(2-NS) France UA's GWAM replaced with theming bonuses doubled and granting production

[Legen]

Counterproposal to "(2-78) France UA adjustment: free Great People instead of points for Great People" - https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...le-instead-of-points-for-great-people.680809/

Current France's UA:
+10% Combat Strength for each subsequent attack against a single target
during a turn. When you conquer a City, gain Great Writer/Artist/Musician
Points in Capital and a temporary boost to Culture and Production in
all Cities.

Counterproposal:

• Substitute the GWAM birth on city capture for "theming bonus are doubled and grant production in the city".

Proposed France's UA:
+10% Combat Strength for each subsequent attack against a single target
during a turn. When you conquer a City, gain a temporary boost to Culture
and Production in all Cities. Theming bonuses are doubled and grant
Production in the city.

Details:

• The double theming bonus include both the primary culture/tourism part (e.g. +4 / on Amphitheater), and the extra secondary yields (e.g. 2 on Amphitheater).
• The bonus production is the same of the doubled primary part.
  • For instance, an amphitheater that normally gives +4 / as the primary theming bonus and 2 as its secondary bonus will give +8 / as primary, 4 as secondary, and the city will gain +8 Production.

Rationale:

France's current UA has two notable issues, the extreme similarity with Japan's UA and the all-or-nothing nature of its performance. The former is due to France gaining the GWAM part when Japan was undergoing experimentations with its UA. This is seen in patch Aug 16, 2017, whose changes include:

France

• Removed extra plunder element of UA, added: gain [ICON_GREAT_WORK] Great Writer/Artist/Musician Points in [ICON_CAPITAL] Capital when you conquer a city
  
  • Variation on Japan's old UA, is a bit more proactive, in that it benefits France at any point in the game, not just after other civs have made great works
• Adjusted production/culture numbers to be 40%/40% (were 25/50)

The other issue that is frequently mentioned is that too much of France's UA is tied to conquering cities; if the player/AI fails to keep conquering, the civ is left almost without any economic benefit.

Doubled theming bonus is a popular suggestion for France, and is one that isn't dependent on conquering cities; with it, France has a game plan to rely on without depending so heavily on mass conquest. I added production to it for cohesiveness with the untouched conquest bonus; with it France has a clear focus on what types of yields it favors, and a proper synergy to maximize them. It is also notably distinctive from Japan's UA, a point that I think the original proposal doesn't address satisfactorily. France gets to retain its identity as a hybrid cultural/militaristic civ and nonetheless gains another distinction relative to Japan (focus on production, which Japan has no bonuses towards in any of its uniques).

 

[Legen]

As a note, I suspect that improving France's consistency as proposed may leave this civ too powerful, simply out of 40% on conquest being a huge percentage. I've considered nerfing the bonus on conquest from 40% to a lower value, but I want to see what others have to say first and amend as necessary.

 

[pineappledan]

I really like the idea of making all / theming bonuses //, on top of doubling them. Wish I had thought of that

I like how that makes the theming give a local bonus, since base theming bonuses are all global and most theming yield changes are also things like . It also augments GWs in a way that doesn’t overlap with Assyria.

 

[BaldSamson]

Does anybody enjoy managing theming bonuses? I just hit the "auto-fix" button about 100 times per game. I wouldn't lean into the mechanic myself.

 

[pineappledan]

Hate to be that guy, but if you don’t like X mechanic, then don’t play that civ. I like having civs that emphasize specific mechanics abilities, because they make you pay attention to that mechanic in a way that you might not have otherwise. If a civ has a mechanic that’s not “for you”, then that’s okay. It might be other people’s’ speed. It beats having 4+ civs with similar bonuses on city conquest, which is the current issue with France’s kit.

 

[BaldSamson]

Hate to be that guy, but if you don’t like X mechanic, then don’t play that civ. I like having civs that emphasize specific mechanics abilities, because they make you pay attention to that mechanic in a way that you might not have otherwise. If a civ has a mechanic that’s not “for you”, then that’s okay. It might be other people’s’ speed. It beats having 4+ civs with similar bonuses on city conquest, which is the current issue with France’s kit.

Wait a second, if I don't press the "auto-fix" button then I'm basically screwing myself as any civ, not just France. Theming was clearly meant to be some sort of minigame, but it never really seemed very engaging. I suspect that there are many other players here that don't pay any attention to this part of the game, which is why I asked it in the form of a question. I could be an outlier.

I'm in agreement on premise that France in it's current state is weak/boring, however I don't think theming bonuses fixes the 2nd part of that.

 

[Rekk]

Wait a second, if I don't press the "auto-fix" button then I'm basically screwing myself as any civ, not just France.

You can choose a better combination of themes than the AI will, especially for your specific needs.

 

[pineappledan]

You can choose a better combination of themes than the AI will, especially for your specific needs.

And if the theming now adds The location of the themes become relevant, not just getting the most.

FWIW I don’t mind the theming bonus stuff. More importantly, I like that this focuses on a mechanic no other civ (or policy etc) augments. at least France is playing a different game than Assyria with this. It also puts more emphasis on the theming balance itself; with a civ that gives 2x the yields on theming people might start to pay attention and we could have a productive conversation about whether theming bonuses are strong enough, both relative to each other and as a whole. It’s too difficult to have that conversation right now, because there are many players like yourself that don’t care about theming, don’t particularly like it, try to ignore it, and aren’t going to have an opinion as a result.

