Policies: The time has come!

[Gazebo]

I agree with your points. My emphasis on Tradition = Capital and Liberty = Empire is the issue of flexibility. Tradition is a guaranteed policy tree, as your capital is a guaranteed city. Having Tradition be Capital-exclusive makes thematic sense, and also helps us separate Liberty from Tradition more cleanly. In most games, having more than 4 cities in the first 250 turns is rare – this means that the bonus from 4+ cities for Liberty is highly tied to the amount of expansion room you have around you - the risk isn't always worth the reward, whereas Tradition is a sure-bet. Making liberty the '4 city empire' policy branch means that a player is almost always guaranteed to get that bonus, though their success is still dependent on how quickly they expand and grab the best city spots. So more risk, but less than in the vanilla version.

For Piety and Honor, I think both policies need static bonuses that are present regardless of situational changes. If Honor is solely about conquest, it becomes a situational policy branch that is far too risky to take as a first branch. Same for Piety regarding religion.

In short, early branches should focus on passive bonuses and fairly-certain gameplay outcomes (4 cities, capital, need for army, etc.), whereas later branches (Patronage and the rest) should be more about active bonuses, and less about passive ones.

My logic comes from years of playing RPGs – it is always a good idea to build your passive bonuses first, and then go for skills and talents. The same should apply to the policy structure of Civ. The more truly-and-independently viable starting branches there are, the better.
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[Lord Tirian]

I think the problem with making Tradition/Liberty one-city/four-city policy trees is that doesn't scale well with map size (that is a vanilla problem, too, to some extent).

With larger maps, expansion becomes somewhat easier and vice versa. I'd rather keep Tradition as "few cities" and Liberty as "many cities" tree but redesign them with your points in mind. Fixing the city bonus scaling is a possibility (I'd go for something like that, just by my gut feeling: Duel: 1, Tiny-Small: 2, Standard-Large: 3, Huge: 4).

Regarding the Piety discussion, I strongly agree that decoupling it from religion is needed. However, since I like the idea of trees rewarding to act in accordance with the tree instead of static bonuses, I'd much rather see faith use as a big part of Piety. The gold focus/theocracy would be interesting, though.

 

[Gazebo]

I recall you mentioning map-scaling some time back; I need to look at that in the DLL, as it is definitely an issue. For a short-term fix, we could always have the value be an SQL setting that players can change before loading the mod (setting the value to the size of the map they'll be playing).
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[Funak]

I guess I'll just do a quick analyis about Tradition, since I'm kinda bored and stuff and I feel like giving my opinion:

TRADITION

Opener: I really think this one is fine, I would rather see the other openers brought up to its level instead of nerfing it. Border expand could be moved but in that case you need to replace it with something.

Aristocracy: I honestly dislike this one wonderconstruction isn't really guaranteed (Yes I know national wonders count but still) and the happiness bonus (Can't remember which one it is, 10% off something in the capital? Dullity?) is kinda meh since atleast in my case it is pretty rare seeing my capital struggle with unhappiness (Not counting specialists) especially when you're going tradition, you're most likely going to have any wonders you build in your capital +guilds(culture), national college(science), traderoutes(poverty). and Yes I know you can move those around but it would be optimal to keep them in your capital most of the time.

Oligarchy: I've always liked this one. Tradition feels like turtling, and nothing says turtle like bonuses to defending. Could maybe be changed to something simular, extra defense from units stationed (which would mean lower Unruly) or get the Honor military caste baked into it for extra culture in garisoned cities. Generally think it's fine.

Legalism: Really don't like this one at all, getting free buildings is boring. It is stuff I could build myself instead, doesn't really feel policyworthy, maybe a wonder?

Monarchy: It's better in the latest verson but I still don't really like it for the same reason as I mentioned in Aristocracy. The gold is fine but it can't really carry the entire policy by itself.

Landed elite: It is nice. I would like it to be stronger, but it doesn't need to be. Good to keep in mind in case you decide to buff up policies in general.

Finisher: Free aqueducts is strong way stronger than legalism, does not make it any more fun however. I would love to see that part of the finisher gone and let us build our own aqueducts instead. 15% growth is nice.


Personal ideas for replacement policies could be something that lowers the unhappiness from specialists in the capital by X% and add Y Specialist Z slots to the Palace.
Could also have something that interacts with national wonders, they used to be a small empire thing but you kinda changed that. Still would like to see something with science maybe.

