Policies: The time has come!

[Stalker0]

Alright, I am getting the ball started. Its one of the ones we have been dreading!

Lets talk policies. First I want to outline the challenge. This is an area in CEP where we had huge debates, and we went back and forth many times. Ultimately...the final product was not the best in CEP, though I will still say it was a big improvement over vanilla (I get depressed filling out policies in vanilla, I had forgotten how utterly bland and imbalanced they are).

But make no mistake...this is a tough beast to tackle.


So let me start with the first hurdle....the 4 starting trees.

Tradition: Tradition is often called the "Tall" tree...but that is actually not true at all. This is the best tree in the vanilla game for several reasons:

1) A strong capital is strong for everyone. Wide/Tall...doesn't matter. You are going to have a badass capital, and anything that makes it stronger is just plain good.

2) Its finisher is amazing. One, its just awesome. Growth is great and its as much a wide bonus as a tall one. Combined with the free aqueducts (which are not cheap to get early game) its just puts you a growth spurt compared to other policies.

But second...it is very fast to get. The opener's +3 culture, + the free monuments policy mean you fill out this tree much quicker than you do the other ones.


Tradition is the first big problem. It eclipses all early trees. In fact, with the exception of rationalism I think it eclipses ALL other trees.


Liberty: Its not tradition...that's the problem. Liberty has interesting policies, they just aren't as good. Nothing more to say about this on the offset, tradition has to be tackled first.

Honor: At least in SP, the problem with Honor is that humans don't need help with warfare. Bottom line is, the AI is still dumb when it comes to warring. I don't need combat bonuses to compete with them.

Where the AI does compete with me is in yields and infrastructure. That is where I need "help". Why would I go with honor when I have other trees that help me fight the AI in areas I actually need help fighting?


To me, the key to honor is to drop the combat bonus entirely...and turn warfare into an engine of yields and infrastructure. We expand on the concept of getting gold and culture from war. Make pillaging stronger, add in faith. Gives me a bonus to happiness if I've had a kill in the last 5 turns. Steal science from conquered cities. Make it easier to get tribute from CS.

The tree shouldn't make it easier to war...it should make it more desirable!!!

Piety: I think we have to tackle religion and beliefs before we do much here.


One thing I do think is important in tree balancing...every tree needs a happiness component, as a tree without it will have trouble competiting.


Further, considering the difficulty we have had in the past with policy balance, I think we should entertain more radical approaches. A few ideas:

1) Retraining policies. I can swap out some of my policies for later ones, maybe with one turn of anarchy. In other words, we somewhat adopt Civ 4's approach. Policies are not set in stone, but you use different trees for different times and problems your civ faces.
2) Reduce the number of trees. We don't "have" to have 7 trees and 3 ideologies. I would much rather have 5 or even 4 very fun useful trees than 7 trees of which most I barely touch.
3) Create combos. Policy gives me X bonus...and Y bonus if I also have the piety opener.
4) Culture returns. Right now every policy costs "the same". We could apply the same approach that wonders gave...aka a free building to give a "hammer return". Upon choosing a policy, I get a bonus of culture back for example.
5) Change teh number of policies per tree. Nothing says it has to be an opener/5middle/and an end. Maybe one tree is 2-3 policies, its meant to be something run through for a few quick bonuses instead of a major investment.

 

[mystikx21]

I like that this is broken into the first four. We will have to focus attention most on these so it is fitting we should start here, but it also means we can make the others into separate threads (I would do the other trees in one thread, and then ideologies in another).

I was not a huge fan of the overall CEP approaches to policies. I think there were sometimes some good design goals, but then there was piety... and exploration.

