Policies: The time has come!

[Gazebo]

I think Tradition being the 'safe,' capital-centric policy branch is fine. It is, literally, 'tradition' (both the meaning of the word and the civ 5 policy branch, historically).

Yes, everyone has a capital, and so everyone will absolutely benefit from taking tradition, but that doesn't mean that it is bad. There's still, as Stalker noted, a question of cost-benefit. Sure, your capital will be strong, but you have no advantage to expansion beyond that initial city.

That said, I'm open to ideas. Your latest set wasn't bad, Wodhann, but it does get a bit complex. As much as I enjoy writing a new function for every policy in the game...maybe we can hold onto a few of the base game's policies here and there, at least in spirit?

Lastly, things got a bit unnecessarily heated, and personal, earlier in this thread. Ultimately, whatever justifications any of us have for our proposals, they are 100% untested and unproven, and are based on an educated opinion of what you, I or anyone else think is the best course of action. I'll stress this point, as everyone needs to remember that being passionate about your idea is fine, but using said passion as a bludgeon is not okay.

I'd also like to ask for everyone, absolutely everyone, to stop making 'appeals to the people' with regards to their ideas. Stating that x idea is good 'because the people want it' is about as effective an argument as saying x idea is a good idea because deus vult (God wills it). Until we start seeing polls, elections and a democratic process, let's just let our ideas be our ideas, okay? There's nothing wrong with liking your ideas, or thinking they're good – such a feeling does not, however, exclude them from critique, or from being discarded (mine included – the threads in this sub-forum are littered with my cold, dead ideas).

Cheers,
G

 

[Stalker0]

And your tradition is not as much a sub-par choice for wide empires as it is supposed to be.

I think this is the absolute crux of the argument...and it boils down to the numbers game.

It is true that anyone can make use of Tradition. I would argue that Tall empires got more out of it than Wide ones...especially when you consider what Honor and Liberty can provide to Wide styles.

The question is...how much more? I have no answer to that until we playtest; no one does.

 

[Wodhann]

(Damn, I hate when lengthy responses end up on the bottom of the page - stalker/gazebo, if you skipped it, may I ask you to please go back and read it)

Lastly, things got a bit unnecessarily heated, and personal, earlier in this thread. Ultimately, whatever justifications any of us have for our proposals, they are 100% untested and unproven, and are based on an educated opinion of what you, I or anyone else think is the best course of action. I'll stress this point, as everyone needs to remember that being passionate about your idea is fine, but using said passion as a bludgeon is not okay.

I apologize for the derail, I was indeed getting fed up and I vented instead of just making my decision to stop responding to him unless he presents an actual case silently.

I do disagree slightly with the educated opinion thing though. Yes, everything we say is untested and subject to being proven wrong; however, if we treat everything as "just an opinion", it's going to be hard getting somewhere (if everyone's opinions are subjective and a matter of taste, then there's no reason pick any of them over another). In my view, the best argument, as in, the one which's case no retort can demolish, is the one that has the highest probability of being right. And that's why we need to present actual arguments, instead of just subjective judgements. We can never know if an argument endures all retort if none is given.

I'd also like to ask for everyone, absolutely everyone, to stop making 'appeals to the people' with regards to their ideas. Stating that x idea is good 'because the people want it' is about as effective an argument as saying x idea is a good idea because deus vult (God wills it). Until we start seeing polls, elections and a democratic process, let's just let our ideas be our ideas, okay? There's nothing wrong with liking your ideas, or thinking they're good – such a feeling does not, however, exclude them from critique, or from being discarded.

Completely agree.

 

[Wodhann]

I think this is the absolute crux of the argument...and it boils down to the numbers game.

Here's the thing, the numbers will not help you. I'm going to say this again: If you improve your tradition, it will become a no-brainer policy for everyone, and if you nerf it, it will become an useless tree for everyone.

That's the problem when you have a conceptually neutral tree. If it helps everyone, then it can also harm everyone.

That is why I'm stressing that we actually make a policy that is centered around a "tall" gameplay style rather than pursuit a "capital game" tree that everybody can benefit. Because if we do, then our balance will be directed specifically towards people who can benefit from it, and we won't have to worry about it being too attractive to other play styles.

And that's what I'm trying to do with my suggestions.

 

[Stalker0]

Let me put some comments to Wodhann's tree:

Opener: +3 in the capital and +15% bonus to ancient and classical wonders. (People said "tradition needs wonder bonuses to win wonder races because they have fewer cities" - fine. But later in the game a Tall empire's capital can finish a wonder probably quicker than any other. So to me it's fairer that they get an early game bonus, but not a generalized one, for reasons I stated in the liberty thread.)

