7.7 general thoughts

[Txurce]

I don't see how that is an argument for a lower impact on culture cost from adding cities.
.
My main problem isn't with the method or anything, it is that the warrior is too weak now, particularly compared to the strength value of the early barbarians (warrior vs poacher for example) and vs the archer and spearman (warrior should be able to defend against spearman, warrior should be able to beat archer 1v1 if it attacks first - not 1 shot, but in 2 attacks).

1. As I said earlier, doesn't cripple the expansionist civ to the point where it can't make much use of SP's. I've played with it, and I like the present balance. It'll be tough t change my mind, since I'd be going against my own experience (not to mention it;s supported by others). If you see it differently, then we disagree here.

2. I haven't even noticed the difference with my opening warrior, but that is not yet enough of a sample.

The player is more likely to build walls if the AI is taking their cities. If this turns out not to be the case, however, perhaps the base city defense should be lowered (might be a good idea anyway now that I think about it).

I do like this for Tradition, and would be fine with moving it there. I think it could fit equally well (from a gameplay perspective) in Liberty because smaller cities = lower defense values and a wider empire will by definition have more border cities. Otoh, for a small empire each city is more valuable, so it could fit in any of the first three trees.

1. I will definitely build walls, based on the enemy's composition, or the general diplomatic vibe. The reduction in wall strength wouldn't affect my decision at all. I either think I need them, or I don't.

2. That's pretty much exactly how I feel.

 

[Txurce]

1. If you have to have a small empire in order to get lots of policies, then a tall/small empire strategy is relatively more powerful.

I disagree. The old version made tall empires a valid strategic choice, particularly if you were going for policy advancement. Now, expansion is always enticing, and the small/tall empire is weak. So we now have fewer strategic options, because expansion is always favored (as long as happiness can support it).

2. Liberty is about expansion, and if you are expanding, then it isn't really worth building walls, because that border city might become a non-border city.

1. I would alter your first sentence to read "If you have to have a small empire in order to get more policies, then a tall/small empire strategy is relatively more powerful."

That is my view of the current state of affairs, and why I feel the game is in great shape, regardless of what tweaking may still be required.

2. The Pioneer Fort argues against this. Should I assume this is the Antichrist of UB's?

 

[Ahriman]

1. I would alter your first sentence to read "If you have to have a small empire in order to get more policies, then a tall/small empire strategy is relatively more powerful."

I wouldn't. If each city only increases policy cost by 10%, then adding an extra city will *increase* the rate of your policy advance so long as it increases your culture income by at least 10% (which, say for a 6th city, is very plausible).
We now have a system where you can get more/faster policies with a wide empire than with a tall empire. I don't like this, this removes one of the few benefits that a tall empire had.

The Pioneer Fort argues against this. Should I assume this is the Antichrist of UB's?

The pioneer fort doesn't argue against this. The pioneer fort is worth building because it has a big bonus; you build the pioneer fort for the growth bonus, not because you need walls. The wall bonus part pioneer fort has no particular synergy with Liberty. Liberty and the pioneer fort both give expansion bonuses, but the existence of the pioneer fort in no way argues that wall bonuses should be in liberty or that they fit in liberty.

This would be like arguing that India favors Tradition and has a castle UB and thus a castle bonus should be in Tradition.
That would be a silly argument.

And yes, I dislike the the pioneer fort. [I dislike the US faction design entirely, and I never play them, I find them to be weak and dull. The tile purchase ability is still near useless, and I find the extra sight range not that useful, and minutemen are a dull UU. Minutemen would be much more interesting if they had move-after-attack as a mobility enhancer instead of no terrain cost. Or maybe a bonus while in friendly territory. I argued previously for the US to be a late-game superpower (eg with a stock market UB), but the consensus was against me, so I don't want to belabor the point.]

 

[Gamewizard]

I like how culture is now. I recently played a vanilla game as France, built 5 cities and ended up with about 7 puppets. I won a culture victory around turn 350, but I realized kind of late that my puppets were neglecting culture buildings and that if I had annexed some of the puppets early and then rushed culture buildings that I could have sped up my policy gain and won sooner. I do wish that the Freedom policy that increases World Wonder base culture was 3 instead of 2, though.