For tradition
- I would split up the opener. The culture border rate effect is really powerful early. It should be deeper in the tree. The easiest way to achieve this was to move +2 food in the capital to the opener with the +3 culture and find a different home for the culture border rate.
- I would split up (but possibly improve/change to be less capital-centric) the growth effects. The finisher is really powerful while the other growth effects are less so. I would not have a bonus growth rate in just the capital, but to keep the tall-centric, the first four cities getting particular bonuses would be fine.
- Oligarchy should probably combine portions of the honor garrison policy into it and reduce the combat strength bonus. The honor garrison policy doesn't really do much for honor.
- A specialist bonus in tradition would be good. (either free x specialist in capital per population or reduced unhappiness per specialists, probably in the capital)
- I would want to keep the wonder bonus here.
I don't mind the capital centric effects, so long as they are more narrow than growth in the capital, say. Specialist effects would be one way here.

Liberty-
This was the tree that underwent the least amount of change in CEP, and probably because it was structurally fine as it was.
Meritocracy needs adjustment because of happiness changes, but a bonus for connections (higher economic value from them or just the +1 happy for them) would be fine here to keep.

I would increase Republic's building % bonus to 10-15%, but otherwise this tree overall is fine. Maybe change the settler bonus to 25% in all cities instead of 50% in the capital. The opener is a little weak, but +1 culture in new cities is already useful for off-setting happiness later on. It's possible it could use a raw happiness effect, but meritocracy may be providing that already.

The free golden age is kind of meh. Golden Ages could be improved and it would still be kind of meh.

Some kind of per/population unhappiness offset should remain here (not effecting conquered population)

- I would want to change the unlock away from Pyramids. It duplicates a policy, and doesn't really offer a thematic association.

Honor-
I am fine with combat bonuses because they help make combat easier (for the AI), but they should be combined with rewards (incentives) for that combat yes. Yields from kills or conquests or pillaging would be appropriate here.

- I would want some bonus to citadels in here.

- I would rather get some free units with bonuses than extra yields. (free as in no upkeep and instant build). Extra yields should come from combat. Essentially. Gold/science/culture/golden age points, etc.

- Maybe some kind of happiness effect whenever a GG or GA is earned?

Piety-
Religious tolerance bonus would be necessary here
keep the free GP, but move it off the finisher. It makes little sense to get reformation without some certainty that you have a religion.
- I would keep the effect that this tree helps get a religion up sooner, but it should make that religion more powerful/flexible as well, or do other things.

radical approaches...
1) Why? What problem does this resolve? If you have made poor choices in improving your empire with social policies, then the problem is that we have weak choices that do not help us. They may not help us win in a new way that we have (suddenly) decided is necessary, but that problem should be "punished" by having to radically change course. And you already have the option to change course, by accumulating new policies
2) Maybe. Though I think we can find a suitable role for the existing trees, they just won't all be useful every game. That should be fine as long as they have a well-defined and potentially powerful use.
3) This is already the case. We have x policy, then we can get y policy from unlocking it which has z effect. This is merely a different way of looking at the policy structure as it already exists.
4) This might be an interesting effect for a leader (say, replacing France's UA), but I am not sure we want to use it by default. I believe you can adjust the culture cost of a policy, but the easiest way to do this is to a) have policies/effects that reduce cultural costs and b) set up tiers so a policy costs its own cost plus the cost of the policies needed to use it. I am also loathe to add more sources of cultural income to the game. At least until we have some handle on how tourism will work.

 

[Stalker0]

I will do my usual number up and comment approach:


For tradition
1) - I would split up the opener. The culture border rate effect is really powerful early. It should be deeper in the tree. The easiest way to achieve this was to move +2 food in the capital to the opener with the +3 culture and find a different home for the culture border rate.

--I actually think both the culture bonus and expansion bonus should be later in the tree. The +3 culture is actually very very strong because of when you get it. Without a monument, I quadruple my culture rate...with a monument I double it.

It let you move through this tree very fast compared to other early trees. Frankly even a +2 food to your capital would be a solid bonus because of how early in the game it is when you get it.

2) - I would split up (but possibly improve/change to be less capital-centric) the growth effects. The finisher is really powerful while the other growth effects are less so. I would not have a bonus growth rate in just the capital, but to keep the tall-centric, the first four cities getting particular bonuses would be fine.

