[Tuning] Ideologies: Tier 1

Just came in to post about Volunteer Army as above, tall civs are the ones that should benefit from it, but all it does is completely crash your empire by going way over your tiny supply cap. As a wider civ it's so insignificant it's a total waste.
 
A thing about volunteer army is its very possible for someone like Poland to unlock it rather early and slaughter their neighbors with those 50 CS units. I've managed to get an ideology while my enemies still were using Tercio on several occasions. So maybe make it +6 supply, and 6 foreign legions appear upon researching a specific technology, just to avoid a culture rush so easily turning into a military rush.
 
It is a problem only for small maps I think, cause on large or huge map 6 legions are not a super power that can conquer much cities.
But adding 6 supply is a good idea.

What do u think about "Capitalism" policy?(5 specialists without unhappiness) I think it is useless. Can someone describe situation when this policy is good?
 
It is a problem only for small maps I think, cause on large or huge map 6 legions are not a super power that can conquer much cities.
But adding 6 supply is a good idea.

What do u think about "Capitalism" policy?(5 specialists without unhappiness) I think it is useless. Can someone describe situation when this policy is good?
It's 1.25 happiness per city. When I was warmonger freedom (forced because Egypt was freedom) I loved it.

I'd also approve adding 6 supply cap to Volunteer Army. I think it's a little weak.
 
Using the original format, I think it'd fine (and fair) to look through the ideology tenets. Keep in mind two things:

1.) Any new tenets or tenet changes must use existing policy or tenet mechanics. Don't go crazy.
2.) Tier 1 tenets should be about as strong as medieval policies. Tier 2 Tenets should be about as strong as Industrial policies. And Tier 3 Tenets should be more advanced.
3.) Compare Tenets to other Tenets within their ideology, not to other ideological tenets. Order, for example, has a stronger Tier 1 than Freedom but a weaker Tier 3. That's intentional. This concept should be retained overall:

Tier 1: Strongest is Order (Weakest is Freedom, middle is Autocracy)
Tier 2: Strongest is Freedom (Weakest is Order, middle is Autocracy)
Tier 3: Strongest is Autocracy (Weakest is Order, middle is Freedom)

G
 
Thanks ElliotS, I understand now.
So except Volunteers Army - anyone has some propositions about other ideological tenets?
 
Using the original format, I think it'd fine (and fair) to look through the ideology tenets. Keep in mind two things:

1.) Any new tenets or tenet changes must use existing policy or tenet mechanics. Don't go crazy.
2.) Tier 1 tenets should be about as strong as medieval policies. Tier 2 Tenets should be about as strong as Industrial policies. And Tier 3 Tenets should be more advanced.
3.) Compare Tenets to other Tenets within their ideology, not to other ideological tenets. Order, for example, has a stronger Tier 1 than Freedom but a weaker Tier 3. That's intentional. This concept should be retained overall:

Tier 1: Strongest is Order (Weakest is Freedom, middle is Autocracy)
Tier 2: Strongest is Freedom (Weakest is Order, middle is Autocracy)
Tier 3: Strongest is Autocracy (Weakest is Order, middle is Freedom)

G

Autocracy strongest T3? Nope. It has two absolutely useless tenets and a mediocre one. If you mixed up Freedom T2 with T3, I'd agree. As it is, I think currently

Tier 1: Weakest is Freedom, Order is strongest. Agreed.
Tier 2: Freedom and Order about the same, strongest Autocracy though it has some stinkers.
Tier 3: Weakest Autocracy by far (only Zero policy worth anything and it's worse than Tier 2 policies), strongest Freedom by far

The list is assuming Autocracy wants to win domination, if not then its T2 is the worst and it has nothing worth taking except Happiness. Also, I'm not sure T1s should be medieval in power. Why take them instead of opening industrial/renaissance ones and also get a scaler then? If they're the same, they're weaker because they're much later. They should all be at least slightly more powerful I think.

