Policies: The time has come!

[Stalker0]

I don't like the +3 culture as an opener because it makes this tree so strong, policies are coming too fast compared to liberty or honor.

Klokwerk

We debated this one for a while. The general consensus was that currently the Tradition policy is the "standard" tree most people pick. That means its culture pace of picking policies is what people are used to. If we nerfed its pace....we effective slow down the culture pace of most games in general.

So the thought was to get honor and liberty's pace more in line with tradition instead of the other way around.

In the honor thread, we are currently discussing a doubling of barb kill culture and some other culture bonuses to do just that.

 

[Gazebo]

Wow, did you see that Stalker? I got credit for someone elses work, guess this is the day when pigs will fly.


On a more serious note: everyone else here agrees with stalker about the first 4 cities GPbonus? Already said I don't like it but if that's what everyone(Just mystikx left I guess) wants then I'll compromise.

I'm out of town, so reading quickly. Last to post = credit.

 

[klokwerk]

Klokwerk

We debated this one for a while. The general consensus was that currently the Tradition policy is the "standard" tree most people pick. That means its culture pace of picking policies is what people are used to. If we nerfed its pace....we effective slow down the culture pace of most games in general.

So the thought was to get honor and liberty's pace more in line with tradition instead of the other way around.

In the honor thread, we are currently discussing a doubling of barb kill culture and some other culture bonuses to do just that.

Ok then, sorry. It's true I haven't read everything.

 

[jacktannery]

So where are we at?

Tradition Version 1.5

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 Global happiness for each National Wonder

Legalism: Palace gains +2 science. Science buildings in the capital generate 5% more science.

Landed Elite: Borders expand faster. 25% increased effects from internal traderoutes.

Oligarchy: Palace gains +3 hammers and a specialist slot (engineer). Requires Legalism

Monarchy: +1 Gold per Pop in Capital, Capital provides +1 Global happiness per 5 citizens. Requires Legalism

Finisher: Can buy Great Engineers with Faith. Great Person +25% and 15% faster growth in capital.

I like this tree overall Funak, but I would like to reiterate the point I made earlier about internal trade routes in this thread.

In my opinion, buffs to internal trade routes should be in the honour tree. This is because players who focus on war don't use foreign trade routes (cos they are at war with their neighbours!), instead they use internal trade routes. I would like to see a policy in the honour tree that provides x2 food/production on internal trade routes, to emphasise this different way of playing (tribute in puppet empire, rather than international links).

Buffing internal trade routes in the tradition tree makes no sense, because many tradition plays are based on one large capital, sometimes only a single city (ie Venice) that depend on international trade routes.

With that single exception, I really like the rest of your changes to the tradition tree.

 

[Lord Tirian]

In my opinion, buffs to internal trade routes should be in the honour tree.

This would mean a wide empire would get the most out of trade routes, something they are already good at, regarding this, I'll just quote Wodhann from the Trade Route Balancing thread:

I mentioned before in the WvT thread, but in my opinion internal trade routes is one of the reasons Wide is better right now - mainly because, the more cities you have, the more internal trade routes you can make, and since the cities produce gold themselves you don't really need external ones (you'll get more gold from well developed cities than trade routes). I think they need to be seriously looked at.

In short: going wide already rewards internal trade routes automatically by having more possible combinations and the ability to "double-up" by having multiple ITR going to the same city.

 

[Funak]

In my opinion, buffs to internal trade routes should be in the honour tree. This is because players who focus on war don't use foreign trade routes (cos they are at war with their neighbours!), instead they use internal trade routes. I would like to see a policy in the honour tree that provides x2 food/production on internal trade routes, to emphasise this different way of playing (tribute in puppet empire, rather than international links).

Yes, that's not going to happen.

Honor shouldn't have any tradefocus at all imo, they can use whatever traderoutes they want, but they shouldn't have a bonus to it. Also double internal traderoutes would be retardedly overpowered.

 

[jacktannery]

Fair enough - I stand corrected.

 

[Funak]

Fair enough - I stand corrected.

I was in the middle of something and didn't have time to explain properly.
50% stronger internal traderoutes is a level 3 order tenent, there is no possible way you could have 100% stronger internal traderoutes in an entrylevel tree.

 

[Stalker0]

Wow, did you see that Stalker? I got credit for someone elses work, guess this is the day when pigs will fly.

Eh, none of this is anyone's work alone. That tradition tree isn't mine, but a combination of ideas from many people. Aka...a community tree

 

[Funak]

Eh, none of this is anyone's work alone. That tradition tree isn't mine, but a combination of ideas from many people. Aka...a community tree

Tradition is mine now, didn't you hear the Lord-Commander?

