Alternative legacy paths and golden ages

[Siptah]

We are all waiting for a rebalance of legacy paths, and that hopefully some more paths will be added at some point. Many hopes lie on new mechanics or refinement of current ones that lead to new legacy paths. For me, it would be nice to have just some alternatives, and these could be made just with the things we have in the game currently.

How it could work: you get two additional legacy paths for each age, each with their own golden age if you complete them. There are also two diplomatic legacy paths per age, and a wildcard one. Additionally, each civ gets a unique legacy path and golden age (which is an additional path within one of the other attributes). Yet, these unique paths are not part of this suggestion yet. To finish a path, you would still have to reach the end of it. You cannot finish 'economy' by getting 2 milestones in two paths, you need all milestones in a single path. Similarly, you only get the reward for your first milestone in 'economy' once, but won't get additional points if you reach the first milestone on another economy path. Each completed path unlocks a golden age though, as these are mutually exclusive in the following section process anyway.

In this suggestion below, I've also changed the golden ages for some of the original paths, as I think there are more fitting ones. Clearly, not all of these are interesting to do. But they give an alternative for not wanting to build 7 wonders again or compete in the space race.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think before rebalancing legacy paths, Firaxis needs to shake yields first. Their skyrocket on age change cause huge runaway situation and other problems.

Speaking about the list:

1. Relying on amphitheaters for culture legacy path as they are now is a problem, because they require pretty late technology to unlock, so it's more about science. If they would be moved to civic tree, that would be ok.
2. Explore the whole map in exploration is quite a weird goal. Not only it's really hard to get, but also Spain and Ibn Battuta have huge potential boost.
3. If Legacy path goal is to reward specific playstyle, I think accumulating gold is not a great goal and some other have issues to.

Honestly, if legacy paths would receive really massive rebuild, I'd like to see the removal of distant lands as a concept at all and instead base exploration legacy paths on continents. I also think, treasure fleet concept should be gone as colonial - it's not tied very deeply in the game, with only a couple of civilization uniques requiring rebuilding. for example:

1. Exploration economic path could be based on number of resources you get from different continents, including trading, but gaining those resources from your own settlements gives twice as much points. This could potentially take into account both continent differentiation and resource differentiation.
2. Exploration military path could depend on number of settlements on different continents, something like 1 point for each settlement on the continent other than the one holding your largest number of settlements, plus 3 points for each additional continent you have settlements on. Religion could be taken out of this formula to not mix.

 

[UWHabs]

I'm still torn between having alternate options, or just having more paths have multiple ways to earn points.
So like in the antiquity economic path, it could be "get 30 points" as the progress, and you get 1 point per resource slotted or 1 point per trade route established, for example. Maybe it's 15 points of settlements, with towns worth 1 point, cities worth 2, captured settlements worth a bonus 1, and maybe each commander is worth 1 point too.

Or, the other part of me is tempted that maybe you don't find out what the path for the age is until a few turns in (maybe when you select your government). Whether it's random or you get a choice. So maybe in some games you get the wonder path, but other games yeah it would be based on total adjacencies for cultural buildings. Or maybe you get 1 point per quarter in your empire, and the cultural path is more about building out a lasting empire.

In either case, though, you run the risk of it being overly complicated. Like I wouldn't necessarily want to track 12 or 15 different paths, with different steps along the way of each. But I wouldn't hate it to change up a little - whether I choose or the game chooses for me, having some games where the military path is all about getting commander promotions rather than settlements could change up your style. It would be nice if some exploration games didn't require a full commitment to the distant lands on 3/4 of the paths (or 2/4 for Mongols, Inca, Songhai, etc..). And obviously as more civs specialize, it does get harder too. If the exploration econ path was about getting multiple copies of all the resource types, do you still have treasure fleets?

I think before rebalancing legacy paths, Firaxis needs to shake yields first. Their skyrocket on age change cause huge runaway situation and other problems.

Speaking about the list:

1. Relying on amphitheaters for culture legacy path as they are now is a problem, because they require pretty late technology to unlock, so it's more about science. If they would be moved to civic tree, that would be ok.
2. Explore the whole map in exploration is quite a weird goal. Not only it's really hard to get, but also Spain and Ibn Battuta have huge potential boost.
3. If Legacy path goal is to reward specific playstyle, I think accumulating gold is not a great goal and some other have issues to.

Honestly, if legacy paths would receive really massive rebuild, I'd like to see the removal of distant lands as a concept at all and instead base exploration legacy paths on continents. I also think, treasure fleet concept should be gone as colonial - it's not tied very deeply in the game, with only a couple of civilization uniques requiring rebuilding. for example:

1. Exploration economic path could be based on number of resources you get from different continents, including trading, but gaining those resources from your own settlements gives twice as much points. This could potentially take into account both continent differentiation and resource differentiation.
2. Exploration military path could depend on number of settlements on different continents, something like 1 point for each settlement on the continent other than the one holding your largest number of settlements, plus 3 points for each additional continent you have settlements on. Religion could be taken out of this formula to not mix.

I think more ways for the exploration era to let you get some points without the distant lands would be great. The new religious beliefs that let you potentially get enough relics to complete the path through converting your own cities or other homeland ones are a great change already. Part of me feels like the military path should simplify so that everyone basically has the Mongol's path, and Mongolia maybe shift their bonus to something related to the econ path instead (give them a treasure convoy for each captured settlement, but only let them cash their treasure convoys in their capital or something). And then the treasure convoys yeah maybe should balance with trade routes, and not force you to settle in distant lands. Or even people have mentioned before, you could have an endeavour to generate convoys, so the econ path shifts to be a little bit of like an econ/diplo path for that era.

 

[Porry]

THAT's a good idea. I misinterpreted what you were saying in the other post. Instead of realizing you were talking about the Steam milestones, I thought you were talking about that. Anyway, I hope the new legacy paths give attribute points to leaders instantly, not just during the era change.

 

[Leucarum]

If legacy paths stick around I think they need to be less predictable. One idea I like is to borrow ideas from Stellaris' technology, where whenever you complete a legacy path objective you draw a (or a choice of) new objective from a deck, where gameplay choices/techs researched/events/leaders/civs influence the deck's composition.

As much as randomness is going to be a lightning rod for a lot of players, I do think it is one way you could keep legacies fresh. And with enough ways to stack the deck, plus always giving the players a choice of new objective, might alleviate the feels bad of randomness...

That said, will legacy paths stick around? I'm unconvinced.