Does anyone think that a lot of policies are underpowered?Some of them are really bad(Total war,Republic).And some "high-end" policies don't give a good bonus(Communism,Socialism).The first "Honor" bonus is also bad if you play without barbarians.What do you think?Which policies need a buff?
Underpowered social policies
- Thread starter MoonFlare
- Start date
Republic needs a buff badly.
Total war should be infinitely long, there's no valid reason for it to end randomly.
The honor initial bonus (warning when barbarian camps spawn in discovered territory) should not have even been a social policy. It should have been part of the regular game even without honor.
The Honor policy track in general needs a boost badly.
The rationalism policy that increases happiness from each university needs to get changed, it's a complete nonsequiter from and vastly inferior to the rest of the track.
Talim [own]
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2005
- Messages
- 39
why playing without barbarians ? Free money. A lot of policies are bad in certain situation but it's why it's such a good feature. I love it when using Askia.
I think republic is good actually imo ! Help a lot more than it looks on early games
I think (ive a french CiV sorry... i'll do my best translating) :
- Warrior code suck. General are so ez to get and so hard to lose. It doesnt need a buff, just a complete change.
- Autocracy need a complete rework.
- Syndicalism need buff
- Mandate of Heaven need buff
- Aristocracy need a slight buff
- Theocracy need nerf
that about it =p
I think republic is good actually imo ! Help a lot more than it looks on early games
I think (ive a french CiV sorry... i'll do my best translating) :
- Warrior code suck. General are so ez to get and so hard to lose. It doesnt need a buff, just a complete change.
- Autocracy need a complete rework.
- Syndicalism need buff
- Mandate of Heaven need buff
- Aristocracy need a slight buff
- Theocracy need nerf
that about it =p
I agree with most of your points, but I think this one needs a caveat. Honor needs a buff, yes, but Honor is also a warmongering tree. Warmongering is currently overpowered. So just buffing Honor would just end up favoring what's already the dominant strategy even more. What I'd say is war needs to become noticeably harder, both on the front end (fighting the AI/capturing cities) and the back end (the benefits you get from your conquests); once that happens, Honor can be used to negate some -but not all- of the new difficulties warmongers face.
I think the fact that at least limited conquest is almost always superior to no conquest (at higher difficulties, anyways) is why honor is lagging right now. Pure speculation, of course, but given that two(?) patches ago the other two starting SP trees got huge overhauls that radically improved their performance (well, Republic notwithstanding) while Honor got nothing leads me to believe that it's being held back for this precise reason.
GoodSarmatian
Jokerfied Western Male
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2006
- Messages
- 9,408
I have never seen a good reason to use Autocracy. It initially lowers your unit maintenance, but with 1UPT you don't really need very large armies, and the other policies come with high opportunity costs. Order is available at the same time, has generally better policies and doesn't require you to forego Liberty or Freedom.
The Honor tree could use a small buff. Maybe Warrior Code could give a small bonus to Great Generals and Military Caste could also eliminate maintenance costs for garrisoned units like Oligarchy now does (of course Oligarchy would need another change).
I also rarely use Rationalism because I don't see how it's better than Piety. There are very few cases where a combination of peaceful neighbours and abundant luxury resources allows me to foego Theocracy, and most times I take it anyway to get more golden ages. Also the short golden age when you adopt Rationalism is a joke.
Now if they added a 25% research bonus during golden ages from Rationalism and improved Humanism from +1
from universities to +1 from libraries, universities and public schools it would really be an alternative to Piety.
The Honor tree could use a small buff. Maybe Warrior Code could give a small bonus to Great Generals and Military Caste could also eliminate maintenance costs for garrisoned units like Oligarchy now does (of course Oligarchy would need another change).
I also rarely use Rationalism because I don't see how it's better than Piety. There are very few cases where a combination of peaceful neighbours and abundant luxury resources allows me to foego Theocracy, and most times I take it anyway to get more golden ages. Also the short golden age when you adopt Rationalism is a joke.
Now if they added a 25% research bonus during golden ages from Rationalism and improved Humanism from +1
from universities to +1 from libraries, universities and public schools it would really be an alternative to Piety.Uniform Sierra
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2010
- Messages
- 139
The entire social policy screen isn't coming to my mind, so I don't recall the names. The connected trade routes need a +1 happiness again and not a +0.5. Another liberty policy is the +1 production which needs a boost. It should be +5 to be honest.
Ummm, no. +5 production per city that early in the game would be far too powerful.
+1 happiness per trade route from meritocracy, and +2 production per city from republic would be just fine.
