Poland

[CrazyG]

We have here two currents of suggestions. One for keeping civ 5 Poland theme (advance in policies to get rewards) and other based on real Cassimir legacy (rewards investing and helps getting policies). I'm biased to the latter myself, as an investing bonus certainly changes how you are going to expend your money.

I think the free social policies are supposed to represent legal reform, which were a legacy of Casimir.

Receive XX% of invested Gold as instant XYZ yields in the city. Instead of rushbuying, invest into units for a free random promotion. After adopting a Policy, all maintenance is nullified for X turns.

Doesn't ball, has an unique touch. It could just double/add 50% of Gold (and Production?) per turn for X turns instead of removing maintenance, or give some amount of Gold in the capital/per city for adopted Policy. If too weak, values can be upped or the maintenance nullified part can actually make maintenance count as +GPT for those turns.

Finishing a SoPol tree grants a free Social Policy. (much weaker than current but feels more right) + Add something nice to that or it'll be too weak

Investing into units is interesting, but IDK what you mean exactly. Currently if you invest in a building in a city, it remains invested forever (as far as I can tell). If your temple gets sold or destroyed by that event, when it reappears in the queue it will still be invested in.

So are you proposing I get to invest into a unit class, then for the rest of the game that unit class is cheaper to produce? That is interesting. If you just mean I invest into a knight, cut its cost in half, but just for that knight (the next one is full price) it seems like a major disadvantage to me. I guess you can tack a free promotion on but even then IDK if its really worthwhile.

Ehm, they aren't supposed to change your strategy. I mean how do the current UA change your strategy? How did the old UA change your strategy? You get more policies, and everyone knows policies are good.

This suggestion would make it more fun to progress an era, because you get a fun bonus, and it would make adopting policies more fun, because you get a fun bonus.
I don't necessarily think this would affect the culture snowball at all, assuming all you gain from adopting policies are local yields, they hardly snowball anything. And as you said eventually policies gets so expensive that the early snowball difference is just going to be somewhere around 1 policy or so, which hardly matters.
That being said, I'm not sold on my own suggestion at all, getting flat yields for adopting a policy is extremely hard to scale, as you said.

How about:
Gain culture when advancing into a new era, policies are X% cheaper and whenever you adopt a policy you get an Y turns long WLTKD in all cities?

The first two parts would act together as a sorta watered down version of the old UA, while the last part provides some flavour and makes the whole thing look more fun?

I'm looking at the list of 43 civs, and I see 42 counterexamples to your first sentence (Poland is the only one that isn't). This is what, in my opinion, makes the game fun. I am given a unique set of bonuses, and must figure out to win using those bonuses. I hope this means a distinct strategy because it stops the game from getting boring. I cannot win with the same strategy with every civ (this is the reason I stopped playing vanilla civ5), if you can good for you but I hope I don't ever reach that point because it sounds really boring to me.

I don't think just getting extra yields for something I cannot really do much to change is fun. I am not aware of any strategy that involves not getting social polices, so you are rewarding me for doing something I always do anyways. You can't hit the next era more times than other civs do, you are very limited in ways to get more social policies. I just cannot really adjust what I do to maximize the impact of my unique benefits. Going onto your later suggestion, WLTKD in all cities for adopting a policy is better than the crime reduction

 

[tu_79]

There are a few ways of investing in units.
1 Investing grants something to the unit after being produced, be it a free promotion or scaling XP. This unit cost can be halved too.
2 Purchase a boost for every unit of that kind produced during X turns. Like giving scaling extra XP to every knight produced during next 20 turns. This encourages producing several units in a row.
3 Cannot invest in units, only in buildings, but unit production cost is reduced.
4 Investing halves production cost of this unit (like a building) and get some food and science in return in the city.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Investing into units is interesting, but IDK what you mean exactly. Currently if you invest in a building in a city, it remains invested forever (as far as I can tell). If your temple gets sold or destroyed by that event, when it reappears in the queue it will still be invested in.

So are you proposing I get to invest into a unit class, then for the rest of the game that unit class is cheaper to produce? That is interesting. If you just mean I invest into a knight, cut its cost in half, but just for that knight (the next one is full price) it seems like a major disadvantage to me. I guess you can tack a free promotion on but even then IDK if its really worthwhile.

Either can be fine to be honest, it depends on what can be implemented easier. If it's investition for an unit class (like Knight, or Spearman, w/e), it should be full Gold price or maybe even slightly more expensive than what others pay for 1 unit, but if it's -50% Production for next unit only, then of course the Gold cost of doing this should also be discounted by no less than 50%, and the investition xx% XYZ UA yields should also be gotten either way. Either way the outcome would be no instant Gold units for Poland, but a free random promotion if you do invest - sounds pretty unique if you ask me, nobody has anything like this.

