Era of Miracles fantasy mod - developer diary

[PawelS]

When unhappiness is +8 per city, then you aren't going to be able to afford to have many cities, and +1 happy per city is going to make very little difference.

Actually it's 10 per city under normal conditions (8 with the Orcs' UA), but there are other changes to the happiness system as well, so you can have a fair amount of cities later in the game. I think an opportunity to found your next city earlier is a very good thing in this mod.

Maybe, hard to tell. In any case, this kind of thing can easily be tweaked once you have a playable version.
But consider: +1 food per tile increases a 3 food tile by 1/3 or a 4 food tile by 1/4, rather larger than a 10% increase.

It only increases food from Farms, there are other sources as well. I don't think you will want the entire landscape covered with Farms, and it's impossible to build them on some terrains.

How so? With a bit of recon, it is easy to spot barb camps on your own. I have only ever found this valuable with Germans, because of their UA.

Now when I think of it, it's mostly a convenience (so you don't have to wander around looking for them) rather than a real help... and it will be moved to Nature as you suggested, as a "side effect" of one of the policies. But I'm still unsure what's the best name for the policy that gives a bonus vs barbarians...

Is 10 policy picks in really still the early game?

It depends on the policy cost settings, we'll see how it works in the game. I don't intend to let the player finish an entire tree very early. I think +1 culture per city is a good thing even later, but perhaps I'll change the finisher to faster territorial expansion, like the Tradition opener in vanilla...

Maybe. That still has an industrial revolution-era flavor, rather than an ancient-flavor; the Babylonians and the Egyptians and the Persians and Romans and various ancient Indians all had public works programs for things like building irrigation systems.

Hmm, maybe I'll just name them "Public Works I" and "Public Works II"

Fair enough. Maybe the bonus in grabbing tiles with culture or gold then?

Yes, as I wrote earlier I think I'll change the finisher to a territorial growth bonus.

Aren't camps still out in the wilderness?
In any case, infiltrating Orc camps seems more like something that sneaky Nature-oriented people would do, it seems out of flavor for city-dwellers.

Camps are in the wilderness too, I meant that the animals and monsters don't need a camp to appear. I think you're right about the location of camps, it should be moved to Nature...

Are you sure you are able to create multiple classes of barbarians? I am guessing that barbarians are hard-coded in the engine, and that the social policy only has hooks for a general bonus vs barbarians, rather than a bonus vs say a particular unit class.
So I would guess you would find it difficult in code terms to have one policy give a bonus vs Orc barbarians and a second give bonuses to Monster barbarians.
I guess as a hack you could make them each give a promotion, like Discipline, that then gave a bonus vs a unit class Orc or unit class Monster, but then you'd have to make orc units all the same unit class, rather than letting them be melee/ranged/mounted/etc. Monster.
I don't think we have the code access to do something FFH-style where in addition to class we have race, and promotions can give bonuses vs a particular race.

Yeah, I meant that Nature will give a bonus against animals and monsters regardless if they are barbarians or not. And Civilization will give a bonus against all types of barbarians.

Logistics could reduce military upkeep costs. Militias could give happiness and defense and maintenance cost reductions for garrisoned units. Levied troops could increase unit build rate. Military professionalism could add extra experience. Organization could boost flanking bonuses (a way of modeling improved tactical doctrines, and the ability to coordinate attacks).

Or Urban militia, City Guard, City Watch, or some variant.
A policy that gave military bonuses to units on/near town improvements might also be interesting, though the AI wouldn't use it well.

Good ideas, I think I'll use some of them for other policy trees. Currently I'm going to change B2 to "City Militias", which eliminates maintenance costs for garrisoned units, and rename B3 to "Levies".

One of the civs will get an improvement that gives combat bonuses near it, like Polynesia in vanilla game. I don't know if it's possible to achieve the same effect with policies, perhaps with some complicated LUA code... The only thing that can be done easily is to give the Town a defensive bonus, which I'm going to do (City Ruins will give a defense bonus as well).

Also, as a general note, when the mod development progresses I'll probably get more ideas for policy effects, but the number of policies won't change, so I'm going to add more effects to existing policies - policies with multiple effects are more interesting than single-effect ones, only the most powerful ones (like +1 food from Farm) won't have more effects. The same with buildings - most buildings in the base game are quite boring for me, as they have only one effect. Library should give culture in addition to science, Hospital (Infirmary in my mod) should make the units in the city heal faster and provide some happiness and growth bonus, and so on...

