Balencing Exploration

[MantaRevan]

How many games do you find yourself going down the exploration tree? I don't mean sinking one policy into the opener so that you can get the Louvre for your cultural game, I mean how often do you actually delve into the tree? Most likely you haven't very often, if at all.

Sure, the tree can compete with patronage or commerce on archipelagos, but it never really competes with rationalism at all, even on water maps. I think there are two main problems with this tree.

1. It comes too late to achieve its intended effect. BNW features like the WC mean that exploration is more important, but by the time players are able to activate Exploration, the WC has probably already been founded.

2. The underwhelming finisher gives little incentive to finish Exploration. Chances are, hidden antiquity sites are only interesting to players who are playing the cultural game, but these players are usually going down aesthetics instead. Simply put, the extra 6-8 culture from these sites isn't worth spending an entire tree of policies on.

I would move Commerce to the renascence era and Exploration to the middle ages, just so that Exploration can actually work its niche, and doesn't have as much competition. Also, extra trade routes might make a more appropriate and balanced finisher, as one that most players could find useful.

How would you tweak Exploration to make it more relevant?

 

[MerchantCo]

Exploration is awful - I certainly agree! Instead of giving boosts for ocean cities, it should actually boost well, exploration! Here are some ideas for the Exploration policy tree...

Available in the Medieval Era.
+1 movement, +1 sight for embarked units.
+1 movement, +1 sight for naval units.
Free Colonizer (settler, but can't settle on same continent where capital is. Similar to Conquistador, except it has no combat strength.)
+1 trade routes.

 

[DudewiththeFood]

Separate art from artifacts and make hidden sites great artifacts?

+1 Sight for all units?

Allow scouts to upgrade to the archer line?

 

[joncnunn]

Sure, the tree can compete with patronage or commerce on archipelagos, but it never really competes with rationalism at all, even on water maps. I think there are two main problems with this tree.

In my own opinion, nothing completes with Rationalism; it is hands down the best policy for any victory condition. Now it opens late and so there is plenty of time to complete one of the trees that opens in the ancient era.

1. It comes to late to achieve its intended effect. BNW features like the WC mean that exploration is more important, but by the time players are able to activate Exploration, the WC has probably already been founded.

True, the sub policy increasing water movement would work much better if you could use it for your first naval unit for early exploration rather than after you've already met everyone.

2. The underwhelming finisher gives little incentive to finish Exploration. Chances are, hidden antiquity sites are only interesting to players who are playing the cultural game, but these players are usually going down aesthetics instead. Simply put, the extra 6-8 culture from these sites isn't worth spending an entire tree of policies on.

I think what would need to happen to be interesting would be for there to be at least as many hidden sites as regular sites; (but implement by reducing number of regular sites]

I would move Commerce to the renascence era and Exploration to the middle ages, just so that Exploration can actually work its niche, and doesn't have as much competition. Also, extra trade routes might make a more appropriate and balanced finisher, as one that most players could find useful.

Commerce is already about the only tree worse than Exploration (You should never run a caravan as its a waste of a cargo ship); and the last thing you want is for a Great Merchant to actually be born as most civs; and even Venice will get plenty from puppets.

How would you tweak Exploration to make it more relevant?

I'm thinking have every single tree able to be opened in the Ancient era (other than Rationalism) would be a great start, that would give the possibility of people considering something other than Tradition/Liberty/lesser extent Piety and even less Honor to start with.
(For policy balance reasons I would even consider removing Rationalism from the game)

Keep total sites the same, but have at least half of them be hidden. (So if you don't take this tree you just get one or two sites)

Also eliminate the opening policy cherry by requiring completing the entire tree rather than just opening it for all the world wonders that require a social policy.

 

[cpm4001]

Yeah, I'm also quite disappointed in the Exploration tree and have only fully adopted it once. I really dislike that most of the policies don't actually encourage exploration; rather, they just give you some extra gold.
But if it unlocked the ability to train Explorers (like in the Scramble for Africa scenario), or maybe gave you Conquistadors, and still revealed the "Hidden" Antiquity Sites...

