Policy Discussion: Tradition

[Ahriman]

I'm not sure what criticisms are involved here. Oligarchy seems like the only real weak link here (I find it fine but I play wider usually than most I'm sure) and even that will be okay when the AI is aggressive early on again. "Legalism" could be improved by moving the culture borders effect there from the opener. Aristrocracy just needs a light bump in production on wonders and rid of the gimmicky happiness benefit. Landed Elite could get one of the growth effects from the finisher and then we could move on to other trees.

Maybe give the opener the +1 on later culture buildings effect (something that wouldn't add much early but would be useful down the road). Instant yields might be interesting as well, possibly on monarchy.

This basically sounds fine, but the one outstanding complaint I'd have is about legalism. It's really annoying that legalism is a pre-req for other policies. Free buildings should be something you can time somewhat so as to be able to get more expensive buildings; as it is, you're always just going to end up getting some free monuments, which is pretty boring and lame. Faster early game culture isn't really something you need, it doesn't have any particular Tall synergy. I'd prefer to drop this effect and add something else.

So how about:
Opener: +3 culture in capital, enables hanging gardens, +1 culture on ampitheater, opera house, museum.
Aristocracy: +15% wonder production, +1 culture per world wonder.
Landed elite: +2 food in the capital, free aqueduct in first 4 cities (when tech is available)
Monarchy: +1 gold and -1 unhappy for every 2 citizens in the capital.
Legalism: Faster border expansion and ???
Oligarchy: free maintenance for garrisoned units and and +50% ranged strength in cities with garrisons.
Finisher: +15% surplus food in all cities. Great engineers purchased with Faith in industrial era.

 

[mitsho]

In earlier versions, I often was running out of policies to take when going tradition. Medieval Era was not reached yet and I wasn't interested in either Liberty, Honor or Piety. Now that filling trees isn't required anymore, this isn't as big a problem, but do we really need a culture bonus with Tall strategies? They are already better as culture cost goes up per city. Science is where they should excel probably.

With Ahriman's proposal above, isn't 1 extra too much on those culture buildings? Can et to quite a lot and as it's on the opener it is very easy to cherrypick... You also don't have any happiness bonus in there, wanted?

 

[Ahriman]

In earlier versions, I often was running out of policies to take when going tradition. Medieval Era was not reached yet and I wasn't interested in either Liberty, Honor or Piety. Now that filling trees isn't required anymore, this isn't as big a problem, but do we really need a culture bonus with Tall strategies? They are already better as culture cost goes up per city. Science is where they should excel probably.

With Ahriman's proposal above, isn't 1 extra too much on those culture buildings? Can et to quite a lot and as it's on the opener it is very easy to cherrypick... You also don't have any happiness bonus in there, wanted?

1 culture to all 3 buildings might be too much. Maybe just to a couple of them? I'm not sure how many opera houses and museums an empire will really have, so it's not that much of a bonus. But it would feel very weird to have a Tradition opener bonus that didn't come into play for 3 eras. Maybe culture on world wonders in the opener, since non-Tall empires probably won't have many wonders?

Some culture in Tradition works, I think. But I agree that we don't want it too fast, I think it is a problem if we're getting 8+ policies before medieval era.

I'm not sure that Tradition needs science bonuses. Tell empires already do very well in science because they get huge advantages from the science buildings (all your population is concentrated in only a few cities), because they have good access to the National College and it's powerful 50% multiplier (which works very nicely with academies and a supercity with library and public school), and because of the per-city science penalty.

They get some happiness bonus through Monarchy, I'm not sure they need more than that. Tall empires don't usually struggle with happiness.

I guess the main things they struggle with are having a small military and a lack of gold, but the lack of gold has been significantly reduced because of the huge nerfs to domestic trade routes (gold now mostly comes from trade routes, which are on a per-empire basis, and which favor Tall cities), and I don't think we really want to be giving them military bonuses.

