I'd like to get a working Tradition out the door, guys. Let's compromise on something, at least for now. Please?
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Policies: The time has come!
- Thread starter Stalker0
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It is based on mapsize, Standard is 5% Huge is 2% no idea about the other sizes.
How about we try the existing finished tree, and if we figure out a supercapital based tree is boring after testing it we can remake it?
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See attached screenshot. I read somewhere that puppets only increase it by 2% but I haven't confirmed it or seen it proven (and the in-game text belies that notion).
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Wodhann
South American Norse God
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I don't think it's a good idea to "compromise" on anything just to get something out. I don't see the hurry. As we say in my country, haste is the enemy of perfection. I'm sure there must be other things to work with, code-wise.
Conquest is in a much better place right now in terms of agreement, and even then I don't think we need to implement it just yet.
Plus rushing to put something into code just ends up being more work if you have to redo it afterwards.
mitsho
Deity
But we are not aiming for perfection, just for something fun to play. And you'll never achieve perfection in leader or policy discussions, trust me 
These go on and on and on...
But you are of course right, unless there's some big problem/people are really unhappy, chances are there's not going to be revolutionary (!) change afterwards. This doesn't mean that a whole policy can be taken out.
See for example that "double science penalty per city thing". Who knew that this amount was dependent on mapsize? (I didn't). Now it seems that doubling on huge map would really be crippling, since the larger mapsizes don't usually mean that you have double the cities (but more often more civs/more crowded, no?). So that seems if we had included that policy we would need to take it out again. The game needs to be playable over all mapsizes and speeds ('mostly, it can of course be ideal at one setting').
I do think there's a good version of tradition floating around somewhere on these last pages.
EDIT: Seems like post #386 is the last version:
These go on and on and on...But you are of course right, unless there's some big problem/people are really unhappy, chances are there's not going to be revolutionary (!) change afterwards. This doesn't mean that a whole policy can be taken out.
See for example that "double science penalty per city thing". Who knew that this amount was dependent on mapsize? (I didn't). Now it seems that doubling on huge map would really be crippling, since the larger mapsizes don't usually mean that you have double the cities (but more often more civs/more crowded, no?). So that seems if we had included that policy we would need to take it out again. The game needs to be playable over all mapsizes and speeds ('mostly, it can of course be ideal at one setting').
I do think there's a good version of tradition floating around somewhere on these last pages.
EDIT: Seems like post #386 is the last version:
Spoiler :
Ah, but the enemy of 'good' is better. We can always do better. Right now, though, what we have is good.
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Wodhann, there's no need for "perfect". As we are seeing here, there's almost no concept of perfect that doesn't rub against others' conceptions. Much of what we are proposing may not survive contact with actual game play anyway, so sitting around debating it in circles will get us nowhere. Something that looks like it could work well enough for our purposes is better than trying to get it to work perfectly for everyone's individual purposes. This one policy tree thread has already plowed through 20 pages. There's little shortage of necessary debate on later trees, or wonders, or leaders (which we haven't even put up a thread on yet). All of that will go through at least a couple iterations before it gets to a generally accepted balance.
I don't think we have a lot of extraneous coding involved yet. Most is data editing. That is easy to untangle or replace and fairly easy to test.
I'd say the science effect could work as a %*population if it's too boring looking at that list. I was confused where the 2% number was coming from myself too (I assumed it was a map scale issue).
I don't think we have a lot of extraneous coding involved yet. Most is data editing. That is easy to untangle or replace and fairly easy to test.
I'd say the science effect could work as a %*population if it's too boring looking at that list. I was confused where the 2% number was coming from myself too (I assumed it was a map scale issue).
Wodhann
South American Norse God
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I wasn't being literal with that saying, and I understand the need to move on when the discussion degrades into a battle of subjective nitpicking. But this is not the case. We're not anywhere near "perfect" - in fact, we're not even in the "good" neighborhood in my view. Not that the policies en vogue are exactly "bad" or badly designed. If the concept was sound, I wouldn't mind this tree. But what we're still facing here is a blatant conceptual error in its foundations. Sorry, "capital-centric tree" just won't cut it, for the reasons I have explained in length (and which I haven't seen any attempt to pull out an adequate refutation).
