Should amenity policies be buffed?

[megabearsfan]

Since last year's patch that re-worked the thresholds for amenity bonuses, I've been finding that amenity has become more and more of a non-factor in my games. In recent games that I've been playing with Babylon, Byzantium, and now Vietnam, I've been noticing that a lot of my cities are holding at -1 amenity, so I look around for ways to improve amenity (specifically things like social policies), and I find that it's usually not worthwhile. Since being at -1 amenity is no longer penalized, and a city has to get all the way up to +3 before it sees any positive effect, slotting in a policy or 2 and only getting 1 or 2 additional amenity just seems wasteful and pointless.

I find myself looking at policies like Liberalism (+1 amenity in cities with 2 specialty districts), Retainers (+1 amenity from garrisoned unit), and Civil Prestige (+1 amenity, +2 housing in cities with governor with at least 2 promotions), and thinking that these just aren't worth taking up a whole policy slot anymore. I'm even playing a game with Vietnam right now in which I've built/captured, Alhambra, Potala Palace, and Forbidden Palace, so have a bunch of extra policy slots. Yet I'm still thinking that these amenity policies just aren't worth the slot they consume. Even if I do slot all three of those policies, it still wouldn't be enough to bring my cities up from -1 to +3, so it wouldn't make any difference at all. And heck, even then, I only have a handful of governors to throw around, so Civil Prestige is still kind of crap.

Are other feeling that amenity just isn't worth the trouble, and that amenity policies are especially bad since the patch that re-worked the amenity thresholds?

So I'm wondering if maybe these amenity policies should be buffed. Here's my ideas:
Retainers = +1 amenity for garrisoned unit, +1 amenity from each encampment building.
(if that's too strong, I'm willing to settle for the extra amenity being from just the barracks or stable).
Civil Prestige = +1 amenity and +2 housing if city has an Aqueduct, Dam, Canal, or world wonder. +1 additional amenity and +1 additional housing if city has a governor with 2+ promotions.
Liberalism = +1 amenity for every 2 specialty districts in the city.
or, alternatively: +1 amenity for each economic policy slot in the current government.
New Deal = +2 amenity and +2 housing for every 2 specialty districts in the city. Luxuries provide an amenity to 1 additional city.
or alternatively: +1 amenity and +1 housing for each economic or wildcard slot in the current government. Luxuries provide an amenity to 1 additional city.
Sports Media = +100% Theater Square adjacency bonus. +1 Amenity from Stadiums. Arenas have a regional affect on amenity.

*Note that the above suggestions are based on standard game rules, and do not take into account any of the optional rulesets (such as the recent corporations mode). I haven't played any of the optional rulesets yet, so I'm not sure if they shake up the amenity system considerably.

The idea here is to increase the amount of amenities available from these policies so that they have more of an impact and might actually be worth the policy slot that they take up. I also tried to make the amenity scale with city infrastructure and/or size/type of government (with "freer" governments providing more amenity than more oppressive governments). So it isn't just free amenities. You still have to put in the leg work to properly develop your civilization so that it gets the benefits from each policy.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Speaking of which, I just hope devs can revisit Audience Chamber, give it a larger Amenity bonus or Housing bonus, or not having the bonus tied with "established" Governor (as shift Governors between cities would remove the Amenity/Housing for 5 turns).

 

[Timberdoodle]

I agree, I tend to feel that the economy policies are not really worth running. The requirements on needing X districts or a Governor feels too strict for what you get out of them.

I do sometimes run Retainer's for the +1 Amenity from garrisoned units though. I find it can be useful if I've wrapped up an early war and am shifting to culture or science with a fair few cities and some old units sitting around.

Since the December patch that made -1 Amenity = Displeased again (-10% to all non food yields), I'm definitely looking for more amenities in the mid game before Zoos and National Parks come online, but even then I struggle to find a reason to run the amenity policies most of the time.

 

[UWHabs]

I agree, I tend to feel that the economy policies are not really worth running. The requirements on needing X districts or a Governor feels too strict for what you get out of them.

I do sometimes run Retainer's for the +1 Amenity from garrisoned units though. I find it can be useful if I've wrapped up an early war and am shifting to culture or science with a fair few cities and some old units sitting around.

Since the December patch that made -1 Amenity = Displeased again (-10% to all non food yields), I'm definitely looking for more amenities in the mid game before Zoos and National Parks come online, but even then I struggle to find a reason to run the amenity policies most of the time.

With there being a penalty at -1, I do try to stay out of that if I can. I actually don't find the current policies too bad for that. Like, say I have an 8 city empire, roughly half of which would go from -1 to 0 with the policy card. If each city is getting about 30-50 production, and then about 25 total between the other yields (so maybe a campus+library+uni, or can pull in similar yields from a commerce hub or harbor and tile yields), then that policy card would be worth around 24-30 "yields" total. And overall, if I'm in that position, then it's probably worth as much or more than any other similar card. Like, even Triangular Trade would probably be 24 gold+6 faith if you had 6 trade routes, so the amenity card would likely be more valuable since it will give a balance of science/culture/production.

