Ancient era policy analysis and feedback.

[Funak]

Been thinking of writing this for a while, and I decided today was going to be the time. However today our illustrious leader Gazebo decided to release a patch to change a few things. I'm mostly going to ignore that patch as I don't feel like testing it out before writing this. This text is going to suggest other solutions to the same problems that the patch have already solved however, so deal with it
Keep in mind that this thread cares as much about the 'fun factor' as it does about balance, this is a side-effect of me only caring about fun and me thinking balance is fun.

TRADITION
Mostly everything about tradition feels nice and unique, powerful in its own way but still balanced. At first glance it seems mostly focused on the capital, but there are a lot of powerful effects that affects all of your cities. I'd be happy if all trees were as well designed and thought out as tradition, well done G.
Opener: 2 Culture in the capital.
As far as openers go, this is probably the most meh one in the game, it does what it is supposed to do, but isn't really fun for anyone. Sad considering how unique the rest of the tree feels like.
Scaling:+5% +3*X Growth in all cities.
Just really solid.
Finisher:+1 happiness for every national wonder
This finisher is sad and pathetic, really. Sure it provides you with a decent amount of happiness eventually, but most of the time I tend to forget it even exists. Definitely not fun.
Authority: +1 Culture in all cities. +2 hammers +3 Def +25 hp +engineer.
All around just good, I don't think I've ever picked Sovereignty over this one, which might be a problem, but I just don't care. It is awesome.
Sovereignty: +1 Gold +10% border expand in all cities. +2 gold +merchant.
Absolutely not bad by any means. It is going to provide a lot less gold than other policies but since the gold is added straight to the city it combats poverty. Border-expansion is solid, even if it feels like a really low number at this point.
Majesty: +20% GA duration, +10% culture +2 culture +writer +wslot.
Everything about this is solid really. I usually end up working way less cultural specialists than I did in vanilla for some reason, honestly don't know why, probably an error on my part.
Splendor: +2 Food in all cities. +1culture for monuments +2 culture for garden. +2 Food +Artist.
Probably the best policy in the tree, everything it gives is solid and most of it is global.
Devotion: +15% GPR in all cities. +2 faith +musician +mslot.
By far the least impressive of the tradition-buildings. The global bonus from the policy however makes up for that. The building would be far more impressive if it arrived early enough to help you secure a pantheon (or allow you to skip a shrine).

All in all, if I was to change something about Tradition it would be the opener/finisher or somehow move the faith from the court chapel earlier in the tree, maybe to the first tier, that might actually make the first tier a choice. Production or an early pantheon, probably not much of a choice.



LIBERTY
I've always liked Liberty, even back when it was useless, even back when it was boring, even back when it was overpowered. At this point liberty feels pretty good, balancewise but in my eyes it falls short when it comes to fun, most of that stems from two problems that I'll discuss below.
Opener: +10 culture when construct a building or research a tech.
A pretty fun opener, translates to about as much culture as the tradition opener, but it feels more fun and doesn't reduce unhappiness from boredom(ironic ). No idea if the culture gained affects border-growth, but it should and it probably does.
Scaling: +5% +2*X% production-bonus when building buildings.
The silent hero of the tree. Probably a lot more powerful than the tradition scaling bonus, but I only base that on gut-feelings . Anyways I love it.
Finisher: A free great person of your choice.
I have always hated this finisher, always. It is probably better than the tradition finisher but honestly I don't care. One-shot policies are boring, one-shot finishers are even more boring. If something is one-shot, at least let it have some lingering effect like the Aesthetics free great person or free golden age.
Civil Engineers: +2 production in all cities -50% maintenance for roads.
Extra production helps your cities get started and cheaper roads makes it easier to connect your cities without running a gold deficit early on. All around solid.
City Planning: +30 gold from city-growth. +40 science from capital growth. Scales with era.
Pretty much the policy that makes liberty work. It gives you loads of gold and it gives you an early tech advantage that you can snowball. While I like the idea behind the tech I feel like it is way too powerful and available way too early in the tree. It just carries a way too big part of the liberty tree power.
Citizenship: Free worker +25% faster improvements.
The free worker is nice, it is a one-shot ability but it is more of a backup for the faster improvements. Improvements takes forever to finish, and this policy cuts that time down to forever*0.8 which is a significant difference. All around this policy makes building improvements less annoying, which is great.
Representation: +1 global happiness/15 citizens.
I feel like this policy might have been nerfed too much. If the happiness doesn't get bumped up it should probably get something else because this is going to provide you with 1 or maybe 2 happiness at most during the time where liberty is relevant.
Meritocracy: +1 movement for civilian units. +50 culture and GAP when you pop a GP. Scales with era.
All around solid, you don't really look forward to it as it doesn't feel like much of a change, but if you delay it in favor of getting 1 happiness from representation you're going to be a sad panda when you get a GP before you have enough culture to pick up Meritocracy. All around it feels rather boring, but it is solid.


