Industry, 7 flaws

[CrazyG]

I did it in my previous message, didn't i? It is Broadway+trade routes+more production to build stuff easier. What Rationalism does for tourism victory? More science? Its useless after you get to Radio, if you do things right, you win tourism earlier than Internet anyway, and Sydney Opera is useless, cause by that time you either won or use your Great Musicians as touristic nukes anyway

Science directly provides tourism by unlocking techs such as radio earlier. You save a game at the renaissance tree unlock and try it, I'm very confident rationalism will get its broadcast towers first. You just don't build stuff like customs houses or banks everywhere and gain production that way. Growth actually provides tourism as well, because of things like zoos, culture tiles, and broadcast towers. Science allows you to build wonders and generate historic events. Rationalism buff to trading posts also provides tourism, because culture on tile improvements gets converted into tourism by various effects (culture on buildings does not). I think rationalism is much stronger in terms of culture, that free golden age being a great culture boost while industry's culture is very weak

I'm more worried about the difficult games, where an enemy manages to survive my tourism bombardment (which very often means that AI is hostile to me), not games where I win via tourism as soon as I get an ideology (though I think rationalism can unlock ideology faster anyways). In these situations, neither musicians or trade routes are consistent sources of tourism. I find it really difficult to get a trade route to complete around this stage of the game, those free trade routes complete at most once which isn't worth that much tourism.

Broadway is good for tourism, but I think its too little too late. Bleh park is bleh, I won't disagree there, but I don't think broadway carries the tree.

Industry is the Quantity policy versus Rationalism is Quality policy. More soldiers, more infrastructure and more gold to support them. You will not have most advanced soldiers but more of whatever you get.

In theory yes, but I never have issues fielding a large enough army as rationalism. I really hope G increases late game unit costs, because IMO its way too cheap to purchase. If purchase costs were higher, industry would be stronger

 

[tu_79]

Gold purchases for new units and buildings should be higher, and upgrade costs should be a bit lower.

I really hope G increases late game unit costs

I still haven't finished any game where I was fighting so I can't really say, but it looks like the right movement regarding gameplay. Same limited units, less micromanagement. It's a buff to Industrialism as well as a nerf to Imperialism. If this is tweaked, then upgrading discount should be looked at too.

 

[pineappledan]

I really like your OP, Gokudo, and I think you make some great points.

As of now, Progress -> Fealty is the only policy tree configuration that I would imagine would prompt someone to pick Industry due to the synergies. It's strange because Industry is centered on flexibility and infrastructure, but if I choose to pick it, it's because I felt railroaded to do so.

Some ideas:
Adopting Industry: 15 gold each time you construct a building. +1 production and +1 culture from city connections (remove reduction in build cost)
Free Trade: +5 gold from International Trade Routes. Barbarians cannot plunder your trade routes. Poverty Threshold reduced by 20% in all Cities
Mercantilism: +2 culture and +2 science on banks, +20% yields from internal trade routes (remove yields on stock exchange)
Entrepreneurship: Great Merchants are earned 25% faster. +1 production from every Mine, Quarry and Lumbermill, increased to +2 production and +2 gold if adjacent to a Town. (Removed gold from mines, quarries, lumbermills)
Protectionism: Replace with 'Marketplace of Ideas' - 2 additional trade routes. +1 gold on your trade routes for every 1 science received from destination, +2 gold on your trade routes for every 1 science you provide to destination.

Fealty - Burghers: Replace with 'Ecclesiastical Property' - Can purchase tiles with faith. +15% production during WLTKD (removed double border expansion on WLTKD)

Point 1 - Both Marketplace of ideas and the change to Free Trade would satisfy this
Point 2 - Entrepreneurship would be a slight nerf, but would address the lack of interactivity with GMs
Point 3 - Removing bonuses from stock exchange mitigates this. I agree that having bonuses to both factories and stock exchanges is a bit much, but I can't justify removing all bonuses to factories from the industry tree.
Point 4 - +culture on city connections would help. Not a fan of adding 100% construction bonuses to the buildings in question; you'd build them just for the gold on construction. Additionally, none of these buildings have maintenance, so there's no reason NOT to.
Point 5 - Removing -5% build cost on opener would downgrade the scaler somewhat. I really like the current finisher, personally
Point 6 - My proposed change to fealty wouldn't affect the %production, your main complaint, but it wouldn't make WLTKD as good all-around
Point 7 - I don't really get how this isn't just reiterating point 1

 

[Gazebo]

Looking at Industry, I'm going to make just a select few changes (we're not reformatting branches any more, just tweaking numbers):

Mercantilism: Markets, Caravansaries, Customs Houses, Banks, and Stock Exchanges generate +2% Science and Culture each.
Division of Labor: Windmills, Workshops, and Factories generate +5% Production and Gold each.

