City Development

[Busdriver]

DoFs are a big deal. They are hard to get, you only have a few at a time, violating them has big consequences, you have to pick who you sign with carefully, so its ok for them to have a sizeable impact on economy. Open borders aren't like that. They're easy to get, you have have them with everyone, violating them has no long-term consequences, there is basically no reason not to have them with anyone you have contacted.

Couldn't open border agreements be made into a big deal like DoFs? Increase the AI's value on open borders, make it so that they will not agree to open borders unless they are happy with you and trust you. This would help make diplomacy more worthwhile. And I think there are more reasons right now to avoid open borders than to have them: militaristic civs will scout out your military (and I tend to under-invest in military, especially early in the game), and expansionists will march a settler through your territory to settle that spot you were saving until you finished a coliseum or two. I'm not saying the bonus for open borders would have to be huge (I think DoF should definitely be bigger than open borders); it could just be something like a trade route between the capitals (assuming they are connected). But having a good reason to accept these would go a long way.

 

[Ahriman]

Couldn't open border agreements be made into a big deal like DoFs?

Not easily, I'm guessing.
And besides, why should they? Why do you need more than one mechanism that says "hey, we are friends, let's get a bonus". The DoF does that already.

I think its also really important that the AI be able to sign open borders with each other very easily. Its important that AI civs be able to easily pass through other AI civs to get to someone they're at war with. If you make it hard for the AI to sign open borders, you can get all kinds of unforeseen consequences.

 

[Txurce]

Not easily, I'm guessing.
And besides, why should they? Why do you need more than one mechanism that says "hey, we are friends, let's get a bonus". The DoF does that already.

I think its also really important that the AI be able to sign open borders with each other very easily. Its important that AI civs be able to easily pass through other AI civs to get to someone they're at war with. If you make it hard for the AI to sign open borders, you can get all kinds of unforeseen consequences.

1. Agreed. Along my way of thinking, an OB agreement would grease the rails for a DoF, or something along those lines.

2. My guess is that giving this sort of bonus wouldn't require any change in the current AI attitude toward OB's, which strikes me as very laissez faire.

 

[Thalassicus]

I want to avoid situations where any policy tree's choices are too obvious. You're right Ahriman that Tradition lets people get early policies very fast, and this creates tension with Aristocracy. If it were later though, we'd always get it later. Small empires are typically going for a culture victory so liberty's culture bonuses are still useful. It's a viable strategy to go for two in Tradition, a few in Liberty and Piety, then back to Tradition. If our path was obviously all tradition -> all piety it wouldn't be as strategically complex.

Without c++ access it's not possible to:

• Create new diplomatic modifiers that don't already exist.
• Alter AI priorities or considerations for open borders.

All I can do is check "do we have open borders" and if so, add a stackable building to the capital that increases the player's gold by a set amount per stack. It's a similar method to Arabia's trait or Monopolization.

The AI is more willing to give away open borders than DoFs, but the bonus would also be proportionately less. I'm thinking about +2% per mutual open borders. It's a small additional advantage of being at peace with someone. Even when at peace, unfriendly AIs typically won't sign open borders anyway, so it's still got some diplomacy involved.

I've designed the policy trees to do the same tasks in different ways. A good analogy is talent trees in WoW. Each of the WotLK DK trees could be used for tanking, dps, or pvp -- each tree simply performed in these roles in a different way (self-healing, burst, disease). This was much more interesting than the current one-tree, one-role method. The developers stated the only reason it was changed to the simpler approach was because the new method takes less development time to balance.

Civ's policy trees are much simpler so it's not a dev-time concern for me.

I very seldom see isolated players in Civ 5 (contrasted with Civ 4), so it's not a major concern.

It's not a pita to mod Civ 5. It's actually a lot of fun and better than 90% of the games on the market! They just haven't given us access to the c++ yet, so our options are restricted.

 

[Ahriman]

I would change the effect, I don't think the Aristocracy effect is very useful. Also, something that requires 4 cities to get the benefit feels a bit lame in a tree designed to be about very small focused empires that may well only have 3 cities.

Some alternative ideas for effects:
free happiness in largest 3 cities.
free happiness building (less interesting, but maybe more useful, because there is a tier0 culture building - the monument - but the colosseum at tier1 is the first happiness building).
%culture bonus in largest 3 cities.
One-shot +X population in the capital (though doesn't fit very well in a flavor sense, but it would be a useful early game pick).
+Y culture from specialists - but only in the capital.

It's a viable strategy to go for two in Tradition, a few in Liberty and Piety, then back to Tradition. If our path was obviously all tradition -> all piety it wouldn't be as strategically complex.

