Policies: The time has come!
- Thread starter Stalker0
- Start date
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
Also, I think it's not unreasonable to assume that an Aztec player will take Honour, meaning they will double up on the culture kill bonus against Barbarians, meaning they'll practically race through the Honor tree if we consider the increased spawn rates.
Needs to be balanced carefully, though, otherwise you can spam culture by building units in cities with barracks etc. - and I think Stalker0 is right, it's going to clutter up the opener.
Regarding food vs. growth: I'm starting to come around to giving a food bonus for the capital and reserve growth bonuses for Liberty. The consistency of food bonuses feeds well into the mega capital play style Tradition is supposed to enable (and with the capital, you have a hard time searching for the perfect spot since you might waste too many turns otherwise). Growth's less extreme scaling is better for Liberty, encouraging many decent-sized cities and regulates itself later on and also means you get rewarded for picking spots with lots of food as you get more out of your growth bonus.
Final note: we should revive the flavour thread to tall about naming policies if we go ahead with the "Conquest" tree.
Another thing we could consider (though I joked about it before) is change growth to more straight up food bonus.
Beyond the sheer power of straight food, it counteracts bad starts. A +2 to food in a city with only 20 food is stronger than +2 to a city with 30. So tradition would ensure that all capitals are more resistant to food failings in their start.
Also, I think it's not unreasonable to assume that an Aztec player will take Honour, meaning they will double up on the culture kill bonus against Barbarians, meaning they'll practically race through the Honor tree if we consider the increased spawn rates.
Needs to be balanced carefully, though, otherwise you can spam culture by building units in cities with barracks etc. - and I think Stalker0 is right, it's going to clutter up the opener.
Regarding food vs. growth: I'm starting to come around to giving a food bonus for the capital and reserve growth bonuses for Liberty. The consistency of food bonuses feeds well into the mega capital play style Tradition is supposed to enable (and with the capital, you have a hard time searching for the perfect spot since you might waste too many turns otherwise). Growth's less extreme scaling is better for Liberty, encouraging many decent-sized cities and regulates itself later on and also means you get rewarded for picking spots with lots of food as you get more out of your growth bonus.
Final note: we should revive the flavour thread to tall about naming policies if we go ahead with the "Conquest" tree.
We could add a growth building, personally don't think it fits in liberty, but then again we don't even have a libertytree yet. think a flat foodbonus in all cities could work in either liberty or piety (I added it in my piety-draft) especially if tradition get the more powerful %food bonus.
Growth is also present in religious beliefs, and I honestly feels like it fits better there. It will also be a lot stronger since all the growth from policies will be gone.
It would be rather silly seing the honoropener stronger than the aztec UA, even if it's just affecting barbarians. so if the aztec UA is 1.5x then the honor opener would need to be 1.5x aswell.
Also I disagree with culture from promotions, would feel confusing, and it feels like something the AI would be terrible at.
Here is a version of Tradition with the straight up food concept:
Tradition
Opener: +3 culture in the capital. +1 food in the Capital for each policy of Tradition taken (including this one).
Aristocracy: +15% bonus to wonders, +1 Happy for each National Wonder
Legalism: Capital gains +2 science. Science buildings in the capital generate 5% more science.
Oligarchy: Palace gains +3 hammers and a specialist slot (engineer).
Landed Elite: 15% discount to purchasing tiles. Border expand faster.
Monarchy: +1 Gold per Pop in Capital, Capital provides +1 happy per 5 citizens.
Finisher: Can buy Great Engineers with Faith. Great Person +25% in the capital
Tradition
Opener: +3 culture in the capital. +1 food in the Capital for each policy of Tradition taken (including this one).
Aristocracy: +15% bonus to wonders, +1 Happy for each National Wonder
Legalism: Capital gains +2 science. Science buildings in the capital generate 5% more science.
Oligarchy: Palace gains +3 hammers and a specialist slot (engineer).
