New Beta Version - 1-11 (1/11)

[Rekk]

You guys are still free to quess what it is, if you want the answer, here she is:

Spoiler Solution :

CrazyG is right, it's only 1 policy difference. I have picked the colonialism policy from the Imperialism tree, which adds culture and science to military buildings and extra modifiers for monopolies. (cause of conquest, I have +10% to each yield type)

In the 2 bottom pictures, the top one is with full rationalism, the bottom one with full Imperialism. I want to note, that even with full rationalism, the science/culture/gold output is less than with colonialism only (second picture from the top).

How many cities?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

How many cities?

26, 6 of them puppets, 4 foreign capitals.

Spoiler Finished :

Finished the game now, cause this must have an end. Needed 12 turns in total to capture the last 3 capitals and win the game by domination.
Would have liked to see my yields explode, after picking nationalization from Order with 52 franchises from Centaur Extractors in each city and +80% production modifier, transforming everything into science and shot a rocket to Alpha centauri in the early 1900s.

Annoying thing, the Inca denied for several turns a capitulation, even they were at -100 war score.

 

[Stalker0]

While I'm doing okay in this game.... add about 6 more missile cruisers that are hidden right now....phew this is going to be tough...

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

26, 6 of them puppets, 4 foreign capitals.

Spoiler Finished :

Finished the game now, cause this must have an end. Needed 12 turns in total to capture the last 3 capitals and win the game by domination.
Would have liked to see my yields explode, after picking nationalization from Order with 52 franchises from Centaur Extractors in each city and +80% production modifier, transforming everything into science and shot a rocket to Alpha centauri in the early 1900s.

Annoying thing, the Inca denied for several turns a capitulation, even they were at -100 war score.

I don't pick any ideology other than order for the exact same purpose; nationalization is bonkers.
I once did it with civilized jewelers and it was fun watching my capital spamming Great persons like crazy

 

[Stalker0]

@Recursive, here is an example of a late game diplomatic scenario that makes me think (whether true or not) that the AI is unfairly ganging up on me.

In this game, I am in a solid second place, but Greece is running away with the game. He is using nukes, and he has a monstrous tech lead (and has everyone influential except me). I fact I think Greece has this in the bag, I am just doing some late game combats for experience.

And yet....no one is at war with him (Askia in my vassal)...they are at war with me. They aren't even denouncing him. They are beating me up while Greece cruises to victory.

 

[civplayer33]

This is where that "Tier 2" mechanism I mentioned would mitigate things by potentially letting some Civs forget your past expansions / war mongering and how well you do. Are you getting close to any victory type? How's your Influence and Diplomatic game?

Greece seems to not have expanded much in the past, though, I guess that's part of the reason why the world doesn't hate him...here the algo for determining the leader would direct the AI toward that target, but it does seem like this is the kind of situation that some people have wanted, isn't it? That you can play a non-aggressive, non-expansionist game and manage to not have every AI hate you just for winning...the only "problem" here, from that perspective, seems to be that it's an AI having managed that and not the human .

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I don't pick any ideology other than order for the exact same purpose; nationalization is bonkers.
I once did it with civilized jewelers and it was fun watching my capital spamming Great persons like crazy

I realized, if I would pick the science corporation, I could effectively more than double my science output. Corporations are so op in wider empire hands.

But this wasn't the point I want to come to.
The difference in the pictures were social policies. Colonialism from Imperialism is giving me more of everything than the hole rationalism tree (except happiness). It's of course I have already a lot of monopolies, but should one policy alone be able to give such huge advantages? Adopting the whole Imperialism tree rises my science from 960 to 1700. That's an increase of 77%.... That's insane.

 

[Stalker0]

Standard Morocco Immortal (Standard Speed). Game End (Science Victory!) on Turn 462.