--As others have mentioned, putting the wonder bonus here makes this too much of a cheery pick.

Agrarianism: Each time a citizen is born, the city gains and equal to the population in that city. (This means a civilization with low number of cities but higher population benefits more than the opposite kind.)

--This may work out the opposite of what you would intended. The amount of food needed to grow each level goes up more and more with each level. That means the food bonus a small city gets is actually proportionally more than what a big city gets (aka 5 food to a size 5 city means more than 10 food to a size 10). It will overall make small cities grow quicker. I think this would actually be more of a wide bonus than tall.

Bureaucracy: Citizens produce +1 additional , but cost penalty of new technologies per city is doubled. (Before you call this OP outright, remember normal penalty is 2% per city, which is a considerable amount, and each citizen already gives 1 science in vanillla)

--What this policy does is forces the player into Tall play with a massive wide hammer. Basically once I pick up this policy there is no going back, I will be too heavily penalized for founding more cities. I don't think that is the right way to approach policies.

Monarchy: Your Capital gains 25% and provides +1 per 5 citizens. Maintenance costs in the capital reduced by 20%, including for units stationed in it.

--Ranged Strength I hate just for balance reasons. That aside its just another flavor of the other monarchy policy.

Oligarchy: Palace provides +3 and gains an engineer specialist slot. Defensive buildings require -25% to build. Requires Monarchy.

--Defense Building reduction is also more of a wide benefit. It will help lower the unrest in every city. I also find I need walls and things much more in my far flung colonies than in my close cities.​

 

[Stalker0]

Here's the thing, the numbers will not help you. I'm going to say this again: If you improve your tradition, it will become a no-brainer policy for everyone, and if you nerf it, it will become an useless tree for everyone.

I will address to answer this with an example, though an extreme one:

Let us say I have two different policies.

1) Gain +10 hammers in your capital.
2) Gain +5 hammers in all of your cities.

One civ has a Capital only. Another has a Capital and 9 cities (10 total). Which policy should each civ take?

Now, number 1 help them both. It is always useful. But for Civ2, that second policy provides 50 HPT while the first provides 10 HPT. Might that second policy be a better choice?


Again, I stress opportunity cost. Capital bonus are always useful it is true...but the larger your empire, the less those bonuses mean to your bottom line. Meanwhile, I have other trees that give me bonuses to all my cities...or help acquire more of them. There is a mathematically a point when those trees become more useful for wide play...the question is where. The answer...is in playtesting.

 

[mystikx21]

What this policy does is forces the player into Tall play with a massive wide hammer. Basically once I pick up this policy there is no going back, I will be too heavily penalized for founding more cities. I don't think that is the right way to approach policies

- This is the biggest flaw with that design. It is fine to provide a benefit for getting taller or being taller. It is a bad idea to lock someone into it, especially from an early game tree.

Defence keeps coming up but really the only good "defense" pick is to give a couple of units for defence. Which is what we did in Honor. Buffing cities isn't necessary and is a poor design for defence via policies. If I am fighting with my city, I am losing as the enemy may pillage tiles, and has probably defeated my army. I don't find the ranged strength bonus a good idea on that ground, much as stalker doesn't.

We can strengthen the capital with the idea we had a while back (from CEP) to give the palace an extra 100HP and maybe some strength but I'd rather do that by default than through a policy. This helps the AI and CS a bit also.

Agreed the opener should not include the wonder bonus. It needs to be part of a policy.
Agreed agrarianism seems better for wide than tall.
Agreed with Wodhann the oligarchy pick seems a little meh though, if there's a place to put a defensive effect in the tree, this would be the logical spot.

Opportunity costs should be considered a factor here as well. Increasing the power of the capital sacrifices other long term growth opportunities. That seems fine. I do not particularly care if the tree is a "tall" centric one. It isn't one right now in the main game. It's a "growth" centric one there.

 

[Stalker0]

Agreed with Wodhann the oligarchy pick seems a little meh though, if there's a place to put a defensive effect in the tree, this would be the logical spot.

We could put the ranged defense bonus to the capital in that spot. It doesn't add much, but I'm in the camp that thinks Oligarchy is actually really good (base yields are REALLY good!)

 

[Wodhann]

--What this policy does is forces the player into Tall play with a massive wide hammer. Basically once I pick up this policy there is no going back, I will be too heavily penalized for founding more cities. I don't think that is the right way to approach policies.

- This is the biggest flaw with that design. It is fine to provide a benefit for getting taller or being taller. It is a bad idea to lock someone into it, especially from an early game tree.

I thought about the same thing. Ultimately here is what I think: If you pick this policy, you're well aware of the risks involved. In my next iteration I will probably push it down a bit so you don't have to get it to get a certain other policy, but I don't feel it's atrociously limiting. You're still getting +1 science per population. As tirian pointed out, that's a lot.