Autocracy:

Autarky, Futurism really suck. United Front is decent if you've had Authority, but even then it won't do anything important. Autarky is an ancient era policy which somehow found its way in an ideology and Futurism's problem is cultural victory doesn't fit Autocracy. With all the anti-wide tourism changes, who in their right mind would go to a wide+warmongering mostly tree to win a tourism victory now that Japan lost their bonuses - and even as Japan/France before changes I wouldn't take Futurism? I think the tree would be better as Scientific - Warmongering - Diplomatic focused. It'd be more fitting historically and gameplay wise (science unlocks new toys to fight with - tourism doesn't). This ideology tree works like this anyway if you're something like Polynesia/France/Huns with UIs Military-Industrial makes it a Scientific victory focused tree anyway. Tourism victory is not optimal or possible for a warmongerer unless he's going to with via domination, the changes were way too harsh.

Suggestions for T1 (it's a thread for them):
Autarky +4 :c5production: +4 :c5food: per city connection. +10 :c5gold: per internal Trade Route. - I still wouldn't take it though.
Futurism removed, now Volksbildung : +2 :c5culture: +2 :c5science: +3 :c5greatperson: Great Scientist points per Library, Public School, University and Research Lab. - if too strong which it might be, Library can be removed or replaced with Palace. Or yields can be tuned down, but it's only a tiny bit stronger than the Piety's right policy with markets/caravansaries/etc as it is so it'd be better to cut Library.
United Front - Receive units from your city state allies every x turns. +30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States. (basically makes all city states militaristic while making militaristic ones double as good. Is it possible? GPs can be gifted by them, so I guess it could be done too)
Elite Forces - +15XP for new units, +50% XP from combat. -33% :c5gold: cost of upgrading units. - -33% gold cost taken away from Military-Industrial to make that one less overwhelming.
Lebensraum - Receive :c5culture: and :c5goldenage: points when your borders expands and when you expend Great Generals. Citadel tile-acquisition radius doubled. - now you won't be potentially hurting your culture when using Great Generals.
Military-Industrial Complex - -33% :c5faith:and :c5gold: cost of purchasing military units. +3 :c5science: from defense buildings, citadels, and unique improvements. - Upgrade cost is now elsewhere, but not to make the policy inferior to others faith-cost decrease is added. Maybe unneeded, I dunno, but this late in the game something like that should exist, especially considering how steeply Faith costs increase.
New World Order Advanced Spy actions cannot be performed in your cities. Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 :c5culture: and +5 :c5production:. - everyone has Spy stuff, so now does Autocracy.

Freedom:
Those T1 tenets are really unimpressive. Unlike Autocracy, Freedom doesn't have an innate crisis on what it tries to achieve, but T1s here are really something else.

Creative Expression - +2 :c5goldenage: +2 :c5culture: from Museums, Broadcast Towers, Opera Houses, and Ampitheaters. +2 :tourism: from :greatwork: Great Works.
GAP are the weakest yield and this policy as it was before would suck even compared to ancient era policies, let alone medieval ones as you intend them to be.
Avant Garde - +33% :c5greatperson: points in all cities and +5 to all :c5greatperson: Great Person Points in the capital. - now it's better. Might even be too good, though.
Economic Union - Free Trade Route and Great Merchant. +3 :c5gold: per trade route and Town. - it was too late and not impactful. That one trade route is what, at most 30 :c5gold: +X :c5culture::c5science:? That's nothing no matter how tall or wide you are. At least it's a WLTKD now.
Volunteer Army 6 units are maintenance free. Receive +6 supply, 6 Foreign Legions and all land units receive Morale. - if they're volunteers, they should be enthusiastic, so Morale for everyone. Produce units wherever you want.
Urbanization - +2 :c5food: from all tiles with improvements. - why only focus on a few improvement types this late in the game? It pretty much works on 80% of the tiles anyway, at least it'll be more consistent.

Order:

Lots of weakness and great strength here.

Peace, Land, Bread Poverty reduced by 20% and growth increased by 20% in all cities. +2 :tourism: per city.
People's Army Military Academies generate +1 :c5happy:, +3 :c5culture: and :c5production::, get a free one in every city.
Double Agents is bad but I have no clue how to change it. Free Police Station everywhere on top of all that would be a nice start though.
Communism is not too great too but Industrygoers would enjoy it I guess.
 
