Policy Discussion: Honor

[Stalker0]

My thoughts:

Opener looks good. There's a lot of stuff packed in but it's not op.

I say drop the 10% when adjacent and just make it straight up 10%. Removes any ai concerns...this becomes the one solid war bump we give the tree.

I like gold for kills instead of science, i think it scales better.

The 25% settler bonus is a take it or leave it for me. I think the policy is fine without it, but not op with it.

I'm not a fan of having a policy that is just for occupied cities...but I can be persuaded.

Right now I'm envisioning this opener which is generally good for anybody (barbs got to die no matter your style)

Then down one side we have policies for peaceful expansion like imperialism.

Down the other we have the policies for puppets and occupied cities for people would are going for hard conquest.

In the middle we have some general war bonuses...with some happiness component that doesn't require conquest (probably a straight up reduction to unrest)

I like the finisher either with capitals only or all cities...I can work it either way. It would be nice to have something for non conquerors here...but Italy be okay to sy that if you are this dedicated to honor you have committed to a war strategy

 

[Gazebo]

I like the science bonus, if only because it makes more sense thematically, and helps the warmonger focus on war as a source of tech growth (otherwise warmongers tend to fall behind in tech). We can make it scale well.

Considering that 2/3 of the ancient branches are peaceful, and war is one of the most complex parts of the game, I'm okay with war getting its own tree.

G

 

[Lord Tirian]

I like the science bonus, too, it's one of the biggest problems with dedicating too many resources to war. And given how a substantial amount of techs give you new units, it makes thematic sense that you learn from your units how to kill units better.

The extra gold yield from puppeted cities was a nice concept and looked like a nice way to avoid the extra micromanagement from annexing cities "guilt-free" so to speak. I'd be sad to see it go.

 

[Gazebo]

We can bring it back if the tree is lacking. I put that happiness-related one in because a.) I've already made it and b.) the yields one would take some work. Lazy? Perhaps.

G

 

[Funak]

My take on wording and bonuses:

Opener: +33% Strength vs. Barbarians, and receive Notifications when Encampments appear. Earn Culture from defeating units, capturing Cities and clearing Encampments. +3% Production when building Military units for every Honor policy taken.

-- This looks fine to me, power-wise.

Might aswell make the productionbonus to all units (except diplomacyunits for obv reason) and drop the setlerbonus in imperialism.

Imperialism: No Unhappiness from Isolation. A Free Settler appears in the Capital. +25% to production of Settlers.

-- Looks good to me. Added production bonus for settlers.

Above.

Martial Law: Garrisons in Occupied Cities reduce Unhappiness from Occupation by 50%. Unhappiness reduced by an additional 20% in Puppet Cities.

-- Changed name. Used pre-existing policy function I made (instead of garrison one). Instant effect is better than forced Garrison in that regard. Buffed Occupation bonus.

Fine

Logistics: Killing a military unit generates Science based on the defeated unit's strength. All land Units heal for 20 points after killing a Military unit.

-- Fine. Changed name and bonus. Should probably only work for land units (we'll save naval and air bonuses for Exploration branch).

Completely disagree, naval combat should be just as much part of this tree as groundcombat to assure this tree isn't useless on watermaps.

Conscription: Units gain +10% Combat Strength when adjacent to a friendly unit. A ranged unit spawns in your Capital, and in every city settled after taking this Policy.

-- Added Capital, to help AI (if it is dumb and gets this 1 turn after settling a city).

Sure

Military Tradition: A free Great General appears outside your capital. Building a Military Unit in a City grants 15% of its cost as free Production for the City's next project.

-- This was not very good. Branch sorely lacks any kind of passive bonuses. I've added this one. Should scale well, and has a nice 'military ramp-up' effect to it.

Fine by me.

Finisher: Cities increase the culture cost of policies by 25% less than normal. Whenever you conquer a city for the first time, immediately receive 25% of the points needed for your next Golden Age. Great Generals can be purchased with faith at the Industrial Era

-- Changed to apply to all cities, at a % rate. Should scale better for map sizes.
G

If it's going to apply to all cities just make it a flat amount based on population instead.

