Policies

[Seek]

• Freedom players are more likely to ally with citystates than Order players, since Freedom directly opposes Autocracy, and Autocracy/Order have synergy.

I'm not following you with these two statements, can you elaborate?

Order seems to be better suited to CS alliances due to the naturally higher gold income from a wide empire (as I mentioned before), although a smaller empire would gain more on a per-city basis from any one alliance, I find CSs useful whether playing wide or tall - I can just afford more of them when going wide. As for the second statement, even though Order and Autocracy don't conflict I don't see any more inherent synergy between them than between Order and Freedom, say. Moreover, usually the point at which they unlock is so near to the end of the game that I won't fill both trees anyway.

I agree with your ideas about Piety/Rationalism, but the opportunity cost created by the mutual exclusivity is good and is reason enough to keep it the way it is.

 

[Txurce]

A straightforward way to increase options for culture games is to remove the Piety-Rationalism exclusion. I find it reasonable for a society which focused on one set of beliefs in the classical or medieval eras could change focus in the renaissance. After all, that's how history actually progressed! The Freedom-Autocracy exclusion makes more sense, as those trees are very close to one another in time.

I think the main complaint is how fast cultural victories can be won, and don't think that removing the exclusion would make cultural victories more interesting. However, it would make the entire game easier.

 

[Atlas627]

I'm not following you with these two statements, can you elaborate?

Order seems to be better suited to CS alliances due to the naturally higher gold income from a wide empire (as I mentioned before), although a smaller empire would gain more on a per-city basis from any one alliance, I find CSs useful whether playing wide or tall - I can just afford more of them when going wide. As for the second statement, even though Order and Autocracy don't conflict I don't see any more inherent synergy between them than between Order and Freedom, say. Moreover, usually the point at which they unlock is so near to the end of the game that I won't fill both trees anyway.

I agree with your ideas about Piety/Rationalism, but the opportunity cost created by the mutual exclusivity is good and is reason enough to keep it the way it is.

Isn't there still opportunity cost if you aren't playing a cultural game? It would be just too difficult to get both trees filled out without missing out on several other trees. Do you mean the extra opportunity cost is good?

In vanilla, cultural CS were good for tall, maritime CS good for wide, and militaristic CS good for conquest. I thought this was nice, because CS should be a part of the game no matter what strategy you are going for (conquering them as well because they automatically have nice city spots).

Now it seems like cultural and maritime are better for tall, and militaristic better for conquest.

I think the main complaint is how fast cultural victories can be won, and don't think that removing the exclusion would make cultural victories more interesting. However, it would make the entire game easier.

Uh...what? Cultural victories should be winnable before the other VCs because that's the only benefit of going for a cultural VC. For a conquest victory, the more you conquer the easier it is to conquer. For a tech victory, the more techs you unlock the faster you tech. For Diplo VC, more CS lets you do everything better (tech due to maritime food, culture due to culture CS, military due to mil CS) allowing you to focus on whatever you need to win (more tech for UN or money for more CS). For Cultural VC, you are forced to get so many policies that have nothing to do with anything your civ needs. You don't snowball at all. Arguably, neither does Diplo VC either, and I think that is a problem as well.

Of course the trees would need to be rebalanced so as to not be overpowered together. But if they were properly balanced, then it would not be a no-brainer and as such would be just fine. I also fail to see how it would make the entire game easier if you, of course, made it balanced.

I'm already on record as preferring five trees over six. But you make some good points about sniping. In theory there should be some games where you don't fill out a single tree. Is that likely now?

I'll use a tall effort at a Science win as an example. I could see myself choosing the opener and the Settler in Liberty; the opener in Honor; as many as possible in Tradition until Commerce opens up; the opener and the GM policy in Commerce; up to the science bonus in Patronage; and at least the left-hand side of Rationalism before switching to Freedom. (Realistically, I would finish Rationalism to win the game, and would close out Tradition if the eras fell into place.)