Tradition is now renamed Funakition (No you're not allowed to ask what that is supposed to mean or tell me how silly it sounds) and that's final!

 

[Gazebo]

Traditions of Planet Funkatron, got it.

 

[mitsho]

Piety would be the next big tree to tackle on. Now before one does look at the effects, one needs to answer the questions

1) Ancient or Classical Era unlock?
2a) Should it help you get a religion or make a religion stronger?
2b) Should it even be tied to a religion or just faith?
3) Should we move the Reformation policy to a place outside the tree?

Effects I would like to see:

I) Some faith in the opener, but not faster building time (helping you to get a religion, not punishing you for starting to build that shrine right away in the capital)
II) A Faith spender, be it a special building buyable with faith (good throughout the game) or the all units up until the Industrial Era buyable with faith (allows a war/unit effect) or civilian units buyable with faith. These are all however "mid-game" perks!
III) A non-faith boost to Temples (but not shrines)
IV) I like the idea of a trade unit boost since they do spread religion!

In short, Piety should in my mind be the most flexible of the early trees to use. If you don't know what strategy you want to go with, go piety first and then decide with the religion. (That of course runs into the idea that game strategy is largely decided by the civ you use...).

The only effect that requires it being an ancient era tree is the "free faith" in the opener, so I can see it later. If we put it in classical, we can in my opinion leave the reformation belief in. I'd put it in the finisher. These two actions should prevent the AI from getting the policy before the medieval era. We'd also have less policy slots to fill with creative proposals. I don't see a problem with tieing this to religion. Similar to Patronage, you will not take the tree if you don't want to have a religion. Policies are too valuable to "cherry-pick" here especially as you'd want to have those good ones from the mid-game trees.

So 1) Classical 2a) Stronger (but a bit faith can still help you get that religion) 2) tie it to a religion and 3) leave reformation in.

 

[Funak]

Piety would be the next big tree to tackle on. Now before one does look at the effects, one needs to answer the questions

1) Ancient or Classical Era unlock?
2a) Should it help you get a religion or make a religion stronger?
2b) Should it even be tied to a religion or just faith?
3) Should we move the Reformation policy to a place outside the tree?

Effects I would like to see:

I) Some faith in the opener, but not faster building time (helping you to get a religion, not punishing you for starting to build that shrine right away in the capital)
II) A Faith spender, be it a special building buyable with faith (good throughout the game) or the all units up until the Industrial Era buyable with faith (allows a war/unit effect) or civilian units buyable with faith. These are all however "mid-game" perks!
III) A non-faith boost to Temples (but not shrines)
IV) I like the idea of a trade unit boost since they do spread religion!

In short, Piety should in my mind be the most flexible of the early trees to use. If you don't know what strategy you want to go with, go piety first and then decide with the religion. (That of course runs into the idea that game strategy is largely decided by the civ you use...).

The only effect that requires it being an ancient era tree is the "free faith" in the opener, so I can see it later. If we put it in classical, we can in my opinion leave the reformation belief in. I'd put it in the finisher. These two actions should prevent the AI from getting the policy before the medieval era. We'd also have less policy slots to fill with creative proposals. I don't see a problem with tieing this to religion. Similar to Patronage, you will not take the tree if you don't want to have a religion. Policies are too valuable to "cherry-pick" here especially as you'd want to have those good ones from the mid-game trees.

So 1) Classical 2a) Stronger (but a bit faith can still help you get that religion) 2) tie it to a religion and 3) leave reformation in.

I got a rough draft for how I want the piety-tree to look, I was going to work on it some more before making a post but expect it today atleast.

 

[mystikx21]

1) Probably classical at this point
2a) Both somewhat
2b) Mostly tied to faith, but reformation is tied to religion (should be the finisher)
3) Not sure why this would be desirable to remove it. It's one of the better features of the existing tree.

I) Seems fine to me. Faster temples are useful later in pursuing a religion, faster shrines don't do much early on.
II) Agreed. I would not move the pagoda/cathedral/mosque set here but say, the monastery or something similar could go here.
III) Gold is already in there. Happiness could also go in here as a religious tolerance effect working with the new happiness system. And passive religious spread could be tied to temples and shrines.
IV) Also fine, although in what way?

 

[Funak]

3) Not sure why this would be desirable to remove it. It's one of the better features of the existing tree.