 

[PawelS]

Speaking of alphas, if you release one (and want a bit of feedback)...I'd be interested in testing it out a bit for you. I actually worked on the Warhammer mod back in the day with Ahriman, so I'm not unfamiliar with testing really. (If any of the rest of the Warhammer team was like me, they loved to see their changes/additions implemented in gameplay. I was the XML slave, hehe.)

Thanks for your offer, but as I wrote earlier, the first release will happen after the expansion comes out...

It'd be kind of cool to see some magic and such as well. That would bring another interesting aspect to the base Civ core that you're modifying here. I'm not sure if you're planning on doing that or not.

I'm planning to do it, but it's rather a complicated thing (especially making the AI use it), so it won't be included in the first releases. But when we have DLL access, it should be a bit easier.

 

[Ahriman]

but perhaps I'll change the finisher to faster territorial expansion, like the Tradition opener in vanilla...

Faster territory expansion is mostly useful in the very early game; 10 picks in, which takes a fair amount of culture, which gets you territory, I doubt that would be very useful either. I think it is useful as a policy effect (maybe for the opener), but not that far in.
On the other hand, maybe this would make more sense in Nature too; Nature oriented would be in more harmony with terrain, and so would find it easier to control the land.

Maybe the free pioneer should be the finisher, and then have a different effect for the opener; +2 culture in the capital? That might combine valuable in the early game with a Civic feel.
Then the Nature opener could be half culture/gold cost for border expansion.

The only thing that can be done easily is to give the Town a defensive bonus, which I'm going to do

Like how hills give a defensive bonus? That works. Also works nicely in that it will apply to infantry (who are good at urban fighting) but not cavalry (who will presumably have no defensive bonuses penalty?).

Also, as a general note, when the mod development progresses I'll probably get more ideas for policy effects, but the number of policies won't change, so I'm going to add more effects to existing policies

Sounds good. I'd make sure though that multiple effects are all in-theme.

The same with buildings - most buildings in the base game are quite boring for me, as they have only one effect. Library should give culture in addition to science, Hospital (Infirmary in my mod) should make the units in the city heal faster and provide some happiness and growth bonus, and so on...

I dunno, I kinda disagree with this. I think building effects need to be tightly focused in a particular direction. I think it is appropriate to have science-boosting buildings separate from culture boosting buildings. I think an important part of Civ is city specialization, and the more you start adding multiple effects the less able to specialize you are, and the more generic things feel.
I think it is important that buildings are *different* from each other, and that cities in different situations will be better for different types of buildings. With lots of effects, you just end up leaning towards a "build everything everywhere" approach.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I'm planning to do it, but it's rather a complicated thing (especially making the AI use it), so it won't be included in the first releases. But when we have DLL access, it should be a bit easier.

Well, this might help you out a bit. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11276824&postcount=95
Yeah, it'd still be easier to do effects & such, I'd imagine with DLL access. Still, you could get the basics down (even if you don't implement spells initially) using a system similar to the link I just posted.

 

[human machine]

• B1 Anti-Barbarian Measures +25% bonus vs Barbarians
• B2 Barbarian Infiltration - get notifications about Barbarian Camps
• B3 Army Organization - Build Military Units 10% faster
  
• Finisher: +1 Culture per city

I agree that B2 is more nature / not very powerful. Perhaps you have a free militia unit of some sort spawn when a Barbarian unit enters your territory.
It could then automatically disband when no more barbarians are near by.

I'm guessing that this could be done via LUA

 

[PawelS]

I made some changes to the policies after seeing your feedback (many thanks for it, especially to Ahriman!), I dropped the idea of a bonus vs Barbarians completely, and added a policy that gives a bonus in friendly territory instead. Here is the current version of the Civilization tree:

• Opener: faster territorial growth
• A1 Public Works I - two free Workers
• A2 Public Works II - Workers build improvements 25% faster
• A3 Public Roads - +1 Happiness per City connected to the Capital
• B1 City Militias - no upkeep cost for garrisoned units
• B3 Territorial Defense - units get +10% combat bonus in friendly territory
• B2 Levies - +25% faster production of military units
• C1 Food Distribution - +1 Food from Granary/Smokehouse/Grocer
• C2 Town Development +1 Food/Gold/Production/Culture from Town
• C3 Crop Rotation - +1 food from Farm
• Finisher: free Pioneer

I'm not sure about the name "Territorial Defense", I keep coming up with modern sounding names...