Warmongering, I would snipe all but Honor.

This makes me wonder whether there's a problem here (given that I agree with you in theory).

I think that's fine. It offers more decisions to make, not just in the sense of more options, but that each decision matters. Just increasing the number of policies you can take doesn't do both of those, it only gives you more options. Each decision matters less because it is less significant.

There's not really any good solution to the cultural victory problem. I think the root problem is they dropped the Civ 4 style culture victory requirement... 3 cities need X culture apiece, instead of the empire as a whole needing Y culture. Changing this is not technically feasible with our modding tools however.

A straightforward way to increase options for culture games is to remove the Piety-Rationalism exclusion. I find it reasonable for a society which focused on one set of beliefs in the classical or medieval eras could change focus in the renaissance. After all, that's how history actually progressed! The Freedom-Autocracy exclusion makes more sense, as those trees are very close to one another in time.

I think renaming the tree is justified. It's not entirely realistic for Rationalism to be a science-focused tree, since rationalism favors reason over the five senses. A more accurate term would have been Empiricism, which favors empirical, measurable data. For our purposes a better alternative is "Enlightenment," which was partially influenced by Protestant reaction to the counter-reformation, so it's reasonable in a society that previously focused on Piety. The Enlightenment was the precursor to both rationalism and empiricism, and closer to the Renaissance.

Well that sucks. I wish we could change it. Right now a cultural victory (since you need so many trees) is like a "I can't decide what to focus" victory.

I have no problem with removing the Piety Rationalism exclusion. And I see no reason to have the Autocracy Freedom exclusion. They don't synergize whatsoever, come and roughly the same time so you can't plausibly take both anyway, and it wouldnt be overpowered to have both.

I think Rationalism is the name to keep. Empiricism doesn't accurately describe the movement either, and Enlightenment is an event, not an ideal.

 

[Txurce]

Uh...what? Cultural victories should be winnable before the other VCs because that's the only benefit of going for a cultural VC.

Of course the trees would need to be rebalanced so as to not be overpowered together. But if they were properly balanced, then it would not be a no-brainer and as such would be just fine. I also fail to see how it would make the entire game easier if you, of course, made it balanced.

This is the first time I've heard the argument that Cultural Victories should be easier because they're more boring. I disagree, but obviously this is completely subjective.

Thal did not propose rebalancing both Piety and Rationalism as part of the non-exclusionary proposal. I won't speculate right now on "But if he did..." beyond saying that rebalancing two trees in order to add another option to Cultural Victories isn't something I support.

 

[Dunkah]

What if you added one of the Civ IV requirements to Cultural Victories?

Rather than straight culture in three cities how about adding a poulation and World Wonder requirement. You must have 3 cities with Population 10 or more each with a wonder in each. As well as the Policy Trees and Utopia Wonder.

Or perhaps a combo of that... 2 cities with 2 wonders each and 15 pop each or 1 city with 30 population and 3 wonders?

There could be a Building that unlocks after each policy tree is finished that needs to be built counting as a national wonder. Perhaps needing other buildings to be built as well. Temples etc...

 

[Atlas627]

This is the first time I've heard the argument that Cultural Victories should be easier because they're more boring. I disagree, but obviously this is completely subjective.

Thal did not propose rebalancing both Piety and Rationalism as part of the non-exclusionary proposal. I won't speculate right now on "But if he did..." beyond saying that rebalancing two trees in order to add another option to Cultural Victories isn't something I support.

I wasn't saying they should be easier because they are more boring. What I said was they should be quicker because they are 1.) the VC that snowballs least and 2.) tech helps them the least.

A Domination VC is simply impossible on Standard Continents until at least Astronomy (unless the civs on the other continent somehow take each other's capitals). Even then, you still have to conquer every capital, which probably requires at least a slight tech lead.

