Policies: The time has come!

[Funak]

Well in the interest of completing the tree as you said, I will compromise a bit on the ITR but I will hold on the finisher. I think this a version that can go into balance testing, and it can always be tweaked.

Tradition Version 1.4

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% in first 4 cities.

I'd also like to point out that I don't think there is a script for GP%in the first X cities. There is one for capital and there is one for empire.
It could probably still be done with custom buildings, but I'm not sure why we would make it more complicated for no reason at all.

Also we have managed to avoid first X cities this far, there must be something we could do to avoid it completely?

 

[Gamewizard]

I will reiterate my stance. I don't understand why we are trying to reinvent the wheel here. The policies in vanilla are fairly balanced as is. Small tweaks to the existing trees is all that should be done. This will be far less time consuming than building a whole new system of trees. Firaxis went through the alpha and beta stages for us and now we just have to round it off.

 

[Funak]

I will reiterate my stance. I don't understand why we are trying to reinvent the wheel here. The policies in vanilla are fairly balanced as is. Small tweaks to the existing trees is all that should be done. This will be far less time consuming than building a whole new system of trees. Firaxis went through the alpha and beta stages for us and now we just have to round it off.

If they were fairly balanced we wouldn't be having this conversation. They are a complete mess with tradition and Rationalism being extremely much better than everything else.

 

[Stalker0]

Also we have managed to avoid first X cities this far, there must be something we could do to avoid it completely?

I will leave that in the coder's hands, if they say its too complicated to do then lets change it.

But Funak I'm going to echo your argument before. We have here a compromise among several...this tree is not anyone's perfect version, but its pretty close to what a lot of people have asked for. Its time to get this thing into balance testing and see how it does.

 

[Stalker0]

If they were fairly balanced we wouldn't be having this conversation. They are a complete mess with tradition and Rationalism being extremely much better than everything else.

I 100% agree with Funak (Funak mark the time it finally happened!!! )

I had forgotten how bad the balance was when I played vanilla again. Piety is garbage, Tradition is OP, Rationalism is stupid good, Aesthetics, Commerce, and Exploration are weirdly sporadic and unfocused. Patronage is...okay.

 

[mystikx21]

It looks fine as is here for now. I agree with gamewizard that it didn't have to be reinvented so much as tweaked.

But I think this achieved that. And I would argue policies and leaders are probably the two least well balanced portions of the base game after happiness as there are all kinds of duds and useless or boring effects that can be shaved off or replaced or combined.

Note that we haven't even gotten to Piety or Liberty yet though. That's more where the argument for polish rather than invention comes in as a factor.

 

[Gazebo]

I'm leaning heavily toward's Funak's tradition, largely because it'll be way easier to code. While wodhann's is interesting, there's so much that is new (functionally) and it would require a lot of city looping, which would bog down policy analysis in the dll. I also don't want to set a standard for policies that they all have to be a major re-write or revolutionary, as that means escalating late game policies into overly-complex beasts. Early policy branches should be simple and flexible if we are to save fun changes for later policy branches.

G

 

[Funak]

I'm leaning heavily toward's Funak's tradition, largely because it'll be way easier to code. While wodhann's is interesting, there's so much that is new (functionally) and it would require a lot of city looping, which would bog down policy analysis in the dll. I also don't want to set a standard for policies that they all have to be a major re-write or revolutionary, as that means escalating late game policies into overly-complex beasts. Early policy branches should be simple and flexible if we are to save fun changes for later policy branches.

G

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.

 

[Gamewizard]

If they were fairly balanced we wouldn't be having this conversation. They are a complete mess with tradition and Rationalism being extremely much better than everything else.

I agree Tradition and Rationalism are strong and Piety and Honor are lacking comparatively, so lets just nerf the stronger policies and buff the weaker ones. This is the easiest path to balance, and that is the name of the mod after all. Or is this no longer a balance mod, rather an overhaul mod?

 

[Funak]

I agree Tradition and Rationalism are strong and Piety and Honor are lacking comparatively, so lets just nerf the stronger policies and buff the weaker ones. This is the easiest path to balance, and that is the name of the mod after all. Or is this no longer a balance mod, rather an overhaul mod?

If overhaul brings better balance, then why not both?

 

[Wodhann]

So, none of my ideas are going to even be considered?

