[Tuning] Ideologies: Tier 1

[LukaSlovenia29]

I'd be in favour of completely removing free policies for early ideology adopters.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I'd be in favour of completely removing free policies for early ideology adopters.

I would rather reduce it from 2-1-0-0-... to 1-1-0-0-... or 1-0-0-0-... Because I like the idea of being interesting for the first few civs to take different ideologies.
My favorite solution would be to increase it to 2-1-1-1-..., because it is not really fun to chose an ideology, suffering pressure from it, but not having even one tenet of that ideology.

 

[CrazyG]

I think a part of the problem with early ideology adopters doing so well is that the first to an ideology probably gets the wonders, and ideology wonders are so strong. 30 turns ago I wasn't that far ahead, but with 2 free social policies for being first and all the bonuses from statue of liberty, I'm definitely winning by a huge margin now.

I'd be in favour of completely removing free policies for early ideology adopters.

I think everybody should get at least 1, just because its more interesting that way.

 

[kawyua]

I'm still in favor of 0 for adoption. There are already a lot of different sources of free policies that become available at that time that free tenets for adopting is excessive. Like you mentioned, the ideological wonder is pretty huge. Although, I think the big thing from statue is the free policy(production is really good though).

Still, I think giving latecomers free tenets for adopting the same ideology is not a bad idea. Maybe by making the late adopters have a +75%? modifier from the first adopter? I think there are other ways to make early adopters relevant than just giving a free policy. imo ideologies just accelerates the late game too much.

 

[Txurce]

I think everybody should get at least 1, just because its more interesting that way.

I'm still in favor of 0 for adoption.

Both of these make sense to me, although as CrazyG sorta says, one is more interesting.

Because the first adopter often takes Freedom, lately I have been taking Order, picking up two free techs and a military academy in every city, then switching over to Freedom. It happens about every four or five games for me. It's fun, but it's a bit unfair, since the AI never purposely does it.

 

[Gazebo]

Just a reminder that I really like the old lists with letter/number scoring system. I feel like we're meandering here.

Also, I'd be in favor of either giving everyone a free policy with ideologies, or giving none.

G

 

[Txurce]

Also, I'd be in favor of either giving everyone a free policy with ideologies, or giving none.

Do you lean toward one or the other? Giving one is free candy, plus an advantage for the leaders, who are now losing a good part of their edge. So I'd lean that way.

 

[ElliotS]

Do you lean toward one or the other? Giving one is free candy, plus an advantage for the leaders, who are now losing a good part of their edge. So I'd lean that way.

This.

I've been convinced on the tourism for authority part, so here's my suggestions:

Freedom

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

Economic Union - Free Trade Route and Great Merchant. +3 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: +10% growth & 10 in all cities, -20% poverty
Make it better for wide.

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 per internal Trade Route. Gain a free corporate office in every 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: Unchanged.

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

New World Order Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 and +5 . Double chance to coup in city states.

United Front - Maybe a slight buff to the influence gain.

How do these work code-wise and balance-wise?

 

[Enginseer]

This.

I've been convinced on the tourism for authority part, so here's my suggestions:

Freedom

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

Economic Union - Free Trade Route and Great Merchant. +3 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: +10% growth & 10 in all cities, -20% poverty
Make it better for wide.

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 per internal Trade Route. Gain a free corporate office in every 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: Unchanged.

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

New World Order Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 and +5 . Double chance to coup in city states.

United Front - Maybe a slight buff to the influence gain.

How do these work code-wise and balance-wise?

Everything is doable except the gaining a free corporate office in every city. Balance-wise, I don't understand why you need to make tenets better than they should be. Poverty is huge in all wide empires no matter how advanced you are. So Peace, Land, and Bread seems good on wide in reducing global poverty but your changes make it seem like they are also good on tall with an insane growth and food bonus. New World Order is a meh and United front may or may not need a slight buff.

 

[CrazyG]

Peace, Land, Bread: +10% growth & 10 in all cities, -20% poverty
Make it better for wide.

Weren't you making the case that capitalism, which is at best 1.25 happiness per city, was a pretty good policy? If that is the case, I don't see how the current Peace, Land, Bread needs to be buffed

 

[ElliotS]

Freedom

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

Economic Union - Free Trade Route and Great Merchant. +3 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: No change.
Good point.

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 per internal Trade Route. Corporate offices count as franchises, up to your limit.

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

Futurism: Unchanged.

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

New World Order Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 and +5 and are built twice as fast. Double chance to coup in city states.

United Front - Maybe a slight buff to the influence gain.

----

How do these work code-wise and balance-wise?

As to some of the OP suggestions that I remove when pointed out: When making suggestions I'd normally rather err on the side of OP than UP to demonstrate it's potential, much like Gazebo does with new features. I'd probably have less of them if we were talking about 1 or 2 policies, but in a larger amount I give each individual change less thought and just make a list to get conversation moving.

 

[Legen]

To be sure, are you guys suggesting removing the -20% crime on New World Order? That crime reduction is useful to a warmonger, especially since recently conquered cities won't have walls, barracks and related buildings to deal with this source of unhappiness. If this tenet needs a buff, an increase to the Crime reduction is enough.

