Tuning Autocracy

[ashendashin]

It's the big reason to choose Autocracy. There would be no point if your units don't get some serious buffs in the war tree, people would just use Order.

I think the fix would be teaching the AI to close it's lines against lightning warfare.

It wouldn't be nearly as OP if my tanks couldn't zip right through their infantry and annihilate their ranged units every time.

I can take advantage of Autocracy with any type of unit. Armor just makes the autocratic win happen really, really fast. Tanks already have plenty of movement. I think making everything else relevant would add some nice variety. Just give armor units a separate buff, such as free Blitz. Surely you'd appreciate that much? Tanks ignoring ZOC makes other units largely useless on land besides holding positions.

 

[CrazyG]

I think an issue with Autocracy is the tier 2 options. You either take lightning warfare every single time, or you make a bad choice. Even if you aren't planning on going to war I'd still take it just for defense. For my second choice, the default is Martial Spirit, but if I need happiness I take police state, and sometimes third alternative makes sense.

The corporations tenet might be pretty good, but the opportunity cost is too high.

It wouldn't be nearly as OP if my tanks couldn't zip right through their infantry and annihilate their ranged units every time.

As an experienced human player, I find it nearly impossible to defend against a human opponent with lightning warfare; I'd say its pretty unreasonable to expect the AI to do so. In my opinion removing ZoC isn't good design, its a fundamental concept of warfare and something they AI does a very good job of.

 

[kawyua]

It might also be the sheer value of military industrial complex. 33% off on purchasing units is kind of insane(among other parts). The value of immediately purchasing tanks right as it is researched is nearly impossible for the ai to deal with. I think the sheer value of that policy is making things like lightning warfare very strong. Its the quantity of tanks on the field from that single policy that is unstoppable. And it becomes worse when revolving strategies around it. Its too much of a spike in power for the ai to deal with and lowering it to something like 20% will show how weak a lot of the autocracy tenets are in comparison. Gold becomes so efficient with that single tenet that I would argue that it is about equivalent to the whole industry tree put together.

I agree with a lot of the F people have given and hope that they are better.

 

[ElliotS]

Yeah I think that Autocracy has the most terrible tenets and is redeemed by a few OP tenets.

I can see a lightning warfare nerf, along with making the tree as a whole better.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Yeah I think that Autocracy has the most terrible tenets and is redeemed by a few OP tenets.

I can see a lightning warfare nerf, along with making the tree as a whole better.

Agree with that. Lighting warfare is OP and should be nerfed, but a lot of the others tenets should be buffed.
(Alternatively, we could also nerf every good tenet of the 3 ideologies. In fact, it may be easier, but it seems far less fun)

 

[8bitBob]

Nerfing Lightning Warfare seems pretty anti-fun. One of the main appeals of taking Autocracy is for late game Blitzkrieg tactics, and Lightning Warfare is basically what allows tanks to participate in this.

If people feel strongly about it, I can picture reducing or removing the extraneous power via the bonus attack, but messing with the ZOC aspect would pretty much kill it.

That being said, I think people are underestimating some of the other tier 2 tenants, and I think this is mostly due to many people underestimating Corporations. Third Alternative / Syndicalism allow you to almost guaranteed be able to build Hexon Refineries, which snowballs you into monopoly yields (which has combat bonuses), production and endless Oil reserves. Combined with Air Supremacy for Oil free Zeroes, you can drown your enemies in heavy machinery and ships, while gaining absurd xp due to Elite Forces and Oil monopoly. It's not as generically useful, but it certainly has its place and is more powerful in some situations.

The only tier 2 tenant I feel is completely without merit and would never take over Lightning Warfare would be Total War.

 

[vyyt]

As an experienced human player, I find it nearly impossible to defend against a human opponent with lightning warfare; I'd say its pretty unreasonable to expect the AI to do so. In my opinion removing ZoC isn't good design, its a fundamental concept of warfare and something they AI does a very good job of.

100% agree. You have worded it much better than I did.

 

[CrazyG]

Nerfing Lightning Warfare seems pretty anti-fun. One of the main appeals of taking Autocracy is for late game Blitzkrieg tactics, and Lightning Warfare is basically what allows tanks to participate in this.

