[Vote] (5-25) Austria UA Change Proposals

[Recursive]

Voting Instructions
Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" for every proposal you'd be okay with if it were implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if these proposals weren't implemented. You can vote for any number of 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.

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VP Congress: Session 5, Proposal 25
Discussion Thread: (5-25) Austria UA Change
Proposer: @Stalker0
Sponsor(s): @Recursive

Proposal Details
Current Austria UA

+50% bonus from CS quests. May arrange marriages with allied CS using gold (not explicitly noted, cost: 500 gold, +100 per previous marriage). While at peace with CS, marriages increasing resting CS influence by 200, grant 1 vote, and boost GP generation in the capital by 15%.


Proposal

+100% rewards from City-State quests. May arrange Marriages with Allied City-States using Gold (not explicitly noted, cost: 200 gold, +200 per previous marriage), which increases Resting Influence equal to your current influence (max 500). Gain +10% to Great People generation in the Capital for each Marriage with a peaceful City-State.

Rationale
Austria is commonly cited as one of the most "oppresive" Civs, as her vote bonus from marriages can give her such an overwhelming WC advantage that the only way to stop her is extermination. This is further backed up by the AI results data, which shows Austria routinely in the top 3 civs version after version. Austria's need for a nerf is clear.

This proposal removes her vote bonus, the source of her oppression. Her quest bonus has been increased to make this the focus of her diplomatic playstyle. The bonus has now gone from a nice bonus to something that will help shape her play and so keeping the CS "happy" by completing quests will now be a core part of Austria's strength....rather than a sideshow. Her general GP bonus has been further weakened, to make her quest bonus more of the focus.

The change to her resting influence is meant to provide a strategic tradeoff between how fast she chooses to marry a civ. She can marry early at a lower influence rate, or push influence higher to get a really strong resting influence rate with the civ.

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VP Congress: Session 5, Proposal 25a
Discussion Thread: (5-25a) Austria UA Change
Proposer: @Solic
Sponsor(s): @Enginseer

Proposal Details
Current Austria UA:

+50% bonus from CS quests. May arrange marriages with allied CS using gold (not explicitly noted, cost: 500 gold, +100 per previous marriage). While at peace with CS, marriages increasing resting CS influence by 200, grant 1 vote, and boost GP generation in the capital by 15%.

Proposal:

+50% bonus from CS quests. May arrange marriages with allied CS using gold (not explicitly noted, cost: 500 gold, +100 per previous marriage). While at peace with CS, marriages increasing resting CS influence by 200, grant 1 vote per 3 marriages, and boost GP generation in the capital by 15%.

Rationale:

It's agreed upon here that Austria requires a nerf based on player experience and a consistently highly placed spot in a set of AI only games (although I would say that humans would be able to more easily fight against a diplomatic victory threat as opposed to other victory pursuits, so results would not necessarily transfer to human games and could overstate Austria's dominance).

This nerf is straightforward and curbs one of the more oppressive visible components of the UA, while still giving a noticeable edge in the most important victory pursuit of Austria.

It differs in the original proposal by being more straightforward to implement and not altering the way Austria has played before. I would disagree with the original proposal that +50% bonus from CS quests is a sideshow. In fact it is already quite powerful and sufficiently nudges Austrian players to care more about quests and go more out of their way to try and complete them. The tauted "more strategic" choice in choosing when to marry and then decide what resting influence is kept on there overcomplicates an already complicated unique mechanic to this civ. I don't think that Austria needs to be shown to be even more diplomacy focused in gaining 1 diplomat point and losing 5% GP generation. Lastly, increasing WC votes in some manner is an unique mechanic that makes Austria stand out and frankly I'd say that at least one diplomatic civ should have such a kind of an ability.

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VP Congress: Session 5, Proposal 25b
Discussion Thread: (5-25b) Austria UA Nerf
Proposer: @azum4roll
Sponsor(s): @azum4roll

Proposal Details
Current Austria UA:
+50% rewards from City-State Quests. May arrange Marriages with Allied City-States using Gold. While at peace with the City-State, Marriages increase resting Influence by 200, grant 1 Extra World Congress Delegate, and boost Great People generation in the Capital by 15%.