 

[mystikx21]

I am in general agreement that we should be looking to move culture out from policies for the most part (policy or border costs is one way to adjust "culture" from policies without increasing raw culture gains), but I would not eliminate additional sources entirely. They'd just need to be small and come with other things. So for example, if culture goes up on Great Works, tourism should as well.

I would think Honor might be fine to have some kind of science yield on military buildings (and/or citadels), but I'd still prefer it be mostly a warfare tree where there are yields (gold, science/culture, etc) available from conquest. I do not mind if a tree has a narrow focus that we may not take if it is good at it and if that focus is useful. In other words, Honor should be good enough that a civ or AI that takes it can use it and leverage it well that it comes out about as well as liberty or tradition.

It sounds like there's a rough consensus that faith-based benefits should remain in piety, but paired with other things (unhappiness reductions, gold/culture?)

Funak - Tradition
I think the opener is rather insane in default. At the very least breaking those two up needs to be done. +3 culture only on the opener is basically fine. +2 food in the capital would also be fine by itself. The culture border expansion is very powerful for such an immediate effect. Even if you aren't planning on going tradition, this can be worth taking first.

Aristocracy could have the wonder bonus and a specialist unhappiness or free specialists per x population, something like that.

I'm generally agreed that free buildings are usually boring effects. Decreased cost for a type of building and/or improved buildings works okay instead, but there's already a policy that does the former in aesthetics.

 

[Funak]

Funak - Tradition
I think the opener is rather insane in default. At the very least breaking those two up needs to be done. +3 culture only on the opener is basically fine. +2 food in the capital would also be fine by itself. The culture border expansion is very powerful for such an immediate effect. Even if you aren't planning on going tradition, this can be worth taking first.

How about making the Traditionopener 3culture 2 food.
Liberty 1 culture 1 hammer per city (fitting that whole 4 should be better than 1 idea)
Piety could be maybe 1 culture 1 gold(or faith) on shrines and temples? (would have an even bigger ramp up time than liberty but would end up better in the end) Honestly that idea is horrible but I can't think of anything else. Maybe throw in a productionbonus for temples (and shrines?) No idea how strong it needs to be to make up for not doing anything until you actually build a shrine.

Would still like to see the borderexpand somewhere in tradition, feels kinda iconic (Could even tune it down and keep it in the opener, and just scratch everything I said before? =D, even have half in the opener and half in the finisher)

 

[Gazebo]

My primary interest is making sure that Honor and Piety are, for different gameplay strategies, equally viable as starting policy branches as Tradition and Liberty. I'd rather not nerf Tradition - nerfing isn't terribly fun - which means we need to buff the other three. That means increasing the number of passive bonuses from these three branches. However we do it, that needs to be a focus. If we organize the policy trees so that the later branches are more focused, and the early branches are more broad, it increases the potential number of viable choices. More viable (and tempting) choices are, in my opinion, the best means of determining the balance of the policy system.
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[Funak]

My primary interest is making sure that Honor and Piety are, for different gameplay strategies, equally viable as starting policy branches as Tradition and Liberty. I'd rather not nerf Tradition - nerfing isn't terribly fun - which means we need to buff the other three.

That's exactly my point, if anything we could buff tradition. I mean the idea is that all policies should feel good (and fun) and everyone should be happy. However unrealistic it is, that is what we should stride for.

 

[Stalker0]

My two follow up thoughts...

I think it's fine that piety focuses on a religion, as long as the tree ensures the player will get there.

For example we talked about the idea giving the piety opener an immediate faith boost so you would instantly have a pantheon.

If we do that I think it's fine,


For honor I personally don't want to see passive building bonuses. I think tst overlaps too much with our infrastructure trees. I think the focus should be on bonuses from war.

That said, I do agree that honor should offer something's when you are not at war. I think allowing units or garrisons to give you other bonuses...the idea of the samurai that can build fishing boats, or the swords to plowshare idea of giving some bonus when at peace would be ok

 

[Gazebo]

But that's the problem, isn't it? The 'infrastructure' trees will always be superior to Piety/Honor if the latter lack an equivalent passive bonus. All players need infrastructure whereas war is largely by choice. To take Honor is to neglect a critical facet of your growth early on - it is far too risky, and the value of early yields is extremely important (as they affect your cities for the rest of the game). The 'choice' at this point in the game is between handicapping yourself or staying on target development-wise. That's not a compelling gameplay choice.

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[mitsho]

I dislike policies that give x free buildings early on. Seems like a waste or delayed effect sometime...

