Paths of Civilization

[HeWhoAdds]

So what I am thinking of doing is developing invested actions and repeated actions. Repeated actions will occur every turn and essentially become standard expenses and incomes for stat tracking, and will be at double action efficiency (secondary to main, main to double main if you are crazy enough to invest like that) to represent that because they are well expected more resources can be organized over a given period. Invested actions allow you to take 'king' actions and put them in the province action track, but at double efficiency. However, the province action track will now be divided into two: half the actions will be decided by the policies set by the 'king/zeitgeist', half will be decided by the factions, in descending order of faction power, unless being suppressed. Factions can also spend faction power to hijack player actions as before, but now they have more of an incentive to hoard power, and the patricians power is even more powerful (working as intended) as it lets them either boost themselves into always getting their way or push factions they don't like out of power.

Additionally, I am likely going to reduce turn lengths by half, but also reduce the number of available actions by half. There will probably be a 'Stat values are cut in half, but so are costs' change soon-ish as well.

The degree and speed of the adoption of these changes will depend on in-game actions, and I am amenable to tweaking specifics (hence why I am mentioning it early), but I want to both tone down action bloat and make the factions more prominent. Honestly, part of the relative 'easiness' of the game and why you basically haven't had a major civil war is that you've kind of had unlimited loyalty to agenda for the most part. While I don't want to sacrifice fun for 'realism', moving a bit away from carefully managed action efficiency is probably a better idea.

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For the most part, these changes seem awesome, and giving the factions a little more ability to affect policy and more ability to jockey for influence sounds like a fun mechanic, but I'm a little concerned about how these changes will work combined with a reduction in number of actions.

Right now we get the equivalent of 6 King Secondaries (1M + 4S), 5 Guild Secondaries (2M + 1S), and 7 Province Secondaries (2M + 3S).

Cutting that in half gives us 3 King (so, 3S or 1M + 1S), 2.5 Guild (1M, or maybe 1M + 1S), and 3.5 Province (1M + 1-2S)

At that point, it seems like invested and repeated actions become prohibitively limiting, as we'd have to give up 1/3 of our actions, and all our flexibility, to use them. Moreover, the factions would have at most 2 Province actions to hijack, which feels a little limited.

 

[Abby Normal]

So, based on my understanding, this means we could essentially force the provinces to take specific actions that have the double the efficiency. I'm curious how this would work with our active policies. Like, could we tell the provinces to build Watchtowers under Megaproject Policy? Or are active policies just going thw way of the dodo?

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Also, @Academia Nut , would you mind showing an example of province actions under new system?
Do you mean that invested actions are basically recurring, but using provincial action slots? Or that provinces now treat them as doubled in the same way Balanced treats Expand Econ as doubled?

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What happens if we put Study Stars as an invested action?

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If i understand right, you're all thinking of invested actions wrong. Invested actions are giving up King action slots, not dedicating specific actions. So by investing a king action, we'd go from, say, 5 king actions/5 province actions to 4 king actions/7 province actions. Then, of those province actions, 4 would be decided by our active policy, while 3 would be decided by factions

Repeated actions are where we choose specific actions. So we'd choose to repeat Expand Forests, and go from 5 King actions to 4 king actions, but gain (as part of our per-turn income) the effects of a Main Expand Forest every turn.

@Academia Nut is that right?

(but yeah, i agree that halving the action counts AND the action power will lead to the invested and repeated actions being overly restrictive)

 

[bluefur87]

If i understand right, you're all thinking of invested actions wrong. Invested actions are giving up King action slots, not dedicating specific actions. So by investing a king action, we'd go from, say, 5 king actions/5 province actions to 4 king actions/7 province actions. Then, of those province actions, 4 would be decided by our active policy, while 3 would be decided by factions

Repeated actions are where we choose specific actions. So we'd choose to repeat Expand Forests, and go from 5 King actions to 4 king actions, but gain (as part of our per-turn income) the effects of a Main Expand Forest every turn.

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I meant repeated. Sorry.

 

[8bitBob]

If i understand right, you're all thinking of invested actions wrong. Invested actions are giving up King action slots, not dedicating specific actions. So by investing a king action, we'd go from, say, 5 king actions/5 province actions to 4 king actions/7 province actions. Then, of those province actions, 4 would be decided by our active policy, while 3 would be decided by factions

Repeated actions are where we choose specific actions. So we'd choose to repeat Expand Forests, and go from 5 King actions to 4 king actions, but gain (as part of our per-turn income) the effects of a Main Expand Forest every turn.

@Academia Nut is that right?

(but yeah, i agree that halving the action counts AND the action power will lead to the invested and repeated actions being overly restrictive)

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Derp, yeah, that sounds right. Reading comprehension OP. More coffee is required.

