Authority is the only viable option on Immortal+

[Gazebo]

It really pains me to argue for it, as the yields from kills is my favourite mechanic.
And it is fine in the early ages - it's just that it scales so good in the later ages whereas the yields from tradion don't at all and the progress ones much less.
For example, a 20 city progress empire gets flat 60 science from their policy per turn. That's about one renaissance unit killed (marathon multiplier). And killing one unit per turn is a trivial thing if you fight against immortal civs in later ages.

Well, reducing it overall will hurt Authority a bit early, which will reduce snowball potential. Seems fair.

 

[Gokudo01]

I think you should wait a little more to nerf authority with the new added mechanism. War Weariness and supply cap already seems to be harsh nerf to authority.

 

[Txurce]

Well, reducing it overall will hurt Authority a bit early, which will reduce snowball potential. Seems fair.

This is a good reason to do it. When you factor in priority buildings and Wonders, Tradition and Progress were nerfed more by the cap than Authority anyway.

 

[CrazyG]

Well, reducing it overall will hurt Authority a bit early, which will reduce snowball potential. Seems fair.

I'd support this. Currently you don't need very many kills to comfortably advance in culture.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I think that's the wrong direction. The reasoning "if Authority does something it's supposed to do on a difficulty in which the way it acquires resources is more common, it gets more bang than Progress does for doing literally nothing, so nerf it" and "the tree designed for balling early and falling off balls early and falls off" seems weird to me. Weren't we supposed to not balance around the highest difficulties anyway, like it was said in the religion thread? Because if +borders/+kills beliefs were not must-haves there for civs with no religion bonuses, they'd be useless on difficulties below? Religion is as important as the early policy choice, if not more (everyone can pick a policy - not everyone can get a religion) so there's equivalency existing here.
Especially when you consider that being overly aggressive and conquering your enemies on your continent means you might vassalize/destroy them all in medieval. That means in this case, for at least an era, you might get no real Culture/Science from kills while Progress still continues safely gaining yields. If you play on a high difficulty against Montezuma who can pretty much make an unit in every city every turn, you will still get more than Progress does - and that's okay, Montezuma's neverending waves of soldiers should give you something of value because it takes long turns to get a shot at attacking him. And that's still not why Authority balls.

No, I believe the real reason Authority balls is +1 Production in the opener because the last time it was removed Authority turned bad and this thread, rather than containing mixed opinions like the current change does, contained pretty much only hate towards the state of Authority. My suggestion would be undoing the culture/science per kill nerf while tying the op-ener +Production to something else, like a building or city connection, to slow it down a bit but ensuring the end result is the same. Maybe Council because war councils? Or Barracks, but that's a bit late and the building is too valuable for Authority as is, even more encouragement to get it would be a bad idea imho.
Or, alternatively removing the +Production from opener altogether, granting it to the Finisher so the end-result is the same but ball is away, but that'd require some small sweetening bonus in the opener, like +1 Production (and Gold?) per Citadel, or a slight buff to some policy. Stronger overall so falls off less hard, but won't ball nearly as hard.

 

[CrazyG]

stuff.

I think this is a valid point, but let me put out a counter point on the culture and science. In theory if I kill X things, authority should outperform tradition or progress in terms of culture and science generation. I think that X was just too low, in fact often times just barbarians alone would almost be enough. I starting taking the Authority opener and science policy instead of medieval or ideology tenets if expected even a moderate amount of war.

I also agree that the extra production is a big deal. It speaks to the balance of the mod that the tree was lackluster without it and a touch too much with it.

 

[peterw1987]

Just try my first game using authority celt. I am surprised how fast i am snowballing.

+1p per policy in all city really help a lot. And the leftside policy really help a lot even if you are going to play peaceful. You cant go wrong with any start terrain.

While playing tradition, once i got desert start bias playing india. And it take almost forever for my 2nd and following city to even build monument and shrine. All i got is high population with no production at all.

Other time i play progress, the real snowball begin when you unlock the leftside policy after settling 4 or 5 city. But it almost take forever to get the culture needed, because you will need to unlock 2 rightside policy first to get that +2 production.

I will try authority opener with other peaceful civ, and see how it goes.