A Diplomatic VC requires tech into the modern era, plus enough CS to reach the voting threshold. So even if somebody else builds the UN for you, you still need to have found CSs (Astronomy again) and be competitive for them. If you were able to lock everybody else out of the CS race, obviously nobody would build the UN for you (except the AI still herp derps)

A Science VC requires all the techs. 'Nuff said.

A Culture VC requires enough to unlock 6 policies. That's Medieval. And if you got those policies, you wouldn't be specializing in anything (Tradition, Liberty, Honor, Piety, Patronage, Commerce) which means the culture VC doesn't help you win faster. But to make it unique from the other victory types, and to give players some reason to go for it, perhaps one positive for it would be to be finish-able sooner.

@Dunkah: We just said we can't do that, it requires core access

EDIT: Forgot to say that I think we should still just go back to 5 trees, and if people don't want to remove the Piety-Rationalism ban that's fine with me.

 

[Txurce]

I wasn't saying they should be easier because they are more boring. What I said was they should be quicker because they are 1.) the VC that snowballs least and 2.) tech helps them the least.

...But to make it unique from the other victory types, and to give players some reason to go for it, perhaps one positive for it would be to be finish-able sooner.

Actually, I've enjoyed my few Cultural games. And I already think it's the most specialized victory type, although not for the best reasons. My only problem with it is that it arrives faster than the other Victory conditions. That's why I although I follow your line of thinking, I wind up on the other side.

 

[Atlas627]

Actually, I've enjoyed my few Cultural games. And I already think it's the most specialized victory type, although not for the best reasons. My only problem with it is that it arrives faster than the other Victory conditions. That's why I although I follow your line of thinking, I wind up on the other side.

Very well. I almost always play tall peaceful cultural games, but I can't stand the pick 6 system so much that I have stopped playing VEM in general. I instead have been playing 8 player hotseat VS myself, and I have realized that vanilla feels very different from VEM. Some in good ways, some in ways I don't like.

How is it the most specialized victory type? I don't follow.

 

[Txurce]

How is it the most specialized victory type? I don't follow.

The most different from the others; the closest to being unique.

 

[Ahriman]

Long post:

Spoiler :

The opener is +10% city healing, attack, and defense. I wouldn't say this is much less powerful than +3 from the Piety opener

I would. This is very weak. Happiness is always useful. City defense, less so.
The Piety opener is also weak, but it is early game.

Which policies are you referring to? These values in the Freedom tree are identical in v117 and v117.2:
Specialist value (-1)
Specialist value (-0.5)

I'm not comparing v117 to 117.2, I'm comparing to the old version of the tree before all the changes, what we have had for the last month or so.
The -1 food is a bit unclear to me; in some places I think I saw you put it as -0.5 at other places -1. I think this may be because of some confusion over "half food per specialist" and "-0.5 food per specialist" which are different things, but I think I have seen both in different places. If it is still -1 food per specialist and -0.5 unhappiness per specialist, then I agree that this is unchanged and withdraw my comment.

The only two changes to values are replacements with effects of approximately equal usefulness for different purposes

I disagree that they are of equal value. +3 production empire-wide per city state alliance is not very useful at all in many cases.
* * *
Not worth responding to the other stuff, not very productive. But yeah, I don't like appeals to authority.
I made what I thought was a constructive reply by proposing an alternative.
* * *

Freedom players are more likely to ally with citystates than Order players, since Freedom directly opposes Autocracy, and Autocracy/Order have synergy.

This argument remains odd to me. There are many, many times when a Freedom player will not be using many city states. It sounds like you have decided that there should be a city-state policy outside of Patronage and are deciding where to put it, but that is an odd way to do design. There is nothing about Freedom that is inherently linked to city states. There is nothing about Autocracy or Order that prevents you from having city states. There is nothing about Order that means you will necessarily have Autocracy (Order is for wide empires which will have fewer policies).

Freedom enhances self-creation of Great People, while Patronage gives us the capability to do so through alternative sources. I enjoy tension such as this between divergent policy paths. It means there's no "best" choice to always go for. This improves our strategic options.

