Most Universal Policy Trees

[wobuffet]

Well I just had a crazy idea about autocracy. Why not change -0.5 unhappy per specialist to city revolt after capture reduced by 50% & less happiness penalty when in the revolt stage. This would allow rapid conquest without getting the nasty combat modifier from unhappiness & u could finally do Blitz like the Germans did.

And constitution for Freedom sounds a bit weak unless I am missing something, 33% would be more noticable or atleast change it to 25%. Also Order finisher might be changed to 30% as well since it comes so late in game & mostly impossible to get for wide empires.

I agree on both these counts, actually. As for the first, how about a simple -50% angry from number of occupied cities?

As for the second, I'd propose either increasing the %s (like Babri said) or just making the later SP trees available at earlier points in the game (increasing mid-game SP flexibility).


One other thing: is it just me, or are the +1 to (specialist), +2 to (Great Person Tile Improvement) yield SPs consistently underwhelming compared to others in their respective trees? I'm finding myself pretty much always picking those as late as possible, since the other ones yield larger benefits.

Consider, for example, Order's "+2 on Mines, +2 on Lumber Mills" vs "+1 for Engineers, +2 for Manufactories." I cannot imagine any game where I've been employing enough Engineers and popped enough GEs to make the latter SP anywhere near as much of a production boost as the former. Similarly, the "+1 for Scientists, +2 for Academies" policy in the Rationalism tree always end up giving me a much smaller boost than the other Science-boosting policies.

Something cool, if feasible, might be "+10% in any City working at least one Landmark" (and similar for other Great Person Tile Improvements), to encourage something other than "stack all Academies/Landmarks in the city with the relevant wonders/largest modifiers." (Even if you don't think that "one GPTI per city" is any more interesting than "all GPTIs in one city," here you'd at least have to consider which of these two strategies – or something in between – to go for, depending on relative yields in different cities, etc.)

 

[EmperorFool]

One other thing: is it just me, or are the +1 to (specialist), +2 to (Great Person Tile Improvement) yield SPs consistently underwhelming compared to others in their respective trees?

I cannot agree more. I take them only to acquire the finisher or other policies in the tree.

 

[Thalassicus]

Cities in revolt do not have a happiness penalty. They have a bonus, since puppets get -1 less than a normal city.

The goal is to make Autocracy more universally valuable for any strategy. It previously was only for conquest empires (and not even very desirable then). It might be counterproductive to change a universal-effect back to one useful only for conquest empires.

A specialist is normally done just to produce great people. With their boosting policy this changes, and it's best to fill their slot in every city where one is available. It crosses that threshold from situationally useful to always useful.

And constitution for Freedom sounds a bit weak unless I am missing something, 33% would be more noticable or atleast change it to 25%.

It's a 20% production bonus for most buildings in the game, plus every national wonder:

Walls
Castle
Forge
Workshop
Factory
Ironworks
Heroic Epic
Granary
Mint
Market
Bank
Stock Exchange
Circus Maximus
National Treasury
Library
University
Observatory
Public School
Laboratory
National College
Oxford University
Temple
Monastery
Opera House
Museum
Broadcast Tower
National Epic
Hermitage

 

[Babri]

Cities in revolt do not have a happiness penalty.
The goal is to make Autocracy more universally valuable for any strategy. It previously was only for conquest empires. It seems like it would be counterproductive to change an effect useful for anyone back to an effect useful for only conquest empires...

A specialist is normally useful just to produce great people. With their boosting policy this changes, and it's best to fill their slot in every city where one is available. It crosses that threshold from situationally useful to always useful.

U misunderstood my point. What I was trying to say was that when u capture a very large city, say 30 pop in late game, u will most likely go in red & u'll start getting rebellions & unhappy combat modifier, thus stopping ur further advance. What I was suggesting was that during the revolt stage u won't take that heavy happiness hit through this policy so u might continue your conquest a bit & finally after 10-20 turns when those cities get pacified, u can swiftly deal with unhappiness by building courthouses (assuming u have the other policy), other happiness building etc. So a policy that decreases unhappiness from cities under revolt by 50% plus some other benefit would mean that u could raze it quite safely or just go on conquering spree while that city gets pacified, buying u precious time.

 

[Txurce]

What I was trying to say was that when u capture a very large city, say 30 pop in late game, u will most likely go in red & u'll start getting rebellions & unhappy combat modifier, thus stopping ur further advance.

The AI is worse at combat than at anything else. I think the unhappiness penalty is there to slow down too-fast Conquest victories. I don't think anyone is complaining that it takes too long to conquer all the capitals, relative to the other VCs.

 

[Thalassicus]

I don't think anyone is complaining that it takes too long to conquer all the capitals, relative to the other VCs.

Txurce has a good point here. Conquest games are basically complete by the Industrial era; all that remains is surgical strikes on the capitals.