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Autocracy strongest T3? Nope. It has two absolutely useless tenets and a mediocre one. If you mixed up Freedom T2 with T3, I'd agree. As it is, I think currently

Tier 1: Weakest is Freedom, Order is strongest. Agreed.
Tier 2: Freedom and Order about the same, strongest Autocracy though it has some stinkers.
Tier 3: Weakest Autocracy by far (only Zero policy worth anything and it's worse than Tier 2 policies), strongest Freedom by far
.

Free Airports can be a game-winner for domination - that alone makes Autocracy very strong.

G
 

Autocracy strongest T3? Nope. It has two absolutely useless tenets and a mediocre one. If you mixed up Freedom T2 with T3, I'd agree. As it is, I think currently

Tier 1: Weakest is Freedom, Order is strongest. Agreed.
Tier 2: Freedom and Order about the same, strongest Autocracy though it has some stinkers.
Tier 3: Weakest Autocracy by far (only Zero policy worth anything and it's worse than Tier 2 policies), strongest Freedom by far

The list is assuming Autocracy wants to win domination, if not then its T2 is the worst and it has nothing worth taking except Happiness. Also, I'm not sure T1s should be medieval in power. Why take them instead of opening industrial/renaissance ones and also get a scaler then? If they're the same, they're weaker because they're much later. They should all be at least slightly more powerful I think.

Autocracy:

Autarky, Futurism really suck. United Front is decent if you've had Authority, but even then it won't do anything important. Autarky is an ancient era policy which somehow found its way in an ideology and Futurism's problem is cultural victory doesn't fit Autocracy. With all the anti-wide tourism changes, who in their right mind would go to a wide+warmongering mostly tree to win a tourism victory now that Japan lost their bonuses - and even as Japan/France before changes I wouldn't take Futurism? I think the tree would be better as Scientific - Warmongering - Diplomatic focused. It'd be more fitting historically and gameplay wise (science unlocks new toys to fight with - tourism doesn't). This ideology tree works like this anyway if you're something like Polynesia/France/Huns with UIs Military-Industrial makes it a Scientific victory focused tree anyway. Tourism victory is not optimal or possible for a warmongerer unless he's going to with via domination, the changes were way too harsh.

Suggestions for T1 (it's a thread for them):
Autarky +4 :c5production: +4 :c5food: per city connection. +10 :c5gold: per internal Trade Route. - I still wouldn't take it though.
Futurism removed, now Volksbildung : +2 :c5culture: +2 :c5science: +3 :c5greatperson: Great Scientist points per Library, Public School, University and Research Lab. - if too strong which it might be, Library can be removed or replaced with Palace. Or yields can be tuned down, but it's only a tiny bit stronger than the Piety's right policy with markets/caravansaries/etc as it is so it'd be better to cut Library.
United Front - Receive units from your city state allies every x turns. +30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States. (basically makes all city states militaristic while making militaristic ones double as good. Is it possible? GPs can be gifted by them, so I guess it could be done too)
Elite Forces - +15XP for new units, +50% XP from combat. -33% :c5gold: cost of upgrading units. - -33% gold cost taken away from Military-Industrial to make that one less overwhelming.
Lebensraum - Receive :c5culture: and :c5goldenage: points when your borders expands and when you expend Great Generals. Citadel tile-acquisition radius doubled. - now you won't be potentially hurting your culture when using Great Generals.
Military-Industrial Complex - -33% :c5faith:and :c5gold: cost of purchasing military units. +3 :c5science: from defense buildings, citadels, and unique improvements. - Upgrade cost is now elsewhere, but not to make the policy inferior to others faith-cost decrease is added. Maybe unneeded, I dunno, but this late in the game something like that should exist, especially considering how steeply Faith costs increase.
New World Order Advanced Spy actions cannot be performed in your cities. Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 :c5culture: and +5 :c5production:. - everyone has Spy stuff, so now does Autocracy.

Freedom:
Those T1 tenets are really unimpressive. Unlike Autocracy, Freedom doesn't have an innate crisis on what it tries to achieve, but T1s here are really something else.

