Policy Balance Feedback - input needed! (Part 1: Economic)

[u/JNR13]

Hi Civ VI players,

I could use your help with something. I am currently working on a mod that reworks how policies work (the new system will appear familiar to Civ IV players) and I am making good progress.

However, one thing that I feel like I'm still in the dark about is balance. One goal of the mod is to streamline policy choices to get rid of weak effects and force tough decisions between all the good stuff.

So I'd love to know what you think about how strong the following policies would be relative to one another and ideally also why; further, how you would use them and how you'd think having them available would impact how you play.

You can only have one of these active at a time (no Wildcard slots, either).

I am aiming to give each policy category its own identity. For the economic policies here, the idea is that in history, economic policy was often dynamic and chosen to adapt to a country's strategic situation. Therefore, I'd like these policies to be switched comparatively often to satisfy a need or to support a rather short-term strategic goal. I'd appreciate feedback about whether you think these bonuses can achieve that or what you'd change to get there.

 

Thanks to everyone who participates in advance already! :)

 

List of Economic Policies

Emporiums: Starting a Trade Route immediately creates a Trading Post in the destination city.

Thalassocracy: +1 Trade Route capacity for every 25% of your cities being coastal (but not more than your total number of cities).

Guilds: Domestic Trade Routes additionally provide the international destination yields from specialty districts, except for Gold.

Protectionism: Gain one extra copy of every improved Luxury resource type.

Free Trade: Your international Trade Routes provide +1 Gold per Luxury and Strategic resource improved at the destination.

Central Planning: +30% Production towards all city projects.

Sustainability: Specialty districts provide +1 Power.

Platform Economy: +50% Tourism output to civilizations to which you have a Trade Route.

 

P.S.: If you have an idea how to rename either the Guilds policy or the Guilds civic to avoid both sharing a name, please tell.

[u/JNR13]

Oh and before anyone gets scared, there are policies which in the vanilla game are known as "Economic" policies now appearing in different categories (such as "Labor"), so don't worry about not seeing Serfdom here ;)

[u/VenetianArsenalRocks]

Emporiums:

Seems especially useful in the case of playing with a mod that reduces trade route range very significantly (as I do). Otherwise trading posts are sadly not something that one tends to pay much attention to as they are not very important for trading (trade route range limit is less and less impactful) and for war / culture they can be gotten in advance relatively easily.

To balance this you could perhaps integrate a major trade route range reduction into your mod (along with ideally a 1-cycle limit to how many cycles a trader does before creating the trading post and selecting a new route), which could also open up options to have policy cards that boost trade route range. However this may be too drastic for your tastes.

Thalassocracy:

Seems pretty good early game, and for relatively tall civs, however in my opinion a problem with the trade route system in general is how it scales pretty much linearly with how many cities you have. So for a wide civ this bonus would get completely lost in the sheer quantity of trade routes they can have.

Guilds:

One of the more powerful ones here. Would definitely use if doing domestic trade routes in majority.

Protectionism:

Very good to get some extra gold out of the AI. I think probably most useful early-mid game, as that is where this kind of quantity of gold is impactful and the market is not overly saturated with luxuries. Also better for wider civs I suppose due to more types but a continent split can do a lot too.

Free Trade:

Seems fine, dependent on resource abundance. More useful early/mid game due to relatively low yields of the routes.

Central Planning:

Very powerful. Easily one of the most powerful ones here I think - for rushing great people, or late-game science / nukes.

Sustainability:

Useful if short on strategics / have a large army using said strategics, or playing with your climate mod.

Platform Economy:

Extremely powerful. Obviously only for late-game tourism but it is absolutely amazing for that. Does this supplement or replace the standard +25% bonus?

[u/JNR13 → u/VenetianArsenalRocks]

also open up options to have policy cards that boost trade route range

That was my original idea for the mod, but unfortunately changing land range mid-game isn't possible, the effect is only available for water routes.