 

[mitsho]

Yeah, I wasn't proposing science bonuses for them. Agree that they are strong enough with that as it is (due to f.e. the science penalty to wide empires). Also agree that we don't need military bonus (other than oligarchy) in the tree.

We could do the instant gold here, I sometimes used that for a settler anyways...

 

[Ahriman]

I quite like the idea of instant-bonus-on-population-growth rather than just a one-time lump-sum. The former is a more active bonus that rewards a particular playstyle. Could it give instant production on pop growth in capital? Production is the main thing that Tall tends to be a bit short on.

My main concern is that this is a bit gamey, and a bit hard to logically relate to any actual real world mechanism or policy/governmental style.

Alternatively, +X% production in first/largest 4 cities?

 

[Stalker0]

Could we just reduce the border popping effect on the opener instead of moving it around?

 

[mystikx21]

Right now, I have no reason not to pick this first, always, because 3 culture right off is rather strong already (early game only). Even if it were cut in half, it would still be potent as a later game effect mixed in.

I'd rather it remain potent as an effect and move it later to help out the middle of the tree, where tradition is a little weaker. (I would prefer it go on a policy and not the finisher though).

 

[EricB]

Agree that the tradition opener is already pretty powerful. It's usually my first policy selected.

I play tall civs a lot and gold is not a problem in tall civs. They have fewer units and buildings but just as many trade routes. The gold advantage should go to wide civs if any.

Just thinking out loud here, but how about swapping legalism with the opener? Then, the opener would provide free culture buildings in your first 4 cities and legalism would provide +3 culture in the capital?

Tradition should be a policy for the ancient era. You shouldn't be able to game it to get free theatres in every city in the late classical era. If the free buildings came on the opener, then it would almost guarantee free monuments.

I also think the policy for garrisons needs work but no ideas for that one.

 

[mitsho]

If it's possible what about a policy that enlarges your borders faster AND let's you work Ring-4 tiles as well? That's flavourful and useful for tall civs (I can see Venice being very interested in that f.e.). I'm not sure it's even possible...

@EricB if the opener provides a free monument, I can't start my game with building a monument. (I always start with a scout, but imho the point stands, the opener shouldn't decide your play moves, same reason why the cheaper shrine costs for piety aren't great). I'm fine with the 'theatre' gamble, it's less useful now that they are less strong after all.

The Garrison policy is probably fine, it does save you some gold and let's your units gain experience after all. It's also heavily dependend on how strong AI rushes & barb units are.

 

[Ahriman]

If the free buildings came on the opener, then it would almost guarantee free monuments.

But why would we want to guarantee free monuments? Monuments are really cheap already. Free monuments is a very weak policy.
If we really wanted to guarantee monuments then we could just give free monuments. But I don't think that is desirable.

I also think the policy for garrisons needs work but no ideas for that one.

Wasn't there passive experience gain in GEM?

 

[EricB]

Yeah maybe not such a good idea switching legalism with the opener. Just thinking out loud.

I just wish there was a way that tradition wasn't so much more attractive than other trees early on. The luxury resource placement of the communitas map tends to cluster together resources. I usually find that there aren't that many good city locations close by where I would want to expand to, so I rarely go the Liberty route as a result.

How about swapping legalism with landed elite (or whichever one gives the food bonus)? So that landed elite is a prerequisite for monarchy and legalism? Then, legalism would be a later policy that you could use for theatres or could use for monuments if you choose to do that earlier.

I also think that experience should be added for units for the garrison policy like it did in GEM. It's too weak with that.

Other than that, tradition seems fine. Liberty needs some work by adding happiness to it. Piety needs a lot of work.

 

[mitsho]

Revolutionary Idea coming: Scratch the Culture-on-Opener idea. The one on tradition just gives you more policies faster while the one on liberty doesn't do anything until you found your second city...

For Tradition, opening with a food bonus seems logical, the extra culture can be a policy you chose deliberately.

