Statecraft - what kind, if any, changes would you like to see?

[randomnub]

Yields to city connections works pretty much the same by then but it has a caveat: it doesn't synergize with warmongering, at least not until you settle down and link the newly aquired cities/repair broken roads. I'd pick that over flat yields, statecraft/diplomacy is not (always) about war.

 

[tu_79]

I have a small request regarding Statecraft scaler. I love it giving gold, as I'll probably end up purchasing diplo units. But a major complain from statecraft is that it takes too long to be relevant. I understand that the old patronage was too tempting to only take the opener, so it's good that the bonus helping with influence is in the scaler. With all scaler bonuses you give +25% to diplomatic actions. This translates to, what?, 20 influence in the later unit?
I think it will be better for anyone playing statecraft, to have a stronger start, even if the end game turns out weaker, so if you could make the scaler +3 influence instead of +5%, it will increase envoys from 45 to 60 influence, which is most needed in that time, while ambassadors won't be as strong as now, making statecraft less mandatory for the diplomatic victory and more useful overall.

 

[CrazyG]

CrazyG, do you think removing the "Coup" and "10+ influence" policies from freedom and moving them to Statecraft would be a wise move? How would you buff Statecraft/nerf Fealty to make non-Fealty choices more appealing?

Gazebo, per 15 citizens sounds great!

+10 influence per great person is very strong, I think its debateably too strong for an ideological tenet (it almost guarantees at least friendship will all CS, which is a ton of yields). The issue with coups is that while they are very useful late game, they are somewhat niche when I'm taking my second policy tree. I really don't think you need statecraft to win diplomatic because the tools provided later on by ideologies are strong enough to get the votes you need, so while the votes are nice I find them unlikely to swing the game.

The biggest issue with statecraft, everything was so slow. Like the +50% to quests, eventually I'll be completing lots of quests, but not when I take this policy. I'm really glad that its gone. Spies need 10 turns to travel and establish surveillance, then at least another 10 to steal a tech, and they still have a chance to fail after that. The votes might let me pass a proposal I otherwise couldn't, but I don't vote for another 10 turns and the payoff on world congress proposals is slow. The payoff on trade routes is slow as well, first I have to build the trade unit, and protect it, and for large empires I'm pretty sure Fealty's scaler alone is capable of earning more gold than those trade route bonuses. Meantwhile Fealty is gets to take a policy and instantly be rewarded with signficant yields.

After some thought, I really like the design of the new opener. Yields in capital per citizen is smooth, once we get the numbers right I think it will be really strong. Fealty's opener is great, I love monasteries. But sometimes I want to be spending faith on other stuff. Artistry's opener is great for all empires eventually, but an issue is if I'm playing authority its very likely I have almost no specialists at the moment. The new statecraft opener provides a solid amount of yields with no condition and is useful in any circumstance. It synergizes with most strategies, if you have tradition you get an extra 10% to all those yields and it can help build wonders or feed the capital. For other empires, the more you expand the more yields!

I think the Fealty and Aesthetics scalers should probably be changed. Fealty is just so good, I think that individually the policies beat statecraft in a one by one way, and the scaler is better. I'd ditch the gold from the scaler, and consider giving it to statecraft. Artistry is in this weird spot where the scaler is so good that the policies have to be weak to balance it out. The tree as a whole is fine even if several policies are bad

 

[Gazebo]

+10 influence per great person is very strong, I think its debateably too strong for an ideological tenet (it almost guarantees at least friendship will all CS, which is a ton of yields). The issue with coups is that while they are very useful late game, they are somewhat niche when I'm taking my second policy tree. I really don't think you need statecraft to win diplomatic because the tools provided later on by ideologies are strong enough to get the votes you need, so while the votes are nice I find them unlikely to swing the game.

The biggest issue with statecraft, everything was so slow. Like the +50% to quests, eventually I'll be completing lots of quests, but not when I take this policy. I'm really glad that its gone. Spies need 10 turns to travel and establish surveillance, then at least another 10 to steal a tech, and they still have a chance to fail after that. The votes might let me pass a proposal I otherwise couldn't, but I don't vote for another 10 turns and the payoff on world congress proposals is slow. The payoff on trade routes is slow as well, first I have to build the trade unit, and protect it, and for large empires I'm pretty sure Fealty's scaler alone is capable of earning more gold than those trade route bonuses. Meantwhile Fealty is gets to take a policy and instantly be rewarded with signficant yields.

