4/14 Patch - Freedom

[pineappledan]

If you're willing to blow up the text on that policy. Otherwise, I would just leave it at Arsenal, or Arsenal and 1 other building, or Arsenal and a heal

 

[Legen]

About Self-determination, why not make the tenet grant 6 free military units to the liberated CS? Freedom used to have Volunteer Army granting 6 Foreign Legions when picked for you, which is a very similar effect.

About New Deal, the event it references is harshly questioned by the ideology it is in. I think it should be renamed as something else. I also think it is rather subpar on its own, given how Party Leadership grants 28 yields per city, including science and culture. My suggestion for name and buff is:

Private research funding
All GPTI gain +7 Science and Gold. 10% of Gold in a city is added as Science.

About Transnationalism, I think the addition of Towns as franchises is the right addition. It is the only corporation tenet that doesn't help in case of a sanction, and also has the lowest franchise potential of all three. Having towns counting as franchises (and ideally not counting towards the maximum number of franchises) could even the tenet with Nationalization and Syndicalism.

About B17, the unit could come earlier in the tech tree, maybe at Rocketry. I don't know if it needs much else, as a super bomber coming while everyone is stuck with triplanes can be very nasty.

Personally, I prefer Urbanization and Civil Society effects to be fused into a single tenet, no need for new effects.

About Avant Garde, the proposed change to +1 GPP seems solid, but I think it should include guilds as well. The extra 3/4/5 GPP they give passively should not be underestimated, they benefit a lot from the current +33% implementation.

 

[Stalker0]

About Self-determination, why not make the tenet grant 6 free military units to the liberated CS? Freedom used to have Volunteer Army granting 6 Foreign Legions when picked for you, which is a very similar effect.

Hmm that's a neat idea, focus on the army more than the city, which might be the better approach. So let me put a new list of proposals based on current feedback (I'll update the OP as well).

• Civil Society (T1): Removed (merged with Urbanization).

• Universal Suffrage moved from T2 to T1

• Urbanization (T1): Farms, Camps, Plantations, and Unique Improvements gain +4 . Specialists require 2 less (minimum 1)

• New Deal (T2): Landmarks and GPTI gain +6 to the appropriate yield, and +3 tourism.

• Their Finest Hour (T2): +33% City Strength to all cities and allied CS. Can use B17 bombers (still needs a unit upgrade just not sure what yet)

• Transnationalism (T2): Every owned Town counts as a Franchise. Each turn, increase the chance that a corporation will appear in a foreign city to 15% (normally 5%). Global Franchise maximum increases by 25%. +2 from corporation offices.

• Self-Determination (new T2): Liberating cities gives 15 XP to all units, 50 Influence with all City-States, and 40, scaling by era and city population. The liberated city is healed to full, and gains a Walls, Castle, Arsenal, and 6 Foreign Legion units.

On the B17, we did some brainstorming on the unit in another thread. Probably the most interesting idea was the ability to pillage the tile of a unit you killed. So something like this.

Carpet Bombing (B17 promotion): When you kill a unit, the underlying tile is pillaged. This pillage does not provide any benefits.

 

[pineappledan]

Liberating cities gives 15 XP to all units, 50 Influence with all City-States, and 40Science, scaling by era and city population. The liberated city is healed to full, and gains a Walls, Castle, Arsenal, and 6 Foreign Legion units.

Holy description gore, Batman! That needs to get trimmed.
Here's my take:

Self-Determination
Liberating cities gives 15 XP to all units, 50 Influence with all City-States, a large sum of Science. The liberated city is healed, gains a free Arsenal, and spawns Partisans.

• The types of units spawned by Partisans aren't era-locked, and giving a special mercenary unit from the Authority tree would make Foreign Legions less unique.
• Walls and castles are anachronistic and don't really help that much in comparison to just the Arsenal by itself.
• I wouldn't go into so much detail about exactly how much science and healing happens, just because it's not worth the text. It is useful for discussion on the forum though.

Carpet Bombing (B17 promotion): When you kill a unit, you pillage the tile as well. This pillage does not provide any benefits.

The US did not really advocate for area bombing, that was mainly the British and the Germans. American bomber command was much more in favour of precision targets.

