1 & 2. Having the default state of empires be a bubble of influence that generates money from other empires is interesting. I think there's a lot of potential in this as a catch-up mechanic, where the smaller neighbour of a larger empire can essentially use that larger empire's population to get a form of passive income. A bit like trade if it worked off population but more for Aesthetes. I don't think you need to remove the passive influence spread at all, the influence spread mechanic simply needs more clarity in order to function as it currently is. The current system is fine and would work for your proposed idea without needing to micro-manage all that. I'm also hesitant about giving this game ANOTHER way to generate money, since it's already really easy to get way way too much.

3. I disagree with the proposed change, Expansionists just need their own way to generate influence to claim territories peacefully, as well as a change to the territory needed to be controlled for expansionist stars. Plus they can already "peacefully" gain territories from others by demanding them with the diplomacy system, although that's not really unique to them.

4. Seems fine, just another form of income you can extract.

5. I came up with a different smaller change to the Aesthete ability, where if you use culture bomb on your own province that's already in your sphere of influence, you gain a % boost to that province's influence generation.

6. I like the idea of giving expansionists more influence related abilities(I subscribe to the idea of lowering the penalty for being above the city limit for them, and having expansionists generate influence when they create military units. Oh and they ignore closed boarders). Also their passive is already a system within Humankind that anyone can use, it's just a demand you can do.

Thanks for the feedback! I hope this discussion helps the Devs in tackling the issues mentioned on the first post.

1 & 2 My problem with it is not that it is passive, but rather that it scales with influence GENERATION. This means that if you generate a lot of influence, you'll be good at claiming land AND building wonders AND adding territories to your sphere of influence. Having it be a expenditure means it becomes an influence sink (which I saw a lot of players complaining there isn't) and means you'll have to do a counscious decision: would you prefer claim land and build wonders OR would you prefer to add territories to your sphere of influence for that sweet Tourism Income and Grievances?

However, if "too-much-micro" is the concern, I think the system can work by having you put your influence into a "sphere pool" where you click a button to dump your influence and let it flow passively to other lands, or even have the culture spread key off your BANKED influence: the less you spend Influence, the more your culture spreads. Make a big Influence expenditure like claiming a wonder or building your 4th city and you're suddenly vulnerable to other Empire's influence.

3. Making Expansionists have something to gain more influence as a trait of the affinity would make the borders between Aesthete and Expansionist even more muddy. Also I still think the "opressing my people" grievance and its demand is nice should be kept as is, but it isn't that "peaceful" anyway :P

5. That would be nice. I'm all for any Aesthete ability that helps them getting their aesthete stars.

6. I disagree that the Expansionist passive I proposed and the "opressing my people" Grievance are the same. First, the expansionist passive would require a lump sum of money to be paid, so it'll be mutually beneficial to both players (probably more beneficial to the Expansionist - see the Alaska and Louisiana purchases) and thus the AI would certainly be more happy to accept. Second, it is not a Demand, so it would not hamper trade, generate war support or even be a cause for instant war, like pushing a demand and having it to be rejected. To argue that the proposed passive is the same as the base "oppressing my people demand" is like arguing the Merchant Passive doesn't do anything, since you can already buy and sell resources in the market, even though it modifies the act of buying and selling.

The proposed changes are based on systems that already exist in HK (there is already a tourism monetary income in HK, but only for Aesthetes; The "culture bomb" action already exist as the Aesthete action; the "toggable modes" system are already in place with builders and scientists; and the territory buyout is close to the grievances/demand system) for a reason: because they should be as easy to code as possible, and having systems that work similarly to systems that are already in the game help that objective (there is, after all, a release date to meet).

3. I don't think it necessarily muddies the boarder between the two affinities. Their traits are about accomplishing two things in separate ways using the same resource. Aesthetes are all about projecting influence, and profiting off that projected influence. Expansionists are about taking land, and with this new affinity bonus I had in mind they can found their own land easier, and maintain more cities. Also somewhat relevant but I designed the influence gain on unit production based on the current system, where your sphere is based on influence production. The influence you gain when making units would not count for that, so that influence can only be used for spending. Under your more active system that influence would fulfill both purposes. I don't really want that.

