Policies

[gunnergoz]

Theocracy feels boring and unflavorful (why would Theocracy give *gold*?).

Because everyone is required go to church and tithe? Seems logical to me.

 

[tlaurila]

I kept track for one full conquest-victory game, and Honor's gold loot provides less income than the Commerce opener. It just seems like more because it's "spiky" (lots in short periods of time) and displays onscreen, instead of a passive background effect. Professional Army makes up for this weakness with the upgrade cost reduction.

I'm sure this is true over the course of the game, though it likely depends on difficulty a lot, ie. how much units the AI spams you with.

But regardless, and actually in counter to Ahriman's observation, I feel that professional army is too strong in the early game, especially at higher difficulties. In the late game you're swimming in gold with markets, banks and puppets, anywany. Thus %-modifiers will likely rock. But in the early game, a war with Professional Army I've found I can finance more than a doubling of construction in my cities. Killing a couple units from the AI onslaught a turn gives a new building somewhere every 2-3 turns. In the rare events I lose units, I can easily buy replacements and have plenty gold left as profits. War is hugely profitable. And this is around classical era. I know this is more from gut feeling, though, no hard numbers ...

 

[Ahriman]

But regardless, and actually in counter to Ahriman's observation, I feel that professional army is too strong in the early game, especially at higher difficulties.

In the rare events I lose units, I can easily buy replacements and have plenty gold left as profits. War is hugely profitable

I agree, and I don't think this is counter to my impressions, the gold it gives early on is relatively more valuable because the marginal value of an extra granary or whatever is higher.
All I was saying about "scaling better" is that it scales at least as well as the Commerce opener.

 

[Txurce]

It must be how I play, but I almost feel compelled to take policies in the same order in every game because of how logical it seems. I start with Tradition for the +3 culture, Liberty for the +1 culture (and proximity to free worker and settler) and Honor for the anti-barbarian effect. If I happen to play a map with no barbs, I often skip Honor until someone DW's me, then I have to rush it to get Discipline for the combat boost. I'm a pacific empire builder focusing on culture and wonders, obviously, and seldom DW anyone unless they are interfering with my own expansion. Of late I've been building extra scouts and when they see an enemy settler, I use them to corral him in for many turns, keeping him away from where I want to settle myself. The AI hates it but seldom DW's over it.

I pretty much enjoy the policy tree as it is now because there are ways to lean depending upon inclination of the player and also how the game is trending. I'm more of a generalist and can push for science as well as culture or wonders, not to mention policies. What I seldom go for (hardly ever) is conquest. But I find that the more and quicker I expand to new cities, the more I have to deal with AI's DW'ing me, sometimes 2-3 at a time.

This all makes sense to me, and the approach to policies is a compliment to VEM's dynamic flexibility.

 

[tlaurila]

The loot's power is an illusion intentionally created by a combination of 1) spiky reward 2) onscreen display. One of my general principles in game design is to make everything feel overpowered but actually be balanced.

I do like moving the gold loot on dead units couple policies down the Honor tree, though (old spoils of war to prof army). When it was available very early it was very powerful to help you get started, as some AI is likely to rush you anyway (Or if not, fight a city-state for lootz). Now you really need to invest in Honor to get it, and you get it clearly later, so it's far less no-brainer.

 

[Seek]

Tradition's happiness is a little over the top atm: in my current game (with only one city, admittedly) I have been able to sell every (4) luxury from the start and maintain 20+ happiness just from the Tradition policies - and I'm growing like crazy. I'm also wonder-whoring and it's the happiness from wonder SP that I would change first (and it includes National Wonders!). I would much prefer the +2 culture/wonder effect which is in the vanilla Freedom tree to apply here: I think it'd be more balanced and more fun! (I do miss the cultural wonder-whoring in Civ4 where wonders actually contributed significantly to cultural wins, and was happy to see the effect in the patch notes.)

