Going for Gold: Policies

[InkAxis]

Progress is peaceful wide. We don't want to completely rework progress.

Some good buffs to make new cities more valuable is all that's needed.

(I'll reiterate, but TR do a really good job at getting new cities up and running, and the gold you were complaining about....)

 

[notaspambot]

Then, we have the weird focus of Progress. Fraternity encourages you to expand due to yields from City Connections but each new City makes techs more expensive so that 3 Science has diminishing return with each City you put down. This also means that we are getting diminishing returns on the Culture from the opener. The left side policy are there to improve your Cities as opposed to expanding further. Therefore, Progress is better for tall playstyle then.

Specifically on this point, isn't the tech cost increase from owned cities an additive multiplier, meaning that the +3 is not diminished at all? A new city would still dilute your science output by virtue of having less infrastructure/yields in the first place, but the +3 would be just as valuable on the first city as it is on the 100th one.

 

[amateurgamer88]

Progress is peaceful wide. We don't want to completely rework progress.

Some good buffs to make new cities more valuable is all that's needed.

(I'll reiterate, but TR do a really good job at getting new cities up and running, and the gold you were complaining about....)

TR isn't that good, lol. First, you need to go Trade and build a Caravan which means you must go a set path which, depending on your starting location and luxuries, can be suboptimal. Secondly, I'd go Progress, assuming it's peaceful wide, if there is a lot of territory to expand to. More territory means more Barbarian and a Caravan will get pillaged by Barbarians. That TR isn't very useful if I can't keep the Caravan safe...

Specifically on this point, isn't the tech cost increase from owned cities an additive multiplier, meaning that the +3 is not diminished at all? A new city would still dilute your science output by virtue of having less infrastructure/yields in the first place, but the +3 would be just as valuable on the first city as it is on the 100th one.

I'm not certain if it's additive multiplier but it's still true that a new City will delay your techs and that will slow down your rate of getting policies.

 

[Stalker0]

Quoting myself from teh discord:

So on Progress, I am a big progress player, Peaceful wide is my favorite style, so I have a lot of experience with it. I've also done side by side comparisons of Tradition and Progress using the same start to get a deeper understanding. I think people underestimate the general bonuses of Progress. Progress has a few key strengths: 1) It has a very solid early game science. I always tech faster as progress than tradition for all of the early game into mid game. 2) Once you get the closer Progress does generate a good bit more gold than the other trees. 3) Progress' cities become "operational" faster than either other tree. You get a solid hammer and food base combined with the extra gold for more infrastructure buys. While its true Tradition can expand quicker than progress initially, Progress very quickly matches and then exceeds, because Progress' secondary cities very quickly become capable of good settler production as well. So with Tradition I often have to balance my capital with settler production, with progress its quite simple to shift that burden to satellites and let my capital start to grow back up. So all of that to say is.... Progress' early game is just fine. You expand fast, your cities develop quicker, and you get a tech head start.(edited)
[10:05 PM]
If Progress has any issues, its more in the mid game. Happiness I think is a problem for Progress still, that food is great when your city is getting started, and useful when your cranking out settlers. But after that phase its hard to grow up your cities without happiness issues. Science Wise, CrazyG did a good breakdown of how Tradition starts to overtake Progress in terms of science yields later in the game, and I agree. So while I tech faster as progress initially, you start to lose that lead and eventually I think Tradition does tech quicker. So my recommendation: Any change to progress should be considered with its Closer. The tree itself doesn't need anything, I really think its fine. If you really want to change something in Progress, you could add something to the closer so it doesn't pop up too early in the game, but does help the tree continue to push later in the game. As for the TR idea, I generally liked the concept, especially since Progress is often a natural fit for the "TR focused" civs like Portugal, Morocco, etc.