Piety should get its starting culture through Pantheons (Starter: X instant faith and as a little bonus Y culture each time a belief is unlocked). Gold is a good fit here though to pat it out, but it does get into conflict with Commerce later on --> See my point about being too many policies around...

The argument that the 'active' honour bonusses don't need to be there that early are good, I can see them getting pushed back to say exploration. I do think one can produce a good tree with some (map) exploration bonuses (+1 sight on scouts, horsemen and triremes, detect barb camps and double bonus from camps), some basic economy bonuses (% on units, military line; happiness via garrisons) and some exotic fighting bonuses (pillaging!). That sounds good enough and fits the gameplay and the era, no?

I still hold that eliminating all the openers might be an interesting idea with the low amount of culture/policy pick up around in vanilla...

Re Tradition/Liberty versus Honor/Piety, I fear what gets forgotten here is the later trees. If the first four are broadly useful, the later ones need to be better by quite a degree to justify putting a policy there instead of filling out an earlier one. In short, I don't fear we're nerfing Tradition if we take away a few small things. Buffing everything across the board just leads to high numbers everywhere...

 

[Stalker0]

But that's the problem, isn't it? The 'infrastructure' trees will always be superior to Piety/Honor if the latter lack an equivalent passive bonus.

I'm going to bend a little bit on my original statement, I think I could behind adding some passive bonuses for the war buildings...aka barracks, armory, etc.

My thought is that honor should give some bonuses when building up an army, some meaty bonuses for warring itself,and then give you something useful to do with your "war supplies" when the war is over...things like:

A passive bonus for having units garrison
A passive bonus if you have a GG in your city
A big bonus if a unit is disbanded
Give units alternate actions (such as the legions road building, samurai's fishing net ability).
A bonus if you get some reward for making peace (aka you get something more than just the peace treaty...don't know if that is codeable).

 

[Gazebo]

I like those ideas, particularly the bit making soldiers useful for infrastructure. 'Civil Engineers' would be a handy policy. Also, anything is code-able, provided you guys make a compelling argument for it!
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[mystikx21]

I'd rather the alternate peacetime actions be mostly UU effects. But if it means that you don't need as many workers to do your infrastructure, that could be a modest bonus to honor (and then any UU effects could be simply accelerated by the policy).

I'd rather there be a bonus from generating GGs at all, but parking them in a city for a bonus works.

I don't think a disband bonus is useful or desirable. However something like an increase in CS influence from gifting units maybe okay (combined with something like an increase in bullying ability, or the CEP effect of giving a short term bonus from conquering the CS based on the CS type in one-time yield).

 

[ExpiredReign]

At first read the idea of Traditon being a 'capital only' policy and Liberty for the next few cities seemed to me absurd. Then I re-read it and the follow up post and I think I am on board with it now.
Only proviso, in further discussions on it refrain from placing an actual number of cities that constitute the early empire, e.g. 4. This initially caused me to think of that first discussion about the arbitrary 'wide vs tall' aspect of the game.

Is it possible to make these effects from the early policies fade or vanish after a time period? So Policy A gives bonus X that degrades as the eras pass until it vanishes once the later policies are fully available. Not sure if this entirely a good thing, just got my mind active with a coffee and a read through these posts.

 

[Stalker0]

Let me take another cut at Tradition with some of the notes:


Tradition

Opener: +2 food in the capital
Aristocracy: +15% bonus to wonders, +15% less poverty in the capital.
Legalism: +3 culture and 10% bonus to GP in the capital.
Oligarchy: +1 Pop in the Capital. Palace gains a free engineer specialist slot.
Landed Elite: Border Expansion increased, Tile Buying Costs reduced by 15%.
Monarchy: Capital gains +10% growth, +1 Gold per 2 Pop in Capital.
Closer: Can buy Great Engineers with Faith. +25% growth in the capital.

 

[mystikx21]

The way to give X bonus that degrades is to have it provide an instant bonus or a small bonus that is large for the time (like the +3 culture in the capital). It becomes less important over time.

There can be honor policies that only apply to say, melee units. That's one way around this. But I'm not sure this is desirable.

 

[mystikx21]

I'd rather not have four policies that provide growth in the capital....the +2 food and 10% growth to it and free specialist is fine.

 

[Funak]

Tradition

I really don't think we should nerf tradition, rather bring all the other trees up to its level. Policies is fun, strong policies is more fun imo.

Opener: +2 food in the capital
Boring and weak, still think the 3 culture should be here. 2 food could make up for losing the border expansion.

