I forget if mercantile gives happiness or food, but if you are suggesting the food CS: they currently start at 3.5 in capital and 0.5 in other cities, but it rounds down. So reworking them could be a good move, but not just a 50% drop. I think culture and faith CS are overall stronger so I don't like an outright nerf here.
urbanization-free specialists should be unlocked 1 tech BEFORE (library/garden) writer/artist guilds or 1 tech AFTER (Garden/Grocer)?
The amount of yields by the UA isnt overwhelming, and especially in early game sometimes hard to maintain. Often the early game feels like playing a civ without any abilities. The nerf of the Hanse was also a hard one, down from 5% to 3%. I think they need some love after all the nerfs.
Atleast for the food ive done some calculations and it should be very similar. But I think your right and the gold could be tuned down to 6.
Mercantile gives gold. They are nearly allmost the last CS I try to ally, cause all other yields are much more worth. I have the feeling, the gained gold is worth much less than the price you have to pay to send them a diplomatic unit, and having no happiness issues makes them worthless even more. (I dont want to nerf them, they should be buffed)
Poland should have 1 more policy over the whole game, maybe 2. I wanted to buff this part only slightly.
Sorry, I read this as decrease, not increase. This suggestion is fine.
If it's very similar in amount, then you aren't removing food, which is the point. Progress can take a hit, its especially a late game hit, it's a great policy tree.
Poland has nothing to do with the specialist/happiness discussion, its an independent thing, based on the "top and bottom civ" thread, Germany flavored with my own opinion too. Statecraft was seen as too niche and a bit too weak, in comparison to artistry. My suggestion didn't change the niche thing, but atleast it's a small buff. Artistry would be still strong, giving more happiness than the other trees, but not as much as it is now.
I don't think this is the point. I think the point is the controllability of the food. Even if you stopped growth, you would have gained food by constructing buildings, cause you always have to construct buildings, else you would fall behind in everything.
. That is close enough to grow a 21 city to 23, if I remember correctly. per turn, and that's pretty normal at renaissance.
My games last 300-350 turns. If you take the left side first, you take this policy turn 50-ish. So 2,000 food per game would average around 7-8 food per turn for the turns you have the policy, and progress gets another plus 3 from the other policy, which you want to buff to 4. My approximation of "hanging gardens in every city" isn't overly dramatic, it's actually a bit low.I personally don't have any problem with this policy, but I have to agree, that it can trigger unlinked growth, cause of that I've suggested that change. And you really.... Really overdramatize that policy aspect. In the whole game, you may get around 2000
The average value is fooling you. In most cities you will construct a building in around 5-10 turns, thats in ancient and classical era an average food gain of 1-2
per turn and thats ok. per turn should be normal at the time of the renaissance/industrial age, so it makes no sense to compare this value with the food gain of a weak, early classical wonder. per turn. There are only 6 normal buildings available in modern era, this would make a total of 300 . So the ability only saves me 2.5 turns of food generation, or is able to generate 1/3 of the necessary food to grow a city from 27 to 28. And this in a WHOLE era. If I had taken tradition, the growth scaler would give me 30-60 extra in each city, far more than progress is able to.. Cities on the coast, able to unlock hexes 5 tiles away late in the game should be easily able to generate much much more than progress cities.What era are you talking about,and are we playing the same patch? I don't know how you are staying happy, my cities have every needs reduction, a lower population, and still couldn't work specialists if I didn't take artistry, even with a religion and a golden age resulting in 0 poverty or boredom. I win games with my (non-tradition capital) cities at 25-ish pop, maybe a bit higher if there is a special circumstance (like a unique improvement).The average value is fooling you. In most cities you will construct a building in around 5-10 turns, thats in ancient and classical era an average food gain of 1-2
The 7-8
In my Inca game, Iam at the brink of the modern era, and most of my cities generate 120+
Btw. my suggestion would give in the end less food than the current system, cause the food gain is linked with the finisher, and it needs much more time to get there.
Here is the source of the disagreement. I do not, even remotely, value food during the information era, and I'm shocked an experienced player like you would, especially bonus food like this, which cannot feed a specialist. At this point its just a race for science or culture or some other nonsense, food is trivial and your cities should be large enough to work all worthwhile tiles. I've never even had a city without tradition expand to all tiles in the 5th ring.Edit: If you are having a problem with uncontrollable free food, Iam really wondering why you arnt bringing Tribute policy from Authority to speech. Its hard to estimate, but a city which unlock all workable tiles in range spread over the whole game should be able to generate 1500+
on building completion down is a good move IMO. The gold on birth could go from 15
to 20 but not more than that I think. 
/
is a bit of an odd choice for an Agribusiness, I think we should take the Agribusiness part more literally and make it "+2 per Land tile, +10% of converted to ". The Hospital already converts to .
as Fealty's scaler, just providing flat like that is a religous steroid. I also don't like the idea of Monasteries becoming buildable, because I treat them as a sink and a way to conserve 
. I like the Monastery's also. I think Fealty should mostly stay as is (though your India idea with / could fit into Fealty somewhere...). to +2
Great Merchant points rather than . It would be more interesting. on Tribute kills the policy's ability to instantly provide cities with 2
. At least have it be 10. This is Authority's only source of .
Agribusiness is an open field, your suggestion sounds good too, was just a first thought.-
-Please don't remove the -35% Prophet Cost for India! That's a very important part of India's kit to me. I think a needs reduction per pop is all that could be added, no need to rework India.
-Similarly, I don't think reworking the German/Polish UA is necessary.
-I don't like the idea of providing
I would like to try changing the Castle's +2
per specialist is able to give you far more than a scaler would be able to (atleast if the happiness is back to normal level). Buffing specialists is a bit strange on a tree that seems to be directed towards an anti-specialist tree. And making monasteries able to be constructed gives the tree back some attractivity to warmongers, cause at the moment you cant build those in puppets. Solution.... Monasteries can be fully purchased by faith or constructed by only some hammers. Merchant Points on Castles seems legit.This would make the tenet useless for any civ with small or medium size. On a standard map, having 10 cities is already a big empire, but you would still throw away around 8 possible franchises, if you pick the tenet. And most trade route bonuses dont work for ITR.
Pretty much this.
in classical era, and more in each following era
c5gold
