A Deep Dive into Authority

I think friendship with CS shouldn't be hindering tributes, unless you're allied. This will also make Gunboat Diplomacy easier to use.
 
I think authority also can suffer from a supply problem. I dont really feel comfortable trying to take a city until I have about 13-17 units. Any less than that and I have to rely on terrain and the AI not flanking me. If I want a bigger army, I need more citizens, but more citizens at some point completely tanks my happiness. In my current game I was running for a while at 3 over the cap and around 60% happiness with 3 cities. Founding more cities dilutes the power of my yields source (killing things) while only sometimes compensating for it by allowing me to kill more things.

On tech parity with progress/tradition, I often have games where I have successfully warmongered throughout the classical era and beelined for steel only to find that my next target already has not only steel, but also knights and castles. Like, sure, I can fight him and probably win being equal, but the whole point of selling out was to be ahead in that particular area to the detriment of everything else.

A data point on culture from barbarians, I recently had a game where I found a good sized island chock full of them, and then got gifted an archer by a city state that was right there. I killed probably 5 or 6 camps and at the end of it felt like it hadnt made a dent. I was still 2 and a half policies behind.
 
I think another aspect of the "feast or famine" Authority tends to deal with, is your nearest neighbor.

A big factor of Authority is you are going to be behind on everything, except that in theory you will grab a few cities off your neighbor. If that neighbor was a true competitor, than this is a major benefit, potentially dwarfing any yield benefit you lost. However, if your "real competitor" is snowballing far away, and you ultimately weaken what was destined to be a bit player.... you feel very very far behind.

There are some secondary penalties as well. You tend to get a bad reputation early in the game, which hinders diplomacy (and possibly lux trading to compensate for that unhappiness). City states tend to hate you, making befriending them later more difficult. You also lose out on quests when you war with a CS, so that's potential bonuses lost. People talk about the power of tribute vs CS alliances, but I think that underestimates the power of those per turn yields, not to mention the extra lux that often comes with CS allies.
 
Would it be easy/desirable to add yields on tile/caravan pillage ? You could also make that successfully demanding tribute from a CS enforce a 10 turns allied statut, during which you get yields and luxuries.

Edit : culture from camps would gain from being scaled with era as well.
 
What do you guys think of giving authority the niche of selling units to other civ/cs in exchange for gold/science/culture instead of solely war/conquer related ? Something like science yield when producing unit and gold/culture yield when selling to other civ/cs with a few turn cd if sent from out of their border and instantly if within their border.
Reason being in higher difficulty war is already meta if you want to keep up with AIs, and just the bonus from killing units sometimes won't be enough to catch up (especially when you're stronger than your enemy and they can't pump out enough unit for you to farm while at the same time their cities aren't good enough to take - also I don't like "farming" behavior).

Authority can simply mean having/able to produce big army quickly (which also sync well with bonus from unit production - which currently warmonger doesn't need since you don't lose unit that frequently) and able to go to war any moment, but it doesn't mean you have to constantly go to war to keep progressing. Thus, similar to how progress gain science and culture from building and get bonuses to building, authority would gain science and culture from training and selling units, and get bonuses doing so. This way they also won't accumulate diplomatic penalty simply by trying to progress (as currently you have to be at war to progress) and be on the same footing as other civ, and also have other policy option open (statecraft or artistry)

I should clarify that this is in conjunction with the current kill bonus, so that authority can choose to to go war or go full on unit production to progress, and not locked to just 1 choice.
 
Last edited:
The culture reward for destroying the barbarian camp should remain - this allows you to jump into unlocking politics and start building a statue of Zeus, which is important for the Autocracy (and which the AI very often manages to build earlier). The earliest I received a second policy was on the 17th, sort of, on the go. Without the bonus from the barbarian camps, Autocracy will lose even to Progress, not to mention Tradition. And it only remained to wait for the technology with the statue to be studied. Or transfer the statue of Zeus to the very first technologies (like the Pyramids) and reduce the requirement to 1 policy.

The Autocracy also needs a source of religion through wins/kills. Because to build a shrines, instead of barracks and units - shoot yourself in the foot, seriously slowing down cultural development. If there is no religious city-state nearby that can be robbed 2-3 times, then you need to found 4-5 cities to become the founder of a religion before 100 turns. Or find the ruins with 150 faith, which is a very rare occurrence, because. such a big bonus happens after turn 50, when most of the ruins have already been found.

You can personally give the autocracy either a faith bonus for killing, or add +2 (+3) faith to the barracks.
 