This is frustating, because I really dislike the "accepted" version of tradition. Like REALLY dislike it. As in, there is almost nothing in it that I agree with. Mostly because a lot of it belongs to liberty/"wisdom" not tradition, and because policies are all over the place thematically, none of them even touching the defensive aspect.

Opener: As I said before, I dislike encouraging players to go all the way through each tree, and have been against this kind of thing since we were doing Conquest. Also, why is this the only policy that pertains to growth?

Aristocracy: Belongs in "wisdom".

Legalism: Why this? Why science? This really feels out of place here, and easily replaceable.

Landed Elite: Border expansion could be easily integrated with something else, or even the finisher like I proposed. Internal trade routes obviously I agree, not necessarily in this fashion.

Oligarchy: Again, this kind of thing would fit better in "wisdom".

Monarchy: Another "why?" kind of arbitrary policy - tall players don't need a huge amount of happiness (though I understand the use of a little of it), and I don't understand why the gold per pop here, it seems like a random way to encourage more population when tall players are already going for it. Completely replaceable.

Finisher: Engineer should be in "wisdom".


Is this really what we're going with?

 

[Funak]

So, none of my ideas are going to even be considered?

Ok I'll humor you

Opener: As I said before, I dislike encouraging players to go all the way through each tree, and have been against this kind of thing since we were doing Conquest. Also, why is this the only policy that pertains to growth?

Honestly no idea, vocal people were against multiple Food/growth policies. I would have been fine with another one. Could probably squeeze a growthbonus into the finisher.

Aristocracy: Belongs in "wisdom".

I dislike the policy in the first place, I've been vocal about it until I realized everyone else seemed to like it. But one thing is perfectly clear to me, the policy does not belong in Liberty.


Legalism: Why this? Why science? This really feels out of place here, and easily replaceable.

It was in CEP, seemed like a decent bonus so I didn't argue much about it.

Landed Elite: Border expansion could be easily integrated with something else, or even the finisher like I proposed. Internal trade routes obviously I agree, not necessarily in this fashion.

Border expansion in the finisher was in CEP and everyone kinda agreed that it game way too late. Would honestly still like to see it in the opener, but I bend to the will of the people.

Oligarchy: Again, this kind of thing would fit better in "wisdom".

I think the main reason everyone ignores you is that you keep saying everything belongs in "wisdom" which from what I've gathered is some kind of super-tree that everyone would pick every time.

Monarchy: Another "why?" kind of arbitrary policy - tall players don't need a huge amount of happiness (though I understand the use of a little of it), and I don't understand why the gold per pop here, it seems like a random way to encourage more population when tall players are already going for it. Completely replaceable.

Could be, but gold/pop does combat poverty without having to give any more happiness. And yes it's pretty clear that everyone is going to want to grow their capital, but this is just something of a reward for doing it.

Finisher: Engineer should be in "wisdom".

Engineers have always been in tradition. Tradition is the 'wonderfocused' tree from what I've gathered, so great engineers make sense. You could probably get them from Liberty aswell since there is somewhat a shortage of great people to assign and one of Liberty's main problem was not having any great people to buy in industrial.

Is this really what we're going with?

Yup

 

[mitsho]

I'll just want to requote these two to emphasize them:

I will reiterate my stance. I don't understand why we are trying to reinvent the wheel here. The policies in vanilla are fairly balanced as is. Small tweaks to the existing trees is all that should be done. This will be far less time consuming than building a whole new system of trees. Firaxis went through the alpha and beta stages for us and now we just have to round it off.

I'm leaning heavily toward's Funak's tradition, largely because it'll be way easier to code. While wodhann's is interesting, there's so much that is new (functionally) and it would require a lot of city looping, which would bog down policy analysis in the dll. I also don't want to set a standard for policies that they all have to be a major re-write or revolutionary, as that means escalating late game policies into overly-complex beasts. Early policy branches should be simple and flexible if we are to save fun changes for later policy branches.

G

While I do think we shouldn't keep things from vanilla for the sake of keeping and some revisions and moves of policies are okay, we really don't need to go for complete overhauls. If we'd want to do that, we could go to Nights or any of the other mods that reimagine the policy system completely. Since if we're honest, the policy-tree system is one of the weaknesses of civ5 as it is and won't be in civ6 I guess (it's not in Beyond Earth...)

If overhaul brings better balance, then why not both?