If people feel strongly about it, I can picture reducing or removing the extraneous power via the bonus attack, but messing with the ZOC aspect would pretty much kill it.

That being said, I think people are underestimating some of the other tier 2 tenants, and I think this is mostly due to many people underestimating Corporations. Third Alternative / Syndicalism allow you to almost guaranteed be able to build Hexon Refineries, which snowballs you into monopoly yields (which has combat bonuses), production and endless Oil reserves. Combined with Air Supremacy for Oil free Zeroes, you can drown your enemies in heavy machinery and ships, while gaining absurd xp due to Elite Forces and Oil monopoly. It's not as generically useful, but it certainly has its place and is more powerful in some situations.

The only tier 2 tenant I feel is completely without merit and would never take over Lightning Warfare would be Total War.

Do you actually build aircraft? I just spam tanks until I win. Extra movement, attack, and no zone of control makes it a broken unit.

I do think third alternative has a good role, but that role is supporting lightning warfare. Lightning warfare and military industrial complex carry the tree, the other good tenets are just options that synergize with those two

 

[ElliotS]

Yeah, as much as I love the feeling of picking lightning warfare and winning via a hail of blitz tanks, there's no doubt that it seems too easy. It's also anti-fun as it currently is, just for whoever you're playing against.

If you replaced the 'Ignores Zone of Control' with 'Heals every turn and can pillage for free' it would be strong but not as OP.

 

[Stalker0]

The +1 movement and attack bonus already make tanks pretty damn awesome, I do agree the ZOC loss is overkill.

 

[balinte]

Give aircraft bonus vs tanks (cuz they big or stg?)
-> bumm u actually started building aircraft instead of "spamming tanks until u win" and even take third alternative; or total war cuz u need the production for the new op units: the planes
And anyways with the weakened tanks lighting warfare doesnt seem so charming
Maybe

Plus naval melee could use some buff
Like supply for all melee ships?idk but they feel so weak after the tiremes, (vs no promotion ranged) i stopped playing portugal

 

[Lucas A.]

Here's my feedback around Autocracy:
Something that I put on only one tenet is the fact that some of them can swap tiers, of course with necessary balance changes (air Supremacy and Martial Spirit for example).

Tier 1:
(A) Elite Forces, Lebensraum, Military-Industrial Complex,

(F) Autarky: Internal trade routes grant +10 , and city connections provide +3
Feedback: It seems that the main problem here are Internal TR and not the tenet itself. But a buff to city conenection ca be the call.

(A-) Futurism: Tourism bonus from Historic Events increased by 20%.
Feedback: This one has one problem of too strong or too weak. My suggestion is add another source of Historic Event from it and change the bonus to 5~10%. Another thing is that it should fit well in T2, because of this too strong or too weak.

(C) New World Order: Reduces Crime in all cities by 20%. Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 and +5 .
Suggestion: Just add build them faster.

(F) United Front: Militaristic City-States grant units 200% more quickly while at war with a common foe. +30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States.
I have seen good suggestions for this one...


Tier 2:
(A) Lightning Warfare, Martial Spirit, Police State, Syndicalism,

(A-) Nationalism: Reduces unit maintenance costs by 33%.
Feedback: Name... is the same as an Order T2.

(A/F) Third Alternative: Quantity of Strategic Resources produced is increased by 100%. +10 to all yields in the Capital.
Feedback: The first part could be a good T2 by it's own. The second part is really bad at what it should be focused.
(F) Total War: +25% when building military units, and workers construct improvements 25% more quickly.
Suggestion: Change both Third Alternative and Total War to something like:
- Third Alternative: +10 and +10% to all yields in Capital.
- Total War: Double strategic resources and +25% to Military Units.

Tier 3:
Freedom's T3s are strong, Order's T3s are a bit weak (but is ok), the T3s here probably need some love.
(A-) Air Supremacy: Receive a free Airport in every city. +25% when building air units. Can build Zeros.

(A-) Cult of Personality: +50% to civilizations fighting a common enemy. A Great Person of your choice appears near your capital. Warscores with Civilizations count as Modifiers against them.

