Policies

[Thalassicus]

Odd thing I discovered. Total War has AttackBonusTurns to control the attack bonus, but I don't see anything which controls its duration. It might be hardcoded.

 

[Tomice]

With two culture for every city, we have to be careful that big empires don't generate SPs more often than small ones - it might more than counter the 30% per-city penalty on SP cost.

I never deemed it too weak with +1:civ5culure: per city, since it saves you from building a monument everywhere quickly - you still get a tile or two in reasonable time without buying it.

But I'm all for trying the 2 culture, they sound sexy Trying is the purpose of dev builds after all.

 

[Polycrates]

With two culture for every city, we have to be careful that big empires don't generate SPs more often than small ones - it might more than counter the 30% per-city penalty on SP cost.

I never deemed it too weak with +1:civ5culure: per city, since it saves you from building a monument everywhere quickly - you still get a tile or two in reasonable time without buying it.

But I'm all for trying the 2 culture, they sound sexy Trying is the purpose of dev builds after all.

It pretty much just replicates the French trait, without the expiry. And I don't think it's considered that it overwhelmingly favours large civs for SPs; if anything it probably just means you can perhaps build an extra city or two without writing yourself off for getting decent cultural return or even a cultural win. So the tradition/piety trees aren't total no-brainers for a cultural win - and likewise there's a cultural alternative to the very very powerful Landed Elite. I like it.

 

[Thalassicus]

I agree about the name of Republic, have any ideas on how to change it though? I've been thinking it over. The other names seem to fit well... and not sure I want to get rid of the Republic name entirely.

What if the names are swapped to:

• Republic: Workers build improvements 25% faster.
• Citizenship: 2 Workers appear outside the Capital.

(position of the "effects" would not change, only names)

Since the meaning of the word "republic" is simply a state without a monarch ("public government") it's a term that can be applied to almost anything.

Alternatively:

• Meritocracy: Workers build improvements 25% faster.
• Citizenship: 2 Workers appear outside the Capital.
• Republic: +1 in every city.

Edit: Nevermind, the last option is sounding really nice.

 

[Polycrates]

Alternatively:

• Meritocracy: Workers build improvements 25% faster.
• Citizenship: 2 Workers appear outside the Capital.
• Republic: +1 in every city.

Edit: Nevermind, the last option is sounding really nice.

Yep, that one sounds good!

 

[Tomice]

BTW, it might come late, but I just wanted to confirm that I use liberty as you do: for worker speed and the culture/city. Never ever used the two left policies, and only used meritocracy back when it was 1 full happiness/city with road.

The buffs seem appropriate.

Something else: Am I the only one rather underwhelmed by the gold boost in your capital from the tradition tree?

 

[Thalassicus]

Well, it's 1 per now. With a pop-10 capital (which isn't hard to get with the bonuses preceding it) that's an extra 10/turn rather early in the game, equivalent to the income of a luxury.

Whether this is worth the policy expense or not is of course debatable. For example, it's about equal in value to the Piety root policy, which gives 5, again equal to a luxury. The Piety policy is lower tier, but also takes a higher era to unlock. Monarchy can be unlocked rather early with France, Stonehenge, or some luck with ancient ruins (though it'll probably be only around 5g at that time). Monarchy also scales as the capital's population grows, unlike Piety, which can be good and bad.

One thing I haven't tested... does it add the gold to the capital itself, or to our empire? The former would obviously be better... which is why I'm curious.

 

[Ahriman]

Populism might be a little odd, but remember strength of units does drop as they lose health, which reduces their combat odds of success. Slight differences in strength can have a big difference in odds.

I think you have a Civ4 mindset here. In Civ5, damage does not affect unit strength, it *only* affects the damage that unit inflicts.
It does not change the combat odds, which are what determine how much damage I receive and the base damage I inflict (which then gets modified by how much damage I have taken).

Without populism, a unit with 9 hitpoints will deal 0.95 as much damage as a unit with 10 hp.
With populism, a unit with 9/10 hitpoints will deal (0.95)*(1.25) as much damage as a unit with 10 hp.
[Or (0.95 + 0.25) as much; not sure if its multiplicative or additive.]

Which gives you a very weird incentive; slightly damaged units deal *more* damage than full health units. So healing that last hp actually weakens your army.

In summary here's what I'm thinking of:

Populism: Units gain +1 extra health per turn when healing.

But I see you like my idea anyway, so I'll stop talking now ;-)
[Though I'd make sure to give them the Immortal's promotion for free healing to the unit, not the medic promotion for healing for adjacent units.]

I worry that the 2 free workers will be OP, but its a cool idea. Lets test it.

 

[Seek]

Well, it's 1 per now. With a pop-10 capital (which isn't hard to get with the bonuses preceding it) that's an extra 10/turn rather early in the game, equivalent to the income of a luxury.

No, unfortunately it's only 1 per 2 (unless the most recent dev version changes it) so it's really quite weak.

Whether this is worth the policy expense or not is of course debatable. For example, it's about equal in value to the Piety root policy, which gives 5, again equal to a luxury. The Piety policy is lower tier, but also takes a higher era to unlock. Monarchy can be unlocked rather early with France, Stonehenge, or some luck with ancient ruins (though it'll probably be only around 5g at that time). Monarchy also scales as the capital's population grows, unlike Piety, which can be good and bad.

One thing I haven't tested... does it add the gold to the capital itself, or to our empire? The former would obviously be better... which is why I'm curious.

