Policies

[Seek]

I would add that some people find it preferable that there not be a direct comparison to Commerce's gold, or to other trees' distinctive tilts. These make choice less meaningful. In my opinion the comparison should only be about whether a particular policy is attractive enough to draw someone... just like we can't directly compare Germany to Japan.

Agree; that's what points 1) and 3) were indirectly aiming at.

 

[Thalassicus]

a defeated military unit after combat shouldn't offer basically a free unit/building as reward

A swordsman costs 550 to purchase, and defeating a swordsman gives 120. This is a 5:1 ratio, not 1:1. It might feel like 1:1 but it's not actually that high.

I think for all the Policies, the first perk should be rather lame and you should have to get deeper into the tree to get the useful stuff.

1) Honor is available from the start and thus one can accumulate much more gold during those extra 80 or so turns.
2) One can have wars with multiple civs simultaneously and the number of units one can kill varies from game to game. With SoW as it is now, it can be quite powerful to instigate wars and only defend just for the gold income, particularly if there aren't a lot of lux sales to be made to the AI.
3) (Related to point #1)What can and should be purchased in the earlier eras have a lower cost, so it's not entirely fair to compare the income earned to a later policy. (The 60GPT at T100 is probably close to 10GPT at T40.)
4) I think this may be the most important point: Any income from SoW will be a great bonus because you must compare it to zero income. When thought of in this light (never mind comparing it to the only other gold SP in the ancient era, which yields ~5GPT) it seems clear to me that a bonus of half or less would still be *very* significant.

1. Spoils is 4th tier and Commerce is 1st tier. Commerce is usually available before Spoils in my games. Since Spoils is currently equal in value to Commerce, it's not possible to meet both of these conditions:
   • High-tier policies stronger than low-tier policies.
   • Reduce the value of Spoils.
   Some might feel the 1st-tier one should be stronger than the 4th-tier one, others might feel it should be the other way around... so right now I have them equally balanced.
   
2. If we increase our gold income by 5-20% from warfare with Spoils of War, we're losing out on 5-20% for each declaration of friendship. We also incur diplomatic penalties that make it more difficult to trade with people we do want to form relationships with. In addition, the units we're fighting with cost resources to build and maintain. There's built-in tradeoffs.
3. See #1
4. Balance is an equilibrium between two similar things... such as:
   • One policy vs another policy
   • Culture buildings vs production buildings
   Comparing the value of "policy X" vs "not constructing culture buildings" has so many variables involved, I'm not sure it's possible to use that comparison to set balance goals.

 

[Txurce]

1. Spoils is 4th tier and Commerce is 1st tier. Commerce is usually available before Spoils in my games. Since Spoils is currently equal in value to Commerce, it's not possible to meet both of these conditions:

• Make higher tier policies stronger than lower tier policies. (Questdog mentioned this, I agree with him and feel it's important.)
• Reduce the value of Spoils.

Some might feel the 1st-tier one should be stronger than the 4th-tier one, others might feel it should be the other way around... so right now I have them both equal.
[​

Questdog thinking the first tier should be lame is not the same thing as most everyone agreeing that policies should increase in value. No policies should be lame, or semi-lame - and at this point I think pretty much none of them are.

Again, I disagree in principle with the comparing of polices in one tree to those in another (SoW vs Commerce, et al). Having already done so has resulted in a SP arms race of sorts that I don't think is good for the mod. It has made the trees not just more powerful, but also more homogeneous. (I realize that this is a philosophical difference that people have with regard to balance.)

As Seek noted, there is an unusual consensus on SOW being OP. In my opinion, nerfing it wouldn't necessarily make it UP for its tier... but if it did, then I would deal with that problem at that time.​

 

[Seek]

I think the central point that many of us feel is that SoW would be a fantastic policy even at half the values. As such, there doesn't seem to be much cause to have the values so high.

The only point you made above which really doesn't ring true for me is your assessment of the gold value from SoW: I've found that in the early eras before my econ is properly set up it yields far more than 5-20% of gold income - it's more like 100-500%! EDIT: Early econ is much slower with the recent river gold changes - I often fall into the red with gpt. Warriors yield 60G and it only goes up from there, and with the AI's swaths of units it's not unreasonable to expect to kill one unit every turn for a while at the beginning of a war.