And even if it were a complete hard lock, I would be reasonably ok with it. I have no problem with it saying this policy is off-limits to a certain kind of game style. I say this because of how hard it is to specifically enhance compact empire strategies. I don't think it's even possible to do it without having to establish strict hands-off mechanics. Firaxis for instance tried to go the simple way of saying "this only goes for the first four cities" and it ended up being a terrible design choice.

Let us say I have two different policies.

1) Gain +10 hammers in your capital.
2) Gain +5 hammers in all of your cities.

One civ has a Capital only. Another has a Capital and 9 cities (10 total). Which policy should each civ take?

It's easy to make a scenario with a specific result you're looking for when you push it to unreasonable limits. One civ has just one capital but another has 10 cities? I would say the first civ is screwed not matter what he picks.

The better question would be this. Both players have 1 city, the capital. One player is planning to go compact, and the other is going expansive. The compact one will obviously get 1, but will the wide one necessarily get 2? He can get 10 hammers straight away for his capital. It benefits him, and is not a sub-par choice.

It can go the reverse too, both players have four cities and the compact player can pick the +5 production per city as well as the wide one, which means in this case number 1 failed to provide a better alternative for that play style.

Also there is the fact multiple policies can be picked, but I know this probably isn't a factor in your example. Overall this was not a convincing example to be honest.

 

[Wodhann]

Some math. I'm assuming the wiki is not applying the normal 2% on their research costs, but even if they are this is just to demonstrate the calculations.

With 2% per city (no Bureaucracy)

#|Writ.|Philo.|Phys|Bank.|Rifling|Radio|Radar|Lasers
0|55|175|485|780|1425|3100|5100|7700
1|56|179|495|796|1454|3162|5202|7854
2|57|182|504|811|1482|3224|5304|8008
3|58|186|514|827|1511|3286|5406|8162
4|59|189|524|842|1539|3348|5508|8316
5|61|193|534|858|1568|3410|5610|8470
6|62|196|543|874|1596|3472|5712|8624
7|63|200|553|889|1625|3534|5814|8778
8|64|203|563|905|1653|3596|5916|8932
9|65|207|572|920|1682|3658|6018|9086
10|66|210|582|936|1710|3720|6120|9240

With 4% per city (Bureaucracy)

#|Writ.|Philo.|Phys|Bank.|Rifling|Radio|Radar|Lasers
0|55|175|485|780|1425|3100|5100|7700
1|57|182|504|811|1482|3224|5304|8008
2|59|189|524|842|1539|3348|5508|8316
3|62|196|543|874|1596|3472|5712|8624
4|64|203|563|905|1653|3596|5916|8932
5|66|210|582|936|1710|3720|6120|9240
6|68|217|601|967|1767|3844|6324|9548
7|70|224|621|998|1824|3968|6528|9856
8|73|231|640|1030|1881|4092|6732|10164
9|75|238|660|1061|1938|4216|6936|10472
10|77|245|679|1092|1995|4340|7140|10780

The amounts only start getting cripplingly higher once you break the "wide" mark (as in, 6 cities), which pretty much works as intended.

Looking at the table, though, the only thing that I feel is off right now about this is how the additional 1 per population helps a lot more in early stages than later ones, as the additional 2% starts crippling the tradition player as well in the late game. Perhaps an additional small percent increase ("+1% for each era beyond classic") would be in order to compensate the late game?

 

[Stalker0]

Some math. I'm assuming the wiki is not applying the normal 2% on their research costs, but even if they are this is just to demonstrate the calculations.

With 2% per city (no Bureaucracy)

#|Writ.|Philo.|Phys|Bank.|Rifling|Radio|Radar|Lasers
0|55|175|485|780|1425|3100|5100|7700
1|56|179|495|796|1454|3162|5202|7854
2|57|182|504|811|1482|3224|5304|8008
3|58|186|514|827|1511|3286|5406|8162
4|59|189|524|842|1539|3348|5508|8316
5|61|193|534|858|1568|3410|5610|8470
6|62|196|543|874|1596|3472|5712|8624
7|63|200|553|889|1625|3534|5814|8778
8|64|203|563|905|1653|3596|5916|8932
9|65|207|572|920|1682|3658|6018|9086
10|66|210|582|936|1710|3720|6120|9240

With 4% per city (Bureaucracy)

#|Writ.|Philo.|Phys|Bank.|Rifling|Radio|Radar|Lasers
0|55|175|485|780|1425|3100|5100|7700
1|57|182|504|811|1482|3224|5304|8008
2|59|189|524|842|1539|3348|5508|8316
3|62|196|543|874|1596|3472|5712|8624
4|64|203|563|905|1653|3596|5916|8932
5|66|210|582|936|1710|3720|6120|9240
6|68|217|601|967|1767|3844|6324|9548
7|70|224|621|998|1824|3968|6528|9856
8|73|231|640|1030|1881|4092|6732|10164
9|75|238|660|1061|1938|4216|6936|10472
10|77|245|679|1092|1995|4340|7140|10780

The amounts only start getting cripplingly higher once you break the "wide" mark (as in, 6 cities), which pretty much works as intended.