Good question, never checked. I just tested it and it gets added to the base city tile, so modifiers would affect it. However I think 1 per would be better; if it's discovered to be OP, maybe just make it require Oligarchy.

Otherwise, changes look great!

 

[Tomice]

No, unfortunately it's only 1 per 2 (unless the most recent dev version changes it) so it's really quite weak.

That's how I had it in mind, too. 1 per pop would sound more competitive to the alternatives, though.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think you have a Civ4 mindset here. In Civ5, damage does not affect unit strength

That's it exactly, thank you for pointing out how it works now. Either way I prefer the healing alternative. Both have the intent of letting us progress faster with wounded units, but a healing bonus is less clumsy.

I actually added a new promotion, neither medic nor the immortal one. Immortals are +1 in enemy/neutral and +2 in friendly... I made populism a flat +1. It's easier to be accurate this way, because the immortal promotion description is wrong (states double healing, which is true only without a medic promotion in effect).

It's important the double worker is better than +2 culture or +1 production when beelined to right away. Otherwise, if going for the right half of the tree is better early it'll delay the left half... in which case the relative value drops further. This is because the worker amount is fixed while the right half scales to empire size, and therefore becomes increasingly powerful.

I've been playing around with it a bit and the free workers are quite useful if planned for a bit. By that I mean it's absolutely necessary to get some culture-boosters in order to get the workers asap and reap a maximum benefit from them. The 3rd policy otherwise normally takes a very long time. 2x monument, 1x stonehenge, 1x cultural CS, or France's trait all seem to work sufficiently.

I added a 1 per 1 change for Monarchy in dev .6 or so I think, so I agree it needed a buff. (Same time as reverting representation to a culture bonus, and some other things.)

 

[Seek]

I added a 1 per 1 change for Monarchy in dev .6 or so I think, so I agree it needed a buff. (Same time as reverting representation to a culture bonus, and some other things.)

I can't keep up, I'm still trying to find time to finish my game with the .2 version!

Anyway, the reason for the post is with the buffs to culture policies in Liberty and Piety now, perhaps the free-SP-with-era should go? Ahriman made some convincing arguments against it on the previous page, and most REXing empires will certainly go Liberty, so..

 

[Ramesses]

That's it exactly, thank you for pointing out how it works now. Either way I prefer the healing alternative. Both have the intent of letting us progress faster with wounded units, but a healing bonus is less clumsy.

So wait, if health doesn't affect unit strength, then what does the Japanese UA do exactly?

 

[Tomice]

So wait, if health doesn't affect unit strength, then what does the Japanese UA do exactly?

Thanks for asking this!

 

[Ahriman]

So wait, if health doesn't affect unit strength, then what does the Japanese UA do exactly?

Unit strength and unit damage are now no longer the same thing.

Suppose unit A and unit B fight.
They have a strength ratio, which is unaffected by health (its affected by the base strength of each unit, and then modifiers from promotions, terrain, great general, etc.).

Damage done by unit A is affected by the strength ratio, and by the health of A.
Damage done by unit B (ie received by A) is affected by the strength ratio, and by the health of unit B.

With a normal (non-Japanese) unit, if you are 80% health, you only inflict 90% damage (but the amount you receive is unaffected).
If you are at 50% health, you only inflict 75% damage. If you are at 20% health, you only inflict 60% damage.

If you're Japan, you always inflict 100% damage, no matter what health level you're at.

However, this doesn't affect the strength ratio; a Japanese or other civ's unit will always receive the same amount of damage, no matter how much health it has left.

[Cities are an exception, they always deal out full damage no matter how much health they have left, just like a Japanese unit.]

I'm not exactly sure what the formula is for converting strength ratio into base damage though.

 

[Thalassicus]

The formula's probably very complex... combat seems more deterministic in V than in earlier versions of the series. It seems like it has some base value X calculated for both units, then adds a small % random variance to that up or down. In earlier civ games it was probability... 2% odds per battle of losing that GG super-unit.

 

[Ahriman]

It seems like it has some base value X calculated for both units, then adds a small % random variance to that up or down.

I think there is still a probabilistic distribution of outcomes going on, its just that this gets hidden from you by the UI (which I hate), which just displays the modal or median outcome. I've definitely had cases where the observed combat outcome has been noticeably different from the reported odds (like 6:2 ending up being 5:4 instead).

 

[Thalassicus]

Very true, what I mean is it's a smaller % variance than earlier versions of civ. In Civ V, I've never lost a full-health unit in an attack where it stated "Decisive Victory" and claimed I'd lose only 0-7 hp (situations near death are an obvious exception). Earlier games had the classic problem of a full-health unit attacking a technologically backward one and getting clobbered by those rare 1% odds, which they seem to have eliminated.

 

[Ahriman]

Very true, what I mean is it's a smaller % variance than earlier versions of civ

Yes, agreed. The distribution of outcomes (in terms of remaining health of each unit) is much more tightly focused in Civ5, and the effect of higher strength is much more dominating (high tech units are going to take very little damage from low-tech units under nearly all circumstances).

This is one of the nice things about Civ5.

 

[Polycrates]

I mentioned this in passing with regard to the puppet city debate, but I think it might have gotten lost and perhaps it's worth bringing up here. Theocracy is generally considered to be pretty much the most powerful policy (by a pretty long way, in my opinion), and Autocracy is not so hot. If puppets were to give unhappiness, this would help to significantly minimise Theocracy's power, while at the same time making Police State very attractive.
No idea if it's even possible to do, but it might help balance the policy trees a little?

Also, went with the 2 free worker policy last night; very cool! I think this is a great move.