While the B17 was America's heavy bomber, it wasn't actually a major area bomber. The base unit model for the WWII-era bomber is an Avro Lancaster, a much larger plane with a longer range and larger bomb payload.
The B17's claim to fame was that it was the daytime bomber; the Lancasters were relegated to night bombing. B17s had stronger armor, a higher operational ceiling, and lots of machine gun turrets. German's referred to a B-17 flying box formation as the "flying porcupine". The B-17s innate ability to defend itself was further enhanced later in the war when fighter escorts became a regular feature of bombing missions.

IMO, the B-17 should have stronger bonuses to evading fighter and interception damage (higher ceiling), and maybe some way to even hit back on interception actions. I don't know how that could be effected, because air combat mechanics keep changing, and they are late, and only sometimes appear in games, but maybe just a large combat bonus vs fighters would do the trick?

 

[Stalker0]

Holy description gore, Batman! That needs to get trimmed.
Here's my take:

Self-Determination
Liberating cities gives 15 XP to all units, 50 Influence with all City-States, a large sum of Science. The liberated city is healed, gains a free Arsenal, and spawns Partisans.

• The types of units spawned by Partisans aren't era-locked, and giving a special mercenary unit from the Authority tree would make Foreign Legions less unique.
• Walls and castles are anachronistic and don't really help that much in comparison to just the Arsenal by itself.
• I wouldn't go into so much detail about exactly how much science and healing happens, just because it's not worth the text. It is useful for discussion on the forum though.

The US did not really advocate for area bombing, that was mainly the British and the Germans. American bomber command was much more in favour of precision targets.

Before we start trimming out user helpful details on the alter of brevity, I just want to note that we aren't pushing past any text limits that other ideologies aren't already at. Here's just a few examples to show that we are not in any text length red areas.

Self-Determination (new T2)
Liberating cities gives 15 XP to all units, 50 Influence with all City-States, and 40, scaling by era and city population. The liberated city is healed to full, and gains a Walls, Castle, Arsenal, and 6 Foreign Legion units.

Iron First
Vassals can no longer be liberated by other Civilizations, and capitulated vassals can no longer rebel. Yields from City-States increased by 25%, Vassals tribute an additional 25% of their yields, and 50% worker improvement rate.

Syndicalism
Corporate Franchises count double in the cities of civilizations you are at least popular with, and this extra franchise does not count against your Global Franchise maximum. Can establish 5 additional Franchises in foreign cities. +2 production from corporate offices.

Nationalism
Each Corporate Office counts as a Franchise. Foreign Franchises no longer benefit your corporation, you can no longer construct Franchises in foreign cities (except Vassals), and foreign corporations can no longer set up Franchises in your cities. +2 science from all Corporation Offices.


So the science description I am using is the exact same as Imperium. Users should know how much benefit a policy gives you them, it should not be a guessing game, and I personally feel very strongly about that. I hate it when benefits are not clear, heck I hate the fact that the pop scaler here isn't mentioned, but I kept that out again because we accepted it with Imperium.

I feel like we are going back and forth on the defense buildings. Before you said you were fine with it if its not too much text. It literally adds 2 words and 2 commas. And yes another 14 CS really does matter, just as it would on a unit, it effects how much the city deals, and how much it takes. I agree with you that its anarchonistic...but that's just the way Civ is. Its weird that in the modern age I have to build walls before arsenals (or that the walls actually has benefit), same as its weird to still build councils before libraries,etc. But that's the way the game is, the game expects those buildings to be built one on top of the other, and each one still has value to the total contribution of the city.

I like the partisan concept, its a good easy way to provide a scaling unit. My only question there is, wouldn't the partisans be barbarians then? That would actually hurt the liberated city, or is it possible to use the partisan logic but keep them under control of the owner?

I agree with you that the healing to full can be trimmed to just healed, that makes sense to me. So new version combining some of our thoughts:

• Self-Determination (new T2):

Liberating cities gives 15 XP to all units, 50 Influence with all City-States, and 40, scaling by era and city population. The liberated city is healed; gains a Walls, Castle, and Arsenal; and spawns 6 Partisans.