Man did this game come down to the wire! Greece got 80 techs 6 techs ahead of me, I honestly thought it was game over. He got both CERN and Hubble before me, and I had no uranium for nukes. But I got some late game GS and I decided to try and take it back in the production game. I had a pretty prod heavy group of cities, so I put ITRs and Spaceship factories on everything, combining it with the Spaceship Procurement policy. Only my capital built 2 parts, and I rushed bought one of them. And then with 5 turns left, Greece now is influential with everyone....so I was worried I could lose either way. But 5 turns later I got it done and won the game!

1) Diplomacy wise I was second place most of the game (as opposed to being the score leader like last game). Ultimately the AI was a bit kinder to me, I was only at non-stop wars with 1-2 civs instead of 6-7 I even did have a 10 turn reprieve of wars here or there (I think twice). But note my posts above, the AI seemed awfully nice to Greece considering how much stronger in culture and science he was than me.

2) The new interception rules are working well. I had a bomber heavy fleet, and the interceptions knocking out my damage (as well as doing good damage to my ships) was quite annoying, and I did invest in some fighters to soak. However, I think the stealth bomber still needs a look out, it seems like its even stronger now, not only does it get 90% evasion, but it also takes half damage from interception on the off chance it is hit. Its basically invincible.

3) I got to build one GDR this game and it came in super handy for defense. Greece brought an armada of missile cruisers, and one thing I have noticed is that bazookas don't do crap to them, and planes get intercepted. MCs are actually quite difficult to defend against, but the GDR gave me a CS 125 city that could take the pain.

4) The seesaw wars still occur with CS. Its easy to go in, liberate. The CS gets health back, and a fresh garrison each time. This may not be fixable but I note it.

5) Just noting that on Immortal I still see crazy high influence levels. 2k, 3k....I even saw a 10k at one point!!!! So the attrition mechanics aren't really working, I still have to go spheres to have stable alliances by the mid game.

6) The earlier military techs in Information are definitely noticeable, and I'm seeing more play with modern armor, xcoms, and GDR than before.

7) Powerplant wise, I can't find a reason to build the solar plant. In general the wind plant just seems to give some many more yields. The hydro now has use...though unless the river runs through the vast majority of the city wind is still better. I also think in general Wind/Hydro is better than nuclear. The specialist bonuses are nice but in a big city I still have enough tiles to get more yields through them. Though with the production bonus and GPP bonus maybe its enough...I just found with each city I thought about it, but ultimately always went wind/hydro.

8) I like the faith spread quests, but I think they need to scale more in the late game. Early game they are great, late game it takes a LOT of faith to switch one of them....often 3 missionaries worth...and the faith you receive is no compensation for that.

9) I know its already being addressed, but I also saw the power of super high bonus XP missions. I got two of them, and all of my ranged units got the range upgrade. Holy crap that is powerful, I've always had a few units with the upgrades but I have never had so many...and its astounding the power. I also got a Level 11 unit for the first time...I didn't even know level 11 was possible!

10) I think the Bazooka might need a upgrade. Right now its a hard counter to tanks, but otherwise its a pretty mediocre ranged unit for its time. In fact, its defense is actually weaker than the machine gun it replaces, because its defense bonus is weaker, and the CS aura it emanates is weaker.

11) This game I played with PADs unit tweaks, so a few notes on those for people who are interested:

a) Spearmen line gets formation I (+33% to mounted, +15% defense in open terrain). No longer gets standard +50% mounted. Honestly I liked this a lot. It created an interesting variety, I would make formation pikes for my open areas, and shock pikes for rough. This also gives your tercio/fusilier a bit more defense on the open terrain as well, which I found appealing. I never found ONLY +33% vs mounted to be too weak, nor +66% too strong.

b) Logistics Skirmisher (skirmishers gain logistics, only get 1 xp per attack, can move after attack). So I have tried this out in a couple of games. Right now, the issue is that the AI is not smart with the mechanic at all. What I found especially with light tanks is that the AI would send them right to the front and double attack....and then I would cream them. They were extremely fragile units, and didn't do enough damage to justify the loss. So balance wise their strength can be adjusted, but I am concerned about the AIs ability to handle the mechanic.

