Policies: late game

[Thalassicus]

I've been thinking about the late game policy trees.

Enlightenment has always been good, and still fits science victory games well. Freedom's got a stronger theme now as a tall empire tree. Specialists just aren't too exciting to build a strategy around - note the unpopularity of Suleiman's old trait as well.

Other than the finisher, I think the Nationalism tree is in the best shape it's ever been in. It's got a nice economic side, military side, and useful bonuses. The finisher isn't too great, but the policies that lead up to it are useful. I had struggled for years to improve that tree. I think the happiness bonuses are finally something worth going for in just about every wide-empire game. Freedom is very powerful too, so I think those two trees are in a great situation.

The only problem now is Order. I've never really been able to figure out what to do with it. The old "wide empire" theme is hard to make a whole policy tree for. It works out better mixing the peaceful and militaristic wide empire policies together in Nationalism. Now the question is what to do with Order.

Each policy tree has a distinct theme:

 

[Txurce]

Rightly or wrongly, I tend to use Order at the end of my Science games, in that post-Enlightenment I'm starting to focus on hammers for the SS parts, gold relief, and science from anywhere else. It strikes me as being well-rounded for Science and Conquest. The opener is really useful to go after the SoL. But it sounds like I'm a minority opinion here.

 

[mitsho]

First, I think we will not have this problem anymore when G&K is around: Nationalism will receive an anti-espionage policy, order a pro-espionage one. Also, I'd guess Piety will be remodelled and one or two-faith based policies will get introduced. So there will be a shift and either Culture or Happiness will be driven from piety to Order.

Secondly, I'd say Order is fine: it succeeds in wonder grabbing and helps out those who don't want to open rationalism with science and gives you money (maintenance) or production. If you want to make Culture Victories harder, you could split up one or two of the culture policies from piety and put them into Order. That way, culture victories need some late game investment as well but still require planning (those culture buildings need to go up as soon as possible anyways).

But in general, I'd say it's fine for the moment.

 

[pthmix]

How about a wide/diplomatic/peaceful approach?

Emphasize trade routes (maybe and from trade routes?) and deals with other players (+ from research agreements and from open borders). Edit: A policy which increases the happiness from imported luxuries could be interesting too.

Trade routes lost some of their strength so you could dedicate a policy tree to them. Also it seems like you will be able to find good friends with G&K so a diplomacy focus could work well.

Anyway, just some ideas...

 

[wobuffet]

Emphasize trade routes (maybe and from trade routes?)

I like this idea!

 

[Thalassicus]

After the expansion I plan to make Piety happiness/piety instead of happiness/culture, but the policies will be mostly unchanged. It's the underlying buildings that will change (from culture to piety). I'm going to shift the cultural bonuses into Tradition and Freedom.

While it's easy to make a policy tree powerful, it's harder to give it an exciting theme. Order is certainly strong, but is it exciting? Most of the bonuses are copies of bonuses in other trees right now.

Commerce's finisher increases happiness from imported luxuries. I'm hesitant to give bonuses to undeveloped cities (trade routes), because it can lead us back into infinite-city-spam territory. I prefer to reward developed cities (buildings/improvements).

 

[wobuffet]

With the trade route /, I was thinking new satellite Cities would start with -15% or so for each of those yields, but would jump up to "normal" upon connecting them with trade routes.

Alternatively, to keep City development important, tech and/or SP costs could just be scaled up and effects like "+15% / if this City is connected to the Capital or is the Capital" added to, say, the University/Temple to achieve the same effect.

 

[mitsho]

What are you going to shift away from Tradition and Freedom? (That should then go into Order )

Order does feel "wide" and it should be in opposition to Commerce (but they should not be exclusive to each other!). While Commerce helps out villages, Order should help out mines, farms and lumbermills. While Commerce focuses on luxury ressources, Order should focus on strategic and bonus ressources. While Commerce focuses on (international) trade, Order should focus on inner-empire infrastructure. You get the drift I'm going here I hope from a "historical" point of view. It's after all Communism against Capitalism.