 

[Txurce]

We now have a system where you can get more/faster policies with a wide empire than with a tall empire.

And yes, I dislike the the pioneer fort.

1. I disagree, based on my experience so far. And I suspect you haven't tested it substantively, but rather are making a broad assumption based on your interpretation of the underlying mechanics. The only way that this should be changed is on consensus based on experience.

2. I knew you dislike it. I love it. And I brought it up to show that in some cases, the argument doesn't really matter. Playstyle and experience trumps argument (be it mine or yours).

 

[Ahriman]

Getting off-topic again.

Spoiler :

The only way that this should be changed is on consensus based on experience.

I suspect that you don't actually know anything about my experience, but rather are making broad assumptions.

How does one form a consensus based on experience unless individual players are allowed to report their experience? I certainly found that in the previous version of TBC when the policy multiplier was 0.1 with Representation (and when unhappiness per city was 3, and when happiness buildings were lower than pre-patch vanilla) that policy rate felt too high to me for large empires.
I felt that once those changes were removed, that we had pretty good balance between tall and wide empires, but I feel that all of the changes since then have favored wide over tall.

Playstyle and experience trumps argument (be it mine or yours).

My experience is that social policies have become less fun as their bonuses have become less logically connected to their actual policy. The immersion level has dropped.
My experience is that the US is not much fun to play. My experience is that the main reason to build the Pioneer fort is because of its growth bonus, not its defensive ability.

 

[Txurce]

1. I suspect that you don't actually know anything about my experience, but rather are making broad assumptions.

How does one form a consensus based on experience unless individual players are allowed to report their experience?

2. My experience is that the US is not much fun to play. My experience is that the main reason to build the Pioneer fort is because of its growth bonus, not its defensive ability.[/spoiler]

1. I'm making an inference based on your rarely bringing up an actual game, but rather speaking about relative numbers. If your opinion is based on experience with both tall and wide empires post-patch, then I stand corrected. And if so, I'll wait for others to confirm your perception, since my experience runs counter to it.

2. I have no problem with that. My point was that my experience (I like it) will lead me to discount the arguments you made earlier.

 

[Thalassicus]

Some things to remember:

• Combat is too easy. One of my longstanding goals is to shift away from in-combat effects (such as defense) to out-of-combat effects (like food, production, and happiness).
• We've got very limited options for policy effects, so removing any effect leaves the difficult decision of what to replace it with.
• The 20% unhappiness reduction in Piety was split into three different happiness-boosting effects, one appropriate for each playstyle.
• I weigh all opinions and often go with ideas that are not my own, such as Cavalry>Dragoons or swapping Militia/Pikeman on the tech tree. In the end though, I've put 2081 hours into this project according to steam, so I do heavily weigh what I personally find fun.

 

[Txurce]

There's some important things to remember:

• Combat is too easy. One of my longstanding goals is to shift away from in-combat effects (such as defense) to out-of-combat effects (like food, production, and happiness).
• We've got very limited options for policy effects, so removing any effect leaves the difficult decision of what to replace it with.
• The 20% unhappiness reduction in Piety was split into three different happiness-boosting effects, one appropriate for each playstyle.

1. I am keeping my fingers crossed regarding the boost to AI vision.

2. The Piety split is a good example of what I meant by the devs rebalancing the game by more or less leveling the policies. They do seem more dull than the last TBC ones, but the game plays at a slower, more enjoyable pace for me now.

 

[Ahriman]

We've got very limited options for policy effects, so removing any effect leaves the difficult decision of what to replace it with.

Fair enough. If we were to remove the happiness from defensive structures from Honor, we could consider replacing it with:
i) Some kind of bonus from unit-construction structures (barracks, armory, etc. - maybe passive XP gain? Or standard bonuses.).
ii) X free units (rather than -X% unit maintenance from Autocracy).
iii) One-off free units (though this would fit better at the top of the tree).
iv) Experience boost for newly created units (fits well with Professional Military theme).
v) Increased gold from pillaging (might not be technically feasible?).
vi) Combat bonus vs cities.
vii) Extra units from military city states (alliance).
viii) Extra bonuses from conquering cities (more gold, bigger CS bonuses, population in your own cities, no partisan generation etc.)

Also, I would note that with the more expensive unit upgrade costs in TBC, -50% upgrade costs is already very valuable.

The Piety split is a good example of what I meant by the devs rebalancing the game by more or less leveling the policies. They do seem more dull

The dullness is part of my complaint.

One other thing on policies I have thought about; it would be great if different sides of trees supported different playstyles better. One thing that in particular sticks out; a player might choose to have either a trading post economy or a specialist economy. So it is very frustrating that the policies that boost them (in commerce and rationalism) force you to get both.
It would be much more fun if the left side of the tree supported trading posts and the right side supported specialists (or vice versa). As it is, if you get both policies, only one is really going to be very useful. So shuffling these kinds of bonuses around would be good.

 

[Thalassicus]

I avoid experience bonuses in the early game because it's basically the same as a combat bonus, both of which make combat easier. This is why I removed the +50% experience policy and replaced it with a small, flat experience gain to new units much later in the game.

Because of this my bigger priority is to get rid of the Barb combat bonus again. I agree the free units bonus makes more sense in Honor than Freedom, and will move it here, once I figure out something to replace it with in Freedom.

There's no event for when a unit pillages so that one's infeasible.

Moving a militaristic citystate bonus from Order to Honor would make sense.

I do like having a city-capture bonus in the Honor tree.

It's nice to have something other than only upgrade costs on Professional Army for variety. What I'd like best is for it to unlock "advanced" promotions for honor-focused players. I never could figure out good options for such promotions, however, if you might have any ideas.

One other thing on policies I have thought about; it would be great if different sides of trees supported different playstyles better. One thing that in particular sticks out; a player might choose to have either a trading post economy or a specialist economy. So it is very frustrating that the policies that boost them (in commerce and rationalism) force you to get both.
It would be much more fun if the left side of the tree supported trading posts and the right side supported specialists (or vice versa). As it is, if you get both policies, only one is really going to be very useful. So shuffling these kinds of bonuses around would be good.

This is a great idea! I like when each tree has several distinct paths for different strategies, so there isn't a single "best path" through the tree.

 

[Zaldron]

I like how culture is now. I recently played a vanilla game as France, built 5 cities and ended up with about 7 puppets. I won a culture victory around turn 350, but I realized kind of late that my puppets were neglecting culture buildings and that if I had annexed some of the puppets early and then rushed culture buildings that I could have sped up my policy gain and won sooner. I do wish that the Freedom policy that increases World Wonder base culture was 3 instead of 2, though.

I feel that the policy is worthless at 2 or 3, three just makes it slightly less worthless. You'd have to have 4 1/2 wonders to equal a single landmark in your hermitage city (three wonders if they were *all* also in that city). On higher difficulties the humans aren't building many wonders so it just doesn't amount to much culture.

 

[Ahriman]

There's no event for when a unit pillages so that one's infeasible.

I miss Civ4 modding....

What I'd like best is for it to unlock "advanced" promotions for honor-focused players. I never could figure out good options for such promotions, however, if you might have any ideas.

I like the general idea here. We used a mechanism like this in Dune Wars, where you could get superior promotions for melee units if you used up one of your precious offworld trade slots on Ginaz swordmaster training, and where late-game techs allowed access to superior promotions.

Some ideas:
Super specialization. I find that in general most of the specialist-vs-unit types are not worth getting. Boosted forms of these might be nice. If you have a large army, you have more room to specialize each one, and then more tactical decision-making to do as to where you place your specialists for maximum effect.
So you could have something like:
Testudo (+35% ranged defense)
Porcupine (+35% vs mounted)
Duelist (+35% vs melee)
Shock trooper (+25% vs fortified, +25% city attack)
Heavy weapons (+25% vs tanks, helicopters, modern armor).

You could have generalist promotions:
Elite 1, Elite 2, Elite 3, +15% strength.

Ideally we'd have some kind of utility promotions, but I'm not sure what is possible codewise there.
Maybe:
Shieldbearer: gives +20% ranged defense for this unit and all units in adjacent tiles.
Pathfinder: gives ignore terrain cost for this unit and all units in adjacent tiles
Assassin: unit can ignore ZoC.
Harasser: Reduces movement of any adjacent enemies by 1
Counter-battery: ranged unit only, gets a free counter attack at half strength when fired on by a ranged attack. Or, just a 35% bonus vs units with a ranged attack.
Leadership: gives +10% strength aura to adjacent units (stacks with great general?)