I do not understand how this is an argument that says Freedom should have a city-state related policy.

I have not seen a convincing reason to revert this back to Order.

I don't think you should revert it to order, I think you should remove it entirely. If you put it in Order, it is less painful because it is easier to skip. And I think an engineer-boosting policy in order has very low value, but is quite valuable in Freedom.

In a normal sized map of 8 players there are 16 citystates. Assuming a third of those are unavailable for some reason, most tall-empire games have 10 citystate allies in the Renaissance era.

I find this reasoning to be very odd. Why do you assume that a single player is able to monopolize 2/3 of the city state alliances as a standard feature? In an 8 player game on average a player will have 1/8 of the city states, or 2. Suppose you'll have more with a Tall strategy - twice as much, so 4. Not 10.

10 alliances requires a huge amount of gold, and a very city-state oriented strategy, particularly on high difficulty levels where you may have to have 200-250+ influence points to hold onto an alliance in the face of other bidders.
It may be that your playstyle does this, but there is nothing inherent about a Tall Empire that supports this.

I included Libertarianism because it's one of the fundamental political categories

In a modern western liberal democracy, maybe, but I don't think it is quite fair to generalize like that from history, where values have been very different. Through most of history no-one would ever have thought of libertarianism as appearing in their political framework, the concept would have been alien. Even now it is fairly alien outside parts of the English-speaking world.
And we've never seen a libertarian country, ever. So it seems odd to me.
I daresay liberalism is more influential (and more key to enlightenment-era Freedom flavor) than libertarianism has ever been. Most non-radical libertarianism is also incorporated into either a liberal (social) or conservative (economic) framework.

I think it is fine that Piety blocks Rationalism, and I think Rationalism and Freedom are fine as policy names.
* * *

In theory there should be some games where you don't fill out a single tree. Is that likely now?

I think the problem here is that the free Finishers are as good or better than an actual policy pick. I think the finishers should be a moderate-value bonus, not an entire free policy.
* * *

How is it the most specialized victory type? I don't follow.

A fast cultural victory will involve lots of use of artist specialists and landmarks and prioritizing culture buildings. It involves a lot of long-term planning in how you play, whereas science or diplomatic are not very specialized, you can just play at increasing your power generally and then achieve one of them.

Cultural victories are in some sense "easier" because they are solipsistic; you can achieve them on your own, and they are hard for other players to stop. All you have to do is not get conquered.

 

[Thalassicus]

Freedom players are more likely to ally with citystates than Order players, since Freedom directly opposes Autocracy, and Autocracy/Order have synergy.

I'm not following you with these two statements, can you elaborate?

The trees favor CS conquest in this order:

1. Autocracy
2. Order
3. Freedom

This makes Freedom more logical than Order for the CS alliance bonus, so I moved the bonus from Order to Freedom. Conquering citystates is most likely with Autocracy because it is the conquest tree. Autocracy works better with Order than Freedom because conquest games are wide, and Order is the wide tree.

@GamerKG
I'd suggest militaristic citystates are better for peaceful games than conquest ones. In a peaceful game we can ignore unit training buildings and instead get our military through citystates. In conquest games, we already have the training buildings.

Changing the culture victory requirement to 5 trees without accompanying balance adjustments would make culture victories possible in the Renaissance, too early to counter if the player is on another continent. Increasing culture costs by a linear value wouldn't work because it'd reduce options for non-culture games. Reducing the linear value and increasing the exponent would be hard to balance and change the game too much for my preferences, since we'd get policies very quickly at the start of the game. Reducing late game culture income would make it too hard to switch to a culture victory partways through the game.

@Txurce
My instinct says it won't be overpowered to get both the Piety and Rationalism trees. There's not an easy way to verify this empirically since the game is so complex.