That would be immensely overpowered, especially that early. That's better than giving every one of your cities a free manufactory (and remember that one of the best ways of using Meritocracy is to get yourself one manufactory at your third pick). Plus, think of what effect sextupling the starting hammers of every city starting in ancient era would have. And then consider that those hammers get modified by multipliers. The Order policy that gives you 5 hammers per city is already very good, and you have to wait until industrial era for that.
Talim [own]
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2005
- Messages
- 39
Would be wayyy too OP
I think republic is fine tbh. +1 shield is a good boost on small city in early games.
chazzycat
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2010
- Messages
- 3,085
It's not that republic is bad per se, it's just that there are usually better policies to choose from at the time. Maybe adding +1 food or gold per city in addition to the production would make the choice a bit more interesting.
Otherwise I find rationalism & autocracy underwhelming. The choice between piety and rationalism really annoys me. Rationalism is all science, but science is based on population mostly. Piety (theocracy) gives you so much happiness that you can really increase your population a lot, thereby getting a great science boost. The benefits of extra population (production & gold from working tiles, GPPs from specialists, increased profit from trade routes) far outweigh just science bonuses, so almost every game I end up with Piety. They could end up nerfing Theocracy. I hope not - I would prefer a buff to rationalism. Changing the +1 happiness from universities to libraries would help.
My issue with Autocracy is kinda similar: basically I don't want to give up liberty and freedom. I think they could do away with giving up liberty. Freedom is already a very substantial sacrifice on its own, and the autocracy policies are not so powerful as to justify giving up two entire trees.
Also the commerce policy for cheaper roads is kinda meh. You have to have a real ton of roads for that 20% to have much of any kind of impact. Raising to 25% would be cool. It's still not that exciting, but it's on the way to a much better policy and so it doesn't have to be. That extra 5% would just make the payoff a bit more tangible IMO.
Otherwise I find rationalism & autocracy underwhelming. The choice between piety and rationalism really annoys me. Rationalism is all science, but science is based on population mostly. Piety (theocracy) gives you so much happiness that you can really increase your population a lot, thereby getting a great science boost. The benefits of extra population (production & gold from working tiles, GPPs from specialists, increased profit from trade routes) far outweigh just science bonuses, so almost every game I end up with Piety. They could end up nerfing Theocracy. I hope not - I would prefer a buff to rationalism. Changing the +1 happiness from universities to libraries would help.
My issue with Autocracy is kinda similar: basically I don't want to give up liberty and freedom. I think they could do away with giving up liberty. Freedom is already a very substantial sacrifice on its own, and the autocracy policies are not so powerful as to justify giving up two entire trees.
Also the commerce policy for cheaper roads is kinda meh. You have to have a real ton of roads for that 20% to have much of any kind of impact. Raising to 25% would be cool. It's still not that exciting, but it's on the way to a much better policy and so it doesn't have to be. That extra 5% would just make the payoff a bit more tangible IMO.
Communism needs to be buffed to 10 hammers.Socialism to 20%.Production is too slow and building maintenance is too high.You have to wait a long time just to get to these policies.
Need to change that policy from Commerce that reduces road maintenance.(They need to rework the concept of roads in Civ5.It's the most moronic idea i've ever seen.You need to pay for them so they won't destroy that beautiful landscape.Bullcrap!)
About Total war.It should have a drawback - it permanently ends if you are in peace with every other civilization.That will ensure permanent war and all of it's drawbacks.
Need to change that policy from Commerce that reduces road maintenance.(They need to rework the concept of roads in Civ5.It's the most moronic idea i've ever seen.You need to pay for them so they won't destroy that beautiful landscape.Bullcrap!)
About Total war.It should have a drawback - it permanently ends if you are in peace with every other civilization.That will ensure permanent war and all of it's drawbacks.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
Honor needs the buff; defensive warfare is MUCH stronger than offensive, with chokes and godlike cities (that were inexplicably buffed!!!!). A defender can hold off an attack for less than half the
investment required...ridiculous! Back in the days of strategic balance, people had to make a legit investment to protect themselves. Not so now.While the AI is still bad enough to lose cities via awful tactics, the change nevertheless made things more artificial (you have to be even more "gamey" now than before), and you're arguing in favor of taking this to an even higher extreme
.Honor didn't get nothing, it got nerfed; discipline was reduced in effect for example (although the UI still gave the wrong, original value at first).
SP in general are not balanced yet; too often a predominant strategy revolves around getting a select few regardless of the in-game situation. Things like republic can't keep up with the cookie cutter SP used now, but why is that?
