Vox Populi Congress Proposal Workshop

[Anarcomu]

Looking for Imperialism, I was wondering if something like "vassal's luxuries contribute to monopolies" would do ? Thought the first vassal-related policy is on Autocracy, not Imperialism.

 

[pineappledan]

Imperialism does like 5 different abilities that are found nowhere else in the game. Meanwhile industry and rationalism are both just some % yield bonus in a trenchcoat.

Units that can fight well damaged, upgrade in allied CS territory, stronger generals, stronger monopolies, stronger puppets, garrison bonuses, retain buildings in city capture. Meanwhile rationalism is 4 different % bonuses and some reduction. Even rationalism’s world wonder is just a copy of a national wonder everyone else can build too. You just get to build it twice. Everything it does at least 1 other policy does.

 

[Stalker0]

First of all, I love this mod, I really appreciate all the work that went into it. I've played quite a few games recently, and I found a few places where I think things could be improved. I missed this month's congress proposals, but I still wonder how other players feel about these things.

1. Perhaps my biggest issue is that I find getting out-of-combat xp gains a bit too easy to obtain. The worst offender in my opinion is the city capture quest, it can give so much free xp that I start snowballing very hard after that (I play on immortal/deity). Moreover, you can often complete another city capture quest relatively soon. This can very quickly lead to units with 4 or even 5 promotions relatively early in the game (+1 range siege, infantry with overrun/march, etc). I think the quest reward should be changed to something which is still impactful (it's a hard quest after all), but less snowbally. For example, free happiness or some other bonus that warmongers can use.

2. Smaller issue, but I feel that other sources of free xp are also a bit too powerful: teocalli (I think it will be strong even after removing the current faith scaling) and Brandenburg gate (it gives a lot of bonuses: free xp, +10 unit support, free general, plus some smaller things). It's not particularly hard to get newly trained units start with 90 or even 105 xp, which is very powerful. Having lots of high tier units should be more difficult, except for certain civs (Assyria, Zulu, etc.)

3. Not really a balance issue, but related to the above: I feel that the AI takes some weird promotions way too often, practically wasting its free xp. It loves things like amphibious and woodsman, or mixing shock and drill promotions. I think it would almost always be better off simply taking shock 1-2-3 (or maybe drill 1-2-3 in some specific cases), and then a tier 4 promotion.

4. Some comments about policies: do other players also find Imperialism unattractive? I feel that it's mainly useful if you're winning anyway, I almost always take industry or rationalism instead. On the other hand, the top-left statecraft policy does like 3 or 4 different things, it might be a bit overloaded. The authority finisher feels very strong, but the statecraft finisher feels a bit underwhelming.

5. Currently some buildings feel like a waste of hammers in most of the cases. For example, stone works feels very weak (maybe I'm just not using internal trade routes enough?), and I'm not convinced by the usefulness of customs house either.

We have discussed the XP quest before, so I think there is some agreemen there. To me I don't mind the initial amount, my problem is when you get the quest 2,3, or 4 times, your army suddenly gets a LOT more powerful. So part of me just wants to limit it to 1-2 times a game, or maybe just lower the XP each time you get it.


Imperialism is a very good war tree, especially for naval/coastal heavy type games. The banzai promotion on finishers is actually crazy powerful what it can do for naval durability. It actually just got a culture boost in the recent version, I think its pretty solid right now, but it does expect a certain amount of aggression. If your trying to win more peacefully than yes the other trees are better.

 

[rkkn]

Thoughts on allowing on-border-growth bonuses to continue to be awarded after a city runs out of tiles to actually claim?

It was discussed for one day on discord last week. What are the arguments against it?

 

[Stalker0]

Thoughts on allowing on-border-growth bonuses to continue to be awarded after a city runs out of tiles to actually claim?

It was discussed for one day on discord last week. What are the arguments against it?

For context, this came out of discussion about Shoshone and the Huns. The thought being

1) Are this civs getting enough for their "land grab" powers.
2) There is actually an anti-synergy with land grab bonuses. For example, you don't get the bonus for god of the expanse for the free tiles from shoshone. This means at some point you run out of tiles faster than another civ and therefore get less yields than if you didn't have the ability to begin with, which is as a feels bad man.