What do you guys think of giving authority the niche of selling units to other civ/cs in exchange for gold/science/culture instead of solely war/conquer related ? Something like science yield when producing unit and gold/culture yield when selling to other civ/cs with a few turn cd if sent from out of their border and instantly if within their border.
Reason being in higher difficulty war is already meta if you want to keep up with AIs, and just the bonus from killing units sometimes won't be enough to catch up (especially when you're stronger than your enemy and they can't pump out enough unit for you to farm while at the same time their cities aren't good enough to take - also I don't like "farming" behavior).

Authority can simply mean having/able to produce big army quickly (which also sync well with bonus from unit production - which currently warmonger doesn't need since you don't lose unit that frequently) and able to go to war any moment, but it doesn't mean you have to constantly go to war to keep progressing. Thus, similar to how progress gain science and culture from building and get bonuses to building, authority would gain science and culture from training and selling units, and get bonuses doing so. This way they also won't accumulate diplomatic penalty simply by trying to progress (as currently you have to be at war to progress) and be on the same footing as other civ, and also have other policy option open (statecraft or artistry)

I should clarify that this is in conjunction with the current kill bonus, so that authority can choose to to go war or go full on unit production to progress, and not locked to just 1 choice.

As Napoleon said (if) - 'the army must feed itself.' In the sense that it must constantly fight and conquer.

Puppets, vassals, the wages of the vanquished for a truce - these are your sources of income as an Autocrat.

Although it is worth refining the AI logic a little so that Progress and Tradition turn to Autocrats (including the player) to conduct proxy wars. Moreover, the result should be judged by military success - the score of the war and the presence of fluctuations in this score. If there was no hesitation, then the AI will automatically publicly denounce the hired Autocrat for not fulfilling the deal. So that there are no situations when someone signed up to start a war and did not come to the battlefield.

It should also remove all penalties of the 'warmonger' in the relationship between the parties to the transaction. Otherwise, when fulfilling an order and capturing a couple of cities, you can be considered a scumbag even from the customer.
 
Last edited:
The Autocracy also needs a source of religion through wins/kills. Because to build a shrines, instead of barracks and units - shoot yourself in the foot, seriously slowing down cultural development. If there is no religious city-state nearby that can be robbed 2-3 times, then you need to found 4-5 cities to become the founder of a religion before 100 turns.
The Authority "script" to me is either you should be making those 4-5 cities or take a holy city. Going shrine first in authority cites once you have imperium isn't terrible, as you already start with a 40 culture lead over tradition/progress, and you already have a start to your border growth. So you can afford to go shrine first if you need to.

I don't think faith is what Authority needs more of, it is foundable with certain pantheons, and it has the tools to go and take a holy city if it needs to (or at least should have the tools to do so).
 
What if every barb camp cleared gave you a +1 culture and +1 science in your capital, and every conquered city like +3 or something?

This removes some of the "fishing" aspect of barbs, you are incentivized to clear those camps as early as possible to get the passive boosts, and it gives Authority a bit more of an "engine" rather than just requiring non-stop conquest to maintain any sense of parity.

If that scales too much, we could use the China idea and have the bonuses half after each era. Something like:

Tribute
Your capital gains +2 culture and science for every barbarian camp cleared, and +6 for every conquered city. Theses bonuses are halved with each era.
 
That would probably go on Imperium and replace the yields-on-capture and/or on-settle? I think it would be odd to include both instant yields and the per turn yields for the same trigger (capturing a city).
 
I know they are reworking the barbarian spawn rates (due to sight). Assuming that would +1 melee speed movement for purely infantry melee (not sure if that is possible and not trying to buff the scout) help on some of these yields? It of course would help later in the game. Not sure if it would end up being broken. I find it tedious sometimes to drag warriors half way across the map to get a little bit of culture. Especially if you are starting in a heavily forested area.
Regardless I agree authority can feel underwhelming in its current state.
 
What if every barb camp cleared gave you a +1 culture and +1 science in your capital, and every conquered city like +3 or something?

This removes some of the "fishing" aspect of barbs, you are incentivized to clear those camps as early as possible to get the passive boosts, and it gives Authority a bit more of an "engine" rather than just requiring non-stop conquest to maintain any sense of parity.

If that scales too much, we could use the China idea and have the bonuses half after each era. Something like:

Tribute
Your capital gains +2 culture and science for every barbarian camp cleared, and +6 for every conquered city. Theses bonuses are halved with each era.
You would occasionally get a crazy explosive start, and on the other end when you lack camps you still lack camps.