Fortunately, I think this is one of those things that has a *chance* to be patched properly based on usage, as it does seem they've done some of that already.
Talim [own];10469918 said:
It would be Awesome, but impractical.
It would require waiting for the industrial era (assuming ancient start), forgoing liberty and freedom, and waiting for 5 policies after the industrial era due to no policy saving for a 33% combat bonus.
Mech Inf is normally
50. With the bonus, it would be about 67. For the amount of effort it takes to adopt the policy, this would not be overpowered.It's main drawback is that it's rediculously difficult to adopt. Maybe it should have a diplomatic drawback?
Diplo penalty for any Civs that have not adopted Autocracy (scaled by the Warmonger Hate of that leader).
Diplo penalty above doubled for Civs that have adopted Freedom.
Maybe an economic/happiness effect as well? Since you're putting your entire country into war-mode, you're going to take economic hits.
For single player mode, it's strangely unbalanced compared to multiplayer experience, where i think it's more ''playable''. But you told something interesting about offense-defense. Interactions with AI compared to humans may explain a lot of things. Honor is more useful against humans.
Here's my opinion of policies and the picks within that could use some tweaking.
Tradition: A pretty solid tree IMO, not many changes needed for a vertical growth focused empire.
-- Aristocracy: Could us a bit of a buff. Say 25% instead of 20%. Early wonders go very quickly from people rushing a GE off a policy.
Liberty: Its a nice tree, but I would personally like to see some tweaks to it yet.
-- Collective Rule: +50% settler production in cap. and +1 gold per city. REMOVE free settler
-- Republic: +1 hammer per city. Free Settler moved to here.
-- Meritocracy: .75 (or perhaps .66) happiness per trade route. +1 per trade route is too strong when paired with Honor- Military Caste, but a slight buff would be good.
Honor: Solid tree if going on the warpath for an extended portion of the game. Certain leader abilities warrant use of it more than others.
-- Warrior Code: An early GG can allow warriors to actually capture cities with fewer casualties. But the window of opportunity here is very small, so this one needs a lasting effect. I'd say either remove maintenance from barracks or free barracks in all cities (or both).
Piety: Probably the best tree in the game with the golden age and happiness benefits. Completing it gets you one free social policy to boot.
-- Theocracy: Consider adding a penalty to this one of -10% research in each city since this allows tremendous vertical growth which overshadows the rationalism tree greatly.
Patronage: A decent tree. If trying to hold onto some key city states this can help save a ton of money in bribes. Key for going for the 'diplomatic' victory.
Commerce: Powerful and weak at the same time. About half of the picks here are good, and half are bad depending on your circumstances.
--Naval Tradition: When paired with the great lighthouse and/or England gives you a speedy and responsive navy. However I'd like something a bit more tangible for the cities to use here. Either Free Lighthouse or Harbour in each city, or maintenance removed from Sea based buildings (Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaports = free maintenance).
--Trade Unions: Bump up to 25% reduced road maintenance wouldn't be so bad I don't think, as most of my cities need between 3 to 6 roads to be connected to my trade network. That would be basically 1 gold per city essentially, as it is now, its about .5-.75 gold per city depending how spread out the empire is.
--Protectionism: +1 Happiness per Lux resource AND +1 happiness for each extra luxury resource available to the empire (so if you had 5 dyes you'd get +6 from first, and +4 from the extras). Would not be able to trade other empires for any extra luxury resources you already have. (So if you had 1 cotton from yourself or another civ, you couldn't ask for another cotton from another / the same civ.)
Rationalism: I do find the tree a bit weak, but when paired with liberty or freedom I think this tree can do well as long as you keep your population in check to avoid stagnate growth in key research centers. The problem becomes that typically finishing the Freedom tree is more enticing than opening up this tree mid ren era, and by the time you've reached industrial you have to choose between rationalism and order. If the order tree opened up in the Modern era than this tree would get more use I think, but then Order would be very late in the game to have much of an impact.
--Policy Unlock: Starts a 5 turn golden age and during all golden ages research (AND Culture??) output increased by 50% empire wide.
--Humanism: +1 Happiness from each University, Museum, and Research Center. (threw in the museum instead of public school to spice it up a bit).
Freedom: A solid tree. Could forgo Piety for this one to get some happiness relief right from the start, as well as much quicker policy gain if empire has wonders spread out.
Autocracy: I've only unlocked it once for the achievement and didn't really need it. It needs some serious reworking that I haven't really contemplated too much. I liked the posted idea for total war, and I'd like to expand on it. I think if there were a war weariness mechanic in the game then this tree could get some major benefits to counter it. As it is now it is hard to fix without making it too strong, as war is the most effective way to win the game.
