Best Virtues / Trees & discussion on +20% affinity from techs

[gamemaster3000]

I wanted to start a discussion on which virtues are best, particularly evaluating the Might virtue that gives more affinity from techs. Does anyone have numbers on that, and has anyone delayed researching affinity techs until they got that virtue, then knocked out a bunch of them?

Also, I wanted to mention that I played a bunch of games before realizing you didn't have to research ALL the virtues with a line pointing to them like Civ 5, you only need ONE of the prerequisites.

Edit: Here's a (possibly outdated) link to the virtues:
http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/...nd-Earth-Virtues-Screen?p=6357183#post6357183

Some of the stronger ones I wanted to mention:
Might:
+25% strength versus aliens - it's not terribly powerful but it is quite easy to get, and clearing out aliens is a significant part of the early game

+20% affinity from techs (above)

+1 free affinity level, which can be quite powerful

-50% unit maintenance: energy isn't terribly hard to come by with trade routes in their current state, but if you have a massive army this is quite useful.

Prosperity:
I personally think this is the weakest tree, because the really good ones aren't until later. Edit: This is because health is being unhealthy, which should be a severe penalty (IMO -20 for a long time should mean that you lose) is really just a slap on the wrist in the vanilla version of this game.

Free Colonist: Best for a strong start, especially getting that first internal trade route going. I think the value of this depends a great deal on your geography. If you have an opponent(s) who could box you in or take a key city site, this is much better. If you're by yourself in a vast wilderness, going deep in another tree faster is probably better.

+3 energy from foreign trade routes: A strong benefit that works very well with trade route Infinite City Spam.

+7 health / +1 health for each basic resource / -25% unhealthiness: Until they patch the game to make unhealthiness more of a penalty, I just don't think these are worth it yet. They do add tons of health...but you don't really need it.

+1 food/hammer/culture per Terrascape: If you spam terrascapes (especially in the city with the +25% culture wonder) you can really crank out a lot of culture with these.

Edit: Some of the weak virtues include 3 extra expedition modules, new cities get +2 population, -25% culture costs for expanding, and 15% worker speed. They aren't terrible, but when you compare them to things like +20% affinity from tech, -40% to the city penalty for beaker costs, and +25% production on any building in the capital, IMO they just can't compete. Not when it's so easy to use internal trade routes for food, buy new tiles with massive energy surpluses, or build a few extra workers.

Knowledge:
Some very strong ones in here, particularly virtues that make it easier to get other virtues:
-40% science costs for number of cities: With Infinite City Spam (ICS) and trade routes being so overpowered (OP) right now, this is arguably the best virtue in the game right now, and is worth thousands of beakers PER TECH.

-40% culture costs for number of cities: As above, this decreases culture costs drastically.

+2 science from academies: I haven't really used these yet, but it would be like 5 beakers per academy right? This might be quite powerful if they nerf trade routes.

-10% science for leaf technologies: Also worth hundreds of beakers in the late game.

Although IMO the tier 3 knowledge ones are kind of weak overall, +7 culture per wonder, +1 spy, and science for 15% of your culture are all kind of underwhelming.

Industry:
Some very solid bonuses in here as well:
+25% production towards buildings in the capital: This is worth hundreds or thousands of hammers, which is very powerful. And it only takes 3 virtues to get.

+15% production towards wonders: Wonders aren't that great in this game, but for how easy this virtue is to get it's not bad.

+25% yield from internal trade routes: Another virtue worth thousands of hammers over the course of a game, especially if you're trying to crank wonders or a massive army.

+2 production from manufactories: I need to try this, but it definitely seems worthwhile

+.2 health from every building: This is worth a massive amount of health by the time you unlock it, and is a good way of getting health without going for Prosperity.

The other ones aren't quite as good, or I'm undervaluing orbital units, (which is completely possible).

Synergy Bonuses:
Free Tech: Very powerful

Free Affinity Level: Very powerful

In conclusion I think the virtues are very good. There's a lot of interesting and valuable virtues that make each game different. I don't want to make conclusions yet about which ones are best, but I would say prosperity is underpowered until unhealthiness is more crippling, the knowledge ones are quite good for ICS, and the industry ones are pretty solid as well. How good Might is really hinges on how key the +20% affinity from technologies is.