(F) Gunboat Diplomacy Gain 6 more Influence (at Standard speed) per turn with City-States you could demand tribute from. Your military forces are 50% more effective at intimidating City-States.
Suggestion: If add "No influence penalty from demanding tribute" this one should be good.

 

[CrazyG]

I think military industrial complex could be two separate policies and both would be worth choosing

Military Industrial Complex 33% cost of purchasing or upgrading units
Such Knowledgeable Walls +3 from defense buildings, citadels, and unique improvements

Even after halving the policy, both its parts seem way better than Nationalism to me. It could also make sense to put the +25% to Military Units earlier in the tree than the 33% cost of purchasing is, so maybe something like

Military Industrial Complex +25% to Military Units. -25% cost of upgrading units
Spooky Science Windmills +3 from defense buildings, citadels, and unique improvements

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I think military industrial complex could be two separate policies and both would be worth choosing

Military Industrial Complex 33% cost of purchasing or upgrading units
Such Knowledgeable Walls +3 from defense buildings, citadels, and unique improvements

Even after halving the policy, both its parts seem way better than Nationalism to me. It could also make sense to put the +25% to Military Units earlier in the tree than the 33% cost of purchasing is, so maybe something like

Military Industrial Complex +25% to Military Units. -25% cost of upgrading units
Spooky Science Windmills +3 from defense buildings, citadels, and unique improvements

I heavily disagree, I would never take +3 one unless I was a civ with UIs (easy F then), and with the power being so weirdly distributed in Autocracy, those would prefer to go Order even more to get stable yields for everything. Even worse is the Military Industrial Complex +25% to Military Units -25% cost of upgrading units which is an easy F as it's probably worse than Total War and Autarky. Quite an achievement, really. I wouldn't take -33% cost of unit purchase alone either as it's about the same as nationalism, if not worse assuming you ever want to buy some buildings/wonders too. Both policies would need heavy sweeteners, to avoid either a policy only for people with UIs, or a boring one that can be outdone Gold-wise by Party Leadership's gold alone if you're wide enough. They work together pretty well as-is, I'd just move the upgrade cost to Elite Forces and all'd be probably fine.

Unless every other policy in Autocracy was increased in power, in which case those policies wouldn't even be considered, that combined with the sought by many nerf to Lightning Warfare and other +CS policies would make this tree worthless. Order's billions of Science, two scientists and techs combined with greatly superior yields would make it better even for warfare and Autocracy would end up obsolete, especially considering it has the worst wonder. If Autocracy is not by far the best at units and fighting, it has no purpose unless its policies start focusing on something else.

 

[CrazyG]

I heavily disagree, I would never take +3 one unless I was a civ with UIs (easy F then)

If there is a situation where you take the tenet and its extremely powerful I don't see how it gets an F? I think this is an issue with your ratings in general, its okay for tenets to be situational. The current military industrial complex is really OP for civs with improvements that qualify, and the problem with Autocracy is that military industrial + lightning warfare basically are the tree. We should tone those down while buffing or reworking the useless tenets.

You are suggesting that -25% of upgrades is worse than 25% worker speed BTW, are you sure that is what you meant?

I heavily disagree, I would never take +3 one unless I was a civ with UIs (easy F then), and with the power being so weirdly distributed in Autocracy, those would prefer to go Order even more to get stable yields for everything. Even worse is the Military Industrial Complex +25% to Military Units -25% cost of upgrading units which is an easy F as it's probably worse than Total War and Autarky. Quite an achievement, really. I wouldn't take -33% cost of unit purchase alone either as it's about the same as nationalism, if not worse assuming you ever want to buy some buildings/wonders too. Both policies would need heavy sweeteners, to avoid either a policy only for people with UIs, or a boring one that can be outdone Gold-wise by Party Leadership alone if you're wide enough. They work together pretty well as-is, I'd just move the upgrade cost to Elite Forces and all'd be probably fine.

Unless every other policy in Autocracy was increased in power, in which case those policies wouldn't even be considered, that combined with the sought by many nerf to Lightning Warfare and other +CS policies would make this tree worthless. Order's billions of Science, two scientists and techs combined with greatly superior yields would make it better even for warfare and Autocracy would end up obsolete, especially considering it has the worst wonder. If Autocracy is not by far the best at units and fighting, it has no purpose unless its policies start focusing on something else.

