The topic of Industrial Era trees has come up again. Of the 3 trees, the only one I am a bit disatisfied with is Imperalism. And Its not the balance of the tree per say....when Imperalism is leveraged to its fullest, its quite powerful. But I think the tree has a few flaws we can address.
What is the purpose of this tree?
Always a core important question. I see Imperalsim as having 2 strong niches, and one minor one.
1) Either continue an Authority war play into a total war domination style. Or pivot into a late game power warring faction.
2) Support a wide civ sprawled across various land masses and islands (aka lots of water).
3) Give benefit on big lux/monopoly plays. (more minor than the first two).
What is the issue with the tree?
Ultimately, as a war tree I think Imperalism is fine (aka niche 1). It lets you war powerfully with your GGs/GAs and big navy. Gives you lots of war benefits, as well as benefits for all of the puppets you conquer. In terms of war, the tree is fine, and no changes are needed.
Its really niche 2 and 3 I want to look at:
1) The tree doesn't provide enough support for a more peaceful water expansion (ala through pioneers in the age of sail).
2) The Colonialsm policy is too swingy in power (and therefore creates a massive swing in the power of Imperalism's economy). In some games, it can give you +10% in 3 yields if you play it right. In other, its a small handful of yields barely worth discussing.
Changes to Discuss
Here are some of my thoughts on changes around those areas:
1) Civilizing Mission: Remove the restriction on Puppets/Courthouses
A small change in mechanic that has a big impact in game. For warring civs this does almost nothing, but it represents a big boost to players doing peaceful expansion in the mid to late game....giving them a large production bonus to help new cities "catchup" in infrastructure to older ones. Imperalism allows new cities to develop quicker vs Industry generates big yield bonuses for infrastructure....so its a key difference to decide how you want to play it. This solidies Imperalism as not just a "war tree", but gives it a real purpose for players wanting to go Age of Sail big expansion.
2) Colonalism: Change "+10% to exisiting monoloy, +3 to monopoly" to "Give +5% Science, Culture, and Gold for every monopoly you possess".
Now for this one, the % bonus and which yields I am very open to debate. The crux though is that the bonus moves away from the type of monopoloy you get (which is largely RNG related) and shifts into the amount of monopolies. More monopolies = more bonus, but the bonus is always good and meaty....never crazy, but its consistent.
This gives a very niche bonus for players who get a lot of monopologies, but doesn't overpower some monopoly play and underpower others. This creates a lot more consistency in the Economic benefit of the tree.
(I am not as gung ho on this change, I think it would be good, but its a bit more outside of the core needs).
3) Martial Law: Add "+2 defense for every water tile touching a city"
The idea here is....though Imperalism has a bigger navy than most civs, supply is a very big limitation, and its hard to have a "real navy" everywhere in the world. Island cities are PAINFULLY hard to defend, so much so it can remove otherwise great city options because its simply not possible to hold spots from any passing navy before you come to intercept.
The idea here is to give a bit more defense to island going cities. Your land cities won't see much difference, but an island city gets a nice boost of defense to at least stall out an enemy force to give you navy time to respond. Once again this help augment niche 2 of a large island based civ that is one of the tenents of Imperalism.
What is the purpose of this tree?
Always a core important question. I see Imperalsim as having 2 strong niches, and one minor one.
1) Either continue an Authority war play into a total war domination style. Or pivot into a late game power warring faction.
2) Support a wide civ sprawled across various land masses and islands (aka lots of water).
3) Give benefit on big lux/monopoly plays. (more minor than the first two).
What is the issue with the tree?
Ultimately, as a war tree I think Imperalism is fine (aka niche 1). It lets you war powerfully with your GGs/GAs and big navy. Gives you lots of war benefits, as well as benefits for all of the puppets you conquer. In terms of war, the tree is fine, and no changes are needed.
Its really niche 2 and 3 I want to look at:
1) The tree doesn't provide enough support for a more peaceful water expansion (ala through pioneers in the age of sail).
2) The Colonialsm policy is too swingy in power (and therefore creates a massive swing in the power of Imperalism's economy). In some games, it can give you +10% in 3 yields if you play it right. In other, its a small handful of yields barely worth discussing.
Changes to Discuss
Here are some of my thoughts on changes around those areas:
1) Civilizing Mission: Remove the restriction on Puppets/Courthouses
A small change in mechanic that has a big impact in game. For warring civs this does almost nothing, but it represents a big boost to players doing peaceful expansion in the mid to late game....giving them a large production bonus to help new cities "catchup" in infrastructure to older ones. Imperalism allows new cities to develop quicker vs Industry generates big yield bonuses for infrastructure....so its a key difference to decide how you want to play it. This solidies Imperalism as not just a "war tree", but gives it a real purpose for players wanting to go Age of Sail big expansion.
2) Colonalism: Change "+10% to exisiting monoloy, +3 to monopoly" to "Give +5% Science, Culture, and Gold for every monopoly you possess".
Now for this one, the % bonus and which yields I am very open to debate. The crux though is that the bonus moves away from the type of monopoloy you get (which is largely RNG related) and shifts into the amount of monopolies. More monopolies = more bonus, but the bonus is always good and meaty....never crazy, but its consistent.
This gives a very niche bonus for players who get a lot of monopologies, but doesn't overpower some monopoly play and underpower others. This creates a lot more consistency in the Economic benefit of the tree.
(I am not as gung ho on this change, I think it would be good, but its a bit more outside of the core needs).
3) Martial Law: Add "+2 defense for every water tile touching a city"
The idea here is....though Imperalism has a bigger navy than most civs, supply is a very big limitation, and its hard to have a "real navy" everywhere in the world. Island cities are PAINFULLY hard to defend, so much so it can remove otherwise great city options because its simply not possible to hold spots from any passing navy before you come to intercept.
The idea here is to give a bit more defense to island going cities. Your land cities won't see much difference, but an island city gets a nice boost of defense to at least stall out an enemy force to give you navy time to respond. Once again this help augment niche 2 of a large island based civ that is one of the tenents of Imperalism.
Oh and make this ability locked behind Imperialism finisher of course (come to think of it, maybe not)