Marriage cost:
500 Gold + 100 per previous marriage (including dead CS), scaling with game speed.

Proposed Austria UA:
+50% rewards from City-State Quests. May arrange Marriages with Allied City-States using Gold. While at peace with the City-State, Marriages increase resting Influence by 200 and boost Great People generation in the Capital by 15%.

Marriage cost:
200 Gold + 200 per previous marriage (including dead CS), scaling with game speed.

The cost breaks even at 6 marriages.

Spoiler Cumulative gold cost for X marriages :

Blue = old cost, Green = new cost

Rationale:
Austria only needs a nerf. Removing the extra vote and increasing the later marriage cost (so it costs more to marry later on) are the only things that need to be changed.

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VP Congress: Session 5, Proposal 25c
Discussion Thread: (5-25c) Austria UA Change
Proposer: @Anarcomu
Sponsor(s): @axatin

Proposal Details
Current Austria UA :
+50% rewards from City-State Quests. May arrange Marriages with Allied City-States using Gold. While at peace with the City-State, Marriages increase resting Influence by 200, grant 1 Extra World Congress Delegate, and boost Great People generation in the Capital by 15%.
Marriage cost : 500 Gold + 100 per previous marriage (including dead CS), scaling with game speed.


Proposed Austria UA :
+50% rewards from City-State Quests. May arrange Marriages with Allied City-States using Gold. While at peace with the City-State, Marriages increase resting Influence by 75, scaling with era, and boost Great People generation in the Capital by 15%.
Marriage cost : 200 Gold + 200 per previous marriage (including dead CS), scaling with game speed.


Rational:
There were complains about Austria having its influence slowly increasing back to 200 in the early game (well, no more) ; plus, the loss of that extra vote is strong enough that it could get some bonuses somewhere else. So it gets a weaker early resting influence, and a stronger late-game influence matching the 500 max from original proposal.

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VP Congress: Session 5, Proposal 25d
Discussion Thread: (5-25d) Austria UA Change
Proposer: @DoveCDog
Sponsor(s): @axatin

Proposal Details
Current Austria UA:
+50% rewards from City-State quests. May arrange Marriages with allied City-States using gold (not explicitly noted, cost: 500 gold, +100 per previous marriage). While at peace with the City-State, Marriages increase resting influence by 200, boost Great People generation in the capital by 15%, and grant 1 Extra World Congress Delegate.

Proposal:
+50% rewards from City-State quests. May arrange Marriages with allied City-States using gold (not explicitly noted, cost: [200 gold, +50 per previous marriage] scaling with era). While at peace with the City-State, Marriages increase resting influence by 200, boost Great People generation in the capital by 15%, and grant 1 Extra World Congress Delegate for Austrian embassies in the City-State.

Rationale:
Austria needs a nerf. Marriages are unnecessarily expensive in the early game, and far too cheap in the late game. By having the cost scale with era, we can resolve both the issues.
1 delegate per embassy (as suggested by u/Solic) will a) reduce the amount of votes Austria gets, b) force the player to decide between using their Great Diplomats to ally another City-State or get more votes, c) allow opponents to counter by creating their embassies first.

 

[Solic]

It would be nice if option D were to go through as it currently seems, that AI Austria gets a higher bias somehow for using their great diplomats for embassies as opposed to influence.

 

[pineappledan]

The current Austrian UA is already the single longest UA in the game. Making it any longer causes a UI issue.

Any of the proposals that don’t drop the WC vote entirely are instead opting to make the WC vote take longer to describe. As a result, 5-30a and 5-30d will not physically fit in the space given for a UA description. They spill over onto a 5th line and into the margins on the civ select screen.

