Policies

[Ahriman]

Ah. Good point. Never mind then.

 

[Busdriver]

A few thoughts on post-patch policies:
Order: in the good, the bad, and the ugly thread I mentioned that I find order a bit underwhelming right now. The biggest issue I have is that it has the worst access to happiness of any tree, at only 1 per city. To improve this, maybe we could attach happiness to production buildings (maybe 1 happiness for workshop, factory and windmill). This would be consistent with the boosts from other trees, and would make a certain amount of thematic sense, with order creating a working man's paradise. I also think nationalism should have an economic boost instead of/in addition to the military boost. Not sure what this would be though.

Piety: I personally liked the more happiness-centric approach of the old Piety tree, but if any tree makes sense as the culture tree, it is Piety.

Freedom: I think liberty's free GP should be moved back to freedom. I also still think that freedom should focus less on culture, especially since so much culture was added to Piety. I like the idea of a boost to wonders in Freedom, but I wouldn't mind seeing something other than culture. Maybe Freedom could also do more with Golden Ages. Right now the finisher increases the length of golden ages. Maybe Free Speech could be replaced with a policy that grants a free golden age and increases their length, while the free GP from liberty could be added to the finisher as a replacement. Finally, I think that reducing the boost to GPP from 50% to 25% seems unnecessary.

Tradition: I mentioned in the other thread that I think the GE should be moved back to the Tradition finisher to give players a chance to build wonders the old fashioned way before they get popped by GEs. Other than that, I think that Tradition should try to move away from flat food bonuses. I still like the idea of giving a % bonus to total food, which would allow cities to grow larger than they might otherwise, and would be much more beneficial to tall empires than wide empires, unlike the flat bonus.

Liberty: I think the free GP should be moved to Freedom and replaced with something more fitting for a wide empire, like a flat food bonus to all cities.

I realize I have proposed a lot of changes, and I don't necessarily think it would be smart to implement too many changes at once; I think a more incremental approach may be better.

 

[Txurce]

I like the idea of a boost to wonders in Freedom, but I wouldn't mind seeing something other than culture. Maybe Freedom could also do more with Golden Ages. Right now the finisher increases the length of golden ages. Maybe Free Speech could be replaced with a policy that grants a free golden age and increases their length, while the free GP from liberty could be added to the finisher as a replacement. Finally, I think that reducing the boost to GPP from 50% to 25% seems unnecessary.

Tradition: I mentioned in the other thread that I think the GE should be moved back to the Tradition finisher to give players a chance to build wonders the old fashioned way before they get popped by GEs.

Freedom strikes me as pretty late for boosting wonders, and a free GA + longer GA's seems OP for Free Speech. Throw in the reboosting the GPP, and Freedom itself might be too much .

I don't understand how moving a GE to Tradition gives a player a chance to build Wonders the old-fashioned way... because the AI tends to favor Liberty? In that case, I would leave Liberty alone, to give the AI what edge it can get. But in reality, I haven't had any problem at all getting most of the Wonders I've targeted post-patch.

Edit: doesn't Tradition already have a GE?

 

[flounder]

In my recent game on King difficulty, Large Archipelago; Siam unlocked the Utopia Project on Turn 159.
Luckily I got there in time and conquered their two cities, but I almost didn't notice it. I didn't expect anyone to be close to winning in the Renaissance - especially when I had built the +25% Culture Wonder.

Similar same thing happened to me on Prince difficulty with India. Lost the game at turn 230. Policies are coming in way faster than 20%. Feels more like 50%. I think some math somewhere is wrong.

And even if there isn't bad math involved, it still doesn't feel right. A Cultural Victory should take about as long as a Scientific or Diplomatic victory to acheive. I understand this is your mod and your choice, and I can just as easily uncheck the Cultural Victory box when I play my next game; so I'm just giving feedback.

 

[Txurce]

This is my first game with 8.3, so I can only speak about it... at turn 149, playing Germany with an Honor/Tradition start, I have filled two trees (H & T), 3 on Commerce and 2 on Patronage. I am currently getting 9 cpt with 4 cities.

This may be due to my German strategy, which is to go with Tradition for culture and the fact that I won't build many cities (two total so far) because I will conquer the rest.

EDIT: it's not 9 cpt, it's 9 turns per SP... see below for more of an explanation.

 

[Seek]

You have *19* policies and only 9 cpt?! Something doesn't seem right here.. That is way too fast!

 

[SlightlyMad]

Yeah, policies are crazy crazy fast now. In my last game, I managed to fill out two entire trees by the medieval era, with just monuments (no temples).

edit: It's not necessarily a terrible thing though, as it was pretty fun to get to use so many policies. Maybe the utopia project could just have its build threshold increased further? Or would that not be possible because of opposing trees?

 

[Txurce]

You have *19* policies and only 9 cpt?! Something doesn't seem right here.. That is way too fast!

No, I transposed what I meant. I'm at 9 turns per SP with 19 policies after 150 turns, with four cities.

I took Honor, then the entire Tradition tree followed by the entire Honor tree. Aristocracy got me a Temple after hard-building a monument early. The GE got me Stonehenge, and then I hard-built the HG. I stayed at one city (Mongols attacked me) for quite a while, but eventually built a second city.