Creative Expression - +2 :c5goldenage: +2 :c5culture: from Museums, Broadcast Towers, Opera Houses, and Ampitheaters. +2 :tourism: from :greatwork: Great Works.
GAP are the weakest yield and this policy as it was before would suck even compared to ancient era policies, let alone medieval ones as you intend them to be.
Avant Garde - +33% :c5greatperson: points in all cities and +5 to all :c5greatperson: Great Person Points in the capital. - now it's better. Might even be too good, though.
Economic Union - Free Trade Route and Great Merchant. +3 :c5gold: per trade route and Town. - it was too late and not impactful. That one trade route is what, at most 30 :c5gold: +X :c5culture::c5science:? That's nothing no matter how tall or wide you are. At least it's a WLTKD now.
Volunteer Army 6 units are maintenance free. Receive +6 supply, 6 Foreign Legions and all land units receive Morale. - if they're volunteers, they should be enthusiastic, so Morale for everyone. Produce units wherever you want.
Urbanization - +2 :c5food: from all tiles with improvements. - why only focus on a few improvement types this late in the game? It pretty much works on 80% of the tiles anyway, at least it'll be more consistent.

Order:

Lots of weakness and great strength here.

Peace, Land, Bread Poverty reduced by 20% and growth increased by 20% in all cities. +2 :tourism: per city.
People's Army Military Academies generate +1 :c5happy:, +3 :c5culture: and :c5production::, get a free one in every city.
Double Agents is bad but I have no clue how to change it. Free Police Station everywhere on top of all that would be a nice start though.
Communism is not too great too but Industrygoers would enjoy it I guess.
1- Authocracy's T3 tenet that gives airports is the strongest T3 by far. It's really good, though I agree the others are pure poopy.
2- I think you're overbuffing some stuff:
Lebensraum is extremely good for example one of the strongest T1 policies, if not the strongest. It will singlehandedly give you a perma golden age with enough cities and allow you to fly through tenets at speeds few can match.
3- I do like a lot of your ideas.

My thoughts:
Freedom

Creative Expression - +2 :c5goldenage: +2 :c5culture: from Museums, Broadcast Towers, Opera Houses, and Ampitheaters. +2 :tourism: from :greatwork: Great Works.
I agree here. This seems correct.

Economic Union - Free Trade Route and Great Merchant. +3 :c5gold: per trade route and Town.
I also agree here.

Volunteer Army 6 units are maintenance free. Receive +6 supply, 6 Foreign Legions
No need to give out morale like candy imo. If anything allow it to give mercenaries once they're researched..

Urbanization
- No opinion. I don't have an issue with it, but I can see the argument for buffing it.

Order

Peace, Land, Bread: +20% food in all cities, -20% poverty

People's Army: Seems fine to me already.

Double Agents Add: Another spy and scale with CS# like other policies. Spies are awesome.

Autocracy

Autarky +10 :c5gold: per internal Trade Route. Completing an internal trade route creates a corporate office in the city.

This seems much more sensible. Wide can have issues with production in satellite cities, and this would be a cool way of helping.

Elite Forces & Military-Industrial Complex: Not sure if the change is needed. I would er on the side of no.

Futurism: +2 :c5culture: +2 :c5science: +3 :c5greatperson: Great Scientist points per Library, Public School, University and Research Lab.

Futurism sucked.

Lebensraum: Is one of the best tenets. It's great.

New World Order
Advanced Spy actions cannot be performed in your cities. Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 :c5culture: and +5 :c5production:. - everyone has Spy stuff, so now does Autocracy.
I like it.


United Front - Receive units from your city state allies every x turns. +30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States.
(Basically makes all city states militaristic while making militaristic ones double as good. Is it possible? GPs can be gifted by them, so I guess it could be done too)
I like it too.
 
Peace, Land, Bread: +20% food in all cities, -20% poverty

Autarky +10 :c5gold: per internal Trade Route. Completing an internal trade route creates a corporate office in the city.

New World Order
Advanced Spy actions cannot be performed in your cities. Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 :c5culture: and +5 :c5production:. - everyone has Spy stuff, so now does Autocracy.
I like it.

