Rationalism vs. industry?

[infidel88]

So how do you want to justify this thing about plenty of forts making money in tundra? IRL Canada or Russia would become superrich countries that way. Tundra are useless piece of land being frozen for most of the time, unless having extra resources, they are not supposed to give you anything.
Spamming forts that protect civ against seals and polar bears is supposed to provide money? Come on...

 

[Strigvir]

So how do you want to justify this thing about plenty of forts making money in tundra? IRL Canada or Russia would become superrich countries that way. Tundra are useless piece of land being frozen for most of the time, unless having extra resources, they are not supposed to give you anything.
Spamming forts that protect civ against seals and polar bears is supposed to provide money? Come on...

4g on forts won't make you super rich.

 

[infidel88]

4g on forts won't make you super rich.

How is placing a fort in a middle of nowhere is supposed to make money? It makes sense for forts near enemy borders to provide money (or rather culture/science +xp). I just don't understand this irrational force pushing towards every city being good and workable. IRL no city in tundra is anything but 1-2 population with basic structures if we make it for civ purposes. Only Iceland would be a little bit better. And just a bit. It's already a bit silly that you can create a city on 1-tile island and make it grow towards 12+ pop in no time. I would rather see tundra special tiles worth more than making things like forts in tundra worth +4g to make it workable.

 

[tu_79]

How is placing a fort in a middle of nowhere is supposed to make money? It makes sense for forts near enemy borders to provide money (or rather culture/science +xp). I just don't understand this irrational force pushing towards every city being good and workable. IRL no city in tundra is anything but 1-2 population with basic structures if we make it for civ purposes. Only Iceland would be a little bit better. And just a bit. It's already a bit silly that you can create a city on 1-tile island and make it grow towards 12+ pop in no time. I would rather see tundra special tiles worth more than making things like forts in tundra worth +4g to make it workable.

Real Life support: See Gibraltar's Rock. This little Queen of England's land in southern Spain has nothing but a military base (and monkeys, its main touristic asset). And now, it's a finantial center, thanks to its special tribute system, put in place in order to convince british people to colonise there and support the military base. I assume it's the same for other military bases.
The reason for giving some love to forts is for Imperialism to sinergize better with defensive structures. Only 'imperialistic' civs will benefit for settling in tundra/desert and fill it with forts.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I revive the thread because I think Rationalism/Industry/Imperialism balance is not good in its current state. As it is, Rationalism is imho way too good if you've got any sort of monopoly %yield resources and even without them, it's still at least as good as Industry if not better due to its effects being great always. Scientific Revolution in particular is way too good. If you've got two yield percentage monopolies, then it seems to always be the best choice no matter what as it not only has tons of base +%Science everywhere, it'll also get +15% of X and Y too. The other policies seem more reasonable but this one is nuts, especially considering nothing in the tree is particularly weak and it unlocks the best late GP. Resources like Copper/Whales/etc break this policy hard. In comparison, Imperialism seems to have gotten hit a bit too hard. The changes it got, which I initially thought were strengthening, were a bit harsh. -1 embark move, -1 GG move, loss of that convenient but underappreciated +25% production for occupied to get faster Courthouses/important UBs hurt, though that new +1 happiness per constabulary (added iirc later) and earlier ironsides do probably compensate for that.

Anyway, I think Scientific Revolution should get nerfed to provide less yield percentage and Imperialism should at least get its +25% occupied production back. Maybe +1 embark movement too, but it could get something else (or nothing) instead.

 

[ElliotS]

I think change it to +10% to resource monopolies, (from 15%) Imperialism should get it's occupied production back, and maybe something to industrialism.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Agreed, rationalism seems a clear first in the vast majority of my games, but maybe that's just my playstyle. The suggestions from the previous two threads seem like a good place to start discussing changing the balance of the three industrial era policy trees.

 

[Gazebo]

I've been thinking about this, and I'm going to do some rearranging such that the monopoly modifier bonus ends up in imperialism. It is more fitting in the end, and rewards wide conquest play.

 

[Funak]

Honestly I just really dislike the flat 15% increase from that policy. It's CRAZY powerful for copper monopoly while close to worthless for a GAD monopoly. That just doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe just have it double monopoly-bonuses? That's not exactly balance, but it's definitely better than the current 150% increase for copper.

As far as rationalism vs Industry goes I really don't think Rationalism is as much of a clear winner as you make it out to be. Industry is extremely powerful, it has one of the absolute strongest happiness policy, a whole lot of extra production and a fairly massive bonus to building investment. Yeah if you have copper monopoly and another good monopoly Rationalism is probably better, if you don't have that good of a monopoly, Industry is probably safer.


As far as imperialism goes, yeah. It is missing something for sure. Maybe the last policy could give free factories in all cities instead of just cities you conquered after picking it? That would at the very least save you a whole bunch of coal.

 

[CrazyG]

I think just doubling monopoly bonuses might work. Its less wordy, chills out stuff like copper or dyes and buffs the currently weak stuff like happiness. One thing I like about rationalism having the monopoly is it gives a reason for a big empire to consider it, when they otherwise likely would not.

If Imperialism is changed I would prefer something happen to military tradition, the policy often does nothing to very little

 

[ElliotS]

I've been thinking about this, and I'm going to do some rearranging such that the monopoly modifier bonus ends up in imperialism. It is more fitting in the end, and rewards wide conquest play.

I like this idea, and the change to double the monopoly bonuses would make sense.

One thing I like about rationalism having the monopoly is it gives a reason for a big empire to consider it, when they otherwise likely would not.

Then just make the new bonus good for big empires too. Maybe a % of your GPT as science or science on citizen births?

