That's consistent with my two city run blowing away with a science win over cultural then, although I did get SOH as I recall.
Should we discuss options on how to address this?
Sure, but with Thal pretty much MIA I'd have to agree with apocalypse: the easiest and most available solution (for now) would be to simply return the victory requirement to five branches - it's easy for people unfamiliar with modding to do, the sixth tree has never felt like anything but a chore to me, it's usually just hitting "end-turn" and the benefits from the policies are minimal given how little time they are implemented for, and the sixth tree is always the one least desirable anyway.
We can leave it alone (which I don't think is an ideal option), we can increase culture generation when you focus on it, we could reduce the amount of culture required, or conversely, increase the amount of research for tech and diplo wins (I'm looking at RAs, Oxford and Enlightenment free techs, and GSes as a partial culprits here).
Tech actually feels pretty balanced to me at this point; I've had some games where it was a struggle to maintain a good tech rate, and I dislike using the nerf-bat unless it's really necessary.
Initially I don't think that reducing culture required is the best option because when I'm not playing a culture-focused game things seem really balanced and I'm able to get all the policies I really want/need.
Agreed, but I don't think lowering the cultural victory requirement to five trees would have any effect on non-cultural empires' policy acquisition.
I don't know the precise numbers, but just brainstorming here on ways to increase culture:
- A policy in Piety (the final one or finisher?) that also increases yield from artists and/or villages (since he can add culture as a yield now) would allow someone interested to get more culture income.
- We could add a multiplier to the museum in addition to its current effect, or increase the multiplier or other benefits of the broadcast tower (I actually like this because it's end-game, expensive to build/buy, and almost only used by cultural paths).
- Would it be possible to add a trigger to landmark creation where it also gives you a one-time boost (like how Satrap's court gives one time and per-turn GA points), or
- increase the amount generated from the landmark over time?
1. Free Religion in Piety currently does add culture to Artists and Landmarks, and I wouldn't be opposed to increasing the gain to 2
/Artist and 4
/Landmark - they're both rarely used in non-culture games. Adding culture to Villages could have some unintended consequences and could throw the general balance out of whack, so I don't think this is the way to go, but it could be worth trying.
2. I wouldn't oppose this either, but there are already many multipliers for culture - in my game the capital had a cumulative 276% culture multiplier!
3. I really like this idea, and for a long time I've been trying to get Thal to give the "culture bomb" a one-time empire culture boost, but he has been resistant to it. It would be difficult to balance, so I understand his reluctance.
4. Though I like this idea as well, I'm pretty sure this is not possible since the Landmark is the only GP improvement that doesn't get a boost from a tech. Here's another idea: a policy in Freedom (democracy?) that boosts all GP improvements' yields - I think that could be fun and flavorful, and give a different take on the "Specialist Tree" other than simply boosting specialists themselves.
Alternately we could increase the cost of modern techs more than has already been done. I personally feel that (most) everything up to industrial is fairly well balanced at this point, but a 10-25% increase of the different tiers of modern/future techs could slow down diplo and science enough that culture would be viable (although it would slow down those other victory types).
I wouldn't be opposed to this.
Personally I think it's dumb how you have to play with 2 cities just to barely beat an AI to something while they spam the map with a hundred cities.
Well even the AI can't achieve a culture win with tons of cities, and science victories are easier if you spam cities as well. Also, like I said, no AI built the Apollo Program or UN in my game, so it wasn't "barely" beating them, I trounced them
.
how can you play a peaceful game on emperor with only 2 cities?
On king I get DOW from my nearest neibough after 50turns, and then its perma-war to the end.. How do you avoid that?
This isn't really the thread to discuss this, but it's partially luck (no AI capital within 10-15 tiles, the AI doesn't settle a city on your borders, etc.) and partially building some military early in the game and trading with the AI. Later in the game if you think that an AI is preparing to DoW you, you can bribe other AIs to attack them and therefore distract them. In VEM it is actually much less likely to be rushed by the AI than vanilla because there is a larger peace-weight.
) one city game with Egypt on Emperor. Got a ton of wonders, including the most important cultural ones (except SOH because I wasn't coastal), ended with 50+ pop as well, culture per turn over 1100, and finished as the tech leader before anyone built the Apollo Program or the UN. It's possible I could have finished a Space victory around the same time and I certainly could have built the UN and won that way for an earlier finish date.