--I think we should still reduce the growth bonus as well. Even in a tall empire, my first 4 cities take up a bigger share of the load.

3) - Oligarchy should probably combine portions of the honor garrison policy into it and reduce the combat strength bonus. The honor garrison policy doesn't really do much for honor.

--Oligarchy is one of my least favorite policies in the game. The maintenance free aspect is just so damn boring to me, and I think the ranged combat strength just makes city strength harder to balance (a 50% swing is a big deal). I personally would love to burn this policy to the ground, salt the earth, and recreate it from scratch.


4) - A specialist bonus in tradition would be good. (either free x specialist in capital per population or reduced unhappiness per specialists, probably in the capital)
- I would want to keep the wonder bonus here.
I don't mind the capital centric effects, so long as they are more narrow than growth in the capital, say. Specialist effects would be one way here.

--Generally agree here.

5) Liberty-

--Generally agree with all comments made here, especially that the settler bonus should be in all cities, not just the capital. It might also make sense to put in a buyout reduction for settlers as well.

Honor-
6) I am fine with combat bonuses because they help make combat easier (for the AI), but they should be combined with rewards (incentives) for that combat yes.

--I disagree. While yes those combat bonuses for the AI are nice...considering that they gave up some nice infrastructure bonuses in the other trees they aren't overall on better footing...in fact I think that's it makes it even worse. The AI's strength is infrastructure and yields...if they choose policies away from that to focus on benefits they suck at...they are not stronger overall imo.

7) I would want some bonus to citadels in here.

--How many citadels do people actually see in a game? Would a bonus here actually be worthwhile?

8)
- I would rather get some free units with bonuses than extra yields. (free as in no upkeep and instant build). Extra yields should come from combat. Essentially. Gold/science/culture/golden age points, etc.

--Works for me...maybe even some highly promoted units. Kind of like the "Pretorian Guard" in history..your elite units.

9)
- Maybe some kind of happiness effect whenever a GG or GA is earned?

--One idea I had for the GG was to give a "Victory Arch" - provides 5 happiness. This would be a terrain improvement that gives happiness. It would be a way to use the GGs in peacetime, and provide a way for conquest heavy nations to get over the happiness hurdles they face.


radical approaches...
10) Why? What problem does this resolve? If you have made poor choices in improving your empire with social policies, then the problem is that we have weak choices that do not help us. They may not help us win in a new way that we have (suddenly) decided is necessary, but that problem should be "punished" by having to radically change course. And you already have the option to change course, by accumulating new policies

--The key benefit here is we get the freedom to make policies "situationally useful" as opposed to "generally useful".

I will use honor as an example. I personally am a peaceful player by nature, I'm really not going to be interested in honor unless it was an OP tree. However, lets say I got into a very heavy war in the middle of the game. It might be worth it to me to take a turn or two of anarchy and regear my civ into a war focused civ for a time.

Or the reverse. I decide to a be warmongering conquer in the early game. I spread far and wide...but then later in the game my warfaring is done. I regear some of my honor policies towards more peaceful endeavors.

If policies only have to be useful for portions of the game, it makes them significantly easier to balance with each other.


3) This is already the case. We have x policy, then we can get y policy from unlocking it which has z effect. This is merely a different way of looking at the policy structure as it already exists.

--Not really the same thing, that is a PreReq structure. In order for me to get anything out of Z, I had to have taken Y first.

What I am referring to is more flexible. I can take Z, its just not as good without Y. I can take Y later and get a boost to Z.

Speaking of PreReqs, one thing we should discuss. Should we keep vanilla's rigid prereq structure, or go to CEP's where the vast majority of policies did not have prereqs. You could take them in order.

 

[mystikx21]

2) I would not have a capital only growth, just do something like all cities 10% growth as one pick (with the capital getting +2 food plus this effect), and free aqueducts in 4 on the finisher.