 

[Thibix Magnus]

Quoting myself from teh discord:

So on Progress, I am a big progress player, Peaceful wide is my favorite style, so I have a lot of experience with it. I've also done side by side comparisons of Tradition and Progress using the same start to get a deeper understanding. I think people underestimate the general bonuses of Progress. Progress has a few key strengths: 1) It has a very solid early game science. I always tech faster as progress than tradition for all of the early game into mid game. 2) Once you get the closer Progress does generate a good bit more gold than the other trees. 3) Progress' cities become "operational" faster than either other tree. You get a solid hammer and food base combined with the extra gold for more infrastructure buys. While its true Tradition can expand quicker than progress initially, Progress very quickly matches and then exceeds, because Progress' secondary cities very quickly become capable of good settler production as well. So with Tradition I often have to balance my capital with settler production, with progress its quite simple to shift that burden to satellites and let my capital start to grow back up. So all of that to say is.... Progress' early game is just fine. You expand fast, your cities develop quicker, and you get a tech head start.(edited)
[10:05 PM]
If Progress has any issues, its more in the mid game. Happiness I think is a problem for Progress still, that food is great when your city is getting started, and useful when your cranking out settlers. But after that phase its hard to grow up your cities without happiness issues. Science Wise, CrazyG did a good breakdown of how Tradition starts to overtake Progress in terms of science yields later in the game, and I agree. So while I tech faster as progress initially, you start to lose that lead and eventually I think Tradition does tech quicker. So my recommendation: Any change to progress should be considered with its Closer. The tree itself doesn't need anything, I really think its fine. If you really want to change something in Progress, you could add something to the closer so it doesn't pop up too early in the game, but does help the tree continue to push later in the game. As for the TR idea, I generally liked the concept, especially since Progress is often a natural fit for the "TR focused" civs like Portugal, Morocco, etc.

how about the option to somewhat reintroduce the vanilla liberty signature perk, lowering the culture (and/or in that case science) cost per added city? From -5% to -4% or even -3%? If scaling is the issue, that's some good long-term, wide empire scaling.

The other aspect (repeating my previous post): progress is often compared with tradition, less so with authority. Does everyone think that the authority "wide" play should not be touched and that it is exclusively progress that still needs to find its niche? If that's the case I won't further insist, and maybe the latest buff to expertise was enough in that regard. But I feel like authority still has the flexibility to go wide and adapt to surprises, without needing to anihilate a neighbour. The production means you can get your buildings running earlier and mitigate unhappiness. Weanwhile wide expansion is very likely to lead to war in higher difficulties, meaning authority always seems worth it in such cases.

This remains an intuition though, and it is harder to precisely compare progress with authority instead of tradition, because more depends on war which has more randomness. On the other hand progress hinges on avoiding early war, which is also hard to test systematically. So I wonder if it is not the authority scaler that should be changed, or at least somehow pushing authority slighlty more towards war (e.g. better unit maintenance discount, and shifting production bonus in all cities as reward from killing/conquering).

 

[Stalker0]

how about the option to somewhat reintroduce the vanilla liberty signature perk, lowering the culture (and/or in that case science) cost per added city? From -5% to -4% or even -3%? If scaling is the issue, that's some good long-term, wide empire scaling.

Its an option but I don't think Progress needs that much help, and changing the scaling has a LOT of snowball potential. So I consider it the nuclear option, I think there are tweaks we could make before that if the community really does think it needs tweaking.

I think its time to put up a poll to see what the community thinks before we continue too much further here. I'll set it up.

 

[Legen]

Progress's concept is simple: have more science than everyone else and capitalize on it with your superior ability to set up the extra buildings and improvements that you keep unlocking over the other trees. In this regard, Progress resembles Babylon, with their high early science output and improved investment capability.

This is why Progress tends to do well with economic civs, doubly so if that civ has either a good source of science (e.g. Portugal), or synergy with Fraternity (Carthage, Iroquois). Good science output ensures that their better economy isn't wasted on having nothing left to build,

The real issue is Progress's scaling. The tree falls behind Tradition once the latter has its finisher, enough food to work its scientists, and especially if it gets the University of Sankore. The infrastructure bonus is also questionable, as Tradition has an easier time getting golden ages for a bigger production boost. Progress needs to have its scaling ability improved, especially on the science part.

And reiterating myself, Progress is the only tree without a 4th effect in the finisher. All the other eight trees have four effects, Progress has three and can gain a fourth one.