Case in point, this is proposal 5-30a written out as described in the civ select screen:

The extra WC votes are a bad UA bonus anyways. UA abilities are available to civs immediately from game start; they should become relevant some time before the Renaissance Era. That doesn't seem like too much to ask. Era-locked abilities are what UBs and UNWs are for.

 

[Solic]

The current Austrian UA is already the single longest UA in the game. Making it any longer causes a UI issue.

Any of the proposals that don’t drop the WC vote entirely are instead opting to make the WC vote take longer to describe. As a result, 5-30a and 5-30d will not physically fit in the space given for a UA description. They spill over onto a 5th line and into the margins on the civ select screen.

Case in point, this is proposal 5-30a written out as described in the civ select screen:
View attachment 667922

The extra WC votes are a bad UA bonus anyways. UA abilities are available to civs immediately from game start; they should become relevant some time before the Renaissance Era. That doesn't seem like too much to ask. Era-locked abilities are what UBs and UNWs are for.

I had already replied to you in the original thread, but it can just be reworded to fit on 4 lines like the current UA is. Note that the way you formatted your example is barely on 5 lines.

The UA bonus is relevant before, because you're already planning marriages as soon as you meet a city state and they give off a bonus as soon as you make your first marriage. That the bonus continues to grow in ways beyond Renaissance era is like every other UA that scales with era. The specific window of having to show every part of its bonus before Renaissance era also just seems like a limit you personally prefer. What difference does it make if it's on an UA or an UNW that's build around the time the WC is founded?

 

[pineappledan]

I had already replied to you in the original thread, but it can just be reworded to fit on 4 lines like the current UA is. Note that the way you formatted your example is barely on 5 lines.

The UA bonus is relevant before, because you're already planning marriages as soon as you meet a city state and they give off a bonus as soon as you make your first marriage. That the bonus continues to grow in ways beyond Renaissance era is like every other UA that scales with era. The specific window of having to show every part of its bonus before Renaissance era also just seems like a limit you personally prefer. What difference does it make if it's on an UA or an UNW that's build around the time the WC is founded?

It’s not my personal preference, unlocking something 200+ turns before you can use it is objectively horrible game design. That’s like making an FPS where you give players a gun 4 levels before you give them any bullets for it. Heck, why DIDN’T you propose a renaissance UNW for Austria? No one likes their UB anyways. You never hear me grumble about Venice’s free WC votes existing, because they’re on a tech locked building, where such a bonus belongs.

I demonstrated that if you add your proposal as worded it spills over the UI. It’s not my job to prove you right re: wording your proposal. If you can write out a version and demonstrate that you can word your proposed UA in a way that doesn’t spill over the interface then good, but if you can’t then it has no business going in the game. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate this is not a problem, not just hand wave it away.

 

[Stalker0]

I demonstrated that if you add your proposal as worded it spills over the UI. It’s not my job to prove you right re: wording your proposal. If you can write out a version and demonstrate that you can word your proposed UA in a way that doesn’t spill over the interface then good, but if you can’t then it has no business going in the game. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate this is not a problem, not just hand wave it away.

Already done in discord, I think we can move along on the text being of relevance to the vote

 

[pineappledan]

Already done in discord, I think we can move along on the text being of relevance to the vote

You reworded proposal d, but not proposal a, which is Solic’s

 

[Solic]

It’s not my personal preference, unlocking something 200+ turns before you can use it is objectively horrible game design. That’s like making an FPS where you give players a gun 4 levels before you give them any bullets for it. Heck, why DIDN’T you propose a renaissance UNW for Austria? No one likes their UB anyways. You never hear me grumble about Venice’s free WC votes existing, because they’re on a tech locked building, where such a bonus belongs.

I demonstrated that if you add your proposal as worded it spills over the UI. It’s not my job to prove you right re: wording your proposal. If you can write out a version and demonstrate that you can word your proposed UA in a way that doesn’t spill over the interface then good, but if you can’t then it has no business going in the game. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate this is not a problem, not just hand wave it away.