On the other hand, maybe this would make more sense in Nature too; Nature oriented would be in more harmony with terrain, and so would find it easier to control the land.

In my vision it's Civilization that claims the territory faster and makes it "civilized" using Workers and Pioneers... Nature is more about exploring the wilderness and a more balanced development.

Like how hills give a defensive bonus? That works. Also works nicely in that it will apply to infantry (who are good at urban fighting) but not cavalry (who will presumably have no defensive bonuses penalty?).

That's correct.

I dunno, I kinda disagree with this. I think building effects need to be tightly focused in a particular direction. I think it is appropriate to have science-boosting buildings separate from culture boosting buildings. I think an important part of Civ is city specialization, and the more you start adding multiple effects the less able to specialize you are, and the more generic things feel.
I think it is important that buildings are *different* from each other, and that cities in different situations will be better for different types of buildings. With lots of effects, you just end up leaning towards a "build everything everywhere" approach.

My approach to the game is slightly different than yours. I don't want to think about possible player strategies first, and then create buildings that fit these strategies. I want to create buildings with diverse and believable effects (when you think of it, a Library or Theatre should produce culture, and for the sake of making all buildings have a single effect they don't in vanilla Civ5), and leave it to the player which ones will be used and when (of course they should be balanced, so it's not a no-brainer which ones should be built). As for city specialization, there will be some buildings that exclude each other, so you won't be able to build everything everywhere, even if you have lots of production or gold to buy them. Also many buildings will depend on local terrain and resources, which makes city placement important for specializing them.

Well, this might help you out a bit. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpo...4&postcount=95
Yeah, it'd still be easier to do effects & such, I'd imagine with DLL access. Still, you could get the basics down (even if you don't implement spells initially) using a system similar to the link I just posted.

My approach to modmaking is different than Pazyryk's, I prefer to use the existing mechanics where possible, and add new LUA-based things only where it's necessary, while he started building his complicated LUA code from the start... I'm going to use some of his ideas and code, but it will be later in the development process.

I agree that B2 is more nature / not very powerful. Perhaps you have a free militia unit of some sort spawn when a Barbarian unit enters your territory.
It could then automatically disband when no more barbarians are near by.

I'm guessing that this could be done via LUA

Interesting idea to consider, but as I wrote above, later...

 

[Ahriman]

I'm not sure about the name "Territorial Defense"

Rural patrols? Fort network? Defensive doctrine? Homeguard? Fortifications?
None of those are very good either.

In my vision it's Civilization that claims the territory faster and makes it "civilized" using Workers and Pioneers...

Ok, that makes sense. Civilization has a big territory and some bonuses within that territory, nature has a small territory but gets bonuses in natural terrain even outside its borders.

(when you think of it, a Library or Theatre should produce culture

It depends what you think culture means. To my mind, culture isn't/shouldn't be just about arts and literature; that is a narrow and uninteresting view. Staging more plays never really had empire-shaking effects.
I think culture in a game where culture is used to buy policies is in large part about governance capacity and institutional development. It's the soft side of running a country and economy (as opposed to the hard side: technology and resources) that aren't otherwise represented in the game. And these *do* have huge effects.
So I see ability to adopt new policies and to control terrain as depending on capacity for governance. Civ has put them onto arts buildings because it wanted to have a purpose for arts buildings, but ideally I'd like to see culture come from mead halls, town halls, courthouses, civic centers, capitols, city councils, etc.

It makes more sense to me that arts and literature as sources of entertainment would provide happiness. Isn't it odd that a theatre and an opera house have such different purposes in Civ5?

 

[PawelS]

About culture and happiness: I'm going to make Culture represent both arts and literature, and authority that comes from government buildings (government buildings will increase the city culture by a percentage, so they will have a multiplying effect on culture from traditional culture buildings). Happiness from buildings should be very limited in my system, there will be some buildings that provide it, but mostly it will be just +1 per building, so to get high happiness you'll need to build many different buildings in your cities, instead of just a few ones from the "happiness line", as it is in the vanilla game. This will reward builder players - you'll have to be generally well-developed to get happiness for new cities.