United Front - Receive units from your city state allies every x turns. +30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States.

Just FYI these all violate my 'no new code' rule.

G
 
I have used "Air Supremacy" multiple times to insta buy around 10 nukes and win. And, I have won by grinding it out with zeroes. The statement that it's a strong policy is valid, but it is definitely not a good enough description of relative power. Its a kind of win harder button. A civ needs to have a substantial economy and military lead to use its bonuses well. Then, the lines become blurred whether the win was a result of how powerful the policy was or by the lead I managed to accumulate (which I could have won through other means). Of course, I can't understate how easy it makes domination victories - it is definitely required for any civ going for domination.

So many of the ideology policies are like that, strong in special cases. I'm okay with how a lot of them are mechanically. Sure, some might need a numbers tweak, but these interesting tenets are nice options to have. Although, some can be outright useless in certain situations, so I hope the ai can recognize that. Can't really tell what they picked.

Still, I think discussions of how explosively strong some tenets are distorting the power levels in this thread. To a certain point, I kind of just want some of these tenets to be nerfed instead. Among others, civil society, military industrial complex, and maybe arsenal of democracy stand out to me. They are very strong upon selection, and can snowball a bit too much for one tenet.

I think there will always be some debate about the strength of a tenet: game finishing power, raw yield count, or being a good crutch. Its hard to say what is "right".

However, I do think some things have changed since the base game. So, how Ideologies work should change, too. Specifically, the free tenets for being "first/second". I think this is a relic of the past that was meant to be when its close, i.e every civ hitting modern while being unable to complete the policy trees by that time. But now, ideologies can only unlock at atomic era or by getting 18 policies. Culture focused civs can get it by like industrial, but those who don't have the luxury of culture... The gap between a civ having an ideology and not is huge. And thats okay... if tenets weren't as strong as it is now. Giving the free 2 tenets to these leaders is insult to injury as they get 100s of yields more for around 50 turns, snowballing to more. Each of these tenets are veerry strong. Also, I don't think policies and tenets are that comparable. They have different purposes in mind. Ancient era policies have small raw yields, medieval sets up for win condition, and the industrial policies are percent global yields. Tenets on the otherhand, develop cities hard. Super hard, and if not, they give a huge military/cultural/science bonus outright. Its kind of just incomparable...

TL;DR stop giving free tenets for those who get it first/second. Snowballs too hard. I hope this is enough of a justification...

Culture focused civs don't need that crutch. Getting more policies is advantage enough
 
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I have used "Air Supremacy" multiple times to insta buy around 10 nukes and win. And, I have won by grinding it out with zeroes. The statement that it's a strong policy is valid, but it is definitely not a good enough description of relative power. Its a kind of win harder button. A civ needs to have a substantial economy and military lead to use its bonuses well. Then, the lines become blurred whether the win was a result of how powerful the policy was or by the lead I managed to accumulate (which I could have won through other means). Of course, I can't understate how easy it makes domination victories - it is definitely required for any civ going for domination.

So many of the ideology policies are like that, strong in special cases. I'm okay with how a lot of them are mechanically. Sure, some might need a numbers tweak, but these interesting tenets are nice options to have. Although, some can be outright useless in certain situations, so I hope the ai can recognize that. Can't really tell what they picked.

Still, I think discussions of how explosively strong some tenets are distorting the power levels in this thread. To a certain point, I kind of just want some of these tenets to be nerfed instead. Among others, civil society, military industrial complex, and maybe arsenal of democracy stand out to me. They are very strong upon selection, and can snowball a bit too much for one tenet.

I think there will always be some debate about the strength of a tenet: game finishing power, raw yield count, or being a good crutch. Its hard to say what is "right".

