Social Policies Balance mod 1.0 is up

[Ninakoru]

Hi guys,

I'm not very sure of where I should put this, so I announce it here. Finally got my mod ready. Its pretty simple and get most of the policies unchanged.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=21154

The idea is to balance the policies a little, specially honor. For the three starting policies, honor is the worst option hands down.

There are certain conditions that make tradition better (mostly standard size non-island maps and turtle victories), while liberty works better to hold an ever expanding empire.

Honor should be the best option to extreme warmongers, but at current game state, there's little to gain going honor and strong military and much to lose. In best case scenario honor performs just as well as the other options, while in all the other scenarios, honor is plain horrible. Honor is damaged to the point that people start looking at it as a second branch instead of a starting one.

Analysing the three starting policies, while honor gives some great long-term benefits like the army upgrade discount and the great empire happiness boost, the way it is originaly configured inside the G&K environment, it damages the empire setup, production and growth department so much that your initial setup will be so behind, you would not be able to support the aggressive way Honor demands properly.

Honor should be more rewarding if you go with a big army and you use it properly, so most of my changes only benefit the warmonger's way. If you stay passive and try to build your empire peacefully, even if you do a large army but you don't use it, still tradition and liberty will perform much better.

Is hard to measure a concept like army power, that don't incide directly in the empire building, but means less problems with neighbors, bulling and demands others, conquered cities and such. I've done my best to balance it out.

For those who think this patch is worth a try, have fun!

 

[Polisurgist]

I know this isn't really a commonly-held position here, but I've never really seen Honor as being that great for conqueror civilizations, not do I think it's meant to be. I think it's the right policy for having a great defensive military position. You're encourages to have defensive city structures, garrisoned units, and to let enemies attack with waves of units while you kill them for culture (early, barbarians) or gold, (later, city units). I think looking at it as an aggressive tree is part of the reason it's seen as being weak.

That said, I'm interested in what a more aggressive early tree looks like.

 

[Ninakoru]

Well, most of my changes would also benefit honor in on a more defensive honor approach. After all, unit maintenance, boost on training facilities, unit production boost are all unaware of what you would do with those units.

About Military caste, gaining troop mobility also help the defensive approach, as you won't need junk units on not risk cities and upgrade and put them on the hot zones.

The thing is the game will punish you if you do units and dont use them effectively. Just because if you do a decent army and don't go on conquest, you better off doing the bare minimum for self defense and do infrastructure instead.

 

[Polisurgist]

What about something that makes forts actually worthwhile?

 

[Seabastian Civ]

That said, I'm interested in what a more aggressive early tree looks like.

How about:

Military Caste: Each City with a garrison increases empire by 1 and by 1. Receive 3 maintenance-free CBs upon researching Construction.


That'd be a damn powerful policy, and would be well-worth going Honor for.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

BTW big props to the OP for attempting to fix Honor. It's awesome to see someone put talk into action since we all know how lame Honor is.

What about something that makes forts actually worthwhile?

This would be wonderful. Maybe allow forts to claim a hex when built on the empire borders, but if razed or replaced with an improvement, possession of the hex is lost. After all, what is a military fort for if not to take and hold possession of territory?

 

[Polisurgist]

This would be wonderful. Maybe allow forts to claim a hex when built on the empire borders, but if razed or replaced with an improvement, possession of the hex is lost. After all, what is a military fort for if not to take and hold possession of territory?

Possibly...I was thinking something more like having forts generate +1 culture and +1 gold once you discover...Currency? Economics? Basically, encourage a player to build forts internally to help defend against invasion by making those tiles slightly more than worthless to work. You'd still get whatever the tile yielded before, plus a little extra (though not food or production; you'd have to decide between forts/farms/mines for that).

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Possibly...I was thinking something more like having forts generate +1 culture and +1 gold once you discover...Currency? Economics? Basically, encourage a player to build forts internally to help defend against invasion by making those tiles slightly more than worthless to work. You'd still get whatever the tile yielded before, plus a little extra (though not food or production; you'd have to decide between forts/farms/mines for that).

But forts aren't a good investment. They cost exorbitant amounts of money to build and maintain. To reflect this in Civ, the fort improvement should cost upkeep, really. But yes, they do need a buff to be worthwhile. Also considering the best unit to station there, artillery, doesn't get any bonus, PLUS, you can't station planes or ships there (or use them as canals).

 

[Polisurgist]

But forts aren't a good investment. They cost exorbitant amounts of money to build and maintain. To reflect this in Civ, the fort improvement should cost upkeep, really. But yes, they do need a buff to be worthwhile. Also considering the best unit to station there, artillery, doesn't get any bonus, PLUS, you can't station planes or ships there (or use them as canals).

I wasn't saying that this should be the rule for forts in general, I'm saying that Honor giving a bonus to forts would be in line with what the tree seems to actually be supporting, which is a strong defensive military.

 

[Optional]

I'm not very sure of where I should put this, so I announce it here.

It should go in the modding section, here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=395. I've just notified a moderator. Don't start a new thread, I'm counting on this thread to get moved now.

I think you've made Honour weaker with these changes. The immediate extra happiness and culture from Military Caste are crucial for me. If I first need to build walls to get the same effect it doesn't help the expansion phase anymore.

...I'm interested in what a more aggressive early tree looks like.

Liberty. It gives extra unit support as you should get your towns in easier, and we all know towns give unit support. Also the finisher can be used to research a military tech quicker with a scientist.
I don't think it's right that Liberty gives the best military boost (of the early policies), as a military system has more in common with a totalitarian state. Liberty should really give a unit support penalty, as in a more free state people are less willing to die for that state.
It's what the developers haven't done much in the social policy system; thinking of penalties for balance, but that might work out as more elegant than putting policies deliberately in an inconvenient order within a tree, like they've done in some instances now.

 

[Ninakoru]

I think you've made Honour weaker with these changes. The immediate extra happiness and culture from Military Caste are crucial for me. If I first need to build walls to get the same effect it doesn't help the expansion phase anymore.

Heh, I've tried this honor setup a few times and is by no means weaker. Yeah, you lose quick Culture + happiness, but is traded with no need of troop parking. Walls have high priority on puppets, so you will eventually get some culture from puppets.

 

[Gedemon]

Moderator Action: Thread moved to mods components, as it should be compatible with most other mods