 

[Funak]

I'm looking at the list of 43 civs, and I see 42 counterexamples to your first sentence (Poland is the only one that isn't). This is what, in my opinion, makes the game fun. I am given a unique set of bonuses, and must figure out to win using those bonuses. I hope this means a distinct strategy because it stops the game from getting boring. I cannot win with the same strategy with every civ (this is the reason I stopped playing vanilla civ5), if you can good for you but I hope I don't ever reach that point because it sounds really boring to me.

I don't think just getting extra yields for something I cannot really do much to change is fun. I am not aware of any strategy that involves not getting social polices, so you are rewarding me for doing something I always do anyways. You can't hit the next era more times than other civs do, you are very limited in ways to get more social policies. I just cannot really adjust what I do to maximize the impact of my unique benefits. Going onto your later suggestion, WLTKD in all cities for adopting a policy is better than the crime reduction

I know you love being right and hate actually reading what I write, but how can my first sentence possibly be wrong? I said:
1. The yields on policy-adaption is not meant to change your overall strategy - That's a fact, in fact that's a fact that you yourself pointed out.
2. The old UA did nothing to change Polands overall strategy - That's pretty much exactly what you said in the following sentence.


With that out of the way, I would like to say what you probably assumed I did in the first place:
I don't necessarily think every civ needs to be super-unique, them having some specific flavour to them, absolutely, but that could just as well come from the unique building.
If we have to choose between a solid idea and a unique but weird/complicated/weak idea, I'd say we should go for the solid one every time.

 

[tu_79]

I know you love being right and hate actually reading what I write, but how can my first sentence possibly be wrong? I said:
1. The yields on policy-adaption is not meant to change your overall strategy - That's a fact, in fact that's a fact that you yourself pointed out.
2. The old UA did nothing to change Polands overall strategy - That's pretty much exactly what you said in the following sentence.


With that out of the way, I would like to say what you probably assumed I did in the first place:
I don't necessarily think every civ needs to be super-unique, them having some specific flavour to them, absolutely, but that could just as well come from the unique building.
If we have to choose between a solid idea and a unique but weird/complicated/weak idea, I'd say we should go for the solid one every time.

In fact, how would a civ without uniques play? Like Germany for the most part?
Having a single civ that doesn't need to change its gameplay to make the best use of its uniques can be a unique thing, too. It could be used as a testing civ for game mechanics.

 

[Funak]

In fact, how would a civ without uniques play? Like Germany for the most part?
Having a single civ that doesn't need to change its gameplay to make the best use of its uniques can be a unique thing, too. It could be used as a testing civ for game mechanics.

Like Poland, clearly...

I still REALLY don't understand why people keep bringing up Germany as a civ that plays vanilla. Germany is completely dependent on keeping city-states alive and running trade-routes to them, in that sense they're far more unique than for example Siam or Austria.

 

[CrazyG]

I know you love being right and hate actually reading what I write, but how can my first sentence possibly be wrong? I said:
1. The yields on policy-adaption is not meant to change your overall strategy - That's a fact, in fact that's a fact that you yourself pointed out.
2. The old UA did nothing to change Polands overall strategy - That's pretty much exactly what you said in the following sentence.


With that out of the way, I would like to say what you probably assumed I did in the first place:
I don't necessarily think every civ needs to be super-unique, them having some specific flavour to them, absolutely, but that could just as well come from the unique building.
If we have to choose between a solid idea and a unique but weird/complicated/weak idea, I'd say we should go for the solid one every time.

I did read your post (maybe you didn't?). Your first sentence was "Ehm, they aren't supposed to change your strategy". The tone of this seems much more "I love being right" than mine does, but I'll ignore that. Unless there is some English expression I'm not aware of somewhere I don't see how this can intepreted to mean your points 1 and 2. Which I agree with

I guess I cannot prove that unique stuff is supposed to change your strategy, but it certainly does. I'm staring at the list of civs, and each (but Poland) seems to have a unique something that pushes it to do something differently than a flavorless civ would.

On to your second point, I agree every civ does not need be super unique. I think a free social every other era is a solid idea, the investment ideas are more complex but that doesn't mean they aren't worth discussing.

 

[Funak]

I did read your post (maybe you didn't?). Your first sentence was "Ehm, they aren't supposed to change your strategy". The tone of this seems much more "I love being right" than mine does, but I'll ignore that. Unless there is some English expression I'm not aware of somewhere I don't see how this can intepreted to mean your points 1 and 2. Which I agree with

I guess I cannot prove that unique stuff is supposed to change your strategy, but it certainly does. I'm staring at the list of civs, and each (but Poland) seems to have a unique something that pushes it to do something differently than a flavorless civ would.