I find farming the camps is not some extremely powerful thing, it has risks (like if it spawns a boat that annoys your cities) and opportunity cost of not having units elsewhere.
 
I'm with @alchx on this. The instant yields from conquest are more appropriate and help more with role play. A conquest empire should feel the pressure to keep their momentum going or risk falling behind.
 
But there're such a big penalty for capturing cities (and it's not even worth doing so), you're usually better off killing units for yields (and got stuck after your opponent can't pump out units anymore). There is a need to help authority progress when they can't wage more war due to location or diplomatic reason. Instant yield would still be the main source so waging war whenever possible is still preferred, the bonuses from selling units would only be useful for cooldown duration between wars.
 
Instant yield would still be the main source so waging war whenever possible is still preferred, the bonuses from selling units would only be useful for cooldown duration between wars.
What specifics are you envisioning here?

I a build a unit to sell to other major civs? Or to city-states?

You can personally give the autocracy either a faith bonus for killing, or add +2 (+3) faith to the barracks.
You can get a faith bonus for killing via God of War or 2 faith to barracks via God of Protection. I don't think authority itself needs a faith source.

Now, is god of war good? Frankly I think every pantheon that doesn't give culture is 'bad' in the sense its a weak choice relative to the ones with culture (my only possible exception is God of the Sea). Goddess of protection is pretty good but I think its still bad relative to ancestor worship.

This was a long way of saying I think pantheon balance isn't great and it hurts authority. Generally I'm taking God of All Creation and conquering neighbors instead of getting a religion.
 
Some thoughts:
  • I agree that Authority is very inconsistent. I've modded my game in such a way that barbarian camps essentially keep respawning indefinitely in fog tiles. This made the yields much more consistent. I do not demand tribute from city states.
  • The bonuses for melee units are kind of a meme. When you're playing optimally I think farming XP for the range promotion is objectively the best military strategy. I don't use that promotion so the bonuses for melee units are alright in that context.
  • I think you get the settler and the bonuses for settling cities too late. If I can peacefully settle everything around me Progress seems like the more sensible choice. If space is tight and I'm in a border war with another civ from the start I would want to settle ASAP, typically before this would grant me any yields.
  • I don't care that much if the policy trees are balanced for single player games. I typically decide on what kind of game I want to play in advance and can simply adjust the difficulty.
I would personally like it if Authority had an identity focused around early expansion and border conflicts. Maybe bonuses for razing cities would be appropriate? I think the presence of major civs is much more consistent than the presence of city states and barbarians. There would still be consistency issues regarding who you get as your neighbor though.
 
What specifics are you envisioning here?

I a build a unit to sell to other major civs? Or to city-states?
You can sell to either major civ or to CS without consent (like illegal arm dealers or private mercenary, though if the major civ in question is indeed in need of more units you will get diplomatic bonus and also some malus from their enemies without actually going to war, thus allowing authority to sell to both sides of a conflict like real world example).
The base yield would be based on the production cost of the unit (1/8 of the production cost) so that when you train unit you get 1/8 of the production cost as science, and when you sell them you get 1/8 as culture and 1/8 as gold (so in total 3/8 of production cost split into science/culture/gold, compare to 1/4 of production when processing, and you also get some bonus from military production). Can lower it to 1/10 if 1/8 is still too high.
The idea is to have authority use unused production to train unit while progress use unused production to process. Similar to how common you would be using process as progress civ, the contribution from selling units would only be just as much when you're at peace so wagging war is still a better option whenever possible (which might not always be the case due to location or diplomatic reason).
This would also open up a lot more diplomatic and manipulation regarding global conflict and warfare, and not a straight forward DoW (and a tons of penalties to go with it)
 
You would occasionally get a crazy explosive start, and on the other end when you lack camps you still lack camps.
Its true. Ultimately the only way to make authority less swingy is:

  • Reward "non-aggressive" things, as that is the swingiest part.
  • Make the aggressive things "more consistent" somehow.
 
Its true. Ultimately the only way to make authority less swingy is:
And it's therefore a non-issue, in my opinion.

You have enough turns before your 1st policy choice to assess your surroundings and determine if you have a start that is crowded enough to merit Authority.

If you roll a heavy warmonger civ and get a peaceful, lonely start, the policies aren't your point of failure. It was being forced to pick your civ before you saw your start, or it was your map roll's fault for not placing a warmonger where he could do some damage. Either way, if you rolled a start that isn't great for a policy tree but then pick it anyways, that's not a shortcoming with the policy tree.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom