New Version - August 23rd (8-23)

[CrazyG]

I thought a goal of the rather massive overhaul of the medieval trees was to make them all flexible or applicable to more types of empires, not just a choice based on how large you are.

The adopter is basically huge on wide already. +50% Rewards is a lot especially when given to all cities on some rewards as it could mean an additional promotion or a turn shave off your next tech or policy. The CS huge reward was just an experiment to see how powerful it was if people actually did the quest instead of trying to oh what a coincidence guess I'll do the same and get a side-reward. So far, the CS quests that are won passively(most culture, most faith, etc) are rewarded less than CS quests won actively(construct this building within 30 turns, trade with us, or conquer this city!)

Very few CS rewards are per city though, and I think this comes down to Enrico's original complaint. There is very little about the tree that scales with number of cities. In my most recent game, I took fealty instead solely because statecraft's happiness just seemed way too weak.

Statecraft has a lot of powerful things, I'm not disputing that. And its probably better for more of a medium sized empire than a super tall (who sometimes have difficulty competing for CS). But the almost total lack of per city benefits really impacts its flexibility, IMO. Even if food CS hits every city, additional cities directly hurt the culture and science from CS, and make the free military units, faith or gold less important (as tradition I sometimes get 50% of my faith from CS. I don't think its possible for wide progress to do so)

 

[Owlbebach]

Well statecraft benefits wide via Chanceries and Wire Services, and competing for the favor of City-States is way easier with Statecraft. Moreover Dipllomatic victory is probably the most war-oriented victory, so you are sort fo forced to go wide by capturing cities

 

[CrazyG]

Well statecraft benefits wide via Chanceries and Wire Services, and competing for the favor of City-States is way easier with Statecraft. Moreover Dipllomatic victory is probably the most war-oriented victory, so you are sort fo forced to go wide by capturing cities

Statecraft does not buff chanceries or wire services in any way. This argument has been repeated for months and its been wrong for months.

Going very wide with chanceries is a good strategy, but you should take fealty (or previously piety). Statecraft does not benefit enormous empires very much because it does not give any per city benefits. Compare to fealty, which is very strong for big empires and worth enormous amounts of happiness. Looking at a specific game where I did put a big investment into CS, fealty was still clearly the better choice because without it, I wouldn't even be close to positive happiness. Thus I support Enrico's suggestion of removing the happiness per trade route and replacing it with 1 happiness per chancery

 

[Rolaran]

Starting games in the Classical Era with this patch seems to crash the game. Has anyone else been encountering this? I started an Ancient Era game just fine, only setting I changed was the starting era.

 

[tu_79]

Statecraft does not buff chanceries or wire services in any way. This argument has been repeated for months and its been wrong for months.

Going very wide with chanceries is a good strategy, but you should take fealty (or previously piety). Statecraft does not benefit enormous empires very much because it does not give any per city benefits. Compare to fealty, which is very strong for big empires and worth enormous amounts of happiness. Looking at a specific game where I did put a big investment into CS, fealty was still clearly the better choice because without it, I wouldn't even be close to positive happiness. Thus I support Enrico's suggestion of removing the happiness per trade route and replacing it with 1 happiness per chancery

Owlbebach isn't saying that chanceries are enhanced by Statecraft, like it was before. He says that picking Statecraft lets you make CS friends/allies easier, thus you get more friends and allies which, in turn, makes chanceries and wire services yield more. Diplomatic missions are 50% stronger, that in itself allows your civ to keep the alliances better, no matter the size.

Playing for CS alliances is a zero-sum game, and a contested one at that, so it needs to be worthy. Investing in infrastructure is safe and durable, investing in conquests is risky but every conquered city makes it easier. Investing in CS might give a boost just for a short time, until influence decays or CS is claimed by another civ, so it better makes up for the invested resources.

Naturally, large empires can play diplomacy easier than small ones. The question is, is Statecraft that bad for large empires that it will be always better to pick another tree? Remember that just keeping some CS allies is helping happiness. And considering two empires of the same size, the one that picks Statecraft is going to ally more CS.

Maybe we should ask this guy that is always playing Germany.

 

[ashendashin]

I wonder how the height is changed when using puppets. If I control 4 cities and have 6 puppets, I still can produce lots of GP and have social and technological gains. Is it tall because I can still focus on specialists or is it wide because I own 10 cities that grab resources and produce tons of faith? Is it 'thick' because I mixed heights?