So, then my solution is to make Order "Production / Infrastructure" with effects like:

• Free Factories in first 5 cities, (+15% science for them)
• Cities connected by railroad receive additional culture
• Farms, mines and lumbermills receive production
• free Great Engineer
• receive X amount of Y upon doing Z (+100 science everytime you build a public school, f.e.)

So, in short, a playstyle that gives you advantages for investing in your infrastructure.

 

[MortalD]

Not precisely on topic but i rather not create new thread :

I think Oligarchy is to powerful and favors human player to much.
My freshly created city was able to destroy whole Persian invasion of immortals, chariots, archers etc - 12/15 units - with just 1 archer at garrison + 1 trireme.
1st I order my archer to garrison the city to get + 100 % ranged boost for it, shoot and then order the archer to attack. My single city can do catastrophic dmg to the enemy this way, and i doubt that the AI can do same. It make it to easy to repeal AI attacks for human player, where AI cant do same when its me who is on the offensive even if it picked this policy.

A simple reduction to +50 % from 100 should balance it out and give AI some chances when attacking hmm unprepared human player.

 

[wobuffet]

Would a straight-up + boost be better balanced than the current +% from garrison from the Tradition policy? Maybe +7.5, +25% or something like that. Or just the ranged strengths, I don't know.

Frankly, something like 2 attacks per turn for each garrisoned city would be more fun and balanced, but that's probably just wishful thinking.

 

[Thalassicus]

I like those ideas for order Mitsho, especially free factories. Free buildings is a capability haven't used much, just culture/defense so far. I'm thinking "free production buildings" instead of factories, in case we already built factories or don't have the necessary Coal. I can't reveal details about plans for post-expansion Piety yet.

I'd be okay with reducing Oligarchy's city bonus. Should we balance it with an increase of the experience bonus, or do you think it would still be too powerful?

On a side note, I'm thrilled to hear the AI actually used a decent mix of units in its attack... even if not used effectively. I wish I could control their promotion preferences. It's got a rough terrain promotion obsession hardcoded in the game core.

 

[Seek]

While we're on the subject of Oligarchy, would it be easy to have the terrain mouseover tooltip display the maintenance cost for the unit? (It currently lists movement, strength and hitpoints.) It would be very handy to quickly make decisions as to what unit to garrison when a player has the policy. Only if it's not too much trouble of course!

 

[wobuffet]

Are Levies intended to have 0 maintenance, by the way? Either they do, or their tooltip is bugged.

 

[MortalD]

Sadly i assume Persia diversion in army was from opportunities
And i believe there is no need to add anything extra to Oligarchy after its % bonus reduction.
At 50 % it will still be very powerful for players.

 

[albie_123]

Are Levies intended to have 0 maintenance, by the way? Either they do, or their tooltip is bugged.

I think they are, as they are meant to be a quickly made unit for early defense or throwing at enemies to make them softer.

 

[Thalassicus]

Combat unit types should always have at least 1 maintenance (other than oligarchy), so that's unintended. I'll investigate further.

On a side note, unit/building tooltips almost always show accurate information in vem, because they read directly from the game data files. Policy tooltips do not, however, because their effects are more complicated and unique.

 

[Jaybe]

I wish I could control their promotion preferences. It's got a rough terrain promotion obsession hardcoded in the game core.

I learned back in v123 that setting promotion priorities doesn't work worth bleep. However, with v126 I found that by giving Drill_1/Guerrilla_1 prerequisites of Shock_1/Trenches_1, the AI produces a good mix of open, mixed and other lines of promotions among their foot sloggers.

You might (or might not) want to change promos requiring Drill/Guerrilla_3 to Drill/Guerrilla_2 to compensate.

 

[Thalassicus]

The problem is that also limits human options... which is the one thing I really try to avoid.

 

[Seek]

The production-from-CS mechanic would work better as a late-game Wonder, I think - there are a number of other policies which grant extra yields from CSs but no wonders. I think it would work well on the SoL (represent the production from open immigration) or on a new wonder like the East India Company (represents powerful exploitation! - ahem, I mean trading!).

 

[wobuffet]

^ I really like this hammers from CSs idea.