[Vote] (1-34) Proposal: Tweaks for wide gameplay on Brazil

[Recursive]

Voting Instructions
Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" if you'd be okay if this proposal was implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if this proposal wasn't implemented. You can vote for both options.

All votes are public. If you wish, you can discuss your choice(s) in the thread below. You can change your vote as many times as you want until the poll closes.

VP Congress: Session 1, Proposal 34
Proposer: @Legen
Sponsor(s): @Recursive
Previous Discussion Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/49-proposal-tweaks-for-wide-gameplay-on-brazil.679766/page-2

Proposal Details
Proposal:

• Reduce the UA's GAP conversion from 30% to 20%.
• UA gains "+3 Golden Age Points from improved Luxury Resources" (a.k.a. +3 GAP on improved Luxury tiles, similar to Rationalism opener's "+3 science and +2 production from Strategic Resources").
• Brazilwood Camp no longer has the "no fresh water" restriction.

Reasoning:

Brazil is a civ that has been on the discussion on wide tourism since its redesign at 2016, when it got its current UA. The original idea that shaped it intended to push Brazil towards wide gameplay, and this was also a major part of the discussions that led to the current proposals on Tradition and Artistry. Some of the posts related to wide tourism with Brazil can be seen in the spoiler below:

Spoiler Related old posts :

I just had a cool idea regarding the role of culture and population in the UA that to me, seals the deal.

Carnaval: When a Golden Age begins, stored Golden Age Points are converted into Tourism, and all cities receive 10 turns of 'Carnaval.', during which, City Unhappiness is reduced by 50%, and gain 1 Gold and 1 Culture for every 1 Happiness, scaling with National Population.​

Numbers can be tweaked obviously.

This creates even more synergy with the lack of unhappiness during it, encourages players to maximize their happiness input both to get GAs and to feed Carnaval input, and encourages Wide play (as it's easier to raise national pop with number of cities than with a few).

We could create even more synergy by perhaps tweaking Unique elements, perhaps even replacing Pracinhas with something else.

You're playing a civ with no Great Person bonuses and very high Culture on tiles as a small empire in order to milk this 25% culture modifier and maximize GAPs. This is making a strong case for why the 25%Culture should be removed; that bonus is forcing Brazil into a bog-standard tall GP-focused playstyle where you ignore all other parts of the kit just to go Tradition -> Artistry for every scrap of GAP in the policy trees.

Wider play with Brazil would make more use of the UI, because more land = more Brazilwood. It would also make better use of the Needs reduction, because more cities means more total happiness on empire, which can convert into more GAPs, since they aren't being sapped by Unhappiness. There is a chance to make Brazil a more interesting wide-CV civ, but the way the policies are designed, it's better to just ignore everything that is unique in the kit and focus all attention on a mundane % yield modifier, just because it's really big.

I think your comment also points to a failing of the policy trees as they currently exist: Why do Ancient and Medieval both have a tree that focuses tall, Great People, and Golden ages? That's 3 of the same focuses in sequential policy trees. The way that Tradition and Artistry stack up shackles a civ like Brazil -- with lots of GA bonuses, but no direct GP bonuses -- to a small, tall empire, because the civ's wide bonuses are swamped by the power of two full policy trees that push tall. As you say, that makes you play as if the needs reduction doesn't even exist, and you don't question that?

I guess this means I should do these polls more often? We haven't had almost any balance changes in almost a year.

Artistry and Tradition have too many of the same bonuses and focuses:
- both trees are the tallest option in their respective eras
- both trees specifically give bonuses to GP generation and to Golden ages

Tradition gives GAP on GP expend and Artistry gives gold on GP expend

Tradition gives +25%GP rate in the capital while Artistry’s opener gives +25%GP generation in All cities

Tradition’s finisher also has +25%GA length

so, there are a few points of glaring overlap, and in the case of Tradition it would take removing 2 weak bonuses to entirely remove the GA focus.

The triple overlap of tall GP and GA makes an overly-optimal path for certain civs which have any of those bonuses. The mutually reinforcing nature of these trees forces a civ like Brazil, who cares a lot about golden ages, but not so much about tall/GPs, to play as if he does, and ignore the parts of his kit that reward wide play. Likewise, a GP-focused civ like Arabia is induced to adopt Artistry to maximize their GP generation, even though they aren’t really geared towards caring about golden ages.

thoughts?

This proposal aims to push the civ further into wide tourism, after the patch 2.7 relaxed the restrictions on the Brazilwood Camp. The additional GAP on Luxury tiles is a way to incentivize expansion on a civ that wants as many sources of GAP as possible, and whose UI can create more luxury tiles as you expand your territory. My experience with other wide civs is that something as simple as some bonus yields on high priority tiles for your civ is an effective way to push the civ towards expansion. And, in Brazil's case, more GAP out of expanding means wide tourism should be possible, hopefully enough to counteract the usual benefits of going tall instead.

