(3-17a) Counterproposal: Shuffle Air Policy Bonuses w/Finest Hour Included

DeAnno

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Counterproposal to https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/3-28-proposal-move-around-the-air-unit-policy-bonuses.681539/

(EDIT/AMENDMENT: There was some confusion regarding a couple aspects of what existed already on one policy {cough Autocracy gets everything cough} and the coding directions that were intended with happiness scalers and even promotions. The proposal is changed a bit from the original, made in consultation with PD.)

Reading over the @pineappledan proposal here, it struck me that a city defense bonus might fit better on Freedom than on Autocracy. Then, when I looked at Their Finest Hour, the Freedom Policy, it struck me that a production boost to planes fit better on Autocracy than Freedom. Then I looked at Air Supremacy, and noticed it had a production boost anyway (because Autocracy gets everything I guess.) But it should have it instead of Freedom, surely, and Freedom should have the Defense boost. So leave that one alone.

TFH had a City Defense boost already, but it was a boring one that we can make more interesting and thematic by tying it to planes. That's the core of the idea.

For reference, these are the policies in question:

Current Imperialism Finisher:
Unlocks the Pentagon
Can buy Admirals with Faith
Naval units gain the Ironsides Promotion (Units become stronger as they take damage).
Each Air unit stationed in a city increases the City's Defense by 3, and reduces Unhappiness from needs by 3%.

Current Their Finest Hour Tenet
All Cities get +1 Air Unit slot and +33% Combat Strength.
+25% Production towards Air Units in all Cities, and can build B17 Bombers.

Let's get a better idea what that +33% CS means. I'm going to assume it applies before garrisons and after buildings: correct me if I'm wrong. Lets look at the two most basic cases in my eyes:

Hill City (8) + Walls (6) + Castle (8) + Bastion (10) + Arsenal (12) = 44 (33% is +15)
Hill City (8) + Walls (6) + Castle (8) + Bastion (10) + Arsenal (12) + Military Base (20) = 64 (33% is +21)

I think requiring Air Units to get the bonus should make it a little bit better, though being able to work on a city with no infrastructure is an advantage too, at least for the first 3 planes. Planes 4-7 would require an Airport to cram in, which is the same cost as a Military Base (but of course, you also need the Planes now!)

+3 CS is clearly kinda weak: at the end you're getting the same size bonus for way more effort. +5 CS could get way too ridiculous, giving a total of +35 bonus at the end. So one direction we might take is +4 CS: more effort for more return. But that's still a lot of defense indeed, even at +28. So what if instead we boosted another aspect of the policy: the Air Slots. Going from +1 to +2 is a big boost, but we do lose the production bonus too, so it's a justified boost.

As for the Imperialism Finisher, I thought the original proposal did fine with that at first, but PD was thinking we could apply the same "stronger when damaged" promotion to the planes too. I think this is a more thematic and unified option so I'm fine with that happening, and happy to include it in this proposal.

New Imperialism Finisher
Unlocks the Pentagon.
Can buy Admirals with Faith.
Air and Naval units gain the the Promotion which gives: 'Units become stronger as they take damage.' This promotion is renamed to 'Banzai!'

New Their Finest Hour Tenet
All Cities get +2 Air Unit slots.
Each Air Unit stationed in a City increases the City's Defense by 3.
Can build B17 Bombers.

Moderator Action: Added counterproposal link. - Recursive
 
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Ugh, I'm trying to standardize the unhappiness thing in a way that doesn't use a scaler or new code, minor Amendment still in progress.

EDIT: OK, that should be fine now.
 
Umm.. I just checked and Air Superiority includes a +25%:c5production: to Air units already. Identical to Their Finest Hour. Mea Culpa.

I'm going to propose dropping the air unit production from Autocracy in my proposal. You can drop it from Freedom in yours I guess?

So with Total War and Air Superiority, Autocracy currently gives +50% towards air units

Not sure I would mess with increasing the :c5strength: per airplane. It can already stack pretty high
 
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Haha this proposal is so cursed. Currently in revisions, sorry everyone.

EDIT: Revisions finished. Hopefully.
 
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Umm.. I just checked and Air Superiority includes a +25%:c5production: to Air units already. Identical to Their Finest Hour. Mea Culpa.

I'm going to propose dropping the air unit production from Autocracy in my proposal. You can drop it from Freedom in yours I guess?

So with Total War and Air Superiority, Autocracy currently gives +50% towards air units

Not sure I would mess with increasing the :c5strength: per airplane. It can already stack pretty high
Total war only works for land units so aircraft production only gets a 25% boost and considering it is a tier 3 tenet I think it is fine if you compare it to TFH which is tier 2.
 
