Except on Archipelago maps, I never take imperialism. Rationnalism and Industry always seems to be better. Anybody had some succes with it ?
Yeah I was just about to start a thread after
@Owlbebach mentioned me about it.
Imperialism sucks. I'm the player most likely to take it, and I ignore it even in 90% of games I'm going for domination VC. Let's look at it and see if we can't convince
@Gazebo to give it some love.
First the policies:
Opener: Strong boost to naval combat. Already got that in the bag? Useless. Compared to gold out the butthole and tons of science it's not even a real comparison 90% of games.
Martial Law: Naval thing could be useless. Puppets are 100% trash now, so that's useless. This policy reads +1 happiness per city in 8/10 games.
Colonialism: This is the best policy in the tree, though it was nerfed by balancing monopolies.
Exploitation: Demanding tribute isn't terribly useful for you. Especially at this point in the game. Especially because you want to get many cities with Imperialism, which dilutes tribute's yields. It's a policy in a tree that directly makes the policy bad. This policy is terrible most games. Maybe I'm undervaluing the buff to farms and plantations, but I don't see this as anything to write home about.
Regimental Tradition: More GAs are useless here. If you're losing them so often you're not qualified to go for domination. The science and culture is nice, but at that point rationalism is much, much better. I do at least like the inherint synergy between the intended playstyle, more GGs and Citadels being buffed. I don't think the bonus is high enough.
Civilizing Mission: Factories got nerfed into the ground. Another policy that used to redeem the tree, now too weak to hold up. Is it bad? No. It's just not good enough to consider going the whole tree for. Also the gold used to be good to avoid building units (which made the scaler worse, but you had both options.)
Scaler: Much more useful since the changes. Might be a tad weak.
Closer: Weaker than industry, tied or better than rationalism. Great Admirals suck though, so rationalism probably gets the edge. Also range for air units on the tree that cares least about range on air units? I'll just capture a city closer to the target I want to bomb, thank you very much.
The problems with the tree come from a number of angles:
1- All the bonuses are naval. If you're having trouble on land Industry will probably do better. Also navy is still the player's strongest advantage. (though less so now)
2- The scaler seems to say "Industry is better at building everything else, but we can at least keep up on the type of thing you want to build the least."
3- Great Admirals SUCK.
4- A lot of the things that have gotten nerfed have hurt Imperialism the most. Factories. Constabularies. Monopolies. Gold. Puppets. Gold being nerfed hurts Industry more, but it make rationalism better by virtue of not caring as much. Puppets are the biggest problem. Previously they were a core part of any dictators plans for the world. Now they're worthless stopgap measures. I don't know if I like or dislike them as they are now in regards to overall game balance (It's certainly very different.) but their sudden status as the new razing is the biggest nerf to this tree and domination in general you could ever see.
5- It just doesn't do anything very well. I feel like if you take it without enough good monopolies lined up you're guaranteed to fall super far behind, and if you're ahead it's worse than industry or rationalism.
6- It's got anti-synergy up the butt. Buffs farms, plantations, forts, citadels, monopoly buffed tiles, lakes, coast and ocean. We can't possibly work all of those, so some end up useless. It's improved tribute is in the tree and point in the game that struggles the least to get tribute, and gets the least from tribute. It allows more great admirals on the playstyle that gets the most of them already. It gives less happiness than Industry despite needing it more. Etc.
My suggested changes:
General balance:
Look at puppets (We'll need a new thread for those. Could impact this.)
Great admiral voyage of discovery grants the associated monopoly. There was a bug like this for a while, but I think it makes the much more worthwhile. Also the healing action should grant an instant boost of culture and golden age points. (To compensate.) Great admirals are currently really, really bad. This would make Imperialism better, them better and make Regimental Tradition have synergy with Colonialism.
Opener: +1 sight from naval combat units to all combat units.
Martial Law: Either remove most of the puppet penalties or add "Counthouses make a city reduce science and culture increase for the city by 2%" (Also adds neat Persia synergy.)
Colonialism: No changes.
Exploitation: Remove "Your military forces are 25% more effective at intimidating City-States, and Military Units can be upgraded in territory owned by friendly City-States." and add "Land units gain the Ravager promotion:10% CS. 10% CS in enemy territory. Pillaging grants 25 more health. (And increases war weariness and/or warscore at the cost of 10% CS if possible with the code.)"
Regimental Tradition: No changes if the suggested great admiral change is implemented. Then this would have synergy with Colonialism and be a really interesting policy. Otherwise consider adding the mentioned abilities on this policy.
Civilizing Mission: Add "Units built (not bought) in cities with factories gain the promotion "Defenders of Production: 10% CS. 10% CS in owned territory. (Replace second CS boost with "This unit dying DECREASES WAR WEARINESS" if possible. Even better if it could only be in owned territory.)
Scaler: Maybe add 2%?
Closer: Add "Units built (not bought) grant half their production cost towards a building (not a wonder)" Maybe remove the 1 production? Or "Building a unit grants 100 Production scaling with era towards a building".Remove the free range promotion, or just change it for the one that repairs every turn.
Note: I don't intend for ALL of these changes to be implemented. I'm offering suggestions, but if I was going to change the tree I would only implement some of them. Especially at first. All of them would obviously make the tree OP.
If I got to make the next changelog, it would be the Great Admiral change, the Martial Law courthouse change and the Exploitation change.
Thoughts?
