Fealty

Stalker0

Baller Magnus
Joined
Dec 31, 2005
Messages
10,596
Right now I'm a bit torn on fealty. I feel that overall the tree is good, but its very imbalanced. Several of its policies are very good, but some are pretty weak. That said, I have also liked the idea of doing some tree cherry-picking, and fealty I think is one of the best cherry pickable trees right now...part of why I am torn. But I also think some of the timing is a little bit off. So I'm looking at some rearrangements. Tell me what you all think.

Opener: -25% faith costs. 100% castle/armory bonus
(The main reason for this is that often the buildings are coming out earlier than Fealty 2, so you lose out on this bonus. Also, the monastery is a wonderful benefit, but maybe a little too good for the opener).

Nobility: +1 happy from castle, +2 gold castle/armory. Monasteries.
(Just a swap between Opener and Nobility to improve timing a little bit, and spread the original opener out slightly).

Serfdom: Unchanged
(This is a really solid policy right now, no changes needed).

Burghers: Remove the "1 unhappiness from specialist", this is going to Divine Right
(Ultimately the bonus of this policy is very solid, as its pretty easy to keep WLTKDs going with several civs. So it can stand to lose a slight bonus to balance the books elsewhere).

Organized Religion: +15% Religious Pressure. +1 faith from specialists, and +1 faith from all buildings purchased with faith.
(The religious pressure now becomes a more general bonuses, instead of the highly niche one from before. We are also adding a little bit more faith into the mix. Overall the fealty tree is losing some power since some of its bonuses are happening later now, so we are adding a slight increase to compensate.)

Divine Right: Add the "-1 urbanization" ability from Burghers.
(This is by far the weakest policy of the tree...honestly one of the weakest in the game to me. This helps round it out a bit more).


So nothing dramatic, just a bit of rearrangements with a slight buff to compensate for some bonuses moving later. Thoughts on this one?
 
I think we need to fine tune all of fealty, statecraft, and artistry, and the major changes in settling and food/growth have affected them a lot.

I think they are all pickable, but fealty is overall the strongest. The 50% bonus to internal routes is very powerful. If you send 4 or 5 production routes to your capital you have a pretty good chance of building 4 or 5 of the Renaissance wonders. I agree the armory castle/bonus comes a bit late.

I think the -1 unhappiness from urbanization is out of place in Fealty and fits better in artistry.
Organized Religion: +15% Religious Pressure. +1 faith from specialists, and +1 faith from all buildings purchased with faith.
(The religious pressure now becomes a more general bonuses, instead of the highly niche one from before. We are also adding a little bit more faith into the mix. Overall the fealty tree is losing some power since some of its bonuses are happening later now, so we are adding a slight increase to compensate.)
Fealty's bonus religious pressure is very, very good and one of the most powerful aspects of the tree, I wouldn't call it a niche bonus. Regardless, I really don't want +1 faith on religious buildings. I usually have more faith than I really want by the mid-game, temples have 5 each after the grand temple, and even if you don't care about faith you should still build temples and grand temples because the 2 culture per city is essential.
 
I feel most of fealty are very strong except for Organized and Divine right which are basically just fillers to get the finisher bonus.
I don't feel it's something that needs a change.

How castles time with Nobility depends a bit but if you're enter medival with chivalry then you will probably have to delay castles if you wanted the production bonus.
Before Alhambra buff I usually went physics -> machinery and then took chivalry because of how important siege/ranged are and for earlier armories to keep supply cap up.
I still don't really see a need to build castles THAT early.

I think going 2 fealty -> something else was a lot better when castles were +2 (was it hammers before?).
There's maybe situations which could justify an artistry/fealty split.

I have however not made any indepth extensive comparisons with Fealty vs Artistry and Statecraft I just usually go artistry or statecraft with certain civs that get UA/UB benefits from those.
 
The 50% bonus to internal routes is very powerful. If you send 4 or 5 production routes to your capital you have a pretty good chance of building 4 or 5 of the Renaissance wonders.

I think it has more to do with internal trade routes having no restriction of how many internal routes a city can receive. If it were restricted to receiving only one internal route from your empire, wonderwhoring with ITRs wouldn't be such a thing. Not sure it's a problem, though.
 
I think we need to fine tune all of fealty, statecraft, and artistry, and the major changes in settling and food/growth have affected them a lot.

I think they are all pickable, but fealty is overall the strongest. The 50% bonus to internal routes is very powerful. If you send 4 or 5 production routes to your capital you have a pretty good chance of building 4 or 5 of the Renaissance wonders. I agree the armory castle/bonus comes a bit late.

I think the -1 unhappiness from urbanization is out of place in Fealty and fits better in artistry.
Fealty's bonus religious pressure is very, very good and one of the most powerful aspects of the tree, I wouldn't call it a niche bonus. Regardless, I really don't want +1 faith on religious buildings. I usually have more faith than I really want by the mid-game, temples have 5 each after the grand temple, and even if you don't care about faith you should still build temples and grand temples because the 2 culture per city is essential.

I agree with you that Fealty feels pretty strong right now. I'll note that overall I think my tree is a bit weaker than the current base because many of the bonuses are pushed deeper into the tree.

The religious pressure is a niche bonus compared to a more general pressure bonus. It only works when your under pressured, and it only matters when your still trying to spread. A more general bonus both helps you to spreads and fortifies your own bonuses...helping with things like follower bonuses. That said, I am not married to the extra +1 faith to buildings, I am fine with another bonus, but I do think organized religion needs a little something extra.
 
I think we need to fine tune all of fealty, statecraft, and artistry, and the major changes in settling and food/growth have affected them a lot.

I think they are all pickable, but fealty is overall the strongest. The 50% bonus to internal routes is very powerful. If you send 4 or 5 production routes to your capital you have a pretty good chance of building 4 or 5 of the Renaissance wonders. I agree the armory castle/bonus comes a bit late.

I think the -1 unhappiness from urbanization is out of place in Fealty and fits better in artistry.
Fealty's bonus religious pressure is very, very good and one of the most powerful aspects of the tree, I wouldn't call it a niche bonus. Regardless, I really don't want +1 faith on religious buildings. I usually have more faith than I really want by the mid-game, temples have 5 each after the grand temple, and even if you don't care about faith you should still build temples and grand temples because the 2 culture per city is essential.

It's on my fine tune list with this next version - overall the food changes are settling in nicely.

G
 
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