I can whip out a new iteration, but if the general idea is to make a "capital centric" tree, then it will be like trying to fit a square block into a triangle-shaped hole; it will be either promptly turned down every time, or people will patch up ideas on it that will drag it back to the previous iteration because people are hung up in an (in my view, misguided) idea of what tradition is supposed to be.
I have made my case, and I have sketched out prototypes that showcase what I think we should go for. It will be a mistake to put anything to code by neglecting a valid concern without even the slightest bit of proper refutation.
So I would ask everyone (especially Stalker, or anyone else who fundamentally disagrees with me) to please indulge me and explain exactly why "buffing the capital" is a better way to enhance Tall gameplay (and if you disagree that the very concept that tradition should be about this, you have an even bigger burden of explanation to do), than the alternative which is... to actually seek to enchance tall gameplay, and not generalized gameplay (which indirectly benefits wide empires).
Note I'm not saying "capital buffing should be completely erased from tradition, and not even a single hint of this should be present". I'm saying this should not be what this tree is about, and if we buff the capital, it should be in a way that benefit smaller empires, not just any kind of empire. We already have a neutral tree for that purpose.
I can whip out a new iteration, but if the general idea is to make a "capital centric" tree, then it will be like trying to fit a square block into a triangle-shaped hole; it will be either promptly turned down every time, or people will patch up ideas on it that will drag it back to the previous iteration because people are hung up in an (in my view, misguided) idea of what tradition is supposed to be.
I have made my case, and I have sketched out prototypes that showcase what I think we should go for. It will be a mistake to put anything to code by neglecting a valid concern without even the slightest bit of proper refutation.
So I would ask everyone (especially Stalker, or anyone else who fundamentally disagrees with me) to please indulge me and explain exactly why "buffing the capital" is a better way to enhance Tall gameplay (and if you disagree that the very concept that tradition should be about this, you have an even bigger burden of explanation to do), than the alternative which is... to actually seek to enchance tall gameplay, and not generalized gameplay (which indirectly benefits wide empires).
Note I'm not saying "capital buffing should be completely erased from tradition, and not even a single hint of this should be present". I'm saying this should not be what this tree is about, and if we buff the capital, it should be in a way that benefit smaller empires, not just any kind of empire. We already have a neutral tree for that purpose.
Gokudo01
Emperor
Gazebo, at the end of the day, you are the ultimate judge, so please implement some policies to match your new happiness system.
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I don't think Tradition needs much changed from vanilla, and I think it's focus should remain growth-based (science and production can be removed because growth leads to more of both these yields naturally). I also tend to agree with Wodhann that it needn't be so capital-centric, though I'm hardly as vehemently against capital bonuses. His point that the current iteration is useful to everyone is valid imo.
RnR's National Wonder focus is a great way to buff small/tall empires, but with the global changes to the NW system, that would seem to favor wide over tall here.
One other note, from my understanding the domestic TR bonus can be "doubled" without much worry (assuming we're using the vanilla functions) because that tenet doubles the *base* amount of food/production (iirc, 2 for land, 4 for water) and disregards the per-era bonuses (.5 and 1 per-era, respectively. So it will start strong but end much weaker - only plus 2/4 for the duration of the game.
Here's my take:
Opener: +3 culture in the Capital. +1 food in the Capital for each policy of Tradition taken (including this one), -1 food in the Capital for each additional city(?).
Aristocracy: +15% production bonus to wonders, +2 (+4 from sea) yields from domestic Trade Routes.
Legalism: -50% unhappiness from literacy. +10% Growth for every 10 happiness.
Landed Elite: Borders expand faster. Units receive a 15% defensive combat bonus in own lands.
Oligarchy: +3 Gold per 5 citizens in a city, and +1 Global happiness per 10 citizens in a city.
