Is bottom half of EXPLORATION any good for a warmongerer?

[El Caballerion]

I find that the first 3 choices for EXPLORATION (+1 movement, +1 LOS/ +1 happiness for each lighthouse, seaport, & harbor/ +3 production in coastal cities) is good for a warring empire on a heavy ocean map, but the last 3 choices in the tree (below) are just terrible; mainly because GAs are decent but nothing special, the gold bonus in negligible and you cant have sea trade routes if you are warmongering because they get destroyed easily.

• Navigation School: A Great Admiral appears. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Great Admirals are earned 25% faster. Requires Naval Tradition.
• Merchant Navy: +1 Gold for each Harbor, Seaport or Lighthouse. Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Naval Tradition.
• Treasure Fleets: +4 Gold from all your sea trade routes. Requires Merchant Navy.

Thoughts?

 

[MKDELTA3]

I don't like the Great Admiral policy, Merchant Navy is in my opinion pretty solid if you've build a ton of naval infrastructure and have a lot of sea resources and Treasure Fleets is really nice if the majority of your trade routes are sea routes. I haven't yet been in a war where I didn't at least have city states to trade with relative safety.

I like the tree but it comes at such an awkward time when I don't usualy have too much culture to spend on social policies.

 

[Kintara]

The Great Admiral rate was bumped up to 50% in the patch.

"Merchant Navy now provides +4 Culture and +4 Production in the city with the East India Company."

Also there's this (for the sake of completeness): "Great Works of Writing (like the Rosetta Stone) now available from 30% of the Hidden Antiquity Sites. An alternative use of these is to create a "Cultural Renaissance" (equal to a Great Writer's Political Treatise)."

Do those changes make finishing the tree worth it for a warmonger? Meh. More Culture boosts are good. Great Admiral healing can certainly help win wars.

 

[kaspergm]

I think if you're going full-on warmonger, you'd probably get a better bang for the buck by putting those last policies into Autocracy (would probably be open by then) or I guess alternatively fill in a couple of Rationalism policies if you need to spend some policies before Ideologies open (who can't use a bit more science?). I think the lower half of Exploration is overall very average (at best), and while the hidden sites are really great when you get the cultural revolution ones (and can well bring back the culture you've invested in those policies if you go aggressively for them), what this requires is putting out a lot of archaeologists. If you're heavy warmongering, I suspect you'll rather put your production into something else than spewing out archaeologists, although admittedly the benefits of having cultural dominance over someone when capturing their cities is not insignificant.

So is it any good? Well, yes, it's always some good - but I don't think it's likely to be the best choice under those circumstances.

 

[bbbt]

I'm not sure the last three policies are the best choice for anybody, warmonger or not. I play cultural more often than not, and I think I've completed exploration for the finisher maybe once.

The first 3 you mention are often worth it on coastal maps, but yeah, the rest are pretty 'meh'. The Great Admiral isn't so useful, and the other two - +3 gold per city and essentially +20-32 gold per turn (by the end of the game) aren't bad but aren't that exceptional. And the finisher is also pretty meager.

 

[Kintara]

I'm not sure the last three policies are the best choice for anybody, warmonger or not. I play cultural more often than not, and I think I've completed exploration for the finisher maybe once.

Well, those cultural renaissances could make a pretty big difference, in my opinion. I still think it's "meh," but it's a more ambivalent "meh." I guess it mainly depends on how culturally defensible you feel you are, and whether anyone else is competing for the sites. There's no point in investing in Autocracy if the pressure is destroying your happiness edge, though.

 

[sendos]

The Great Admiral rate was bumped up to 50% in the patch.

"Merchant Navy now provides +4 Culture and +4 Production in the city with the East India Company."

Also there's this (for the sake of completeness): "Great Works of Writing (like the Rosetta Stone) now available from 30% of the Hidden Antiquity Sites. An alternative use of these is to create a "Cultural Renaissance" (equal to a Great Writer's Political Treatise)."

Do those changes make finishing the tree worth it for a warmonger? Meh. More Culture boosts are good. Great Admiral healing can certainly help win wars.

That would be a very nice way to buff archaeology. I also recommend a doubled theming bonuses from archaeological works stored in the same museum/wonder as a finisher policy. Other ideas to buff exploration and commerce finisher are +1 trade route.

 

[Browd]

Give Exploration essentially the same finisher as Aesthetics, but only for 100% artifact themes (i.e., museums)?

Aesthetics finisher: "Adopting all policies doubles the theming bonus you receive from Museums and Wonders."

Seems like an unlikely choice for Firaxis to make.

 

[sendos]

Give Exploration essentially the same finisher as Aesthetics, but only for 100% artifact themes (i.e., museums)?

Aesthetics finisher: "Adopting all policies doubles the theming bonus you receive from Museums and Wonders."

Seems like an unlikely choice for Firaxis to make.

True, yet the only way to get the Louvre is to unlock exploration and the exploration finisher reveals hidden sites, so my idea is designed to make archaeology more attractive. Also, France is buffed in the process. If they get Louvre, finish aestethics, finish exploration (with my idea in place) that's a 32 tourism theming bonus.

 

[PaleJackal]

I agree, I generally only get the opener, the happiness buff, and the coastal production buff.

The new Merchant Navy is decent, and Treasure Fleet is decent if you aren't at war... but there's no real incentive to finish the tree. Maybe it's because I play on huge maps, but I normally don't run out of sites to excavate, and certainly not as a warmonger.