Total War Any Civ that you have denounced will be now be at war with you, and units fight with a 25% combat boost against those civilizations until peace is reached. This effect can only occur once per civilization. (maybe give a 15% bonus when attacking as well. This is at the end of the tree so it needs to be STRONG. As it is 2 policy unlocks in order can nullify most of the effect if the defender is fighting in friendly territory.
Order Decent tree, though late arrival means less impact on the game. The 5 hammers is hard to beat regardless though (over 1/2 of a ironworks per city, yes please! Or if you can get the trifecta of republic, merchant navy, and communism, 10 hammers per coastal city
)
Tradition: A pretty solid tree IMO, not many changes needed for a vertical growth focused empire.
-- Aristocracy: Could us a bit of a buff. Say 25% instead of 20%. Early wonders go very quickly from people rushing a GE off a policy.
Liberty: Its a nice tree, but I would personally like to see some tweaks to it yet.
-- Collective Rule: +50% settler production in cap. and +1 gold per city. REMOVE free settler
-- Republic: +1 hammer per city. Free Settler moved to here.
-- Meritocracy: .75 (or perhaps .66) happiness per trade route. +1 per trade route is too strong when paired with Honor- Military Caste, but a slight buff would be good.
Honor: Solid tree if going on the warpath for an extended portion of the game. Certain leader abilities warrant use of it more than others.
-- Warrior Code: An early GG can allow warriors to actually capture cities with fewer casualties. But the window of opportunity here is very small, so this one needs a lasting effect. I'd say either remove maintenance from barracks or free barracks in all cities (or both).
Piety: Probably the best tree in the game with the golden age and happiness benefits. Completing it gets you one free social policy to boot.
-- Theocracy: Consider adding a penalty to this one of -10% research in each city since this allows tremendous vertical growth which overshadows the rationalism tree greatly.
Patronage: A decent tree. If trying to hold onto some key city states this can help save a ton of money in bribes. Key for going for the 'diplomatic' victory.
Commerce: Powerful and weak at the same time. About half of the picks here are good, and half are bad depending on your circumstances.
--Naval Tradition: When paired with the great lighthouse and/or England gives you a speedy and responsive navy. However I'd like something a bit more tangible for the cities to use here. Either Free Lighthouse or Harbour in each city, or maintenance removed from Sea based buildings (Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaports = free maintenance).
--Trade Unions: Bump up to 25% reduced road maintenance wouldn't be so bad I don't think, as most of my cities need between 3 to 6 roads to be connected to my trade network. That would be basically 1 gold per city essentially, as it is now, its about .5-.75 gold per city depending how spread out the empire is.
--Protectionism: +1 Happiness per Lux resource AND +1 happiness for each extra luxury resource available to the empire (so if you had 5 dyes you'd get +6 from first, and +4 from the extras). Would not be able to trade other empires for any extra luxury resources you already have. (So if you had 1 cotton from yourself or another civ, you couldn't ask for another cotton from another / the same civ.)
Rationalism: I do find the tree a bit weak, but when paired with liberty or freedom I think this tree can do well as long as you keep your population in check to avoid stagnate growth in key research centers. The problem becomes that typically finishing the Freedom tree is more enticing than opening up this tree mid ren era, and by the time you've reached industrial you have to choose between rationalism and order. If the order tree opened up in the Modern era than this tree would get more use I think, but then Order would be very late in the game to have much of an impact.
--Policy Unlock: Starts a 5 turn golden age and during all golden ages research (AND Culture??) output increased by 50% empire wide.
--Humanism: +1 Happiness from each University, Museum, and Research Center. (threw in the museum instead of public school to spice it up a bit).
Freedom: A solid tree. Could forgo Piety for this one to get some happiness relief right from the start, as well as much quicker policy gain if empire has wonders spread out.
Autocracy: I've only unlocked it once for the achievement and didn't really need it. It needs some serious reworking that I haven't really contemplated too much. I liked the posted idea for total war, and I'd like to expand on it. I think if there were a war weariness mechanic in the game then this tree could get some major benefits to counter it. As it is now it is hard to fix without making it too strong, as war is the most effective way to win the game.
Total War Any Civ that you have denounced will be now be at war with you, and units fight with a 25% combat boost against those civilizations until peace is reached. This effect can only occur once per civilization. (maybe give a 15% bonus when attacking as well. This is at the end of the tree so it needs to be STRONG. As it is 2 policy unlocks in order can nullify most of the effect if the defender is fighting in friendly territory.