I've added some of the suggestions here to the next patch.

 

[Thalassicus]

Crossposting from the v131.15 beta thread, since this is basically a continuation of the policy conversation in this thread.

Spoiler :

How about making the specialist boosting policies more unique? I.e. +x Golden Age Points from Artists after Free Religion (nice synergy with Darius(cultural win with a wide empire?)), + x% Science from RAs with Scientists, +x% Gold from Open Borders with Merchants? Not quite sure though whether this would benefit wide empires with specialists more than tall ones.

I agree, Pthmix's ideas are excellent and I could see using them in Freedom (and potentially make the tree more exciting)! There seems to be some consensus that the proposed Freedom tree - specifically the opener, Constitution and Green Revolution - is somewhat underwhelming. Some other ideas:

• A Great Wall-type effect in place of the city strength modifier (would probably need to be later in the tree than the opener)
• Bring the +50% from Trade Routes back in (I liked it and was sad to see it go)
• -10% (or more!) in cities over 10 (like the effect in the vanilla Tradition tree)
• +1% per population
• Move the Artist/Landmark buff here from Piety - it's more flavorful and since the bonus to Artists will be doubled it will mitigate any potential skewing of culture balance.
• Shift Green Revolution to +1 and +1 on farms.

The finisher is fantastic, but perhaps we should alter the Heroic Epic in some way to allow it's effect to be doubled by the SP (and make it more worth building early/overall)? Some ideas:

• Grant +1 happiness for each city conquered (I like this one the best )
• Give a production bonus when producing units
• Grant some other yield bonus to Barracks (+1 or 2 gold comes to mind first, to help alleviate the burden of building barracks in most cities, but culture or something else could work too)

Of course we can remove or lower the Morale bonus if necessary.

I like the idea of moving the Artist/Landmark bonus to the Freedom tree, for a different reason: with religion is added in G&K the Piety tree will probably include religion bonuses. I've been thinking of focusing it on happiness early in the tree (for universal appeal) and religion later in the tree (for specialized strategies). The cultural bonuses will be distributed among other trees.

The Great Wall style effect is a fantastic idea and would be very easy to accomplish with an invisible dummy building. I'd also be okay with putting the trade route bonus back in the tree.

These are the current bonuses for national wonders with the Freedom finisher policy:

+3 & +50% Ironworks
+3 & +50% Heroic Epic
+3 & +50% National Treasury
+3 & +50% National College
+3 & +50% Oxford University
+3 & +50% Hermitage
+3 & +50% National Epic
+5 Circus Maximus

The normal effects of the Heroic Epic, Oxford, and National Epic are difficult to increase with a policy, so I just copied their counterparts. If we keep this policy effect I might refine those later. I estimate it would take 3-5 hours.

How does this look for a revised Freedom tree? Click here to experiment with the diagram yourself. It opens with LibreOffice.

 

[wobuffet]

The Great Wall style effect is a fantastic idea and would be very easy to accomplish with an invisible dummy building.

This sounds like it'd be fun to experiment with!

I'd also be okay with putting the trade route bonus back in the tree.

Wouldn't this fit in much more neatly, thematically speaking, with the Commerce tree?
I'll confess I have no idea how trade route income works, even (especially?) after seeing the chart Thal posted in the Beta thread. Certainly with the new, lower trade routes' base gold yields, a policy bumping them up could be fun and would be unlikely to become overwhelmingly powerful.

These are the current bonuses for national wonders with the Freedom finisher policy:

+3 & +50% Ironworks
+3 & +50% Heroic Epic
+3 & +50% National Treasury
+3 & +50% National College
+3 & +50% Oxford University
+3 & +50% Hermitage
+3 & +50% National Epic
+5 Circus Maximus

The normal effects of the Heroic Epic, Oxford, and National Epic are difficult to increase with a policy, so I just copied their counterparts. If we keep this policy effect I might refine those later. I estimate it would take 3-5 hours.

This sounds like a monster of a policy! These National Wonders are pretty much always in the cities with the largest base output of those respective yields, which makes me worry. (Also, am I missing something as to why doubling the National Epic's +50% GPP rate would be difficult? I'd think it'd just require an invisible [half-]Garden building.)

How about allowing the player to build one more of each type of National Wonder, but no duplicates in the same city?

edit: The new tree looks fun! Powerful, but in line with the other two late-game SP trees. Autocracy may be changed as well, yes?

 

[Thalassicus]

Great person rate is not in the normal yield chain. It's handled with different functions which are hidden to us in the game core. I must first figure out how Firaxis did it (without seeing their code) and recreate it from scratch in the mod. This is a process called reverse-engineering and is very time consuming. The same situation exists with the 1-per-player limit on national wonders. It's possible, but without access to the game core would take a lot of time to figure out.

