Policies

[Thalassicus]

I've never seen a major-civ AI pillage so I'm not going to alter pillage rates. It was better in previous versions... when a Civ 4 AI recognized it could not capture our cities, it started destroying improvements while retreating. I haven't even seen a barbarian pillage in months. They move right over most improvements when beelining for resources, and die before reaching their destination.

 

[Txurce]

I've never seen a major-civ AI pillage so I'm not going to alter pillage rates. It was better in previous versions... when a Civ 4 AI recognized it could not capture our cities, it started destroying improvements while retreating. I haven't even seen a barbarian pillage in months. They move right over most improvements when beelining for resources, and die before reaching their destination.

The barbs pillage less now for some reason, but still does it regularly. And the AI does it on rare occasion in my games. But I wouldn't make a change based on that frequency.

 

[Txurce]

Having just finished a warmongering game with over 30K in gold despite spending freely, I want to ask again why SOW may not be OP. It doesn't just fund my war effort - it funds everything, and by the late game it's spilling out of my pockets. I've mentioned elsewhere that in fairness, the late game is usually unbalanced anyway, because the human is usually way ahead, and a snowball effect takes place everywhere... not just with gold. But for me there's something off when SOW (combined with Commerce) seems to provide the best possible economy in TBC.

 

[Thalassicus]

Are you just at war, or actually doing a conquest victory? Small empires get bonuses in many ways in TBC. With a large empire I never have enough gold.

 

[Txurce]

Are you just at war, or actually doing a conquest victory? Small empires get bonuses in many ways in TBC. With a large empire I never have enough gold.

Conquest victory, in this case. I didn't keep track of how many cities I had, but took what was en route to the capitals, and kept them. AI CS's were liberated. My happiness finished around 20 or so, with not much effort except for a short stretch before the key Autocracy policy.

I had wondered how you did with gold in your games. Again, it makes sense that the gold would pile up late game when I'm killing artillery and rocket artillery, and have less to buy. But I'd say the short answer is that I have plenty of gold the moment I go to war with SOW. However... I only buy units in the late-game, preferring to spend the early gold on CS and buildings. If you spend yours steadily on units, then it would be different!

 

[Stalker0]

I've never seen a major-civ AI pillage so I'm not going to alter pillage rates. It was better in previous versions... when a Civ 4 AI recognized it could not capture our cities, it started destroying improvements while retreating. I haven't even seen a barbarian pillage in months. They move right over most improvements when beelining for resources, and die before reaching their destination.

I do see barb archers pillage from time to time. I never see brutes do it.

 

[Busdriver]

Barbarians seem to love pillaging my landmarks when I go tradition. They will pass over multiple other improvements just to get to my landmark and pillage it, and if they are still alive they will not pillage anything else.

 

[Busdriver]

The new patch seems to have really neutered piety in my eyes. Before my only reason for going into piety was either for culture victories or for theocracy. Now it seems much more focused on culture. I still don't like SP's that only help with culture (except for the early ones, which may have a chance to pay off by the end of the game), since they end up only being useful for cultural victories, but they are also pretty much necessary for culture victories. That's not to say that I love the current Piety tree; right now the only reason to go into the piety tree is either for a cultural victory or Theocracy, which is arguably an OP policy. But now that Theocracy is changed, I can't see myself giving up Rationalism for Piety for any reason except culture victory. One thing I do like about the changes to Piety is the fact that the benefits go to religious buildings, which I think adds a lot to the flavor of the tree.

In the same vein of me disliking culture based SP's, I think the addition of many flat yields to wonders (such as +5 to the Colossus and Machu Picchu) provides a good opportunity to improve the Constitution policy. A while back I suggested adding such flat yields to wonders with this policy instead of the current culture bonus, and now with many wonders already having flat yields in addition to their other effects, I think a good effect for Constitution would be to double these yields. This would move the policy away from being useful for cultural victories, while still providing a bonus to players that build a lot of wonders, which I think is a good idea.

 

[Ahriman]

I am just the opposite; I really like the culture based policies, it means that you can use the policies to play in a particular way. I really like the old Constitution policy, where it is really valuable if you get just one wonder in each of your really big cities. I would be disappointed if Constitution were only valuable for a player with many many wonders, because it is just not possible to get many wonders on high difficulty levels.

 

[Thalassicus]

The changes to policies are so numerous and complex it's hard for me to say what's good or bad until I have a chance to try it out. The human brain is great at intuitive pattern recognition when actually playing the game... not so much when looking at numbers on paper.

 

[Txurce]

I'm finishing a game with Germany using 7.7, and noticed that TBC seems to be using the vanilla levels for the Honor finisher (providing gold for kills). It's only one (unfinished) game, but it feels right so far.

Have others played with it yet?

By the way, the TBC Honor finisher works on strategic view. As expected, the TBC German UA does not.

 

[Txurce]

"Everything but policies are just about done in TBC, so policy balance will be my main priority in the weeks ahead."

Glad to hear it will take weeks. In a mod that works so well, I much prefer a careful, tree-by-tree approach, as has been the case in the past.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm using vanilla levels for the culture and gold bonuses in Honor because it's the same basic concept, and I want to stick close to vanilla.

The honor finisher works in strategic view because it's now done in the c++ code we don't have access to. The lua part of the code only works when a combat animation plays.

 

[manarod]

I'm playing with the 7.7 version but i don't see any finisher for tradition, is because in vanilla is too strong?

 

[Ahriman]

Tooltip error, corrected in 8.0.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I sent you a PM about this Thal but I'll go ahead and call attention to it here as well.

Apparently there is a serious problem with the policy finishers. Obviously you should correct it if you can, but you might need to disable finishers and incorporate their bonuses some other way if not.

I don't expect an official fix from the skeleton crew at Firaxis until sometime between candy corn and candy canes. The ball is probably in your court on this one.

 

[Txurce]

I don't expect an official fix from the skeleton crew at Firaxis until sometime between candy corn and candy canes. The ball is probably in your court on this one.

The Civ 5 producer said it's being fixed now, as of a few days ago. For all I know, it's already been done.

 

[AlpsStranger]

The Civ 5 producer said it's being fixed now, as of a few days ago. For all I know, it's already been done.

There was no hotfix. I think he means "fixed internally."

I have no doubt they've fixed it on their end. Their patch pipeline is another story.

EDIT: Just checked, not fixed. I don't imagine it will be for another two or six months.

 

[Txurce]

There was no hotfix. I think he means "fixed internally."

I have no doubt they've fixed it on their end. Their patch pipeline is another story.

EDIT: Just checked, not fixed. I don't imagine it will be for another two or six months.

Thanks for checking so quickly. Is it one policy, or every finisher?

 

[AlpsStranger]

Thanks for checking so quickly. Is it one policy, or every finisher?

Every finisher.