 

[Stalker0]

The difference in the pictures were social policies. Colonialism from Imperialism is giving me more of everything than the hole rationalism tree (except happiness). It's of course I have already a lot of monopolies, but should one policy alone be able to give such huge advantages? Adopting the whole Imperialism tree rises my science from 960 to 1700. That's an increase of 77%.... That's insane.

So the thing to remember is that Rationalism's science is mainly through GS. You get GS more often, they are stronger, and you can faith buy them. So there's a lot of "hidden science" there. Also when you did the policy switch, did you add in Observatories to all of the cities? That is 6 science per city + 2 additional GS slots....so that is a lot more science right there.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I realized, if I would pick the science corporation, I could effectively more than double my science output. Corporations are so op in wider empire hands.

But this wasn't the point I want to come to.
The difference in the pictures were social policies. Colonialism from Imperialism is giving me more of everything than the hole rationalism tree (except happiness). It's of course I have already a lot of monopolies, but should one policy alone be able to give such huge advantages? Adopting the whole Imperialism tree rises my science from 960 to 1700. That's an increase of 77%.... That's insane.

Unlike rationalism, imperialism forces you to go out of your way to get these yields; you have to generally conquer more cities than what you build but in my experience it's much more rewarding than rationalism especially in maps like communitas and Terra with satellite cities in the ocean.

 

[civplayer33]

a) Spearmen line gets formation I (+33% to mounted, +15% defense in open terrain). No longer gets standard +50% mounted. Honestly I liked this a lot. It created an interesting variety, I would make formation pikes for my open areas, and shock pikes for rough. This also gives your tercio/fusilier a bit more defense on the open terrain as well, which I found appealing. I never found ONLY +33% vs mounted to be too weak, nor +66% too strong.

+1 on that, especially now that Formation (rightfully) doesn't give anti-armored bonus anymore it becomes hard to choose as it loses a major part of its power for units that are upgraded past Industrial, since there'll be no more mounted to have the bonus against then...getting rid of the standard anti-mounted promo is an added bonus.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

So the thing to remember is that Rationalism's science is mainly through GS. You get GS more often, they are stronger, and you can faith buy them. So there's a lot of "hidden science" there. Also when you did the policy switch, did you add in Observatories to all of the cities? That is 6 science per city + 2 additional GS slots....so that is a lot more science right there.

Ok, Ive done another comparison, used all automatic settings. Governour had full control and I placed an observatory in each city. There is also an golden age running, so the rationalism has a +10% science modifer to its advantage, keep that in mind. The result is:

1. Full Imperialism generate, compared to Full Rationalism....
14% more science
11% more culture
68% more gold
40% more growth (not seen here)
is equal
2. The science from the instant use of Great scientists is based on your per turn science. The additional yields from scientist effect is more than halfed, cause the base yields from Imperialism is 14% higher than from rationalism. The +33% for Great scientists diminishes, cause the GPP modifier are additive and you get more modifiers over the length of the game. The effect shouldnt be greater than 1 Great scientist, definitly not more than 2.
3. Imperialism is such a no brainer in most situations, cause unlike Rationalism, you have nothing to do for it.
You gain the extra modifier from monopolies for free
You gain the and from military buildings you nearly always build everywhere for free
You gain and for coast and ocean tiles for free
4. Rationalism in my game is not even able to reach the science output of Imperialism. Even if its able to research techs faster through GS, this comes to a huge price.
Observatories have to be built and paid ( and maintenance cost)
Scientiest slots have to be worked and fed (2 are gone and maintenance)
Great scientist have to be bought ( cost)
You see a huge difference in and . Even Rationalism has food and growth bonuses, the growth progress in total is slowed down greatly. Even with full Rationalism, I have in the end less gold than without it, cause the observatories are expensive and I miss 2 citizen in each city working tiles.