 

[Thalassicus]

Income when we get the policy is 130/turn, so to reach those percentages we'd have to sustainably kill:

• 100% = 1 swordsman/turn or 2 spears/turn.
• 500% = 9 spearmen/turn.

It might be possible to get such a fast killing rate at the start of a war, but early-medieval armies typically only have ~10 units, so it would be very difficult to sustain that rate.

It might feel like 500%, but in my past four games the average early/mid-game income from Spoils has been approximately balanced with the Commerce policy (both in the 20% range). Remember that one of my goals is to make units/policies/buildings feel overpowered while they're actually balanced, so it's important to analyze numbers.

 

[Seek]

Income when we get the policy is 100, ...

My income usually doesn't reach that high until the renaissance(!) particularly if I'm reached "warmongering menace" status. Perhaps I'm playing poorly and should focus more on villages, but as I mentioned (as an edit) in the above post it's not unusual for my gpt to fall into the red before medieval.

 

[Thalassicus]

I've realized where the misunderstanding might be... these policies affect income (green number), not profit (yellow number), so the values I've been discussing are income. In the early to mid-game Commerce gives us about +20% income, which is balanced with Spoils of War.

 

[Seek]

Ah, I see!

Income isn't really the best way to measure gold generation imo. If you were to replace every instance of "income" with "profit" in my above posts, I don't think my point would change. It makes little difference to me if my income is 20,000 gpt but my expenses are 19,999 or if my income is 2 and my expenses 1, I'm still only making 1 gpt. If my profit is 1 gpt, killing a warrior every turn equals 60 gold profit, which is significant. It would be significant if I were only killing one every three turns!

 

[Txurce]

I've realized where the misunderstanding might be... these policies affect income (green number), not profit (yellow number), so the values I've been discussing are income. In the early/mid-game Commerce gives us about +20% income, which is equal to Spoils of War.

Some people would prefer that there wasn't this equivalency. But more people seem to feel that SOW swells the gold reserves like nothing else. I don't know about the early game, because I've never used it then. But in the later game SOW lets me reach 10-15K pretty easily - which is triple what my prior high had been playing for science (and doing well at it).

 

[Questdog]

I'd like to clarify that by lame, I meant the first perks in a policy tree should be less than what you get from the later picks. Not that they should be useless.

But if you had to commit to a certain policy tree to get the good stuff, I think it would add some variety to the game. Balance is good; but variety is also good. It's no fun playing every game the same way, and if there is not much difference in the policy trees, then you end up following the same path every time because you've come to feel that the picks you make are the best ones (whether or not they actually are).

The policy trees should not be equal to each other in terms of yields available. They should be balanced in that they give you about the same boost in their specialty as another does in its. So, if I pick Honor for the combat bonuses, then I should have to weigh that against the commerce and culture and happiness I'm giving up by not following another branch. It should not be that I can pick any tree and end up with the same overall results in the end....

If I decide to follow the piety path to its end, then I should never have to worry much about my happiness, but I should find it a little harder to make some cash and a lot harder to make a fight.

 

[Busdriver]

In principle I agree that combat bonuses are better for the combat trees, but with the AI as it is right now, combat bonuses just trivialize warfare. The way Honor is set up right now still changes the way you play the game, since the bonuses depend on you going to war. The AI's tactical deficiencies in general make Honor and Autocracy incredibly hard to balance well, even ignoring combat bonuses, judging by how easily people are setting up war economies around spoils of war. Perhaps one answer for balancing this would be to increase the bonuses for playing nice to add more of a penalty for warmongering. Would there be anyway to implement something like foreign trade routes for civs with open borders, like in civ 4? This may also help make open border agreements a bit more desirable, as right now I usually would rather get the 40 or so gold for selling open borders, and rarely actually seek open borders with another civ.

I agree that the better policies should be deeper into the tree, but right now there is no obvious opener for honor. My best idea was 2 free units, but others seem to fear that would be overpowered and allow easy rushes. Maybe instead one free unit and an extra bonus for killing barb encampments?

 

[Ahriman]

I get the feeling that there are some pretty big penalties for being at war - for one thing it makes it much harder to have Declarations of Friendship, and without those, your research can really tend to stagnate.