If power remains central to the 4 cities, then I consider that tall with a bit of a colonial mindset.

Owlbebach isn't saying that chanceries are enhanced by Statecraft, like it was before. He says that picking Statecraft lets you make CS friends/allies easier, thus you get more friends and allies which, in turn, makes chanceries and wire services yield more. Diplomatic missions are 50% stronger, that in itself allows your civ to keep the alliances better, no matter the size.

Playing for CS alliances is a zero-sum game, and a contested one at that, so it needs to be worthy. Investing in infrastructure is safe and durable, investing in conquests is risky but every conquered city makes it easier. Investing in CS might give a boost just for a short time, until influence decays or CS is claimed by another civ, so it better makes up for the invested resources.

Naturally, large empires can play diplomacy easier than small ones. The question is, is Statecraft that bad for large empires that it will be always better to pick another tree? Remember that just keeping some CS allies is helping happiness. And considering two empires of the same size, the one that picks Statecraft is going to ally more CS.

Maybe we should ask this guy that is always playing Germany.

Maybe not the best idea, since the last time I went wide without Germany and actually cared about Statecraft was...probably never. You can definitely meet your happiness needs and such with the right setup, but that's a large investment, which isn't much of an issue for Germany with the added incentive and insane production. I've definitely picked it often with other civs, but if I've been going wide from the start there genuinely isn't much reason to favor it over Fealty. Maybe if you foresee a scenario where the World Congress can potentially cripple you, but that isn't a thing that just happens to the player. The issue is how small their passive yields are for larger civs. It's difficult to justify the investment when there's tribute, monopolies to be had, and CS reliant civs to cripple.
Unique City-States changes this, but there's a lot of %modifiers, culture, and extra gold in there that makes it all a bit much, in my opinion. But that should be in the proper thread, and I wanna try increasing CS competition sometime.

Edit:
I have actually gone wide and picked Statecraft before, since Piety was mostly about gold and Aesthetic tourism never interested me. Losing the chancery happiness isn't all bad for me. There are ways to make up for it, though I do play with events. It's just that the tree didn't affect much in situations where there wasn't any specific thing to take advantage of, so I often didn't care for medieval policies when going wide in the past.

Edit 2:
Shouldn't the quest adjustments address this? I haven't played with this version, but since it's apparently all a bit OP right now, I think that should do a find job of justifying Statecraft in many cases.

 

[Enginseer]

Honestly if Statescraft is so bad wide, just make it so that your resting point is increased by 20 as the opener once gave. That way it is incredibly much easier for wide civilizations to literally pump out diplomats and automate them for eternal alliances.

 

[Gazebo]

I thought a goal of the rather massive overhaul of the medieval trees was to make them all flexible or applicable to more types of empires, not just a choice based on how large you are.


Very few CS rewards are per city though, and I think this comes down to Enrico's original complaint. There is very little about the tree that scales with number of cities. In my most recent game, I took fealty instead solely because statecraft's happiness just seemed way too weak.

Statecraft has a lot of powerful things, I'm not disputing that. And its probably better for more of a medium sized empire than a super tall (who sometimes have difficulty competing for CS). But the almost total lack of per city benefits really impacts its flexibility, IMO. Even if food CS hits every city, additional cities directly hurt the culture and science from CS, and make the free military units, faith or gold less important (as tradition I sometimes get 50% of my faith from CS. I don't think its possible for wide progress to do so)

I think the argument that statecraft buffs chanceries/wire services is valid - you're much more likely to get more stuff from these buildings, thus they're more likely to pay for themselves. That said, I could bump the happiness per trade route to two. I like the mechanic, and I want to avoid another happiness-building connection in statecraft if possible for the sake of uniqueness.

G

 

[CrazyG]

I think the argument that statecraft buffs chanceries/wire services is valid - you're much more likely to get more stuff from these buildings, thus they're more likely to pay for themselves. That said, I could bump the happiness per trade route to two. I like the mechanic, and I want to avoid another happiness-building connection in statecraft if possible for the sake of uniqueness.

G

I'm not married to the idea of 1 happiness per chancery, but we need more than the current version.

2 per trade route is a big improvement (if tradition gets 2 per national wonder, you should definitely get 2 per trade route). I don't find happiness per trade route all that interesting though

 

[ElliotS]

Honestly if Statescraft is so bad wide, just make it so that your resting point is increased by 20 as the opener once gave. That way it is incredibly much easier for wide civilizations to literally pump out diplomats and automate them for eternal alliances.