 

[Txurce]

I think this is a valid point, but let me put out a counter point on the culture and science. In theory if I kill X things, authority should outperform tradition or progress in terms of culture and science generation. I think that X was just too low, in fact often times just barbarians alone would almost be enough. I starting taking the Authority opener and science policy instead of medieval or ideology tenets if expected even a moderate amount of war.

I also agree that the extra production is a big deal. It speaks to the balance of the mod that the tree was lackluster without it and a touch too much with it.

This is true enough that when I moved up to Immortal, still only playing for SV, I went with the Aztecs and Authority -- engaged in only moderately more wars than I did with other openers -- and started winning consistently enough that I quit using Authority. The training-wheels barbarian advantage alone is huge.

However, I do agree with Enrico that the game shouldn't be balanced off the highest difficulties.

 

[ElliotS]

I think some people are mixing the benefits of war in with the benefits of Authority. I've had plenty of Progress domination VCs, even on high difficulties.

The whole point is that Authority is the best early tree and falls off unless you snowball. If the +1 production on the opener is removed the tree isn't that anymore.

Also remember that you need to kill X units per turn to make up for the culture/science deficit over other branches. It was probably a bit too low in 2-15, but you can't permawar in 2-27 AFAIK and thus achieving X is harder than before.

We're making a lot of changes before even seeing how previous changes affect things. Let's chill it.

 

[Gazebo]

I think some people are mixing the benefits of war in with the benefits of Authority. I've had plenty of Progress domination VCs, even on high difficulties.

The whole point is that Authority is the best early tree and falls off unless you snowball. If the +1 production on the opener is removed the tree isn't that anymore.

Also remember that you need to kill X units per turn to make up for the culture/science deficit over other branches. It was probably a bit too low in 2-15, but you can't permawar in 2-27 AFAIK and thus achieving X is harder than before.

We're making a lot of changes before even seeing how previous changes affect things. Let's chill it.

Authority AI dominance was something I'd noticed during beta testing, so it is well-grounded. A nerf to yields from kills will weaken Authority in the player's meat-grinder hands, which is good.

G

 

[Stalker0]

Authority AI dominance was something I'd noticed during beta testing, so it is well-grounded. A nerf to yields from kills will weaken Authority in the player's meat-grinder hands, which is good.

G

I think Elliot's point stands. Ware fare is getting a major change in these recent versions, which has a direct effect on authority. We should let the war changes settle before reassessing authority's current value

 

[Gazebo]

I think Elliot's point stands. Ware fare is getting a major change in these recent versions, which has a direct effect on authority. We should let the war changes settle before reassessing authority's current value

Well as I said, these confirmation tests on my end were done during the recent beta, but we'll see.

 

[Omincron]

Hello, I have been playing a lot since finding the Vox Populi mod (much thanks for all your effort).

Authority and Progress work fine and are, as far as I can tell, equally viable. Getting them both is also viable (and strong). Tradition is ... well, if it's viable, it's not with my play style or with the Civs I have tried it with. I fall so far behind by the medieval era that the writing is on the wall.

Normally, I am all for nerfs to bring things into line as it seems like a small nerf here and there has less knock on consequences (albeit with more user *****ing) than a buff but I feel in this case, it's tradition that needs a fix, not Authority.

I would suggest some early mechanic that becomes less helpful by medieval where, I suspect, Tradition will naturally become strong enough as is.

 

[Gokudo01]

We have a post in strategy where we talk about tradition and it s far from being a weaker option

 

[CrazyG]

Hello, I have been playing a lot since finding the Vox Populi mod (much thanks for all your effort).

Authority and Progress work fine and are, as far as I can tell, equally viable. Getting them both is also viable (and strong). Tradition is ... well, if it's viable, it's not with my play style or with the Civs I have tried it with. I fall so far behind by the medieval era that the writing is on the wall.

Normally, I am all for nerfs to bring things into line as it seems like a small nerf here and there has less knock on consequences (albeit with more user *****ing) than a buff but I feel in this case, it's tradition that needs a fix, not Authority.

I would suggest some early mechanic that becomes less helpful by medieval where, I suspect, Tradition will naturally become strong enough as is.

This mod has changed pretty quickly over the past few months, so the discussion in this thread is pretty outdated.

Tradition is still a pretty solid tree