And on a side note with regard to the debate raging on another thread about wide empires having an edge - my example ought to demonstrate "not really."

 

[civnoob13]

how many cities have you got? This SP acquisition is simply untrue for me, and I only have two or three. It easily takes 19 turns after the first few for me, and that is with stonehenge, lots of culture buildings, and sometimes cultural CSs.

 

[Txurce]

how many cities have you got? This SP acquisition is simply untrue for me, and I only have two or three. It easily takes 19 turns after the first few for me, and that is with stonehenge, lots of culture buildings, and sometimes cultural CSs.

Four as of when I wrote. The bulk of my SP stash was acquired with two or three. All my cities have temples. I've killed a decent number of barbs, but nothing unusual.

 

[Seek]

1. No, I transposed what I meant. I'm at 9 turns per SP with 19 policies after 150 turns, with four cities.

2. I took Honor, then the entire Tradition tree followed by the entire Honor tree. Aristocracy got me a Temple after hard-building a monument early. The GE got me Stonehenge, and then I hard-built the HG. I stayed at one city (Mongols attacked me) for quite a while, but eventually built a second city.

3. And on a side note with regard to the debate raging on another thread about wide empires having an edge - my example ought to demonstrate "not really."

1. I see. Makes much more sense!

2. So you are fairly culturally focussed. Are the other two cities puppets or annexed?

3. Out of curiosity, could you elaborate on this? I'm not sure what you mean here.

 

[Txurce]

1. I see. Makes much more sense!

2. So you are fairly culturally focussed. Are the other two cities puppets or annexed?

3. Out of curiosity, could you elaborate on this? I'm not sure what you mean here.

Yes, my plan was to win by Conquest with the help of SP's, so I focused on culture at the opening to get a jump start. The other two cities were annexed as soon as possible.

I meant that my game seems to indicate that a large empire is unlikely to outdo me (presently tall) in terms of acquiring SP's.

 

[Giskler]

Yes, culture is too fast. I filled out 7,5 trees by the time I finished at turn 420 something.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I second this. I was Poynesia (first game with them) on King, 4-5 cities, unlocked Utopia somewhere around turn 180-190. Moai obviously help, but I was not vigilant about pumping out culture buildings. I kept playing after I won to watch culture growth (and even checked some a little before I won) and it seems like each successive policy was only costing around 100-150 more culture and it just never spiked.

 

[Busdriver]

Freedom strikes me as pretty late for boosting wonders, and a free GA + longer GA's seems OP for Free Speech. Throw in the reboosting the GPP, and Freedom itself might be too much .

I don't understand how moving a GE to Tradition gives a player a chance to build Wonders the old-fashioned way... because the AI tends to favor Liberty? In that case, I would leave Liberty alone, to give the AI what edge it can get. But in reality, I haven't had any problem at all getting most of the Wonders I've targeted post-patch.

Edit: doesn't Tradition already have a GE?

I'm mostly just throwing out ideas to replace culture policies in freedom. Making that many changes at once would be a bad idea. Also, Freedom already boosts wonders, I really just think that instead of giving them culture, the policy should give something else. Gold might make sense, representing tourism.

In tradition, I am only suggesting moving the GE already in Tradition from Monarchy to the finisher so that you need to fill the entire tree to get it. The idea here is that if you want to beeline an early wonder, you can still build it slowly without having to worry quite as much about someone else popping it with a GE. I have seen wonders go extremely early to the Tradition GE, and this would buy a little more time.

 

[Txurce]

I'm mostly just throwing out ideas to replace culture policies in freedom. Making that many changes at once would be a bad idea. Also, Freedom already boosts wonders, I really just think that instead of giving them culture, the policy should give something else. Gold might make sense, representing tourism.

In tradition, I am only suggesting moving the GE already in Tradition from Monarchy to the finisher so that you need to fill the entire tree to get it. The idea here is that if you want to beeline an early wonder, you can still build it slowly without having to worry quite as much about someone else popping it with a GE. I have seen wonders go extremely early to the Tradition GE, and this would buy a little more time.

Thanks for the clarifications. I see what you mean - and saw your post with more context in the GB&U thread!

 

[Thalassicus]

The only changes to policy generation since April are:

• Tall empires are slightly faster due to a vanilla change to per-city policy costs.
• Conquest empires are much slower in late game, due to dropping the culture from city capture effect.

If policies seem faster and you're not a tall empire, your playstyle has probably changed somehow.

 

[Giskler]

I had 59 cities by the end of the game and still the policies were rolling in every 10 turns or so. The difference between pre 8.0 and post 8.0 versions is crazy.

 

[Txurce]

I had 59 cities by the end of the game and still the policies were rolling in every 10 turns or so. The difference between pre 8.0 and post 8.0 versions is crazy.

59 cities is outside the realm of my imagination. In most of my games, there aren't that many cities on the entire map! What were your settings? How long did the game last? Did you stock every city with all available culture buildings?

 

[Txurce]

In the German conquest game I've been playing, I now have 12 cities. Each one immediately gets a monument and a temple. My SP rate continues to be 9 turns. This is essentially what Thal has said would happen.

By the way, Thal and Seek, I am also at 457 net gpt (344 according to Info Addict) with 35 happiness!