 

[Gazebo]

Completely disagree, naval combat should be just as much part of this tree as groundcombat to assure this tree isn't useless on watermaps.

Fair enough.

If it's going to apply to all cities just make it a flat amount based on population instead.

Eh?

Might aswell make the productionbonus to all units (except diplomacyunits for obv reason).

Fair enough.

G

 

[Funak]

Eh?

G

Make it give X GAP for every population in the captured city. (Capturing big cities is way more glorious than capturing small ones)

 

[Lord Tirian]

Make it give X GAP for every population in the captured city. (Capturing big cities is way more glorious than capturing small ones)

Also, getting a golden age every fourth conquered city feels a bit odd, especially for a border skirmish where you lose and regain cities. I think GA for capital is cleaner neater and rewards big conquest over small squabbles (remember, you already get free culture for conquering cities).

 

[Deluxe]

Am I the only one who thinks the 20 points heal is overpowered ?

I can't even imagine loosing any war against the AI with this kind of bonus. Worst, the AI is not going to use it correctly (I mean, it WILL use it, passively, but not to save almost dead units, except if you can code this behaviour).

For the rest, it seems really fine. I find the puppet system a bit too strong in the vanilla game, and I think it would deserves to be nerfed a bit in general (maybe the happiness system of CPP is going to change that fact), but I find those policies pretty funny.

I also agree with some here that GG's fort is powerful indeed, even if it's main purpose (defense) is not used so much ... (and again, we can blame the poor AI).

 

[Funak]

For the rest, it seems really fine. I find the puppet system a bit too strong in the vanilla game, and I think it would deserves to be nerfed a bit in general (maybe the happiness system of CPP is going to change that fact), but I find those policies pretty funny.

The puppetsystem in vanilla was overpowered, the puppetsystem in BnW however was extremely weak, there were almost never a reason to keep anything puppeted because it just drained your resources.

 

[Stalker0]

I like the science bonus, if only because it makes more sense thematically, and helps the warmonger focus on war as a source of tech growth (otherwise warmongers tend to fall behind in tech). We can make it scale well.

Considering that 2/3 of the ancient branches are peaceful

Is we go science, we may need some gold resource somewhere, that is a default need openers have to fill.

Thing about peaceful trees...they aren't really peaceful. I can use them that way, or I can crank out an army and destroy you.

This is the problem with default honor, because of yield advantages in tradition and liberty, I would argue they are better war trees than honor!

So that is why we tried to mix in some passive benefits into honor to stabilize that. I think we are getting close but it might need a bit more

 

[mystikx21]

Thoughts on these
1) I think it needs gold somewhere (ideally through combat/conquest). The spoils effect was fine there. A science bonus here helps though too (it should be weaker than the gold effect, .5/strength instead of 1/strength, say).
2) Extra gold on puppets was fine. Anything else on puppets was not. If it is too complicated, then happiness is fine for now.
3) GA for capitals is cleaner. Culture for any city conquests is fine.
4) Is the opener culture for killing any units or culture for barbarians?
5) I still would rather keep a naval combat bonus in exploration rather than here. The tree will hardly be useless on archipelagos because the other effects are still good. A general military unit construction bonus still helps on water.
6) Settler bonus is fine, but I could be fine with a general "unit" bonus that applies to settlers and workers as well. Not diplomatic and probably not trade units.

 

[Funak]

5) I still would rather keep a naval combat bonus in exploration rather than here. The tree will hardly be useless on archipelagos because the other effects are still good. A general military unit construction bonus still helps on water.

I don't see the difference between naval warfare and land warfare, early boats are weak enough without us giving them more penalties (Not getting bonuses is technically a penalty). Just let all the current bonuses work on naval units (and honeslty planes aswell I don't see why not) aswell as landunits, and let those rare all-in shiprushes pay off every once in a while? (DROMON RUSH INC!)

