Civics - Balance Questions

[Mordachai]

I keep finding it not-worth-while to switch away from slavery.

I get that slavery should be a core part of civilizations early on. But by late Renaissance there ought to be better choices, no? At least in the form of "less raw production, but increased happiness and commerce"?

Questions/Issues:

1. Slavery is just better. I mean, Mercantile is still a huge financial hit. Free Market might be almost as good. Everything prior seems flat-out worse. Mercantile would cost me more than -250, Guilds -20, Coinage -100, and all of that is on-top-of losing all that production and local +10% economy per city.

2. Isolationism is just better. Again, nothing comes close - there is no trade penalties for Isolationism, which makes very little sense (to me). Why choose any other if I can make mad stacks and have no negative hits with other nations by just leaving it at Isolationism forever?

Maybe Slavery needs -25% for domestic and -50% foreign trade?
Perhaps Slavery needs to get an additional 1 unhappy face per era after classical?

And Isolationism needs like -75% foreign trade... or no foreign connection at all (I'm looking at protectionism - which should have foreign trade but doesn't - real-world protectionism puts tariffs on foreign goods to make local goods more competitive... but the AND2 kills all foreign trade. Maybe Protectionism is what should be the initial default? Or bribery? Most nations require a lot of bribes to move goods or get anything done domestically...

PS: Sorry to harp on the negative. This has always been one of my fav. mods, and the changes in AND2 are awesome! Lots of great work, tons of talent, tons of great ideas well executed. Thank you everyone who've made this what it is!

EDIT: Maybe slave markets should generate a large negative to great persons? or, the civic itself should be -50% great person rate? You're enslaving a significant chunk of your populace - so folks who might be a Mozart are instead a trench-digger.

 

[Rezca]

How is Isolation the best? It has no negatives sure, but it has no bonuses either.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Also, using Slavery in Rev is a bad idea. Like, really bad idea.

And how do you manage happiness with Slavery? Do you build units all the time?

 

[Afforess]

Slavery is better because Slavery is meant to be competitive. It does have various other side effects (I believe several negative random events occur only in Slavery) and in Revolutions, Slavery adds a challenge. The civic also adds unhappiness (as well as bonus happiness to other civs). I am concerned a lot of players want to slam slavery as a really bad civic to run, but historically, that is not the case, and it does not improve the game to have civics so nerfed as to be pointless.

Isolationism is not strictly better or worse than the other Foreign Policy civics, it is more a representation of a lack of a decision. If you are going for strict resource optimization, Imperium is obviously the best Foreign Policy civic, not isolationism. Isolationism isn't the same thing as Protectionism, where you end up curtailing foreign trade entirely. Isolationism is more a general philosophy of looking out for yourself first.

I'm not really convinced there is anything wrong about the balance.

 

[Noyyau]

As it is now, I consider Slavery potentially viable all the way to the Industrial Era, as long as the Slave Market does not obsolete. +15% and a free Slave (that's another 3 base)? That's a really powerful production building, and it comes early and cheap (compared to other production buildings).
Constant fighting helps Slavery immensely, as by getting occasional free Workers you can save on and (and time) by not having to build your own, you can sell them to other civs for quite a high price, and you can simply sell them in your territory to sustain your own economy.

I have not yet played a game that far, though, but I want to try when I'll have the time.

 

[<Nexus>]

I have no trouble with Slavery and Isolationism (maybe Isolationism would deserve a little rev bonus for early game balancing).
But...
Coinage feels too strong when you have a big empire with lot of gold and silver. Will it ever worth to leave it? I think not even Corporatist and Regulated can get better. I think Coinage should "obsolete" somehow. Maybe adding maintenance for number of cities and palace distance?
On the other hand Guilds and Mercantile I feel very poor because of their maintenance penalties. Or they are optimized for smaller civs like Republic? (I am not clear with their historic background to admit).

 

[Rezca]

I have no trouble with Slavery and Isolationism (maybe Isolationism would deserve a little rev bonus for early game balancing).
But...
Coinage feels too strong when you have a big empire with lot of gold and silver. Will it ever worth to leave it? I think not even Corporatist and Regulated can get better. I think Coinage should "obsolete" somehow. Maybe adding maintenance for number of cities and palace distance?
On the other hand Guilds and Mercantile I feel very poor because of their maintenance penalties. Or they are optimized for smaller civs like Republic? (I am not clear with their historic background to admit).