3) I would be fine with eliminating garrison bonuses altogether. It's an odd policy pick for a tall-centered design anyway. We could split and move one of the culture or growth effects here.

6) I don't know that this would be necessary if it grants yields through combat is my main issue. That is: I don't want honor to make my "economy" better, by boosting buildings, I would want it to make my military into an economy boost of its own. I could see a slight boost to barracks line buildings (faster production, maybe add production to them, something like that), but otherwise, honor should not be about making your cities better. It should be, in part, about going out and getting more cities.

7) Citadel bonus would mostly be for flavor. The other reason for this would be that I would prefer to have GI tie-ins for other policy trees (CH in commerce, Academy in rationalism, etc).

9) This would be fine except the GG already has a GI associated and a default role in boosting combat. That is about what I am thinking though is +4-5 happy from each GG/GA generation. I'd be fine with that being a honor policy, and then autocracy increasing the rate of GG/GA generation.

10) Policies already have short and long-term benefits. I don't think this is a major issue for balance. The problem is whether those benefits are a good reason to take the pick and in some/many cases, by default at least, the answer is no. If the policies are reasonably strong or flexible/narrow, then they should be good enough to answer this question differently. If you didn't set up your empire for warfare and want to or have to go to war, that's still an option, it just will take you a while. It sounds like potentially adding an additional mechanic for something we can already do (slowly).

3) I was not a fan of the removal of pre-reqs in policy choices (partly for this reason), but I would consider shuffling them around or removing some of them (adding others), certainly.

 

[Stalker0]

6) I don't know that this would be necessary if it grants yields through combat is my main issue. That is: I don't want honor to make my "economy" better, by boosting buildings, I would want it to make my military into an economy boost of its own. I could see a slight boost to barracks line buildings (faster production, maybe add production to them, something like that), but otherwise, honor should not be about making your cities better. It should be, in part, about going out and getting more cities.

--You and I are in general agreement here. One thing we could do is give +5 XP to barracks, armories, and MAs in combination with the +X% bonus to experience policy.

9) This would be fine except the GG already has a GI associated and a default role in boosting combat.

--The problem I have with the GG is this:

You often don't need more than 1-2. 3-4 GGs don't give you any benefit on the battlefield unless your battle is just huge.

Citadels aren't that great. Now the land steal once in a while is pretty awesome and fun, but compared to other improvements its just not that great.

I would like to see it where having more than 2 GGs in the whole game gave me something worthwhile.

10) It sounds like potentially adding an additional mechanic for something we can already do (slowly).

--First, this was the most radical of my ideas, and considering that we default to conservative thinking I am happy if we wanted to go another direction.

That said, I will argue the ability to change directions using policies is not slow...its glacial. If by mid game I want to go to war and decided to start pushing honor to it...I will be waiting 50+ turns to get any real traction.

Now that is not to say that policies come too slow in the course of "balance"...but they too come to slowly to use as a "change of course" mechanic. Now that to me is how they were designed, and its okay if we keep that mentality. There is nothing that says policies HAVE to be a "quick change of course" mechanic.


3) I was not a fan of the removal of pre-reqs in policy choices (partly for this reason), but I would consider shuffling them around or removing some of them (adding others), certainly.

--I can get behind this. I do think some prereqs are needless and silly, but some policies deserve a prereq.

 

[mitsho]

I agree that there don't need to be huge discussions, rather go one-by-one exchanging the ovious problems you seem to identify well. I like the idea of combining Great Generals and Happiness somehow, Tradition getting +2 food in capital (and Liberty +1 hammer in all cities?) to start, but the problem is due to the slow pace of culture wherever you put the culture policy afterwards, it'd be a number one choice, no? I can see Tradition gaining an extra specialist slot (Merchant, Engineer, Scientist). Honor should have one "control the map"-policy (detect barb camps, get better results from ruins, special rewards from meeting CS, maybe +1 sight) which is split from the %against and culture from barb kills. The lump sum of gold was always fun and interesting, etc. ...

