(9-06) Border Expansion Yields Rework I

[redrum68]

Motivation
Border Blob is defined as going full Authority tree and dipping 2 policies into Tradition to get Sovereignty. This combines the following 2 policies to create very high border expand yields that continue throughout the entire game:

• Imperium: Cities gain 20 Production and Gold when their borders expand, scaling with Era (40 if all Authority policies are adopted).
• Sovereignty: Culture cost of tiles reduced by 20% (exponentially) in all Cities.

Sovereignty is a confusing policy as reducing the exponent by 20% takes it from 1.35 to 1.08 which is a HUGE change. You can see all the details on the math, graphs, and border expand yield examples here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...roposal-workshop.683872/page-35#post-16830658. The AI also doesn't consider doing this as it won't take partial policy trees so its purely a human advantage which goes against core Vox Populi.

So the idea here is to change both pieces of this OP combination so that it no longer is so strong. This first proposal focuses on Sovereignty. Since changing the exponent for border growth is difficult to understand and quantify without making graphs, this is removed and replaced with more standard border growth bonuses.

---

Proposal Summary

• Sovereignty
  • Remove 20% exponent decrease (this bonus is confusing and becomes stronger as the game goes on which doesn't generally align with an early game policy tree)
  • Add +100% border growth to capital (aligns well with Tradition's capital focus and ensures the 4 range Capital has plenty of tiles to work)
  • Add 3 Border Growth Points to Shrines, Stone Works, and Temples (allows Tradition cities to still have significant extra border growth especially early game and mirrors the Splendor policy)
• Sovereignty renamed to Ceremony and text moved over
  Ceremony fits better on the religious policy
  this is a minor change for Enlightenment Era where a tech exists with the same name. It breaks civilopedia. Since we're changing this now, we can take the opportunity to fix it here.
• Ceremony renamed Mysticism
  A civ staple that somehow failed to make it into Civ V
  the new text would read
  "Mysiticism comes from the Ancient Greek word meaning ''to conceal'' and referred to the liturgical and spiritual aspect of early Christianity. Today the word encompasses all range of extraordinary or supernatural experience. Control over, and participation in, such events lent much credibility to rulers throughout history, in both religious and political domains."

Current Sovereignty

• Culture cost of tiles reduced by 20% (exponentially) in all Cities.
• Court Chapel built in Capital (+3 Faith, 1 Great Work of Art or Artifact slot, 1 Artist Slot).

Proposed Sovereignty (Changes in Bold)

• Culture cost of tiles reduced by 20% (exponentially) in all Cities.
• +3 Border Growth Points to Shrines, Stone Works, and Temples
• Court Chapel built in Capital (+3 Faith, +100% Border Growth, 1 Great Work of Art or Artifact slot, 1 Artist Slot).

 

[Stalker0]

With this proposal I will want to update the name.
This is a much bigger scope than just nerfing border blobs as it affects all play (borders) and all standard authority play.

 

[redrum68]

With this proposal I will want to update the name.
This is a much bigger scope than just nerfing border blobs as it affects all play (borders) and all standard authority play.

Open to suggestions. Its primarily targeted at border blob (combination of Authority + Sovereignty) but does impact each of those trees individually and really anything that relies on border expand yields. Maybe "Border Expand Yields Rework"?

 

[Alpakinator]

You can see in one of the screenshots in the OP link form my Brazil game, that Border blob was responsible for average of +64 per city per turn in modern era because each city expanded on average once every 3 turns.

It is the best policy combination for ANY civ even if you don't plan on going domination, simply because of the magnitude of the border expansion yields, especially late game.

Without sovereignty this 64 would be 15-20 times lower, as most cities had already expanded more than 60 times at which pont the discrepancy between sovereignty and non sovereignty is around 15-20x in border growth cost.

 

[ridjack]

I still think it is lunacy to make such absolutely massive changes because some players like using exploitative policy combinations. I sincerely hope this gets voted into the dirt, if the proposal remains the way it is now.

Hell, I'd rather see us locked into our ancient era policy tree once we choose it. Would have the same effect on this policy combo, less effect on everyone else and otherwise affect only the niche-est of the niche. The current proposal is ridiculous.

 

[Stalker0]

Open to suggestions. Its primarily targeted at border blob (combination of Authority + Sovereignty) but does impact each of those trees individually and really anything that relies on border expand yields. Maybe "Border Expand Yields Rework"?

Yeah this name looks solid

 

[Alpakinator]

I still think it is lunacy to make such absolutely massive changes because some players like using exploitative policy combinations. I sincerely hope this gets voted into the dirt, if the proposal remains the way it is now.

Hell, I'd rather see us locked into our ancient era policy tree once we choose it. Would have the same effect on this policy combo, less effect on everyone else and otherwise affect only the niche-est of the niche. The current proposal is ridiculous.

This isn’t about some players “liking exploits” — Border Blob is a lower-your-difficulty-by-2-levels button. The yields are so far beyond alternatives that players either exploit it and win effortlessly or have to intentionally self-ban it to keep the game challenging, which is a clear balance failure.

When one dip becomes the objectively best choice for every civ, victory type, and playstyle, meaningful decision-making collapses. It's just that most players haven't realised this cause there's a massive mismatch between sovereignty description and what it actually does.

On top of that, AI can’t use it, so it’s a pure human advantage. If Vox Populi aims for understandable, AI-compatible balance, this kind of exploit needs to be addressed rather than ignored.

 

[Alpakinator]

I wish there were balanced policy tree mixes, but with AI that can't mix trees, it shouldn't be done yet. Even is AI could, then it would choose border blob every time and dominate humans who don't choose it.

 

[Alpakinator]

And even without border blob, sovereignty makes it so that choosing Tradition is always optimal for Russia or Celts with border pantheon, turning them into a clear S tier civs.

 

[azum4roll]

You can choose to not pick it just like you can choose to not block AI settlers and capture them.

 

[hokath]

Just in isolation, I think Sovereignty really needs to go.
It's one of those effects that scales in the late game, but in an Ancient Tree.
Furthermore, it actually gets stronger, which is somewhat pathological.
Finally, and most importantly perhaps, the effect it has is completely opaque. This is because you need to know that the exponent is 1.35 and that it gets reduced to 1.08 (i.e. almost-linear).

A la poubelle!

 

[FPXI]

I think this proposal should be split in half because both parts of it should be changed regardless of if the other half is changed; Imperium is a little overtuned. Sovereignty is broken and hard to understand.

 

[redrum68]

I think this proposal should be split in half because both parts of it should be changed regardless of if the other half is changed; Imperium is a little overtuned. Sovereignty is broken and hard to understand.

Its a fair point. I just felt the imperium change is quite minor and not worth its own proposal especially since its related to pairing it with sovereignty and lowering base exponent to 1.3. I'll let the MAGI decide if they think this is better split into 2.

 

[Alpakinator]

And it's linked to lowering exponent from 1.35 to 1.3, which will accelerate border growth, balancing out Imperium nerf.

 

[azum4roll]

it gets reduced to 1.08 (i.e. almost-linear).

Wait till you meet vanilla's 0.825

 

[redrum68]

After discussing with Hokath, I've merged his renaming into this proposal and separated the Authority and base exponent changes into a separate proposal: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/9-31-border-expand-yields-rework-ii.701311/

 

[Legen]

I sponsor this.

 

[Recursive]

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