However, I do think some things have changed since the base game. So, how Ideologies work should change, too. Specifically, the free tenets for being "first/second". I think this is a relic of the past that was meant to be when its close, i.e every civ hitting modern while being unable to complete the policy trees by that time. But now, ideologies can only unlock at atomic era or by getting 18 policies. Culture focused civs can get it by like industrial, but those who don't have the luxury of culture... The gap between a civ having an ideology and not is huge. And thats okay... if tenets weren't as strong as it is now. Giving the free 2 tenets to these leaders is insult to injury as they get 100s of yields more for around 50 turns, snowballing to more. Each of these tenets are veerry strong. Also, I don't think policies and tenets are that comparable. They have different purposes in mind. Ancient era policies have small raw yields, medieval sets up for win condition, and the industrial policies are percent global yields. Tenets on the otherhand, develop cities hard. Super hard, and if not, they give a huge military/cultural/science bonus outright. Its kind of just incomparable...

TL;DR stop giving free tenets for those who get it first/second. Snowballs too hard. I hope this is enough of a justification...

Culture focused civs don't need that crutch. Getting more policies is advantage enough

I've actually considered giving those free tenets to later civs that adopt the same ideology... a catch-up mechanic, if you will.

G
 
I've actually considered giving those free tenets to later civs that adopt the same ideology... a catch-up mechanic, if you will.

G
I think that's a better system than now. I'm kind of worried about culture civs, since tourism victories was nerfed pretty substantially... I'll have to play it out to understand. Although, I don't think rubberbanding is that much of an issue, since low culture civs take a while to get access to ideologies.
 
Free Airports can be a game-winner for domination - that alone makes Autocracy very strong.

G

Yeah, they can sometimes help achieve that, but that's still as I've said only one good policy and it's still not really better than what's in Freedom/Order. For the AI, it must be the worst as there's a lot of chance it'll do a bad thing and take some of the other two and they're not good. GD is overcomplicated, requires too many actions too late in the game and is countered by the mechanics of the game as it can only get you up to Friends, doesn't work on recently tributed and ends up less useful than United Front or any other diplomatic tenet. Even if there was no limit, it'd not exactly be a good policy so in this case I'll probably suggest a full overhaul of this one in another thread. Cult of Personality is just a free GP and nothing else because why would you go Tourism with Autocracy? It doesn't work. Free GP to choose is on a medieval policy in aesthetics IIRC, so it's about there in power.

1- Authocracy's T3 tenet that gives airports is the strongest T3 by far. It's really good, though I agree the others are pure poopy.
2- I think you're overbuffing some stuff:
Lebensraum is extremely good for example one of the strongest T1 policies, if not the strongest. It will singlehandedly give you a perma golden age with enough cities and allow you to fly through tenets at speeds few can match.
3- I do like a lot of your ideas.

1.It's great only for domination whereas some others, like +20% Science from Research Labs. It lacks flexibility, but it's up there. The other two are pretty bad though.
2. Lebensraum is very good and maybe it's unneded indeed, but citadels taking away tiles you'd get tons of yields for is a bit of an inner crisis of the policy - if GG gave at least a bit of Culture/GA to compensate, that wouldn't be the case, but then I might be overreacting as the same is the case with buying borders and letting them grow. I usually take it asap anyway.
3. Thanks.

Just FYI these all violate my 'no new code' rule.

G

To be honest New World Order isn't bad in it's current form so it could even be unchanged. A small adjustment could make it more appealing, but I usually take it as the latest T1s for less unhappiness and more yields. It'd be more interesting if the change came to be, but that's fine. My ideas from the previous post outside of that and Front were probably doable. No idea what Front should be now though.

I've actually considered giving those free tenets to later civs that adopt the same ideology... a catch-up mechanic, if you will.

G

This isn't Mario Kart though. If someone is this very behind when the game's pretty much ending, they are not very likely to be coming back and they probably shouldn't be assisted to do so. What's next, unlocking a policy while being far behind gives you a chance to get a Blue Nuke that automatically finds and hurts the player with the highest score unless they randomly got Red Atomic Shelter when picking their own policies? It'd be better to just give those two tenets to everyone, otherwise it'll be a nightmare for the guy who gets first choice 5 turns before others as he'll get to enjoy himself for a whole 5 turns before someone gets two free policies, his slight lead turned into being behind for absolutely no reason but being slightly better. Not to mention it'd destroy variety because if ideologies will be more balanced, everyone will want to get to the policy tree someone else took to get two free ones. Even if you find the right equation to make it somehow fair (like you only get +2 policies if you're X behind), that's not the case for Science, Military, Gold, etc. You don't get free techs for doing nothing because of Sejong, you might get more from the trade routes but Sejong can always say "nope" and declare war.