Here is the next planned policy tree, Nature (which excludes Civilization):

• Opener: free Scout, +1 sight for Recon units, get notifications about Barbarian Camps
• A1 Animal Taming - two free Wolves (or other low tier animal units depending on civ), Recon units get a chance to capture Animals they defeat in combat
• A2 Animal Lore - +50% for Recon units vs enemy Animal/Monsters/Mounted, +1 Food & Production from Pasture
• A3 Beast Mastery - +25% combat bonus for controlled Animal/Monster/Mounted units, Recon units get a chance to capture Monsters they defeat in combat
• B1 Fertility - +50% growth in all cities
• B2 Naturopathy - +1 Hapiness from every Herbalist and Garden, +1 Science from Plantation [Herbalist is a building that can be constructed only near specific resources]
• B3 Spiritual Nourishment - Specialists consume only half Food
• C1 Hunting Tradition - +25% ranged attack bonus for Archery units, +1 Gold from Camp [Camp can be constructed in all Forest and Jungle tiles, initially gives +1 Food]
• C2 Ambush - units get +25% combat bonus in Forest/Jungle
• C3 Tree Growth - +1 Production from Lumbermill, new Forests and Jungles will grow in your territory
• Finisher: faster healing for living units in your territory

How does it compare to the Civilization tree I posted earlier? Is one of them overpowered compared to the other?

 

[rocklikeafool]

About culture and happiness: I'm going to make Culture represent both arts and literature, and authority that comes from government buildings (government buildings will increase the city culture by a percentage, so they will have a multiplying effect on culture from traditional culture buildings).

I like this idea. Frankly, I think there's way too much emphasis on "city specialization" in vanilla. There should be some, obviously. But you also shouldn't feel like every city has to be specialized. I almost feel like cities are gimped in vanilla, if I don't specialize them at some point. I'm glad you're not going that route.

Happiness from buildings should be very limited in my system, there will be some buildings that provide it, but mostly it will be just +1 per building, so to get high happiness you'll need to build many different buildings in your cities, instead of just a few ones from the "happiness line", as it is in the vanilla game. This will reward builder players - you'll have to be generally well-developed to get happiness for new cities.

This is ok, except...well, some players tend to prefer a more warlike playstyle. The only problem with limiting happiness is that it can penalize those who keep a moderate-sized army and tend to be at war with other civs from time to time. Although, really this would have to be tested. If it's just limited to new cities, that's fine.

 

[PawelS]

I like this idea. Frankly, I think there's way too much emphasis on "city specialization" in vanilla. There should be some, obviously. But you also shouldn't feel like every city has to be specialized. I almost feel like cities are gimped in vanilla, if I don't specialize them at some point. I'm glad you're not going that route.

Yes, the emphasis on city specialization will be reduced, your cities should be generally well-developed. But there will be some specialization options (the "mutually exclusive groups" of buildings I mentioned earlier), and many buildings will depend on local terrain and resources, so it's not true that all developed cities will look the same.

This is ok, except...well, some players tend to prefer a more warlike playstyle. The only problem with limiting happiness is that it can penalize those who keep a moderate-sized army and tend to be at war with other civs from time to time. Although, really this would have to be tested. If it's just limited to new cities, that's fine.

I'm not going to reward conquest playstyle too much, because of the "snowball effect" - you conquer enemy cities, so you get stronger, so you can conquer even more cities, and so on. One of the main purposes of the happiness limitation on number of cities (and giving free Settlers to players when happiness is high enough) is to make the game more balanced, so there are many civs at a similar level of development (from my experiences in the vanilla game, usually one AI civ goes "over the roof", while the other ones remain small and weak). Of course it doesn't mean that regardless of what you do, your "success level" in the game is the same. There are many decisions that affect your chance of success - city placement, policy choices and so on (the religion system from the expansion will probably play an important role too).

Also, sometimes conquest is the best option, especially if you're blocked by your neighbors, or the land they own is much better than unsettled areas.

 

[PawelS]

And now the next policy tree: Craftsmanship.

