Strongest and Weakest Policies

[mystikx21]

The policies have been adjusted a lot before in previous Civ5 mods (VEM/GEM) so some of the ideas are from there, but some of those ideas were borrowed in BNW and moved around into the new trees and ideologies. And both the new trees, the new culture victory, the new economy, and so on mean there's a lot to rebalance around that we couldn't just lift the old system onto the new one. Took a while to get back around to it.

I think there's some agreement that the piety opener or the wealth effect(s) are too powerful and off. It's been that way for a couple months while some other effects have been rebalanced elsewhere and some debate occurred over the effects. The mod's been around long enough to be on version 3... so most of the policy effects are fairly new in relative terms.

Some of us warned these were poor ideas, or at least that we thought they were poor, before they were implemented or activated. So it's kind of been in a play it and tweak it mode ever since. This happens a lot with a mod with something of a community for input that something is done, and then has to be dialed back, changed, tweaked, hammered back away from the change to do something else. Some of those experiments work... and some not so much.

There was some debate a while back about negating or reducing the wide-science penalty somewhere in rationalism or liberty maybe. So the concept isn't without merit. It's just sketchy to be able to mostly ignore a game mechanic.

 

[a.out]

Aye, it is a mod called communitas afterall

But again .. I don't think it is all that problematic to reduce/remove some of those penalties. The mechanic which makes your empire less efficient overall would still be in place. You also won't get golden ages as another trade-off. So to maximize your efficiency you would still want to work on happiness - but you could do it a bit later and focus to get some key location first for example. It could also act as a buffer in case you get multiple DoW's resulting in cancelled luxury trades after you took that capital, so your empire and especially defense is not entirely crippled.

But that's all just food for tough. I should stop myself now since I derailed enough already.

 

[stackpointer]

Diplomatic hits due to warmongering is handled in the DLL and cannot be modified without a DLL mod.

I believe the science penalty (Defines table) is cached into the database and cannot be modified mid-game. Although, as a workaround, the policy would functionally act as a +5% global science per city.

 

[a.out]

Heh, yeah .. sometimes modders let me forget that there actually may be limits.

 

[EricB]

In the games I've been playing I changed the Piety and Wealth openers. Wealth gives +10% gold and production instead of +15%. Piety gives +2 faith and +2 happiness instead of +1 faith and +5 happiness.

Also changed the policy giving 2 free workers plus 25% worker construction rate to just +1 worker plus 25% rate.

Those 3 policies really stood out to me as being too strong.

As for a weak one. The gladiators policy in Honor is weak. +1 happiness per Arena. I added an effect to that one to give double construction speed for Arenas as well.

Another one that seems weak is the policy in Wealth giving +25% great merchants rate along with better benefits from trade missions. That one should be stronger. Maybe +50% Great Merchant rate. Or maybe keep it +25% and throw in a free Great Merchant.

 

[a.out]

In the games I've been playing I changed the Piety and Wealth openers. Wealth gives +10% gold and production instead of +15%. Piety gives +2 faith and +2 happiness instead of +1 faith and +5 happiness.

Also changed the policy giving 2 free workers plus 25% worker construction rate to just +1 worker plus 25% rate.

Those 3 policies really stood out to me as being too strong.

As for a weak one. The gladiators policy in Honor is weak. +1 happiness per Arena. I added an effect to that one to give double construction speed for Arenas as well.

Another one that seems weak is the policy in Wealth giving +25% great merchants rate along with better benefits from trade missions. That one should be stronger. Maybe +50% Great Merchant rate. Or maybe keep it +25% and throw in a free Great Merchant.

I think I'll change the opener to something like 25% faster building construction if I find out how. I may just fork it and start modding some day soon.

 

[mcmpan]

5 Most important Policies:
- Landed Elite
- Citizenship
- Patronage Opener
- Piety Opener
- Honor Opener

5 least important Policies:
- Oligarchy
- Honor Finisher
- Entrepreneurship
- Mercenary Army
- Colonization

 

[Shalvan]

The one thing that would make Homestead Act even better is the addition of the Harbour to the list of pre-built buildings. Connection to the capital is a must at these stages.