The initial idea was to just give them the bonus straight away, but there was concern that this would be too powerful. Then it involved into the discussion, what if border growth bonuses just kept going even if you had gained all tiles? Ultimately growth would continue to slow down over time, but you would at least get some benefit for it.

 

[azum4roll]

Some things to think about:

• If border growth instant yields continue to be given after running out of tiles, should tile cost increase if you trigger a border growth without having tiles to grow to?
  • If yes, an old city which neighbours another old city being razed would have a hard time claiming the free tiles, compared to a neighbouring newer city.
  • If not, it's very easy to settle a city within your own borders so it immediately has no tiles to claim, and farm border growth yields like that.
• If BGP is converted into other yields (say Culture) when a city run out of tiles to grow, it's essentially a +X% Culture modifier for old cities.

 

[rkkn]

If border growth instant yields continue to be given after running out of tiles, should tile cost increase if you trigger a border growth without having tiles to grow to?

I think that it currently does. and it should continue to do so

 

[Rekk]

I think that it currently does. and it should continue to do so

Currently, if you don't have any tiles to grow to, you will not gain border growth points.

This is what the suggestion is changing.

 

[Stalker0]

Adding this to the pile. Today I learned that the shared religion tourism bonus does not work even if you completely convert another civ....as long as that civ has founded a religion. I think that's silly, no other tourism bonus do you get to ignore "just becaus eyou don't want to". And religious founders tend to be cultural leaders in the game anyway.

The bonus should work like any other, you do the work of converting themn, you get the bonus. If they convert back, you lose the bonus. simple as that.

 

[Rekk]

Adding this to the pile. Today I learned that the shared religion tourism bonus does not work even if you completely convert another civ....as long as that civ has founded a religion. I think that's silly, no other tourism bonus do you get to ignore "just becaus eyou don't want to". And religious founders tend to be cultural leaders in the game anyway.

The bonus should work like any other, you do the work of converting themn, you get the bonus. If they convert back, you lose the bonus. simple as that.

More specifically, a Founder's Religion stays their Majority/State Religion as long as they control their Holy City. This is the same for non-founders who conquer a Holy City (the Holy City's religion becomes their State Religion).

This isn't related to tourism mechanics at all; it's a religion thing. For the shared religion tourism bonus, the game asks if the two players share State/Majority religions. That's it. There's no other way tourism mechanics can/should interact with Religion mechanics.

If you want this to change, I think you would be better off asking for ways to remove the Holy City status aside from Conquering it (+Inquisitors if you're feeling nasty).

 

[Stalker0]

More specifically, a Founder's Religion stays their Majority/State Religion as long as they control their Holy City. This is the same for non-founders who conquer a Holy City (the Holy City's religion becomes their State Religion).

This isn't related to tourism mechanics at all; it's a religion thing. For the shared religion tourism bonus, the game asks if the two players share State/Majority religions. That's it. There's no other way tourism mechanics can/should interact with Religion mechanics.

If you want this to change, I think you would be better off asking for ways to remove the Holy City status aside from Conquering it (+Inquisitors if you're feeling nasty).

I get the sentiment but such a change I think could have a lot of nasty other implications. I'm not looking to shatter the civs ability to use their religion, if they want to fight back and recovert hey more power to them. But thank you for the insight, it seems like such a proposal would simple be "change teh shared religion modifier to mean.....the majority of that's civs citizens follows your religion"

 

[Stalker0]

More specifically, a Founder's Religion stays their Majority/State Religion as long as they control their Holy City. This is the same for non-founders who conquer a Holy City (the Holy City's religion becomes their State Religion).

This isn't related to tourism mechanics at all; it's a religion thing. For the shared religion tourism bonus, the game asks if the two players share State/Majority religions. That's it. There's no other way tourism mechanics can/should interact with Religion mechanics.

If you want this to change, I think you would be better off asking for ways to remove the Holy City status aside from Conquering it (+Inquisitors if you're feeling nasty).

Also just noting to confirm (as I saw it in this very game I'm playing). France conquered China's holy city. China now gives me teh shared religion bonus, France no longer does.