Taking your analogy further, it wouldn't be horrible design if you can pistol whip with it first. A marriage actually does something before the WC opens. I didn't propose a UNW, because I don't see an issue with this.

Here you go:

 

[Anarcomu]

I like proposal d, with the exception of scaling cost with era : I have the feeling that you should never have the incentive not to move to a new era, it's counterintuitive.

 

[pineappledan]

Creates an incentive to explore and buy marriages as soon as possible. Other proposals are mostly 200 base, plus 200 per previous marriage. With a scaler of only 50 per marriage, scaling with era, the marriage scaling is actually cheaper than other proposals until industrial. Seems specifically designed to punish isolated starts. I don’t think that’s desirable.

the double WC votes on embassies idea seems nice. I don’t see why such an ability should be tied to marriages as a condition. You will marry all civs anyways, so it offers no new incentive. It could be its own thing, a synergistic parallel bonus independent of the marriages and that wouldn’t affect how it plays at all. What itying it to marriages mainly does is make the ability harder to use anywhere else, like it’s designed solely to frustrate someone’s attempt to move it around in their own modmod.

The bonus seems most appropriate to put onto a national wonder. If it is a standalone bonus of +1 WC vote for each City-State Embassy on a unique Printing Press national wonder, that would shorten the UA text, solve the “gun with no bullets” in ancient era issue, and give Austria a non-sucky unique component to replace that F-tier coffeehouse.

 

[Legen]

Here you go:

How about this:

The "while at peace with the city-state" part could be placed on the marriage tooltip, present on the city-state screen and on the marriage icon. No need to place it in the UA, it's not like players are looking forward to conquer a CS they married.

 

[Rekk]

All of these proposals require extra DLL work, but 30a and 30d are just makework.

 

[Jozrael]

C: I like the rest influence point scaling up by era, which is why I chose this one. I'll miss the extra vote .

 

[Solic]

I think it'll be more frustrating to players to barely be able to outinfluence Austria later on with how hard that influence scaling is going to ramp up than having to try and outflank a few more votes in congress. Democracy has spoken however, so let's see how it'll do.

 

[pineappledan]

I think it'll be more frustrating to players to barely be able to outinfluence Austria later on with how hard that influence scaling is going to ramp up than having to try and outflank a few more votes in congress. Democracy has spoken however, so let's see how it'll do.

You prefer the freedom of knowing you’ll never beat Austria’s inherent vote advantage than have to try playing against her at a disadvantage?

I guess we could have opted for keeping some part of the WC votes, and dropped the increased resting influence, but every proposal has increased RI to some extent. Your proposal has players trying to both out-do Austria’s influence advantage and try to outflank their extra votes total.

 

[Solic]

You prefer the freedom of knowing you’ll never beat Austria’s inherent vote advantage than have to try playing against her at a disadvantage?

I guess we could have opted for keeping some part of the WC votes, and dropped the increased resting influence, but every proposal has increased RI to some extent. Your proposal has players trying to both out-do Austria’s influence advantage and try to outflank their extra votes total.

Yes, I'd exactly prefer to play at multiple smaller disadvantages than a disadvantage that I think is too large to overcome. The difference in magnitude is what's important here. I predict I'll likely not bother trying to out-influence new Austria and just stick to coups and spheres of influence.

 

[Stalker0]

Yes, I'd exactly prefer to play at multiple smaller disadvantages than a disadvantage that I think is too large to overcome. The difference in magnitude is what's important here. I predict I'll likely not bother trying to out-influence new Austria and just stick to coups and spheres of influence.

It can be argued that when competing against austria in the late game. Her vote bonus is 1 vote per marriage, but every CS ally she maintains that you feel you "cannot take" is actually 4 votes, 2 she gains and 2 you cannot. So in terms of a competitive DV versus I could see the argument that very high resting influence is actually stronger in the long term.

I think the current vote bonus has to be curbed though if not eliminated, at some point you get enough free extra votes that its just not possible to compete with her.

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.