I think it stinks that a cultural strategy is forced into spending picks that do not benefit it much, and in getting early game policies that are not very useful early game (Oligarchy suffers from this too).
Piety isn't available in ancient era, so you have the opening three to choose from, and Liberty and Honor are not really that useful for a peaceful-oriented small-focused empire strategy. And if you're going for a culture win, you never want to spend policies in a tree that you don't intend to unlock completely. So you're forced into bad picks.

At minimum, move an Aristocracy effect to the second tier of tradition, or remove it as a pre-req for the second tier policies. Landed elite is slightly useful early game; why should I be forced to use up the culture building pick in order to access it?

 

[Txurce]

I would change the effect, I don't think the Aristocracy effect is very useful. Also, something that requires 4 cities to get the benefit feels a bit lame in a tree designed to be about very small focused empires that may well only have 3 cities.

Some alternative ideas for effects:
free happiness in largest 3 cities.
free happiness building (less interesting, but maybe more useful, because there is a tier0 culture building - the monument - but the colosseum at tier1 is the first happiness building).
%culture bonus in largest 3 cities.
One-shot +X population in the capital (though doesn't fit very well in a flavor sense, but it would be a useful early game pick).
+Y culture from specialists - but only in the capital.


I think it stinks that a cultural strategy is forced into spending picks that do not benefit it much, and in getting early game policies that are not very useful early game (Oligarchy suffers from this too).
Piety isn't available in ancient era, so you have the opening three to choose from, and Liberty and Honor are not really that useful for a peaceful-oriented small-focused empire strategy. And if you're going for a culture win, you never want to spend policies in a tree that you don't intend to unlock completely. So you're forced into bad picks.

At minimum, move an Aristocracy effect to the second tier of tradition, or remove it as a pre-req for the second tier policies. Landed elite is slightly useful early game; why should I be forced to use up the culture building pick in order to access it?

1. I don't think any of your alternatives to Aristocracy are improvements, and when using a 3-city approach have ever felt particularly burnt by the loss of the fourth bonus building. For me the policy's placement is more of an issue, although not a major one.

2. If you're saying that the putting together of a cultural victory involves the taking of some policies that aren't directly useful, I would agree, but not see it as a problem. That's bound to happen when you're filling out six (or five) trees.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't think any of your alternatives to Aristocracy are improvements

None are great, but its worth others doing some brainstorming.

3-city approach have ever felt particularly burnt by the loss of the fourth bonus building

Three free monuments = very weak policy.

If you're saying that the putting together of a cultural victory involves the taking of some policies that aren't directly useful, I would agree, but not see it as a problem. That's bound to happen when you're filling out six (or five) trees.

I disagree. Tradition, Piety, Freedom, Patronage, and then finish up lategame with Order, only the last couple of policies you take are low value. Whereas under the status quo you're forced to pick low-value policies very early.

I'd be fine with keeping the effect and just removing the requirement so that it wasn't needed for the tier2 Tradition policies, so that you could come back and get it later, when it was useful. That would be a simple change, but a big improvement. So I could take Landed Elite for example as my 3rd policy pick.

 

[Txurce]

I disagree. Tradition, Piety, Freedom, Patronage, and then finish up lategame with Order, only the last couple of policies you take are low value. Whereas under the status quo you're forced to pick low-value policies very early.

I'd be fine with keeping the effect and just removing the requirement so that it wasn't needed for the tier2 Tradition policies, so that you could come back and get it later, when it was useful. That would be a simple change, but a big improvement. So I could take Landed Elite for example as my 3rd policy pick.

So in theory, you would like your early SP rate to not move so fast as to make you take too many unwanted policies before reaching Piety? If so, then the entire focus could be on readjusting the placement of the Tradition policies, right?

 

[Ahriman]

I wouldn't characterize it as "I don't want early SP rate to work as fast". I would characterize it as "I want to have access to more policies early that are actually useful in the early game."

I would also characterize it as; the tradition tree should be about small-focused empires, so a forced early-game pick that requires you to have 3-4 cities to utilize decently just feels out of theme.

Removing it as a prereq for the later policies would be sufficient. That way the policy could be really valuable, if you could use it to get Temples without also being forced to pick non-Tradition policies. By the time you have Temples, you probably will have ~3 cities.

 

[Zaldron]

I would change the effect, I don't think the Aristocracy effect is very useful. Also, something that requires 4 cities to get the benefit feels a bit lame in a tree designed to be about very small focused empires that may well only have 3 cities.


I think it stinks that a cultural strategy is forced into spending picks that do not benefit it much, and in getting early game policies that are not very useful early game (Oligarchy suffers from this too).
Piety isn't available in ancient era, so you have the opening three to choose from, and Liberty and Honor are not really that useful for a peaceful-oriented small-focused empire strategy. And if you're going for a culture win, you never want to spend policies in a tree that you don't intend to unlock completely. So you're forced into bad picks.

