A Deep Dive into Authority

I don't think authority is really as "feast or famine" as you say. There's always going to be either a nearby civ to conquer or (if the map has the civs more spread out) barb camps. If a player chooses not to use raging barbs, then the lack of on-kill yields is their fault. Even still, I think it's fitting authority would be feast-or-famine because the whole point of the tree is to be more rewarding to the competent warmonger, while being more punishing than progress for those who aren't competent at it

As far as the changes go:

Opener: I don't think the extra experience is worthwhile especially when most of it's going to spearmen which are made obsolete by swordsmen very quickly. The +25% versus barbs suits authority better as it means you can solo farm camps with warriors up until the barbs get spears.

Tribute: This seems dangerously like a buff to authority, something that it really does not need as the best ancient era tree. Either way though, the 25% culture from tribute was pretty worthless in the majority of my games (because of how low yield it is, how unreliable city state locations can be, and because it's better just to go conquering instead of tributing) so I think it's an improvement for usability's sake.

Imperium: moving the +1 happiness to monuments is a huge buff as now you don't have to have a troop using supply pop early game to be able to get happiness. The practical effect of this is that you can far more easily overwhelm other civs, and it also is a factor in making authority a "progress but better" tree. It also stacks the left side of the tree even more heavily, taking away any real reason to go to the right side first, which is just bad design.

Militarism: Decent change. The road maintenance reduction is busted and served (in combination with the tribute policy doubling on finisher) to make authority unironically better as far as infrastructure goes than progress because of how much gold (and production) you get from the policy(s). I think the free unit at 5 is not a good idea because of the reasons I listed in imperium, but I do think it would be better if it was one free unit at 7-8 and then let that no-supply-use promotion carry over on unit upgrade to serve as a small nerf and make it so you don't have to keep un-upgraded units as garrisons to keep the supply-free promotion.

Honor: I don't mind the pop modifier being moved, so no comment.
 
If a player chooses not to use raging barbs, then the lack of on-kill yields is their fault.
Are you actually saying that playing with standard settings is not sth you're supposed to do? Lol. Raging barbarians is the custom setting, not the other way around and the game should be balanced around the standard, no-raging barbarians.
 
AI is Aggressive with authority, I recall even on lower levels IE Chieftian if your next to AI civ thats taken authority and your snowballing it tries to steamroll you and it can cause damage to you if you have been peaceful all game if your units are not experienced, if your sandwhiched betweeen the two of em you cant maneover and have to rely on terrain and suicide units. it helps with himenjis castle and defender of the faith / shoshone etc but eventually with the power the AI has with supply and its number of units you get bogged down.

Inversely if ive taken authority im kicking ass warmongering those bonuses just make warfare with the AI so trivial. I went Authority/Fealty/Imperialism one game (didnt go autocracy as id conquered the left continent and went order) with the right civ and religion your unstoppable and I had a bunch of well experienced units that just simply one shotted (with flanking bonuses) armored units. took cities very quickly etc etc it gets boring real quick.

as for Barb camps the bonus isnt enough to camp outsite and one shot the barbs it helps somewhat on raging but even then the bonus isnt enough youd need a practically empty contininent and block access to the camp(s) and have enough of them to make it worthwhile if the AI comes along its scout is going to clear the camp and give the bonus.

standard settings only give about 45 exp or 60exp for barbs cant remember off the top of my head so no good for exp camping.

How can the player playing a peaceful Science game defend against an authority player if they are level pegging? if the authority player has been warmongering all game and the peaceful player been killing the odd barbarbian or defending against a similar player actually mount a defence against a steamrollers whos units are vastly more experienced ? the tradition is probably using wonder bonuses and the progress player can have a bigger supply as playing wide?? does the authority late game player have the upper hand warmongering is the reality that the peaceful players are so far ahead on science it negates the experience of the units? OR does non of the above apply?
 
Been playing around with various civs in 3.0 lately, doing a lot of fighting, and I think I've found my biggest problem with Honor.
The tree just want you to fight, kill, and conqueror, it wants you to do so for the entire game. Start a fight in classical and keep it going until you either rule the world or die trying. The further you stray from that plan, the more you'd have been better off taking Progress or Tradition. And that's just really limiting. There are so many civs and strategies that absolutely intended to win via war, but er away from Honor because they don't intended to get the ball rolling for awhile. Or alternatively, they plan to do a LOT of fighting early on, but not necessarily for the whole game, meaning Honor would just stop benefiting them after they settle down.

It doesn't seem right to start a game, get some mid-to-late game warmonger, plan to win via conquest, know for an absolute fact that you want to do a lot of conquering, and still hesitate before clicking the tree most focused on that.
 
Picking your win condition in the Ancient era seems, overall, like something I wouldn't really want to incentivize. Having the flexibility to use your warmongering tools to pivot based on the Industrial era board state is the best design, in my opinion.

Everything you mention is exactly why Authority, in my view, should not be as combat-centric as it is. Unit centric: sure. Certain infrastructure/buildings, city placement: great. But leave the hard-core warmongering all-in for Imperialism. Most civs that want early wars already have tools to enable that, and some see it as watering down uniqueness to try and incorporate those tools into Authority for more general use (see last congress's vote: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...g-units-instead-of-for-gaining-cities.680013/). If we can't agree on what war-like triggers are general purpose and required to enable the strategy, versus unique and civ-defining, then I don't think further pushing the warmonger angle of Authority is the right direction.
 
Should we be commenting on this thread instead of the updated, newer thread that Stalker made? It feels like we have the same conversation happening in 2 places.

Maybe we should we lock this thread? @Recursive
 
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