But the AI wouldn't understand how to use most of these, which IMO is a dealbreaker.
But there might be some scope to use aura-type effects like that of the great general.

Also:
Free one-off units of the best type you can produce might be interesting as a side option (ie not part of the main 3 policies). So you could use it early to get spearmen or swordsmen, or you could use it later to get muskets or infantry.

 

[Ahriman]

I feel that the policy is worthless at 2 or 3, three just makes it slightly less worthless. You'd have to have 4 1/2 wonders to equal a single landmark in your hermitage city (three wonders if they were *all* also in that city). On higher difficulties the humans aren't building many wonders so it just doesn't amount to much culture.

Strongly agree.

 

[Thalassicus]

This is a list of all promotion properties available to us:

Spoiler :

InstaHeal
Leader
Blitz
Amphib
River
EnemyRoute
RivalTerritory
MustSetUpToRangedAttack
RangedSupportFire
CanMoveAfterAttacking
AlwaysHeal
HealOutsideFriendly
HillsDoubleMove
RoughTerrainEndsTurn
IgnoreTerrainCost
HoveringUnit
FlatMovementCost
CanMoveImpassable
NoCapture
OnlyDefensive
NoDefensiveBonus
NukeImmune
HiddenNationality
AlwaysHostile
NoRevealMap
Recon
CanMoveAllTerrain
FreePillageMoves
AirSweepCapable
AllowsEmbarkation
EmbarkedNotCivilian
EmbarkedAllWater
HealIfDestroyExcludesBarbarians
RangeAttackIgnoreLOS
RangedAttackModifier
InterceptionCombatModifier
InterceptionDefenseDamageModifier
AirSweepCombatModifier
ExtraAttacks
ExtraNavalMovement
VisibilityChange
MovesChange
MoveDiscountChange
RangeChange
InterceptChanceChange
NumInterceptionChange
EvasionChange
CargoChange
EnemyHealChange
NeutralHealChange
FriendlyHealChange
SameTileHealChange
AdjacentTileHealChange
EnemyDamageChance
NeutralDamageChance
CombatPercent
CityAttack
CityDefense
RangedDefenseMod
HillsAttack
HillsDefense
OpenAttack
OpenRangedAttackMod
OpenDefense
RoughAttack
RoughRangedAttackMod
RoughDefense
AttackFortifiedMod
AttackWoundedMod
NearbyEnemyCombatMod
NearbyEnemyCombatRange
UpgradeDiscount
ExperiencePercent
AdjacentMod
AttackMod
DefenseMod
DropRange
GreatGeneral
GreatGeneralModifier
FriendlyLandsModifier
FriendlyLandsAttackModifier
OutsideFriendlyLandsModifier
HPHealedIfDestroyEnemy
ExtraWithdrawal
EmbarkExtraVisibility
LayerAnimationPath
TechPrereq
Invisible
SeeInvisible

Spoiler :

<Table name="UnitPromotions_Terrains">
<Column name="PromotionType" type="text" reference="UnitPromotions(Type)"/>
<Column name="TerrainType" type="text" reference="Terrains(Type)"/>
<Column name="Attack" type="integer" default="0"/>
<Column name="Defense" type="integer" default="0"/>
<Column name="DoubleMove" type="boolean" default="false"/>
<Column name="Impassable" type="boolean" default="false"/>
<Column name="PassableTech" type="text" reference="Technologies(Type)"/>
<Column name="PediaType" type="text"/>

<Table name="UnitPromotions_Features">
<Column name="PromotionType" type="text" reference="UnitPromotions(Type)"/>
<Column name="FeatureType" type="text" reference="Features(Type)"/>
<Column name="Attack" type="integer" default="0"/>
<Column name="Defense" type="integer" default="0"/>
<Column name="DoubleMove" type="boolean" default="false"/>
<Column name="Impassable" type="boolean" default="false"/>
<Column name="PassableTech" type="text" reference="Technologies(Type)"/>
<Column name="PediaType" type="text"/>