I've never really seen a situation where Mercantile was useful for me; the Privateers aside. Guilds on the other hand, has that nice -33% discount on Corporations....

 

[gay_Aleks]

On Slavery: We need a slave revolt event, but on a bigger scale. Think Spartacus! Maybe even spawn a bunch of barbs?

 

[os79]

On Slavery: We need a slave revolt event, but on a bigger scale. Think Spartacus! Maybe even spawn a bunch of barbs?

That's what the Revolutions option is for.

 

[Rezca]

On Slavery: We need a slave revolt event, but on a bigger scale. Think Spartacus! Maybe even spawn a bunch of barbs?

Kinda like Realism Invictus's slavery revolts, where instead of just some turns of disorder, it spawned some barbarians every time along with the usual revolt.

 

[Mordachai]

Affores - I'm not trying to nerf slavery - and I fully agree - historically it's huge. If it weren't for the obvious moral issues America would still be using it in all likelihood, because if you're not concerned about the human carnage, it's great (I say that from a purely inhuman and inhumane perspective - don't get me wrong - in my op: the human cost is way too high and moral cost is horrendous - but in terms of pure production and income - that's why it has been valuable and continues to be valuable in many parts of the world).

I'm not against slavery being a powerful civic - as much as frustrated that it continues to have no downsides (other than a - let's be honest - negligible unhappiness hit). Maybe it's less viable in revolutions - but that's hasn't been my experience thus far (but I don't want mega huge civs - just 9 or so cities and I'm off to the race tracks usually, on huge+ maps).

---

As to foreign policy - isolationism has no negatives. Does anything in real life come with no down-sides? Everything seems to me to be trade-offs - isolationism should have limitations addressed by one or more of the others, but with each of those solutions carrying their own downsides.

I'm not as attached to arguing against isolationism - the whole foreign policy thing is new in AND2 and maybe it makes more sense going forward as I gain exp. with it. I just - so far - see no reason to ever change it from Isolationism all game every game (unless I'm just wanting to be belligerent with Imperialism).

---

I like the spawned barbarians in Invictus. It gives you something to deal with internally and makes for a more tangible feedback about your plebes not necessarily digging on your slavery policies (or any other policies that are generating unhappiness).

---

Back to slavery: My last game I have slavery still at start of industrial revolution. I am getting massive cash-flows, happy cities out the wazoo, and no apparent diplomacy hits because of it. It's just great (when there's no way to measure human suffering).

I just would like to see some of the obvious historically accurate downsides to slavery begin to become apparent in the game mechanics by Industrial age. Maybe having slavery instead of give you extra hammers just because - have it give you extra hammers on farms. Or extra income on farms (and plantations)?

I mean - the thing of slavery that makes it so appealing was that you could get free labor. It's much harder to keep well-educated populace from seeing the human suffering and valuing that - or continuing to be slaves when they're educated enough to be programmers and engineers.

So... having slavery not be especially compatible with an industrialized economy seems to me to be a good way of reflecting how extremely valuable they were prior to industrialization (and also why some forms of slavery persist in the world today), while giving a clear jumping off point to other forms of civics that suppress the population without such visible chains.

 

[Afforess]

I have no trouble with Slavery and Isolationism (maybe Isolationism would deserve a little rev bonus for early game balancing).
But...
Coinage feels too strong when you have a big empire with lot of gold and silver. Will it ever worth to leave it? I think not even Corporatist and Regulated can get better. I think Coinage should "obsolete" somehow. Maybe adding maintenance for number of cities and palace distance?
On the other hand Guilds and Mercantile I feel very poor because of their maintenance penalties. Or they are optimized for smaller civs like Republic? (I am not clear with their historic background to admit).

I've never really seen a situation where Mercantile was useful for me; the Privateers aside. Guilds on the other hand, has that nice -33% discount on Corporations....

I think the only civic that might be particularly weak is Mercantile. I am not sure what changes should be made to it, but I am fairly content with the rest. Coinage is strong with large empires, weak with small ones. Guilds is strong with many corporations, weak without. Each of those civics fills a particular niche.

Affores - I'm not trying to nerf slavery - and I fully agree - historically it's huge. If it weren't for the obvious moral issues America would still be using it in all likelihood, because if you're not concerned about the human carnage, it's great (I say that from a purely inhuman and inhumane perspective - don't get me wrong - in my op: the human cost is way too high and moral cost is horrendous - but in terms of pure production and income - that's why it has been valuable and continues to be valuable in many parts of the world).