 

[purplecow]

For Might, there are a few good choices. Taking the left side through to +1 Affinity is a power move for the early game. You get a lot of science for clearing out the aliens near you. Mid game you can task a carrier group with hunting krakens and get another few hundred science. You can also go down the right side to get a huge espionage bonus.

I haven't even noticed the 20% extra affinity from my playthroughs. It might help you late game as you're struggling to get to Level 18, but I've found it's more efficient to get tech virtues instead. Some of the virtues can easily give you 20% or better science (especially if you're on the threshhold of positive/negative health).

Industry represents an interesting choice if you go for Investment. I start to accumulate a huge war chest with it, easily 5K by turn 150-200. If you can avoid buying things to that point, it starts to heavily augment your income, eventually topping out at 100 energy per turn at 10,000 stockpile. Nice for buying units for Emancipation, or any sudden tactical emergency.

Prosperity is really good right at the start. The early settler is, in the current balance, really hard to beat. If you get lucky with pods, you can get the first three virtues even before you research Pioneering. It pairs nicely with the +3 expeditions for Explorers, giving you a powerful yet flexible expansion outlook. If you can hack it to Eudamonia, you will be positive health the rest of the game, but a lot of the intermediate virtues are lackluster.

 

[Lucius_]

I have played a couple of Might games and I have not been impressed. One thing to note, with the +20% affinity virtue, you can stay on par or ahead in military even if your science is lackluster. You may not have the greatest units for your affinity level, such as lev tanks or CRVRs for example, but your regular units and first affinity UU do fine until you can pick up those later techs for those. I have not tried a Might/Knowledge game so I'm curious how that would play.

I think you undervalue Prosperity quite a bit. The early colonist can be had around turn 30. In my experience, it is difficult to have a second city before turn 50 without that virtue.

Eudaimonia and the health virtues you are definitely underestimating. You did not mention the tier 2 kicker either, +1 health in every city. It is very easy to be at -20 health, unlock Eudaimonia and the tier 2 kicker at the same time and go straight to +20 health. This is a huge boost. Just some perspective, if you are making 250 science per turn when you unlock Eudaimonia and are below -20 health, the next turn your science will jump to 375 per turn.

Alternatively, you can simply never research Transgenics and other health techs because you won't need those buildings. You probably wouldn't be able to maintain the +20% science bonus that way, but you will most likely stay out of the negative. And yes, I know you can ignore health completely and be fine and win the game on any difficulty, but that doesn't necessarily mean you should for optimal play.

 

[gamemaster3000]

Just want to double-check that beakers from trade routes are affected by the science penalty for unhealthiness.

 

[AlaskA]

Just want to double-check that beakers from trade routes are affected by the science penalty for unhealthiness.

sure beakers from TR doesnt affected by penalty or bonuses, it's a main reason why health doesnt really matters until endgame stage, when u can become healthy easy with a buildings or non-prosperity virtues.

Thats why prosperity tree is the weakest tree right now - virtues from prosperity is all about health.

 

[Tarukito]

My Overview

Might:
Have not played as many games with the might tree but I was pretty happy with "Adaptive Sciences", in a Supremacy game I delayed research on all affinity techs until I had acquired it and the swift boosts were quite timely. Depending on Affinity Quests, you can set it up to go from 2 or 3 to 7-8 affinity in a matter of turns. This is a great boon if you pre-build a army and set up for an attack. Once you get the virtue, within 3 turns you can research Tactical Robotics/Autonomous Systems/Power Systems. Then also have upgraded Rangers/Armor/Artillery and just steamroll the way through your first opponent while your CNDRs are building.

Other than that I was only really happy to get "Brutal Efficiency" 50% bonus strategic resources as more unique units became available.

Prosperity:
While at first I was content to go all the way down to Eudaimonia, I have found that compared to the insane boosts you get from industry the prosperity virtues are really bleh. That is after I get my free colonist I go down another tree.

Knowledge:
Big Note on the 40% penalty reduction virtues, this means instead of 5% you get 3% increased cost per a city on standard speed.

Taking into account the amount of Population based virtues and the time in game required to make them worth much of anything I find that if I am going to go into this tree I want to do it later in the game when these virtues really shine.

Industry:
By far the best tree in the game. I find it difficult not to go 3 Prosperity/8 Industry in every game I play. Regardless of strategy/affinity, the current state of the game rewards this path with the greatest return for investment. At minimal I will go down to "Interdependence Network" before I switch off to another tree.