Also completely offtopic but add a ranged ship for ancient era aswell, no need to handicap naval assaults (if you're not byzantium) just because the gamedevs didn't want to bother thinking up a new name when they did the melee/range ship split.

 

[mystikx21]

Early ships will be stronger using CEP's unit strengths already. (Trireme at 13 instead of 10 for example). There's already a benefit making them cheaper to build and to get a bonus for production after building them. A combat bonus is not needed there.

Ranged early ship was very unpopular as an addition based on the units thread a month ago. I removed it when updating CEP files for use later. Cruiser was added in between frigate and battleship, but nothing early.

Basically my issue with it is that exploration should have a naval/coastal dominance theme to it, along with other military/expansion effects.

 

[Funak]

Ranged early ship was very unpopular as an addition based on the units thread a month ago. I removed it when updating CEP files for use later. Cruiser was added in between frigate and battleship, but nothing early.

Basically my issue with it is that exploration should have a naval/coastal dominance theme to it, along with other military/expansion effects.

And my issue with your point is that exploration is going to be a renaissance era policytree. and I can't find any good reason why the 10% combatstrength when next to another unit and the 20 heal on kill couldn't be put on ships aswell.

Also the biremes were awesome, from what I remember people mostly had problems with the completely overpowered and unkillable barbarian pirates spawning way too early, killing everything. If the bireme is considered too strong just bring the numbers down a bit no need to remove it.

Btw if you consider the triremes new combatstrength as a reason why a combatbonus from the warfare tree can't affect it then maybe you should reduce the basenumbers instead?

 

[mitsho]

There are enough good effects to give Exploration a naval focus nonetheless. The bonus strenght and heal on ships as well are not a problem.

Why was the ranged ship unpopular? I can agree that one early ship is enough, but it should be a ranged one. Make the first a mixed one with a weak-against-navy ranged attack so that the ranged one should be used for land only.

And of course, ships should clear empty barbarian camps if they are adjacent to them.

Okay okay, I'll take this to the units thread

 

[mystikx21]

Bireme isn't being "removed", it would have to be added. I don't think there was enough support that it was filling a necessary gap and had to be added. That's a position I'd tend to agree with. It wasn't just about the pirate ships being annoying.

I don't consider the higher strength as a reason it "can't affect" it, I consider it a reason it doesn't need the help. Your complaint was naval units are too weak, and I was addressing that problem. They won't be. CEP had a heavy naval footprint from stronger naval units. It's possible we can come up with other naval power effects for exploration, so it's not necessary to belabor the point and prevent it. I just don't see the same pressing need that it has to be for non-land units. If it's just the adjacent bonus, and a general strength bonus is still available, that's one option. For example.

 

[Funak]

Why was the ranged ship unpopular? I can agree that one early ship is enough, but it should be a ranged one. Make the first a mixed one with a weak-against-navy ranged attack so that the ranged one should be used for land only.

I personally think you need both, and since the bireme already exists it shouldn't be much work involved. Since meleeships are generally useless for taking cities the only point of having a trireme (Other than exploring ofc) would be to have it counter rangedships(which are good at attacking cities but got crappy combatstrength so they get smashed by triremes)

But then again that was just how I imagined it.

 

[Funak]

I don't consider the higher strength as a reason it "can't affect" it, I consider it a reason it doesn't need the help. Your complaint was naval units are too weak, and I was addressing that problem. They won't be. CEP had a heavy naval footprint from stronger naval units. It's possible we can come up with other naval power effects for exploration, so it's not necessary to belabor the point and prevent it. I just don't see the same pressing need that it has to be for non-land units.

And I just don't see the difference between land and water, warfare is warfare. and exploration is going to change anyways.

 

[mystikx21]

City strength would also be coming down a bit (without garrisons or walls) such that triremes could take cities, and at that point their use could be both for assault or for defending against assault.