No thank you. I think I made some very good arguments on how useless increased resting point is in the original discussion thread about the changes. On vacation so I can't find the quotes myself.

 

[Owlbebach]

Statecraft does not buff chanceries or wire services in any way. This argument has been repeated for months and its been wrong for months.

Going very wide with chanceries is a good strategy, but you should take fealty (or previously piety). Statecraft does not benefit enormous empires very much because it does not give any per city benefits. Compare to fealty, which is very strong for big empires and worth enormous amounts of happiness. Looking at a specific game where I did put a big investment into CS, fealty was still clearly the better choice because without it, I wouldn't even be close to positive happiness. Thus I support Enrico's suggestion of removing the happiness per trade route and replacing it with 1 happiness per chancery

I do not think it is wrong, cause on high difficulties you pick Statecraft only of you go for Diplomatic Victory, which means you are going to invest in City-States and diplomatic units way more than in any other variant. I do not see how you are going to invest in MANY diplomatic units if you went Tradition-->>Artistry-->> Tourism, you just do not have enough cities and hammers for it. You might have 2-3 Allies, best-case scenario - 4, but not more. And if you have 3 Allies - Chanceries will take forever to pay off, not worth it.

Also what i was saying is not about going wide. its more about going war. Based on my experience the best idea is to build 7 cities (large map) and then capture 7 more from your neighbours and puppet them. In my opinion this is how Statecraft really works

 

[CrazyG]

I do not think it is wrong, cause on high difficulties you pick Statecraft only of you go for Diplomatic Victory, which means you are going to invest in City-States and diplomatic units way more than in any other variant. I do not see how you are going to invest in MANY diplomatic units if you went Tradition-->>Artistry-->> Tourism, you just do not have enough cities and hammers for it. You might have 2-3 Allies, best-case scenario - 4, but not more. And if you have 3 Allies - Chanceries will take forever to pay off, not worth it.

Who is talking about Tradition-->Artistry for a diplomatic strategy? For a really big empire, Fealty always beats statecraft, even if making a huge investment towards city states. Let's say that the bonuses from statecraft let you secure an additional 3 alliances, one of which is food, and that all cities have chanceries. Fealty is still worth worth more food, production, and gold in every city. This is why I cannot bring myself to choose statecraft very often, I strongly believe it needs some kind of yield per city in order to compete as a choice for wider empires (additional happiness would also be a big help)

 

[Owlbebach]

Who is talking about Tradition-->Artistry for a diplomatic strategy? For a really big empire, Fealty always beats statecraft, even if making a huge investment towards city states. Let's say that the bonuses from statecraft let you secure an additional 3 alliances, one of which is food, and that all cities have chanceries. Fealty is still worth worth more food, production, and gold in every city. This is why I cannot bring myself to choose statecraft very often, I strongly believe it needs some kind of yield per city in order to compete as a choice for wider empires (additional happiness would also be a big help)

I'd say it gives you much more that 3 alliances, but that may vary based on playstyle and situation. In my usual games if i pursue diplomatic victory, by the time i reach renaissance i usually have 8-12 alliances compared to 2-3 with scientific and 0-2 with tourism. But that might be a sign of Fealty being too strong rather than Statecraft being to weak

 

[CrazyG]

I'd say it gives you much more that 3 alliances, but that may vary based on playstyle and situation. In my usual games if i pursue diplomatic victory, by the time i reach renaissance i usually have 8-12 alliances compared to 2-3 with scientific and 0-2 with tourism. But that might be a sign of Fealty being too strong rather than Statecraft being to weak

I am not saying anything bad about pursuing CS as a strategy. I'm denouncing statecraft the policy tree, which is completely different. You do not need statecraft to pursue city states, you do not need it to build chanceries, you do not need it to pursue a diplomatic victory. This is what people do not seem to get.

I'm not arguing that CS as a strategy aren't wide friendly, the chancery is a powerful building for that exact strategy. But that has nothing to with the statecraft policy tree! You can debatably get more allies via statecraft, but with Fealty I don't find myself unable to build the necessary military or diplo units to secure alliances. Just do exactly what you would otherwise do, but take fealty instead. It provides more resources, especially happiness.

I really don't get why proposing a change to a policy tree which has was recently completely overhauled and has received zero tuning at all needs to be so agonizing.....