 

[wobuffet]

That's a shame. There's no way to let a Social Policy unlock a building?

(As far as the duplicate NWs, I'd imagine duplicating each NW but only unlocking the duplicates with the SP. Or, as a much kludgier alternative, duplicate each NW with 10,000x the and :cgold: cost, and make the SP reduce this cost/add a +production modifier to the "duplicate NW" class of buildings.)

 

[Txurce]

I like leaving NW's as unique buildings, and therefore both more national and more wondrous. (But I don't have your overall problem with cumulative bonuses.)

 

[Thalassicus]

@wobuffet
It's possible but difficult. Think of it this way... any existing effect on a VEM or vanilla policy can easily be copied to produce new effects elsewhere. However, creating a totally new effect (like a policy unlocking a building) takes much more time, because it requires writing and debugging new code.

By the way, does anyone have a better idea for what to call the policy I currently have named "Immigrant Rights" in the diagram above? I want to somehow represent the concept of open immigration laws. Immigration policy isn't really represented anywhere, and is a major part of any society's policies.

 

[wobuffet]

I see, Thal; that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.

As for the name, how about "Safe Haven" (since it's Great People, after all)? As a side note, are Great Generals ever sent from CSs? I (feel that, thematically, they shouldn't.)

 

[Thalassicus]

I like that name.

Vanilla sends any great person, including great generals and Mongol great generals, which is obviously a lucky I-Win button for non-Mongol warmongers. This was one reason why I replaced it with VEM's system, which picks from only the great people we can create with specialists.

 

[Seek]

Crossposting from the v131.15 beta thread, since this is basically a continuation of the policy conversation in this thread.


I like the idea of moving the Artist/Landmark bonus to the Freedom tree, for a different reason: with religion is added in G&K the Piety tree will probably include religion bonuses. I've been thinking of focusing it on happiness early in the tree (for universal appeal) and religion later in the tree (for specialized strategies). The cultural bonuses will be distributed among other trees.

The Great Wall style effect is a fantastic idea and would be very easy to accomplish with an invisible dummy building. I'd also be okay with putting the trade route bonus back in the tree.

How does this look for a revised Freedom tree? Click here to experiment with the diagram yourself. It opens with LibreOffice.

Overall this looks good, but I'm still worried that there is no happiness policy in the tree - perhaps make Free Market give the -1 per 10 effect in addition to the TR bonus? Also, the opener seems too strong both in it's position as the opener as well as in relation to the bonuses on Fertilizer; I think this would negate any desire to get that tech until absolutely necessary. I'd suggest changing this to just one food on farms, or one food on farms and plantations if that seems too weak.

These are the current bonuses for national wonders with the Freedom finisher policy:

+3 & +50% Ironworks
+3 & +50% Heroic Epic
+3 & +50% National Treasury
+3 & +50% National College
+3 & +50% Oxford University
+3 & +50% Hermitage
+3 & +50% National Epic
+5 Circus Maximus

The normal effects of the Heroic Epic, Oxford, and National Epic are difficult to increase with a policy, so I just copied their counterparts. If we keep this policy effect I might refine those later. I estimate it would take 3-5 hours.

I agree with wobuffet that this looks very powerful, and the 3-5 hours would be well worth it if you're willing. I also think this effect should remain on the finisher given it's power, perhaps even lowering the bonus to +50%.

Wouldn't [the Trade Route bonus] fit in much more neatly, thematically speaking, with the Commerce tree?

Well Commerce already has the road maintenance cost reduction so it would be somewhat redundant. Additionally, I like it better on Freedom because it will be less likely chosen by a wide empire, and therefore more balanced.

Autocracy may be changed as well, yes?

I don't see a reason to change it - right now it's quite powerful. In fact, the reason I wanted to look over the Freedom tree again is because I could see myself never choosing it in favor of Autocracy!
______________________

Thought about the "Immigrant Rights" naming, perhaps "Civil Rights" would work - it focuses on the fact that a "free" civ is more desirable for Great People to emigrate to. Another alternative is "Open Door Immigration" - "Safe Haven" kind of works but it sounds awkward to me as a policy name.

 

[Txurce]

Also, the opener seems too strong both in it's position as the opener as well as in relation to the bonuses on Fertilizer; I think this would negate any desire to get that tech until absolutely necessary. I'd suggest changing this to just one food on farms, or one food on farms and plantations if that seems too weak.

This late in the game, in referecne to already-large tall cities, the +2 food doesn't seem OP to me.

I don't see a reason to change it - right now it's quite powerful. In fact, the reason I wanted to look over the Freedom tree again is because I could see myself never choosing it in favor of Autocracy!

Agreed. I always take Autocracy when warmongering. That some people feel they don't need it is not a knock on its capabilities.