@Ahriman
I like your suggestions for new policies and did copy them down. I didn't intend to imply I was ignoring them, quite the opposite! The policy adjustments I've made recently were simple XML value and prerequisite changes with a low chance for major bugs. Replacing policies with new effects is more complicated, and generally requires writing new lua code. I like a week or two of testing to eliminate bugs after such significant lua changes. This beta cycle ends in just 3 days, so we'll explore ideas like you propose in the next cycle.

I'm not comparing v117 to 117.2, I'm comparing to the old version of the tree before all the changes, what we have had for the last month or so.

v117 is the version before the recent changes. Five of seven values in the Freedom tree have not changed.

In a modern western liberal democracy, maybe, but I don't think it is quite fair to generalize like that from history, where values have been very different. Through most of history no-one would ever have thought of libertarianism as appearing in their political framework, the concept would have been alien. Even now it is fairly alien outside parts of the English-speaking world.

The policy represents a social system of maximum personal and economic freedom. Different words are used to describe this concept at different times or places in history, but the modern English name for it is "libertarianism."

I think the problem here is that the free Finishers are as good or better than an actual policy pick. I think the finishers should be a moderate-value bonus, not an entire free policy.

Powerful finishers balance policies of situational importance. For example, Merchant Navy is only useful for coastal empires. The Commerce finisher counteracts this by giving a strong incentive for landlocked empires to complete the tree.

 

[Ahriman]

The trees favor CS conquest in this order:
Autocracy
Order
Freedom
This makes Freedom more logical than Order for the CS alliance bonus, so I moved the bonus from Order to Freedom.

Again, your argument here assumes that a CS alliance production bonus is needed; you assume the existence of a policy effect and then find a place to put it. Why?

Changing the culture victory requirement to 5 trees without accompanying balance adjustments would make culture victories possible in the Renaissance

No one is suggesting reducing the requirement to 5 trees without accompanying balance changes. The shift would go to 5 trees but the cost of later policies would be increased, to keep the cost of a cultural victory roughly the same.

v117 is the version before the recent changes. Five of seven values in the Freedom tree have not changed.

For the Freedom tree:
You changed the unlock.
You removed the culture boost from specialists.
You changed the finisher (no more boost to great person improvements).
You removed the production bonus from specialists.
You tweaked the specialist building boosting policy.

So its not really true to say that 5/7 policies are unchanged.

I mistakenly thought you had reduced the food bonus from -1 food consumed per specialist to -0.5 food per specialist, but it sounds like you didn't change this.

I still think that the policies are out of whack; the food and happiness policies are way more powerful than the others. So I would reduce the food and happiness bonuses (eg: -1/3 unhappiness per specialist, -0.75 food consumed per specialist) without weakening the others.

The policy represents a social system of maximum personal and economic freedom. Different words are used to describe this concept at different times or places in history, but the modern English name for it is "libertarianism."

I disagree with this. Libertarianism isn't about freedom, it is about freedom from government. It seems odd to think that a libertarian society would boost the production of great people; it wouldn't a libertarian society would mean you'd only be getting great people out of a narrow set of the wealthy elite, the poor would have few opportunities.
But we don't want to get into a political debate here.
It just seems odd to prioritize libertarianism (a niche 20th century philosophy) over classic liberalism (the over-arching principle of all modern liberal democracies). But, not a big deal, its just a name.

Powerful finishers balance policies of situational importance.

A better solution is to minimize the need for policies that are of radically situational importance.

 

[Thalassicus]

v118 revised policy trees are below. I included Oligarchy's old effect in the Freedom opener. I also swapped the CS production and great person policies between Freedom and Patronage.

Spoiler :

I would reduce the food and happiness bonuses (eg: -1/3 unhappiness per specialist, -0.75 food consumed per specialist) without weakening the others.

Oct 18, 2011, 06:34 PM
Altering the specialist effects is not possible without the game core only Firaxis has access to.

