Aesthetics - lacking policy in Refinement

[De_Genius]

Am I the only one who finds Refinement to be fairly lacking in potential ?
Refinement consists of two parts: "All positive Happiness is added to your empire-wide Culture rate" and "+1 Happiness and +3 Culture from all Guilds."

The second part I like a lot. It doesn't benefit wide empires, but it provides some good happiness and culture.
The first part I find very lacking in potential. I understand why it can be very hard to balance.

I always play games on Marathon on huge maps, so I have loads of cities with very high population. I am always having trouble with happiness from around mid game where staying above 0 becomes quite a struggle.

Aesthetics is a medieval policy, and the excess happiness --> culture is nice when you have 20+ happiness early mid game, but it very quickly becomes a non-factor. Late game I am turning culture by the thousands, so getting 20 culture is nothing. Also since happiness is hard to keep above 0, I will get very little benefit from the first part over the entire game.

I think that the culture part needs to scale in some way like a lot of other bonuses. The "scale by era" modifier could be very nice to affect this. I appreciate that it can be hard to balance a policy which must not be too powerful when taken, but still relevant in late game, but I hope that you find a way.

In general I am truly happy for CPP since it has prolonged my Civ 5 gaming with a couple of years, and I hope that you will keep tweaking it until Civ 6 becomes playable/moddable

 

[Starrynite120]

I don't know if it really needs to be edited. The second half of the bonus is strong enough that it doesn't really need anything to come alongside it. the second half has the potential for 27 culture and 9 happiness, then with any bonus happiness you can be getting quite a lot of culture from one policy. The culture from happiness seems like icing on the cake to me. I don't think it needs a buff. Actually, I think it shouldn't get one, considering that would make it clearly better than Piety's happiness policy.

Its also of note that an Aesthetics player will rarely have a lot of cities, especially given the recent nerf to Historic Events. Most times I take Aesthetics my happiness is usually in the 1-10 range when I get the happiness policy, but shortly after it gets more stable and constantly above 10. Its also of note that the tree as a whole clearly favors small specialist focused empires, so I'm not surprised its not great for your wide play.

 

[tu_79]

I had a game in King difficulty, using a pacifist religious belief, that I managed to have more than one hundred happiness for a long time. Five cities. Focusing in culture instead of growth. I was a little behind in techs, but leading clearly in policies.

 

[CrazyG]

The guilds boost alone is strong and you can an additional few points in addition to that. if you went really tall you probably will sit at around 10 happiness all game, and if you go over 10 you get something for it which is nice. Pacifism is potentially really good with it as well.

 

[infidel88]

I always play games on Marathon on huge maps, so I have loads of cities with very high population.

Go piety? Aesthetics isn't for big civs.

 

[De_Genius]

Go piety? Aesthetics isn't for big civs.

I went Aesthetics with America (before production for bought tile change) and I wanted to win a tourism victory.

Perhaps my "problem" is that I always tend to spread cities all over, so the other civs doesn't come and take over my land.
I don't think that I ever play truly tall. I do however not spam cities all over like the AI, but usually keep my number of cities around 15-20, perhaps 25, and I usually raze enemy cities at that point.

 

[Starrynite120]

I went Aesthetics with America (before production for bought tile change) and I wanted to win a tourism victory.

Perhaps my "problem" is that I always tend to spread cities all over, so the other civs doesn't come and take over my land.
I don't think that I ever play truly tall. I do however not spam cities all over like the AI, but usually keep my number of cities around 15-20, perhaps 25, and I usually raze enemy cities at that point.

That is a ton of cities for a culture play. I usually win culture somewhere in the range of 5-8. Note that with the new patch 15 cities would give you -75% tourism from historic events, making it far more difficult to win a cultural victory. I woul suggest going taller and maybe taking Tradition, which synergizes well with Aesthetics.

 

[De_Genius]

My other problem might be that I tend to go Tradition while having 15-20 cities... might have to try a truly tall empire next time or just choosing Progress.

When only having 5-8 cities, do you spread them out to cover as much territory as possible while snatching up important resources or keep them closer together ?

 

[ElliotS]

I tend to win culture or science with 5 cities. Also last time I played for a culture victory I had over 100 happiness later, and never dropped below +30 with this policy. my peak culture before winning was 1250 per turn, which meant that I was getting about 10% of my culture from this one policy. (105 from happiness and 27 from guilds.) The policy is great.

 

[Starrynite120]

My other problem might be that I tend to go Tradition while having 15-20 cities... might have to try a truly tall empire next time or just choosing Progress.

When only having 5-8 cities, do you spread them out to cover as much territory as possible while snatching up important resources or keep them closer together ?

Spread them out more. Try not to have any overlapping tiles, but a couple isn't a big deal. You want each city to have strong potential, don't settle in mediocre or meh spots. Look for maybe around 4-6 resources and rivers (though rivers aren't required, just very helpful). I tend to have my capital in the center of cities I settle around it.

 

[Bromar1]

Go piety? Aesthetics isn't for big civs.

I find it really unfortunate that aesthetics is pigeonholed into only one playstyle...

 

[Workerspam]

I find it really unfortunate that aesthetics is pigeonholed into only one playstyle...

I don't think it necessarily is. I've gone wide Progress into Aesthetics with success in the past. Sometimes you just want to churn out culture and Aesthetics still does that better than the other Medieval trees (though you could skip the last two policies on the left if you have no interest in competing for a culture victory).

 

[CrazyG]

Certain strategies don't really care about any of the medieval trees but really benefit from a specific 3rd tree or ideology policy. You can choose Aesthetics to get to those key policies faster.

Also, taking the Aesthetics opener, refinement and national treasure. You then have 3 points that can go into Piety, Statecraft or even another ancient tree. You lose the extra wonder option, but I find Uffize kind weak anyways. It also means you can grab an extra happiness policy.

 

[Starrynite120]

Also, not a big deal if one tree fits one particular playstyle much better than others. Its not like you're short on good alternatives. Also, the bonuses are still quite good even if you're not going the optimal playstyle for it. I think its good design for certain trees to favor certain playstyles over others anyway. I don't see any need whatsoever for a change here. Policies are in a really good spot.