Simple changes, but helps Industry stand out a bit more as the go-to branch for infrastructure.
I'm also going to reduce the upgrade cost a bit in the later part of the game, while also increasing the gold cost of units in the late-game.

G

 

[Owlbebach]

Looking at Industry, I'm going to make just a select few changes (we're not reformatting branches any more, just tweaking numbers):

Mercantilism: Markets, Caravansaries, Customs Houses, Banks, and Stock Exchanges generate +2% Science and Culture each.
Division of Labor: Windmills, Workshops, and Factories generate +5% Production and Gold each.

Simple changes, but helps Industry stand out a bit more as the go-to branch for infrastructure.
I'm also going to reduce the upgrade cost a bit in the later part of the game, while also increasing the gold cost of units in the late-game.

G

Maybe give Bank additional convertion of invested money to culture and/or increase % of money converted into science? I like the idea of Industry that makes money more important than production

EDIT: I'm pretty sure that Bank should have +5 in Industry. Not a big deal, but quite funny. People who worship money

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

I agree with the OP that Industry doesn't give you something special.
However, it does give you happyness, production and money. I prefer those over something flashy most of the time. Rationalism has the huge flaw that it doesn't give you a source of happiness (unless you have massive religious trouble, which is very conditional).

I do think however, that the bank yould use a buff. I think it is really bad right now, but then again I don't really invest/buy that much.

 

[Galbias]

One thought I had was that maybe the production to <yield> rate could be boosted a bit on the finisher, percentage bonuses on those buildings might help a bit though.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Rationalism does have a sort of happiness bonus, with granting culture and science to villages. It usually decreases happiness at least somewhat.

 

[Txurce]

Rationalism does have a sort of happiness bonus, with granting culture and science to villages. It usually decreases happiness at least somewhat.

Rationalism also reduces religious discontent.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

That too, yes. I find rationalism a decent source of reduced unhappiness, and considering Pacifism is imho one of the best enhancers (and one that rarely gets taken by the AI), I don't think the Industry's advantage in happiness is that much of a factor, since I usually manage to take and benefit from Pacifism.

 

[Txurce]

That too, yes. I find rationalism a decent source of reduced unhappiness, and considering Pacifism is imho one of the best enhancers (and one that rarely gets taken by the AI), I don't think the Industry's advantage in happiness is that much of a factor, since I usually manage to take and benefit from Pacifism.

I do exactly the same thing. Every now and then I get cocky and go with Sainthood (het, it's still available!), but am usually sorry.

 

[tu_79]

That too, yes. I find rationalism a decent source of reduced unhappiness, and considering Pacifism is imho one of the best enhancers (and one that rarely gets taken by the AI), I don't think the Industry's advantage in happiness is that much of a factor, since I usually manage to take and benefit from Pacifism.

I won't say this doesn't work, but pacifism requires a couple of things to be useful: a decent faith production and non founding friendly sizeable neighbours. This excludes non religious tall civs (the kind that benefit most from rationalism) and aggressive ones.
Moreso, the extra happiness is most useful for growing population, one or two extra golden age are not that great. But rationalism (and industrialism through extra great merchants) only gives extra growth, not extra food. So if you want the civ to grow further, you'll need food. You'll want your workers to work on farms and seafood mostly. This goes against spamming villages and working on them.
Other option is to use your extra happiness for expanding, but then your neighbours might stop being friendly.
Also, if you have the faith power to convert so many of your neighbours, religious divisions are not a problem.

Of course, there is a middle ground were it kind of works, but the synergy is not complete.

So, having Industrialism take care of happiness release you from having to pick Pacifism (and you can get something else with extra whatever), which anyways doesn't synergize that well with Rationalism.

 

[CrazyG]

I won't say this doesn't work, but pacifism requires a couple of things to be useful: a decent faith production and non founding friendly sizeable neighbours. This excludes non religious tall civs (the kind that benefit most from rationalism) and aggressive ones.
Moreso, the extra happiness is most useful for growing population, one or two extra golden age are not that great. But rationalism (and industrialism through extra great merchants) only gives extra growth, not extra food. So if you want the civ to grow further, you'll need food. You'll want your workers to work on farms and seafood mostly. This goes against spamming villages and working on them.
Other option is to use your extra happiness for expanding, but then your neighbours might stop being friendly.
Also, if you have the faith power to convert so many of your neighbours, religious divisions are not a problem.

Of course, there is a middle ground were it kind of works, but the synergy is not complete.

So, having Industrialism take care of happiness release you from having to pick Pacifism (and you can get something else with extra whatever), which anyways doesn't synergize that well with Rationalism.

