Vox Populi Congress Proposal Workshop

[Stalker0]

It seems like the general consensus is no for river cargo ships because there would be no clean way to implement it, which is OK. I have another idea for a congress proposal that I'm interested in hearing people's opinions of.

Idea: Cultural domination should give +50% religious pressure.
Rationale:

1. Military domination (i.e. vassalage) currently gives +100% religious pressure. In my opinion cultural domination should do the same thing, but to a lesser extent (the people are pressured by your now dominant culture to adopt your religion, rather than via military threat). If a civilization has completely adopted my culture, why do they not care about my religion?
2. Religion benefits all civilizations, but there are no culture civ focused bonuses to religious pressure that I'm aware of. In contrast, military civs get the +100% religious pressure to vassals, and typically take Fealty and get the +50% religious pressure to foreign cities with other religions. Seems odd since I would think of warmongering civs as using aggressive proselytization with raw faith while a peaceful cultural civ would rely on word of mouth and the spread of culture to spread their religion. Diplomatic civs get the bonus religious pressure from their many trade routes. Scientific civs don't have a religious pressure bonus that I'm aware of, but it seems kind of thematically fitting that a scientific civ wouldn't prioritize converting others to their religion as much.
3. Currently having a shared religion already gives a tourism bonus, and with the next congress it will scale by the number of converted cities. Therefore it would be too strong to give a bonus to religious pressure with lower levels of cultural influence, since this would create a positive feedback loop. But once your culture is dominant with a civilization, the tourism bonus from shared religion is irrelevant.
4. I believe this would create a fun and unique mechanic to having a dominant culture. It feels like there should be some kind of special reward for maxing out your tourism with a civilization. But personally I never even notice my culture going from influential to dominant, because the small change in trade route and loss of unrest time bonuses are not really noticeable for a cultural civ. This could create a reason to try to reach dominant with other civilizations to overtake their religion with yours, helping you to spread your religion to other civs and get a small tourism bonus there, etc. I think it could be a fun mechanic with civs like Arabia or a cultural Byzantium.

I don't think adding effects onto dominant culture is a terrible idea. is this one in particular good? eh I don't think it will have that big an impact personally as dominant tends to come a good bit later in the game.

 

[Rekk]

Isn't it the same?
View attachment 678626

No, because if you keep buffing ancient trees, they'll become better than medieval trees.

 

[msw1]

I don't think adding effects onto dominant culture is a terrible idea. is this one in particular good? eh I don't think it will have that big an impact personally as dominant tends to come a good bit later in the game.

That's fair. I will admit that it's something I want largely for thematic reasons and because I think it's fun to achieve religious dominance (something which is nearly impossible with a tall peaceful cultural civ) rather than as a big game changing feature.

 

[statusquo]

Tradition is strong early game. It scales quicker than progress in my experience. You actually can expand faster as tradition (when I did exact same starts going tradition vs progress I found this to be true for the first several cities)

+2 pop plus access to engineer, is instant production boost, at just right time, when you are fighting to secure best city spots.
I wonder, if when adapting tradition, you would have to get 6 city pop to make settler, wouldn't that solve some problems?
First settler would be same time probably, since +2 pop in capitol, but then its a little harder to get from 5 to 6 than from 3-4.. but..
Whom am i kidding AI with tradition, probably would be not much difference, but maybe min 7 city pop?

 

[stii]

I actually think its completely the opposite.

Tradition is strong early game. It scales quicker than progress in my experience. You actually can expand faster as tradition (when I did exact same starts going tradition vs progress I found this to be true for the first several cities), your culture is also faster (progress has the fastest time to get to the 2nd policy, authority to the 3rd with the right barb play, and tradition will finish its tree the fastest), and your production in the capital dwarfs the satellite cities in terms of pumping out units and things. Tradition's border growth is MUCH faster than progress, and it saves you a surprising amount of gold early compared to having to buy key tiles. I think tradition can war early better than progress can. And again this isn't just circumstantial evidence, I literally did runs where I did the exact same start as tradition, and repeated it as progress to see how it looked.

Its later that progress starts to overtake as it fills in more infrastructure, it expands further, and with GP buys it has a far superior GP buy (writers) versus the engineers of tradition. Further, Talls supply and force projection problems start to manifest if other civs are able to stay competitive with you.

yeah agree with this

progress is the worst at making settlers.

When i did runs I didn't find the trees that far apart by mid game but tradition was starting to fall off them so being equal probably means tradition is worse.

 

[Diomedes_]

I don't think adding effects onto dominant culture is a terrible idea. is this one in particular good? eh I don't think it will have that big an impact personally as dominant tends to come a good bit later in the game.

