Ancient era policy analysis and feedback.

[Funak]

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.

In my opinion, roads way more expensive at the start of the game, gold is way less common, and the difference between paying 6 or 3 gold to connect two cities is a lot more relevant at that point.
The idea of the extra production is to let your cities build up their infrastructure faster, it was present in the current liberty-tree and the vanilla liberty-tree for the same reason.
I can see your point about this policy not really holding up, but that's sort of the point, not all ancient era policies should stay relevant for the entire game.

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.

There are border-expansion policies in both tradition and might however so that would probably feel a bit overlapping.


I appreciate your feedback, things being too quiet gets so boring.

 

[Funak]

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.

I think I would rather switch it with Sovereignty, making it feel like a more relevant choice to get an earlier pantheon, but honestly I don't know, all the other policies are strong early-game as well, I mean Majesty gives you 3 culture in your capital, that's pretty huge.

 

[Finarvi]

[...]
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

[...]

I like what you did with 1 and 3. Third policy was very week early game (and boring). You probably always wanted to take it last, to maximize it's bonus and because other bonuses where much better early game. With this worker improvement rate bonus, it would be more interesting. And moving bonus for civilians to first policy is interesting too. I feel like I get it too late - I've already settled most of my cities and build most of roads. Your idea could make it slightly better.

But I don't know what to do with finisher. I think that free GP isn't bad - it's very active choice, even if it is forgotten after use, you can use it in many ways. You can start religion (pretty good for going wide), build manufactory/academy, maybe great work or merchant for town? One downside is that Maya civ uses simillar feature.

 

[Funak]

But I don't know what to do with finisher. I think that free GP isn't bad - it's very active choice, even if it is forgotten after use, you can use it in many ways. You can start religion (pretty good for going wide), build manufactory/academy, maybe great work or merchant for town? One downside is that Maya civ uses simillar feature.

Absolutely as I've already mentioned the finisher isn't bad at all, it's a very powerful effect, but I really don't like the one-shot nature of it. Plus 2 points in Aesthetics giving you a way stronger effect just makes the Liberty finisher feel even more sad.


I was thinking about that food-policy I added to Liberty, and how about instead making it give X% of the hammercost for a building in food when you finish the building? It would be sorta like you're working a building and working Farming at the same time. Might be too powerful, but tuning down the number wouldn't really be too hard (I think), otherwise a flat number scaling with era makes sense as well.

 

[Gazebo]

My take on this, based on Funak's tweaks:

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 Workers and Settlers.
• 2. +50 science when a citizen is born in your capital, and +25 Food when a building is constructed in any City. Bonuses scale with era.
• 3. +2 Production in all cities. Tile improvement rate increased by 25%.
• 4. When you expend a great person, receive 50 Golden Age Points and 50 Culture. Bonus scales with era.
• 5. 1 Happiness per 12 citizens in your empire.
• Finisher: +25 Gold when a citizen is born in any city. Unlocks Great Writers in Industrial.

G

 

[Funak]

My take on this, based on Funak's tweaks:

Looks good. Honestly not sure that the happiness policy needed any buffs but it's not like it is a major change, we'll just see.



So anyways, how about adding a second effect to the finisher in all three trees? If only because the medieval and Renaissance era trees all have 2 effects in their finishers.
I'm guessing most people are going to dislike your policy nr 4 because of its delayed effect, which was the main reason why I wanted it in the finisher to start with. I mean the policy itself isn't bad at all, but you never want to pick it up if you have a choice to pick anything else.


I'm going to write some things about the Renaissance era trees as well, but I've been putting it on hold. It really isn't anywhere near as much to speak of as with the other era trees, mostly about rationalism and some comparisons between other trees, but you weren't going to release a new version anytime soon anyways, right?

 

[Gazebo]

Looks good. Honestly not sure that the happiness policy needed any buffs but it's not like it is a major change, we'll just see.



So anyways, how about adding a second effect to the finisher in all three trees? If only because the medieval and Renaissance era trees all have 2 effects in their finishers.


I'm going to write some things about the Renaissance era trees as well, but I've been putting it on hold. It really isn't anywhere near as much to speak of as with the other era trees, mostly about rationalism and some comparisons between other trees, but you weren't going to release a new version anytime soon anyways, right?

Ancient Era trees should not be as beneficial as medieval era trees. A single 'finisher' element achieves that. I think it's fine.

What's wrong with Rationalism?

G

 

[Funak]

Ancient Era trees should not be as beneficial as medieval era trees. A single 'finisher' element achieves that. I think it's fine.

I don't see the harm it would do, it might make going double ancient era trees more viable, which in most peoples eyes would be a nice change.

What's wrong with Rationalism?

A few things really bothers me about it, I'll write the thread as soon as I can.

 

[Funak]

Suggestions for second finishers for the ancient era trees, because I still think it would be a good idea.