Because it takes time and I'd like to play the mod as soon as possible, beyond Earth will drain a bit from the player base and maybe even the modders here

On a more serious note: everyone else here agrees with stalker about the first 4 cities GPbonus?

I don't see a lot of difference between first 4 cities and civ-wide. The big specialist cities will be the ones with lots of food and having grown so chances are these are within the first 4 anyway. It also requires more wording, so yes, I don't like it either.

This is frustating, because I really dislike the "accepted" version of tradition. Like REALLY dislike it. As in, there is almost nothing in it that I agree with. Mostly because a lot of it belongs to liberty/"wisdom" not tradition, and because policies are all over the place thematically, none of them even touching the defensive aspect.

Defensive policies are not fun and don't help you as much in going forward either. It's okay to have one, but two are probably already overkill. When have you had problems with invading barbarians btw.?

Tbh, I just don't feel like commenting every tree as I'm not the judge in the end and my time is limited as well Btw. if you feel that most bonus belong in wisdom why don't you think of this tradition as a "wisdom named tradition"? You could show us your v0.1 of Liberty/Wisdom since I struggle to think where you'll put all those traditional liberty policies since they're not in your tradition?

 

[Wodhann]

Fine, I would like to propose you guys the following then.

We lay off Tradition for now, and I will come up with a preliminary version of "wisdom" (I really need an appropriate new name for this, so I can stop using quotes). We iterate on it, we make a decision about the whole liberty vs "wisdom" thing and after we have it fleshed it out, we return to tradition.

Deal?

 

[Lord Tirian]

It would certainly help the discussion if we had a better idea of what you envision as "Wisdom".

Nevertheless, I think your tradition tree has some conceptual issues:

• Defence Focus: 3 out 6 policies, counting the opener, are doing that. I'd rather just build/buy an extra unit or two, culture is too valuable to waste half your policies in a tree on turtling. In your tree, I'd only get the opener, autarky, sanitation, timocracy. The rest? I'd just get Conquest and be better off military or Wisdom and be better off in infrastructure.
• Starts: If you have a good starting location with stuff around, you want to go Wide, meaning Conquest. Meaning, if you go Tradition, there's a good chance that, apart from your capital, the terrain isn't the hot stuff. This makes the overall boosts from the current Tradition draft very helpful (+hammer, +science, +gold), they somewhat decouple you from the terrain, ensuring that your capital is going to be good, vital for a tall empire. Your tree... doesn't.
• Not enough "Oomph": This is related to the defence focus. All the defence bonuses do is doubling down on it. The rest? Food/growth. There just isn't enough variety to be interesting. Again, compare to your Conquest tree people really liked: it gives you settlers, it gives you military bonuses, it gives you golden ages - it's just so much more varied.

I think these points are valid regardless of how a "Wisdom" tree will look like. I know you want to make it less favourable to "complete" trees, but making a tree boring and not worth finishing is just as bad: it just means not completing trees is optimal now, just as boring as making complete trees better.

 

[Wodhann]

I think you just gave us all a lesson about constructive criticism. Simple, yet enlightening and to the point, without trying to utterly dismiss the point - and exactly what I needed to read. I thank you sir. I will keep that in mind in my next version.

But first, I'm going to finally come up with my first version of Wisdom, though. I feel I have stalled this enough.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

regarding the debate between a bonus for X cities and a bonus for the whole civ, keep in mind you can give the former bigger/more interesing bonuses that would be OP if they applied to each and every city you found. also it meshes very well with the tradition theme of having a few well developed cities.

 

[Funak]

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.

regarding the debate between a bonus for X cities and a bonus for the whole civ, keep in mind you can give the former bigger/more interesing bonuses that would be OP if they applied to each and every city you found. also it meshes very well with the tradition theme of having a few well developed cities.

The thing is that there isn't a huge difference first 4 cities and whole empire, atleast not most of the time. Capital only however is clearly worse, in fact if we don't change the way gardens work this bonus could end up doing nothing if you don't start near a river/lake.

 

[klokwerk]

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 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. I'd nerf it to +1 culture to let the other trees compete better. The policies should come roughly at the same speed as when you choose the other trees in my opinion.

+1 food for each policy is already very strong (it basically makes a Hanging Gardens wonder at the end in your capital), maybe too strong. This tree doesn't need to get better.

 

[Stalker0]

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.

We already have PLENTY of growth with the food bonus. If GP in the 4 first doesn't work, then lets just go GP straight up in all cities.