 

[civplayer33]

1. Full Imperialism generate, compared to Full Rationalism....

For a fair comparison you need to juxtapose these results to results from a game where you went tall instead of conquering half the world. Then your Monopoly bonus would be a lot less significant, you'd probably have less ocean / coast to work, you'd have no or almost no Puppets whose yields you could increase and you'd barely benefit from the military-related boni that Imperialism gives. Also I very much doubt that you can only buy one or two GS with Faith during the entire game...

It might be the case that Imperialism needs a nerf (so far I'm not convinced at all, though), but this comparison to Rationalism is woefully incomplete.

 

[CrazyG]

Bite, how many monopolies did you have?

I can't say I understand the current rationalism tree's design. Why does it give a bonus to great admirals of all things?

I thought it had no culture at all (but I see Bite got a little bit), which means taking it means you get your ideology later. The village buff is really mediocre because of the agribusiness buff to farms being so crazy (and imperialism's bonus to farms, which was mediocre for years, is now amazing!)

Imperialism is really good but if you base science is high rationalism will still beat it.

 

[Gazebo]

For a fair comparison you need to juxtapose these results to results from a game where you went tall instead of conquering half the world. Then your Monopoly bonus would be a lot less significant, you'd probably have less ocean / coast to work, you'd have no or almost no Puppets whose yields you could increase and you'd barely benefit from the military-related boni that Imperialism gives. Also I very much doubt that you can only buy one or two GS with Faith during the entire game...

It might be the case that Imperialism needs a nerf (so far I'm not convinced at all, though), but this comparison to Rationalism is woefully incomplete.

precisely. Imperialism scales for wide play. This isn’t a surprising revelation.

G

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Ok, Ive done another comparison, used all automatic settings. Governour had full control and I placed an observatory in each city. There is also an golden age running, so the rationalism has a +10% science modifer to its advantage, keep that in mind. The result is:

1. Full Imperialism generate, compared to Full Rationalism....
14% more science
11% more culture
68% more gold
40% more growth (not seen here)
is equal
2. The science from the instant use of Great scientists is based on your per turn science. The additional yields from scientist effect is more than halfed, cause the base yields from Imperialism is 14% higher than from rationalism. The +33% for Great scientists diminishes, cause the GPP modifier are additive and you get more modifiers over the length of the game. The effect shouldnt be greater than 1 Great scientist, definitly not more than 2.
3. Imperialism is such a no brainer in most situations, cause unlike Rationalism, you have nothing to do for it.
You gain the extra modifier from monopolies for free
You gain the and from military buildings you nearly always build everywhere for free
You gain and for coast and ocean tiles for free
4. Rationalism in my game is not even able to reach the science output of Imperialism. Even if its able to research techs faster through GS, this comes to a huge price.
Observatories have to be built and paid ( and maintenance cost)
Scientiest slots have to be worked and fed (2 are gone and maintenance)
Great scientist have to be bought ( cost)
You see a huge difference in and . Even Rationalism has food and growth bonuses, the growth progress in total is slowed down greatly. Even with full Rationalism, I have in the end less gold than without it, cause the observatories are expensive and I miss 2 citizen in each city working tiles.

Would you show Industry for comparison's sake? I want to see how it's +15% Culture/ Science Modifiers play out.

Does anyone else feel Villages should have more buffs later in the game? They only have buffs with a Rationalism Policy and Railroads later.

10) I think the Bazooka might need a upgrade. Right now its a hard counter to tanks, but otherwise its a pretty mediocre ranged unit for its time. In fact, its defense is actually weaker than the machine gun it replaces, because its defense bonus is weaker, and the CS aura it emanates is weaker.

Bazookas did have the advantage of coming earlier in Atomic vs the other Information Era Units. They also only gain 5 RCS, instead of 15 RCS.

 

[Stalker0]

There is also Rationalism's free tech, which is worth 1000s of science. I love me some Imperalism don't get me wrong, and when you are doing a super wide conquest game by all means use it, you are playing to its strengths. But for small civs, Rationalism is still the way to go for science supremacy.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

For a fair comparison you need to juxtapose these results to results from a game where you went tall instead of conquering half the world. Then your Monopoly bonus would be a lot less significant, you'd probably have less ocean / coast to work, you'd have no or almost no Puppets whose yields you could increase and you'd barely benefit from the military-related boni that Imperialism gives. Also I very much doubt that you can only buy one or two GS with Faith during the entire game...

