinement possibly the least useful policy in the entire game. This is also Artistry's only happiness policy, and none of it scales with wide.
  • Humanism ( Art gains +2, Artifacts +2, Music +4, Literature +3. +1 to Specialists). It's just ugly and busy. It's 5 small bonuses piled into 1 policy, making it hard to read and a bit of a pain.

I won't disagree that Artistry needs a boost, I do however disagree that Artistry and Tradition are a problem because they are similar. I think Artistry is supposed to be the "next level" of tradition.

We already have two combat focused trees, and that's not an issue. (with one being the "next step" of the other)

Edit, I would also put forward that the same can be said about progress and rationalism.

 

[CrazyG]

I'm worried that removing all science from the scaler makes the tree very inflexible and unappealing to wide. That 5 science per city leaving hurts wide far more than it does tall.

 

[pineappledan]

I'm worried that removing all science from the scaler makes the tree very inflexible and unappealing to wide. That 5 science per city leaving hurts wide far more than it does tall.

Scaler - unchanged
Finisher - unchanged

 

[CrazyG]

Sorry I was reading several threads at once.