 

[PrimalShadow]

If i understand right, you're all thinking of invested actions wrong. Invested actions are giving up King action slots, not dedicating specific actions. So by investing a king action, we'd go from, say, 5 king actions/5 province actions to 4 king actions/7 province actions. Then, of those province actions, 4 would be decided by our active policy, while 3 would be decided by factions

Repeated actions are where we choose specific actions. So we'd choose to repeat Expand Forests, and go from 5 King actions to 4 king actions, but gain (as part of our per-turn income) the effects of a Main Expand Forest every turn.

@Academia Nut is that right?

(but yeah, i agree that halving the action counts AND the action power will lead to the invested and repeated actions being overly restrictive)

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Pretty sure everyone means repeated. Frankly as the system is right now, I can't think of any reason we'd want to have an invested action over a repeated action.

 

[Academia Nut]

Don't know if you've already accounted for this but wouldn't this essentially double Personal Stewards of Nature's value? I mean it makes sense that our citizens would be able to do more on their own with increased cheap access to iron tools but if you increase the value of an action per turn then that would give us a large advantage over our neighbors who don't have similar action providing values. One which is mitigated somewhat by the centralization cost and has IC justification but still an advantage.

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Good catch, I will probably make sure that PSN only ever gives Sec action values, or some other balancing factor.

So, will we have any idea as to what specific actions the factions want to take ahead of time?

And will they still have no problems crashing out economy or starting people or whatever through their province actions?

This sounds nice, since it reduces bloat and discourages min maxing actions, but I'm also worried it could go to the opposite side of the players having to min max their actions in order to prevent the possibility of the factions crashing our stats.

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They will generally attempt to not crash the economy, but they will certainly push their own agendas and attempt to screw over their enemies. They can't declare wars unless they spend faction power though... although factions would be able to each contribute faction power to an expenditure if they are in accord.

Also, @Academia Nut , would you mind showing an example of province actions under new system?
Do you mean that invested actions are basically recurring, but using provincial action slots? Or that provinces now treat them as doubled in the same way Balanced treats Expand Econ as doubled?

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Okay, you have like 1 Main and 5 Secondary actions right now, and 5 Secondary province actions. For an invested action, you could take 1 Sec and 'invest' it, which means that you now have 1 Main and 4 Secondaries, and the provinces have 1 Main and 5 Secondaries. However, half of those actions follow whatever policy you have set, and the other half follow faction strength. So you would have 1 Main and 2 Secondaries (1 Sec doubled to a Main for Law bonuses), and the factions would have 3 Secondaries. With current faction power the Priests get first choice, the Patricians second, and the Guilds third (I think I may also allow Guild actions to be invested, but the Guild automatically gets control of that action, but has reduced priority elsewhere). So the Priests might build a new temple, the Patricians build palace annexes, and the Guild would likely begin construction of a Level 2 block housing in Redshore to prep the ground for a Level 3 Ironworks... although I will probably add some level of 'secondary' desire. So since the Patricians still have time on their quest, and if the king is going for it, they may decide that they want gymnasia, academies, elite warriors, or to Distribute Land before they beeline for their quest.

Now, with this state of affairs you may decide that you want to invest another action, and thus you will have 1 Main and 3 Secondaries, while the province actions would be 2 Main and 5 Secondaries, divided up 1 Main and 3 Sec for the King, 1 Main and 2 Sec for the factions. You could also invest a Sec into roads, so you have 1 Main and 2 Sec to decide, 1 Main Roads every turn, and 2 Main and 5 Sec in the province action track.

One absolute rule will be that you cannot invest all of your actions. De-investing or turning off actions on repeat cost 1 Sec action as the king spends his time clawing back power from the factions/bureaucracy. There will however be an exception: if you invest all but one Sec and then go into Overcentralization, you can end up with the bureaucracy essentially taking over while grinding to a halt. The players will be locked out of the main phase, and will only have reactions and hope for a decrease in Centralization to restore their ability to act.

I am also thinking that you cannot have more repeated actions than invested actions, and I will probably break the Main into 2 Secondaries, especially if I cut turn time in half to halve actions.

 

[notgreat]

Pretty sure everyone means repeated. Frankly as the system is right now, I can't think of any reason we'd want to have an invested action over a repeated action.

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I think it comes down to how expensive it is to remove a repeated/invested action. If they're nearly impossible to remove, invested actions are always doing something useful whereas repeated ones might be wasted (IE we're at 100% roads and can't disable our repeated road action)

..and it's revealed that the cost is 1 secondary so it's not that massive. I think these are good ideas but too much if you add everything at once. I think I prefer the invested/repeated actions more than the halving of time.