Order Decent tree, though late arrival means less impact on the game. The 5 hammers is hard to beat regardless though (over 1/2 of a ironworks per city, yes please! Or if you can get the trifecta of republic, merchant navy, and communism, 10 hammers per coastal city
)[QUOTE='Talim [own]
- Autocracy need a complete rework.
[/quote]
Autocracy is perfectly good *except total war* it just comes too late in the game to make any difference. I won my first ever domination game with China (when actually going for Diplo victory) with a late game autocracy rush, just so I could get the achievement, and realized, 'hey, Autocracy isnt as bad as everyone makes it out to be'. Talents like Facism allow you to double your strategic resource pool... thats twice as many nukes, twice as many modern armours, twice as many guided missile crusers. Police State, it has found, is more effective than Theocracy when paired with a courthouse in a conquoured city. The Autocracy policy itself helps out in reducing the cost of unit upkeep, while millitarism is exceptionally good when paired with Big Ben and Mercantism. Popularism is very good too as it gives your units a boost of 25% if wounded. No, Autocracy is a perfectly good tree, its just by the time people get up to it most have already won the millitary game. Maybe if it was in the Renaissance it would be of more use
Agree with that, I feel that I have to take this policy no matter what, because its just too good. There isnt a choice with Theocracy, and you should have a choice in what social policy you take.
No, I don't think that would end up being fun. People dont like taking policies that give with one hand and take with another. Policies must have only positive effects, else noone would take it.
- Autocracy need a complete rework.
[/quote]
Autocracy is perfectly good *except total war* it just comes too late in the game to make any difference. I won my first ever domination game with China (when actually going for Diplo victory) with a late game autocracy rush, just so I could get the achievement, and realized, 'hey, Autocracy isnt as bad as everyone makes it out to be'. Talents like Facism allow you to double your strategic resource pool... thats twice as many nukes, twice as many modern armours, twice as many guided missile crusers. Police State, it has found, is more effective than Theocracy when paired with a courthouse in a conquoured city. The Autocracy policy itself helps out in reducing the cost of unit upkeep, while millitarism is exceptionally good when paired with Big Ben and Mercantism. Popularism is very good too as it gives your units a boost of 25% if wounded. No, Autocracy is a perfectly good tree, its just by the time people get up to it most have already won the millitary game. Maybe if it was in the Renaissance it would be of more use
Agree with that, I feel that I have to take this policy no matter what, because its just too good. There isnt a choice with Theocracy, and you should have a choice in what social policy you take.
No, I don't think that would end up being fun. People dont like taking policies that give with one hand and take with another. Policies must have only positive effects, else noone would take it.
While the AI is still bad enough to lose cities via awful tactics, the change nevertheless made things more artificial (you have to be even more "gamey" now than before), and you're arguing in favor of taking this to an even higher extreme
Sorry, I should have been clear that I meant war needs to be made harder against the AI. Meaning making them good at fighting. I have no multiplayer experience, but I agree that defensive war has been made way too easy. So it looks like we're in agreement (or at least I didn't see any disagreement) that 1) defenses need to be nerfed, 2) Honor needs to be buffed to make up for the fact that 3) war needs to be lower cost/benefit, both by reducing the value you get and by steadily improving the combat AI.
Agreed?
Polycrates
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2006
- Messages
- 1,288
One thing that helps republic along is that it appears to affect puppets as well. Considering that they're usually small and low-production because of their gold focus, +1 hammer to a large empire of puppets is quite a substantial boost to help get those monuments/markets/banks etc out and making you money. I'd certainly take it after meritocracy and probably the culture discount/golden age one (not 100% sure how good the return on that one actually is for any given number of cities), but if I was going Liberty as a warmonger there are far worse picks.
The thing with rationalism is that it's a much bigger boost to science, but just considerably later (and post-education, the link between population and science really breaks down once you can start properly specialising science cities anyway). For me, the science choice would be going for patronage/scholasticism then rationalism, whereas piety is really more of a culture/warmongering choice.
As far as honour goes, if you don't take it straight away, the first policy is such a disincentive to go any further that I end up never using it. I saw a suggestion that I think would be excellent - give the base policy +1 or +2 culture per barracks as well. That way, all three trees are front-loaded with extra culture so honour doesn't cause you to lag behind too much in the culture stakes, and it lets you build barracks instead of/in addition to monuments to really get your military up to speed and maybe even make the Heroic Epic worth going for.
Similar threads