Now, that's if my empire is in that -1/0 balance. If the cards will just convert me from -2 to -1, or from 0 to +1, which don't affect yields, then it's not really worth running. And I do find all the "gain X if you have a governor" are hardly ever worth it, since the number of cities where I have a governor with 2 promotions is at most 1 or 2 at that stage of the game. So I certainly wouldn't mind seeing boosts there, or to the Audience Chamber, so that those options are worth running in some situations, even if not always. Outside of I think one game just to try it out, I don't think I've ever considered the Audience Chamber. If anything, that's a building that needs a significant boost. It should be something like "+1 amenity per promotion of the governor in a city. +1 Housing per district in the city" or something like that. Basically make it like being able to run a Temple of Artemis in every city with a governor, and then I'm going to give it some serious thinking. Even at that, though, the negative loyalty penalty is a pain - my current game had some slow conquests through a large Free Civs area where I had to run a few of the other +loyalty cards and came within about 2 turns of having some of my newly captured cities flip back. Adding in an extra -2 to each would have been a real pain.

 

[megabearsfan]

Oh crap, I hadn't even realized that the December patch restored the penalty for -1 amenity. That does change my approach a little bit for my current game and makes Liberalism a bit more appealing.

I also never run the policies that require promoted governors. It affects so few cities. Colonial Taxes usually seems like a better option, even if I'm not building a colonial empire, simply because I usually end up with a few cities that happen to be on the other side of a continental divide.

And yes, Retainers is probably the only of these policies that I do run fairly regularly. If I have a 2nd military slot, and I'm not at war, my go-to set up is to run Conscription (discounted unit maintenance) and Retainers, since there aren't many other military policies that provide passive benefits outside of war. But even then, if it's only bumping my cities up from 0 to +1, it's still a wasted slot.

 

[Catalytic]

Amenities are intended to function as a growth limiter, similar to happiness in Civ5. It is something which should be actively managed and something which should feel like a roadblock in the game. Rapidly expand, plopping down cities everywhere and you should feel it. Conquer too many cities, you should feel it, and if you've got a couple tall mega-cities, that should restrict you as well. Frankly, I rarely felt the pressure from amenities prior to the most recent rebalancing of the amenities numbers. Now, I will occasionally look for opportunities to trade for new luxuries, or for fantastic Temple of Artemis or Colosseum spots. It's still a soft pressure, so it can be ignored for a while before it becomes crushing, which is a good thing. Because it fills this role, amenities need to be fairly restricted, or the devs would risk letting snowballs get too large. There really is no other penalty for getting big in Civ 6.

That said, policy cards have their own balance. Early on, you have very few card slots to work with, so those choices really matter. Optimal play involves proactively switching those cards to anticipate what you're going to be building next. Growing your military? Slot in the right cards. Going for a wonder? Slot in the right cards. Going to consolidate new cities and develop a bit? Slot in the builder cards. Find yourself behind on science, gold, faith, culture? Slot in the right cards. You should be switching these all the time as your strategic priorities change. So when we think about amenities cards, we have to think about the opportunity cost of the strategic choice. Why? Because amenities cards aren't going to be switched much. If you're in a place where you're up against the amenities limit and you actually need the card, any growth beyond that that you get will be dependent on the card. You're going to have to keep it there permanently or go right back into slowed growth or rebellion. Building the infrastructure to get out of it by other means will take you probably an era. The opportunity cost to using these is that you lose the flexibility to switch all of those other cards you might otherwise be using. When I play, I specifically avoid using the amenities cards except in very specific circumstances because of the dependency they can create.

That said, if this is indeed the trade-off, I don't have a problem with a buff to the cards themselves as the OP suggested. Having the ability to use a "bail-out" card to prevent revolt is a good thing and allows you to be aggressive in a war, which is a good thing, but it comes with that "dependency" opportunity cost. You can choose how dependent you want to be. If you want to give up some of your card slots permanently to not have to build Entertainment Complexes or you've managed to anger your enemies so much they won't trade you luxuries, you may indeed want or need to do that.

I do think your Retainers change needs to require the barracks/stable, since it's the warmonger's option.

 

[megabearsfan]

Amenities are intended to function as a growth limiter, similar to happiness in Civ5. It is something which should be actively managed and something which should feel like a roadblock in the game. Rapidly expand, plopping down cities everywhere and you should feel it. Conquer too many cities, you should feel it, and if you've got a couple tall mega-cities, that should restrict you as well. Frankly, I rarely felt the pressure from amenities prior to the most recent rebalancing of the amenities numbers. Now, I will occasionally look for opportunities to trade for new luxuries, or for fantastic Temple of Artemis or Colosseum spots. It's still a soft pressure, so it can be ignored for a while before it becomes crushing, which is a good thing. Because it fills this role, amenities need to be fairly restricted, or the devs would risk letting snowballs get too large. There really is no other penalty for getting big in Civ 6.