It might be the case that Imperialism needs a nerf (so far I'm not convinced at all, though), but this comparison to Rationalism is woefully incomplete.

All you mainly need a +10% monopoly, and that was, what I was starting with. I got another +10% after the conquest of Koreas capital, before they were able to expand, but I also could have gained that with the help of the East India Company. Another +10% by copper through peacefully settling. Salt (+10%) and marble (+10%) was only possible by conquest. So, I had to only conquer one city to gain 3 modifiers. Not that impressive investment.
There is no real reason why the ration between land/ocean should be different, if I play tall instead of wide. The map was communitas with legendary resssource start, but nothing different.
Extra production for military units, less costs for upgrades and no maintenance for garrisons is useful for everyone. The huge difference in gold income cant be explained by a simple +10% monopoly modifier.

Imperialism is really good but if you base science is high rationalism will still beat it.

I disagree. Major difference is the input you have to do for rationalism to work.
Assume you are in modern era, working 8 ocean tiles generates more science than using 3 scientists (16vs15). Now you not only have to generate as much as the 8 citizen working the ocean tiles, you also have to generate additional to feed the 3 specialists (3 times 3 more ). That means, you need to get 411616 with only 5 citizens.

precisely. Imperialism scales for wide play. This isn’t a surprising revelation.

I can repeat the result with a tradition sized empire. I know the result will be the same cause Ive done this comparsion already 2 times in the last 1 year, but unfortunatly it wasnt convincingly enough. (after I have slept)

Would you show Industry for comparison's sake? I want to see how it's +15% Culture/ Science Modifiers play out.

Does anyone else feel Villages should have more buffs later in the game? They only have buffs with a Rationalism Policy and Railroads later.

Here is the comparison with Industry:

Top yields are with the full automatic setting, the botton one with full science setting. I want to mention, that with the full science setting, the growth of the cities has nearly completly stopped.
Culture is comparable with Imperialism, gold is by far greater and the production is of course also better, but the science sucks completly.

 

[Stalker0]

If we want to have an Imperalism vs Rationalism debate (which I am more than willing to do), lets take it General Balance.

 

[civplayer33]

All you mainly need a +10% monopoly, and that was, what I was starting with. I got another +10% after the conquest of Koreas capital, before they were able to expand, but I also could have gained that with the help of the East India Company. Another +10% by copper through peacefully settling. Salt (+10%) and marble (+10%) was only possible by conquest. So, I had to only conquer one city to gain 3 modifiers. Not that impressive investment.

If you can gain 3 Monopolies by only conquering one City then that's very lucky and therefore situational; also, your legendary resource start probably helped, which is another "buff" to Imperialism you gave yourself here.

There is no real reason why the ration between land/ocean should be different, if I play tall instead of wide. The map was communitas with legendary resssource start, but nothing different.

Of course there would be a difference in most games (unless you're playing a map like Fractal), since the tall player will want to be more defensive, so he'll settle more inland to avoid having to build a large navy for defense and he won't go on conquering sprees, which tend to capture all those tiny island Cities for strategic reasons.

Extra production for military units, less costs for upgrades and no maintenance for garrisons is useful for everyone. The huge difference in gold income cant be explained by a simple +10% monopoly modifier.

A lot more useful for someone with a very large army.

And again, when adding together the Free Tech you get, the +33% GPP rate for GS, the +25% yields from GS and the fact that you can Faith-buy GS, you have a lot of science that is not accounted for in your analysis, in addition to the numbers being generated in a scenario that is tailored toward Imperialism.

I will say, however, that Villages and Jungle (which are both boosted by Rationalism) were, relatively speaking, nerfed in the last months, at least compared to Farms (which are boosted by Imperialism).