Ah....I misunderstood your phrasing on liberty. So a free worked tile means in effect a cost free ghost citizen who adds without requiring food or happiness. Yes- in that case it is perfect, possibly OP since it comes so early. Playtesting may show it needs to be limited to the first X cities.
Doubling the army in honour is almost certainly excessive. I agree a strong defensive buff would complement offense well- your unguarded home cities could do well to defend themselves more strongly. It frees up your military to wander further.
On piety, I like the suggested mechanic, and agree playtesting is the way to find the appropriate percentage. By solid gold I meant all good, with no intrinsic downside. It would make civs taking this option extremely vulnerable to luxury pillaging (though you can always cancel the policy if you fall into an unhappy hole).
On patronage, the nerfing of "eliminate X for me" and enhanced % reduction in influence decay ideas appeal to me.
For autocracy: you could also maybe make razing an enemy city increase your people's happiness (vindictive souls that they are).
Agreed on playtesting the percentage on commerce. But it does have some historical relevance with the move from anchored to fiat currencies.
I can see your point, and hadn't thought about the large vs small game problems. Agree one at a time is the way to go, and branch locking consequences. It should be achievable to fill two policy branches in a typical game with some delayed early expansion and later cultural focus.
Final question....how should we approach modders with the idea? I assume some of these ideas will be easy to code, and others will be next to impossible without source code, so some may need rethinking...
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