I feel like Liberty might be in need of some major reconstruction. Most policies by themselves are pretty solid but I don't like how two of them just feels boring to grab while one pretty much provides you with half the power of the entire tree. I would shift some power around, lower the numbers for city-planning and move it or the meritocracy bonus to the finisher instead of the free GP. Add or move something minor to Representation and then add a new policy in place of what got moved to the finisher. No idea what the new policy would be however.



HONOR
I'm not as familiar with the Honor policy-tree as perhaps I should be. I've picked it up a few times and I've made it work, but I'm hardly an expert. It is not that I find the tree bad, or boring or anything like that I've just not rolled enough leaders that actually benefits from the honor bonuses and those that I've actually rolled have ended up gone other ways. In all the tree is pretty solid it does have some problems however.
Opener: +25% bonus when fighting barbs. Culture from killing barbs and grabbing barbcamps.
The active opener. The culture from this is really solid especially on large maps. You have to put some effort into it however, and it is a lot less useful and goes obsolete a lot faster on more crowded maps. The combat-bonus is awesome and makes those obscenely OP barb horsemen more manageable.
Scaling: +5% +4*X% production-bonus when building land-units.
The bonus is a lot bigger than the liberty one, probably because you tend to build more buildings than units. This does make a big difference however and building a large army is a lot easier with such a big bonus.
Finisher: Culture and GAP when capturing cities.
Pretty situational, you're forced into conquering cities to make any use of this. It does however make a pretty big difference and is all around a solid finisher, at least compared to the tradition and liberty ones. It is however rather sad that you're pretty much forced to delay your conquest until you're finished with the Honor tree or you'll miss out on these bonuses.
Logistics: +Science and +15 healing from kills.
All around solid, makes barb-hunting a lot easier and helps speed up your tech. Unlike the other trees the tier ones in Honor actually makes up a hard choice (at least for me, but it might be out of inexperience).
Tribute: +25% Border expansion. +10 gold and production from border-expansion. Scales with era.
Used to be a lot better. It is still really solid, would probably still be solid even if it just provided the % border expansion. Again this makes a hard choice.
Expansionism: Free settler. +1 happiness +1 culture from garrisons.
Speeds up your expansion, keeps your happiness and policy-rate solid. Helps border-expansions in new cities to help them produce faster, what's not to like? You're forced to keep garrisons in all cities, which you probably should anyways, costs some upkeep but that's a cheap price to pay.
Conscription: +10% CS for all units. Gain a ranged unit, and another one in each city settled after picking this policy.
All around awesome. You now get the garrison-unit needed for Expansionism for free. Not only that but you have a slight CS advantage over people without Conscription. The free units makes a slight overlap with the Scaling bonus, making less use out of the production-bonus because you get the units for free.
Martial Law: Extra production in puppets and occupied cities. -15% maintenance for units.
Always kinda weird to have the last policy in a tree feel like the weakest one. Martial Law isn't bad, really, it just promotes a weird play-style. The lowered maintenance is always solid, no doubt about it. The production in occupied cities is only ever useful for building the courthouse, but that's fine. The production-bonus in puppets is okay I guess even if puppets tend to construct buildings just fine on their own, and that's pretty much all they ever do. I guess the idea is to puppet a city, let it build its buildings and then annex it and have it build a courthouse when it no longer have any useful buildings left to build. That makes a pretty solid foundation for your cities before you decide to annex them. Only real problem is that puppet seems to not actually want to build most useful buildings at all for some reasons.