First of all if Authority's wonder is too weak, we should buff the wonder. BAlancing out terrible bonuses with overpowered ones has led Autocracy to its current state. I'll agree that the +25% towards military units kind of just stinks and it should probably just leave or be included only a small secondary benefit. Also I thought Party Leadership gave +2 in all cities and considered it a decent policy, IDK when it got buffed to 5 but that sounds too good to me

Now on to how strong that science is, I thought that defensive buildings included walls, castles, arsenals, military base, barracks, armory and military academy. So that is up to 21 per city, at this stage you probably have enough buildings to get at least 15 from it, I don't see how that is an F either. This is why I will take Autocracy even though I know it means taking several policies that stink. I don't like any of the T3 at all but it doesn't matter because I win by spamming cheap, OP tanks until I kill everyone or my tourism does.

 

[kawyua]

Nerfing Military Industrial Complex into two may also not be the direction to go. As Enrico stated, autocracy is redeemed by a few op tenets and without them, the ideology is near worthless. Of course, that's hard to say because some balancing definitely should be done. I like what CrazyG suggested, but the whole point of picking autocracy is to be capable of war without crippling oneself. If there is a way to have a miitary bonus and development bonus together in a single policy that would be far more interesting - a theme I would like in the rest of the rest of the autocracy tree. Reducing the purchasing units part to like 20% or the science to be about 2 might be good enough.

Another thing that might be worth considering is giving anti tank promotions earlier. When light tanks and even tanks appear, there are too few counters to them. Artillery and gatling/machine guns just get one shot, hell everything just gets one shot by tanks at this time. Maybe if the spearmen class unit promotion with the 50% vs mounted units also include tanks, and infantry (and up) get some antitank promotion. The ai would be a lot more resilient to tank carpets. Why not even give an anti tank bonus to artillery! Taking out the "weakness to armored units" in covering fire for gatling/machine guns would be nice, too. Right now, the window of opportunity for tanks is way too long and too potent. Making late game warfare more difficult will affect how important autocracy tenets are in the end. Purchasing strategies with military is only as strong as the unit they are mass purchasing (tanks). Maybe this will make military production more important in the end.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

If there is a situation where you take the tenet and its extremely powerful I don't see how it gets an F? I think this is an issue with your ratings in general, its okay for tenets to be situational. The current military industrial complex is really OP for civs with improvements that qualify, and the problem with Autocracy is that military industrial + lightning warfare basically are the tree. We should tone those down while buffing or reworking the useless tenets.

You are suggesting that -25% of upgrades is worse than 25% worker speed BTW, are you sure that is what you meant?

At this stage of the game, yeah -25% of upgrades is better. Slightly only, because oil platforms, alluminiums, etc. will still need building. Those policies are ancient-era tier though, and if they were where they belong - in ancient era - I'd rather take faster workers. Even there they'd be outshined by almost everything, but whatever.
Maybe the power is focused in those two, but what you are doing is ripping them apart until the remains are separated into two uneven ones that nobody would want to take. All tenet trees have some slightly out of the line when it comes to power and that's fine. If according to you just -25% upgrade cost and a +25% unit makes a good policy anyone sane would take, then moving the -33% upgrade cost from MIC to elsewhere should be way more than enough to turn it into a balanced one.

Maybe situational tenets are fine, but not here. The entire tree is situational as it is and so making tenets purely for UI owners is a very bad idea that only further divides and weakens it. Would you seriously go Autocracy if you didn't want to fight? Party Leadership can have as much impact as -33% purchase/upgrade cost with it's gold alone, and it provides all base yields. The tree has scientists, techs, yields that easily beat anything Autocracy can get. The policy by itself isn't really overpowered too, it's a T2 late in the game after all, it's got to provide something appealing.

