Policy Discussion: Honor

I think Authority may be fine with that reduction of 2 into 1, it'll definitely be interesting to see at the very least. Is the 3% Land Unit reduction still in or is it out? I felt it was the weakest of early game scalers but it could be strong combined with that 6 prod per city.

Is progress getting that 2p into 2g nerf? Because I'm confused now. I admit Progress was probably the strongest starter policy previously but I'd rather prefer buffs to the others than nerfs to this one as it's least likely to generate negativity from people.

 

The % modifier for land units is heading to Imperialism. Progress is going to be 2g/1p (was 2p).

G

 

Seems good to me, I like early gold a lot.

 

I'm not salty, I'm just tired of trying to convince people to do the right thing.

 

So before commenting your changes gazebo ( I don't even know what you will keep and what you will throw out ) I want to come back on the core.

What are the issues ? If you know what's the problem, we can find the right solution.

1 - I've already said it but authority is snowbally. If the AI or the player are able to "bash" Barbarian, you can get some good bonus.

2 - too many conditional, nothing upfront. Tradition and Progress gets a lot of Free bonus. They don't have to work on it. Free food, free production, free gold, free faith. To get food or production, you have to increase your culture output. But your only reliable way to increase your local culture is military tradition and it's one police later. So you have to rely on luck(@ barbarian spawn) because you can't settle new cities without infrastructure in the oldest or you will sunk into unhappiness pit.

3 - In higher difficulties, it's too much AI friendly and not fun for the player.
Free units, Free bonus, etc ... It's too easy for the AI to clean barbarian. It feels really unsatisfying for the player.

4 - You are the most terrain dependant. You can pick tradition anywhere :
On archipeledo, small continent, continent, fractal, or pangea.
Same for progress.
It's really hard to play authority on maps with too much water.
I think it's fine. But even on land maps, if you are in the middle of jungle or forest, hunting barbarian feel like a chore.

5 - It's the only police which I feel something is missing before getting 4/5 with .... you need to have 4 polices to make the combo works.
One side, there is no production/food and little culture.
The other, there is no science.
Progress is already rock and rolling with 2/5.

6 - Authority is undermining by too much scaling : -15% maintenance is extremely weak early, cool after 150 turn and super powerful after 300 ... but you want some bonus NOW.
You can say the same for the scaling production bonus. 5 + 15% = 20% production bonus. it's great when you have 20 production but when you are stuck with instant yield and a 6 base production ...
It needs some flat bonus, Free maintenance for 3 or 4 or 5 units instead of scaling maintenance for example.

Conclusion : Authority is the most terrain dependant, the most unreliable and the most conditional tree. Moreover it heavily favors AI over Human players in higher difficulties

 

Authority won't be the most terrain dependent now it gets lots of free production per city, it'll be fine.

 

Indeed, that's the primary reason for the buff. Raw Production per turn can get you out of a lot of bad starts, making the tree much less risky.

G

 

I don't like where this is going. Authority is becoming a good infrastructural Policy Branch. If we want to make it more competitive, we shouldn't be buffing its production aspect. It needs to generate science more reliably. At least its science output should exceed that of Tradition. I suggest to remove the science from kills from Dominance and just give a free Barracks in every city. Make the science more reliable.

 

Free buildings get tricky because, in that instance, you are making it a must-do for the Zulu. The additional Production is quite useful, but (unlike Progress) you don't get any knock-on bonuses for building stuff, and (unlike Tradition) you don't get any GPP as a side-effect investment of higher yields. Plus, Progress still has the % bonuses to construction and worker improvements, meaning that the flat bonus will be outclassed by the progress one fairly quickly.

G

 

I think it is worth trying. Authority currently gets more production for units anyways, so this is really just a buff to building/wonder production. And like Gazebo said, buildings are less valuable if you aren't going Progress.

 

So do I. I think people underestimate the +5% buff to building. it's 1 more production every 20 production. It's huge. It's a free Solar/Nuclear plant every 100 production.
Expertise will complete the lost from Equality fast enough
So it's a nerf to early but a good buff to mid and late game.

Progress needed the nerf by the way, it was too good in comparison to tradition too.
I know people on this forum who were only playing progress because it was so powerful, versatile and with absolutely no constraint( you said "LIBERTY" ).

You could say it from Progress before. I don't like progress they are so good to produce units because they get barrack faster and to match + 2 flat production with 12% bonus production to units, you need 25 production. So progress was better to train units in any early situation.

 

Is it possible for the +1 production to only be applied while building military units? That way Authority does not step into the realm of infrastructure?

Also could we flip the first 2 policies on the right branch? So your first choice of policy (after the opener) is between either science for kills or culture for garrison? That way going authority and not having a lot of barbarian action nearby will effect you (slightly) less.

 

Why do you want that Production nerf? Authority feels fine and I like it, it's 6 Production vs 2f2s2g1p of progress, seems reasonably balanced (especially considering the F+C per building > F+G per border growth, you get -20% Building cost, -25% improvement cost... I still prefer Progress in fact but Authority is very fine).