 

[Soverayne]

As I said in an earlier post, SoW is so good it's worth getting even in a peaceful game that only hints at bloodshed and that makes it OP in my opinion. And I haven't even mentioned the culture gains!

SoW just *feels* powerful because of lump sum math. It might seem like a huge boost and in a small amount of turns it probably is. But if you go to SoW in a peaceful game yeah you might get DoW'd at one point kill 7 attackers and feel like your swimming in gold which *feels* overpowered. But if you were to invest in other social policies for a peaceful game you'd be far better off in the long run. SoW just makes you feel rich in a short-term run. I've done the math and Thals done it too. SoW is not OP but it does make the honor tree extremely attractive for people who plan to go to war. Which is how it should be.

 

[Txurce]

In principle I agree that combat bonuses are better for the combat trees, but with the AI as it is right now, combat bonuses just trivialize warfare. The way Honor is set up right now still changes the way you play the game, since the bonuses depend on you going to war. The AI's tactical deficiencies in general make Honor and Autocracy incredibly hard to balance well, even ignoring combat bonuses, judging by how easily people are setting up war economies around spoils of war. Perhaps one answer for balancing this would be to increase the bonuses for playing nice to add more of a penalty for warmongering.

Would there be anyway to implement something like foreign trade routes for civs with open borders, like in civ 4? This may also help make open border agreements a bit more desirable, as right now I usually would rather get the 40 or so gold for selling open borders, and rarely actually seek open borders with another civ.

Honor and Autocracy are about going to war, so I don't see any rationale for giving them peace-option bonuses. The AI's limitations apply to all the trees - including the perfectly viable ones they seem to completely avoid.

Foreign trade changes are beyond the scope of this mod.

I get the feeling that there are some pretty big penalties for being at war - for one thing it makes it much harder to have Declarations of Friendship, and without those, your research can really tend to stagnate.

This is definitely true. My research is definitely slower with a growing empire than when playing tall and small, despite a larger population and commensurate science buildings. In fact, one possible solution if balancing against warmongering is needed would be to buff mechanics like RA's.

SoW just *feels* powerful because of lump sum math. It might seem like a huge boost and in a small amount of turns it probably is. But if you go to SoW in a peaceful game yeah you might get DoW'd at one point kill 7 attackers and feel like your swimming in gold which *feels* overpowered. But if you were to invest in other social policies for a peaceful game you'd be far better off in the long run. SoW just makes you feel rich in a short-term run. I've done the math and Thals done it too. SoW is not OP but it does make the honor tree extremely attractive for people who plan to go to war. Which is how it should be.

Kurt Gödel proved that even mathematics isn't all about the math, so I feel safe in saying the same thing squared about Civ 5. To go further, you're talking about numbers in hopelessly inexact comparisons (Commerce vs Honor in the medieval era, for example) - we're talking about multiple players' consistent in-game experiences.

I have already posted about my first warmongering game, in which I could have won a cultural, scientific or diplomatic victory at Emperor level in good (not record) time. The main reason for this is that extra gold allowed me to buy extra buildings which in turn gave me extra policies. The point here is that, flawed as Civ is, it's much more complex than simply laying two policies side by side and extrapolating from that.

 

[Seek]

SoW just *feels* powerful because of lump sum math. It might seem like a huge boost and in a small amount of turns it probably is. But if you go to SoW in a peaceful game yeah you might get DoW'd at one point kill 7 attackers and feel like your swimming in gold which *feels* overpowered. But if you were to invest in other social policies for a peaceful game you'd be far better off in the long run. SoW just makes you feel rich in a short-term run. I've done the math and Thals done it too. SoW is not OP but it does make the honor tree extremely attractive for people who plan to go to war. Which is how it should be.

1. There's no reason one couldn't invest in the other SPs which also boost gold, especially if one is conquering cities. (I've gotten two full SPs off of one city before!)
2. I've shown how beneficial even killing warriors can be in relation to gpt. It is less sustainable but - see #1 above.
3. SoW would still be very attractive even if the values were half what they are for warmongers. This is the crux of the argument, imo.

