Pop Art
The reason why I'm hesitant to use
Tourism is how big of a range it can be. You can either have no or very few Wonders resulting in limited
Tourism or lots of Wonders and such resulting in tons. At least with
Culture, we know that everyone is focusing on it and it's more consistent regarding the average. Therefore, we can better balance as we'll get a more consistent amount of
Gold in every game. If it's out of hand, we can always decrease the % to better suit what we wish to accomplish. We also have to remember that Stadiums and Airports come pretty late. For the Tier 1 tenet, we are waiting awfully long before we can get benefits from those buildings. If that's the case, how often do you think people will pick this tenet?
If you don't have a lot of
then don't pick it. You also don't have to pick it first. Or it could be moved back to tier 2. I prefer the idea of harnessing the otherwise useless
Tourism yields into something that Prosperity is going to use. If a player had a really strong tourism game then they would go for a CV using another ideology, but this tenet would help funnel those buildings/yields so that they aren't simply lost.
This is a Tier 1 tenet that gives the Stock Exchange, a very powerful building as it can provide a ton of gold to a city, in every city. Order has two Tier 2 tenets that give only 5 buildings and this just puts them to shame. It's possible that my proposal can be stronger but it's more in line with a Tier 1.
Stock exchange would be the only free building that doesn't have any building maintenance, and that's one of the huge bonuses for free buildings, so no I don't think it's unreasonable as a tier 1 tenet. Freedom, for instance, gets Hospitals at tier 2, but those Hospitals also functionally get +8
, in each city, because you don't have to pay for them. Of the two, I also think that Hospitals are also the stronger building.
Bringing up order's free buildings as a measure of power isn't very helpful because Order is trash. People's Army is probably the absolute worst ideology tenet in the game. If you're looking to make something that is worse than 5 free military academies then I'm going to disagree.
Regulatory Capture
As for copying a Statecraft policy, my issue is that those going the Economic route will more likely pick Statecraft over Fealty and Artistry. Therefore, the shared trait is wasted in most cases. Regarding the +100% quantity, you have to realize that those are very powerful for tier 1 tenet. Autocracy has a tier 2 for 100% quantity in strategics and 100% Luxury, if we're using your Economic Victory conditions, makes it far too simple to achieve if you just go wide enough.
Then let it be wasted. I just put it there for insurance so that the Ideology is self-contained. If you or the AI goes Fealty and doesn't have resources from city-states, then there's a big hole in your Economic victory viability (once again, assuming there is a monopoly component to EV). I don't see how you can argue this point with a straight face when you are also arguing for just straight-up giving this ideology the Authority Finisher.
Lobbyists
I guess my question is how are you making this work? Are you just adding +5
Gold and
Culture to the capital itself? That's at least how I see it working with Space Tourism. Even if we drop this to 1
Gold and
Culture per delegate, I think it's safe to assume that the player is already focusing on Diplomatic and has 20+ delegates. 20+
Gold and
Culture can be extremely powerful, especially when you start taking into account the modifiers that can exist in your capital. Let's not forget that this is a Tier 1 tenet.
Player:GetVotes() gives you the number of votes a player controls in the WC. Then I would just give the yields in the capital each turn.
No, I don't think that 20*5
(100
) per turn in 1 city is overpowered for a tier 1 tenet. There are lots of tenets and regular policies that immediately result in hundreds of yields per turn if you've done the work. Getting >20 votes in the WC requires a lot of investment, this is just one return on investment tenet, and not even a particularly strong one. In fact, the counterproposal you made is even more powerful.
The WC meets every 30 turns in Renaissance, 25 Turns in Industrial, 20 Turns in Modern, etc. You suggested 150
/
instantly when something is passed, scaling with the number of delegates. 5*30 = 150, so your suggestion of 150 per turn is the exact same as mine in Renaissance, but actually gets stronger each era as the votes trigger more frequently. So yours is stronger, but I was trying to model income inequality by funneling tons of yields per turn into the capital. If you disagree with that as a design choice then fine, but we aren't really arguing about power level here.
Fast Track Construction
What was I going for? The idea is this. Maybe the player wants to go for Science Victory and wish to go for Space Tourism. Remember that the tier 3 tenet gives % to
Production. If higher
Gold costs, which this ideology should be able to absorb, means more
Production in the capital resulting in more
Production overall through modifiers, then you can build the parts faster in close races since
is pretty much worthless in this case. Should the numbers be tweaked? Very likely? Should the idea be changed? Possibly if someone has a better idea.
Alright, well I'll leave this one on the cutting room floor for now. You're terribly worried about making any Tier 1 tenet too good, but you should remember that they have to stack up against Elite Forces, Draft Registration, Avant Garde, etc. There are some very respectably powerful T1 tenets in the other trees, but you seem only focused on the trash tenets like Hero of the People as a benchmark.
For instance, Party Leadership, a T2 Order tenet, gives 5
in all cities with no downside and, once again, Order is trash.