First of all if Authority's wonder is too weak, we should buff the wonder. BAlancing out terrible bonuses with overpowered ones has led Autocracy to its current state. I'll agree that the +25% towards military units kind of just stinks and it should probably just leave or be included only a small secondary benefit. Also I thought Party Leadership gave +2 in all cities and considered it a decent policy, IDK when it got buffed to 5 but that sounds too good to me

It's not really too good, it's very late in the game. It's a nobrainer policy that could probably be a touch weaker, but all the trees have such - and that's fine, it'd be boring otherwise. I also suggested a nerf to MIC, but one that didn't instantly cripple it into uselessness. We could even additionally reduce the unit cost reduction to, like, 25%, or turn MIC into a pseudo-scaler (-5% cost of units for every Autocracy policy, up to -35%), if that's possible, but Science or gold cost reduction alone is not enough if you don't want everyone fighty to be a communist.

Now on to how strong that science is, I thought that defensive buildings included walls, castles, arsenals, military base, barracks, armory and military academy. So that is up to 21 per city, at this stage you probably have enough buildings to get at least 15 from it, I don't see how that is an F either. This is why I will take Autocracy even though I know it means taking several policies that stink. I don't like any of the T3 at all but it doesn't matter because I win by spamming cheap, OP tanks until I kill everyone or my tourism does.

It's only wall line and citadels from what I remember. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. It's up to 12 per city, and let's be honest - it doesn't work that way. Fresh conquests will usually build lots of other buildings before defense as all defense buildings are lost, so they get 0. Even your base cities might lack in this regard. In fact, most cities will get at most 6 Science, with some outliers like the capital and the best of the best getting 9-12. That's not really strong at this point in the game, and when military bases are unlocked, that's not impactful at all.

 

[CrazyG]

At this stage of the game, yeah -25% of upgrades is better. Slightly only, because oil platforms, alluminiums, etc. will still need building. Those policies are ancient-era tier though, and if they were where they belong - in ancient era - I'd rather take faster workers. Even there they'd be outshined by almost everything, but whatever.
Maybe the power is focused in those two, but what you are doing is ripping them apart until the remains are separated into two uneven ones that nobody would want to take. All tenet trees have some slightly out of the line when it comes to power and that's fine. If according to you just -25% upgrade cost and a +25% unit makes a good policy anyone sane would take, then moving the -33% upgrade cost from MIC to elsewhere should be way more than enough to turn it into a balanced one.

I frankly I think its really bad design that when I cannot maximize a policy at all but its still the best choice. This seems like the exact kind of situation a tuning thread is meant to address.

It's not really too good, it's very late in the game. It's a nobrainer policy, but all the trees have such - and that's fine, it'd be boring otherwise. I also suggested a nerf to MIC, but one that didn't instantly cripple it into uselessness. We could even reduce the unit cost reduction to, like, 25%, or turn MIC into a pseudo-scaler (-5% cost of units for every Autocracy policy, up to -35%), if that's possible.

How does a no brainer decision make things less boring? That sounds like the epitome of something that would cause boredom to me. If you take the same T2 tenet first every game it reduces variety a lot. Freedom doesn't have anywhere near the no brainer choices of the other two trees (I'd say freedom is the most balanced and best designed at the moment). I was under the impression that the purpose of this wave of tuning was to make the tenets closer in power

It's only wall line and citadels from what I remember. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. It's up to 12 per city, and let's be honest - it doesn't work that way. Fresh conquests will usually build lots of other buildings before defense, so they get 0. In fact, most cities will get at most 6. That's not really strong at this point in the game.

If you are right, then I completely agree my suggestion is far too weak.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I frankly I think its really bad design that when I cannot maximize a policy at all but its still the best choice. This seems like the exact kind of situation a tuning thread is meant to address.

I don't know what maximising a policy means. You mean taking the best choices? That will exist because some fit some playstyles, but I agree with you that it shouldn't be the case all the time, so every time X policy is taken as the first one.

