BNW features and Communitas

[mitsho]

So Caravans (and Trade Boats) should cost little to produce at the start, where the rewards are low and the threat of the route being cut by barbs is high, but later on become more and more expensive, as they yield so big rewards? Can we have dynamic costs?

So they went a step to far with cutting down wide empires? I should be able to have as many cities as I like, and I should be able to plopp down that one more city to get those coals. Maybe that's the solution to our late gam expansion problems/discussions we've had. Drop those penalties (down a bit) at a point where you need to be good to get the most use out of those new cities before victory is achieved?

 

[Thalassicus]

@Tomice
Trade routes give gold approximately equal to our income from cities or domestic trade. I think our lategame gold income is okay. I do feel early gold in the Ancient Era is a bit low, before we can establish trade. This is easy to fix with earlier villages, a little more gold from barb camps, and more gold on the palace.

It took me a while to get used to the coast changes, but I'm happy with it now. The value of fish comes from the Lighthouse, which gives 2 1:c5production per resource. The second Exploration policy also make coastal cities highly desirable with +3 per port. That usually gives me around 30 happiness!


@albie_123
Exploration is great for culture victories:

• Reveals hidden antiquity sites (for archaeology).
• Unlocks Louvre world wonder (1 free great artist, 4 great works slots).
• +3 3 3 per port city.

@mitsho
We build cheap caravans in the early game, then upgrade to more expensive and rewarding cargo ships after Compass (+100% range and +2 gold per sea route). I agree caravans should cost less. They cost nearly the same as cargo ships, but give half the reward. Caravansary costs the same as a harbor, too, even though the harbor is much more valuable. This is simple to adjust by slightly reducing the cost of caravans and the caravanasy.

I think wide empires are okay. It takes a while to adjust to the changes.

 

[mitsho]

So you don't use a single caravan later on? That's a kind of a pity, don't you think? Maybe we can add a powerful belief or late-game wonder or something pushing caravans/caravanserais so that they are a viable alternative in some cases.

Or are they good as food/production trade routes for wide empires? (And do they move influence to City States?)

When we are with small things:

1) Can we make City States chose a ideology as well giving you more influence (per quest and gold), but maybe easier for enemy spies?
2) How viable would it be to introduce Naval archaeology sites as well as land-based ones. I want to find shipwrecks and buff the naval game? (Probably not, but I want it posted for your ideas list )
3) And just for flavour, can we copy the code that gives the Mayan a unique calendar to other civs as well, wanna play as a.u.c. for the Romans and in the year of the Hijra for the Arabs.

As for policies, we probably need a new thread for them, but I wouldn't want to wade too deep into them right now, for the moment I have the following questions
1) Does it make sense to have to go through naval policies to get to the hidden dig sites? (or rather non-descript opener and then two branches?). Exploration doesn't seem to have exploration themed bonuses at all. (also the picture is wrong)
2) How much sense makes the Piety-Aesthetics split? Doesn't Religious Tolerance (good when having other religions in your cities) clash with Reformation (good for pushing your own religion) even though the latter requires the first?
3) Should less effective foreign missionaries be a Piety policy?
4) In Commerce, more Great MErchants requires you to take the more gold from land trade routes. Is that good design?
5) Can we please change Prora to either Yasukuni Shrine, Victory Column in Berlin, Statue of Arminius, etc. ...?

 

[Ahriman]

I think it is probably ok that sea trade routes are more valuable/cost-effective than land trade routes, because they mean you have to invest in a navy to support them. We finally have a strategic economic reason for a navy! Land trade routes are easier to defend, because they can go mostly through your territory and that of your allies and they can be defended with an army, which you'll already have.

I may be biased by playing as Carthage at the moment, however.

I quite like the Piety/Aesthetics split, we always had a problem before with Piety when it was trying to be both a religious and a culture tree.

 

[Thalassicus]

Compare the caravansary with the harbor. The caravansary affects land trade, while the harbor affects sea trade (twice as valuable) and connects cities for domestic trade. Why do they cost the same to build?

@mitsho
The hidden dig sites are definitely worth getting the exploration tree, if we're going for a culture victory. The Louvre and +3 per port are very powerful bonuses too.

 

[Ahriman]

Compare the caravansary with the harbor. The caravansary affects land trade, while the harbor affects sea trade (twice as valuable) and connects cities for domestic trade. Why do they cost the same to build?

Because sea trades are a higher risk/higher return mechanic that require a lot more collateral investment (in a navy) to use, and require coastal city placement.

Doesn't the Caravanserai also have no maintenance cost, as compared to the harbor?

I wouldn't mind tweaking the production cost of the caravanserai building downwards.

I find most of the Exploration tree to be good, except the great admiral policy, which is terrible. If it also boosted speed of embarked land units then that would be ok. As it is, despite having exploration tree and Great Lighthouse, embarked units are still only 2 movement points until (I think?) astronomy.