Insider Trading
I feel that Trade Routes can be difficult to work with. We are going to make Franchises unlimited. How much
Gold will be produced if the player goes Trader Sid's Corporation where you get +4
Gold in office per Franchise per city. Then, you also get +25% additional
Gold. Why would anyone turn this down in favor of Internal Trade Routes? To match this, you would need a ridiculous amount of
Gold from internal TR and that will be both hard to balance and certainly not Tier 1 tenet material. Meanwhile, yields for every active TR can easily put the
Gold produced in capital in ridiculous levels when you take into account the other bonuses to the capital. I think we need to look at the overall picture as well when we take into account how much
Gold should be gained through cities and especially the capital.
... I'm going to have to try my best to decipher this because you are all over the place. There isn't a coherent through-line here, so I'll try to address this point-by-point:
- Trader Sid's is basically the main reason I wouldn't make an Economic victory solely focused on just amassing gold, because the EV would instantly become "Whoever gets Trader Sid's Wins", and that is basically decided by your starting location monopoly. I don't know what this has to do with establishing internal TRs, because you can't establish corporate franchises in your own cities by completing internal TRs.
- 25% yields to all TRs, internal or External. It's identical to Trade Confederacy. The old code for giving TR modifiers just to the capital still exists; we could use that instead.
- The main benefit to internal TRs is how safe they are. The main reason you would adopt this tenet is because it would make you very flexible. You don't have to establish ITRs if there's better options, but it would be a good, safe gold generation tenet if you have use for it and the code is already there.
- You seem to be arguing that 5/ per
TR in the capital is overpowered, and that is just not the case. It's probably 75 from 15 TRs on empire max for most civs, and that's not game-breaking in the least. There is already a 1st level Industry policy that gives 5 to all TRs and a pantheon that gives 2
per TR on Empire.
I concede that both the % yields to TR and extra yields in the capital on a single tenet is bloated, and that one could be dropped. I would rather keep the yields in the
Capital thing because it's more unique and contributes to that yield concentration, wealth disparity design I was consciously trying to build into my policy proposals.
Too Big to Fail
My biggest issue is the claiming adjacent tiles. That's far too powerful for an ideology not geared for domination victory (see my argument above). This is another example where we should look at how much gold is obtained if multiple tenets are taken. I think we are getting carried away with the numbers.
As for removing tile stealing abilities, I want to avoid it was it can potentially turn this Ideology into Domination Victory focused which we are trying to avoid. The ability to steal tiles is very powerful and more so with those going the warmonger route. Let's use one of your proposals as an example. You say the Manufactories can claim adjacent tiles. We can build Manufactories adjacent to Citadels and vice versa. This means that you can capture an enemy Citadel if it's next to your border. How powerful is that? If it seems like the Economic Victory conditions, at least the current ones, requires you to control map through domination, then we may have to rethink those conditions without making it basically Autocracy.
Each GP you are using to steal territory is one that you aren't using to bulb, so there's balance to be struck there. Also keep in mind that border blobbing with GP tiles would probably mean going outside your nearest city's working range a lot of the time, which is very costly to do with GP tiles. This is why I said we need to discuss what an economic victory entails. As I said, it can't just be whoever has the most
Gold, because that just means Trader Sid's just guarantees an EV, regardless of any other factor in the game. I think there should be a map control component to it, or some sort of way to outmaneuver civs on a geopolitical basis without necessarily going to war, but war can also be very profitable.
I disagree that stealing land de facto makes you a warmonger civ. I don't think anyone think that America's ability to purchase tiles from other civs makes them overtly a warmonger, and generally people play them Tradition with a CV or SV in mind. Also bear in mind that a land stealing mechanic has to contend with Lebensraum as a point of comparison, which can steal a massive amount of land with a 2 tile radius.
Soft Power
I'm against it due to how much I dislike microing a lot late game. My idea is that you have same amount of microing but you get more out of it. I'm pretty neutral to Military units having no cooldown. As for GP purchases, I honestly don't think there's enough faith eventually to matter too much so I'm pretty meh on that too.
Reducing cooldowns would reduce microing though. It's either the same microing, but with 4 turns instead of 5, or no microing, because you can immediately buy multiple units at a time, same as Mercenaries. This would be especially useful for planes, so you can build a stack in 1 turn instead of moving planes around after buying from multiple cities. I don't expect it would be very useful for GPs, no, but the point was just to be consistent.
Likewise, I'm kind of against adding more than 2 yield converter/scalers. It would get repetitive if Pop Art retains a
/
=>
yield converter, and then Soft Power has a
=>
yield converter, and then Space Tourism has a
=>
converter
Diplomatic Immunity
I can understand that you want to make the ideologies very unique in their own way. However, making something unique doesn't necessarily make it better. With your Diplomats suggestion, it's a very weak ability in my opinion. I almost never go Diplomats now that Spies can level up through rigging elections. Buying votes are also ridiculously expensive and at times illogical with what AI are willing to support. Relying on Diplomats who are oftentimes weaker than Spies is forcing the players to play less optimally. Spies are better so many ways and let's not forget that there are National Wonders that encourage spies and very little for Diplomats. Unless Diplomats and Spies get a major rework where they both are viable in different situations, I just cannot support a focus on the weaker of the two.