Two things: If you put "reward-for-warfare" policies into Honor, it might be that the AI never gets to use it. This is probably also one reason why aggressive AI civs fare worse, it's harder to capitalize on their policy investment. So a mix of both should be the best option, but the question remains whether to balance it for the human or the AI... (human obviously...) The pillage one is a good example since a human would declare war just to pillage and not capture cities if the policy is good enough, hard to see a AI pull this strategy off

Secondly as I understand, the AI choses its policies by looking at all policies available, picking the top x choices possibly by their flavours and then picking random from within. That means that the first tree it opens is quite random, but then it tends to fill out a tree (as there are more option in there) if it not by chances opened up a second one.

I'd shy away from changes that are too radical, but I can see reducing the number of trees (no way to fill them all out anyways...) or even taking away the opener giving more options to the player and not having to go through a bottleneck each time. One might add another policy inside the tree to isolate the better ones, but that might be worth a try, even if too radical

Oh, and avoid "useless" policies (like piety giving double speed to shrines when I've already built a shrine and will not build another one for quite some time since expansion takes time...)

 

[mystikx21]

I like that we can't fill them all out every game, or can cherry pick from between them. And my general mode should be to avoid removing features. Policies and the various trees have uses, they're just not always well designed or powerful/flexible enough to make them all interesting.

The Honor rewards structure should really be designed once we have a firm idea how to make the AI more aggressive, or not, in a distinct way. Conqueror/aggressor AI civs should want Honor at that point.

 

[Funak]

Here is a radical thought: I think picking policies is fun!
I would have more fun if I could pick policies more often, so for example you could lower the cost for policies, or the progression of how they get more expensive (CEP did this afaik). But then again people shouldn't be filling out all policytrees (because that removes the illusion of choice from it all) so this could be balanced out by adding more policies to every tree (How many culd you fit in every box? 9?) CEPs model of not really having them locked to eachother was also nice, this would probably have to be balanced out by having the finisher really good to actually promote finishing the tree up.

When it comes to policies however I'm pretty sure it would be more effective to do one tree at the time and in seperate threads Example finish Tradition off first to have something to compare the other 3 starter-trees to. (Also I would love to see Piety tied in to culture/happiness instead of religion, because atm religion is a mess and Piety is really hit or miss)

On the balanceissue however I'd like to point out that Monarchy (I think) is pretty damn weak now, going from removing 50% unhappines per population in the capital to giving 10% dull (which is pretty useless in the capital considering that is probably the one city that actually have culture)

 

[ExpiredReign]

I'll state from the outset that I hate balancing discussions on policies.
I do however understand their importance so...

1) CEP did increase the rate at which policies can be gained AND removed the prerequisites for later policies inside each tree. This IMO was a bad choice. It was not uncommon for me to have 4 or 5 trees filled before I get to an Ideology. Way too many. By that time I had become an Honor bound Pious Libertarian with a Tradition for Expansion.

2) Now we have effectively removed the whole 'tall vs wide' debate we should likewise look at how we view these opening policies. First step I feel is to clearly define WHY each policy should be taken. By that I don't mean: there's a good policy inside the Liberty tree that I want therefore I must take Liberty. To me that is poor design. It's like buying a car because the sound system is really good. So 'opening bonuses' are crucial to me. It might even be possible to just pick a tree for the opener and nothing else.

3) Policies should have a far reaching aspect to their choice. After all, policies are what are used to define the nature of empires. So I feel there must be both a beneficial and a detrimental aspect to our choices. e.g. If I choose Honor, because I want to go on a rampage, my costs for military units and infrastructure come down but my costs for / buildings goes up. That sort of thing. There is always a trade off required. What exactly they are, I'm not sure.

 

[Stalker0]

So I feel there must be both a beneficial and a detrimental aspect to our choices..

I would argue that the Opportunity Costs of taking policies already does that. Not getting a bonus is in itself a penalty.