Yeah I've been toying with Ideology changes that would include a tenet for each increasing one of the popularity effects. Autocracy would get a greater unrest time reduction, Order a greater spy set up time and citizen loss reduction, and Freedom a greater TR Growth/Gold/Science bonus. Would things like that even be possible to easily code, though?

No, because if you keep buffing ancient trees, they'll become better than medieval trees.

Yeah the medieval trees definitely deserve some changes IMO. My Tradition proposal had so much overlap with the medieval trees because I copied it from a document of mine that has changes to all trees, and I just forgot about the overlap with what the trees are now. In almost every game I've played in the past few months I've mixed medieval trees unless I'm going for some hardcore, super min-max strategy. Statecraft's policies are fine, albeit very specific, but the finisher is weak. Artistry's first three policies (top 2, bottom right) are quite strong, but the last 2 and the finisher only become meaningful long after you would take them (swapping Heritage and Cultural Exchange would make the tree much stronger I bet). I'll often find myself taking a couple policies from each, sometimes even from Authority if I didn't take it as my first tree. If it weren't for the poor scaling of the Progress opener, I'd probably take Progress policies too. Like if the opener scaled better, Authority into a Progress/Fealty mix for Domination would probably be super strong, which really shouldn't be the case.

yeah agree with this

progress is the worst at making settlers.

When i did runs I didn't find the trees that far apart by mid game but tradition was starting to fall off them so being equal probably means tradition is worse.

It's so interesting because I feel like in my Immortal and Deity games it feels almost the opposite to me, though tbf I'm mostly judging strength based on AI performance (where Tradition AIs seem to get regularly bodied). I still do wish either the +25% production or the +1 movement on the top left policy still applied (in part or in whole) to Settlers. It was a massive buff to wide but it just felt right given the identity of the tree. Maybe instead make expertise also apply to Settlers? The culture would have some overlap with Authority though I guess.

 

[msw1]

Artistry feels like it could use a rework to me. The opener and Humanism are fantastic, and everything else is meh. The finisher in particular is basically useless for a whole era. Meanwhile every policy in statecraft is fantastic. I find that when I go statecraft, I quickly surpass every non-statecraft civ in technology and culture, even if they had a tech/culture advantage before. Free city state allies and global monopolies are just too good.

 

[Stalker0]

Artistry feels like it could use a rework to me. The opener and Humanism are fantastic, and everything else is meh. The finisher in particular is basically useless for a whole era. Meanwhile every policy in statecraft is fantastic. I find that when I go statecraft, I quickly surpass every non-statecraft civ in technology and culture, even if they had a tech/culture advantage before. Free city state allies and global monopolies are just too good.

Artistry did get several nerfs recently, perhaps it was too much.

Design wise, its always fealty I question. Its not that fealty's bonuses aren't good, they are, but they are unfocused. Statecraft is GREAT for DV play, Artistry is still the go to for CV play imo (its lost a step but its still the winner). Fealty gives you a lot of good general boosts, but it doesn't focus any win condition. Fealty ultimately still feels like the "religion" tree to me, and hey maybe that's fine and that's enough.

 

[msw1]

Artistry did get several nerfs recently, perhaps it was too much.

Design wise, its always fealty I question. Its not that fealty's bonuses aren't good, they are, but they are unfocused. Statecraft is GREAT for DV play, Artistry is still the go to for CV play imo (its lost a step but its still the winner). Fealty gives you a lot of good general boosts, but it doesn't focus any win condition. Fealty ultimately still feels like the "religion" tree to me, and hey maybe that's fine and that's enough.

Yeah I agree. The main line (Nobility, Serfdom, Fiefs) all go great with authority/warmongering. But Divine Right is pretty weak for that playstyle (don't typically have much excess happiness as a warmonger but also don't usually have much boredom, though to be fair I always prioritize culture) and Organized Religion seems like it's just there because there needs to be some kind of religion policy. The opener and finisher are both very good though.

 

[pineappledan]

We need a religious victory so Fealty can have an actual win condition like the other trees, instead of being aimed at a nebulous side-quest.

No matter what you try to do with Fealty, the fact remains that Artistry and Statecraft explicitly give bonuses that help you win games and Fealty doesn't.

 

[Legen]

Design wise, its always fealty I question. Its not that fealty's bonuses aren't good, they are, but they are unfocused. Statecraft is GREAT for DV play, Artistry is still the go to for CV play imo (its lost a step but its still the winner). Fealty gives you a lot of good general boosts, but it doesn't focus any win condition. Fealty ultimately still feels like the "religion" tree to me, and hey maybe that's fine and that's enough.

We need a religious victory so Fealty can have an actual win condition like the other trees, instead of being aimed at a nebulous side-quest.

No matter what you try to do with Fealty, the fact remains that Artistry and Statecraft explicitly give bonuses that help you win games and Fealty doesn't.