Overall I always go 3 Prosperity/another branch, this takes advantage of tier 1 synergy snagging virtue 6 always getting free 7th. Other than that takeaway I am still playing around with different strategies/techs/affinities and look forward to getting to do it all over again after the patch.

 

[Genghis_Sean]

Am I overvaluing it? Negative 10% cost to ALL future virtues seems like one you HAVE to have, but nobody talks about it. I ALWAYS go down the left side of the knowledge tree to get that before I turn to anything else. That grants me a research bonus for every expedition and grants me more virtues over the course of the game since I'm not spending as much culture to get them.

 

[Bandobras Took]

It's good if you're going for later knowledge stuff anyway. But if not, it takes quite a while for you to recoup the social policies you spent getting it instead of what you're actually aiming for.

 

[Xenotitan]

sure beakers from TR doesnt affected by penalty or bonuses, it's a main reason why health doesnt really matters until endgame stage, when u can become healthy easy with a buildings or non-prosperity virtues.

Thats why prosperity tree is the weakest tree right now - virtues from prosperity is all about health.

Only 3 out of 15 of its virtues affect health. The tree is not all about health.

Am I overvaluing it? Negative 10% cost to ALL future virtues seems like one you HAVE to have, but nobody talks about it. I ALWAYS go down the left side of the knowledge tree to get that before I turn to anything else. That grants me a research bonus for every expedition and grants me more virtues over the course of the game since I'm not spending as much culture to get them.

It takes awhile for the -10% cost to virtues one to break even, since you have to spend a virtue to get it. In a game like Civ where you invest what you currently have to become stronger, the virtues with more immediate benefits look a lot better.

 

[Forbiddentwo]

Don't your tacjets get swatted by the enemy sea dragons and krakens, or can they survive at least 1 round of combat.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

TacJets, no. You need upgrades.

 

[AlaskA]

Only 3 out of 15 of its virtues affect health. The tree is not all about health.

Oh, other 3 for settler - perfect virtues and we have last 9 useless virtues in that tree!

Another good reason for never go deep in the prosperity branch.

 

[Xenotitan]

+3 energy per external trade route is hardly useless.

 

[Tiedote]

First of all I think the Virtues are a lot better balanced than Civ V social policies.

Might:

If I go here I like to go straight down to the +20% affinity tech. Public security is early, cheap and neat way to boost health that scales kinda nicely. +15% military production is meh-ish but matter more in the long run than the alien swatting bonuses. Free affinity level can be really nice if you get stuck with buggy quests or are going for some super refined rush thingy or another.

Prosperity:

the more I put points into this the less I like it save for the late game health bonuses. I don't really even feel obliged to go for the free setler but I'm a filthy casual anyway

Knowledge:

I go for the -% to something Virtues and then for leaf tech bonus. Maybe Community Medicine. I don't really have much excess health untill very late game, so late it could just as well be over

Industry:

Orbital stuff is pretty uninteresting since the units are pretty fast to produce and aren't a huge investement anyway. I don't really like the central planning one either. Rest of it is very nice. Magnasanti is great.

I like mixing and matching. Open with Industry, then some might or knowledge. Always knowledge at some point, but if I need to kill a neighbour Might is gonna speed it up and Knowledge starts to shine after you've passed the early game.

 

[Roxlimn]

To me, Industry right now is Morgan. You go for it fast and hard. The extra Settler from Prosperity could be put to better use on Profiteering or Alternative Markets. A Station under Alternative Markets yields a reliably large sum of energy every turn - something like 28 or 36 per route once it's tier 3 in addition to its normal output. It's seriously ridiculous. It's one of the ways to play Hutama - you use the extra Routes to build up early Stations quickly, and use Alternative Markets for the fast energy bump.

Industry wants you to go big on Energy, so Generator spam that land and slingshot for Xenomalleum. The extra 15% on Wonders will help you secure it, and none of the AIs have ever beaten me to it, since it's a very out-of-the-way 3rd ring Wonder. +4 Energy Generators are insane, allowing you to Academy or whatever spam with impunity.

Of course, +25% Internal Routes and +0.5 Hammers per population are pretty darn spiffy, too. Build All The Things.

 

[Xenotitan]

Organics has +1 energy to generators and unlocks the tech with Xenomalleum. +5 energy generators, even better.