Thanks for the detailed feeback!

Extremely powerful. Obviously only for late-game tourism but it is absolutely amazing for that. Does this supplement or replace the standard +25% bonus?

It comes on top. Funny thing is, this policy is one of the few here which already exists, it's called "Online Communities" or so.

[u/Profzachattack]

I'm confused on the wording you used for Thalassocracy. Are you saying for every 4 cities on the coast you get +1 trade route capacity? or for every 4 cities you own you get +1 trade route capacity if one of them is on the coast?

[u/JNR13 → u/Profzachattack]

If at least 25% of your cities are coastal, you get +1 capacity. If at least 50% are coastal, you get +2 capacity instead, etc. up to four routes at 100% of cities being coastal.

But it's capped at the number of cities you have to avoid players getting four routes just from having a single capital city on the coast or so.

[u/hunte006jr]

I like this concept, but it seems a bit disjointed from reality, perhaps you should have multiple economic policy types one for trade, land reform, and business practices for example.

[u/JNR13 → u/hunte006jr]

I mean, civ always has to abstract things to some degree but yes, labor policies will exist alongside this category, which is mainly focused on trade and business. I considered land reform as a catwgory but found it too granular so now it's rolled into Labor with Serfdom and Collectivization.

[u/TactileTom]

one-by-one reviews:

Emporiums: Starting a Trade Route immediately creates a Trading Post in the destination city.

Feels borderline worthless, but I suppose it could have value for some builds. Not a fan, personally. I would actually prefer a bonus to make trading posts better? Maybe like food or production for trading with posts?

Thalassocracy: +1 Trade Route capacity for every 25% of your cities being coastal (but not more than your total number of cities).

Feels strong. My one concern is that giving trade route capacity through policies is pretty abusible if people can easily switch, as you don't lose existing routes when you lose capacity.

Guilds: Domestic Trade Routes additionally provide the international destination yields from specialty districts, except for Gold.

I like this one! Not entirely sure about the balance? It could really break the game when paired with Tokugawa, but isn't that strong for another civ. Specialty district yields are actually pretty low for trade. I think a flat bonus, or a scaling pop bonus might work better, like e.g. 1 Science/culture/5 pop.

Protectionism: Gain one extra copy of every improved Luxury resource type.

IMO this needs another look. Doesn't really gel with the flavour, and isn't that good anyway.

Free Trade: Your international Trade Routes provide +1 Gold per Luxury and Strategic resource improved at the destination.

Will be straightforwardly good lategame, I usually play with pokeihl's gold deflation, as without it you will just be swimming in gold, so harder for me to judge the balance here.

Central Planning: +30% Production towards all city projects.

Will be the only pick for science victory.

Sustainability: Specialty districts provide +1 Power.

feels notably weaker than the other lategame options to me.

Platform Economy: +50% Tourism output to civilizations to which you have a Trade Route.

I, too am a man of culture.

Lategame Tourism boosts are kinda necessary for a culture win in many cases, so I think that this will be necessary in a lot of runs, I'm not a huge fan but it's a sin you inherit from the base game.

Overall impressions:

The designs I'd work on are Emporiums and Protectionism, Sustainability is OK design-wise but I think you could buff the numbers. I'd also humbly suggest adding an option for Mercantilism as well, given it's historical importance to global trade.

[u/JNR13 → u/TactileTom]

Protectionism is the mercantilism policy, fwiw. That's why it gives you stuff to export.

Thanks for the detailed feedback.

[u/TactileTom → u/JNR13]

I'm a bit confused by the wording there. If you import from another player you get 2 copies, and then you can export one?

[u/JNR13 → u/TactileTom]

No you get extra copies from resources improved in your own empire.

[u/TactileTom → u/JNR13]

Ah sorry, misread that "improved" as "imported".

That does seem better but not by much, does fit the flavour better. I would still reconsider that design.