There isn't really that much I would change about Honor, the policies all fit pretty well together. I'm not a huge fan of the play style you're pretty much forced into when you play Honor, but on the other hand there isn't really any other way to handle the expansion/military tree other than that. It's not like I tend to play completely peaceful or anything like that, I just don't like the game telling me what to do I guess, I like it being my choice when I rain fire and death down on my neighbors for placing stupid cities too close to my borders.


All above:
I noticed a pretty boring trend with the ancient era trees, and that's that the Finisher is generally really meh, all medieval and Renaissance trees have really interesting finishers. I understand that the ancient era trees are supposed to be less powerful, but they can at least have two effects just like all other finishers have.



I was going to include all Policy-trees in this one from the start, but after writing just 3 of them I realized that this is going to be a huge project and that I should probably split them into different threads, and also different days because now my head hurts. Good night.


Also these are all just my opinions, feel free to discuss and disagree and whatever you want.

 

[Strigvir]

Didn't Tradition get a heavy nerf after specialists change?

 

[Natura]

The production in occupied cities is only ever useful for building the courthouse, but that's fine.

I have to disagree here. My standard playstyle when going Might is to leave captured cities occupied for the 33% extra production and use that to get their infrastructure back up and running before turning to Courthouses. Conquered capitals usually are in excellent locations and can even be kept occupied as production centres going forwards. Courthouses get produced when and if they are required. Bear in mind that occupied cities just produce flat rates of unhappiness based on population; unoccupied cities still generate unhappiness from Crime, Poverty etc, so without serious infrastructure investment cities aren't that much better off unoccupied (at least when initially conquered. It's a trade-off: unhappiness for production.

My issue with the policy is that it has atrocious synergy. Namely, it doesn't synergise with anything. Going Order and taking the tenet for free courthouses straight up negates the ability to use the policy for anything other than the unit maintenance reduction. What really annoys me though is that the most likely ideology for a conqueror is Autocracy, which has a tenet to give all Courthouses +3 happiness! Essentially the game still behaves as though you'll always build a courthouse whenever you can, which is frustrating when this policy exists.

 

[Strigvir]

Except occupied cities produce 100% of their population as unhappiness. Unless it's a city with 0 buildings, it still will produce less unhappiness once completely annexed.

 

[Natura]

Yes, which I pointed out. I was drawing attention to the fact that occupying undeveloped cities in CPP is less harmful than it would be in unmodded Civ V. It's still better from a happiness perspective to build the courthouse, but if you've got surplus happiness, and you want to build that city up again fast, it's a useful policy.

 

[Delekhan]

Martial Law is rather meh for the last policy pick, I agree.

 

[Funak]

Martial Law is rather meh for the last policy pick, I agree.

Main problem is that moving it would make it feel even more meh. Perhaps placing it in the finisher, if ancient era finishers are expanded would be more fitting, atleast one half of it. I mean either half of the current Martial law would make sense as a 'bonus effect' on any other policy. By that I mean you have another effect as the real meat, and you get stronger puppets or lower maintenance as a bonus. It's just the two things together that makes it feel so awkward, at least in my opinion.

 

[ecgopher]

Some random thoughts:

The natural progression of Might is definitely start with the first two right side policies, then left side. With Might, you want to get Conscription ASAP then start pumping out settlers. It's basically like a vanilla-BNW-Liberty wide play where you grab the settler production bonus and pump out settlers until there's nowhere left to settle.

What's nice about Liberty is you can go back to it for the right side later in the game. I'm in the middle of a game where I opened Tradition. Then filled Tradition. Opened Aesthetics then opened Liberty. Took City Planning and Meritocracy. Then filled Aesthetics. Then opened and filled Rationalism. Then took Representation. Now I'm working through Freedom. It flowed really naturally. I have a religion with Mastery and Ceremonial Burial. Those beliefs, combined with the GP bonuses from Meritocracy + Aesthetics, and combined with the extra specialists from Tradition, mean I'm working tons of specialists, pumping out tons of great people, and getting great bonuses for it. You can pick up Representation later on because it scales with your growth and there's not much opportunity cost to not getting it earlier.