Monarchy: +1 culture from culture buildings and World Wonders. +1 global happiness from World and National Wonders.
Finisher: Choose a free Great Person. 10% food carried over after a citizen is born. Great Person rate +25% in all cities. (Great Engineer faith purchasing moved to Liberty, no?)
RnR's National Wonder focus is a great way to buff small/tall empires, but with the global changes to the NW system, that would seem to favor wide over tall here.
One other note, from my understanding the domestic TR bonus can be "doubled" without much worry (assuming we're using the vanilla functions) because that tenet doubles the *base* amount of food/production (iirc, 2 for land, 4 for water) and disregards the per-era bonuses (.5 and 1 per-era, respectively. So it will start strong but end much weaker - only plus 2/4 for the duration of the game.
Here's my take:
Opener: +3 culture in the Capital. +1 food in the Capital for each policy of Tradition taken (including this one), -1 food in the Capital for each additional city(?).
Aristocracy: +15% production bonus to wonders, +2 (+4 from sea) yields from domestic Trade Routes.
Legalism: -50% unhappiness from literacy. +10% Growth for every 10 happiness.
Landed Elite: Borders expand faster. Units receive a 15% defensive combat bonus in own lands.
Oligarchy: +3 Gold per 5 citizens in a city, and +1 Global happiness per 10 citizens in a city.
Monarchy: +1 culture from culture buildings and World Wonders. +1 global happiness from World and National Wonders.
Finisher: Choose a free Great Person. 10% food carried over after a citizen is born. Great Person rate +25% in all cities. (Great Engineer faith purchasing moved to Liberty, no?)
Not sure punishing expansion is the right way to encourage staying compact to be honest
I think the happiness-bonus makes more sense here since there is actually synergy between the two effects, but it hardly matters.
Not sure what the thematic point of illiteracy is, also the number seems pretty high(that is adjustable however). From playing RnR I can tell that the extra aqueduct effect is way too unstable to be used, without an aqueduct it is close to useless, with an aqueduct it is awesome and when you get a medical lab it is downright overpowered. I would take it really easy with those effects.
I'm still not convinced why Tradition would need more defensive policies than Liberty, in RnR they both have one each (which is completely fine to be honest) but if every tree have defensive bonuses then no one have defensive bonuses, if you get my drift.
Honestly not sure why this would benefit compact play over wide play.
I would be very careful with placing bonuses on world wonders in the ancient era trees. It is one of those effects that scale extremely badly with game-difficulty
No, the GE was not MOVED to Liberty, it was added there aswell because not having a GP to buy for faith was hurting the tree, removing it from here would do the same but probably worse.
By the way if I sound extremely dismissing, this is not supposed to be the case I'm just judging your ideas based on my experience.
Other than that, welcome to the discussion.
All in all you removed a lot of effects and made the rest empierwide, and while that is nice I don't really see how this would encourage compact play, except the opener hurting expansion I guess.
It is honestly very hard to make a tree that actually encourages compact play instead of just disencourage wide play by giving it penalties.
One way of doing it is boosting the base-penalties for expanding and having something remove that or add other benefits combating that in the 'wide-focused' trees.
And while our current supercapital tree isn't really a fun concept for everyone it does actually encourage compact play mostly by only having bonuses in the capital, meaning that every new city is going to put a drain on the capitals resources. Since you don't get any actual benefits in your non-capital cities you're in theory not going to want to settle that many of them UNLESS you find extremely good locations (which is imo exactly what compact gameplay is about)
Edit: You moved some things around, but I think my point pretty much stands anyways so I'm not going to bother rewriting it.
He is going to hate you for saying that
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Hmm, yeah, it's a little heavy-handed. I was thinking of making it a pool of food that gets distributed to cities, but it got a little wordy. So how about this:
Each Tradition policy selected (including this one) generates +1 food for the capital, but each additional city gets one food from this pool.
This would encourage tall play without penalty.
I'd be cool with adding more effects like this to the tree, too, if that's something people would be interested in.