 

[ctulhuslp]

Pretty sure everyone means repeated. Frankly as the system is right now, I can't think of any reason we'd want to have an invested action over a repeated action.

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If a secondary can switch Investment on amd off, it can be very good for bumrushing megaprojects on MP support policy.
Or for Offensive Mode for doubled War Missions.

It's useless on Balanced due to wide variety of actions, but can be combined quite well with more specialized policies as long as switching is cheap enough.

Investing Guild actions also is nice.

or to Distribute Land before they beeline for their quest.

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@maximillian , your time has come.

 

[Abby Normal]

I am also thinking that you cannot have more repeated actions than invested actions, and I will probably break the Main into 2 Secondaries, especially if I cut turn time in half to halve actions.

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I mean...if you do all of this, then we'd be almost unable to make use of repeated actions unless the gov upgrade majorly increased action gains. We'd go from 1 main, 5 secondaries, to either 3 or 4 secondaries depending on if it rounds up. So we'd have to take ourselves down to 1 or 2 secondaries a turn if we wanted to get an invested action

they may decide that they want gymnasia, academies, elite warriors, or to Distribute Land before they beeline for their quest.

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Wait...they can distribute land to muck up our system with their faction-driven province actions?? does that at least cost faction power for doing something thats normally only the king's authority?

 

[PrimalShadow]

Okay, you have like 1 Main and 5 Secondary actions right now, and 5 Secondary province actions.

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Not to nitpick, but we have 6 Secondary actions.

I am also thinking that you cannot have more repeated actions than invested actions, and I will probably break the Main into 2 Secondaries, especially if I cut turn time in half to halve actions.

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More seriously, I still don't see why the players would want to take invested actions, rather then repeated actions. Repeated actions have a clear and significant value: they allow us to get work done on major projects that we really want to move forward on but which we don't because they can't quite compete with the crisis-of-the-day. On the other hand, Invested actions give up flexibility in return for factions and policies doing their own thing; this is MASSIVELY less useful then having those actions spent on stuff we think we actually need every turn.

I think you noticed the problem already, since you are thinking of capping repeated actions to our invested-actions total. Frankly, I don't like this solution; you are basically forcing the players to use the unpleasant invested actions to get us to do the much-more-appealing repeated actions. Why do this? I don't think it makes the game especially more fun, and I don't think it is necessary for the narrative; so what is the point of this?

 

[bluefur87]

I am also thinking that you cannot have more repeated actions than invested actions, and I will probably break the Main into 2 Secondaries, especially if I cut turn time in half to halve actions.

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That's... I mean I get the "I don't want players to just go for the blatantly better action." Because repeated actions are going to be that until we get at least 3 of them, if not effectively always, but that makes repeated actions close to impossible to use.

 

[065tdsa]

They will generally attempt to not crash the economy, but they will certainly push their own agendas and attempt to screw over their enemies. They can't declare wars unless they spend faction power though... although factions would be able to each contribute faction power to an expenditure if they are in accord.

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Why are they able to declare wars? That has always been a power only the king has. It's one thing if people in this factions go off on their own like the Yeomen, but certainly not declare actual Wars we have to fight in.

 

[PrimalShadow]

@Academia Nut - also, any thoughts on my suggestion for more phases per 20-year turn instead of splitting into 10-year turns? I do think it has promise, especially in terms of being easier to keep track of in terms of updating stats and the like. Doubling the phase-count means that in any given phase, we have to keep track of half the number of things. Halving the turn-length keeps the number of things the same; it just means you have to keep track of the half-power effects instead of the full-power effects.

 

[DragonParadox]

Does the game really need one more layer of complexity? It's already complicated enough that most people bandwagon and pay little attention to the mechanics.

 

[8bitBob]

I am also thinking that you cannot have more repeated actions than invested actions

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Hmm. That's pretty limiting. Less so if Guild actions can be invested though. Still, giving up control of four player actions for Forests and Roads repeat actions is going to be pretty steep.

I think this situation would be mitigated if we had more ability to direct province actions effectively. Maybe all this could come with a rework to active policies? The biggest culprit here is Expansion, which we would take for the economy aspects, but can't due to the settlement spamming. I'd really like to see this split into two policies: one focused on land management and expansion, one focused on economy expansion.

At the very least, if we go the repeat/investment route, we'll probably have to switch off of Balanced. Too scattershot if we're giving up player actions for it.

 

[bluefur87]

I am also thinking that you cannot have more repeated actions than invested actions, and I will probably break the Main into 2 Secondaries, especially if I cut turn time in half to halve actions.

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Thinking about this more, I think I'd just elect to never use repeated actions under such a case. We wouldn't actually gain any amount of actions from them unless we seperately wanted to take invested actions also.