At the very least, lowering the happiness from wonders to 1 would be good.

 

[mitsho]

The Happiness from Wonders is tricky as it is directly tied into the Difficulty level. On the higher ones, you barely will be able to build the national wonders, the lower you get, the more you can spam them.

But yes, move the happiness bonus to Liberty, why not.

 

[tlaurila]

Also, 1 per defensive building should be more than enough, too. Even halved it is outright awesome compared to the happiness / city you get from current Liberty finisher(1 / 20 population, as I understood it) or from Meritocracy(5+0.5/city).

And yes, 1 per wonder should be enough, too. I like the fact that it also works on NWs, since like said, on higher difficulties getting those WWs isn't given.

 

[Ahriman]

Part of the issue is that Tradition is for tall empires, which need happiness the least, but Tradition has 3 happiness boosters, from half unhappiness in the capital, from +2 per wonder, and from +2 per defensive buildings. Whereas Liberty is for wide empires, which need happiness the most, but Liberty has only 1 happiness booster, and it is fairly weak.

I'm unsure about whether +1 happy from walls/wonders would be enough (if the wonder went to 1 happy, I'd probably make it +1 happy +1 culture).

I'd also be careful about making too many nerfs to tradition at once. I'd probably start with just moving the defensive building effect. Also, if we started doing a lot of happiness nerfing, I'd be ok with that only if we increased the base happiness from Colosseum/Theatre/Stadium.

 

[Seek]

Mitsho, tlaurila: I'm playing Korea on Emperor with one city so far on a love-fest continent in the game that spurred the comment. I semi-beelined Math for the Hanging Gardens and that plus RAs/OBs with everyone plus Korea's crazy science is letting me spam wonders, even beating Babylon (who's also a wonder-monger) to many of them - so I'm aware it's a fairly unusual situation! Nevertheless, I don't think Tradition needs *any* other happiness bonus beyond the 1/2 pop in capital effect, and would much prefer a cultural bonus on wonders instead. On a side note, many WWs provide significant happiness on their own in VEM right now, so the Tradition bonus seems even more unnecessary because of that.

Edit: @Ahriman, exactly! Why three happiness SPs in Tradition? I essentially agree with everything in your post, and given that happiness on buildings from policies is *not* "local" (limited by population) happiness I wouldn't be opposed to nerfing such policies throughout the trees and buffing the colosseum line by 1 each. If Thal were able to adjust it so SP building happiness became local it would be another matter however.

 

[Txurce]

Mitsho, tlaurila: I'm playing Korea on Emperor with one city so far on a love-fest continent in the game that spurred the comment.

I knew you were playing Korea, because you were doing exactly what I do with them in games that break the right way.

 

[Seek]

I knew you were playing Korea, because you were doing exactly what I do with them in games that break the right way.

Ha! Yep it's like dropping two difficulty levels. I've never been the first to Med *and* Renn on emperor before (essentially tech leader at t50!) and I've got HG, GL, AW, PT and the NC - couldn't be going better.

Just occurred to me: Is the abundant happiness in Trad's purpose to allow smaller empires an economic boost via selling all luxuries? Was it an intentional decision?

 

[bwoww78]

Ha! Yep it's like dropping two difficulty levels. I've never been the first to Med *and* Renn on emperor before (essentially tech leader at t50!) and I've got HG, GL, AW, PT and the NC - couldn't be going better.

Just occurred to me: Is the abundant happiness in Trad's purpose to allow smaller empires an economic boost via selling all luxuries? Was it an intentional decision?

(or alternatively more frequent golden ages...) good question.

 

[Txurce]

Just occurred to me: Is the abundant happiness in Trad's purpose to allow smaller empires an economic boost via selling all luxuries? Was it an intentional decision?

This is a good point worth considering before jumping off another bridge... but you also made me think about my best recent Korean and Babylonian games. Your teching isn't what allowed you to build all those Wonders, but those Wonders did help lengthen your tech lead. And there's no question that lately it has seemed much easier to put together an incredible run of Wonder building (that pays off particularly for Science).