Oct 19, 2011, 09:03 AM
Altering the effects of the specialist policies requires the game core only Firaxis has access to.

The situation is the same as the previous 2 times you requested this. I'm not a part of Firaxis... you're asking the impossible.

I answered these questions ahead of time:
----------

You assume the existence of a policy effect and then find a place to put it. Why?

The policy adjustments I've made recently were simple XML value and prerequisite changes with a low chance for major bugs. Replacing policies with new effects is more complicated, and generally requires writing new lua code. I like a week or two of testing to eliminate bugs after such significant lua changes. This beta cycle ends in just 3 days, so we'll explore ideas like you propose in the next cycle.

----------

No one is suggesting reducing the requirement to 5 trees without accompanying balance changes. The shift would go to 5 trees but the cost of later policies would be increased, to keep the cost of a cultural victory roughly the same.

Increasing culture costs by a linear value wouldn't work because it'd reduce options for non-culture games. Reducing the linear value and increasing the exponent would be hard to balance, and change the game too much for my preferences, since we'd get policies very quickly at the start of the game.

----------

A better solution is to minimize the need for policies that are of radically situational importance.

Every policy is of situational importance, and what is a "radical" amount cannot be empirically verified. It depends on preferences and playstyles.

 

[Txurce]

I think the Freedom tree seems stronger but at a more gradual pace than two versions ago. Let's see how often it's filled out.

I don't know why you nerfed Enlightenment by dropping the GS from the opener to the finisher. Most importantly, no one was complaining that this policy was OP; I don't think anyone was even saying that they dipped in for the Free GS. Additionally, putting the free GS as a finisher is a complete waste for the typical Enlightenment user: someone going for a Science victory who closes out research after Scientific Revolution.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think the main complaint is how fast cultural victories can be won, and don't think that removing the exclusion would make cultural victories more interesting. However, it would make the entire game easier.

Of course the trees would need to be rebalanced so as to not be overpowered together. But if they were properly balanced, then it would not be a no-brainer and as such would be just fine. I also fail to see how it would make the entire game easier if you, of course, made it balanced.

I don't know why you nerfed Enlightenment by dropping the GS from the opener to the finisher.

If I understand you right, in the first 2 quotes you feel removing the Piety-Enlightenment exclusion would make the game easier and overpowered if the trees are used together. Based on that feedback, I reduced the power of the tree by swapping the Great Scientist from the beginning to the end. I then rearranged the policies to better fit the philosophy of "somewhat useful for most people, mostly useful for some people." The middle path is useful for any playstyle, while the two highly specialized policies (villages and scientists) are now on their own. The more powerful finisher compensates for the two situationally useful side policies.

I considered moving the Great Scientist to the middle path and the 2 free techs to the finisher, but I'm concerned that would make the tree too similar to Commerce. In months past there was substantial feedback the trees were becoming too alike. This is why I make an effort to keep some diversity between the trees.

 

[Txurce]

I interpreted the feedback from the first 2 quotes to imply removing the Piety-Enlightenment exclusion would make the game "easier" and "overpowered" if the trees are used together. Based on that feedback, I reduced the power of the tree by swapping the Great Scientist from the beginning to the end. I then rearranged the policies to better fit the philosophy of "somewhat useful for most people, mostly useful for some people." The middle path is useful for any playstyle, while the two highly specialized policies (villages and scientists) are now on their own. The more powerful finisher compensates for the two situationally useful side policies.

I considered moving the Great Scientist to the middle path and the 2 free techs to the finisher, but I'm concerned that would make the tree too similar to Commerce. In months past there was substantial feedback the trees were becoming too alike. This is why I make an effort to keep some diversity between the trees.

This seems like the tail wagging the dog. I wouldn't nerf Science games just to make Cultural games harder; if you want to nerf Cultural games as a result of the Enlightenment inclusion, then nerf Piety! This is the sort of snowball effect that often bugs me: people complain as often that Cultural games are too fast as they do that they're boring; your fix is to make Enlightenment available (which makes it faster but not more interesting in my eyes); and as a result you nerf and mess up Science Victories!