That is, the allure of a repeated action is that we turn a secondary into two actions. However, if we have to spend another secondary to get it activated, that's a net neutral gain. Now, if spending that other action actually got us anything, it would be another story. However, it gives one action to the factions who will do a lot of crap we don't want them to do, and another action to policy which will be giving up a lot of fine tuning of choice. It's actually just massively not worth it.

Does the game really need one more layer of complexity? It's already complicated enough that most people bandwagon and pay little attention to the mechanics.

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And this, also this. The initial reason for this was to simplify the mechanics right? You are making them much more complex instead.

 

[Chronic]

Why do this? I don't think it makes the game especially more fun, and I don't think it is necessary for the narrative; so what is the point of this?

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I think it is necessary for the narrative; the narrative being that in the time period most of the important players in a given polity had their own agenda instead of doing what the state wanted them to. Right now our King is unrealistically powerful and able to set the agenda on almost everything; the sort of control he has over the nations actions is anachronistic, you probably won't see as much control from the top until the advent of 17th century absolutist monarchies.

 

[Susano]

That is, the allure of a repeated action is that we turn a secondary into two actions. [...] However, it gives one action to the factions who will do a lot of crap we don't want them to do,

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Oh that's a good point! We don't actually gain the extra action... because that one goes right to faction control. Hmmm...

 

[065tdsa]

I think it is necessary for the narrative; the narrative being that in the time period most of the important players in a given polity had their own agenda instead of doing what the state wanted them to. Right now our King is unrealistically powerful and able to set the agenda on almost everything; the sort of control he has over the nations actions is anachronistic, you probably won't see as much control from the top until the advent of 17th century absolutist monarchies.

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I always figured this reflected our ridiculous centralization.

 

[DragonParadox]

I think the issue that that one cannot address both the things this mechanics change is trying to do. To make things more realistic more power must be taken from the players and increasingly complex means of pushing forward actions must be implemented to reflect an increasingly sophisticated bureaucracy .

That is manifestly the opposite of simplifying or clarifying the mechanics.

 

[George]

Oh that's a good point! We don't actually gain the extra action... because that one goes right to faction control. Hmmm...

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So the gist is that we transfer our action to the Provinces, and give a free action to the highest influence faction that doesn't have an action yet, as I understand it.
I'd like it a lot more if any Province Main actions that went to the factions were split into two secondaries.

Them being able to do things like build annexes and raise RA is also back-breaking compared to our current system. The Priests, on a bad quest roll, can give themselves a quest requiring a temple to be built, that has a 'reward' of +1 RA, and then complete the quest for themselves, raising their faction power that adds directly to RA, for a total of 3 RA in a turn.

 

[agumentic]

Hm. Well, I understand the idea behind invested actions, but they need work. Right now, it would be just giving an action to the faction, which we frankly almost never want, and to a policy, which is inflexible. Locking a repeated action behind it somewhat works, but is a stick solution, it needs some carrot with it.

 

[Broccoliccoli]

De-investing or turning off actions on repeat cost 1 Sec action as the king spends his time clawing back power from the factions/bureaucracy.

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If the cost is only a secondary we would break even after a single turn on repeating a secondary, since we gain a secondary from the doubling. On repeating a main we would even make a profit, since the doubling is worth another main. Of course an action in the current turn isnt exactly as valuable as an action next turn, but otherwise the math should work out.
This means should always repeat main actions since we make an action profit even if we de-invest next turn and repeating a secondary is also mostly worth it since it it at worst neutral and we gain a profit if we still want to do the action next turn.

 

[agumentic]

Does the game really need one more layer of complexity? It's already complicated enough that most people bandwagon and pay little attention to the mechanics.

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The idea is, those people won't need to care about that stuff, and it'll simplify the things they do care about.

 

[George]

If the cost is only a secondary we would break even after a single turn on repeating a secondary, since we gain a secondary from the doubling. On repeating a main we would even make a profit, since the doubling is worth another main. Of course an action in the current turn isnt exactly as valuable as an action next turn, but otherwise the math should work out.
This means should always repeat main actions since we make an action profit even if we de-invest next turn and repeating a secondary is also mostly worth it since it it at worst neutral and we gain a profit if we still want to do the action next turn.

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It reduces our action flexibility a lot, and we probably wouldn't be able to re-invest a Main action that we de-vested until the next turn.

The idea is, those people won't need to care about that stuff, and it'll simplify the things they do care about.

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Sort of? Currently, as long as we don't run ourselves out of a stat we're fine, so people can do some quick math to check if a plan is okay. If the factions can do whatever they like, though, plans become massively more involved to check if they're okay since we have to check whether each faction is likely to screw something up and budget around that. It's less intimidating, maybe, but far, far more difficult to avoid the bad scenarios we're currently used to avoiding.