After some thought, I really like the design of the new opener. Yields in capital per citizen is smooth, once we get the numbers right I think it will be really strong. Fealty's opener is great, I love monasteries. But sometimes I want to be spending faith on other stuff. Artistry's opener is great for all empires eventually, but an issue is if I'm playing authority its very likely I have almost no specialists at the moment. The new statecraft opener provides a solid amount of yields with no condition and is useful in any circumstance. It synergizes with most strategies, if you have tradition you get an extra 10% to all those yields and it can help build wonders or feed the capital. For other empires, the more you expand the more yields!

I think the Fealty and Aesthetics scalers should probably be changed. Fealty is just so good, I think that individually the policies beat statecraft in a one by one way, and the scaler is better. I'd ditch the gold from the scaler, and consider giving it to statecraft. Artistry is in this weird spot where the scaler is so good that the policies have to be weak to balance it out. The tree as a whole is fine even if several policies are bad

Indeed. Here's another stab at things (confession: it's what I'm running in an AI game right now):

Fealty:

Scaler now +2 food and +3 defense per city.

Statecraft:
Opener now 15 citizens
Scaler gains +1 gold per city

Artistry:
Scaler: now +1 Science and +2 Golden Age Points
Humanism - removed Science % from Great Works, added flat +2 Culture per city

Rationalism:
Academics - removed +1 science from specialists, added +4% science per great work (up to 20%)

Why the Rationalism change? Two-fold: small nerf to specialists, and you're more likely to get an instant return on the GW science yields at this point in the game.

G

 

[CrazyG]

Fealty:

Scaler now +2 food and +3 defense per city.

Thats a lot of anti-crime. Fealty is already so leaded with happiness I don't know if its necessary (Fealty removes so much boredom)

Artistry:
Scaler: now +1 Science and +2 Golden Age Points
Humanism - removed Science % from Great Works, added flat +2 Culture per city

Funny, I was actually going to suggest 1 culture and 1 golden age point as a scaler with 2 science per university. What I like about culture as a scaler is it makes the policy tree quite strong for authority, when it would otherwise be rather terrible. I can conquer a city and instantly have it produce culture, which also gives border growth yields.

I have also have concernes that Featly's +1 culture for every 4 non-specialists is directly better than 2 culture per city. At this stage of the game almost every city will have at least 8 non-specialist, and they will quickly reach 12.

I agree moving the great work as a science somewhere else is a good idea. Its really snowballing for tradition while being totally useless for other strategies this early in the game. The +10% culture in golden ages is also an awkward policy, because it often comes before I can get a golden age.

 

[Gazebo]

Thats a lot of anti-crime. Fealty is already so leaded with happiness I don't know if its necessary (Fealty removes so much boredom)


Funny, I was actually going to suggest 1 culture and 1 golden age point as a scaler with 2 science per university. What I like about culture as a scaler is it makes the policy tree quite strong for authority, when it would otherwise be rather terrible. I can conquer a city and instantly have it produce culture, which also gives border growth yields.

I have also have concernes that Featly's +1 culture for every 4 non-specialists is directly better than 2 culture per city. At this stage of the game almost every city will have at least 8 non-specialist, and they will quickly reach 12.

I agree moving the great work as a science somewhere else is a good idea. Its really snowballing for tradition while being totally useless for other strategies this early in the game. The +10% culture in golden ages is also an awkward policy, because it often comes before I can get a golden age.

I like the idea of fealty getting a defense boost for cities, though (tying into the feudal castle-centric nature of some of the policies). It's also an untouched element in policies, which is extra nice. I could change the boredom reduction a bit (to 10%) and cut the 4 non-specialists down to 6.

Could keep culture as the artistry scaler and do a flat +3 science in all cities for humanism. Or -gasp - give specialists +1 science in artistry (from rationalism).

G

 

[CrazyG]

Could keep culture as the artistry scaler and do a flat +3 science in all cities for humanism. Or -gasp - give specialists +1 science in artistry (from rationalism).

G

What if we gave each of fealty-artistry-statecraft a +1 yield to specialists? Fealty has faith already in place

Edit- I would actually give artistry culture and statecraft science. These yields are all close in value

 

[Gazebo]

What if we gave each of fealty-artistry-statecraft a +1 yield to specialists? Fealty has faith already in place

Edit- I would actually give artistry culture and statecraft science. These yields are all close in value

Not a terrible idea. I do worry about specialist yield bloat, may also make a pass at their tech-related bonuses because of this.