 

[Rekk]

I get the sentiment but such a change I think could have a lot of nasty other implications. I'm not looking to shatter the civs ability to use their religion, if they want to fight back and recovert hey more power to them. But thank you for the insight, it seems like such a proposal would simple be "change teh shared religion modifier to mean.....the majority of that's civs citizens follows your religion"

Like I said, that involves changing how religion mechanics work. The culture code should not be counting up all the individual cities that follow each religion and then decide if they share a religion. It should ask the religion code what the other player's religion is.

According to the religion code, your religion is the religion that you own the Holy City of, or the religion in the most number of your cities, if you don't own a Holy City.

I absolutely do not support carving out an exception for one mechanic.

 

[Stalker0]

Like I said, that involves changing how religion mechanics work. The culture code should not be counting up all the individual cities that follow each religion and then decide if they share a religion. It should ask the religion code what the other player's religion is.

According to the religion code, your religion is the religion that you own the Holy City of, or the religion in the most number of your cities, if you don't own a Holy City.

So lets walk through what that would look like. The idea is "when the majority of your citizens are Religion X, your religion is now X". I assume it would create the following impacts.

1) In theory you can still create your own religious units as long as the city you make them from follows your original religion. That wouldn't change.
2) The tourism bonus of course.
3) I assume you would lose all your founder, reformation, and enhancer belief abilities. This would especially impact Syncretism whose whole schtick is maintaining your religion as a minority.

Any else I'm missing?

 

[Solic]

So lets walk through what that would look like. The idea is "when the majority of your citizens are Religion X, your religion is now X". I assume it would create the following impacts.

1) In theory you can still create your own religious units as long as the city you make them from follows your original religion. That wouldn't change.
2) The tourism bonus of course.
3) I assume you would lose all your founder, reformation, and enhancer belief abilities. This would especially impact Syncretism whose whole schtick is maintaining your religion as a minority.

Any else I'm missing?

It has always bothered me that if for instance you completely extinguish someone else's religion, they still will harbor negative diplomacy modifiers even though it's a sunk cost.

So diplomacy effects.

 

[azum4roll]

It has always bothered me that if for instance you completely extinguish someone else's religion, they still will harbor negative diplomacy modifiers even though it's a sunk cost.

So diplomacy effects.

Why not? They still want their religion back.

 

[Solic]

Why not? They still want their religion back.

If it's still possible to get it back, it makes sense and I agree with it. However if all your cities are converted and you would have no religious units anymore (your religion is just no more basically), they would still harbor a grudge. I am very surprised that this fact counts for the tourism bonus as well to be honest.

I would personally then want to propose that religion ownership works like it currently does with holy city ownership, however with the added condition that at least 1 city still actually follows your religion as its majority. If none do, your religion is dictated by whatever the majority of your cities follow.

This foregoes the edge case that you still could have a lot of religious units that could potentially restore your religion (and might need a OCC exception for that reason too), however generally speaking you'd expend most of your religious units trying to defend your religion already and it'd be weird to like stockpile them when your religion is near extinction.

 

[Anarcomu]

In base game you could have your entire religion swept away, however your Great Prophets are always of the religion you found, which mean it was always possible to get you religion back. I don't know if it is the same in VP, or if the GP is of the city's religion.

 

[Rekk]

So lets walk through what that would look like. The idea is "when the majority of your citizens are Religion X, your religion is now X". I assume it would create the following impacts.

1) In theory you can still create your own religious units as long as the city you make them from follows your original religion. That wouldn't change.
2) The tourism bonus of course.
3) I assume you would lose all your founder, reformation, and enhancer belief abilities. This would especially impact Syncretism whose whole schtick is maintaining your religion as a minority.

Any else I'm missing?

You would be treated as if you never Founded.

Other example I can think of:
- you can't generate Great Prophets

But otherwise, I'm not going to search for and list all the benefits that being a founder has.

 

[CppMaster]

But otherwise, I'm not going to search for and list all the benefits that being a founder has.

So do admit you prefer to stay ignorant in that matter? Having this information could help make a better decision about it.