Aristocracy: +15% bonus to wonders, +15% less poverty in the capital.
Maybe, I dislike the wonderbonus and as mentioned before all the %-unhappiness things are rather weak in the capital (Poverty might actually be the best however)

Legalism: +3 culture and 10% bonus to GP in the capital.
This could honestly be anything if you move the 3 culture back to the opener. 10% gp (and specially only in the capital) is superweak. maybe this could be the "add specialists to palace" policy (and I would rather see 2 specialists that you have to work yourself than 1 that you get for free). Lowering unhappiness from specialists in the captial by X%(25-50?) could also be added here. I would rather see that being the major happiness bonus in this tree, with the current ideas the tradition playstyle is going to be extremely capitalloaded making the other unhappiness mods rather weak.

Oligarchy: +1 Pop in the Capital. Palace gains a free engineer specialist slot.
I would still like to see the old oligarchy (liked it) maybe with a added culturebonus in garisoned cities (like that honor bonus). 1 pop in the capital is a bad idea imo. So is free specialists (let people work the specialists themselves, more fun)

Landed Elite: Border Expansion increased, Tile Buying Costs reduced by 15%.
Sounds both boring and weak honestly Border expansion could be moved to the finisher and this policy could be anything. Maybe bring the old one back. 2 food 10 growth.

Monarchy: Capital gains +10% growth, +1 Gold per 2 Pop in Capital.
Could move the 1 gold/2 pop to Aristocracy (And remove the povertybonus) and remove the growth bonus. Then you'd have this one open for a new policy (which I can't really figure out right now, but I'll work on it)

Closer: Can buy Great Engineers with Faith. +25% growth in the capital.
Kinda plain and boring, finishers are supposed to be grand. How about Border expand bonus and 10-15% FOOD bonus? Like the temple of artemis/Floating garden bonus.

 

[mystikx21]

Longer thoughts on this proposal.
Opener: +2 food on its own is a lot for free right off the bat. You can use that for more growth or to work a mine (and build wonders/buildings/units). Mixed in with +3 culture and it's still too strong that I'd cherry pick it most games. I could see having something else here with it, but not the culture and food combined. Maybe 10% growth in the capital with it would be fine (essentially move landed elite here).

Aristocracy seems fine to me. We may have to tweak the poverty reduction up or down. But functionally that's fine.

Legalism: GP bonus is a little weak, maybe 15% if its just the capital. But it should be a good synergy regardless.

I would favor a specialist unhappiness reducer in the capital combined with some of these growth effects, and instead of all of them. It makes for a good synergy with growth that you should have extra specialists and make use of them cheaply in happiness terms (modeled as a sort of aristocratic patronage system for the arts and sciences).

Oligarchy. I would not retain the 50% ranged attack bonus for cities. Free upkeep on garrisons also doesn't really make much sense here. Honor would make more sense as a peacetime bonus for garrisons.

If this policy grants a free engineer specialist or engineer slot, it makes the most sense to park a specialist happiness effect here. I wouldn't have it give free pop. We have enough growth bonuses available that we shouldn't need it (or could use it somewhere else)

Landed Elite: Border expansion is really powerful. I don't find it boring at all. It stops being useful by about the mid game if you are playing tall, but that's because you've already maxed out your borders. The crucial part though is this: peaceful expansion by a small empire with few cities is best achieved by rapidly claiming wide expanses of territory around your cities to prevent anyone from getting in near you and stealing a key resource or cutting off an inland city and so on. This is vitally important early on for creating chokepoints quickly, claiming resources and bonus tiles, etc. Providing both the gold and culture reductions at once means you can rapidly expand territory either way. That seems like a good fit here.

Monarchy: gold is fine. But the growth bonus doesn't really make sense and there are too many such policies that do so. If pressed, this would make an okay home for +1 population. Dictatorships tend to have large followings of supplicants in the city.

Closer - why another growth effect? Perhaps a general specialist bonus/GPP bonus, or a slightly wider growth effect would work here. There was a Liberty pick way back in GEM that gave extra production to cities with a specialist. What about something that rewards using specialists in the capital (+.5 production or gold or culture per specialist in the capital, something like that?)

I disagree that finishers should be grand. Policies should be grand and finishers are gravy. There's no longer a game play or balance reason to take all of them in a tree unless the actual policies are good. If the policies are good, if you are close to finishing one tree, taking the last pick in a tree benefits you extra over some other choice. Which does not provide a finisher to go with it. They should be good effects, but they need not be grand and awesome capstones.