I almost never open Liberty first. If I plan to war early, or foresee major wars in the mid-game, I go Might. If I plan to be a total dove, I open Tradition. As I said, the right side of Liberty remains relevant to pick up later on, but the left side of Liberty is useless once your infrastructure is already up and running. If I finish Liberty, it's because I did a combined Might+Liberty start (Might, Tribute, Conscription, Liberty . . . finish Liberty, finish Might). I do that if I plan to take a bunch of cities, and thus want the Might finisher when I do, but want to wait until the mid game before warring -- if I share a continent with only one non-early-warmonger civ and will want to take his half after I'm done expanding, but will still have ample room to expand peaceably before then.

 

[Delekhan]

Main problem is that moving it would make it feel even more meh. Perhaps placing it in the finisher, if ancient era finishers are expanded would be more fitting, atleast one half of it. I mean either half of the current Martial law would make sense as a 'bonus effect' on any other policy. By that I mean you have another effect as the real meat, and you get stronger puppets or lower maintenance as a bonus. It's just the two things together that makes it feel so awkward, at least in my opinion.

Problem is, who actually annexes a city and doesn't build a courthouse? The +33% production for occupied cities seems a tad silly.

I'd replace the +production with something like +% XP gain, or extra city ranged strength, or some magic promotion for all units. That sounds way more fun.

 

[Funak]

Problem is, who actually annexes a city and doesn't build a courthouse? The +33% production for occupied cities seems a tad silly..

Absolutely, but 15% reduced maintenance and somewhat faster production in your puppets isn't really a bad deal. It's two at least semi-useful abilities, as mentioned before what really makes the abilities seem bad is that they are in the same policy.

 

[Finarvi]

I agree with your opinions.. About policies that makes you feel sad if you get them too late (ie. conscription): maybe we could change it that you get bonusses for cities conqered before as well? So you would get ranged unit in every city; free culture for every conquered city and culture for every GP spent before.

This could make ancient trees a little bit better as second choice too.

 

[Funak]

So you would get ranged unit in every city; free culture for every conquered city and culture for every GP spent before.

Retroactively getting culture for conquered cities feels kinda weird honestly. Getting ranged units in every already settled city however, does not imho. It is a minor difference for people starting out with honor, and a huge boon for people picking up honor after they've already finished a tree, which imho is fine.

This could make ancient trees a little bit better as second choice too.

This is pretty much what I want, the medieval trees should in most cases be better choices, but the ancient era trees should be unique and special enough that picking one up isn't completely crazy.

 

[Strigvir]

The only problem I have with Tradition is there is no way to move artist/writer/musician buildings out of capital, thus forcing to build guilds there. It can be a problem if the starting location isn't very rich with food. Also can't work all slots the moment they become available anymore.
Liberty is goddamn useful, it gives loads of dosh even with subpar gpt. Paired with industry it is a killer combo.
Might is okay. It definitely helps with expanding (as in "expand your territory"), but falls behind once there are no free tiles to acquire. Probably it could be fixed by proc'ing the bonus from the city culture "lvl-up" instead of tile acquisition.

 

[Funak]

The only problem I have with Tradition is there is no way to move artist/writer/musician buildings out of capital, thus forcing to build guilds there. It can be a problem if the starting location isn't very rich with food. Also can't work all slots the moment they become available anymore.

This is actually a situation i find myself in more than I would like. I want my capital to build things, not work 9 cultural specialists. But then again I'm not one hundred percent sure what the loss of moving the guilds out of the city would be.

Liberty is goddamn useful, it gives loads of dosh even with subpar gpt. Paired with industry it is a killer combo.

Note, this is not about a tree being useful or not, liberty is great, the gold from city growth is probably even overpowered, my problem with it is that almost all of liberty's power is focused in that gold-policy and the scaling bonus that helps you construct buildings faster. I'd like to see the power more equally spread out, and I would like to see the boring free great person finisher go.

Might is okay. It definitely helps with expanding (as in "expand your territory"), but falls behind once there are no free tiles to acquire. Probably it could be fixed by proc'ing the bonus from the city culture "lvl-up" instead of tile acquisition.