I'm not against slavery being a powerful civic - as much as frustrated that it continues to have no downsides (other than a - let's be honest - negligible unhappiness hit). Maybe it's less viable in revolutions - but that's hasn't been my experience thus far (but I don't want mega huge civs - just 9 or so cities and I'm off to the race tracks usually, on huge+ maps).

9 cities on a huge map is a medium/small empire. It's not surprising you don't have revolution issues. 15 cities is near the cutoff for a 'large' empire on huge. Empire size is by far the most significant factor in revolutions difficulty.

As to foreign policy - isolationism has no negatives. Does anything in real life come with no down-sides? Everything seems to me to be trade-offs - isolationism should have limitations addressed by one or more of the others, but with each of those solutions carrying their own downsides.

I'm not as attached to arguing against isolationism - the whole foreign policy thing is new in AND2 and maybe it makes more sense going forward as I gain exp. with it. I just - so far - see no reason to ever change it from Isolationism all game every game (unless I'm just wanting to be belligerent with Imperialism).

I think that if you run isolationism for the entirety of the game, you have missed out on opportunities. It's like the person who sticks money in a savings account instead of the stock market. It's safe, but boring, and with a lower return on your investment.

Back to slavery: My last game I have slavery still at start of industrial revolution. I am getting massive cash-flows, happy cities out the wazoo, and no apparent diplomacy hits because of it. It's just great (when there's no way to measure human suffering).

I just would like to see some of the obvious historically accurate downsides to slavery begin to become apparent in the game mechanics by Industrial age. Maybe having slavery instead of give you extra hammers just because - have it give you extra hammers on farms. Or extra income on farms (and plantations)?

I mean - the thing of slavery that makes it so appealing was that you could get free labor. It's much harder to keep well-educated populace from seeing the human suffering and valuing that - or continuing to be slaves when they're educated enough to be programmers and engineers.

So... having slavery not be especially compatible with an industrialized economy seems to me to be a good way of reflecting how extremely valuable they were prior to industrialization (and also why some forms of slavery persist in the world today), while giving a clear jumping off point to other forms of civics that suppress the population without such visible chains.

I think the simplest way to show this sort of dis-enfranchisement of a segment of the population would be to modify the Population Growth Rate %. This modifier changes the amount of food a city needs to grow to the next level. So if we set it to be 100% for Slavery, it would take 2x as much food as normal to grow to the next city size.

The advantage to this sort of change is that it has no immediate impact on your cities. Your existing populations remain the same. Only many dozens of turns later, when your cities remain smaller than neighbors, would you see the impact.

 

[aggri1]

...
2. Isolationism is just better. Again, nothing comes close - there is no trade penalties for Isolationism, which makes very little sense (to me). Why choose any other if I can make mad stacks and have no negative hits with other nations by just leaving it at Isolationism forever?
...
And Isolationism needs like -75% foreign trade... or no foreign connection at all (I'm looking at protectionism - which should have foreign trade but doesn't - real-world protectionism puts tariffs on foreign goods to make local goods more competitive... but the AND2 kills all foreign trade. Maybe Protectionism is what should be the initial default? Or bribery? Most nations require a lot of bribes to move goods or get anything done domestically...

I think it'd be neat if Isolationism reduced the rate of Tech' Diffusion to the Civ' running Isolationism. A problem with that though is that Tech' Diffusion is already very hard to understand as it is (i.e. it's very hard to see what effect it's currently having) and adding a complicating factor to an already opaque mechanism might make it worse.

Cheers, A.

 

[<Nexus>]

I think it'd be neat if Isolationism reduced the rate of Tech' Diffusion to the Civ' running Isolationism. A problem with that though is that Tech' Diffusion is already very hard to understand as it is (i.e. it's very hard to see what effect it's currently having) and adding a complicating factor to an already opaque mechanism might make it worse.

Cheers, A.

I like the idea - at least in theory. Also agree with the complicity part, so maybe it could just disable it at all. It could also disable certain diplomatic actions (Right of Passage, Open Borders, Embassy). Just brainstorming.

@Mordachai
What you have to understand in AND2 that the philosofy behind civics is different than the one in BTS. The "Newer is usually better" is no longer true.

 

[Rezca]

I like the idea - at least in theory. Also agree with the complicity part, so maybe it could just disable it at all. It could also disable certain diplomatic actions (Right of Passage, Open Borders, Embassy). Just brainstorming.