About Autarky, it would be good if it granted gold from city connections as well, not just production. Helps alleviating Poverty and, alongside Nationalism, works well with Military-Industrial Complex.

Autarky suffers in that, if you really need gold, you're better sending trade routes to a city-state instead, especially now that allied city-states also grant culture. There's also the delay in that any trade route already sent to someone else will take some time to be sent to one of your cities. Autarky is very specific to certain starts and I'm not sure if modifiers to internal routes (Piety, Industry) affect the gold from Autarky.

EDIT: third paragraph.

 

[ElliotS]

New World Order Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 and +5 and -20% crime in all cities. Double chance to coup in city states.

Autarky +10 per internal Trade Route. +5 / from city connections.

How does this seem?

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I've been thinking and Nationalism is pretty trash - how about Autarky being -33% maintenance cost, +3/5 per city? -maintenance cost wouldn't be bad on a l1 tenet. Nationalism would need something else altogether though, but I will necromance threads soon enough.

New World Order Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 and +5 and -20% crime in all cities. Double chance to coup in city states.

Autarky +10 per internal Trade Route. +5 / from city connections.

How does this seem?

That'd also be okay, but coup chance I think is in Freedom or Order. I forgot which. So maybe
NWO Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 and +5 and -20% crime in all cities. +1 experience level for every Spy.

That Autarky is okay. Way weaker than Order's T2 that has +5 of all yields as it should be because it's a lower tier tenet, but still workable and AI won't cripple itself by taking it.

 

[Legen]

Freedom has a better chance to rig election, not to coup city states. Order has better chance to kill foreign spies.

The suggested Autarky seems relatively solid, especially for an Authority civ and it's cheaper maintenance on roads/railroads. I'm ok with either suggestions for NWO.

About Nationalism, it seems to reduce maintenance by more than 33%, almost 40% in fact, making it stronger than it seems (I'm checking the numbers later), and it works well with Military-Industrial Complex, especially if you have other discounts on unit purchase (Forbidden Palace, Industry's scaler). An adjustment to the percentage (and the code) should be enough to fit for the tier; I don't think it compares that well with, say Lightning Warfare, unless you have tailored your former policies around gold discounts.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Freedom has a better chance to rig election, not to coup city states. Order has better chance to kill foreign spies.

The suggested Autarky seems relatively solid, especially for an Authority civ and it's cheaper maintenance on roads/railroads. I'm ok with either suggestions for NWO.

About Nationalism, it seems to reduce maintenance by more than 33%, almost 40% in fact, making it stronger than it seems (I'm checking the numbers later), and it works well with Military-Industrial Complex, especially if you have other discounts on unit purchase (Forbidden Palace, Industry's scaler). An adjustment to the percentage (and the code) should be enough to fit for the tier; I don't think it compares that well with, say Lightning Warfare, unless you have tailored your former policies around gold discounts.

Why take Nationalism when Lightning Warfare, Police State, Martial spirit exist? Even Third Alternative is better because it can at least give you those nice monopolies if you don't yet have enough at this point in the game. Sure, it's better than Total War, but Total War is a worse version of that one Progress tenet that even comes several eras earlier.

 

[Legen]

Why take Nationalism when Lightning Warfare, Police State, Martial spirit exist? Even Third Alternative is better because it can at least give you those nice monopolies if you don't yet have enough at this point in the game. Sure, it's better than Total War, but Total War is a worse version of that one Progress tenet that even comes several eras earlier.

Mostly for strategies that stack multiple gold discounts on units, Nationalism can mean an extra unit purchase every 2 or 3 turns. By the time you can pick it, it can mean a saving of 150-200 gpt. Still, I agree that other tier 2 tenets of Autocracy are better.

And about the reduced maintenance being almost 40%, it is because it stacks additively with Authority's Discipline 15% unit maintenance reduction, hence why it's better than it seems. Given that a tier 2 tenet should be about as strong as an Industry era policy, I'd say it's the case of Nationalism being buffed, even if it were a tier 1 tenet. Authority's Discipline is arguably stronger than Nationalism and it's not even a medieval policy.

 

[ElliotS]

That'd also be okay, but coup chance I think is in Freedom or Order. I forgot which. So maybe
NWO Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 and +5 and -20% crime in all cities. +1 experience level for every Spy.

Freedom has rigging chance, as mentioned. I think +1 level is a little OP, especially for England.

 

[bigcat88]

Lebensraum: Gain culture and GA points when your borders expand. Citadel tile radius is doubled.

(A?). At this point in the game, GA points don't mean too much I find, the culture is nice but culture for culture's sake is not enough. However, I love the double tile radius, it gives you a new thing to do with your GGs, and can really help disrupt enemies strategic resources or corporation monopolies.

Maybe a good idea to replace "GA points and culture on expand" with "troops can be upgraded on vassal's territory". Or change some other Autocracy tenet on "troops can be upgraded on vassal's territory".

 

[ElliotS]

Maybe a good idea to replace "GA points and culture on expand" with "troops can be upgraded on vassal's territory". Or change some other Autocracy tenet on "troops can be upgraded on vassal's territory".

That should be added to Troops can be upgraded in city state territory. (In imperialism I think?)

Lebensraum is one of my favorite policies. It's super, super good.