At minimum, move an Aristocracy effect to the second tier of tradition, or remove it as a pre-req for the second tier policies. Landed elite is slightly useful early game; why should I be forced to use up the culture building pick in order to access it?

I actually find tradition to be great even with only 1-3 total cities. In a couple of King culture victories I went 4 into tradition before switching to liberty. Even though I took the free culture building early (and only got monuments), don't underestimate the power of saving 10-15 turns on a monument in your capital and up to 25 turns in your first city. The extra culture and border expansion from the first two tradition picks also significantly boosts your next several policies.

I should probably clarify that I'm uncertain how I feel about the free building policy being a pre-req for the great engineer, but I find that it makes for an extremely difficult choice which in my mind means that things are in a pretty good place.

 

[Txurce]

I should probably clarify that I'm uncertain how I feel about the free building policy being a pre-req for the great engineer, but I find that it makes for an extremely difficult choice which in my mind means that things are in a pretty good place.

This is the heart of the matter for me. I'm also very ambivalent about it.

 

[Seek]

Three free monuments = very weak policy.

Three free culture buildings later (ie, not monuments) is a very powerful policy. The SP which gives the food/specialist science isn't that powerful early on imo, and the wonder building/GE SP is situational and can be powerful early, but isn't necessarily, depending on your strat.

I disagree. Tradition, Piety, Freedom, Patronage, and then finish up lategame with Order, only the last couple of policies you take are low value. Whereas under the status quo you're forced to pick low-value policies very early.

Imo, there aren't really any low-value policies at this point. In my last culture game, I actually skipped Order for Liberty and Commerce, both of which are *very* strong now, even with a cultural game.

I'd be fine with keeping the effect and just removing the requirement so that it wasn't needed for the tier2 Tradition policies, so that you could come back and get it later, when it was useful. That would be a simple change, but a big improvement. So I could take Landed Elite for example as my 3rd policy pick.

I disagree. The placement of Aristocracy makes for interesting gameplay, forcing one to decide whether to take the SP now (for the weak monuments) or delay for a stronger effect. As I said above, the SPs that follow it may be delayed with no real consequences sometimes, and at other times are necessary given your strategy for the game. With culture games I usually start with the Tradition opener for the border pops then move to Representation and Republic in Liberty while setting up my core cities, then go back to Tradition for Oligarchy if I'm being rushed or to pop Temples or Monasteries with Aristocracy. Makes for a strong opener in most peaceful games.

 

[Questdog]

For what it's worth, I tried this tactic after reading Thal's comment about saving the free cultural buildings for temples, rather than wasting them on monuments. But as it stands now, I found skipping that policy early is not viable because there really aren't any alternatives worth taking at that time.

And I think Liberty would be better skipped altogether for a cultural win, but again, there aren't many alternatives (Honor not being a better choice)

 

[Ahriman]

Three free culture buildings later (ie, not monuments) is a very powerful policy. The SP which gives the food/specialist science isn't that powerful early on imo, and the wonder building/GE SP is situational and can be powerful early, but isn't necessarily, depending on your strat.

But you can't get three non-monuments when focusing on culture without being forced into the Liberty or Honor trees (or wasting time on Oligarchy in the early game).
This is my point. Remove the pre-req, so you could spend early picks on landed elite or whatever, and then backtrack to aristocracy so that you can use it for temples.

The placement of Aristocracy makes for interesting gameplay, forcing one to decide whether to take the SP now (for the weak monuments) or delay for a stronger effect.

I disagree. There is no real ability to delay unless you go into other trees, which you don't want to do for a cultural victory. There is no choice here.
If you removed Aristocracy as a requirement for the tier2 policies, *then* there would be a meaningful choice. At the moment, there isn't.

Imo, there aren't really any low-value policies at this point. In my last culture game, I actually skipped Order for Liberty and Commerce, both of which are *very* strong now, even with a cultural game.

I don't think liberty is very useful for a small empire. If it is, then it should be changed. The policies are supposed to support different playstyles. If Liberty is always useful, then it is probably too strong. If Liberty is useful even in a 3-city empire, then it needs to be focused more clearly on large empires and expansion.

I do worry that Liberty is too strong when compared to some of the late-game trees. The late-game trees should be much more powerful than an early game tree. Unlocking access to new trees should be powerful.

For what it's worth, I tried this tactic after reading Thal's comment about saving the free cultural buildings for temples, rather than wasting them on monuments. But as it stands now, I found skipping that policy early is not viable because there really aren't any alternatives worth taking at that time

This is precisely my point.