<Table name="UnitPromotions_UnitClasses">
<Column name="PromotionType" type="text" reference="UnitPromotions(Type)"/>
<Column name="UnitClassType" type="text" reference="UnitClasses(Type)"/>
<Column name="Modifier" type="integer"/>
<Column name="Attack" type="integer"/>
<Column name="Defense" type="integer"/>
<Column name="PediaType" type="text"/>

<Table name="UnitPromotions_Domains">
<Column name="PromotionType" type="text" reference="UnitPromotions(Type)"/>
<Column name="DomainType" type="text" reference="Domains(Type)"/>
<Column name="Modifier" type="integer"/>
<Column name="PediaType" type="text"/>

<Table name="UnitPromotions_UnitCombatMods">
<Column name="PromotionType" type="text" reference="UnitPromotions(Type)"/>
<Column name="UnitCombatType" type="text" reference="UnitCombatInfos(Type)"/>
<Column name="Modifier" type="integer"/>
<Column name="PediaType" type="text"/>

 

[Ahriman]

You could have a "rapid reloading" which overrode setup-to-fire.
You could have special forces, which functioned as amphibious, no terrain cost and extra sight range.
You could have Crack pilots which increased interception chance and increased evasion.
Raider could give free pillaging and +15% city attack.

Guerilla could give +35% hills attack and defense.

Harasser could do 1 damage to all adjacent enemies each turn without attacking (negative healing?).

Slaver could give +2 hit points on killing an enemy and +10% on attack.

 

[Ahriman]

(btw, I'm on 8.8 now)

Overall thoughts:
I find the incredibly low happiness levels from building very not-fun. I would increase Colosseums by 1 gold/1 happy again, and similarly for other buildings. I don't think you should have to invest that many hammers for such a small effect. If they really are going to give such low happiness, then I would reduce the hammer cost.
But it feels weird when they are clearly inferior to the circus. It feels bizarre that horses give a relatively large happiness building (when iron doesn't give anything like as valuable a local bonus).

The mint hammer cost is also feeling too high for just 2 gold per resource.

 

[Txurce]

(btw, I'm on 8.8 now)

Overall thoughts:
I find the incredibly low happiness levels from building very not-fun. I would increase Colosseums by 1 gold/1 happy again, and similarly for other buildings. I don't think you should have to invest that many hammers for such a small effect. If they really are going to give such low happiness, then I would reduce the hammer cost.
But it feels weird when they are clearly inferior to the circus. It feels bizarre that horses give a relatively large happiness building (when iron doesn't give anything like as valuable a local bonus).

Thoughts like these have been expressed elsewhere by players unhappy with the relative difficulty in achieving happiness post-patch. There are also many others (including me) who like these changes.

Happiness now needs to nurtured along with targeted SP's and Wonders. This allows one to achieve all the happiness needed for any sort of approach. However, that nurturing takes longer, slowing down the game, and adding to its overall length. I like all of this - the inter-relatedness, the added complexity, the slower growth, the longer games. I don't think it's a matter of right and wrong, just personal preference.

That a circus is a better deal than a colosseum doesn't bother me. Neither does the horse resource paying off, any more than forges being more useful than stables bothers me. It's just the way it is.

 

[Ahriman]

General thoughts on 8.5:

1) The research boost from declarations of friendship is too high. By the midgame I had half my research income from this. Far too much, particularly when they are free. Remember, the vanilla ability that is being replaced cost gold. Either make them cost gold or cut their effect way down (halving it would not be overdoing it). DoF should still mostly be about diplomatic positioning, not research. If your neighbors are aggressive AIs who don't want to DoF, then you're pretty screwed. Too much of a crapshoot.

2) Cultural victory is too easy to achieve; culture costs need to increase significantly beyond ~25 policies. IMO it should be very hard to get more than 4 trees unless you are really focusing hard on culture (artist specialists, monuments, etc.). It is fundamentally wrong IMO to aim at cultural victory completion by the Industrial era - before industrial, it is rare to even contemplate an intercontinental war.
I lost when Persia (on the other side of the world, and the weakest faction by score) won a cultural victory on ~ turn 200. Not fun.
This would be even worse on larger maps, when you have even less chance to go kill an AI yourself (because it takes many, many turns to get there).