Sure, no biggie so switch it around again. My thinking was this: the happiness fits with the culture on WWs in the other policy, and the bonus to domestic TRs here helps with wonders (send prod or food to work prod tiles) and makes the policy useful for those not going for wonders.
I was actually rather pleased with the thematic tie-in here: the disenfranchized illeterate won't get sh*t upon as much with a legal code, and the bonus to growth from happiness illustrates that fewer people are discontent and are therefore not getting beheaded for committing crimes.
I hesitate to balance anything against Med Labs - they are so late and require the supremely mediocre Hospital. Once building changes are in it might be a different story, ofc.) But I'd be fine with changing this to growth if there's an issue (just looking for different food effects, mostly).
Many people seem to have an issue with the old Oligarchy effect (I don't) so I went with RnR's effect. It's thematically fitting with the policy name and the other effect here, too. I do think Tradition should have a defensive policy since the fewer cities the player has the more impactful it is to lose one.
It promotes tall play vs Liberty's happiness from all citizens. The numbers can be adjusted, I almost put +6 gold for every 10 citizens, would that be more fitting?
That's why I made the policy affect culture buildings and National Wonders too. It seems like a potent policy to me, do you think it's weak overall?
Ah, I missed that somehow (been trying to catch up on everything the last couple days, boy you guys are quick!). What about adding industrial faith-purchasable food buildings to tradition? (and remove free GP?)
You didn't sound dismissive at all, happy to discuss! (And I appreciate your concern, a big reason I haven't posted here much earlier is because of the overly heated nature of much of the discussion, no offense to anyone, it's just a turnoff for me.)
I think the growth focus disencourages wide play by it's very nature. Excess food is useless with the inevitable low happiness of a wide empire. I'd rather not penalize wide further (I'm not a fan of hardcaps). We could also add more effects to excess happiness here to promote tall play if desired. Something else that could be added is a bonus to resource tiles in the capital - in my experience, having a quality capital makes Trad more enticing than Lib so buffing that qualification might have some value here. Lastly, Liberty and Honor are shaping up to be more useful to wide empires, so I'm not sure this is really a concern.
Unfortunately I think we may be hitting an impasse on this point.
I have ascribed to the capital centric tree model as "helps all playstyles some, helps TALL gameplay the most". I have stated my reasons and examples, and think the effects can be made as such to allow for Tradition to be the TALL favored tree of our openers. I don't think any more examples will swing people if they haven't been convinced already.
Wodhann did make one point I may agree with. "Is it possible to make a TALL favored tree without some heavy handed penalties for going Wide?"
On one hand, some of us are saying "Capital Centric doesn't cut". On the other, some of us are saying "heavy handed penalties are a no go". Is there a middle ground?
Let me explore that a bit. Fundamentally, what does the TALL style offer a civ that WIDE does not...beyond policies and other add ins to the game?
The one area I can think of....happiness. Especially with the new happy system, WIDE burns your happiness more readily than TALL in my experience. You could argue that this has a secondary effect to let your main cities grow "taller" because they have a higher happiness ceiling...but that is a consequence, not a fundamental built in. Fundamentally cities can grow just as big in TALL as they can in WIDE...assuming enough happiness is present.
Now I would also argue that in many cases TALL brings in more science and culture than WIDE...at least at key points in the game because of the culture and science penalties...but I think we would have more debate there. Does anyone argue that with the new happiness system that TALL doesn't have a happy advantage?
So...we attack that. We offer some bonuses for being happy, perhaps an escalating bonus.
Gain 2 culture per happy, 1% to production for every happy (probably an extreme example). Golden Ages gain X,Y,Z (more happy = more GA in theory). Gain 1% bonus to GP in all cities per happy, etc.
Ninjaed by Seek!
Honestly though its a bit of an offense to me. If we are losing people to the discussion because of that...its a problem.
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I just personally think these policies feel like they are punishing expansion ("I could expand but I would lose 1 food in all cities if I do that").
I guess it could work but I'm not a fan of it myself.