Giving free harbours is entering Carthage's territory. One policy would be way better than a UA, it's a no-no imho.

On the other hand Carthage with Homestead Act and Colonization is just awesome at colonizing new lands.

 

[ExpiredReign]

That's a fair argument. Good point.

 

[Tomice]

Also, the tree allows to buy buildings much cheaper AND reduces upkeep. Just buying a few harbors is very easy at this point.

In my current immortal game I have only 120 percent rush-buy cost and a ton of trading-post-heavy colonies. Things get really easy at this point ;-) TP's are insane if you have all policies boosting them.

I generally find the tree awesome for lategame peaceful wide gameplay. Sure, it requires unsettled spots, but IMO it's completely underrated.

I was also pleasantly surprised how the free buildings allow me to catch national wonders like heroic epic or circus maximus an expansionist would rarely get otherwise.

 

[Babri]

Why was the cheaper road maintenance removed from the wealth tree?

Regarding the exploration tree won't be it interesting to give more gradual kind of boosts rather than some raw insta boosts to newly founded cities ? Following are some examples:-

100% food & production for newly founded cities for 20 turns or similar.

Workers improve resources at double rate. Another effect could be added to make it more worthwhile. (one of the main reason for founding colonies was to get luxury & strategic resources). What if the liberty bonus was changed to just free workers + workers build roads 50% faster rather than all improvements 25% faster. And then move improvement bonus to exploration as it is quite slow to improve tiles in colonies without spending tons of gold for buying workers, or shipping workers from your main cities to colonies (which is really tedious).

Cities don't increase science/culture cost for some turns. (giving the colony time to grow)

Cheaper settlers, settlers have +2 moves (and faster embarkment). Retreat promotion for settlers.

Something to represent conflicts with natives perhaps. Maybe give ships & vanguards bonus against barbs. It may sound weak but for heavy colonizers pirates ships & barbs can be a real annoyance. Or maybe even make barbs take serious damage when in players territory...

 

[ShmooDude]

Why was the cheaper road maintenance removed from the wealth tree?

Regarding the exploration tree won't be it interesting to give more gradual kind of boosts rather than some raw insta boosts to newly founded cities ? Following are some examples:-

100% food & production for newly founded cities for 20 turns or similar.

Workers improve resources at double rate. Another effect could be added to make it more worthwhile. (one of the main reason for founding colonies was to get luxury & strategic resources). What if the liberty bonus was changed to just free workers + workers build roads 50% faster rather than all improvements 25% faster. And then move improvement bonus to exploration as it is quite slow to improve tiles in colonies without spending tons of gold for buying workers, or shipping workers from your main cities to colonies (which is really tedious).

Cities don't increase science/culture cost for some turns. (giving the colony time to grow)

Cheaper settlers, settlers have +2 moves (and faster embarkment). Retreat promotion for settlers.

Something to represent conflicts with natives perhaps. Maybe give ships & vanguards bonus against barbs. It may sound weak but for heavy colonizers pirates ships & barbs can be a real annoyance. Or maybe even make barbs take serious damage when in players territory...

I like some of these ideas, though my understanding is that there's a limit to what can be done through policies cause many of them are hard coded and can't be modded outside of DLL (which this mod isn't going to do).

 

[Tomice]

@ Babri:

IMHO lategame wide terra style gameplay works incredibly well now. There is a real colonial age starting in the renaissance era. Everything plays smoothly, and the repetitive basic development of cities is gone, you start with the interesting choices momentarily. Workers are a non-issue, at this point you can easily buy one or two of them per turn.
The AI colonizes well, too, and multi-front wars are the rule. Diplomacy gets interesting again when you suddenly have a dispute over offshore settling with a civ you never had much contact to before. New rivals emerge when a civ from the lower score ranks settles some nice offshore spots and doubles its points within a few dozen turns.