I choose honor and get sweet combat advantages, but I don't get Tradition's food and wonder advantages. So compared to a civ taking tradition I am stronger in some areas, and weaker in others.

I don't think we need to add additional penalties on up of that.

 

[mystikx21]

^What stalker said. Opportunity costs are real issues. Much of the reason there are not detrimental effects to certain choices in the default game is that the thing you give up isn't very good. So you can skip building this building or taking this policy tree because you don't get much out of them.

 

[Stalker0]

Based on some initial discussions, let me take a crack at what a new Tradition Tree might look like:

Tradition

Opener: +2 food (and maybe 10% growth) in the capital. Bonus food this early in the game is a solid solid advantage. Would the growth % be too strong on the opener...honestly it might not be needed.

I am intentionally taking the +3 culture out of the opener to equalize the pace of this tree more with the other trees.

Aristocracy (the wonder policy): Leave as is or make some adjustment to the wonder%. This one in concept is fine

Legalism (the 4 free culture buildings policy): Gives a free culture building in the first 4 cities, +3 culture in the capital.

I think we could move this one down in the tree, I hate this being the early prereq tree because sometimes it feels like a waste to just get monuments. But you have to take it that early to get to some of the juicy stuff.

Even so...I somewhat hate the idea of spending culture to make culture...which is ultimately what this policy does.

Oligarchy (the garrison policy): I personally want a whole new policy for this guy, I hate the original policy SO VERY MUCH. How about:

Internal Trade Routes provide +1 yield.

OR

Capital gains a free engineer specialist (would this even be codable)?

OR

Capital gains a +10% to Great Person production (even 10% would likely be considered pretty good).

Monarchy (money/happy policy): I think the concept of this one is fine, we should just move dullness to be another happiness bucket...I agree that dullnuss reduction makes this one too weak.

Landed Elite: (originally the growth/food one). Tile Buying costs reduced by X%, borders increase more rapidly.

Taking a more radical approach with this one and focused on pure border expansion.

Closer: +15% growth in your first 4 cities.

Yep that's it, and I still think that's good. It is not the monstrously awesome finisher that the vanilla game has, but I think its solid.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Not getting a bonus is in itself a penalty.

hmm...

Not sure I totally agree with that but as I said, I hate balancing discussions, mainly because I am so bad at them.

I bow to greater wisdom.

 

[JFD]

Do you think the fact the Piety has a Medieval Wonder, whereas Tradition, Liberty and Honour have Ancient/Classical Wonders, is a point of concern? Personally, I've gone and moved Piety back to a Classical Era branch. That fits better with my other changes, but maybe it's something to keep in mind as an option, if the concern is that Piety is too weak to ever be worthwhile investing in over Tradition/Liberty.

Instead of trying to make Piety compete with Tradition/Liberty, accept its status as an enhancer to more specific mechanics, akin to Patronage and Aesthetics, as opposed to Traditions/Libertys/Honours very broadly defined interests. Presumably the intent was to give the player more variety with Piety (or maybe it was to counteract the AI's headstart towards a religion). Regardless, in both these respects, I think it has failed.

I would argue that the Opportunity Costs of taking policies already does that. Not getting a bonus is in itself a penalty

Agreed. The whole mindset of Civ V - and one of the distinguishing characteristics between this game and its predecessor - is that it is all about weighing opportunity costs. Trying to re-write the way in which the game is principled in an attempt to strive for balance is asking for contention.

 

[mystikx21]

That's been discussed many times. I think Piety could work as an ancient era branch IF religions are worth getting to quickly and if it helps make those religions more potent. If we can't, then maybe it needs to be moved up some.

I am not sure that moving it back on its own makes it any better (it then competes against both the early 2-3 trees AND the later ones). So it still needs to be improved.

@stalker, yes I believe a free specialist slot for a city is available (in the capital, etc). I don't know that 10% GP rate in just the capital would be worth that much, but maybe from the early tree.

 

[Stalker0]

I played a couple games just for the early game where I went Piety instead of my usual Tradition. I just wanted to remind myself what Piety is up against.