It was really fine either way
Good point. Still not really a fan of having those specific unhappiness-reductions in the openertrees mostly because they are weak and not needed early and extremely powerful later on (something that we are supposed to avoid)I was actually rather pleased with the thematic tie-in here: the disenfranchized illeterate won't get sh*t upon as much with a legal code, and the bonus to growth from happiness illustrates that fewer people are discontent and are therefore not getting beheaded for committing crimes.
Mostly thinking out loud, had a city working 22 unemployed citiziens last time I played RnR because it outgrew all tiles and all specialists available.
Fewer cities also means your defense would be more focused aswell, and considering the cities in liberty would be better developed it would be more impactful losing one of those. If tradition needs a defensive policy then one should probably be added to liberty aswell, but in my opinion the AI is bad enough that people should be punished for not building enough of a defense by themselves.
Not really sure my growthplan would change much if I had 3 or 6 cities, liberty would probably have a bigger population in fact considering it takes less work to grow 6 cities to 10 pop than growing 3 cities to 20. Also personally not a fan of making that big of a jump between rewards for a policy.
Not weak, just hard to balance, it is going to be worth maybe 40culture/happiness on settler and 8 on deity.
From what I've been gathering people want the faithpurchase buildings to stick in the religion or piety. Personally don't see a problem with your idea as long as it is well executed. But then again I don't see a problem with letting both trees have great engineers from faith.
I generally have never seen this being a thing either in vanilla or CBP, usually really hard to outgrow your happiness (not counting CBP lategame because that just murders my happiness nomatter how many cities I have)
So your idea is to replace the supercapital with another supercapital?
Honestly think the Supercapital idea will work out, was somewhat skeptical to it from the start but it does promote compact gameplay (by making other cities less useful)
One should also keep in mind that going tradition into liberty or liberty into traditon should be a viable option
Exactly
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Well the largest problem for me was just getting current with the discussions - y'all are prolific!
I honestly didn't mean any offense with that comment (I was on the fence about posting it at all, maybe I shouldn't have..) to anyone that was offended, I apologize!
I honestly didn't mean any offense with that comment (I was on the fence about posting it at all, maybe I shouldn't have..) to anyone that was offended, I apologize!
Men don't get offended, yes if you get offended by this statement you are not a man, and yes that was even more offensive, and yes this is a joke.
Now this was offtopic, but if it is on-topic I really don't think you should let the fear of offending someone stop you from posting relevant information/suggestions
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I didn't explain it well enough - in the revised version, you wouldn't lose a food, one food would move from the capital to the expand, another for another expand, etc. Could also make it a pool that is evenly distributed among all cities, which would achieve a similar result (more efficient for fewer cities).
See my comments in the other thread.
Good god, I've never had that - perhaps it could be too powerful, then.
Good point, though I disagree with the notion that Liberty cities will be more developed. If we find that's the case after these trees are released, then Lib needs a lower production bonus.
Fair enough, I'm not especially tied to this effect - I'd be fine with the vanilla effect, tbh (+1 gold and happiness per 2 citizens in capital).
I don't personally see that as a problem, that is why there are difficulty levels after all.
I just dislike repeated effects. Especially now that we are free to do anything we want! I'm happy to hear other suggestions.
I don't have enough experience to comment on the new happiness system - but Gazebo has said it's not finished or balanced, so I would rather assume it will be than base our concepts on it's current iteration.
So your idea is to replace the supercapital with another supercapital?
Honestly think the Supercapital idea will work out, was somewhat skeptical to it from the start but it does promote compact gameplay (by making other cities less useful)
One should also keep in mind that going tradition into liberty or liberty into traditon should be a viable option
Eh, just throwing ideas around!
edit:
Men don't get offended, yes if you get offended by this statement you are not a man, and yes that was even more offensive, and yes this is a joke.
Now this was offtopic, but if it is on-topic I really don't think you should let the fear of offending someone stop you from posting relevant information/suggestions
Lol, no, it's not fear, it's just not fun for me, and I'm here because I think this stuff is fun!