I work very few farms after I get that Rationalism village policy (especially with Cathedral nerf). I don't think its a wise choice to push for growth while sacrificing culture/science at that stage of the game (of course there are exceptions). I find it kind of hard not to grow cities in VP

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Tu_79, I agree with several points you've made, but overall I still think that for a non-warmonger, industry's happiness bonuses aren't that crucial compared to rationalism's. Rationalism decreases unhappiness from religious divisions, boredom and illiteracy (and also slightly poverty, I think, due to specialists gaining +1 gold). Furthermore, if you've managed to found a religion (which ought to be a very important goal for any non-warmonger), you can often get churches (which are paramount in spreading your faith) and pacifism (not only gives you happiness, but decreases costs of missionaries, further helping spreading and increasing happiness), and I've almost never seen the AI pick the "One world, one religion" reformation belief (where missionaries act like mini-prophets). With a combo of pacifism&one world, one religion, it's very easy to spread religion to the 4 AIs that haven't founded (and which will never be angry at you for spreading your religion to them) and thus gain a lot of happiness. Lots of happiness means that you can afford to sell more luxuries (giving you more money), that you can ignore building some buildings that you would otherwise build to reduce unhappiness (thus saving you money/production), work more specialists etc. Extra growth can be a big boon if you're friends with 2 or 3 maritime city states or if you pick Mandirs or the food follower belief (or if you haven't founded a religion, if a religion has spread to you with Mandirs/food follower belief).

Churches are imho OP. Pacifism seems one of the best enhancers for a non-warmonger (1 happiness imho is worth much more than 1c/1s or 1g/1f per followers, especially in the later game, and it helps you spread more than the enhancers helping with the passive spread). One world, one religion is uber-strong for spreading your religion (and another bonus is that it doesn't really benefit the AI you've spread your religion to, whereas other reformations can turn out to benefit the AI more than you as the founder). If you manage to get pacifism + one world, one religion (and the AI very rarely takes either of them), you'll be having lots of happiness, and if you get churches, it will be even better. And that removes a huge reason for taking industry as opposed to rationalism.

Again, that's just my opinion, but when I'm playing a non-warmonger game where I'm a founder, I see little reason to go with industry instead of rationalism.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Gazebo, I like the change to the division of labour, but with mercantilism, I'd rather see a bonus only to markets, banks and stock exchanges, as they're the more commonly built buildings of the bunch. The +2% bonus imho won't be an extra reason enough to build caravansaries and customs houses. So I'd rather see a +2% science&culture to markets and +4% to banks and stock exchanges.

 

[Enginseer]

Gazebo, I like the change to the division of labour, but with mercantilism, I'd rather see a bonus only to markets, banks and stock exchanges, as they're the more commonly built buildings of the bunch. The +2% bonus imho won't be an extra reason enough to build caravansaries and customs houses. So I'd rather see a +2% science&culture to markets and +4% to banks and stock exchanges.

That's the point to build caravansaries and custom houses. If Gazebo just buffed banks and stock exchanges, you would just ignore them as usual.

 

[CrazyG]

Is 2% culture even a buff over 2 culture? You need 100 culture per turn (without modifiers) to break even. If you factor modifiers like golden ages or happiness, the breaking point is even higher. IDK how the rounding works, but I know you won't earn decimal values for culture.

The caravansary is a weak enough base building that even when you add the culture and science its still bad. I'm not saying it needs to change per say, its a fine building to put in a capital or trade hub. I like how buildings like banks or custom houses are more niche, rather than having all buildings in every city

 

[Enginseer]

Is 2% culture even a buff over 2 culture? You need 100 culture per turn (without modifiers) to break even. If you factor modifiers like golden ages or happiness, the breaking point is even higher. IDK how the rounding works, but I know you won't earn decimal values for culture.

The caravansary is a weak enough base building that even when you add the culture and science its still bad. I'm not saying it needs to change per say, its a fine building to put in a capital or trade hub. I like how buildings like banks or custom houses are more niche, rather than having all buildings in every city

+10% of any modifier will always scale harder than +6 of the same yield. Since Industry is a late game tree, modifiers are automatically a win-win.

 

[CrazyG]

+10% of any modifier will always scale harder than +6 of the same yield. Since Industry is a late game tree, modifiers are automatically a win-win.

So doesn't that mean that 2% of something only is worth 1.2 of that yield? I think its going to round down for culture, so just 1. By modern era it might be stronger, but immediately its going to be weaker or just as weak as it is now.

Feel free to explain what I'm missing, I don't think this is really a very large buff, if its a buff at all

 

[Owlbebach]

That's the point to build caravansaries and custom houses. If Gazebo just buffed banks and stock exchanges, you would just ignore them as usual.

They will be kinda useless anyway, 2% is too small. Lets say your city produces 50 and 100 per turn, which is quite a lot, then you get 1 +2 from them, it is just nothing.

EDIT: My internet broke, so my post came later than it should be, CrazyG already pointed it out