Industry has become my favorite policy tree lately. I've been experimenting around with not getting the free settler from prosperity and just going straight down to the bottom of industry. Free settler starts out stronger but the extra energy from earlier deep industry helps one rush buy trade depots and settlers, enabling one to catch up. The production boosts are quite useful as well.

 

[Roxlimn]

I sling for Bioengineering pretty hard. What this means is going straight for Bionics from Physics (and vital early techs like Ecology). I skip Labs and Recyclers on Chemistry and head straight to Bioengineering by teching Biology while building Institute. Biology should finish shortly after building Institute, and the tech sling usually comes very shortly thereafter, at which point Xenomalleum can be built in 15 turns or so.

Essentially, once Xenomalleum is unlocked and built, the game plays like a Financial CivIV Civ. Growth is predictably mediocre - Biowell spamming can be done in a city or two to provide food surplus to the routes, but it's nothing spectacular. I compensate by choosing food for everything - Vivariums, Recyclers, Mass Digesters, and so on.

None of these are large enough in themselves to jack the routes that much, but spamming them everywhere ensures even growth empire-wide even without massive food trains.

Agricultural Development in the core cities makes up the difference. AgriDev every time there's nothing that important to build. SuperGrow FTW.

 

[Halbbruder]

OP says prosperity is the weakest tree? You have got to be joking. It is essentially the overpowered tradition starting tree from civ 5 + some liberty put into it. Eudaimonia is crazily powerful and you're also ignoring its second synergy bonus of +1 health per city, which stacks nicely with artists and aristocrats. As for early benefits, you have bonus worker, bonus colonist, increased outpost growth and bonus expeditions for explorers. How is that weak?

Industry is the next best tree. When I go industry, you have to make sure the stations are alive and well because you gain the most gold from them with industry's alternative markets. The +6 gold stacks with tiers so it's essentially +18 gold. The savings bonus is also brilliant, making industry an excellent tree if you're going for contact victory. Production bonuses are also great for your other cities, as you get up to 45% production bonus from buildings that your capital has. Magnasanti is also pretty good along with bonus health from trade routes. It truly is a solid tree.

Knowledge, to me, is not a reliable core virtue tree due to the lack of healthiness bonuses. Negative healthiness negates foresight and weakens the bonus science for every 4 citizens. The later benefits are pretty good, but to me, it works best with prosperity tree once you have eudaimonia. Think about this: in civ 5, if rationalism and astethics were combined social policy trees and you could pick them at the start of the game, would you choose it over tradition? Although happiness has greater negative effects than health, going straight down knowledge would not help your expansion very much.

Might tree is pretty good early on with bonus science from aliens. Completing it is ideal if you are up against some aggressive and dangerous neighbours and you get a 20% combat bonus after channeled wrath and having 10 might virtues, but I reckon the public security virtue should give bonus health from garrisoned units in cities. The weak healthiness bonus makes might a bit dependent on either industry or prosperity.

 

[sprang]

Only 3 out of 15 of its virtues affect health. The tree is not all about health.



It takes awhile for the -10% cost to virtues one to break even, since you have to spend a virtue to get it. In a game like Civ where you invest what you currently have to become stronger, the virtues with more immediate benefits look a lot better.

Base virtue progression cost:
20, 24, 36, 56....

Increment: +4, +12, +20, +28.... cost increment increases by 8 each time.

Virtue10 costs 344, increment of 76. So after 10 virtues, each additional virtue is still raising your cost by 20%.
Virtue20 costs 1620, increment of 156... not quite 10%.
I'm not sure when it ever becomes a "good" deal. But it's clearly a terrible deal if you take it early.

ETA: the Knowledge I synergy is far more powerful. +10% culture per city offsets the -10% culture penalty from Unhealthiness. Because of rounding, that 10% can actually be 25-30% of your total culture in the early game, and the Knowledge I synergy is the only way to get it back while still growing your colony. This is the real reason to take the other mediocre early Knowledge virtues.

 

[AlaskA]

OP says prosperity is the weakest tree? You have got to be joking. It is essentially the overpowered tradition starting tree from civ 5 + some liberty put into it. Eudaimonia is crazily powerful and you're also ignoring its second synergy bonus of +1 health per city, which stacks nicely with artists and aristocrats. As for early benefits, you have bonus worker, bonus colonist, increased outpost growth and bonus expeditions for explorers. How is that weak?

Ye, u tell how stay healthy with prosperity. But u miss, that no real point to stay healthy until endgame.