 

[tu_79]

I think one reason usually given to have imperialism worse than the others is that aggressive playstyle is more rewarding in the end. But that's only partially true. Rationalism is the only tree that slightly punishes being at war (with little to be happy and losing the science bonus while unhappy).

Imperialism assumes that the player already got a respectable size, but suppose that I was playing small and now I decide to start conquering. Something that civs with late unique units may do. Does imperialism help enough to be able to expand?

The bonus on farms is good, but it's better for an already big empire. The cheaper upgrading may save some gold in purchasing units, but it's main purpose is to keep as many high level units as possible. What if we don't have high level units due to having been playing small?

When I take Rationalism, it doesn't matter how I played before. It will help me with techs monopolies and villages, so it will be useful if I promise to stay happy. Industrialism is a bit the same, no matter the way I was playing before, I will get more for my money. Being small implies that a big chunk of the money will come from trade routes to major civs, so I can't play jerk, and being big gives more freedom.

I'm not going to suggest any change because I haven't thought it well enough, but I can say the only time I took imperialism was a Polynesia game where I was taking many islands, and I regretted later, since tiny islands don't synergize well with moais. This talks about the appealing I find in Imperialism.

 

[ElliotS]

I think one reason usually given to have imperialism worse than the others is that aggressive playstyle is more rewarding in the end.

This thought process is completely silly, and keeps popping up.

The fact is that making imperialism suck doesn't impact the offensive playstyle so much as it impacts your choices. I've gone rationalism the last 2 domination VCs simply because Imperialism sucks and being the science leader is nice. (In addition the the monopoly bonus.)

Making Imperialism bad doesn't stop domination, it just makes you pick rationalism/industry.

Not saying that it doesn't affect it at all, but that the results aren't what you think they are.

 

[tu_79]

This thought process is completely silly, and keeps popping up.

The fact is that making imperialism suck doesn't impact the offensive playstyle so much as it impacts your choices. I've gone rationalism the last 2 domination VCs simply because Imperialism sucks and being the science leader is nice. (In addition the the monopoly bonus.)

Making Imperialism bad doesn't stop domination, it just makes you pick rationalism/industry.

Not saying that it doesn't affect it at all, but that the results aren't what you think they are.

I have the impression that you think that I agree with the need for making imperialism worse, which I don't. Please, reread my comment.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Imperialism seems good now. It's right side is far stronger than the left, but similar stuff can be observed with almost all trees with choices anyway. Rationalism got too heavy a buff while it needed the opposite I'd say. Industry seems a bit more situational now and I'd at least improve it's +2C +2S per custom house/stock/bank policy which really is underwhelming. Maybe by adding something like +2G, maybe by including Stone Works/Stables for the yields which'd make sense as Industry improves Pastures and Quarries.

Now the biggest policy balance problems imho are Statecraft being underwhelming and ideologies containing lots of awful policies, the second I already wrote about in relevant threads some time ago. I mean some of those tenets are ancient era-tier. Autarky seems like it'd fit right in with Progress if the internal trade route gold was slightly reduced, same with that weird total war policy which is a slightly modified mix of parts of two progress policies, except it comes way too late for the percentages to have an impact. All three have such strange examples but those I can list off the top of my head. It's definitely hurtful to the AI as I can just avoid such "great" policies and open any of the two late trees I didn't finish yet, but I doubt it's hard-coded to know that opening any of the renaissance trees is highly favourable to wasting SoPols on some tenets.

 

[Strigvir]

SoPols

Nice newspeak you have there, comrade.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Nice waifu you have there, comrade.

 

[Gazebo]

Imperialism seems good now. It's right side is far stronger than the left, but similar stuff can be observed with almost all trees with choices anyway. Rationalism got too heavy a buff while it needed the opposite I'd say. Industry seems a bit more situational now and I'd at least improve it's +2C +2S per custom house/stock/bank policy which really is underwhelming. Maybe by adding something like +2G, maybe by including Stone Works/Stables for the yields which'd make sense as Industry improves Pastures and Quarries.

Now the biggest policy balance problems imho are Statecraft being underwhelming and ideologies containing lots of awful policies, the second I already wrote about in relevant threads some time ago. I mean some of those tenets are ancient era-tier. Autarky seems like it'd fit right in with Progress if the internal trade route gold was slightly reduced, same with that weird total war policy which is a slightly modified mix of parts of two progress policies, except it comes way too late for the percentages to have an impact. All three have such strange examples but those I can list off the top of my head. It's definitely hurtful to the AI as I can just avoid such "great" policies and open any of the two late trees I didn't finish yet, but I doubt it's hard-coded to know that opening any of the renaissance trees is highly favourable to wasting SoPols on some tenets.

Rationalism's % tech cost modifier is getting a nerf to 3% and I'm dropping the extra specialist on the observatory.

G

 

[CrazyG]

Imperialism seems good now. It's right side is far stronger than the left, but similar stuff can be observed with almost all trees with choices anyway. Rationalism got too heavy a buff while it needed the opposite I'd say. Industry seems a bit more situational now and I'd at least improve it's +2C +2S per custom house/stock/bank policy which really is underwhelming. Maybe by adding something like +2G, maybe by including Stone Works/Stables for the yields which'd make sense as Industry improves Pastures and Quarries.

This is a logical suggestion, but I was thinking it might be better to remove a yield or two from other trees rather than buff more. Currently the game gets really easy if you manage to take a social policy lead so I would rather see a general decrease in power among these three trees

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Yup, I too think industrial era policies in general are too strong (especially compared to the medieval era policies).