3) I see you are still tweaking policies.
In 8.5:
I disliked the defensive structure policies, I just fundamentally think these are the wrong way to go. They make no logical sense. What does a Republic have to do with industral production from fortifications? Why does Professional army give you happienss from fortifications? If anything it should give happiness from Barracks/Armory/Military Academy (people are reassured by having their professional soldiers around, because professional soldiers are much less likely to steal from them or rape them).
The rate of border expansion boost from the Tradition unlock remains too high. This just scales way too well compared to the other early game tree unlocks. Tradition empires often end up with more land than Liberty empires, because they take *so* many tiles.
Commerce looks good, though Trade Unions looks a bit underpowered.
On Piety: Mandate of Heaven is very weak, because it is very hard to maintain significant excess happiness for the human player. The policy also scales very poorly.
Theocracy is dull and weak.
Reformation doesn't feel very flavorful.
I'm also very leery about having them boost Monastaries, because the monastary is randomly available. If you aren't near incense or wine, ten Piety is notably less useful. That feels a bit too random.
Freedom and order are in flux.

From looking at 8.6:
Not sure about United Front, it looks pretty weak, and it would be very weak unless you were also using Patronage. Do we really want to force trees to work together like that?
I don't understand why Order should be giving science boosts. This makes little logical sense. Order is kindof the opposite of creativity, to me it should be giving industry boosts and happiness boosts.
Communism is very weak, especially for the hardest to get policy in the game (4 policies after the industrial era). I'd go back to straight hammer boosts.
Trade income boost from Nationalism doesn't really make much sense, but a trade boost would be a decent strategic fit within the tree (though the flavor is weak).

I would go with United Front as a happiness boost from various industrial buildings (worker solidarity), Planned Economy as some kind of productive boost (maybe +1 hammer from trading posts, or farms? That would make a lot of flavor sense.), Socialism as the building maintence cost reduction, Nationalism as a combat boost within friendly territory (why only an attack boost?), communism as hammers everywhere.

 

[Txurce]

General thoughts on 8.5:

1) The research boost from declarations of friendship is too high.

2) Cultural victory is too easy to achieve; culture costs need to increase significantly beyond ~25 policies.

3) In 8.5:
The rate of border expansion boost from the Tradition unlock remains too high. This just scales way too well compared to the other early game tree unlocks. Tradition empires often end up with more land than Liberty empires, because they take *so* many tiles.

4) On Piety: Mandate of Heaven is very weak, because it is very hard to maintain significant excess happiness for the human player.

5) I'm also very leery about having them boost Monastaries, because the monastary is randomly available. If you aren't near incense or wine, ten Piety is notably less useful. That feels a bit too random.

6) From looking at 8.6:
I don't understand why Order should be giving science boosts. This makes little logical sense. Order is kindof the opposite of creativity, to me it should be giving industry boosts and happiness boosts.

7) I would go with United Front as a happiness boost from various industrial buildings (worker solidarity), Planned Economy as some kind of productive boost (maybe +1 hammer from trading posts, or farms? That would make a lot of flavor sense.), Socialism as the building maintence cost reduction, Nationalism as a combat boost within friendly territory (why only an attack boost?), communism as hammers everywhere.

1. As far as I can tell, the RA tech rates are unchanged since the patch. After several games, they seem fine to me.

2. Cultural victory is too easy to achieve for the AI in comparison to other victory routes. I now have to watch certain defeated empires, and prepare to eliminate them altogether, because their severely weakened condition does little to slow their cultural progress.

3. I like the early growth Tradition provides. That tall empires sometimes wind up with as much land as wide ones - with a lot of it unusable - doesn't strike me as a problem.

4. Again, my experience runs counter to this - mainly because I am having no problem at all maintaining happiness post-patch.

5. I like some variety in the game, and the fact that a relatively rare building like a monastery receives a boost isn't going to make the game less fun or (meaningfully) balanced.

6. I'm against any changes based on statements like "Order is the opposite of creativity."

7. All of these proposals are reasonable, but there's not much off with the present make-up, either.