How does a no brainer decision make things less boring? That sounds like the epitome of something that would cause boredom to me. If you take the same T2 tenet first every game it reduces variety a lot. Freedom doesn't have anywhere near the no brainer choices of the other two trees (I'd say freedom is the most balanced and best designed at the moment). I was under the impression that the purpose of this wave of tuning was to make the tenets closer in power

Well, because it's impossible to balance perfectly and such things will always be there, especially if a tree is pretty much "win through conquest by domination or win through conquest by tourism" as it is now - it either helps at achieving that or it doesn't. But I agree in a way, it'd be better if we could find a good spot so all would have its use (and maybe Party Leadership should go to 4 yields per city, maybe also gaining stuff like Golden Age Points to compensate), but your suggestions wasn't that. They overnerfed both parts while not also adding what should be changed so Autocracy doesn't turn useless after it gets its A policy turned into 2 F-s, one of which is C for some civs or A if RNG serves. I mean, not only will tanks be nerfed through Lightning Warfare not being OP anymore if Gazebo replaces zone of control with something else, the policy that allows you to make more of them while producing buildings will too. While both MIC and LW do probably need adjustments, it seems a bit too much to cripple one so much when we don't even know the impact of the other being nerfed, let alone how they will make the game turn out when put together. Both should be adjusted, but not crippled.

Let's be honest - no matter how balanced you make it, one or more tenets will always stand out, either because of your gameplan or because it's just slightly better than the others. As Autocracy is primarily about warmongering and about everyone fights the same way, it's obvious some tenets will end up slightly better. The only way to make stuff perfectly balanced is to have it identical or with negligible changes and that is not fun. What's more important is all are about at the same level or at least wildly different so they can't really be directly compared.

And actually I disagree, Order is about equal to Freedom in this regard. In T1 and T2 I'd say Order has way more choice even though you probably always want Great Leap, Party Leadership and free research labs, but it's not like anyone would not take Hospitals one in Freedom because Freedom has some really bad and useless ones in both tiers, while Order's bad is typically not that bad and typically has its use. Only in T3 is Freedom more... free because all fits whatever you want and all is good, and the Iron Curtain isn't that great. Autocracy is probably the most restrained one though. I make almost the same choices every game I take it and that's probably not good, but suggesting to nerf the good ones to be worse than some of the current choices that are only okay as they are because they're carried by the best two is not a good idea. It makes it seem like you want to make the tree completely obsolete, which is a wrongful assumption but it does seem so.

It'd be best if we made full, imaginary lists of changes because it's hard to determine from small bits what is right and what is wrong.

 

[ashendashin]

While both MIC and LW do probably need adjustments, it seems a bit too much to cripple one so much when we don't even know the impact of the other being nerfed, let alone how they will make the game turn out when put together. Both should be adjusted, but not crippled.

This mindset of individual policies -that were agreed on as OP, no less- being crippled so easily just doesn't sit right with me. In particular, LW losing its current effect on tanks would suddenly make it a crippled policy? What, does the fact that it affects other land units suddenly not exist because tanks are all that matter? I don't play on small maps and I can still go through large swaths of land with regular infantry, given that the option of proper advancing city by city with regular units exists. In my opinion, LW would still be extremely strong if it dropped tanks, and with any other buff besides ignoring ZOC it could only possibly be viewed as crippled if a player is incapable of winning with units besides armor.

We should instead be looking at the overall tree and what it does to units while also considering the necessary nerfs to anything that may stack on them if there's such a thin line between useless and amazing for you guys.
I think the Fs being thrown around could be open to unit changes. Currently Autocracy has one very clear direction: Take over the world as fast as possible with tanks and anything that aids tanks, if necessary. Attrition, dominance over certain fields, it doesn't matter; there's no alternate form of aggression to aid in war. The only thing to do is spam tanks to instantly take cities as that's the universal answer to all problems in civ.

Planes remain planes. They whittle down health for your other units. There's no other utility for them. So ideas I'll throw out are (with no idea how many are viable, if any are at all):
Bombers have a chance to destroy buildings/improvements in the cities borders.
Bombers kill workers instantly and pillage roads underneath units.
Fighters receive a passive ground attack promo against units in range if no enemy fighters are present.

Non armor units need love:
Infantry lock enemy tiles behind them similar to a blockade.
Machine guns get a passive denial promo that prevents enemy healing.

Navies get almost nothing out of Autocracy, but it may be dangerous to give them much. Free supply?

Dunno where exactly to stick em. Mostly wanna see how much of this gets shot down. I expect anything to do with bombers affecting things besides health won't stick around.