I think rewarding bad play and being worse is a bad idea, it might work in Mario Kart but not here - rubberbanding can be okay in a game where a match takes 2-3 minutes and randomness adds to the thrill, not in Civ where it's several hours. Two for everyone whenever they get there could work, or one for everyone as soon as requirement is met. Tenets aren't much stronger than industrial era policies so it'll be the same as being on Authority as someone starts Aesthetics - disadvantaged, but salvageable.
 
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Yeah, they can sometimes help achieve that, but that's still as I've said only one good policy and it's still not really better than what's in Freedom/Order. For the AI, it must be the worst as there's a lot of chance it'll do a bad thing and take some of the other two and they're not good. GD is overcomplicated, requires too many actions too late in the game and is countered by the mechanics of the game as it can only get you up to Friends, doesn't work on recently tributed and ends up less useful than United Front or any other diplomatic tenet. Even if there was no limit, it'd not exactly be a good policy so in this case I'll probably suggest a full overhaul of this one in another thread. Cult of Personality is just a free GP and nothing else because why would you go Tourism with Autocracy? It doesn't work. Free GP to choose is on a medieval policy in aesthetics IIRC, so it's about there in power.



1.It's great only for domination whereas some others, like +20% Science from Research Labs. It lacks flexibility, but it's up there. The other two are pretty bad though.
2. Lebensraum is very good and maybe it's unneded indeed, but citadels taking away tiles you'd get tons of yields for is a bit of an inner crisis of the policy - if GG gave at least a bit of Culture/GA to compensate, that wouldn't be the case, but then I might be overreacting as the same is the case with buying borders and letting them grow. I usually take it asap anyway.
3. Thanks.



To be honest New World Order isn't bad in it's current form so it could even be unchanged. A small adjustment could make it more appealing, but I usually take it as the latest T1s for less unhappiness and more yields. It'd be more interesting if the change came to be, but that's fine. My ideas from the previous post outside of that and Front were probably doable. No idea what Front should be now though.



This isn't Mario Kart though. If someone is this very behind when the game's pretty much ending, they are not very likely to be coming back and they probably shouldn't be assisted to do so. What's next, unlocking a policy while being far behind gives you a chance to get a Blue Nuke that automatically finds and hurts the player with the highest score unless they randomly got Red Atomic Shelter when picking their own policies? It'd be better to just give those two tenets to everyone, otherwise it'll be a nightmare for the guy who gets first choice 5 turns before others as he'll get to enjoy himself for a whole 5 turns before someone gets two free policies, his slight lead turned into being behind for absolutely no reason but being slightly better. Not to mention it'd destroy variety because if ideologies will be more balanced, everyone will want to get to the policy tree someone else took to get two free ones. Even if you find the right equation to make it somehow fair (like you only get +2 policies if you're X behind), that's not the case for Science, Military, Gold, etc. You don't get free techs for doing nothing because of Sejong, you might get more from the trade routes but Sejong can always say "nope" and declare war.

I think rewarding bad play and being worse is a bad idea, it might work in Mario Kart but not here - rubberbanding can be okay in a game where a match takes 2-3 minutes and randomness adds to the thrill, not in Civ where it's several hours. Two for everyone whenever they get there could work, or one for everyone as soon as requirement is met. Tenets aren't much stronger than industrial era policies so it'll be the same as being on Authority as someone starts Aesthetics - disadvantaged, but salvageable.

Considering != doing. There's a reason I haven't followed through with it. :)

As I've said, I'm very interested in rebalancing tenets, however my rules above stand re: 'new features' versus 'existing features.'

G
 
I've actually considered giving those free tenets to later civs that adopt the same ideology... a catch-up mechanic, if you will.

G

I think it's too good that only the 1st and 2nd adopters get free Tenets. We should first determine what changes should be made to this system.
 