• Opener: +1 Production per City
• A1 Master Builders: +20% Production when constructing Buildings
• A2 Work Ethic: +2 Production from Town, +1 Production from Workshop (it's a type of improvement, like in Civ4)
• A3 Content Workforce: +1 Happiness from every Forge, Stone Works, and Carpenter (all these buildings require local resources)
• B1 Mineral Lore: +1 Gold from Mine
• B2 Hill Forts: Melee units get +25% Defense in Hills
• B3 Earth's Guidance: two free Prospectors (it's a type of Great Person that can find new resources)
• C1 Master Armorers: Melee, Archery and Mounted units get +10% Defense
• C2 Superior Weapons: Melee units get +25% Attack, upgrading units costs 25% less Gold
• C3 Siege Mastery: +20% Ranged Attack bonus and faster healing for Siege units
• Finisher: +1 Production per Specialist

 

[Ahriman]

Craftsmanship and Nature seem interesting and reasonable on the face of it, I don't see any obvious problems without playtest.

One thing though; my understanding is that there is a fairly low hardcoded cap on the number of possible promotions. With all these different global strength promotions (master armorer, superior weapons, etc.), is there a risk that you're going to take up too many slots?
One alternative would be to create generic +10%, +20% etc. promotions and have the policies grant those, but that could make attribution confusing (player should know clearly that a particular promotion on their unit comes from one of their social policies) and could be confusing if you have multiple copies of the same magnitude.
Or have I mis-remembered, and there is no arbitrary restriction on the number of promotions?

 

[PawelS]

Yes, there is a restriction on number of promotions, but I'm going to remove lots of promotions from vanilla game, so I hope I won't hit the limit... Also, perhaps the problem will be fixed with the G&K release or in a patch (and if not, the DLL release should allow fixing it by modding).

(Btw, the percentage combat bonuses from various policies are subject to change, they might be unbalanced in the version of policies that I posted.)

 

[Ahriman]

perhaps the problem will be fixed with the G&K release

Let's hope!

(Btw, the percentage combat bonuses from various policies are subject to change, they might be unbalanced in the version of policies that I posted.)

Oh absolutely, I assumed as much, but I didn't see anything so wildly out of line that it needed to be changed before playtest.

 

[PawelS]

Another policy tree - Seamanship.

• Opener: +2 Production from Fishing Boats
• A1 Master Shipwrights +20% Production and +10 XP when building naval Units
• A2 Hull Strengthening: +25% defense for all naval units
• A3 Naval Supply: faster healing for naval units, allows healing outside of friendly territory
• B1 Navigators: +1 movement for all naval units, faster movement through Atolls and Reefs (normally these features slow down ships significantly)
• B2 Hawkeyes: +1 sight for all naval units and +25% attack for Ranged Naval units
• B3 Sea Wolves: +25% Attack for Melee Naval units, increased chance to capture enemy ships, more gold gained from city raids
• C1 Goods Shipping: +2 Production in coastal cities
• C2 Merchant Navy: +10% Gold in cities with a Harbor
• C3 Transport Fleet: +1 movement, +1 sight and +50% defense for embarked units
• Finisher: +1 Happiness from every Lighthouse (Lighthouse is later in the tech tree than Harbor)

Unlike the previous policy trees, most policies here give military bonuses, which may be less useful when you play peacefully... But still they'll be helpful due to increased Barbarian activity in the mod (including invasions from the sea). Also perhaps there will be Privateers in the mod, that can attack without declaring war...

 

[Ahriman]

Opener: +2 Production from Fishing Boats

That seems a bit weak, as compared to +1 production per city, particularly as fishing boats are expensive and aren't usually worth building in the early game (better to build a worker that doesn't get consumed when it builds an improvement).
Perhaps it would be better if the bonus applied to all maritime resources, rather than to the improvement?

Hawkeyes

Bit weird as a name, though I can't think of anything much better.

Unlike the previous policy trees, most policies here give military bonuses

I think there are probably a few too many policies here that give military bonuses to naval units, the A path and B paths aren't different enough in terms of how they encourage you to play (more military strength is more military strength; offensive vs defensive bonuses don't make that much different in naval combat).
One possibility would be to split them by bonuses to ranged ships vs melee ships, another would be some kind of brown water/blue water doctrinal split (is it possible to give combat bonuses or reduced movement in coast terrain?).
[Possibly you could make naval terrain more interesting by having coast tiles cost 1, ocean tiles cost 2, and reef/atoll features add +1 movement cost. That would tend to encourage naval pathfinding to hug the coast, and would make coast/land interactions more common. And you could have a blue-water doctrine that reduced the coast of ocean tiles.]
Another possible A/B differentiation might be between land-oriented vs naval supremacy; maybe that could be part of brown/blue, where brown gave ranged attack bonus vs land, blue gave ranged attack bonus vs naval?
I guess to really have a sensible design, we'll need to know more about how melee ships will work (will they be able to interact with land units at all, or only with coastal cities?).
Another possibility might be in amphibious landing bonuses.