Maybe Fealty could interact with the Vassalage mechanic? That would support warmongering and is thematic.

 

[statusquo]

No matter what you try to do with Fealty, the fact remains that Artistry and Statecraft explicitly give bonuses that help you win games and Fealty doesn't.

Maybe Fealty could slightly works towards both, but be lesser version of both?
Like religious pressure policy could have some additional maybe building or promotion to diplomat units aka "Religious Diplomat"
Which would indirectly give you votes, but require more active approach. Or maybe you could have additional votes per other civilisation that has your major religion.
Isn't the Pope now like global diplomat?
And culture policies could have some slight science/tourism bonuses, but sry, forgot we already have monasteries, but, maybe some policy could additionally slightly buff
monasteries with like 1-2 science, 1-2 tourism?
Like on some point all religions put pressure on health, which indirectly cause some scientific progress.
And say, that religion does not influence tourism would be kinda a lie..

 

[myclan]

We need a religious victory so Fealty can have an actual win condition like the other trees, instead of being aimed at a nebulous side-quest.

No matter what you try to do with Fealty, the fact remains that Artistry and Statecraft explicitly give bonuses that help you win games and Fealty doesn't.

I don't think it's a problem. Yes Statecraft helps Diplomacy V a lot and Artistry helps Culture V a lot, but we can still we a DV/CV without them. Or if I'm playing Domination V or Science V, I can still choose a most suitable one to strengthen my empire from the 3 Medieval Trees.

The problem of Fealty is that it tries to give something of everything, neither buffing my strength nor covering my weakness enough. Without its own speciality and very bored to play with.

Please buff faith, and maybe a bit science & food, religion can help a lot in every type of victory.

 

[Diomedes_]

These are interesting points about Fealty. What if Authority and Fealty swapped a few policies, with the goal of making Authority more of just the "wide" tree and Fealty more of the Domination tree? Like swapping Honor for Serfdom (with a few numbers changes for balance) could be a big improvement. Divine Right and Discipline (albeit with more substantial changes) could also make sense in the opposite tree. I like the idea of making Fealty more focused on Vassalage and just a specific win condition in general. It is kind of odd now that I think about it that Authority is the only Ancient tree with a clear win-condition, while Progress and Tradition can go in almost any direction in Medieval.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

What if we move Faith Purchasing Units from Zealotry (Enhancer) to Fealty?
I find it somewhat strange that Serfdom doesn't have a bonus to Farms, but to Pastures.

 

[msw1]

I think making authority the "wide" tree would be stepping on the toes of Progress.

It's also worth pointing out that every win condition (besides time) has two trees that are pretty geared towards it:

Cultural victory: Tradition and artistry
Military victory: Honor and imperialism
Diplomatic victory: Statecraft and industry
Science victory: Progress and rationalism

And yet there are nine policy trees. The ninth policy tree pretty much has to be a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, or there would be an imbalance.

 

[AndreyK]

I think making authority the "wide" tree would be stepping on the toes of Progress.

It's also worth pointing out that every win condition (besides time) has two trees that are pretty geared towards it:

Cultural victory: Tradition and artistry
Military victory: Honor and imperialism
Diplomatic victory: Statecraft and industry
Science victory: Progress and rationalism

And yet there are nine policy trees. The ninth policy tree pretty much has to be a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, or there would be an imbalance.

I don't agree, authority should be wide. Authority is going toward Domination, so it means conquest. Authority should be widest tree.

 

[ma_kuh]

I said this before and I guess I'll say it again, Authority shouldn't be "the Domination" tree simply because you shouldn't need to pick your win condition in the Ancient era!

In my mind, there's a very nice harmony to having Tradition=improvements, Progress=buildings, Authority=units. Tradition naturally grows large-bordered cities with plenty of space for tile improvements, and sure enough they have an advantage in generating GPTI to go there. Progress wants lots of smaller cities, each of which will build copies of the buildings it boosts. And Authority should be getting passive yield-income from its units, (the perfect trigger being garrisons).

But we moved the garrison bonus later in the game, when a Domination player will be less likely to be using garrisons in the first place. Obviously the community voted and vox populi etc., but I still contend that moving the garrisons to Authority solves the issue where you get stuck with a bunch of units but are at peace. It also lets you pivot away from aggression as your civ ages up, and doesn't tie conquest into your core economy from such an early point.

 

[Diomedes_]

Yeah I definitely think Authority should not be as focused on domination as it is, and none of the Ancient trees should have a clear victory condition. Tradition should be the clear tall tree, Authority the clear wide tree, and Progress as the flexible tree.

 

[Bad_At_Diplomacy]

I know it's weak / unfocused, but I love fealty, especially if I found a religion and go wide (looking at you Spain).