The answer...a lot!

It is amazing how much more sluggish the early game is when you don't go tradition.

1) Culture: Your culture is cut in half, policies come glacially in comparison.
2) I have to build monuments: OUTRAGEOUS! This is 10-15 turns of building per city in the early game.

If you don't your culture is further down the tubes, and that combined with the lack of border expansion...your borders are slow!

3) Capital Growth: If you wager your capital has a surplus of 6-8 food normally once you get that granary going, landed elite's effect is huge.

Tradition gives you a 37-46% increase in growth compared to piety! Once you get the finisher, that increases to ~52%!

4) Money: Monarchy may only give you 3-5 gold in the early game...but sometimes that's all you need. I found with tradition I always had some money, with piety I was actually going into debt!

5) Wonders! I can go piety...or pick up stonehenge with aristocracy.

6) Happiness: Between Aristocracy and Monarchy I don't have early game happy problems. With piety the numbers are a bit thinner.


So that's the challenge right there. That early game jump starts your civ heavily compared to other civs at the time you need the jump start the most. The other policies have a lot to show if they want to make up that ground.

As a note, in general the only Piety policy I actually like is the one that gives 25% gold to temples. That at least has some meat behind it. The others are either weak or can't even help me when I can get them. Ex: What is the point of getting 20% off faith purchases as my second policy? There is nothing I am going to buy with faith that early in the game.

 

[Funak]

The main problem with piety tied to religion is that it is impossible to balance.
Either you make it so good that religion without piety is useless, or so bad that there is no point in picking it up.
Main issue is you don't need piety to form a religion, and taking piety does not guarantee a religion.
Moving piety back does nothing it all unless you make it able to compare to rationalism/patronage/commerce/Asthetics which are all tied to victoryconditions (almost)

 

[JFD]

Yup. Good to see the matter has already been considered.

 

[Gazebo]

I'd like to petition for piety being separated completely from religion. As it stands now, it is the only tree that absolutely depends on your ability to acquire something else in the game (a global race for a religion). That makes it inherently weaker, as the other branches are able to stand on their own much more readily. Furthermore, if you get a religion, you generally have to get piety at some point in order to get the reformation belief. That isn't synergy...it is a restriction of the freedom of choice that defines the rest of the policy system. I hate it.

I'd gladly re-write a chunk of the dll to make a 'reformation belief' become available when you build a grand temple so that we can separate piety from religion without losing a key feature of religion itself. If we did that, we could then focus on building the four 'early' branches around specific yields and/or strategies, instead of have two 'must get' branches, and then two situational branches.

I'm not sure who mentioned it, but I believe that getting rid of the free culture/culture buildings in policies is a good first step towards balance. Getting culture for spending culture is bad design.

To make Honor and Piety more appealing and balanced, we need to look at what makes Tradition and Liberty so good: free buildings, free yields, % boosts to city yields. Those are key early on, and they are largely lacking in Honor/Piety.

For Honor, I'd like to see the policy branch offer some bonuses for science in cities with military buildings, and for the policy to give a barracks in the first 4 cities a player builds. Those elements are doubly-useful, as it helps the honor player focus on getting more advanced units out quickly for an early war, and it keeps the honor player from slipping behind economically because they rushed catapults instead of libraries.

For Piety, while it can still grant faith, it should also be granting gold, and lots of it. Thematically, if we shift Piety away from the 'starting a religion' mindset towards a 'classical/ancient age theocracy' concept, it liberates us from designing the tree around religion. Early gold shouldn't be scoffed at, particularly with the new happiness system: staving off poverty and/or raising the global average for gold yields is very powerful, and having enough gold to simply buy a few buildings early on can be a huge boon. Plus, it allows the Piety player to remain relatively insular (the need for external trade routes is minimized), so you can focus on internal routes that boost growth.