 

[Seek]

Liberty opener is weak, yes, *but* a free early settler in the 20s or 30s can be a great boon even if you don't plan on settling more than 1-2 cities: The great city spots are still open, and the earlier the city's down, the less behind it will be for the rest of the game. Both of these points I think are important for a small empire just as much if not more than a large one.

A free worker/faster workers: what's not to like? Again, the sooner workers are up and improving the terrain, the better.

Two hammers and one food give those early cities an enormous boost and helps get those monuments and libraries up in no time. Any boost to production is useful, and hammers are scarce for small empires. I find this SP great no matter the type of game I'm playing.

Policy costs going up only 10%/city instead of 30%: Undeniably very useful for the small culturemonger and rexer alike. Plus a GA.

The happiness SP is the most useless for the small empire, but it'll be there if you need it.

In summery, I think Liberty is useful for *any* empire. I don't see this as a bad thing whatsoever, it allows one to get a solid start with options open for whatever VC is deemed best once the world situation is better understood around T100.

 

[Ahriman]

In summery, I think Liberty is useful for *any* empire. I don't see this as a bad thing whatsoever

I do. Policies should support particular playstyles. If a policy tree is always worth taking, then it is probably too strong and not focused enough.

This is part of what I worry about with the current design of Liberty and Tradition.

To me, Liberty should be about wide empires, Tradition about tall empires. In both cases, the policies should be primarily aimed at benefits that are good in the early game - particularly the first tier of policies in each tree.

But it seems not that many of the Tradition policies are weak in the early game for every strategy, while the Liberty policies are good in the early game for every strategy.

 

[Zaldron]

For what it's worth, I tried this tactic after reading Thal's comment about saving the free cultural buildings for temples, rather than wasting them on monuments. But as it stands now, I found skipping that policy early is not viable because there really aren't any alternatives worth taking at that time.

And I think Liberty would be better skipped altogether for a cultural win, but again, there aren't many alternatives (Honor not being a better choice)

I find that the free settler and worker (taken early to save a lot of turns of production), and significantly reduced policy cost from extra cities make liberty a fantastic tree for cultural wins.

 

[Txurce]

I find that the free settler and worker (taken early to save a lot of turns of production), and significantly reduced policy cost from extra cities make liberty a fantastic tree for cultural wins.

Or to put it a different way, almost everything in the Liberty tree accelerates a Cultural win. For me the only question is in what order I choose between it and the Tradition branch.

 

[Questdog]

I find that the free settler and worker (taken early to save a lot of turns of production), and significantly reduced policy cost from extra cities make liberty a fantastic tree for cultural wins.

The one game I played to get the cultural win, I only had three cities, counting my capital, so the 1 culture per city was not very tempting and the reduced cost of policies was useless. As far as the settler and worker go, the production of producing my own settler seemed a better price to pay at the time than slowing my cultural accumulation. And boosting worker rate did not seem like much, since workers could comfortably keep ahead of growth as they were.

I do not claim that I played that game at maximum efficiency. But it was very easy to win and I think it solidified my opinion that a cultural win is not really a win....

To me any victory that can be accomplished during the Renaissance Era does not meet the standard of building an empire that can stand the test of time. Domination win excluded, of course, because if you are the only civ left, then it is given that you will be the most dominate civilization on the planet in the eons to come, since no new civs can be born.

Back in the old days, there were only two ways to win: Building the Spaceship or Killing Everybody. Either path meant you were in for a ride that would last through all of known history (except on small maps). The newer victory conditions seem to me to be put in to placate the people who say a game of civ lasts too long and they are not really any test of the superiority of a civilization.

Edit: Read "Cop out".

 

[Txurce]

In summery, I think Liberty is useful for *any* empire. I don't see this as a bad thing whatsoever, it allows one to get a solid start with options open for whatever VC is deemed best once the world situation is better understood around T100.

Policies should support particular playstyles. If a policy tree is always worth taking, then it is probably too strong and not focused enough.

To me, Liberty should be about wide empires, Tradition about tall empires. In both cases, the policies should be primarily aimed at benefits that are good in the early game - particularly the first tier of policies in each tree.

If a tree is always worth taking in its entirety, it's seemingly too strong. However, we take good parts of at least three trees in a normal game, with spillover into others. From this perspective, it's hard to avoid not taking policies from both Tradition and Culture in the early game, unless you're focusing on Honor. One tree has to be the least focused of the bunch, and at the moment it happens to be Liberty.

I also haven't found Tradition limited to tall empires. For example, it gives a strong start to a German warmongering game, when your new cities will be somebody else's, and you want to rack up all the free culture you can.