 

[albie_123]

@albie_123
Exploration is great for culture victories:

• Reveals hidden antiquity sites (for archaeology).
• Unlocks Louvre world wonder (1 free great artist, 4 great works slots).
• +3 3 3 per port city.

Good point about the Louvre but I for one am heavily, heavily in favour of removing the wonder for policy branch restrictions. It, to me, makes no sense from any perspective.

Gameplay wise, it doesn't actually give you anything - all it does is minimize the wonder race for a given specific wonder to a handful of Civs. Why do we need to restrict a growth wonder to a growth-oriented tree? Shouldn't the race be between like-minded Civs who are going for growth whether or not they chose a specific tree? And what's more, if no Civ who chose said policy is planning on going for a wonder - why should the wonder sit there unbuilt?

Historically and flavour wise, well, do I even need to start? On one hand you have obviously 'gamey' pairings that have little to do with each other beyond gameplay effects, such as Pyramids + Liberty, and on the other you have pairings that make no sense from either gameplay OR historical perspective (*cough* kremlin *cough*).

The only point I've heard in its favour is that it has been argued that this creates a new feature where you have to work for something within a policy with a yield other than culture (that is, hammers). But why WONDERS need to fill that specific role - something that only one player can build - is entirely beyond me and counter-intuitive. If you're going to have a new feature, that is, hammer investment within a policy tree, why limit it to one player? What would make much more sense to me is each policy tree giving access to either a national wonder (eg. Liberty: Senate, Tradition: Summer Palace, Exploration: Great Exhibition, Autocracy: Rally Grounds, etc.) or a building that can be built in any city (eg. Piety: Seminary, Order: Collective Farm, Freedom: Town Hall, etc.)

This keeps the hammer investment but removes the restrictive nature of having wonders isolated in each policy tree.

 

[Ahriman]

I for one am heavily, heavily in favour of removing the wonder for policy branch restrictions. It, to me, makes no sense from any perspective.

Gameplay wise, it doesn't actually give you anything - all it does is minimize the wonder race for a given specific wonder to a handful of Civs

I quite like it, I think it's fun to have a few wonders that a tech leader can't necessarily pick up, and it makes unlocks more interesting without making them much more powerful.

and on the other you have pairings that make no sense from either gameplay OR historical perspective (*cough* kremlin *cough*).

There's a flavor/historic perspective of the Soviet Union making massive numbers of tanks during WW2, and that the general idea of the Cold War was western air superiority but Warsaw armor superiority.

 

[Thalassicus]

Policies and beliefs are an area where I'm unhappy with the changes Firaxis made over the years. The original game had 60 examples of "accumulate yield, purchase reward" policies. Now we have 162 beliefs and policies. Increasing the number forced them to dilute the effects, creating some really bland choices. Many of the bonuses feel rather random and disorganized, especially belief and ideology choices. It's an example how more is not always better.

I've considered consolidating the beliefs and policies to around 90 or so effects so we can make the bonuses more focused, unique, and interesting. There's a lot of uninteresting or weak stuff in there right now. This would still be 50% more than original Civ 5. It would be easy to accomplish from a technical standpoint, since we'd simply be combining effects of policies and beliefs.

@Ahriman
I find both trade routes equally risky. It's not hard to defend against barbarians, especially in the unmodded game.

 

[albie_123]

Fully agree with you Thal, especially regarding ideologies. They seem quite haphazard and really lack a distinct focus in stark contrast to policy trees although I suspect that's intentional.

I quite like it, I think it's fun to have a few wonders that a tech leader can't necessarily pick up, and it makes unlocks more interesting without making them much more powerful.

I suppose I just don't see how the 'more interesting' can't be fulfilled with national wonders or buildings.

There's a flavor/historic perspective of the Soviet Union making massive numbers of tanks during WW2, and that the general idea of the Cold War was western air superiority but Warsaw armor superiority.

Yes, but the Kremlin wasn't intrinsically Communist, and the tank bonus seems much more at home in Autocracy than Order.

 

[Thalassicus]

Autocracy gets a more powerful tank bonus as one of its ideological tenets - faster movement and ignores zone of control! Get that and watch as you steamroll everyone on the planet.

 

[Tomice]

I find Ahrimans point about tech leaders getting all the wonders very important. The policy-tied ones are cool because you get them in another way and don't need to rush technologies.

 

[Ahriman]

Policies and beliefs are an area where I'm unhappy with the changes Firaxis made over the years.

I think a few of the new ones sound quite cool, at least on paper.
Gunboat diplomacy, treaty organization, space procurements, a couple of others.

But a lot of them also just seem to take an interesting real-world concept, but then search and fail to find an interesting game effect to go with them.

And I think it's ridiculous to have the same policies or the same effects in all three ideology trees (arsenal of democracy/total war/, avant garde/hero of the people, universal healthcare)

On the other hand, the large number of ideology policies does allow for some interesting customization; I like the idea of late-game trees where you clearly can't get them all, but can pick the ones that support your strategic goal. And I like that most of the policies clearly map to a particular victory condition (and I presume they have appropriate AI flavors to go that way too).