So, the themes:

Tradition: All about the capital and a very compact empire – bonuses should apply exclusively to the capital. This will still be the 'quickest' tree to reap benefits from, as your capital exists from Turn 0, but the rest of your empire will be left in the cold.

Liberty: All about that initial 4 city 'empire' and rapid peaceful expansion – bonuses should apply to all four cities. This will be the 'slowest' tree to reap benefits from, as most players do not get 4 cities up and running until turn 100.

Honor: All about early military dominance and conquest – this will be an average speed tree, but the boost to science will reward Honor expansion and make their armies more advanced than those of their rivals. If, however, a player cannot conquer, the yield boosts from military buildings still makes the investment valuable.

Piety: All about turtling up and maximizing internal production – like Honor, this will be an average speed tree, but the boost to Gold will allow for plenty of internal trade routes, and a flexibility in strategy. If we throw some piety in here it gives the Piety player a chance at 'true' religion (instead of just the Piety theme of 'theocracy'), but doesn't make it mandatory.

These four themes largely cover the major strategies of the early game, and make each tree inherently viable (instead of the latter two being highly situational).

Tear the ideas apart, guys.
G

 

[Funak]

I'd like to petition for piety being separated completely from religion. As it stands now, it is the only tree that absolutely depends on your ability to acquire something else in the game (a global race for a religion). That makes it inherently weaker, as the other branches are able to stand on their own much more readily. Furthermore, if you get a religion, you generally have to get piety at some point in order to get the reformation belief. That isn't synergy...it is a restriction of the freedom of choice that defines the rest of the policy system. I hate it.

That's exactly the way I feel about it Religion makes Piety bad atm.

I'm not sure who mentioned it, but I believe that getting rid of the free culture/culture buildings in policies is a good first step towards balance. Getting culture for spending culture is bad design.

I was more under the impression that Piety should be about culture and happiness (Or ignoring unhappiness as it might be). The word I'm linking to Piety is devotion, religious or not. It could still give faith, nothing wrong with faith at all.

If you're planning to remove all culture from all socialpolicies (and I'm honestly not so sure about that) You're going to be forced to go first building monument every game, which imo is extremely boring. The whole idea in vanilla where all openers (except piety, because that's how they rolled I guess) gave some form of culture worked fine (it needs some adjustments imo, but it did fill a purpose), it sped up the policy aquisition and gave you the feeling that you were getting somewhere.
We just need to add a simular one to piety and then make the tree finishers good enough that people aren't going to pick up all the openers to get a earlier culture start.

Tradition: All about the capital and a very compact empire – bonuses should apply exclusively to the capital. This will still be the 'quickest' tree to reap benefits from, as your capital exists from Turn 0, but the rest of your empire will be left in the cold.

Liberty: All about that initial 4 city 'empire' and rapid peaceful expansion – bonuses should apply to all four cities. This will be the 'slowest' tree to reap benefits from, as most players do not get 4 cities up and running until turn 100.

In my eyes Tradition have always been the "4 city empire" and liberty have been the "More than 4 city empire". Other than that I really liked how CEP managed to balance out Tradition/Liberty (but that might have been because you usually got enough culture to max out both of them =D). I want to add something to this whole liberty tradition debate but I'm not sure I know what they are supposed to represent anymore. I know people have praised the tradition free buildings and want to replicate that, but that's one of the things I like the least about tradition (I prefer bonuses that stay, things you can't just buy or build). Maybe 'Tradition - Growth, Science, Defense' and 'Liberty - Expansion, Production, Stability'? Honestly this is way too hard for me, I quit.

Honor: All about early military dominance and conquest – this will be an average speed tree, but the boost to science will reward Honor expansion and make their armies more advanced than those of their rivals. If, however, a player cannot conquer, the yield boosts from military buildings still makes the investment valuable.

As someone mentioned earlier Honor should be based around warfare, in all its forms. Bonuses to pillaging and bullying city-states comes to mind. Faster unit productiontime something like that. In all honesty I don't play enough warfare especially early warfare to give a valid opinion about this.