 

[Owlbebach]

I am not saying anything bad about pursuing CS as a strategy. I'm denouncing statecraft the policy tree, which is completely different. You do not need statecraft to pursue city states, you do not need it to build chanceries, you do not need it to pursue a diplomatic victory. This is what people do not seem to get.

I'm not arguing that CS as a strategy aren't wide friendly, the chancery is a powerful building for that exact strategy. But that has nothing to with the statecraft policy tree! You can debatably get more allies via statecraft, but with Fealty I don't find myself unable to build the necessary military or diplo units to secure alliances. Just do exactly what you would otherwise do, but take fealty instead. It provides more resources, especially happiness.

I really don't get why proposing a change to a policy tree which has was recently completely overhauled and has received zero tuning at all needs to be so agonizing.....

Well, actually i agree with you in general, Statecraft really seems to be weaker than Fealty overall, at least if you are playing wide.

However the question is would you take Fealty instead of Statecraft if you pursue diplomatic victory only? And are you going to achieve it earlier that with Statecraft? It might be a matter of different map settings, but on Large i need 50+ votes to win and i do not understand how is it possible to get so many votes without Big Ben and Consulates.

I support giving Statecraft something for wide play, but probably instead of something else. It seems to me that Fealty is overpowered rather that Statecraft underpowered. In my opinion after medieval trees were reworked - they became much stronger, so i'd rather avoid buffing any of them in order to balance thing out, it would be better to nerf others.

 

[Gazebo]

I am not saying anything bad about pursuing CS as a strategy. I'm denouncing statecraft the policy tree, which is completely different. You do not need statecraft to pursue city states, you do not need it to build chanceries, you do not need it to pursue a diplomatic victory. This is what people do not seem to get.

I'm not arguing that CS as a strategy aren't wide friendly, the chancery is a powerful building for that exact strategy. But that has nothing to with the statecraft policy tree! You can debatably get more allies via statecraft, but with Fealty I don't find myself unable to build the necessary military or diplo units to secure alliances. Just do exactly what you would otherwise do, but take fealty instead. It provides more resources, especially happiness.

I really don't get why proposing a change to a policy tree which has was recently completely overhauled and has received zero tuning at all needs to be so agonizing.....

I do wonder if the issue here isn't statecraft, but rather fealty....

G

 

[CrazyG]

I do wonder if the issue here isn't statecraft, but rather fealty....

G

I hope you will at least consider granting 2 happiness per trade route, because as is statecraft provides rather pitiful happiness.

Fealty's scaler + finisher is fairly insane, you get to 8 of food/hammer/gold. That 8 gold per city is in some situations easily worth as much happiness as 1 per trade route is. (same with artistry's scaler). I expect someone will say "but you could get happiness from CS", but I don't think its a good counterpoint. CS give rewards without statecraft, the other two trees still have the option to friend these CS types. CS luxuries often repeat themselves, and its just an innate part of pursuing CS.

However the question is would you take Fealty instead of Statecraft if you pursue diplomatic victory only? And are you going to achieve it earlier that with Statecraft? It might be a matter of different map settings, but on Large i need 50+ votes to win and i do not understand how is it possible to get so many votes without Big Ben and Consulates.

I've won a diplomatic victory without statecraft (I was Germany though). But I do see your point and I might have exaggerated there, the extra votes are very good for pursing that specific win condition. However, I don't think the tree is supposed to be only about diplo victories

 

[Workerspam]

Would it be possible for Statecraft to grant one of the appropriate yield for each City State Ally? So a Maritime ally would grant 1 food in all cities, Military ally 1 science, etc. If you could potentially get 4-6 yields in each city it would potentially be more enticing to take when going wide.

I love Fealty but I think you could change the finisher to 3 culture/science/faith (instead of 3 of all yields) and nobody would bat an eye. Ending up with 8 food/8 production/8 gold in every city is a bit much. You can just buy/build any science and culture you miss out on from the other medieval trees.

 

[Owlbebach]

I've won a diplomatic victory without statecraft (I was Germany though).

I won it too recently, but i somehow managed to have 65 cities with my religion which is quite unusual. Germany is broken for ages, at least in human hands

 

[lordrune]

Are there any bugs in calculation of relative military strength? I'm seeing cases where I'm three times larger than certain civs with a tech lead and have built almost up to my supply limit, even after decimating them in a war the advisor says 'they have an army that could wipe you off the planet.' Likely the reverse is true. They'll usually then declare war on me and not the 'last resort' "I know you're stronger but this needs to happen" war the AI tries at the end.