I don't know about the disabling Rights of Passages and Open Borders. The description says "avoiding foreign entanglements" not "Cutting off relations with the rest of the world and pretending they don't exist". If anything, I could at least see increased unhappiness for waging war, since by definition war is getting tangled up in the affairs of other nations

 

[<Nexus>]

I don't know about the disabling Rights of Passages and Open Borders. The description says "avoiding foreign entanglements" not "Cutting off relations with the rest of the world and pretending they don't exist". If anything, I could at least see increased unhappiness for waging war, since by definition war is getting tangled up in the affairs of other nations

You're right about that (as I said, just brainstorming).
War weariness? Maybe. Or disable the diplo ability to bribe others into war?

 

[Mordachai]

I like the anti-war for Isolationism. That fits to a "T"

 

[Afforess]

I don't know about the disabling Rights of Passages and Open Borders. The description says "avoiding foreign entanglements" not "Cutting off relations with the rest of the world and pretending they don't exist".

Exactly correct. I think players in this thread keep confusing Protectionism for Isolationism. Protectionism is cutting off all diplomacy. Isolationism is looking out for your nation above all others.

 

[Mordachai]

I get that this is your mod, and I'm just a dude on the 'net pontificating my wishes and frustrations which mean zip since I'm not contributing to the project.

That said, these words you're using - have well-established meanings:

pro·tec·tion·ism
ECONOMICS
the theory or practice of shielding a country's domestic industries from foreign competition by taxing imports.

i·so·la·tion·ism
a policy of remaining apart from the affairs or interests of other groups, especially the political affairs of other countries.

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So, for protectionism, in no way would it mean cutting off all foreign trade. It means taxing foreign trade. That's it. And it has no meaning outside of trade.

For Isolationism, it isn't an economic term, but a foreign policy term, and has to do with avoiding entanglements. So you'd avoid exchanging embassies, or signing defense treaties, or trade treaties, or ... well, treaties. You'd avoid any obligations and entanglements.

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I'm not claiming I know what exactly that would best be expressed as in-game, but can I say that it is surprising to see no "isolation" resulting from "Isolationism."

Similarly, I don't see any taxing of foreign goods associated with Protectionism, despite that being the very definition, and I find that odd in-game.

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EDIT: Maybe this a language thing? "Neutral" is more along the lines of what seems to be implied by the in-game "Isolationist" policy.

Neutral countries such as Switzerland in WW2 were intentionally not willing to take side, but most definitely willing to act as bankers and go-betweens. They were definitely not an isolationist nation in ww2, they were very active politically - to ensure their neutrality.

But maybe I just need to think "neutrality" when I read "isolationist" for AND2?
Protectionism though is still weird... cutting off all ties to foreigners is a bit like what China and Japan tried to do - though of course there were still thriving black markets. It's a different definition of protectionism - as it to my mind is what I would label "Isolationist" - they wanted to be totally isolated with closed borders, not neutral, and not trading with tariffs.

 

[MechatronicJazz]

I think it's important to remember that civics often represent general concepts/approaches that have to cover a wide range of real life implementations. Protectionism, for example, is about privileging domestic industry/production/commerce over foreign. That could include a range of measures from small tariffs, to huge tariff and subsidy programs, to strict border and trade controls. The civic won't necessarily capture all these situations perfectly and I think between protectionism in the foreign policy column and mercantile in the economy column it's covered pretty well. Likewise isolationism can have a number of implementations. There's the complete lack of relations with foreign nations, but that's at the extreme. If you take pre-WW2 America as an example, they were isolationist in that they were not particularly involved in global affairs. However, they still had dealings with many nations. They also pursued an imperialist approach in expanding in their region of the world. So it's not cut and dry with what each civic represents.

The other piece to this is that civic are also meant to fit certain roles in terms of game play. As far as I understand, the civics in AND are balanced with the first civic being a starter or default civic, and the rest ideally fitting different styles of game play. Isolationism is a default civic. You start with it and it doesn't really have positive or negative effects. It's viable throughout the game, which fits historically since there have been different iterations of isolationist policy throughout history. However, as Afforess points out, you then miss out on the potential advantages of choosing other civics to synergize with a particular strategy.

I also agree with Afforess that mercantile is weak. I used to use it when I had a large empire with many vassals, since I would have enough domestic trade (or connections now) to make it worth it. As it is, I have 25 cities to 9 for the next largest, my vassal being one of those with 9 and I still come no where near breaking even with mercantile. Maybe it works with a different approach now, but I haven't figured it out yet.