The Cohesive Values virtue is possibly nearly useless

[Knut_Are_M]

10% cheaper virtues is not a great virtue. even if the virtues did not increase in cost it would still take 10 virtues for it to break even, if you could take it imidiately as the first virtue.
i think it would be ok at 15% since then it would start to benefit from it earlier and you accually gain 1 virtue in a long game.

memeweb gives 50% less culture cost per city. if you build 10 cities you save 25% virtue cost. With 20 cities it is 1+(0,1x20)2=2x compared to 3x which is 33% saved.
With 1+3 cities it is 1.15 compared to 1,3 11% saved.

as you can see memeweb is much stronger even With only a few cities. and a lot better With a wide empire then cohesive values.

it seems like the knowlege vitue tree has some really good virtues and some lackluster picks that you cannot jump over. it also has alot of synergy. overall it is not any worse or better then the other trees. the weak culture policies make up for the strong science policies in the mid game.
there is one virtue out there called Applied aesthetics. earn half Your total culture in energy. that means building a earth relic gives you energy after the quest no matter which option you pick.

 

[werothegreat]

-Open with the five Tier I Knowledge Virtues.
-Open another tree.
-Get Cohesive Values for free.

 

[MadDjinn]

Biggest difference is the wide/deep synergy bonuses.

In civBE an extra 'useless' virtue may get you one or two synergy bonuses.

This is what I was actually referring to, wrt the model.

A base assumption is that the control+CV empires are putting out culture at the same rate at all times, and that's not true.

It also ignores 'how long' it takes to get each virtue.

The focus seems to be entirely on 'how many' not 'what are you getting and when'.

Ie, getting Virtues faster means getting the culture+kickers and free Virtues faster. This also means that those extra bonuses will kick in sooner, which can lead to faster culture production, when leads to the non-CV civ possibly being behind on total culture output.

 

[swordoflight86]

-Open with the five Tier I Knowledge Virtues.
-Open another tree.
-Get Cohesive Values for free.

You sir, are a genius.

 

[MadDjinn]

-Open with the five Tier I Knowledge Virtues.
-Open another tree.
-Get Cohesive Values for free.

Or, take CV and use the free Virtue on Networked Datalinks, thereby being 2 virtues into the Tier 2 kicker.

 

[werothegreat]

Or, take CV and use the free Virtue on Networked Datalinks, thereby being 2 virtues into the Tier 2 kicker.

But you only get the free Virtue from getting another Tier 1, and CV is Tier 2...

 

[MadDjinn]

But you only get the free Virtue from getting another Tier 1, and CV is Tier 2...

haha, yeah.. was thinking of something else.

 

[Gamewizard]

The knowledge tree holds the science bonuses so I don't blame them for being cautious with all the virtues in it. I hope they are trying to avoid another Rationalism > everything else. I also have no problem with weaker virtues being used as roadblocks to the stronger ones. Weighing the opportunity costs against each other is why these games are so much fun for me.

 

[bhavv]

I'd rather take cohesive values as my 4th policy and get Synergy tier 1 after.

 

[Khaim]

Also: Happybjorn, you don't want to take "Creative Class", because its even worse than cohesive values if you have 6 health lying around, please found another city, after 50 turns it will have you repayed the culture you missed out on and hey: a new addional city is all kinds of beneficial. And no you will probably not be building biowells to increase your culture through health (that would be 4 energy per culture). When you build biowells then you're planning on filling those health with actual population that is working tiles and buildings (remember that 4 pop give one culture), so you're only missing out on 1 culture every 4 biowells. Generally you will just want to hover around +1-5 health and be fine with it, which is a flat +2 culture bonus throughout the whole game due to "Creative Class". Its not that much, it scales horribly and it disincentivises you further for going negative health, even when that would be a good strategy (mid game expansion rush).

The value of Creative Class depends entirely on whether it has the word "net". The virtue planner has it, well-of-souls doesn't. If it only says "positive health", not "excess health", then it's actually quite good. (Compare with Eudaimonia, which says "negative health"; some things track +/-health separately.)

 

[Aeson]

Here's the tooltip from the Virtues livestream for Creative Class ... as of them it was "net"

 

[Inhalaattori]

We have to take into account that this extra culture created by Creative Class will also give you energy and science if you take those other virtues in Knowledge tree. If you had +40 health that would give you extra +20 culture, +10 energy and 5 science. This does not sound that much but there are lots of ways to improve your health. You could for example build massive amounts of bio wells to get your health up. There is also building called Bionics Labs that gives you +20% health.

 

[Acken]

It's the same as the civ5 equivalent. And to be honest it was rather bad in civ5, it's rare to have a ton of happiness when you play something other than OCC since you should probably expand rather than sit on happiness. We'll see how it goes in CivBE though.

 

[ggmoyang]

Even if Creative Class gave bonus based on sum of positive health it will be still not so good IMO.
The culture is added to virtue counter and does not provide border pop. And the culture is not enough to pay itself.
It needs other 2 virtues that gives energy/science with culture to be useful, and here's another problem.
To get other 2 virtues, it has to be taken early. This is quite problematic, since it is really bad.
If it is taken later, it would give not so bad bonus but it will take too much time to take all the needed virtues.

 

[Sprenk]

Even if Creative Class gave bonus based on sum of positive health it will be still not so good IMO.
The culture is added to virtue counter and does not provide border pop. And the culture is not enough to pay itself.
It needs other 2 virtues that gives energy/science with culture to be useful, and here's another problem.
To get other 2 virtues, it has to be taken early. This is quite problematic, since it is really bad.
If it is taken later, it would give not so bad bonus but it will take too much time to take all the needed virtues.

Admittedly, Creative Class is pretty underwhelming by itself, but it does open up the right side of the Knowledge tree--and it is the sole prerequisite for Applied Aesthetics ("Earn extra energy equal to 50% of the culture you generate"), which looks like a good source of energy. (Maybe even an OP virtue).

I don't mind a mix of strong and less than strong virtues, as long as there are interesting choices to make and a rough balance overall.