 

[Ahriman]

I just wish there was a way that tradition wasn't so much more attractive than other trees early on.

I think the main reasons for this are weakness in some Liberty and Piety policies, and the very early faster spread speed.

I think +3 culture on the capital should stay on the opener, it's nice to have the opener be helping you to get more policies.

 

[EricB]

I think the main reasons for this are weakness in some Liberty and Piety policies, and the very early faster spread speed.

I think +3 culture on the capital should stay on the opener, it's nice to have the opener be helping you to get more policies.

Agree with this.

The problem isn't so much with tradition. It's with the other trees. It's hard to get much use out of liberty really early because of the happiness limiters in the game. You can't really build 5 or 6 cities quickly because there aren't enough unique luxuries around to sustain this.

Maybe a policy in the Liberty tree that made duplicate luxuries more useful would help?

What about +1 happiness per duplicate luxury in addition to +1 production for every city and +5% production for buildings? That policy is already so weak, and it's a prerequisite for the Settler policy, and you need happiness first before building any new cities.

Piety needs even more work that Liberty. I haven't used Honor much other than the opener.

 

[Seek]

Agree with this.

The problem isn't so much with tradition. It's with the other trees. It's hard to get much use out of liberty really early because of the happiness limiters in the game. You can't really build 5 or 6 cities quickly because there aren't enough unique luxuries around to sustain this.

Maybe a policy in the Liberty tree that made duplicate luxuries more useful would help?

What about +1 happiness per duplicate luxury in addition to +1 production for every city and +5% production for buildings? That policy is already so weak, and it's a prerequisite for the Settler policy, and you need happiness first before building any new cities.

Piety needs even more work that Liberty. I haven't used Honor much other than the opener.

How about faster build times for happiness buildings? GEM had +happiness for excess luxuries in Commerce and it was very very strong, I'd worry it would be OP as a tier-1 policy in Liberty.

 

[mitsho]

The first happiness building comes in the Classical Era with Colosseums (excluding the Circus), so that's not really a buff. What's wrong with the flat 5 happiness we already had?

 

[EricB]

Maybe we could change what the Pyramids do too since Liberty unlocks the Pyramids. Maybe they could provide happiness instead of what it does now. Happiness is the number 1 need for a civ going Liberty.

 

[Ahriman]

Maybe a policy in the Liberty tree that made duplicate luxuries more useful would help?

Too powerful for such an early era policy. That can generate really large amounts of happiness.

What's wrong with the flat 5 happiness we already had?

I'd be glad to put that back in Liberty. I think it's better than Colosseum boosts.

 

[mitsho]

Maybe we could change what the Pyramids do too since Liberty unlocks the Pyramids. Maybe they could provide happiness instead of what it does now. Happiness is the number 1 need for a civ going Liberty.

Again, does Liberty need a special wonder? (arguably, but Tradition doesn't need one reserved for them for sure). Pyramids feel wrong flavour-wise so I'd move them out and if there'd be one in Liberty, I'd propose a "untypical" effect, like the current Parthenon rather than extra workers or extra settlers which I think is a good effect to be open to every empire.

 

[Ahriman]

Again, does Liberty need a special wonder?

I like the Wonder ties to policies, and I think Thal has said he likes them too.

As long as we're going to have them, there's no reason to have them not apply to Liberty and Tradition.

So yes, there needs to be one. The Parthenon effect is too specific (it's for tourism, that's it) but a happiness boost or something that slightly reduced the per-city science penalty would work fine.
I guess one option would be to have Liberty give the Parthenon (which has good flavor) but totally rewrite the effect. The free great work effect is a bit lame, there isn't really any need for it.


The flat happiness in Liberty should probably replace the golden age on Representation. There's no particular need for an early golden age, it doesn't have great flavor or gameplay theme.

The Hanging Gardens I think works fine for Tradition as is.