Are your suggestions due to problems found while testing or more from a flavor point of view?

 

[Babri]

@ Babri:

Are your suggestions due to problems found while testing or more from a flavor point of view?

More from the flavour point of view. Maybe it's just me but I don't like too much free stuff, rather give player the tools to do that himself. Free tier 1 buildings is sort of good because it reduces unnecessary micromanagement but other policies could be improved a bit to give them more colonization/exploration feel (such as the reduced maintenance policy).

And another thing, the policy in Order that gives free pop to newly founded cities needs to be buffed as it fells pale in comparison to new exploration tree.

And a bit offtopic, free courthouse is bugged in the Order tree.

 

[Tomice]

@Babri: Good point about ideologies. I generally think they haven't been changed much compared to the earlier policies. I've seen few policies there that are really gamechanging, completing earlier trees seems usually better.

I'm experimentinga a lot with lategame peaceful wide (it's just my favourite style), and I'll keep a close eye on the effects of free stuff. Might even start a topic on some details of the exploration tree and related elements..

 

[mitsho]

Maybe the "free stuff" is just too concentrated in the exploration tree. I like the suggestions above and guess a little bit of reshuffling can be done. I like the + movement to civilian units, that could go together with the reduced upkeep for roads which I'm not sure why it was removed.

The biggest "problem" with the exploration tree is that it's largely dependent on the map you play, i.e. "Is there enough space to expand into". But one can't change that and it's okay for this tree to have a very special use I guess.

 

[EricB]

I've added a free great merchant to the Wealth tree in the policy that affects the spawn rate for Great Merchants so that now it gives +25% for Great Merchants, Double gold from trade missions, and a free Great Merchant. That policy seemed kind of weak and needed a buff. Free instant stuff is fun.

Also want to add a free Archer to the Oligarchy policy in tradition as that policy seems pretty weak. It's usually the last policy I select in Tradition and pick it merely to complete the tree. I may pick it earlier if it gave a free defensive unit.

 

[mitsho]

The thing with that oligarchy policy is that it gains a lot of power if a) we can make barbs more aggressive (on land, at sea or both) or b) we can make some AI civs rush you. In one pre-G&K version I remember the AI constantly rushing me and at that point in time the oligarchy policy was very strong. Now I don't want that situation back, but if some AI rush you sometimes, I'd be fine with that.

 

[mystikx21]

The biggest "problem" with the exploration tree is that it's largely dependent on the map you play, i.e. "Is there enough space to expand into". But one can't change that and it's okay for this tree to have a very special use I guess.

I think this would be fine with some potent policies.

The biggest problems I have with the tree now are the scope of some of the potent policies seems really high and the map reveal is not that fun. I'd rather do something like sight or speed bonuses for ships and civilians.

Babri's ideas here are good, except in light of that above quote. They take a fairly narrow effect of mid later-game expansion that is broaded a bit by powerful policies and leave the narrow strategic utility but don't provide much in the way of broadened effects.

If there's too much free stuff, take away some of the free stuff.

That said I would definitely second the road cost reduction policy effect coming back somewhere. Considering wealth has that duplicated production/gold bonus effect, it should be one of those instead plus something else. I'd find something that increased road speed construction a little too narrow versus a general worker bonus but it might be okay paired with this reduction.

 

[EricB]

Yeah a policy somewhere in Wealth that gives:
Double Worker production (building a worker)
Half maintenance for roads and railroads
Double construction rate (or 50%) for workers (build improvements faster)

I'd support something like that replacing the Mercenary Army policy. The policy in Wealth that gives more gold for villages, more production for mines and lumbermills, and +10% gold and production in every city is too strong. I nerfed that one to eliminate the +10% gold and production, but added +1 production for quarries and wells and +1 gold for camps and plantations. Also nerfed the opener in Wealth from 15% to 10%.

What really needs work are the policies in the Order, Freedom, and Autocracy ideologies.