 

[Rekk]

Even generically, you can use theming to reduce local unhappiness.

 

[Stalker0]

The problem with theming is that its kind of arbitrary and flaky. Its hard to truly maximize it, I mean trying to speed up or slow down great works by an entire era to make theming trades just isn't in the cards most of the time. So its mainly a question of what you happened to get, what your opponents happened to get, and whether you are OCD enough to want to maximize ever piece of it (or hope the swap and optimize button gets you there).

Theming is a neat flavorful little idea but as a true gameplay mechanic I think it falls pretty hard, personally would rather it had never been in the game, replaced with something more concrete and strategic.

 

[pineappledan]

Some theming bonuses being too hard or arbitrary is another matter. Relaxing some of the theming requirements sounds perfectly reasonable to me, but I consider it a separate issue. the mechanic itself is fundamentally sound, but a wonder requiring 3 GWs from the same civ in the same era is a chore.

 

[azum4roll]

The optimize button works most of the time, unless you have one of the 4-piece theming wonders (Louvre, Reliquary). Then you'll need to manually fix them if you want to maximize your tourism output.

 

[Legen]

Or you conquer every single city from your neighbors to take all their great works. Almost guaranteed that you'll fulfill even the most demanding theming requests. France is also a militaristic civ anyways with a big reward for conquest, why not go all the way?

Since this proposal is about France, rather than theming as a mechanic, I think we get more out of discussing if doubling it and adding production makes France's UA interesting. For instance, France can have +8 production from an amphitheater, which allows even a tradition secondary city to develop quite nicely if so desired. Alternatively, France can centralize great works in the capital to better compete for world wonders, which in turn grant more theming possibilities, that further push the capital's production for more wonders, for a virtuous cycle. And France can alternate where this production will be based on the situation, since great works can be moved at any moment; if you decide that a secondary city should build the Neuschwastein or Sydney Opera House, you can move great works there to make it feasible. Is it interesting enough as part of a civ's UA?

 

[KlHannibal2]

While the theming bonuses would be more unique than free GWAM points, what is the point then of France's attack bonus?

 

[azum4roll]

The attack bonus helps a lot when attacking cities, especially later on in the game when you have better range.

 

[Voremonger]

I would be fine with this counterproposal.

Regarding the percentage increases to production/culture: maybe those should be flat bonuses that scale with era instead? So something like +X production/culture in your capital when you conquer a city. I'm not entirely sure how the duration of the currently implemented boost is calculated but I think it's scaling with the population size of the conquered city. When I conquered a city in the early game I got the boost for only a single turn which was kind of useless but I imagine in the mid-late game it would be very strong, especially if you're able to snowball.

 

[Hinin]

While the theming bonuses would be more unique than free GWAM points, what is the point then of France's attack bonus?

To me, France's bonuses (in proposals and my tweaks) tend towards makind the civ have a gameplay theme, which is "win more from micromanagement" : both in economic and military matters, having a clear vision and good mechanics will reward you tremendously, while having an "end of turn button pusher" mindset will make the civ struggle.

Plus, it seems to me that having this dual culture / production focus for the civ perfectly support a more agressive playstyle if the player wants.

 

[KlHannibal2]

To me, France's bonuses (in proposals and my tweaks) tend towards makind the civ have a gameplay theme, which is "win more from micromanagement" : both in economic and military matters, having a clear vision and good mechanics will reward you tremendously, while having an "end of turn button pusher" mindset will make the civ struggle.

Plus, it seems to me that having this dual culture / production focus for the civ perfectly support a more agressive playstyle if the player wants.

I quite like your tweaks version, but I find it gives France way less benefit from conquering than the current VP version. And making the musketeer a recon unit is a painful nerf in conquest abilities.

 

[Stalker0]

Hate to be that guy, but if you don’t like X mechanic, then don’t play that civ. I like having civs that emphasize specific mechanics abilities, because they make you pay attention to that mechanic in a way that you might not have otherwise. If a civ has a mechanic that’s not “for you”, then that’s okay. It might be other people’s’ speed. It beats having 4+ civs with similar bonuses on city conquest, which is the current issue with France’s kit.

I can get behind this notion.

Ultimately I agree that civs are a good place to have your "laboratory of experimentation", as the worse thing that happens is you make one civ bad in a sea of other civs. So getting creative with nuanced ideas is a fine notion.

In theming's case, I can respect BaldSampson's notion that theming is not a great mechanic (from my perspective) and so a civ that doubles down on it, is probably not going to be my cup of tea. But if a large portion of the community likes the idea and wants to play this "new France", than so be it.

Ultimately that is part of what the voting is for. If the majority of people are like "this is cool lets try it", than sure lets go for it. Again this is far better than making sweeping changes to the game as a whole. And if the community balks, effectively going, "I may not think current France is the best but this is just not a good idea"....than so be it.

 

[pineappledan]

The thing I balk at is that there seems to be this sentiment that theming as a mechanic is so irredeemable that the notion a civ would augment that system offends people, mainly by reminding them that theming exists. If a mechanic was truly that awful then it should be removed, but it's clearly not THAT bad. It's just bad enough to some people that they want to make sure that no one else play the game differently from them, or like something that they don't like. I find the discussion about the idea of a theming bonus starts to sound very prescriptive about what it is that you should and should not like about playing civ.