 

[InkAxis]

TR isn't that good, lol. First, you need to go Trade and build a Caravan which means you must go a set path which, depending on your starting location and luxuries, can be suboptimal. Secondly, I'd go Progress, assuming it's peaceful wide, if there is a lot of territory to expand to. More territory means more Barbarian and a Caravan will get pillaged by Barbarians. That TR isn't very useful if I can't keep the Caravan safe...

Well, it can be pretty strong, particularly on higher difficulties. Last time I was advocating for it some people said it was too much. Also, I'm assuming it would be on the closer, so you would probably already have Trade.

Generally I feel like there is a wide variety of opinions on Progress. Your opinion is on the higher end with a complete overhaul but there are some that don't think it needs to be changed (edit: looking at the poll actually seems like many more - it feels like most people commenting in this thread have some issue with progress but barely any in the poll, at least for now). I think a small buff could be good, so the fact that TR aren't that strong is fine. They can be used in many powerful enough ways.

 

[Stalker0]

(edit: looking at the poll actually seems like many more - it feels like most people commenting in this thread have some issue with progress but barely any in the poll, at least for now).

I wouldn't use such early poll results to come to any conclusions. I give these polls 3 weeks for a reason, it takes a bit of time to collect enough responses to actually get a viable outcome.

 

[azum4roll]

I'm ok with a special effect on Progress finisher, but
1. it should not be +1 Trade Route;
2. it's accompanied by a slight Great Writer culture nerf.

The effect should be something that benefits from having more cities.

I disagree on Progress lacking gold. I usually have more gold as Progress than as Tradition.

 

[chicorbeef]

Does the Rationalism policy Free Thought need that Admiral bonus on Luxuries? Why not move it back to Imperialism? I don't think I would ever take it into consideration when picking Rationalism, Imperialism unlocks faith buying Admirals and is basically the navy tree so it would fit much better there.

 

[Rekk]

Does the Rationalism policy Free Thought need that Admiral bonus on Luxuries? Why not move it back to Imperialism? I don't think I would ever take it into consideration when picking Rationalism, Imperialism unlocks faith buying Admirals and is basically the navy tree so it would fit much better there.

What was the reason that it moved to Rationalism?

 

[pineappledan]

What was the reason that it moved to Rationalism?

because imperialism can’t have all the cool toys. Rationalism is just most yields without a few weird utility picks like the GA expend boost

 

[chicorbeef]

because imperialism can’t have all the cool toys. Rationalism is just most yields without a few weird utility picks like the GA expend boost

This particular utility pick makes way more sense on Imperialism though. We can replace it with something else if Rationalism needs it.

 

[chicorbeef]

It's a little tweak, but what if we changed Industry's Protectionism bonus to be +10%/ from WLTKD rather than /? Industry is tempting when going for a CV due to the Trade Routes and Broadway and the fact that it has the only +% Culture bonuses out of the three industrial trees, but I feel like it could still use a bit more of a push in that direction, and the current WLTKD bonus in Industry feels like a discount Rationalism finisher.

 

[Stalker0]

It's a little tweak, but what if we changed Industry's Protectionism bonus to be +10%/ from WLTKD rather than /? Industry is tempting when going for a CV due to the Trade Routes and Broadway and the fact that it has the only +% Culture bonuses out of the three industrial trees, but I feel like it could still use a bit more of a push in that direction, and the current WLTKD bonus in Industry feels like a discount Rationalism finisher.

Let’s call this what it is. WLTKD are fairly easy for industry players to maintain, so this is a 5-10% boost to your entire civs culture.

happy to debate the idea, but a “little tweak” it is not

 

[chicorbeef]

Let’s call this what it is. WLTKD are fairly easy for industry players to maintain, so this is a 5-10% boost to your entire civs culture.

happy to debate the idea, but a “little tweak” it is not

Fair enough, you could say it's not that small a change.

I still think it's a good change and helps define Industry more as a strong Culture tree. I don't think Industry is overpowered at the moment, for both the AI and the player.

 

[CppMaster]

Let’s call this what it is. WLTKD are fairly easy for industry players to maintain, so this is a 5-10% boost to your entire civs culture.

happy to debate the idea, but a “little tweak” it is not

Also, there are plenty of numbers between 0% and 10%