Landed Elite: 15% discount to purchasing tiles. Border expand faster.
Monarchy: +1 Gold per Pop in Capital, Capital provides +1 happy per 5 citizens.
Finisher: Can buy Great Engineers with Faith. Great Person +25% in the capital
Still dislike Landed elite. also where did that + on GP-tiles it was like the only interesting buff at all.
Yeah landed elite still looks a bit boring, so let add that +GP idea back in.
Tradition
Opener: +3 culture in the capital. +1 food in the Capital for each policy of Tradition taken (including this one).
Aristocracy: +15% bonus to wonders, +1 Happy for each National Wonder
Legalism: Capital gains +2 science. Science buildings in the capital generate 5% more science.
Oligarchy: Palace gains +3 hammers and a specialist slot (engineer).
Landed Elite: +2 yields to Great Person Improvements. Borders expand faster.
Monarchy: +1 Gold per Pop in Capital, Capital provides +1 happy per 5 citizens.
Finisher: Can buy Great Engineers with Faith. Great Person +25% in the capital
Those "+1 Happy" would that be national happiness or local happiness?
Either is fine with me. Frankly I can't imagine that a capital with Tradition fueled growth is ever going to be at the local happiness cap.
No unhappiness from pop anymore, you have to remember that, your capital is the one that's most likely to actually be at happiness cap.
Unless local happiness has completely changed, it still follows the formula of "cannot generate more happy than the population of the city".
Right now we get +3 happy from colessium, zoo, and stadium. +1/5 citizens from monarchy.
Capitals of 10+ are basically automatic with Tradition growth bonuses, and later game 20-30 is very normal. I can't see generating 20+ local happiness with the mechanics right now even if you packed every national wonder into the capital.
But with that argument, I have no issue making it national happiness. I am saying that they are effectively the exact same thing in this case...but on the off chance I am wrong making it national eliminates the corner case.
mitsho
Deity
I'd have Landed Elite as: Extra Border Growth by culture + % on tile buying + Lower Requirements for National Wonders by x.
Or alternatively just buff National Wonders with yields (that'd be the cherrypicking policy then...)
The plus yields on GPI doesn't sound intriguing, makes it hard to balance and makes me feel bad when using Great Persons for something else. Why not put that as the Piety policy that already helps Great Prophet Improvements? (or not, I just don't like it that much here)
On another note I fear that we will be getting into trouble with the later trees. How can we make sure that filling up both Liberty and Tradition (or just two of the starter trees) isn't better than after having filled up one tree to move on to later trees?
that'd be the modus operandi imho and I shudder how strong we have to make Aesthetics and Commerce and then even later on the Ideologies since they in turn should be even better.
not saying we're already too strong btw., just a general warning comment
Or alternatively just buff National Wonders with yields (that'd be the cherrypicking policy then...)
The plus yields on GPI doesn't sound intriguing, makes it hard to balance and makes me feel bad when using Great Persons for something else. Why not put that as the Piety policy that already helps Great Prophet Improvements? (or not, I just don't like it that much here)
On another note I fear that we will be getting into trouble with the later trees. How can we make sure that filling up both Liberty and Tradition (or just two of the starter trees) isn't better than after having filled up one tree to move on to later trees?
that'd be the modus operandi imho and I shudder how strong we have to make Aesthetics and Commerce and then even later on the Ideologies since they in turn should be even better.
not saying we're already too strong btw., just a general warning comment
CEP already had the fill up both liberty and tradition problem.
If tradition is somewhat weaker than in default (but not nerfed totally), and liberty gets some of its effects merged with honor and replaced, it should be a reasonable scale later. The middle tier trees would have things like +1 yields on improvements, which is generally very strong. So I would expect they do fine.
If tradition is somewhat weaker than in default (but not nerfed totally), and liberty gets some of its effects merged with honor and replaced, it should be a reasonable scale later. The middle tier trees would have things like +1 yields on improvements, which is generally very strong. So I would expect they do fine.