Another alternative is "Open Door Immigration" - "Safe Haven" kind of works but it sounds awkward to me as a policy name.

I like just "Open Door." Close to it, "Open Borders." Alternatively, it could be called "Sister Cities."

 

[wobuffet]

I agree with wobuffet that this looks very powerful, and the 3-5 hours would be well worth it if you're willing. I also think this effect should remain on the finisher given it's power, perhaps even lowering the bonus to +50%.

I'd definitely support scaling back the bonuses to 50%. Alternatively, I think something like "+10% in all cities with a National Wonder" would provide nice boosts while keeping specific multipliers in check. Or maybe just (+15%.)

Well Commerce already has the road maintenance cost reduction so it would be somewhat redundant. Additionally, I like it better on Freedom because it will be less likely chosen by a wide empire, and therefore more balanced.

Good point! I like this. Maybe make it not the opener, but one of the first policies available after that to help Freedom's universality?

I don't see a reason to change it - right now it's quit
e powerful. In fact, the reason I wanted to look over the Freedom tree again is because I could see myself never choosing it in favor of Autocracy!

I was just going by Thal's comment that

The goal is to make Autocracy more universally valuable for any strategy. It previously was only for conquest empires (and not even very desirable then).

In any case, I quite like the new Autocracy tree and could see myself snagging the Opener's -1 per city and perhaps the -0.5 per Specialist policies in non-warmongering games.

Thought about the "Immigrant Rights" naming, perhaps "Civil Rights" would work - it focuses on the fact that a "free" civ is more desirable for Great People to emigrate to. Another alternative is "Open Door Immigration" - "Safe Haven" kind of works but it sounds awkward to me as a policy name.

I think Civil Rights is much too broad as a name.
I actually thought about something with "Open Door" too, but it reminded me too much of 11th grade history and US-China policy circa 1900. *shrugs*
How about "Political Asylum"?


Also, Thal, any chance of buffing the "+1 to (specialist), +2 to (Great Person Tile Improvement) yield" SPs? I don't know if you missed the couple posts on it earlier in this topic or just disagree that they're weak.

 

[Zaldron]

I'd definitely support scaling back the bonuses to 50%. Alternatively, I think something like "+10% in all cities with a National Wonder" would provide nice boosts while keeping specific multipliers in check.


Also, Thal, any chance of buffing the "+1 to (specialist), +2 to (Great Person Tile Improvement) yield" SPs? I don't know if you missed the couple posts on it earlier in this topic or just disagree that they're weak.

A bonus for "all cities" with a national wonder is decidedly wide-empire oriented, while the freedom tree (and my intention for suggesting this policy initially) was to provide a useful bonus to tall empires. Since the multipliers affect only base yields I'm not convinced that doubling the effects is too strong, but I'm be happy to play at +50 national wonder effect and see how it plays out.

I do happen to agree with your second statement that those policies are weak, and I play a tall empire with plenty of specialists. As a start what about giving say +4 to great improvements instead of +2?

 

[wobuffet]

A bonus for "all cities" with a national wonder is decidedly wide-empire oriented, while the freedom tree (and my intention for suggesting this policy initially) was to provide a useful bonus to tall empires. Since the multipliers affect only base yields I'm not convinced that doubling the effects is too strong, but I'm be happy to play at +50 national wonder effect and see how it plays out.

I was actually thinking it would help tall empires more (because wide empires have larger proportions of their total yields coming from non-"core" cities – and often don't build some National Wonders at all), but maybe you're right: there are a decent number of National Wonders in the game, after all. Then again, spreading them out to grab this bonus in more cities would involve a tradeoff and be interesting too... I'm not sure how this would play out.

Frankly, even +50% effects on all National Wonders still seems quite strong to me, even though I realize it's a late-game policy.

I do happen to agree with your second statement that those policies are weak, and I play a tall empire with plenty of specialists. As a start what about giving say +4 to great improvements instead of +2?

I'm worried about the effect this would have on balance: as it is, I typically play tall, spamming Academies during Science games and Landmarks during Culture games. And it could exacerbate "runaway" Science and Culture civs by increasing the rewards to specialization.

I'd prefer to see some orthogonal, not directly yield-increasing effects either added to the +1, +2 effects or replacing them. For example,
Mercantilism (Commerce tree): +1, +2 for Merchants and Customs Houses.
Secularism (Rationalism tree): +1 for Scientists and Academies. +15% from Public Schools.

 

[Zaldron]

I'd prefer to see some orthogonal, not directly yield-increasing effects either added to the +1, +2 effects or replacing them. For example,
Mercantilism (Commerce tree): +1, +2 for Merchants and Customs Houses.
Secularism (Rationalism tree): +1 for Scientists and Academies. +15% from Public Schools.

I like the orthogonal benefits a lot here.