The removal of the "no fresh water" restriction is to make sure this civ is not punished for having a jungle bias. The issue is that this type of terrain tends to be placed on high humidity parts of the map, making fresh water relatively common around Brazil's starting position. This restricts the civ's wide gameplay, as one of the main incentives to go wide is exactly the desire to get as many Brazilwood Camps as possible.

Also, I don't think that the "no fresh water" restriction is necessary with the removal of the +25% culture on carnivals on patch 2.7. That part of the UA was removed in favor of a stronger UI. Given how big that modifier was, and how much the UI can incentivize wide gameplay, I think it is fair to allow for more frequent brazilwood camps.

Lastly, Brazil has been leaning towards Tall is because the civ itself doesn't have a comparable source of GAP to what is given by social policies. Focusing on Tradition and Artistry has been the optimal way to fuel Brazil's UA, outweighing what its uniques can provide through expansion. This proposal tries to give Brazil a proper source of wide GAP, so that it can function without depending on the design of the social policies. This becomes more important with the presence of two proposals that aim to overhaul Tradition and Artistry in terms of GAs; Tradition loses its source of GAP, while Artistry loses the GAP on building wonders and gets less GAP on universities. Neither proposals are giving extra GAP to fuel Brazil's UA, so the civ is looking to end with a weak GAP generation if those proposals pass; this proposal should be able to counteract that GAP loss.

 

[pineappledan]

I am against this proposal

• Brazil is already very strong and doesn't need a new ability, or a buff to its UI
• Brazil doesn't need more things to push it wide beyond the bonuses it already has. If you push more yields onto tiles you will just recreate Polynesia's playstyle
• removing the freshwater limitation makes the BW camp's build prerequisite identical to the Mayan Kuna
• The numbers proposed are completely out of whack. Compare to Ethiopia who gets +1 to strategics vs this 3GAP on luxuries. Strategics require techs to reveal and are much rarer than luxuries.

Gating the yields behind improvement will barely delay it, and it's new code for an ill-advised and unnecessary buff to an already top-tier civ

 

[Legen]

Brazil is already very strong and doesn't need a new ability, or a buff to its UI

The proposal is bound to end as a nerf, not a buff.

Reducing the UA from 30% to 20% means Brazil will need to generate 50% more GAP than normal to even out. The GAP on luxuries is unlikely to compete a combination of Artistry (including GAP on works of writing), beliefs, instant sources of GAP (e.g. Great Artist, National Monument) and, later on, late game policies and stadiums. Even without accounting world wonders, such as Taj Mahal and Cristo Redentor, the GAP on luxuries is really unlikely to match that 50%, even with a godly terrain start.

Another thing is that AI Pedro gets considerable GAP from its handicap triggers. On Emperor difficulty, the one used in the AI tests, the amount of GAP per trigger is as follows:

Ancient/Classical	Medieval	Renaissance	Industrial	Modern	Atomic	Information
72.5	139	234.5	359	512	695	906.5

And the GAP triggers are as follows:

• Enters a new era (3x normal bonus; Food, Gold, Golden Age Points, Science, Culture)
• Founds its original capital (Gold, Golden Age Points)
• Founds a new city, other than its capital (Food, Gold, Golden Age Points, Science, Culture)
• Wins a war (warscore 25+) (Food, Gold, Golden Age Points, Science, Culture)
• Constructs a World Wonder (Gold, Golden Age Points)
• Generates a Great Person (Gold, Golden Age Points)

This means AI Pedro (Emperor) has the equivalent of between 1.39 to 2.59 Pyramids or Splendor GAP procs on city founding and many historical events. This inflates AI Pedro's performance in the tests and plays a major role on your perception of Brazil's strength.

The conversion reduction from 30% to 20% is bound to hit AI Pedro especially hard. I expect a considerable nerf to this AI in future AI tests if this proposal passes.

• Brazil doesn't need more things to push it wide beyond the bonuses it already has. If you push more yields onto tiles you will just recreate Polynesia's playstyle
• removing the freshwater limitation makes the BW camp's build prerequisite identical to the Mayan Kuna

Brazilwood Camps already used to have only the forest/jungle restriction before, and neither Maya nor Polynesia were mentioned as complaints to the UI or playstyle at that time. People don't complain that Maya's playstyle is too similar to Polynesia's due to having a wide-friendly UI either.

The numbers proposed are completely out of whack. Compare to Ethiopia who gets +1 to strategics vs this 3GAP on luxuries. Strategics require techs to reveal and are much rarer than luxuries.

Improvements also require techs, and Ethiopia has a free early tech on their UA. Also, faith is one of the most valuable yields in the early game.

 

[Recursive]

Proposal failed on November 1, 2022.