But I guess what is really needed is more non-combat bonuses that are in-theme.
Some possibilities; extra gold from luxuries somehow (in coastal cities, on a seaport building, or something; I'm not sure what is possible in the code).
Tie more bonuses into the coastal-only buildings (production, gold, food, etc.).
Lower upkeep costs for naval units?
Yield bonus for land tiles adjacent to coastal tiles? [Or just for trading posts and towns adjacent to coast tiles?]
Some extra river bonuses (ship-building presumably also helps on rivers?).
A culture or science bonus in coastal cities? [Lots of trade means more new ideas and innovation.]

Merchant Navy: +10% Gold in cities with a Harbor

Might be a bit low, not sure. Might it be worth changing this to make it a boost to trade route income, rather than gold?

 

[PawelS]

Thanks for your feedback! It took me a couple of hours to think about it, but now I think I have a much better version of the Seamanship tree, using some of your ideas:

• Opener: +2 Food in coastal cities
• A1 Goods Shipping: +2 Production in coastal cities
• A2 Transport Fleet: +1 movement, +1 sight and +50% defense for embarked units
• A3 Maritime Economy: +2 production from Fishing Boats, +10% Production in cities with a Shipyard
• B1 Master Shipwrights +20% Production and +10 XP when building naval Units
• B2 Sea Wolves: +20% combat bonus for all naval units (attack, ranged attack, defense), naval units get +50% experience from combat
• B3 Navigation Experts: +1 movement and +1 sight for all naval units, faster movement through Ocean (normally it costs 2 MP, with this policy ships get "Double movement in Ocean"), free Great Admiral
• C1 Coastal Trade: +2 Gold in coastal cities
• C2 Merchant Navy: +15% Gold from in cities with a Harbor, +10% Gold with a River Port (bonuses stack, so a city with both buildings will get +25% - it's good to build cities next to river mouths)
• C3 Naval Supply: ships heal faster and can heal outside of friendly territory
• Finisher: +1 Happiness from every Lighthouse, +2 Culture in coastal cities

 

[Ahriman]

This looks much more interesting, good job.

 

[PawelS]

Here goes Wealth:

• Opener: +1 Gold per City
• A1 Temporary Work: -25% Gold cost of purchasing buildings, +10% Production in cities with a Market
• A2 Trade Centers: +2 Gold from Town, +1 Gold from Trading Post
• A3 Trade Ventures: +10% Gold from trade routes, +25% Gold from trade missions, free Great Merchant
• B1 Estates: -25% Gold cost of buying tiles, +2 Food from every Mansion (it's a city building)
• B2 Prosperity: starts a Golden Age, Golden Ages last 50% longer
• B3 Cult of Mammon: +1 Happiness from every Mint and Bank
• C1 Spoils of War: get Gold from killing enemy units (including Barbarians)
• C2 Mercenaries: -25% Gold cost of purchasing units, increased frequency of getting units from Minor Civs (I'm not going to indroduce any new mechanic for mercenaries for now, like buying units from Minor Civs, but it's possible later)
• C3 Bribery: Gold gifts to Minor Civs are 25% more effective, influence of other civs degrades 50% faster than normal
• Finisher: +1 Gold per Specialist

 

[Ahriman]

Temporary Work

Name is a bit weak. How about "migrant laborers" or "project financing" or "paid labor" (ie as opposed to bonded or slave labor)?
Not much better I realize.

Cult of Mammon also sounds quite specific; does that fit with your religious lore? An alternative would be something like "merchant elite" or "merchant class", or "oligarchy" the idea basically that you get happiness from allowing non-aristocrats who are wealthy to accumulate power.

The A line seems pretty powerful relative to a lot of the other lines in various trees.

The C tree seems pretty weird in that it is supporting very different types of playstyles, particularly C3. Does a city-state manipulation policy really fit well in a military unit line?