 

[Thalassicus]

However, it would make the entire game easier.

Oh! I misunderstood this statement. By "entire game" I thought you meant it would make all victory types easier, and didn't know you were still referring only to culture victories.

I do not feel removing the piety-enlightenment exclusion and rearranging the tree weakens science victories since we can now get Piety -> Mandate of Heaven in science games. That gives us access to more happiness than before. In the science tree itself, the same values are still there, just moved around. Once we've filled out the tree we have the same bonuses as before.

I've seen a lot of feedback people feel the + on science buildings effect is very weak, so this would be a good opportunity to buff it. Perhaps +3 on science buildings? I do like having the effect at the start of the tree since it's useful for more players than a Great Scientist. Scientists speed up research, which is not useful if our research is outpacing construction. Gold on science buildings has better synergy since it makes them improve both construction and science.

Do you have a suggested arrangement for the effects which would accomplish the goals while moving the GS earlier in the tree?

• Early policies weaker than later policies.
• Powerful finishers balance situational policies.
• Each tree is somewhat useful for most people, and mostly useful for some people.

 

[Txurce]

I wouldn't say it messes them up... the same effects are still all there in the tree, just rearranged.

I don't think anyone agrees that rearranging a tree doesn't affect its value. You nerfed Enlightenment by dropping a policy from the opener to the finisher. And you messed it up by giving its prime users a finisher they will almost never use.

 

[Atlas627]

If I understand you right, in the first 2 quotes you feel removing the Piety-Enlightenment exclusion would make the game easier and overpowered if the trees are used together. Based on that feedback, I reduced the power of the tree by swapping the Great Scientist from the beginning to the end. I then rearranged the policies to better fit the philosophy of "somewhat useful for most people, mostly useful for some people." The middle path is useful for any playstyle, while the two highly specialized policies (villages and scientists) are now on their own. The more powerful finisher compensates for the two situationally useful side policies.

I considered moving the Great Scientist to the middle path and the 2 free techs to the finisher, but I'm concerned that would make the tree too similar to Commerce. In months past there was substantial feedback the trees were becoming too alike. This is why I make an effort to keep some diversity between the trees.

I think the Enlightenment changes are reasonable, but I have to agree with Txurce that certainly it was not Enlightenment that would make having both it and Piety overpowered, it was the combination. I think thats because of the happiness per building policies, with the happiness to culture policy and the happiness to science policy.

I think the Freedom-Patronage swap was a good idea, but does this make the CS gift GP too often for the policy? Its much easier to reach now.

This seems like the tail wagging the dog. I wouldn't nerf Science games just to make Cultural games harder; if you want to nerf Cultural games as a result of the Enlightenment inclusion, then nerf Piety! This is the sort of snowball effect that often bugs me: people complain as often that Cultural games are too fast as they do that they're boring; your fix is to make Enlightenment available (which makes it faster but not more interesting in my eyes); and as a result you nerf and mess up Science Victories!

No, do not nerf Piety. There should be a reason to take Piety beyond culture games, just as there is a reason to take Enlightenment for non-science games. Now you are doing the same thing the other way.

There is no need to nerf either tree. What needs to be done is a rebalancing of both. As I said above, the problem is not the power of each tree but of the fact that they will synergize surprisingly well for the most part. Sooo much happiness and policies that benefit from it. Before, happiness was required in both trees in similar methods because they were mutually exclusive, but now that they aren't we just have 2 trees that do the same thing but one for culture and the other for science, leaving us with a deadly combo.

 

[Atlas627]

I don't think anyone agrees that rearranging a tree doesn't affect its value. You nerfed Enlightenment by dropping a policy from the opener to the finisher. And you messed it up by giving its prime users a finisher they will almost never use.

It's a finisher. That's the point.