I'm still basically playing the world's tiniest violin for the Air Supremacy tenet. I think even without the additional bonus the +25% it has is more than enough, and since this proposal didn't otherwise touch it I think it's out of scope anyways.
 
Is it intended to remove the +33% :c5strength: CS on The Finest Hour? That is quite a nerf to the policy, given that it takes time to fill a city with planes, unlock Airports, and obtain Oil (if at all) to build up the city's defenses.

I like the concept, but I don't think removing the +33% :c5strength: CS is a good idea.
 
Seems kinda silly to have both a stacking :c5strength: on air slots and a %-based one. The stacking CS per air unit should just be made strong enough that people don't want both.
 
Seems kinda silly to have both a stacking :c5strength: on air slots and a %-based one. The stacking CS per air unit should just be made strong enough that people don't want both.
You can already stack both effects from Freedom and Imperialism as it is now, and it isn't breaking games. The proposal as it is now makes so that you can't have both anymore, and makes TFH much slower, conditional and possibly weaker, depending on whether the city has Orders, the Palace, Red Fort or certain defensive uniques.

As it is, the proposal weakens Freedom's ability to defend itself, as well as the overall defensive theme. It is to not see the proposal as a hefty nerf to this tenet.
 
Sure, but why have both if it’s on the same proposal? Maybe @DeAnno was right with his assessment that +4 is a better starting number than +3?
 
I think the extra bonus air slot is an incredibly big deal, and makes the slight loss in defensive efficiency very palatable. Additionally now that there are 4 base slots you can stack 4 planes in whatever city is under attack and easily get to +12, then +24 once you can get an airport built in that city. The only real issue I can see that could come up is a small Freedom empire being unable to secure even 8 strategics, but that is supposed to be a weakness the tree has.

Sure, you could stack Imperialism with TFH before, but did anyone actually play Imperialism/Freedom? Seems a little bit against type to me.
 
I think the extra bonus air slot is an incredibly big deal, and makes the slight loss in defensive efficiency very palatable. Additionally now that there are 4 base slots you can stack 4 planes in whatever city is under attack and easily get to +12, then +24 once you can get an airport built in that city. The only real issue I can see that could come up is a small Freedom empire being unable to secure even 8 strategics, but that is supposed to be a weakness the tree has.
TFH had a +1 air slot buff before, and it wasn't the big deal you're making of for this proposal, so I'm skeptical that it will be enough. The current TFH acts mostly immediately and unconditionally. Your proposal depends a lot on building Airports in order to break even, which comes very late. Until then, the city's defense is weaker compared to what can be obtained with the current TFH. Losing the bonus production for air units doesn't help it either.

I don't mind shifting from a passive CS to something more active, I just think that the proposal isn't providing enough.

Sure, you could stack Imperialism with TFH before, but did anyone actually play Imperialism/Freedom? Seems a little bit against type to me.
Sure, but why have both if it’s on the same proposal?
I've played quite a few times, usually due to either a focus on great people, or because a distant civ needs to be addressed. Freedom also has the overall strongest happiness tenets, which allows you to wage longer wars.

It works best with hybrid cultural/militaristic civs, France and Japan, especially with 34UC. Tall remains the best for a tourism victory, so Tradition-Artistry-Freedom makes a lot of sense for them. And Imperialism is usually the best option for amassing great works: +33% GG/GA generation (Japan's UA), puppet yield boost (France's 40% :c5production::c5culture: ) and the prospect of fully conquering another civ for its great works (both).

Notably, Imperialism's 3 :c5strength: CS from air units gets boosted by TFH's +33%:c5strength: CS, with each plane giving 4 :c5strength: CS instead; currently, a hill city can reach 109 :c5strength: CS with both before garrisons. That's a very powerful defense, and something only Imperialism + Freedom can achieve. That's part of what was exciting about moving Imperialism's finisher to TFH; I expected the values to be toned down, but not to see one of them eliminated.
 
Is it possible to lower gold cost to buy a specific unit type? Or maybe give an instant yield when created? I feel like that'd fit better with Freedom than a hammer bonus if we wanted to beef up the policy some.

I'm also not clear how long a proposal should sit before it shouldn't be amended anymore, but there could always be a Legen counterproposal too.
 
I recommend increasing the stacking defense to 4CS per plane though. Keeping it at +3 was based on my initial idea that the ability was going to be stacked with a SR-free unit.

I maintain it’s totally unnecessary to keep the % defense. The air stacks a is more interactive way of reaching the same end. Yes, you won’t have 33% more defense Everywhere, but you will only have 1-2 cities being attacked at a time anyways. This new ability would spike higher with proper investment and be more effective at shoring up low defence cities.
 
Proposal sponsored by pineappledan.
 
We are past the phase where we can do Amendments. Maybe it can be a ratification option if people really feel the Tenet is weak.
 
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