On to your second point, I agree every civ does not need be super unique. I think a free social every other era is a solid idea, the investment ideas are more complex but that doesn't mean they aren't worth discussing.

Your question was: "Why is yields on policy adoption a good idea at all? I'll guess I'll adjust my strategy by, putting a big emphasis on culture early on? Or I build the Oracle? Two things I already almost always do?"

My answer was: "Ehm, they aren't supposed to change your strategy."

I don't see what else was plural in your sentence other than 'yields', except possibly 'things' but in that case the response wouldn't make sense either way.
As in the suggestion to add yields on policy adoption was never meant to change how you played the civ.

Either way whatever, let's just drop it.

 

[tu_79]

Your question was: "Why is yields on policy adoption a good idea at all? I'll guess I'll adjust my strategy by, putting a big emphasis on culture early on? Or I build the Oracle? Two things I already almost always do?"

My answer was: "Ehm, they aren't supposed to change your strategy."

I don't see what else was plural in your sentence other than 'yields', except possibly 'things' but in that case the response wouldn't make sense either way.
As in the suggestion to add yields on policy adoption was never meant to change how you played the civ.

Either way whatever, let's just drop it.

Ey, Funak, no matter how you do express yourself, someone always reads rudeness!
You should try putting faces more often

 

[Funak]

Ey, Funak, no matter how you do express yourself, someone always reads rudeness!
You should try putting faces more often

I actually do put faces in pretty often.
Looking back here I guess I don't do it as often as I used to, maybe I'm tired of you people?

On my other forums I still suffer from having to go back and remove smilies because the text looks awful with smilies posted every two rows.

 

[Gazebo]

So wait, what's wrong with Poland as-is? More policies = good UA. Was too strong so I nerfed it. Problem solved.

 

[Txurce]

So wait, what's wrong with Poland as-is? More policies = good UA. Was too strong so I nerfed it. Problem solved.

Nothing's wrong. People are bored.

 

[CrazyG]

Nothing's wrong. People are bored.

This describes why I'm in the thread.

I do think getting the free social every other era might be a better approach than every 16 techs, but isn't it fun to discuss new UAs?

 

[Txurce]

This describes why I'm in the thread.

I do think getting the free social every other era might be a better approach than every 16 techs, but isn't it fun to discuss new UAs?

I've been rooting for you, CG.

 

[Wodhann]

It's so weird to come back to this thread and see so many people on my side of the argument, even people who initially disagreed with me.

As for my two cents, my mind hasn't really changed. I have said this point many times in mostly the same words, so I'll put it differently this time:

There are many UAs that passively grant you something, but Poland's never makes me biased towards certain decisions. For example, Brazil's UA has a passive element to it, but it makes me biased in favor of GA points, which maybe I wouldn't care as much playing as another civ. Poland's just makes me play as I would play an empty civ. That's my problem with it.

 

[Funak]

So wait, what's wrong with Poland as-is? More policies = good UA. Was too strong so I nerfed it. Problem solved.

I personally never liked the old UA, but its strength and bluntness made it appealing, I assume that at least some people agree with that. Anyways now that the UA is weaker, and the policies aren't given at cool era-transition spots, giving you incentive to beeline, I think the UA is really boring.

I had actually been working on ideas to fix it for more than half a year, on and off, and I thought it would be a nice time to bring it up now that you made the change to Poland and their UA is no longer appealing (to me at least)

 

[Wodhann]

I personally never liked the old UA, but its strength and bluntness made it appealing

Exactly. When something is only interesting when it's strong, then you have a game design problem.

 

[Gazebo]

Poland is a nice starter civ - he's simple, his bonuses come naturally, and he's got a solid, scaling advantage on any map.

G

 

[Funak]

Exactly. When something is only interesting when it's strong, then you have a game design problem.

Poland is a nice starter civ - he's simple, his bonuses come naturally, and he's got a solid, scaling advantage on any map.

Once again I'm not saying that Poland needs to be a unique butterfly, I'm saying the UA could be replaced with something that's more interesting even if it is still passive.
I would however still shift the focus on the UB from being a weird economic building to being a Ikanda/Dojo style building focusing on mounted units.
This would leave the Poland UA passive while giving Casimir a focus towards mounted combat which imho is enough flavor to be fun.

 

[Gazebo]

Once again I'm not saying that Poland needs to be a unique butterfly, I'm saying the UA could be replaced with something that's more interesting even if it is still passive.
I would however still shift the focus on the UB from being a weird economic building to being a Ikanda/Dojo style building focusing on mounted units.
This would leave the Poland UA passive while giving Casimir a focus towards mounted combat which imho is enough flavor to be fun.

I'm fine with this. The UA is potent if vanilla, yep.