Looking at the table, though, the only thing that I feel is off right now about this is how the additional 1 per population helps a lot more in early stages than later ones, as the additional 2% starts crippling the tradition player as well in the late game. Perhaps an additional small percent increase ("+1% for each era beyond classic") would be in order to compensate the late game?

Yeah math!

I was actually wondering something myself. Considering that you double base science for all cities...I'm wondering if this will also become a wide bonus too. 4% may actually not be enough. I'd have to run the numbers to see.

It should be noted, that the other Tradition's bonus to science in the capital has the same effect...just in a weaker and less direct way. The 2% penalty for new cities is more penalizing in terms of raw science the stronger your capital is.

 

[Gazebo]

I thought about the same thing. Ultimately here is what I think: If you pick this policy, you're well aware of the risks involved.

Unfortunately, the AI is not 'aware.' Building a handicap to expansion into an ancient era tree will hurt the AI a lot. Let's not do that.
G

 

[mystikx21]

It would seem like there is a simpler way to add science to the tree in a "tall" centric way if desired without something using a penalty (% on buildings seems fine there).

 

[Lord Tirian]

It would seem like there is a simpler way to add science to the tree in a "tall" centric way if desired without something using a penalty (% on buildings seems fine there).

For a "tall-centric" bonus, I think increasing bonuses might work better, like "1% per two citizen (max. 15%)". The use of percentages benefits tall and the population-dependency does so, too. By doubling up on the tall-dependency, bonuses like that become very iffy for wide. In fact, I'd say that's not just for science, we could use this concept for other policies in the tree, too. It has the side effect that it also somewhat benefits very compact empires of 2-3 cities (which I like, super-capital only is a bit boring for Tradition).

We can also decide to increase the vanilla tech cost penalty and compensate by putting a penalty reduction into Liberty and/or Honor. That would up the opportunity cost of Tradition a lot for wide empires.

If we don't want penalties, we need to increase the sting of passing over the other trees - and I think we're running into the problem that the early trees become too good to take the later trees.

 

[Funak]

For a "tall-centric" bonus, I think increasing bonuses might work better, like "1% per two citizen (max. 15%)". The use of percentages benefits tall and the population-dependency does so, too. By doubling up on the tall-dependency, bonuses like that become very iffy for wide.

I don't see how this would be any better for compact play than for wide.
People speak of wide vs tall as if you either expand or grow your cities, this stopped being the case in GnK. You're always going to want to grow your cities no matter how many you have (until you reach the point in the game where focusing on production would be more useful, but that is the same nomatter what playstyle you go for)

 

[Lord Tirian]

In theory, wide empires should have a harder time growing very large cities due to the larger unhappiness they have. If that's not working, we need to tighten the screws on the unhappiness system a bit.

Also, in conjunction with an increased tech cost increase, it means that tall gets more out of it, since wide a) forgoes the other policy trees to get this and b) merely uses this to offset a penalty, while tall is already raking in the dividends.

 

[Funak]

In theory, wide empires should have a harder time growing very large cities due to the larger unhappiness they have. If that's not working, we need to tighten the screws on the unhappiness system a bit.

Was speaking mostly of the BNW happiness system, in the current one you crash and burn lategame no matter how many cities you have =D

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

What's so bad about the "for the first x cities" mechanic that you have to come up with completely new ideas to promote tall gameplay? it may not be the most exciting thing ever but it's simple and it works.

 

[Seek]

What's so bad about the "for the first x cities" mechanic that you have to come up with completely new ideas to promote tall gameplay? it may not be the most exciting thing ever but it's simple and it works.

Agreed.

Also, does CPP change the science penalty per city? In base BNW it is 5% per city on standard settings, not 2%, so doubling it would be rather severe.

 

[Wodhann]

What's so bad about the "for the first x cities" mechanic that you have to come up with completely new ideas to promote tall gameplay? it may not be the most exciting thing ever but it's simple and it works.

Because a wide empire will also have X cities. It helps wide exactly as much as it helps tall.

In base BNW it is 5% per city on standard settings, not 2%

... What? Really, it's that high in vanilla? Where did you get this?