I personally have no issue if people do a tradition/liberty combo...nothing says you have to pick the later trees.
Now that said, as I am building tradition I am trying to keep its power level at the same playing field as the old one...and then I would balance honor and liberty against the same scale. Would we have to buff the other trees? Absolutely...but I think we knew that going in. Many of the policies are just plain crappy.
Also, its important to note that our format of benefits does not have to stay static with policy tiers.
For example, there are certain expectations in the starter trees, and certain biases. We have to put in a certain amount of culture to keep the pace proper. Free buildings are generally frowned upon because its such an "over and done with" kind of bonus that I don't benefit from for a good portion of the game.
But once we get to ideologies, I personally have no issue with big instant bonuses. This is end game time, I don't have a lot of time to recoup the benefits of a few yields here or there. I want something big and tangible that is going to help me win. That in terms gives us a whole new field of bonuses we can play with that doesn't compare to the starter trees.
I personally think going tradtion into liberty or even traditon into liberty in piety could be viable. The idea with the later trees is that they should boost specific victoryconditions (Something that the early trees actually don't even touch on).
If someone going for tourism victory picks piety/liberty over Asthetics however, then we have a problem.
If someone going for tourism victory picks piety/liberty over Asthetics however, then we have a problem.
Feels like something that is only relevant for OCC and venice. And yes I tried playing venice, and trying to build national wonders without buying a city-state first was close to impossible. Still not a tradtionproblem
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
Same here, the trees are shaping up to be very playstyle specific, meaning you should diminishing returns from following two. For example, a lot of the Conquest tree rewards you for conquering and having lots of cities, I don't think a tall player will get much out of it.
The new Tradition tree has elements going that way and restricting the bonuses to the capital helps with that, too. But I think that's something that we have to keep in mind for the new Liberty tree (and somewhat for the tradition tree - for example +1 happiness for NWs is good for every play style).
Finally, we could always go for the heavy-handed solution and just make them opposed similar to the way Piety and Rationalism conflicted in the pre-BNW game. It'd be thematic (all three trees are aimed at "legitimising" the ruler) and still gives you a choice, you just need to be willing to stomach the cost of 1 turn anarchy and locking the other tree again.
EDIT: In vanilla Civ 5, you lost all benefits of the re-locked tree, but could re-open it (losing the benefits from the other tree, but regaining all policies in the re-opened tree). Here, I wouldn't even mind keeping all bonuses from the re-locked tree apart from the opener and finisher, it just means you can't cash in two finishers at the same time and have to plan the order of opening policies a bit.
Yeah, not a fan either. I think +2 GA points from GP improvements would be nice and fitting here. Easier to balance than extra yields, thematic and ties in with Tradition's theme of having some happiness bonuses (which give you GA points) without having actual happiness boosts.
I like it!!
One thing I have noticed now that I am pulling off my "traditional" tradition build and focusing on honor for awhile...man you really hurt for gold without tradition.
Monarchy and Legalism is actually very good early game I am finding for that early cash. Without them I am usually running deficits unless I use trade routes. But every external trade route I use is the loss of some very nice food or hammers early on.
Monarchy and Legalism is actually very good early game I am finding for that early cash. Without them I am usually running deficits unless I use trade routes. But every external trade route I use is the loss of some very nice food or hammers early on.
+1 for +GA points. I like it better than more culture certainly.
I don't think the heavy handed approach should be necessary, primarily because there are wonder unlocks now as a limitation, and the ideologies have been locked down already.
I also think every tree is fine to have one or two policies of "general" flavor that may be useful for a non-specific role.
I don't think the heavy handed approach should be necessary, primarily because there are wonder unlocks now as a limitation, and the ideologies have been locked down already.
I also think every tree is fine to have one or two policies of "general" flavor that may be useful for a non-specific role.
