(4-11) Proposal: Imperialism Martial Law Change (resubmission)

[pineappledan]

Current Martial Law:
Yield penalties in puppeted cities reduced to 60% (from 80%).
Constabularies provide +1 , and garrisons no longer require Gold maintenance.

This proposal references this implemented change from Congress 3:

(3-13a) Proposal: Authority (2/2) - Replace Militarism's Garrison bonus with Barracks requirement​

Problem:

• Colonialism and Martial law are the 2 1st-tier policies in the Imperialism line. Martial Law is clearly inferior to Colonialism.
• Martial law boosts a very bad building (constabulary) and gives a very weak gold bonus for unit maintenance reduction. Its only useful ability is the puppet yield penalty reduction, which is situational.
• Authority lost its garrison bonus last version, so this weak one in Imperialism is the only one left

Proposed Martial Law Change:
Yield penalties in puppetted cities reduced to 60% (from 80%)
Garrisons no longer require Gold maintenance, and provide +1 , and +4
(dropped constabulary bonus)

The bonus moves from a situational and costly building to a simple garrison bonus, making it easier to use., and consolidating a stronger incentive for Garrisons on a single policy.

 

[bonniepbilly]

consolidating a stronger incentive for Garrisons on a single policy.

What do you mean by this? Was there an incentive for garrisons but spread out?

 

[pineappledan]

2 versions ago, if you went Authority+Imperialism, you could get a combined +1 , and +2 and no maintenance on garrisons, spread across 2 policies. With this change you would get +1 , and +4 and no maintenance on garrisons, all on 1 policy. Stronger garrison bonuses and concentrated into a single place.

 

[zeofig]

The science nerf is too big. Is imperialism OP? I'm already tempted to go rationalism a lot

I don't really agree with your problems. Why is it bad if a policy is situational? Why is it bad if policies overlap? What's wrong with boosting bad buildings? I kind of like these things

I would rather see the garrison bonus removed if anything, it's just a boring mechanic. What about replacing it with a bigger constabulary bonus?

 

[Stalker0]

I do think it’s too much of a nerf. I think you can just buff martial law a bit (I have no issue with adding some more garrison bonus), but I don’t think we need to nerf colonialism so hard

 

[pineappledan]

Imperialism just got 2 straight buffs last congress. Are we just going to keep buffing Imperialism?

Colonialism is good for it. It's extravagantly good, with another 3 different 2 1 left intact from its original 5(!). The monopolies bonus is also situationally incredible.

As it stands now, the two 1st tier Imperialism policies are laughably one-sided; there is no situation where you aren't holding your nose to pick Martial Law. This by no means gives parity to the two, but at least Martial Law won't look so gimped in comparison.

 

[Stalker0]

Imperialism just got 2 straight buffs last congress. Are we just going to keep buffing Imperialism?

Sure If it needs it. We buff or nerf until balanced, doesn’t matter if it’s one buff or 100 if the final balance is still not right.

Frankly most policy trees have imbalanced policies, most of them have an optimized path.

All this change does is weaken imperialism overall.

 

[pineappledan]

We made the other two buffs to imperialism for reasons that weren’t strictly balance. This doesn’t just weaken imperialism, it adds back an elegant mechanic, unstacks bonuses off of constabulary which has 2 other policy bonuses and streamlines martial law, getting rid of the building bonus while strengthening the already existing bonuses.

If your only criticism is “this affects balance” then… yeah? It’s not a UI change. As I said, we just got done giving two large buffs to this tree, and Considering the exchange rate of culture vs science, we’re talking about less than 2 science, but more than 1 per city. Small potatoes, and Imperialism is still very much coming out ahead.

 

[KlHannibal2]

The science nerf is too big. Is imperialism OP? I'm already tempted to go rationalism a lot

I don't really agree with your problems. Why is it bad if a policy is situational? Why is it bad if policies overlap? What's wrong with boosting bad buildings? I kind of like these things

I would rather see the garrison bonus removed if anything, it's just a boring mechanic. What about replacing it with a bigger constabulary bonus?

I would also get rid of the garrison bonus. Garrison boni and free units were removed from authority and they should be removed here as well.

Also, the left side of imperialism was boosted by retaining all buildings in conquered cities. That also makes earlier policies on the left side more attractive

 

[Zakuzelo]

I would also get rid of the garrison bonus. Garrison boni and free units were removed from authority and the should be removed here as well.

I would rather see the garrison bonus removed if anything, it's just a boring mechanic.

Whoa now. The garrison bonus was removed from Honor because garrisons are generally a bad idea at that point in the game, but by industrial that's no longer the case. You've got plenty more supply and units, production and gold aren't as crucially precious, cities are more spread-out and wars less predictable, and with Imperialism you've got cheaper units to boot. A garrison bonus here makes perfect sense.

 

[pineappledan]

Ya'll stripped the garrison bonus promising we could move it back as a salve, and now you're arguing against its re-implementation in the way that you argued for. So that was all a ruse, and you just categorically are hating on a perfectly fine mechanic.

 

[Legen]

I like the proposal to Martial Law, but I don't think Imperialism needs a nerf. Domination oriented trees are underperforming for the AI and we've been asking for more Domination Victories lately.

 

[axatin]

Ya'll stripped the garrison bonus promising we could move it back as a salve, and now you're arguing against its re-implementation in the way that you argued for. So that was all a ruse, and you just categorically are hating on a perfectly fine mechanic.