Might depending on map-style is way more than okay. Even if most of the power in might is locked in Expansionism and Tribute, the rest of the tree still feels fun, with the possible exception of Martial Law.

 

[Strigvir]

But then again I'm not one hundred percent sure what the loss of moving the guilds out of the city would be.

It's 3 specialists versus 2, so the loss is around 33%, not counting wonders.
I also tend to build 3 guilds and national epic in once city to maximize those great people gains with minimal investment.

 

[Funak]

It's 3 specialists versus 2, so the loss is around 33%, not counting wonders.
I also tend to build 3 guilds and national epic in once city to maximize those great people gains with minimal investment.

It's not like the capital, working 1 specialist will never get any GP from it. On average there is no difference between working 2 specialists in one city and 1 specialist in another city or working 3 in the same, the problem is that all GPs are going to be delayed a little bit and then eventually when your solo city catches up you'll get 2 GPs around the same time.
However there is still a loss in the national epic and the fact that it's always better to get your GPs earlier.

 

[Funak]

Thought I'd go ahead and show an example of a restructured Liberty-tree.

This is the current Liberty tree, copied it from the unified change log and changed some things myself so it might still be wrong, anyways.

Liberty:

• Opener: 10 Culture received when a building is constructed or a tech is research. Receive +5% production towards buildings +2% production for every Liberty policy taken. Unlocks Parthenon.
• 1. Tile improvement rate increased by 25%. Free worker.
• 2. Receive 30 Gold when a citizen is born in any city, and 40 science when a citizen is born in your capital. Scales with era
• 3. +2 Production in all cities. Road/rail maintenance halved.
• 4. +1 movement for workers and settlers. When you expend a great person, receive 50 Golden Age points and 50 culture. Bonus scales with era.
• 5. 1 Happiness per 15 citizens in your empire.
• Finisher: Free GP of choice. Unlocks Great Writers in Industrial.

As I've said before I really dislike the finisher, so my main goal is to get rid of that one along with making the boring policies in the tree feel more fun by spreading out the ones that feel fun.


Liberty:

• Opener: 10 Culture received when a building is constructed or a tech is research. Receive +5% production towards buildings +2% production for every Liberty policy taken. Unlocks Parthenon.
• 1. Free worker, +1 Movement for civilian units
• 2. +2 Production in all cities. Road/rail maintenance halved.
• 3. Time improvement rate increased by 25%. +1 Happiness per 15 citizens in your empire.
• 4. +40 Science when a citizen is born in your capital. +X Food when a building is constructed in a city. Scales with era
• 5. BLANK CURRENTLY
• Finisher: +X Gold when a citizen is born in any city. +50 Culture and GAP when you expend a GP. Both scales with era. Unlocks Great Writers in Industrial

Yes it feels like I just removed the finisher and left another policy open, but that comes mostly from that I mentioned in the main post, that I believe all 3 ancient era trees deserves another effect from their finishers, since both the medieval and the renaissance trees have two effects from their finishers.

Other than that I I invented a silly food-bonus for finishing buildings, mostly because I like the idea and I feel it's underused with just the opener. Liberty is about building buildings, so why not reward players for doing just that? This opens a strategy to focus completely on production with your cities and not falling as much behind in growth as you normally would.

I stacked two of the most powerful longtime effects of the liberty tree in the same policy (3), mostly because one of them is super-boring early game, usually not actually doing anything at the point you pick it up.

The idea behind moving the gold from citizens born to the finisher is that you just benefit way too much from that policy early on. Your cities grow way too fast and you can pretty much run your economy into the ground and still have a functioning empire. Now that gets a little bit harder. I also left the number as an X as I'm honestly not sure what a good number for that effect would be. It currently feels like it gets rather ridiculous but then again it's just gold, and gold pretty much tends to scale out of control anyways.
I also moved the culture/GAP from expending GPs to the finisher as well as the effect itself is really strong but I've always felt kinda sad from picking it, mostly because it provides no real benefit right when picked up. Now you get it for free instead along with the gold-bonus from growth, which makes it feel somewhat less boring.