 

[Hawawaa]

I'll 2nd Ahrimans for keep policy locked wonders. Science civs already have plenty of options once their science explodes. When playing GEM Korea and oh look 1st place in tech and all these wonders to choose from (Eqypt throwing a fit when your sniping all the wonders).

 

[mitsho]

Well, let me get theoretical again.

Basically, in civ5 to build a wonder you need the following: The Tech + Production + some terrain conditions. Now, BNW adds some conditions unrelated to terrain. Policies are one thing, but it also extends to holy cities (Borobodur needs one).

This tries to delink wonders from the tech tree. Ideally for me (but not necessarily the best option), each wonder would require production + a trigger. That trigger can be anything, from a tech, to having accumulated x culture, to possessing x swordmen, kinda like the Ancient World Scenario. After all, these wonders in the real world arose from the areas where their civilization was good at. Not the other way around as civ does it traditionally.

But that poses a problem. The more complex the trigger get, the less they can be connected to the reward. For if we want x workers before we can build the Pyramids, we may not need to build them anymore, as they give better workers...

So these triggers should be unconnected from the reward, which proves more difficult since everything's related in civ5!BNW and that severely curtails strategies since it tells you what you need to do to get wonder x. After all, we want variety, no?

Still, at the moment this just means that the trigger for each wonder is a tech. Which does curtail the wonders to the frontrunners in science. (not necessarily realistic, the Temple of Kukulcan could've probably be built better by civs in the old world than the Maya....)

I'm in favour of keeping the restrictions for wonders, but ideally, I'd like even more to decouple it completely from the tech tree. Scientific progress already benefits plenty, see the National College Rush as example...

But yes, that doesn't mean that EVERY Policy Tree needs a wonder, and maybe Macchu Picchu is restricted enough already with the mountain. Petra and deserts may be enough as well, we don't want to restrict the wonder run so much that only one civ can build them. That'd be too much simulation and not enough gameplay after all...

Something in the middle, please

Regarding policies and tenets, I agree mostly but say that I want to play it first before commenting But maybe, culture policies aren't the best idea since you need to take them to get more of the same.... That's kinda redundant, no? Especially now that culture victory has been split from it.

EDIT: And @Thal, my question was if I should need to go through all those maritime policies (like the Great Admiral, the gold on sea routes) to get to the hidden dig sites for a culture victory on a Pangaea Map? That sounds like a bad design to me, forcing me to take policies I really don't want...

 

[Stalker0]

Gameplay wise, it doesn't actually give you anything - all it does is minimize the wonder race for a given specific wonder to a handful of Civs.

Besides the deemphasis on science, it also makes certain wonders more obtainable, because now there is less competition.

 

[Ahriman]

I'm in favour of keeping the restrictions for wonders, but ideally, I'd like even more to decouple it completely from the tech tree.

I guess I don't see what problem is being fixed here. Where there isn't a clear problem with vanilla, I think we're generally better sticking to the vanilla design.

I don't see a problem with most wonders just having a tech requirement, and then a few having a tech + terrain requirement and a few having a tech + policy requirement.

I think the BNW approach of adding a few more restrictions is a good one, since tech is now slightly more specialized, there are now more other areas of power to specialize in (eg tourism) that mean slightly slower tech production.

 

[EricB]

I haven't tried it out yet but will soon. I like the idea of the AI and human players not having much gold early on. One thing I disliked was how easy it was to buy up city states since they play such a large role in the game. In GEM it was too easy to just have everything in terms of city infrastructure. I'd rather not have early villages if it can be avoided. Villages were too powerful in GEM.

I really do think we should leave the vanilla BNW game alone unless there is widespread consensus that something needs to be changed. That will take a lot of testing and polls to determine that.

Some of the first areas to examine would be balancing different civs. The new expansion might be overpowering newer civs and making older ones less exciting. That's probably the first place I'd look at.

 

[mitsho]

The same thing you stated above, to kill the king that is the tech tree in all civilization game. Let's face it, science gives you so many advantages, from new units, buildings to access to new gameplay systems, that the tech leader is often also the most powerful while laggers can't win. It has been like this in civ2, it's still like this in BNW. But see as well, that I was speaking in theory (regarding the base of a new game).

For BNW, it means that it may very well be beneficial to give some non-terrain restrictions to wonders, but by no means do we have to make it as strict as Firaxis does it. Not every tree needs to have a special wonder awarded to it. Tradition doesn't need a wonder for its own to make it stronger as there's no yield it needs specifically. But I do think it's worth restricting the "city-attack wonder" to Honor as it's a wonder conquest civs should get and not the wonder hogging Egyptians.

 

[Dunkah]

I would like to see the wonder techs as one off - dead end techs that need to be researched separately after teh current pre-req. Would make the commitment to it more focused. Would make tech leaders still have a leg up but would ultimately slow them down if they went after too many of them.

But I do like the way they are now.