In essence, there isn't another SP in any tree which is as powerful as this in relation to the aims of the tree (culture, commerce, etc.). Theocracy might have been when it was at 25%, but it's been nerfed. Tbh, I'm kind of surprised that so many think it's balanced..

 

[Txurce]

SoW would still be very attractive even if the values were half what they are for warmongers. This is the crux of the argument, imo.

This is the crux of this specific issue in my opinion as well. I think gold could be boosted for city capture. And the meta-issue for me is policies in one tree attempting to mirror those in another.

 

[Seek]

This is the crux of this specific issue in my opinion as well. I think gold could be boosted for city capture. And the meta-issue for me is policies in one tree attempting to mirror those in another.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I also worry that SoW would bring back the incongruous "war to culture victory" strat which had been mostly eliminated with tbc previous to SoW (use Monte, Askia or Genghis).

 

[Busdriver]

Honor and Autocracy are about going to war, so I don't see any rationale for giving them peace-option bonuses. The AI's limitations apply to all the trees - including the perfectly viable ones they seem to completely avoid.

I wasn't suggesting peace time bonuses; I just think that combat bonuses make conquest too easy. I think any economic bonuses granted by Honor and Autocracy should be attached to warfare, or should help to mitigate some of the economic costs of warfare.

Kurt Gödel proved that even mathematics isn't all about the math, so I feel safe in saying the same thing squared about Civ 5. To go further, you're talking about numbers in hopelessly inexact comparisons (Commerce vs Honor in the medieval era, for example) - we're talking about multiple players' consistent in-game experiences.

Gödel only proved that there are unprovable statements in mathematics. This doesn't make math any less viable an approach to balancing a game like Civ 5, and given that everything in Civ 5 is modeled using numbers, it is the best approach.

I agree with Thal and Soverayne that the unit-killing rewards aren't as big compared to other bonuses as you seem to think. In my experience, Commerce is way more helpful than Honor in increasing my gold reserves. However, I think game speed may heavily affect the balance of SoW, since the bonuses are based only on unit strength. On epic speed (which I play), the bonuses don't feel as big since everything costs more, but I can definitely see how on standard speed the bonuses could be too big. Maybe instead of attaching gold to unit strength, Thal should attach it to unit cost, which scales with game speed. I think this would also slow down the late game increase in SoW yields, since cost doesn't increase quite as fast as strength (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[Txurce]

I forgot to mention in my last post that I also worry that SoW would bring back the incongruous "war to culture victory" strat which had been mostly eliminated with tbc previous to SoW (use Monte, Askia or Genghis).

Yes, that's what I discovered in my first war game, and I was considering playing with the Aztecs next to do just that. My thinking would be to keep expansion at a minimum (or use puppets) but keep fighting to put up free buildings faster in the earlier stages when gold is usually low.

 

[Txurce]

1. I wasn't suggesting peace time bonuses; I just think that combat bonuses make conquest too easy. I think any economic bonuses granted by Honor and Autocracy should be attached to warfare, or should help to mitigate some of the economic costs of warfare.

2. Gödel only proved that there are unprovable statements in mathematics. This doesn't make math any less viable an approach to balancing a game like Civ 5, and given that everything in Civ 5 is modeled using numbers, it is the best approach.

3. I agree with Thal and Soverayne that the unit-killing rewards aren't as big compared to other bonuses as you seem to think.

4. In my experience, Commerce is way more helpful than Honor in increasing my gold reserves. However, I think game speed may heavily affect the balance of SoW, since the bonuses are based only on unit strength. On epic speed (which I play), the bonuses don't feel as big since everything costs more, but I can definitely see how on standard speed the bonuses could be too big.

5. Maybe instead of attaching gold to unit strength, Thal should attach it to unit cost, which scales with game speed. I think this would also slow down the late game increase in SoW yields, since cost doesn't increase quite as fast as strength (correct me if I'm wrong).

1. Understood now, and agreed.

2. Gödel didn't say math wasn't a good tool, and I didn't say math wasn't a good tool for balancing the game. I said that "doing the math" fails to disprove the RL results of multiple players - hence my reference.

3. Again, I am explicitly not comparing bonuses - especially in different trees. I am saying this bonus is too big.

4. As you noted, those who find SOW OP are playing on Standard.

5. This might work. Or Thal could just scale the reward rate, as Seek proposed.