New Version - November 6th (11-6)

[ElliotS]

I think it makes sense to take this back to the policy balancing threads for each branch, I’m getting confused. I’m also on vacation in Cali and...uh...enjoying myself so it’s possible I’ll enjoy this more tomorrow. Or later.

Enjoy the vacation man! You deserve it. We'll only autocannibalize a little while you're gone. (God I love that word.)

 

[tu_79]

Statecraft is designed aroud tall for a reason. Wide is quite capable of playing diplomacy, so that tree let tall players be in the league, and for wide players it offers an easier diplomacy game, it's not the same to be friends than to be allies. CrazyG point is fair, though. Starter is relying on something too random.

I've felt a bit disappointed when playing thick (not tradition) and taken artistry. Other than the scaler, policies aren't doing anything useful for a long time. I whish some of those policies allowed a thick civ to work some more specialists, specially in secondary cities. You don't work many specialists because happiness is quite limited. You don't get happiness because you didn't work many specialists. Fealty has a policy making specialists give some faith and gold. Maybe not the same thing, to avoid repeating, maybe +1 happiness for every GWAM specialist. That way, even the widest civ will want and be able to work all of their cultural specialists, not only build the guilds. Not that useful for tall, but tall is already good at the cultural game.
I like that Artistry is related to great people and great works, but it needs to let wide civs to join the cultural game. Any ideas?

 

[Txurce]

Statecraft is designed aroud tall for a reason. Wide is quite capable of playing diplomacy, so that tree let tall players be in the league, and for wide players it offers an easier diplomacy game, it's not the same to be friends than to be allies. CrazyG point is fair, though. Starter is relying on something too random.

I've felt a bit disappointed when playing thick (not tradition) and taken artistry. Other than the scaler, policies aren't doing anything useful for a long time. I whish some of those policies allowed a thick civ to work some more specialists, specially in secondary cities. You don't work many specialists because happiness is quite limited. You don't get happiness because you didn't work many specialists. Fealty has a policy making specialists give some faith and gold. Maybe not the same thing, to avoid repeating, maybe +1 happiness for every GWAM specialist. That way, even the widest civ will want and be able to work all of their cultural specialists, not only build the guilds. Not that useful for tall, but tall is already good at the cultural game.
I like that Artistry is related to great people and great works, but it needs to let wide civs to join the cultural game. Any ideas?

There are a lot of good points here, including specifics like the Statecraft opener. Do you think that your point about wide not needing any more help with diplomacy applies to some degree to culture as well? It seems to in the case of runaways, at least; I don't know about the current version, but in the recent past super-wide runaways also excelled at culture. With regard to humans, if wide civs improve their cultural game as well thanks to buffs, then why would you ever play tall? As is, you've ruled out domination and (pretty much) diplomacy.

 

[tu_79]

There are a lot of good points here, including specifics like the Statecraft opener. Do you think that your point about wide not needing any more help with diplomacy applies to some degree to culture as well? It seems to in the case of runaways, at least; I don't know about the current version, but in the recent past super-wide runaways also excelled at culture. With regard to humans, if wide civs improve their cultural game as well thanks to buffs, then why would you ever play tall? As is, you've ruled out domination and (pretty much) diplomacy.

Standard map size? Difficulty? I don't see that big runaways go so advanced in policies, unless they have some unique advantage. Perhaps in early game, but not after musicians make their work.
I see the point of making tall uninteresting. Playing great people is still easier for tall, for the happiness is much easier to achieve by being a few well developed cities, the happiness for GWAM specialist will still benefit tall, but it will be more interesting for wide, since happiness is more scarce. GWAM specialists are also limited by guilds, so there's no huge advantage for wide, happiness will still be limited to 18. Fealty is arguably still better for wide play.

 

[Txurce]

Standard map size? Difficulty? I don't see that big runaways go so advanced in policies, unless they have some unique advantage. Perhaps in early game, but not after musicians make their work.
I see the point of making tall uninteresting. Playing great people is still easier for tall, for the happiness is much easier to achieve by being a few well developed cities, the happiness for GWAM specialist will still benefit tall, but it will be more interesting for wide, since happiness is more scarce. GWAM specialists are also limited by guilds, so there's no huge advantage for wide, happiness will still be limited to 18. Fealty is arguably still better for wide play.

Standard map, emperor/immortal difficulty... not that it matters all that much. Runaways are usually hitting on all cylinders. But my point about them isn't how far ahead they get in culture, or whether musicians can slow them down -- it's that they're at least competitive, despite their size. Wide play has some inherent overall advantages, and I'm okay with that. I'm also okay with tuning the specific policies with regard to overall gameplay. But the bottom line for me is that there are only three middle trees, and I'm fine that one (fealty) is the clear choice for wide, a second (artistry) the clear choice for tall, and having a third (statecraft) that leans toward tall but still helps anyone going wide and seeking a DV.

 

[tu_79]

Standard map, emperor/immortal difficulty... not that it matters all that much. Runaways are usually hitting on all cylinders. But my point about them isn't how far ahead they get in culture, or whether musicians can slow them down -- it's that they're at least competitive, despite their size. Wide play has some inherent overall advantages, and I'm okay with that. I'm also okay with tuning the specific policies with regard to overall gameplay. But the bottom line for me is that there are only three middle trees, and I'm fine that one (fealty) is the clear choice for wide, a second (artistry) the clear choice for tall, and having a third (statecraft) that leans toward tall but still helps anyone going wide and seeking a DV.