 

[Gazebo]

Current look of changelog:

General
        Bumped minor civ max XP to 70
        Refactored difficulty handicap method for AI - now gets smaller bonuses per handicap event overall, but there are more events (incorporated historic events into bonuses for AI)
        Removed free Deity pottery tech
    Specialists
        Reduced tech yield bonuses for all specialists by 1 (to a minimum of 1, where applicable)
    Policies
        Fealty
            Scaler- removed Gold, added +3 defense per city
            Divine Right - Boredom reduction now 15% (Was 25%)
            Serfdom - now +1 culture per 5 citizens (Was 1 per 4)
        Statecraft
            Opener - now scales per 15 citizens (was 25)
            Scaler - gains +1 gold per city
            Shadow networks - gains +1 science per specialists, but lowered science bonus on constable/police station to +3
        Artistry
            Scaler - loses +1 culture per city, gains +2 golden age points per city instead
            Humanism - removed % science great work bonus - added +1 culture per specialists        
        Rationalism
            Academics - removed +1 science from specialists, added +4% science per great work in city (up to 20%)

Edit: I should also note that I've removed the ability to conga-line workers on a tile for instant improvements. Cheaters.

 

[ElliotS]

Edit: I should also note that I've removed the ability to conga-line workers on a tile for instant improvements. Cheaters.

Q.Q What do you expect us to do? Play fair?

Also I'm looking at Artistry all day as Warmonger if that's the patchnotes.

 

[CrazyG]

Also I'm looking at Artistry all day as Warmonger if that's the patchnotes.

Artistry is already pretty good for warmongers. What makes you so certain now? The golden ages?

 

[Gazebo]

Artistry is already pretty good for warmongers. What makes you so certain now? The golden ages?

Considering that unhappiness is the biggest immediate limiter on conquest, Fealty looks (IMO) better. Plus the defense scaler appears in cities immediately after conquest, so you get +15 defense instantly (i.e. a free walls+) when you take a city. Pretty snazzy.

G

 

[tu_79]

Warning. If Statecraft opener is too good and has nothing to do with the theme, we're risking that it's picked just for the opener and later continue to whatever.

Edit. This is the reason why you put the strongest bonus in the scaler.

 

[matlajs]

I don't know about upping their "free" initial influence with CSs, but perhaps they could also be given a bonus to their influence decay rate so that starting at 35 influence doesn't given them only a few turns of yields with newly met CSs?

Siam early yields from CS meetings disappear too quick to matter, but slower decay steps on Greece's toes. Siam scales nicely once it can build envoys but its early game is the most luck based of all diplomatic civs I think, because you really want for the right quest to pop after a CS meeting, maybe delay discovering CS (don't go next to them once you see the border) until turn 25-30.

I have actually thought when i tried them, that those 20 influence is a permanent minimum for them. Something that was a part of statecraft in earlier versions of VP? What if they simply get this bonus, like minimum influence of all cs at 10-20 points?

 

[tu_79]

I have actually thought when i tried them, that those 20 influence is a permanent minimum for them. Something that was a part of statecraft in earlier versions of VP? What if they simply get this bonus, like minimum influence of all cs at 10-20 points?

See my post above. It was too common to pick statecraft or aesthetics opener and then continue to piety.

 

[vuko]

@Gazebo what do you think of giving production from trade routes to statecraft? Something like every trade route from the city gives 4 production and every trade route to the city gives 2 production per turn? This would move statecraft more to the peaceful side, protecting trade routes, not starting wars, focusing on diplomats and spies.

 

[matlajs]

See my post above. It was too common to pick statecraft or aesthetics opener and then continue to piety.

i am talking about siamese UA and their ability to have minimum of 10-20 influence with each cs, not a policy tree.

however. wasn't here already an idea about giving somewhere an ability faith buy diplomatic units?

 

[Owlbebach]

I like the overall direction, especially the rationalism change. I feel like some polishing will be required but this all needs testing

 

[infidel88]

Edit: I should also note that I've removed the ability to conga-line workers on a tile for instant improvements. Cheaters.

 

[ElliotS]

I have actually thought when i tried them, that those 20 influence is a permanent minimum for them. Something that was a part of statecraft in earlier versions of VP? What if they simply get this bonus, like minimum influence of all cs at 10-20 points?

City state minimums are more or less useless. Once you're past them (which you always want to be) they're useless. We've specifically taken them out of beliefs and policies because even at 30-40 minimum it didn't really matter.