I have no clue what to add to the Blank slot at the moment, suggestions would be nice but not really necessary. This was mostly done as an example, not really an actual liberty tree, but just a guideline how I would restructure the tree to make it less boring, at least to me.
Comments, Opinions, Suggestions, Questions (or COSQ for short) are all welcome.

 

[Funak]

Thought I'd go ahead and show an example of a restructured Liberty-tree.

This is the current Liberty tree, copied it from the unified change log and changed some things myself so it might still be wrong, anyways.

Liberty:

• Opener: 10 Culture received when a building is constructed or a tech is research. Receive +5% production towards buildings +2% production for every Liberty policy taken. Unlocks Parthenon.
• 1. Tile improvement rate increased by 25%. Free worker.
• 2. Receive 30 Gold when a citizen is born in any city, and 40 science when a citizen is born in your capital. Scales with era
• 3. +2 Production in all cities. Road/rail maintenance halved.
• 4. +1 movement for workers and settlers. When you expend a great person, receive 50 Golden Age points and 50 culture. Bonus scales with era.
• 5. 1 Happiness per 15 citizens in your empire.
• Finisher: Free GP of choice. Unlocks Great Writers in Industrial.

As I've said before I really dislike the finisher, so my main goal is to get rid of that one along with making the boring policies in the tree feel more fun by spreading out the ones that feel fun.


Liberty:

• Opener: 10 Culture received when a building is constructed or a tech is research. Receive +5% production towards buildings +2% production for every Liberty policy taken. Unlocks Parthenon.
• 1. Free worker, +1 Movement for civilian units
• 2. +2 Production in all cities. Road/rail maintenance halved.
• 3. Time improvement rate increased by 25%. +1 Happiness per 15 citizens in your empire.
• 4. +40 Science when a citizen is born in your capital. +X Food when a building is constructed in a city. Scales with era
• 5. BLANK CURRENTLY
• Finisher: +X Gold when a citizen is born in any city. +50 Culture and GAP when you expend a GP. Both scales with era. Unlocks Great Writers in Industrial

Yes it feels like I just removed the finisher and left another policy open, but that comes mostly from that I mentioned in the main post, that I believe all 3 ancient era trees deserves another effect from their finishers, since both the medieval and the renaissance trees have two effects from their finishers.

Other than that I I invented a silly food-bonus for finishing buildings, mostly because I like the idea and I feel it's underused with just the opener. Liberty is about building buildings, so why not reward players for doing just that? This opens a strategy to focus completely on production with your cities and not falling as much behind in growth as you normally would.

I stacked two of the most powerful longtime effects of the liberty tree in the same policy (3), mostly because one of them is super-boring early game, usually not actually doing anything at the point you pick it up.

The idea behind moving the gold from citizens born to the finisher is that you just benefit way too much from that policy early on. Your cities grow way too fast and you can pretty much run your economy into the ground and still have a functioning empire. Now that gets a little bit harder. I also left the number as an X as I'm honestly not sure what a good number for that effect would be. It currently feels like it gets rather ridiculous but then again it's just gold, and gold pretty much tends to scale out of control anyways.
I also moved the culture/GAP from expending GPs to the finisher as well as the effect itself is really strong but I've always felt kinda sad from picking it, mostly because it provides no real benefit right when picked up. Now you get it for free instead along with the gold-bonus from growth, which makes it feel somewhat less boring.


I have no clue what to add to the Blank slot at the moment, suggestions would be nice but not really necessary. This was mostly done as an example, not really an actual liberty tree, but just a guideline how I would restructure the tree to make it less boring, at least to me.
Comments, Opinions, Suggestions, Questions (or COSQ for short) are all welcome.

Come on now, a lot of people viewing but no responses. You really have nothing to lose by responding.

 

[hokath]

Do you think we could switch Devotion and Majesty?
The faith boost always comes after the religions are gone, and the golden age duration is always well before any golden age.

 

[TermiX]

Just some feedback:
3. +2 Production in all cities. Road/rail maintenance halved.
I think this should be replaced by something else. In early eras roads don't cost much, while in late eras +2pr. is nothing. If we want more money in late eras, we have plenty of much more attractive policies.
5. Blanc.
Liberty tree is all about expansion, so we can put here some discounts on tiles acquiring and alter the bonuses from Angkor Wat.