On the B17, your not wrong about the flavor, and if we wanted to use a British bomber to be more favor friendly I have no issue with that. Ultimately my personal take is that the B17 is not weak, but its very uninteresting compared to its counterparts. The fact that Zeros require no oil (which talking about flavor realism....hehe no oil!) is a major deal, Autocracy players can spam aircraft in a way no other can, not to mention that the zero is an awesome plane. The guerilla's ability to ignore ZoC is huge, again changing the battlefield, not to mention they are insanely strong against anything wounded (they take on tanks without issue with just a little splash artillery support). Comparatively the B17 just doesn't do anything "cool", its "nice", its "decent", but I never go "ooooooh sweet, here comes the B17!" where I absolutely do that when I get zeroes and guerrilas.

I feel the bonus against fighters you suggest would just make it a "better bomber" not a "cooler bomber"

 

[pineappledan]

When razing a city, the partisans are under the control of that city's former owner.
The anachronism is just too great for an ideology tenet to be giving old, obsolete defensive structures, and 2 to boot. It's just too weird and I can't get behind it.

The B-17's current bonuses are:
+5RCS
Siege I (33% vs cities, but more importantly a line promotion, so faster access to lategame promotions)
Evasion (50% damage reduction from interception)

So that actually helps stress the feel of an uncounterable bomber that can hit you in broad daylight pretty well. Maybe it could go even further and have a -5 damage reduction like Dauntless?
You wouldn't want to double up on the Zero with no strategics, IMO

 

[Stalker0]

The anachronism is just too great for an ideology tenet to be giving old, obsolete defensive structures, and 2 to boot. It's just too weird and I can't get behind it.

Should we remove the MIC bonus to walls, as it makes no sense for a modern military to get any research advantages from walls?

You keep saying Obsolete but that is not how the game treats them. Defensive buildings do not "obsolete", they stack on top of each other, getting greater and greater benefits. Because damage is a comparison of CS, every point of CS matters, no matter where it comes from. If it makes you feel better, considering that walls gives an actual advantage against tanks (where in real life the tanks can literally just run through them)....think of them more as a small military installation than an actual wall made of stone.

I get that flavor is important, but we do have to draw the line at gameplay somewhere. We have accepted that walls and castles are still relevant in the later parts of the game....somehow, by whatever flavor you wish to use to accept that premise. By that same premise, we accept that you need 3 defensive buildings to equal the CS of what an arsenal is "supposed" to grant a modern city defense wise, and so the tenant grants it.

So that actually helps stress the feel of an uncounterable bomber that can hit you in broad daylight pretty well. Maybe it could go even further and have a -5 damage reduction like Dauntless?
You wouldn't want to double up on the Zero with no strategics, IMO

Again it just feels like we are making a stronger bomber, not a bomber that changes up how war is fought. I do agree that no strategics is a bad idea, its already crazy strong on a fighter (zero), it would be insane on a bomber.

We could hit the other side of the coin, what if it didn't take up air slots in the city? (but with a proper reduction in power). The ability to field more bombers in a city than normal would definately be a war shake up, and it would help Tall Freedom players with limited supply have an avenue for more troops through "supply free" bombers. If that was too much, perhaps 1/2 a slot (aka 2 bombers take up 1 slot)

 

[azum4roll]

We could hit the other side of the coin, what if it didn't take up air slots in the city? (but with a proper reduction in power). The ability to field more bombers in a city than normal would definately be a war shake up, and it would help Tall Freedom players with limited supply have an avenue for more troops through "supply free" bombers. If that was too much, perhaps 1/2 a slot (aka 2 bombers take up 1 slot)

I don't think anyone wants MORE plane animations.

If the B17 doesn't thematically fit the pillage idea, we can always change the model to something else.

 

[InkAxis]

The anachronism is just too great for an ideology tenet to be giving old, obsolete defensive structures, and 2 to boot. It's just too weird and I can't get behind it.

Is this the hill you die on? I mean I can see where you are coming from, it does seem a little weird but not any weirder than the other tenets.
You could also phrase it as "gets 3 defensive buildings".