I think you would need to change the name then. The thing I was going for was how diplomats have sometimes abused diplomatic immunity to, say, sell duty-free tobacco out of the embassy, engage in human trafficking,
kill journalists, hack their limbs off and throw them in a dumpster, or conduct espionage. If there's a way to make Diplomats viable then I think this is the ideology to do it.
I think you are undervaluing the ability to get 2 votes per diplomat late game, but maybe in addition to that, they could also generate some
Gold or
Science per turn? That would be easier to code than letting them steal gold anyways. Then Diplomats could be more of a steady supply of yields than the random % chance spy game.
Soldiers of Fortune
What role do they provide? What are their pros? It's really hard for me to support an unique unit when I have practically nothing to go on. Yes, you can attack me for copying another unit but at least it's concrete what my units will do differently from their originals. How about provide stats and promotions so we have something to discuss instead
You claim that I'm copying things but isn't this taken from a policy into Imperialism? Why are we adding this in if Domination Victory isn't one of those routes you go for with this ideology? Some of these bonuses are honest really mixed messages. I can understand if the unique unit gains more gold from pillaging but taking cities belongs to Autocracy.
Alright, at least we are on the same page w.r.t. the idea that ideologies have 1 unique unit, and that it would be desirable, even for an ideology not focused on domination to have one?
I don't think having 1 tenet that rewards city conquest makes for a full-blown domination ideology, but I take your point.
Maybe just this for the Tenet:
Can Purchase Private Contractors. -33%
Unit Maintenance.
How about this for the unit?
Private Contractor
Unlocked at Electronics
Can Only be Purchased with Gold
Can Move immediately on Purchase
No purchase cooldown
Does not cost Supply
78
3
Moves
DFPs: +25%
vs Ranged Attacks and +25 HP
Shock I & Drill I (starts with both for free)
Soldier of Fortune promotion: 5XP from pillaging.
Gold from Killing Units or Attacking Cities. +25% Flanking Attack
Panopticism
This is one of those ideas that has me confused. Can you explain to me how
Unhappiness affect city yields? I know they slow down growth if the city is more unhappy but I don't recall them changing other yields unless your empire is very unhappy. I honestly can't give proper feedback unless you explain to me the relationship of unhappiness and yields.
As I understand the current system,
unhappy cities suffer -
/
maluses. Every +1
happiness in a city gives +1%
/
in that city, up to a max of 10
. Thus, if you give all cities +10%
/
and they ignore
unhappiness yield maluses, all cities essentially function as if they are at 10
all the time, and you still can double that to 20%
/
if you manage to get your cities to +10
despite Prosperity not really helping you to do that.
Adventurism
If I recall correctly, the tiles gained by Pioneers and Colonists are a bit random, much like the Shoshone UA. If the radius is doubled, how does it work when it was never a nice radius to begin with? If Pioneers and Colonists can take tiles three tiles away from the city, does it steal an extra three tiles due to this effect? This is why I'm really hesitant to introduce more tile stealing tools because there's a lot of things we must pre-define or things can get messy. Therefore, we are more or less stuck with the only tool for wider play without war being settling those islands. Let's also remember that stealing tiles are either tools of America or warmongers because they can really take advantage of those. We are infringing on those if we try to give an Ideology with little focus on Domination victory such tools that can be further abused, more so by humans than AI.
@Drakle 's Company towns idea is an interesting one, but there's not really enough free space on the map by the time T2 policies are rolled out. The goal of this policy was directly to give Prosperity some way to steal land without declaring open war and without just copying Lebensraum. Also keep in mind that you can't settle cities adjacent to an existing border, so you can't use them like a Lebensraum GGeneral and steal 2 tiles deep.
My proposal was to make it so settling steals every tile within 2 tile radius from the city, and that would ignore the additional tile claims that Pioneer/colonist makes. It would be in addition to the 4/8 tiles you get from that, but also overlap with it, so the only extra tiles claims you would get from Pioneer or Colonist would be if they claimed something 3 tiles away. That's one of the constraints of coding with lua is it's not talking with the SQL code. Maybe a picture would make that more clear....
If you want to have a conversation about what the economic victory would entail, and if we agree that Prosperity should have tenets that work towards it, then let's talk about how that victory condition works. We are going to go endlessly back-and-forth on tile stealing because we don't know if map control is part of the EV. If it is, then you are going to have to concede that some tile stealing needs to be in the kit, or give Prosperity some way of stealing luxuries outside its control, either via trade (a la Dutch), or some other method.
Influence per turn with City-States you have a TR with.
Golden Age Progress, triggers rebellion, and stops settler production).
Citizen in the city.
Great Scientist and Great Merchant Rate. 100
City connections generate +5 