 

[arand86]

The main thing for exploration is that it doesn't enhance your ability to do any of the winning conditions.

Rationalism is popular as it helps science (Which really actually does help everything)
Aesthetics for culture
Patronage for Diplo
Honor to a lesser extent for domination.

Tradition and Liberty work, but only because they give you plenty of early-game bonuses to get off the ground with.

So basically, if Exploration is going to be a consideration for anybody, it's going to need to be moved up to Classical and provide very strong bonuses to make up for not helping you achieve the victory you have in mind.

I think this would be a decent tree (Changes in BOLD):

Opener: +1 sight and movement for all sea and embarked units. 50% chance of international trade routes surviving barbarian pillagingUnlocks building the Louvre.

Maritime Infrastructure: Unlocks Building the Great Lighthouse. Free lighthouses in your first 4 coastal cities. +2 production from lighthouses.

Naval Tradition: +1 happiness for each harbor, seaport and lighthouse

Navigation school: A great admiral appears. Receive 2 free caravels. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Great Admirals are earned 25% faster.

Merchant Navy: Frigates no longer require iron. Receive 2 free frigates (Requires navigation school)

Treasure Fleets: +1 Gold from each naval unit. +100% production for cargo ships and work boats +4 gold from each trade route (requires merchant navy and naval tradition)

Finisher: Reveals hidden antiquity sites. Allows archaeologists to enter foreign land without an open borders treaty. Allows the purchase of Great Admirals with faith starting in the industrial era. Receive 2 free Archaeologists upon researching Archaeology.

 

[MantaRevan]

Opener: +1 sight and movement for all sea and embarked units. 50% chance of international trade routes surviving barbarian pillagingUnlocks building the Louvre.[/B]

I think the ability to have trade routes simply immune to barbarians would be okay.

Maritime Infrastructure: Unlocks Building the Great Lighthouse. Free lighthouses in your first 4 coastal cities. +2 production from lighthouses.[/B]

I like the free lighthouses and production from them, but the GL seems excessive, especially since you already unlock the Louvre.

Navigation school: A great admiral appears. Receive 2 free caravels. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Great Admirals are earned 25% faster.[/B]

This one is a little complicated. Maybe these should be split up.

Merchant Navy: Frigates no longer require iron. Receive 2 free frigates (Requires navigation school)[/B]

This isn't very useful. By the time I'm using frigates, if I'm using frigates, I have more iron than I need.

Treasure Fleets: +1 Gold from each naval unit. +100% production for cargo ships and work boats +4 gold from each trade route (requires merchant navy and naval tradition)[/B]

Good idea. Instead of 1 gold per naval unit, why not just cut out the middleman and eliminate maintenance costs for naval units?

 

[Ninakoru]

Exploration is a fine tree in island maps... Those changes proposed are a bit overpowered. However rationalism is king.

 

[MerchantCo]

@Arand: Excellent ideas!

 

[arand86]

@Manta Raven
My reasoning behind the policies would be:
Opener-> Less barb/no barb pillaging means less units guarding trades and more units to explore

Maritime-> the GL provides incentive for adoption+ adds to the exploration theme. Not sure if it's excessive, cause I mean, if you were going culture, wouldn't you still be going aesthetics? If you were going diplo, wouldn't you still go patronage?

Navigation school-> It's basically the GA promotion + 2 caravels for earlier exploration (you don't need astronomy to have it, and you can easily get it late classical/early medival

Merchant navy-> I dunno, I'm not usually a warmonger, especially not from the ocean, so I don't use frigates much. But I do hear a lot of people complaining about 'no iron starts' and people like to praise the frigate.

Treasure-> Eliminating all naval maintenance could get really big on a water map.

 

[Doktor Vic Tim]

Good idea. Instead of 1 gold per naval unit, why not just cut out the middleman and eliminate maintenance costs for naval units?

Well, considering part of the Ottoman UA is 33% less naval maintenance cost, wouldn't this make that UA pretty much useless since I don't think you use that many naval units early on.

 

[Theruss]

I like the Exploration tree, I think it's fine the way it is. Now Honor on the other hand... needs some work.