(7-26a) Change Tradition and Fealty Growth and Food Scalers

[hokath]

Current: As 7-33 explains, the growth scaler on Tradition is weak. It was nerfed due to conditions that are no longer present and should be reverted.
However, it is also weak because %growth is fairly useless in the early stages of the game when food outputs are low. In return it scales later on.

Proposal:
Tradition gets +1 food in all cities instead of growth on the scaler. The opener 5% growth is removed and the +2 food in capital is increased to +3.
Fealty loses +1 food in all cities on the scaler. Instead it gains +1 faith. (edit: the combat strength is not changed) The +3 faith per city following your religion on the finisher is changed to +3 gold (it is currently +3 ).

Thoughts:
+1 food on the Tradition scaler is great for the early Tradition game because it allows you to immediately work tiles like Hills or Plains that you usually have to wait to be able to use.
Later, it helps with working that first specialist slot. Overall this will push Tradition to be stronger early, and cut down on the scaling power later. The lasting impact of the tree remains its GPP bonuses.
The change to Fealty is approximately a neutral swap of yields (5 food for 2 faith and 3 gold), and shouldn't impact the balance a great deal. You will get more faith, earlier, which I think will be welcome for the religious fanatics amongst us.

Spoiler Why not just swap scalers? :

My initial draft, as per the 7-33 thread, was just to swap the two scalars. However, as I wrote the proposal I realised that %benefits like that really don't belong on a Medieval tree either. The other trees give flat yields like prod, sci, gold instead. You don't see %-type benefits until the industrial era trees. Rationalism has +25% growth in a tier 3 policy, better it be there you go looking for crazy food bonuses, I think. There's an argument that should be spread out over the scaler too (because that policy is really good already), but this isn't a thread about Rationalism.

 

[pineappledan]

I mean, if anything that makes the Rationalism 25% growth bonus on the finisher more unique.

 

[msw1]

Artistry and statecraft scalers give +1 yield/city along with another bonus (bonus capital yields scaling with population for statecraft, bonus golden age points for artistry). I think it makes sense for fealty to get the +1 faith/city but there should be a second bonus to be on par with the other trees.

 

[Anarcomu]

Fealty unlocks the Monastery, which provides a total of 8 yields.
Yes, you do need to spend faith on it ; however fealty already provides a 25% faith discount which also help when buying missionaries and other religious buildings. I don't think they need something more.

EDIT : also, whilst not listed here, fealty scaler increase city strengh by 1 each.

 

[msw1]

+1 Faith and +1 City strength would be fine, so just swapping food with faith. The monastery/faith discount are the opener, not the scaler.

 

[hokath]

Just to clarify on Fealty, I am suggesting the scaler be +1 Faith and +1 City strength instead of +1 Food and +1 City strength

 

[pineappledan]

I suspect that this is actually a nerf.

Sure, it will help with the early game, but heading into mid game a 25% multiplier on excess food is stronger than a flat +5 food.

Even if this does fix tradition’s tempo issue early, and weight the tree more towards early game than it is now, the end result looks like it widens the gap between tradition and the other 2 wrt overall power.

 

[rkkn]

a 25% multiplier

20%

You need 25 surplus food before multipliers before the growth bonus matches the +5 (actually more than 25 if you have other growth multipliers, like WLTKD, or excess happiness). I'm not hitting that on my non-capital cities until renaissance. And it's even longer before I exceed it by any notable margin. And even longer still before the time that the +5 flat food has been better is exceeded by the amount of time the +20% growth has been better.
That's not even taking into account the fact that yields early is better than yields late. The fact that the early benefit has had time to compound by the time it becomes weaker.

I definitely think it's a buff. And I think it's a big enough buff that if the other proposals to nerf progress and authority pass the balance will have swung the other way a bit (smaller than the current gap).

 

[Stalker0]

20%

You need 25 surplus food before multipliers before the growth bonus matches the +5 (actually more than 25 if you have other growth multipliers, like WLTKD, or excess happiness). I'm not hitting that on my non-capital cities until renaissance. And it's even longer before I exceed it by any notable margin. And even longer still before the time that the +5 flat food has been better is exceeded by the amount of time the +20% growth has been better.
That's not even taking into account the fact that yields early is better than yields late. The fact that the early benefit has had time to compound by the time it becomes weaker.

I definitely think it's a buff. And I think it's a big enough buff that if the other proposals to nerf progress and authority pass the balance will have swung the other way a bit (smaller than the current gap).

Not sure if I would go this extreme, but looking at China, I do think a few extra food really early in the game will have a lot more impact than the growth bonus will overall.

 

[AndreyK]

I believe that will be big nerf also. China gets much more food and much earlier. +5 food on completing full Tradition tree is almost nothing. China gets +6 on settling 2 cities after capital.
Fealty now gets 25% faith discount and +3 food +3 science +2 faith on opener (from monastery).
Why do we want to remove growth? We can just add +1 flat food to every Tradition policy and I don't think that would be too much.

 

[pineappledan]

To clarify, I think it is a late game nerf, and an overall nerf, and that’s a reason I support it.

The ancient trees are in a constant arms race to overtake the medieval trees. They all collectively need to be hit with the nerf bat. Tradition needs it less than the other 2 though.

 

[Civ459]

Why do we want to remove growth? We can just add +1 flat food to every Tradition policy and I don't think that would be too much.

I agree. '+3 growth and +1 food in all cities' seems appropriate. and The opener 5% growth is removed

 

[azum4roll]

Early policy trees should have more flat yields instead of modifiers.

 

[Phosphoraptor]

I think policy trees except the finishers should mainly affect how you play in that phase of the game. (Tradition -> tall up to Medieval) You should be able to adapt your strategy as you advance irrespective of how your start is.

For example, you play as a wide Spain but start in a crowded part of the map and Progress becomes a bad pick. Now if the 1st policy tree was more impactful you would be gimping yourself by trying to play wide like you wanted to. Being less tied down to your 1st policy tree would reduce frustration beyond early game.

This also gives you more room to respond to what mid/late game throws at you. You should be incentivised to go Imperialism if you started Tradition but ate a bunch of warmonger neighbours that attacked you. Or go from Authority to Statecraft when you find a lot of CS beyond your conquered lands.

So all this means early trees should have bonuses that benefit early game more and fall off beyond that, and should have flat yields not % yields

 

[hokath]

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