Tradition:
Adding another capital-building would probably be an easy solution, maybe something with 2 Great work slots and some cool theming bonus?

Liberty:
"When you expend a great person, receive 50 Golden Age Points and 50 Culture. Bonus scales with era."
Placing that bonus in the finisher makes sense because at least in my opinion the effect feels boring. It is a great bonus, and it feels fitting as a finisher, its irregular yield-bursts feels nicely matched with the ever-present goldbonus in your suggested finisher.

Honor:
Not sure, added yields to defensive buildings could be interesting. A free promotion for ground-units like in Imperialism feels like it might be overpowered.
I would prefer a yield-based bonus instead of a military based bonus, mostly because the majority of the tree is already military based. (Yes I'm aware that that is the point, but I'm saying that even if you fight you still need to build )

 

[Finarvi]

Gazebo's suggestion for Liberty tree seems OK. One problem is that 4 and 5 are useless at the beginning of game so I see only 2 proper builds:
{1}-{2}-{3}-{4,5} - boost your workers and settlers for the beginning and start settling and building improvements, then boost your cities further with 3 and end with 4,5 depending on situation
{3},{1},{2},{4,5} - boost your capital with 3 to grow it faster (and take some techs) and then start building settlers, meanwhile take 1 to boost them and your infrastructure, take 2 to boost your cities further and then 4,5

You don't want to take 4 at the begining when it would give you no more than 1. At the beginning you want flat bonuses and 1% bonus yields means nothing.
And you don't want to take 5 until you are near to get expendable GP.

I suggest to add some secondary effect to these policies.

 

[Funak]

Gazebo's suggestion for Liberty tree seems OK. One problem is that 4 and 5 are useless at the beginning of game so I see only 2 proper builds:
{1}-{2}-{3}-{4,5} - boost your workers and settlers for the beginning and start settling and building improvements, then boost your cities further with 3 and end with 4,5 depending on situation
{3},{1},{2},{4,5} - boost your capital with 3 to grow it faster (and take some techs) and then start building settlers, meanwhile take 1 to boost them and your infrastructure, take 2 to boost your cities further and then 4,5

You don't want to take 4 at the begining when it would give you no more than 1. At the beginning you want flat bonuses and 1% bonus yields means nothing.
And you don't want to take 5 until you are near to get expendable GP.

I suggest to add some secondary effect to these policies.

Main reason I wanted to move 4 to the finisher. I think 5 is fine, it's probably going to give you one happiness when you pick it up, and be fairly close to 2, I mean that's way more than the tradition finisher for example
Okay, that was a lie, main reason was because I wanted symmetry between all the finishers from all eras but this is a good reason as well.

 

[sleepyx732]

5. +3 happiness and +1 happiness per 15 citizens in your empire.

Regarding #4, I'd give it 'receive 1 free great person of your choice' but that might make it slightly to powerful for just 1 one policy. Could give it to the finisher which doesn't scale that well, but I don't know how much sense that would make.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

It seems weird that Liberty isn't giving the most free stuff, but I take it that the Yields from new Pop and Buildings is enough to jump start early Expansion

 

[Funak]

It seems weird that Liberty isn't giving the most free stuff, but I take it that the Yields from new Pop and Buildings is enough to jump start early Expansion

This was discussed ages ago, and the expansion-tree is Honor now. That being said Liberty isn't really bad at expanding by any means, and does a far better job of actually getting new cities running than Honor does.

The idea was that Liberty was about infrastructure and Tradition was about, ehm, well I don't actually remember, but currently Tradition and Liberty are both pretty expansion neutral, they can do fine no matter how many cities you have.

 

[Strigvir]

Tradition is about wonderwhoring and GP in the ancient era.

 

[Strigvir]

I always find strange that Logistics works on ALL units: ships, planes, archers, cavalry, tanks. Makes melee units even more irrelevant.
Perhaps it should be upped to 20-30 health but working only on land melee units.

 

[Gazebo]

I always find strange that Logistics works on ALL units: ships, planes, archers, cavalry, tanks. Makes melee units even more irrelevant.
Perhaps it should be upped to 20-30 health but working only on land melee units.

That's fair. Perhaps land and sea melee units, just to keep map type compatibility open?
G

 

[Strigvir]

Isn't Imperialism supposed to deal with naval units bonuses?
Not that I against melee ships getting the heal on kill, as of right now the "melee ships" class is the weakest and there is like no point in using them outside of capturing coastal cities.

 

[Funak]

That's fair. Perhaps land and sea melee units, just to keep map type compatibility open?
G

I actually like Logistics the way it currently is, and I would be sad to see it changed.

 

[Strigvir]

There is no point to give a healing to units, which don't take damage upon attacking. 15 health is too low for melee units (when they take ~20 damage per attack) while it's a huge buff to anyone else (especially ships).