Because that makes the tree useless to half the players in the game (or in the case of vanilla, uesless to everyone).
Either you make the reformationbelief strong enough to carry the entire tree (and in that case almost force everyone with a religion to pick up piety) or you make the reformationbeliefs fine but meh (leading to no one picking it up). Keeping the reformationbelief tied to something else makes it easier to balance (And maybe they will actually see use outside of AIs that clearly can start piety because their bonuses makes up for them taking a useless tree).

 

[mitsho]

I) Seems fine to me. Faster temples are useful later in pursuing a religion, faster shrines don't do much early on.

Yeah, it's mostly a minor annoyance in that you can currently chose a opener that doesn't help you at all as temples are a little way off and you most probably've already built the shrine in the capital

III) Gold is already in there. Happiness could also go in here as a religious tolerance effect working with the new happiness system. And passive religious spread could be tied to temples and shrines.

I was just listing up effects that I want in irregardless of what's already there. So I wouldn't want to buff them much besides the gold. The passive spread fits well, but I wouldn't put it on the shrine which is already quite strong.

IV) Also fine, although in what way?

A Free Trade Unit seems like a solid start, but may result in problems (no place = useless?). I can see them affecting religious spread (but this may not belong to a policy). Lastly, a simple yield buff for the route or a % boost to one/both of the cities connected by the route. I'm not sure on the details yet and it kinda depends on what we want to put in commerce later on, when the tree is opened, etc. ...

Because that makes the tree useless to half the players in the game (or in the case of vanilla, uesless to everyone).
Either you make the reformationbelief strong enough to carry the entire tree (and in that case almost force everyone with a religion to pick up piety) or you make the reformationbeliefs fine but meh (leading to no one picking it up). Keeping the reformationbelief tied to something else makes it easier to balance (And maybe they will actually see use outside of AIs that clearly can start piety because their bonuses makes up for them taking a useless tree).

Anyone who goes after City States (and not just one or two at the start) needs to pick up Patronage. If you go on a conquest spree, you should probably pick up Honor (or if we do it later on: Imperialism).

So why is Religion different?

I can understand the reservations about balancing it out and I am okay with putting it somewhere else (but a National Wonder does feel kinda 'meh' as well). I'm just neutral on it and look forward to your proposal for a tree without this effect.

 

[mystikx21]

Funak, I don't follow how that's a problem that it would be "useless" to people who don't get a religion. If roughly half of the players in a game have a religion, it is (potentially, if well designed) of great use to those players. People/AI who aren't focusing on religious game-play won't have a use for it and will/should go do something else. That's fine.

 

[Funak]

Anyone who goes after City States (and not just one or two at the start) needs to pick up Patronage. If you go on a conquest spread, you should probably pick up Honor (or if we do it later on: Imperialism).

So why is Religion different?

I can understand the reservations about balancing it out and I am okay with putting it somewhere else (but a National Wonder does feel kinda 'meh' as well). I'm just neutral on it and look forward to your proposal for a tree without this effect.

Because religion isn't a victory-condition, that is the main reason why I don't feel like it would be worth balancing a tree around it.
I agree on a national wonder being kinda meh, I honestly want it somewhere else, but the options are somewhat limited (If you have a suggestion please put it forward because all I really have is a national wonder or a third great prophet, maybe a ingame quest but I don't really know what would make sense, time?)

 

[mitsho]

It might work if you can work in a special religion perk for all the victory conditions into the other trees.

But religion helps you with victory, it just depends if you model your victory for a diplo (higher spread rates to City States), conquest (better combat near cities of your religion or the opposite, may add a higher healing or something), science (faith-bought Great Scientist, buyable science buildings, etc. ...) or culture (tourism on wonders, etc. ...) victory. But there may even be other perks not related to a victory that are worth it anyways, like (wide) expansion, world congress (votes), wonders, etc. ...

I agree that Religion may be a big distraction, but that's how the game mechanic is set-up...

 

[Funak]

It might work if you can work in a special religion perk for all the victory conditions into the other trees.

But religion helps you with victory, it just depends if you model your victory for a diplo (higher spread rates to City States), conquest (better combat near cities of your religion or the opposite, may add a higher healing or something), science (faith-bought Great Scientist, buyable science buildings, etc. ...) or culture (tourism on wonders, etc. ...) victory. But there may even be other perks not related to a victory that are worth it anyways, like (wide) expansion, world congress (votes), wonders, etc. ...

I agree that Religion may be a big distraction, but that's how the game mechanic is set-up...

Religion can be fine on its own no need to bring a whole policytree into it tbh. But that's just my opinion really.