No one here is in the position to make any promises about future changes as all changes have to go through congress and are voted on separately. I for my part voted for removing the garrison bonus from Authority because I think such a bonus is actually detrimental to the expansionist gameplay Authority is designed for: The player gets a bonus for keeping units in their cities, and those units are then unavailable for offensive wars or demanding tribute. This is a problem especially in the early game because of the low unit supply cap.

By the time Imperialism has been reached, the supply cap has increased, so having some units as garrisons doesn't restrict warfare that much anymore. In this sense, a garrison bonus is more suitable for Imperialism than for Authority. However, I'm not fully convinced of the idea for two reasons: First, it's tedious. In the late game, it's not a challenge at all to have enough units to put a garrison in every city, so the garrison bonus just leads to a lot of micro-management and I don't really see what for. Just make the policy give one Happiness per city no strings attached, the effect would be similar. Second and more importantly, a garrison bonus fits thematically better to policy trees that focus on defense and on protecting one's cities. If you want to use the garrison bonus somewhere, I think the best place would be Fealty, which already gives boosts to city strength.

For example, it could be included in the policy that reduces boredom in each city and converts Happiness into Culture (which is quite lame currently because you basically spend culture to increase your culture output). Something like:
Tournaments - Garrisons cost no maintenance, increase city strength by an additional 10% and provide 2 Happiness. 25% of Local Happiness is converted into Culture.

Another possible use for the Garrison bonus would be the Progress tree. The idea behind this would be to deter progress players from early game warfare because they have to use their units as garrisons. This would sharpen the difference between Progress and Authority. For example, garrisons could be a requirement for the Happiness bonuses from Equality.

 

[Legen]

Another possible use for the Garrison bonus would be the Progress tree. The idea behind this would be to deter progress players from early game warfare because they have to use their units as garrisons. This would sharpen the difference between Progress and Authority. For example, garrisons could be a requirement for the Happiness bonuses from Equality.

The no maintenance on garrisons was originally from Tradition and on the same policy that boosted city ranged strike if garrisoned. See https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Oligarchy_(Civ5) . Tradition is also the most defensive of the Ancient Era trees, already has a combat bonus for garrisons and tends to be gold starved as well.

I think it makes sense to give the no maintenance on garrisons back to Tradition. I don't think the tree needs a buff right now, but I think it is the most fitting for this kind of bonus.

 

[zeofig]

Whoa now. The garrison bonus was removed from Honor because garrisons are generally a bad idea at that point in the game, but by industrial that's no longer the case. You've got plenty more supply and units, production and gold aren't as crucially precious, cities are more spread-out and wars less predictable, and with Imperialism you've got cheaper units to boot. A garrison bonus here makes perfect sense.

Whoa now...! To me, it's still just a more annoying way of getting a flat bonus to each city. It's flat yields, except you have to spend a little extra time shuffling units.

 

[besset]

On higher difficulties when playing a warmonger game I always go for rationalism because of the science. Getting to gatling guns/better navy techs/landships/flight quicker than your opponents and overpowering them with higher CS units is infinitely better to win wars and conquering than any of the current imperialism bonuses.

Therefore any kind of nerf to imperialism at this point doesn't make sense. On the contrary I think it should be buffed with slightly more science to make it a viable tree compared to rationalism (but it shouldn't give as much science as rationalism). Science is really king at this stage of the game if you want to conquer effectively

I don't mind the garrison mechanic, but it's true that it introduces uneccesary micromanagement at times. But then again youd probably want a garrison in each city at this stage of the game anyways. It fits with the theme of imperialism but I also like the idea of having it in a more defensive oriented tree like fealty

 

[pineappledan]

Am I to understand at this point that I should add yields and garrison bonuses into martial law and not in any way touch Colonialism? Any attempt to compensate for the addition of yields in 1 place means removing them from somewhere else, which is unconditionally unacceptable? People are only interested in making imperialism stronger, and we should just continue ratcheting this tree up?

Okay, I will just amend the proposal to add the garrison boost and drop the 1 to constabularies. I care much more about adding back the garrison bonus and improving Martial Law than I do about toning colonialism down.

 

[KlHannibal2]

On higher difficulties when playing a warmonger game I always go for rationalism because of the science. Getting to gatling guns/better navy techs/landships/flight quicker than your opponents and overpowering them with higher CS units is infinitely better to win wars and conquering than any of the current imperialism bonuses.

Therefore any kind of nerf to imperialism at this point doesn't make sense. On the contrary I think it should be buffed with slightly more science to make it a viable tree compared to rationalism (but it shouldn't give as much science as rationalism). Science is really king at this stage of the game if you want to conquer effectively

I don't mind the garrison mechanic, but it's true that it introduces uneccesary micromanagement at times. But then again youd probably want a garrison in each city at this stage of the game anyways. It fits with the theme of imperialism but I also like the idea of having it in a more defensive oriented tree like fealty

Science is very strong in a domination game. However, I often find it hard to work 5 scientists per city to make full use of rationalism. Fort spam also gives a lot of science- esp. with military industrial complex.

I also like to take 3 rationalism and 3 imperialism.

 

[N.Core]

I'll sponsor this, should be easy.

 

[Recursive]

Proposal sponsored by N.Core.