 

Wild suggestion: stop trying to balance a conquest-focused tree for a time that conquest is difficult to impossible for the player. Instead, move Authority to Medieval and Piety to Ancient. Balance both around their era. This allows for three Ancient playstyles (Tall, Wide, Religion focused), three victory-condition focused Medieval trees that are each useful to a Science victory in their own way, and moves both trees to a place where it makes more sense mechanically (religions tend to be founded and initially spread during Ancient and Classical, conquest is difficult to impossible early game). If there is interest, I'll work on an Ancient Piety and Medieval Authority tree while I'm doing laundry.

 

Ok after one try with authority zulu, I think it's better. You still have got some huge science issue until you are able to absorb some big cities but with the new changes to CS, you are still able to win fight while being behind in a little behind in science.
I think I need more time to find the best of it.

 

7 out of 8 civs in my last game picked authority, just saying.

 

The issue is that conquest is difficult to impossible before medieval era. It won't get fixed by making authority a medieval policy tree, instead the problem would become worse than now, as you wouldn't get the conquest related policies before medieval era. Another problem with authority as medieval policy tree is that it would be hard to differentiate from imperialism, as they both are conquest related and you'd get imperialism right after authority.

 

I don't see differentiating Imperialism and Authority as a challenge. Imperialism is already focused on naval and air combat. Authority can either be generically military focused (as current), lean towards defense, or lean towards Mounted and Siege units.

Nothing in Authority helps you conquer cities early. Imperium rewards you, but you're going to be nearly in Medieval before you pick it at anyway (needing opener, tribute, discipline, and dominance first). The first thought towards a Medieval Authority tree would be to move the conquer bonus to the opener.

 

So the response to Progress being too good at building early units is to make Authority good at early infrastructure? That's not how it's supposed to work. Progress' theme is infrastructure and science. Authority's theme is military and expansion.

Authority having +6 bonus production per city means that a Progress player's cities need to have at least 30 production each to match this bonus for constructing buildings. Such levels of production are only attainable in the Renaissance era for a wide player's satellite cities. Authority players could typically complete their policy branch by mid- to late-classical era. That means that their cities can be disproportionately tall in the first half of the game, despite their wide play style. They might effectively compete for wonders even in their non-capital cities. Progress' +2 production required you to purchase a specific policy, with two prereq policies.

The real problem with Authority was its unreliability and overdependence on map settings and difficulty settings, as you've pointed out. Therefore, the solution was to simply reduce its unreliability. Authority's most needed reliable yield is not production, however. They are culture (because it's an ancient policy branch), gold (for unit maintenance), and science (for military competence). The culture output from Discipline is already pretty reliable so culture wasn't really a problem. It might need more constant gold yield (rather than instant gold yields) so we don't choke on unit maintenance. As for science, its source was highly unreliable because the AI players (including City-States) are really good at fighting barbs. This is why I suggested making Dominance give free Barracks instead of science from kills. There are probably other ways to give reliable science if this sounds too powerful.

2f2s2p per city was fine for a Policy Branch that's supposed to focus on city development. +6 reliable production on a militaristic Policy Branch is not. Even if we say that Authority as a whole is balanced right now (it's not), that large general-purpose production bonus doesn't fit. Production bonuses to units, settlers, or military buildings are a better fit.

 

Authority needs to remain as an Ancient-Era tree. Connecting culture to barb-hunting, early war bonuses (many civs have early UUs, and if you want to use them well, you really need Authority), and expansion is far too integral to the CBP at this point. Plus, putting Piety early would mean a complete rework, as it is themed around majority religions. Also the AI'd screw itself over so many times diving into it and failing to get a religion. Too many changes this late in the game.

Eh, raw production != infrastructure. Progress has % modifiers to production (tile improvements also count as infrastructure, mind you), as well as three powerful event-based yield models. Authority's event-based yields are much less reliable (barbs can be unreliable, bullying is unreliable, conquest/founding is unreliable). So authority really has border growth and garrisons, and that's it.

If two identical civs with one city take Progress and Authority, and fill out the entire tree at the same time, Authority may have its first few buildings more quickly, but Progress is going to quickly outpace it because of the knock-on effect of its instant yields and its % modifier. Progress is still the go-to infrastructure tree (it is only down 1 production point, which is more than made up for by the 20% production towards buildings), as you won't get nearly as much out of the infrastructure of Authority. Not to mention that Progress civs are going to leap ahead in science, meaning that they'll have earlier access to wonders, buildings, and units. Progress is, in my opinion, still the stronger tree, but Authority is now at least competitive.

Besides, an Authority civ still desperately needs that early infrastructure. Extra production allows it to push through those early buildings (getting less from them than Progress, mind you) in order to get a war machine going.

The change was well considered – I've been fiddling with it for a few versions now, but didn't pull the trigger until this version.

G