I still feel there's an issue when the first three policies in artistry synergize with tradition.

 

[Txurce]

I still feel there's an issue when the first three policies in artistry synergize with tradition.

So, for example, you'd want to break that up a little, or shift some benefit to wide there as well? That's fine with me, as long as it doesn't further tilt the overall game away from going tall.

 

[ElliotS]

Standard map, emperor/immortal difficulty... not that it matters all that much. Runaways are usually hitting on all cylinders. But my point about them isn't how far ahead they get in culture, or whether musicians can slow them down -- it's that they're at least competitive, despite their size. Wide play has some inherent overall advantages, and I'm okay with that. I'm also okay with tuning the specific policies with regard to overall gameplay. But the bottom line for me is that there are only three middle trees, and I'm fine that one (fealty) is the clear choice for wide, a second (artistry) the clear choice for tall, and having a third (statecraft) that leans toward tall but still helps anyone going wide and seeking a DV.

I think Ideally there should always be 2 decent choices. If you're going wide non-diplo it shouldn't be Fealty 100%. That makes gameplay a boring connect the dots with the blood of your enemies.

 

[Txurce]

I think Ideally there should always be 2 decent choices. If you're going wide non-diplo it shouldn't be Fealty 100%. That makes gameplay a boring connect the dots with the blood of your enemies.

You're right in principle, but it's tough to achieve with just 3 choices.Speaking broadly, let's say Fealty is clearly wide, and Artistry is clearly tall. If the goal is two decent choices, then we could make more of an effort to balance Statecraft. In my opinion, that's the one that should swing both ways the most, anyway.

 

[ElliotS]

You're right in principle, but it's tough to achieve with just 3 choices.Speaking broadly, let's say Fealty is clearly wide, and Artistry is clearly tall. If the goal is two decent choices, then we could make more of an effort to balance Statecraft. In my opinion, that's the one that should swing both ways the most, anyway.

I mean or we could make fealty shift a bit of power for tall and Artistry+Statecraft shift a bit of power for wide so that all three aren't size dependent and rather you can choose Fealty if you think you're into food gold and faith, Artistry if you want science culture and tourism and statecraft if you want diplomatic advantages and a little of everything.

That would allow people to choose to cover their weaknesses or play to their strengths, but also having at least two a good choice every game increases the skill ceiling and player interaction.

 

[Txurce]

I mean or we could make fealty shift a bit of power for tall and Artistry+Statecraft shift a bit of power for wide so that all three aren't size dependent and rather you can choose Fealty if you think you're into food gold and faith, Artistry if you want science culture and tourism and statecraft if you want diplomatic advantages and a little of everything.

That would allow people to choose to cover their weaknesses or play to their strengths, but also having at least two a good choice every game increases the skill ceiling and player interaction.

Yes, that's obviously harder because it's more to do, but would leave us in a pretty ideal place, if we can get there. Shift the discussion over there?

 

[lordrune]

I like how this began with people complaining about Fealty.

It may not even be that fealty is overpowered, it's just the one I feel is always going to be useful. Statecraft is more situational and Artistry feels a little bit lighter in raw yields.

That said I've been picking all of them in recent games, though I'm not playing that competitively. The mod feels like it's in a good state overall.

 

[Grennana]

Is there a Civilopedia for Vox Populi that is available online to read?

 

[Txurce]

Is there a Civilopedia available for Vox Populi?

There's an in-game semi-version, and there's this:

http://civ-5-cbp.wikia.com/wiki/Civ_5_CBP_Wikia

 

[Grennana]

Txurce. Thank you.

 

[tu_79]

I mean or we could make fealty shift a bit of power for tall and Artistry+Statecraft shift a bit of power for wide so that all three aren't size dependent and rather you can choose Fealty if you think you're into food gold and faith, Artistry if you want science culture and tourism and statecraft if you want diplomatic advantages and a little of everything.

That would allow people to choose to cover their weaknesses or play to their strengths, but also having at least two a good choice every game increases the skill ceiling and player interaction.

Exactly what I was thinking. In fact, recent changes to those trees were intended to make them less dependent on one kind of victory, but also less dependend on previous policies.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Is it normal Germany build its first worker at turn 95 at king difficulty and tiny map?
Iam observing the AI is really lazy about building worker and improving their cities, this may be not the case in higher difficulties due to their extra worker at start, but having NONE improvements in turn 95 looks a bit weird to me.
Is it possible to fix this by increasing the importness of workers for the AI?

 

[matlajs]

is it normal, that new quarry resources do not get upgraded by stoneworks? i can't even build stoneworks in a city with amber arround but without stoneworks resources. right now, in early industrial, it gives me 4 51. From my point of view that tile is not worth of working. it's an overall decent tile, maybe good for early game, but right now when factories coming into game, engineers/merchants or pure high production tiles are much better

 

[Moi Magnus]

is it normal, that new quarry resources do not get upgraded by stoneworks? i can't even build stoneworks in a city with amber arround but without stoneworks resources. right now, in early industrial, it gives me 4 51. From my point of view that tile is not worth of working. it's an overall decent tile, maybe good for early game, but right now when factories coming into game, engineers/merchants or pure high production tiles are much better

The new quary ressources are improved by the same building as before (not changes here). If not, it is a bug.

 

[matlajs]

i mean, that stoneworks in this case could work same way as forge does. +1p to quarries.