(7-WD) Swap Authority and Imperialism Scalers

[axatin]

Currently:
Authority Scalar: +1 Production in every city
Authority Opener also includes +1 Production in every city


Imperialism Scalar: +5% Production for Military Units, -5% Gold required for upgrades
Imperialism Opener includes +10% Production for Military Units, -10% Gold required for upgrades

Proposal: Swap the scalars of authority and imperialism and the corresponding parts of the openers.

Rationale: There should be a trade-off that a player who focuses on creating a lot of units should not be able to have a lot of buildings in their cities at the same time. But that's currently not sufficiently the case, as Authority gives more additional production per city than the other two ancient trees. Moving the Imperialism Scalar to Authority addresses the issue. The flat production is moved to Imperialism, giving warmongers the possibility to catch-up on buildings later. The combined bonuses of Authority and Imperialism will stay the same, but as percentage bonuses are weaker in the early game, this will be a nerf to warmongering. The AI won't be affected as much as humans because they get production bonuses for both units and buildings based on the difficulty level.

 

[CppMaster]

Nah, percentage buff is neglible in early game and flat buff is negligible late game. Both would need to be increased considerably to matter, but then Authority won't really have ancient scaler and Imperialism would have instead.

 

[N.Core]

Then both the scaler and opener are useless for both trees.

If you pick Authority, you don't take benefit of the percentage since your production output is small, and the upgrade discount is also trivial earlier in the game since you don't have that many units.
Then you pick Imperialism, assuming you already developed some of the cities and built some important buildings as well. Those flat productions would barely make an impact at that stage of the game since you already get it from tiles or buildings.

This proposal is just bad all around.

The AI won't be affected as much as humans because they get production bonuses for both units and buildings based on the difficulty level.

So you just nerfing human warmongers, then? So the problem is actually not with these two policy trees, then?

 

[axatin]

I think the Authority tree is way too strong, and that also makes warmongering too strong if played correctly. This proposal is intended to be a substantial nerf to Authority. The percentage scalar of Authority would still apply in the later eras, so it‘s not like the scalar becomes completely useless. It might be an issue that the scalar for Imperialism is too weak and warmongers would just take Industry instead, I‘ll think about it. But I do think it‘s OP and should be reworked that Authority gives 6 flat production in every city.

 

[CppMaster]

How about if Authority scalar instead of giving 1 hammer to each city would give 2 hammers to each city when producing units?

 

[axatin]

That‘s actually similar to what my original idea was and I would prefer it. Unfortunately it‘s technically not possible, only percentage bonuses can depend on what‘s being produced, flat production must always be the same.

 

[CppMaster]

Hmm, it maybe could be done as an instant 2 production bonus if a city was producing a unit.

 

[axatin]

Then the number of turns needed wouldn‘t be estimated correctly. And I assume the AI wouldn‘t be able to take into account the instant yields.

 

[CppMaster]

Hmm, yeah correct, which is the case for all instant bonuses, yet here we are.

 

[pineappledan]

First, I love how this removes the yields from cities and centres units. Good thematic shift onto Authority’s core.

However, I think Authority needs yields, because it’s your early tree and needs to get your economy running. It’s a tree focused on units, but it’s focused on units helping your Economy.

I think @enginseer’s wholesome authority rework is still my gold standard

 

[Rekk]

@enginseer’s wholesome authority rework

Are the details available somewhere?

 

[CppMaster]

I think @enginseer’s wholesome authority rework is still my gold standard

So I assume it's good enough to propose it?

 

[ma_kuh]

I would consider replacing the +1 in Authority's opener and scaler with +1 before adding even more %modifiers to Ancient trees. It doesn't fully shift Authority to focus on units, but for infrastructure and unit purposes 1 is worth 2 so it would be a significant nerf already.

 

[pineappledan]

Wholesome Tweaks scaler proposal:

Opener:
Reduce on kills from 100% to 50%
Add on kills at 50%

Scaler:
Remove on cities
Add +10% on kills

Dominance:
Remove 100% on kills
Add +1 in all cities for every 10 military units on empire.

Turns on-kill bonus into the scaler.
Pushes back full 100% that you can get with 2 policies now back to full adoption of tree.
Replaces 5 flat in all cities with a growing, unit-based bonus. You need 50 units on empire to replicate the old bonus, which will take a long time.

Essentially preserves total potential power of the tree, but delays the power until further into the tree so Authority's start isn't as frontloaded.

 

[CppMaster]

Ok, makes sense if Authority is OP. Is it, though, in hands of AI?

 

[Legen]

No, the AI performs the worst with Authority, as well as with Fealty and Imperialism.

 

[Rekk]

No, the AI performs the worst with Authority, as well as with Fealty and Imperialism.

The choice of Authority, Fealty and Imperialism is also highly correlated with the poor performing AI Flavours

 

[pineappledan]

The switch from a flat global prod scaler to a unit army size scaler should nerf the tree less for AI players than it will for humans.

Given the sentiment that Authority is too strong stems mainly from player feedback, but AI's, for whatever reason, don't show good results with the tree, the sensible thing to do is to try to change the tree in a way that can be mitigated by AI handicaps and proclivities.

 

[Stalker0]

So if we look at other proposals, we have a soft nerf for progress, a soft buff for tradition, and the OG proposal this is countering was a soft nerf to authority. This feels like a much bigger nerf overall, and I think its out of line with the series.

We all agree authority could use a tone down but this feels like a MUCH bigger hit, and even subtle changes have such a big impact to the overall game

 

[Revolutionist_8]

I like the intention of the proposal, but as others have pointed out, a single swap is not sufficient. There is also the Supply restriction early on, which starts really piling up later in the game, allowing you to field larger armies and therefore take advantage of such bonuses. Not to mention you get free units from conscription, and buying units earlier is really cheap (upgrading likewise). The original proposal would be a colossal nerf to Authority, contradicting its actual nature (but the intention is good).