Yeah, that's all true. To be clear, my big complaint isn't so much that amenities are too hard to get, but rather that the specific policy cards feel weak and not worth the opportunity cost of not being able to use other cards. As you said, they pretty much are just a stop-gap for preventing revolt, and so if I'm never in that dire of a situation, they're never worth using. But maybe that's the intent? Like I said, even with Alhambra, Potala Palace, and Forbidden Palace, I'm just not seeing any value in policies like Liberalism or Civil Prestige. I'd like to have more amenity, but not so much that I'm going to devote a whole policy slot to it, let alone 2 or 3 policy slots (which is what I would need to go up from content to happy in most cities). The dependency issue is also a huge deterrent, as you pointed out. There's no real way to reduce population to relieve the problem of overgrowth. I guess I could train a bunch of settlers and then just not settle cities.

So I guess another approach to buffing those cards would be for each respective card to provide some other small, non-amenity bonus so they might be worth running, even if the amenity boost is marginal. That way, snowballs can't just wave away the only growth restriction that is present in the game, but the policies would still be worth considering, even if they're only going to move a few cities up over a threshold. I also really do think that having any positive amenity should be rewarded, even if that reward is tiny. That would also make me more actively pursue amenity throughout the game.

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, that's all true. To be clear, my big complaint isn't so much that amenities are too hard to get, but rather that the specific policy cards feel weak and not worth the opportunity cost of not being able to use other cards. As you said, they pretty much are just a stop-gap for preventing revolt, and so if I'm never in that dire of a situation, they're never worth using. But maybe that's the intent? Like I said, even with Alhambra, Potala Palace, and Forbidden Palace, I'm just not seeing any value in policies like Liberalism or Civil Prestige. I'd like to have more amenity, but not so much that I'm going to devote a whole policy slot to it, let alone 2 or 3 policy slots (which is what I would need to go up from content to happy in most cities). The dependency issue is also a huge deterrent, as you pointed out. There's no real way to reduce population to relieve the problem of overgrowth. I guess I could train a bunch of settlers and then just not settle cities.

So I guess another approach to buffing those cards would be for each respective card to provide some other small, non-amenity bonus so they might be worth running, even if the amenity boost is marginal. That way, snowballs can't just wave away the only growth restriction that is present in the game, but the policies would still be worth considering, even if they're only going to move a few cities up over a threshold. I also really do think that having any positive amenity should be rewarded, even if that reward is tiny. That would also make me more actively pursue amenity throughout the game.

The thing is, since amenities jump at certain values, if you are on the line between tiers (-1 to 0, or +2 to +3), then those cards can be massively valuable. But yeah, if your cities are generally content but not really close to happy, then they have no value and running other things instead obviously makes more sense. So in that regards, I think they are more or less balanced - IMO any policy card that you would always run is a bad policy card, every card should have situations and decisions around it. That's why I often feel that both the Classical Legacy card and New Deal are TOO good - getting both amenities and housing means that it's virtually always useful to you, so I simply can't imagine opting for Democracy and not running New Deal as one of the cards.

 

[Stringer1313]

That's funny I thought you would have suggested the opposite. The amenities are a total afterthought to me esp with ski resort spam. I think they should strengthen the amenities policy cards AND substantially increase the negative amenties numbers and penalties.

 

[Timberdoodle]

The thing is, since amenities jump at certain values, if you are on the line between tiers (-1 to 0, or +2 to +3), then those cards can be massively valuable. But yeah, if your cities are generally content but not really close to happy, then they have no value and running other things instead obviously makes more sense.

That's a good point. Generally I think the cards are designed best when they are situational. If the effects are so good that you just run them all the time, then there is no really skill or strategy involved. It does sound like they fill that role currently. (Although personally I never use them, but maybe I've just been undervaluing them a bit).

I do like the idea of the restrictions on the cards, as they make them more situational and could create interesting playstyles. For example, bonuses to cities with Governors that could lead to a playstyle where you get as many governors as possible early on so that you can make best use of those cards. So you really build your game around having multiple sources (Cards/Wonders/City States etc) that provide X bonuses to cities with a governor. It's just that in the current game it's going to take a lot for me not to sink the first 3 or 4 governor promotions into Pingala, so that could use some tweaking.

Something I would like to see is a card that buffs amenities from entertainment complexes too. They feel pretty weak before zoo's arrive in the Industrial Era, so that could be a way to lift them up in the Medieval and Renaissance eras.