 

[Legen]

Improving the RCS of allied cities is new code and it is such a microscopic, fringe benefit, I can't imagine why this change would be worth it.

Siam's UA already does that, at +25%.

On Self-determination, Walls and Castles are necessary for defense, as they grant range and a RCS modifier. The tenet's wording could just be:

"Liberating cities gives 15 XP to all units, 50 Influence with all City-States, and 40 Science, scaling by era and city population. The liberated city is healed, gains free defensive buildings (up to Arsenal) and spawns 6 Partisans."

On B17, I really think it doesn't require new flashy effects. Just moving it to an earlier tech may already be enough.

 

[Stalker0]

We could hit the other side of the coin, what if it didn't take up air slots in the city? (but with a proper reduction in power). The ability to field more bombers in a city than normal would definately be a war shake up, and it would help Tall Freedom players with limited supply have an avenue for more troops through "supply free" bombers. If that was too much, perhaps 1/2 a slot (aka 2 bombers take up 1 slot)

Probably the simplier way to do this would be to leave the B17 alone, but have "In their finest hours" tenant provide +1 or +2 air plane slots in each city. It will still mainly benefit the B17 (in the same way that free airports benefits the zero), and you now have a unique scenario where freedom players can concentrate firepower earlier than anyone else, and ultimately can do it more in the later game as regular airports come online. Autocracy will still have teh advantage in spam aircraft and will still have the slot advantage over freedom for a time until regular airports come online....so both sides get their own unique advantages in the air wars.

 

[Stalker0]

So after playing several freedom games in a row, I've toned down my thoughts on changes. Universal Suffrage is pretty good, Covert Action is actually very solid. Transnationalism remains pretty solid as well. So here is my new list with some pruning.

My Suggested Change Summary

• Civil Society (T1): Removed (merged with Urbanization).

• Urbanization (T1): Farms, Camps, Plantations, and Unique Improvements gain +4 . Specialists require 2 less (minimum 1)

• New Deal (T2): Landmarks and GPTI gain +6 to the appropriate yield, and +2 tourism. (the base yields are fine just needs a little tourism to round out Freedom's CV status).

• Their Finest Hour (T2): +33% City Strength and +1 air slot to all cities. Can use B17 bombers

• Self-Determination (new T1): Liberating cities gives 15 XP to all units, 50 Influence with all City-States, and 40, scaling by era and city population. The liberated city is healed to full; it gains an Arsenal and 6 Foreign Legion units. (I'm willing to compromise with PAD's thoughts on just needing an arsenal if we get the foreign legion units, I think the units will serve well on the defense, giving the city some time to build its defense buildings).

 

[azum4roll]

There's a possibility that the city doesn't have enough land to hold those 6 foreign legions, particularly for CS. Do they just go into the water?

 

[Rekk]

Doesn't Foreign Legion get bonuses for being outside of the owner's territory? How do its bonuses help in defending the CS's own territory?

 

[DeAnno]

There's a possibility that the city doesn't have enough land to hold those 6 foreign legions, particularly for CS. Do they just go into the water?

Maybe just say six units in the description, and a coastal CS gets 3 FLs and 3 ships instead?

 

[pineappledan]

I agree with the units spawn, I just think it should piggyback off the partisans code. Give whatever you would get if someone tried to raze that city

 

[Stalker0]

I put the latest thoughts on Self-Determination in the OP, giving this a bump to see what people think.

 

[DaniSciB]

I like all the proposed changes, I welcome anything that buffs Freedom, the only Victory it seems to excel is Diplomatic, when we talk about Culture and Science, other ideologies seems to have better bonuses.

Plus, the bonuses from liberating cities is an amazing idea, I REALLY want to see it implemented lol.

 

[InkAxis]

Liberating cities gives 15 XP to all units, 50 Influence with all City-States, and 40, scaling by era and city population. The liberated city gains an Arsenal, 6 Partisan units, and is healed to full.

I don't want to add too much new code, can we simplify this somehow? I really like the proposal though.
What about switching out the XP and the healing with Gold yields (the same way the science works)?

 

[pineappledan]

If it's too much, maybe the healing isn't necessary if the arsenal and partisans are there?