Yeah, they can sometimes help achieve that, but that's still as I've said only one good policy and it's still not really better than what's in Freedom/Order. For the AI, it must be the worst as there's a lot of chance it'll do a bad thing and take some of the other two and they're not good. GD is overcomplicated, requires too many actions too late in the game and is countered by the mechanics of the game as it can only get you up to Friends, doesn't work on recently tributed and ends up less useful than United Front or any other diplomatic tenet. Even if there was no limit, it'd not exactly be a good policy so in this case I'll probably suggest a full overhaul of this one in another thread. Cult of Personality is just a free GP and nothing else because why would you go Tourism with Autocracy? It doesn't work. Free GP to choose is on a medieval policy in aesthetics IIRC, so it's about there in power.



1.It's great only for domination whereas some others, like +20% Science from Research Labs. It lacks flexibility, but it's up there. The other two are pretty bad though.
2. Lebensraum is very good and maybe it's unneded indeed, but citadels taking away tiles you'd get tons of yields for is a bit of an inner crisis of the policy - if GG gave at least a bit of Culture/GA to compensate, that wouldn't be the case, but then I might be overreacting as the same is the case with buying borders and letting them grow. I usually take it asap anyway.
3. Thanks.



To be honest New World Order isn't bad in it's current form so it could even be unchanged. A small adjustment could make it more appealing, but I usually take it as the latest T1s for less unhappiness and more yields. It'd be more interesting if the change came to be, but that's fine. My ideas from the previous post outside of that and Front were probably doable. No idea what Front should be now though.



This isn't Mario Kart though. If someone is this very behind when the game's pretty much ending, they are not very likely to be coming back and they probably shouldn't be assisted to do so. What's next, unlocking a policy while being far behind gives you a chance to get a Blue Nuke that automatically finds and hurts the player with the highest score unless they randomly got Red Atomic Shelter when picking their own policies? It'd be better to just give those two tenets to everyone, otherwise it'll be a nightmare for the guy who gets first choice 5 turns before others as he'll get to enjoy himself for a whole 5 turns before someone gets two free policies, his slight lead turned into being behind for absolutely no reason but being slightly better. Not to mention it'd destroy variety because if ideologies will be more balanced, everyone will want to get to the policy tree someone else took to get two free ones. Even if you find the right equation to make it somehow fair (like you only get +2 policies if you're X behind), that's not the case for Science, Military, Gold, etc. You don't get free techs for doing nothing because of Sejong, you might get more from the trade routes but Sejong can always say "nope" and declare war.

I think rewarding bad play and being worse is a bad idea, it might work in Mario Kart but not here - rubberbanding can be okay in a game where a match takes 2-3 minutes and randomness adds to the thrill, not in Civ where it's several hours. Two for everyone whenever they get there could work, or one for everyone as soon as requirement is met. Tenets aren't much stronger than industrial era policies so it'll be the same as being on Authority as someone starts Aesthetics - disadvantaged, but salvageable.

The game isn't over though. Some people get tenents by industrial, that's 3 more eras of play.

The problem with most civ games is the winners are decided far too early in the game. If certain catch ups help make the late turns competitive I'm all for it.

G, I love love love your idea of giving free tenents to late comers.

From a flavor standpoint it makes complete sense. The early guys have to be the Trail Blazers, the late guys get to enjoy the stuff that's already been made.

And I think it's a nice little bump to keep civs competitive.
 
You don't get free techs for doing nothing because of Sejong, you might get more from the trade routes but Sejong can always say "nope" and declare war.
A slight caveat: Being behind in science gives a bonus researching techs, in addition to trade routes and an extra world congress policy culture doesn't have. Also tech trading. Also the AI will literally give you techs for nothing when you're behind if you're friends. I mean I've LITERALLY had Sejong give me techs for nothing before because we were friends. Literally. :lol:

That said I like the idea of everyone getting 1-2 policies upon adoption. Getting 2 polciies for free a dozen or more turns early is already a substantial advantage, without them getting 0 or 1.

However if they get ideology 20 turns after and get 2 free policies to your 0, they'll actually be ahead and that's BS.
 
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