 

[tlaurila]

Also, if we started doing a lot of happiness nerfing, I'd be ok with that only if we increased the base happiness from Colosseum/Theatre/Stadium.

I suppose it speaks volumes of how must-have the tradition happiness bonuses are to wider empires that then it'd be necessary to increase the effects of the happiness buildings available regardless of policy picks.

The 50% unhappiness reduction from capital works fine for Tradition. In practice I've found it the only respite on happiness in the early game if I don't manage to get good on luxuries.

One might consider switching the happiness effects of Meritocracy vs Tradition finisher, for example? Or switch finishers of Tradition and Liberty with each other. Right now Liberty finisher is more about tall empires c5happy: / population), whereas Tradition finisher (the happiness part) is more about wide empires c5happy: / city)

Wonder bonus could well be culture instead of happiness - you can use the culture to buy happiness policies, if that's what you need, in the long run, after all.

 

[Sneaks]

Tech monsters absolutely help wondermongering as you get a head start before anyone else even has the option to build.

 

[Txurce]

Tech monsters absolutely help wondermongering as you get a head start before anyone else even has the option to build.

It's hard to see how this could meaningfully apply early in the game, when on increasingly frequent occasion a player can rack up an absurd number of Wonders, despite not having had the time to build much (if any) of a tech lead. This is even more so at higher levels, when the AI has a serious hammer and science edge early in the game due to notably higher pop and city improvements.

 

[Ahriman]

Is the abundant happiness in Trad's purpose to allow smaller empires an economic boost via selling all luxuries? Was it an intentional decision?

Not intentional, I think.
It was intended that Tall empires are much less constrained by happiness, and will get more frequent golden ages. But arguably Tall empires would do this even without needing extra happiness boosts.

One might consider switching the happiness effects of Meritocracy vs Tradition finisher, for example?

The Meritocracy boost would make no real sense in Tradition. I would prefer to put the happiness from walls into the slot that currently gives production from walls, and lose the production boost from walls. No tree should have two boosts from the same buildings.
[Well, ok, my actual preference is to get rid of the various wall-boosting policy effects, but I know I lost that battle.]

Wonder bonus could well be culture instead of happiness

Or 1 of each.

 

[Seek]

It's hard to see how this could meaningfully apply early in the game, when on increasingly frequent occasion a player can rack up an absurd number of Wonders, despite not having had the time to build much (if any) of a tech lead. This is even more so at higher levels, when the AI has a serious hammer and science edge early in the game due to notably higher pop and city improvements.

Sneaks is right, although you have a point about the early game (it seems the Ancient Wonders DLC skews AIs from getting key wonders?) after ~t75 tech becomes at least 50% of wonder building - in my first game since I've been back I wasn't playing very efficiently and ranked low in tech and I didn't see any WWs available in the build queue after t125 or so.

Edit: @Ahriman - we keep crossposting! Another idea would be an explicit Econ boost by giving straight up gold (3-6 maybe) for wonders.

I'm also curious why the gold/pop was nerfed in Trad - it never seemed OP to me, can anyone fill me in? Economy is the biggest drag on small and tall empires in my experience.

 

[tlaurila]

[Well, ok, my actual preference is to get rid of the various wall-boosting policy effects, but I know I lost that battle.]

I would actually agree with you there. The defense buildings effect is an odd way to make those buildings suddenly give something they usually don't, and make it useful to build them somewhere you otherwise wouldn't. The net effect of "Goody / City / Era" I understand and agree on, but why not then just make happiness buildings give more happiness, food buildings give more food and production buildings give more production? There's one of those buildings at same tech level as each of the defense buildings. Making defense buildings suddenly give all of the above is odd. And even more odd is the synergy you get from having all the "walls" policies.