6. Honestly that's a good point, would be cool if demands as expansionists were different and didn't do things like stop ongoing trade. I'd consider it a good addition.

How this suggestion, after applied, can change Aesthete and Expansionist cultures? Lets brainstorm together.

Ancient

Olmecs

Olmecs are on a fantastic place right and work very well with this new system, so no need to change them. If anything, the Javelin Throwers could lose a few CS as they're very strong.

Zhou

Zhou is on a good place power wise, and bring a unique take: an science-focused Aesthete. However, I do feel that while they are in a good powerlevel, they could have a sidegrade to emphasize its affinity by changing the Confucian School's base + 1 Science to either +1 Influence or +1 Faith. It will still be a mainly Science building with its science adjacency and researcher slot, but will help the Zhou gain a bit of influence or faith, since it has no other way to go for influence this early in the game.

Assyrians

The Assyrians are quite underpowered right now, and one of the key reason is that the Dunnu is just a weaker form of the Cyclopean Fortress. It got the exact same stats, but lower fortification, lower combat strenght to allies, and do not make enemy slower. I think the other parts of the Assyrian kit are in a great place, but the Dunnu could use a rework. A few ideas about it are: a) they could grant the swift modifier to allied units passing through it (a nod to the Assyrian King's Road that spawned between Dunnu) ; b) Make the Dunnu grant +5 Stability like other garrison districts; c) Grant it +2 influence income, which would help with early settling; and/or d) Make territories with a Dunnu act as your capital to calculate Outpost costs (outposts are cheaper the closer they are to your capital, and the Dunnu would lower the influence cost for claiming territories). I think a combination of 2 or 3 of the above effects would help the Assyrians reach a similar power level to other Ancient Civilization while enhancing its "expansionist" direction.

Classical

Achaemenids

The Achaemenids are also in a fantastic position and I think they need no change.

Mauryans

The Mauryans are also in a great place. Its LT is a bit on the weaker side right now, but the changes proposed here will grant them more influence through Mecenas Mode which can help them patronize IP easier, and their great EQ and EU surely make up for the weaker LT, so I don't think they need to be changed.

Romans

Romans do have a very strong EU, balanced by the fact it comes very late in the tech tree. However, both its LT and EQ are on the weaker side and they bring this civilization down. The EQ is the easiest to fix - Triumphal Archs should not have the base -10 stability. As it is now, it is better to build common's quarters than it is to build Triumphal Archs, which is a bit strange. Having the LT give +3 stability base instead of -7 (+3-10) would fix that. As for the LT... The LT is almost useless right now, and unless there is either a Generals System, an Army Cap,a Reinforcement Cap, or a huge increase to Army Upkeep enforced it will not do much. If the army size is still a minor consideration due to the current systems, Romans could use an entirely new LT, maybe related to road movement, increased war support, or diplomacy (easier/longer grievances?).   

Medieval
Franks

Franks are thematically in a fantastic place, but their LT is a tad too strong. They clash with the Industrial Mexicans which have the same LT but weaker (+50% food vs +20% food), so a few adjustments could be done. One such adjustment is to restrict the Frank bonus to apply only for the capital (Paris was, indeed, a huge city in the medieval era), or change it to a different growth-based LT (I have suggested it to become -20% food consumption on pops), and another suggestion I've heard in discord is to tone down Franks to +20% food and change the Mexican one (maybe to this -20% food consumption idea).

Teutons

Teutons are in a great place overall and I think they need no changes. A sidegrade that could be done is to remove the Kaiserdom's faith bonuses and give it a religion defense buff (-X% to enemy religious pressure on this territory). Teutons actually do not want their faith to spread to enemy lands through faith, since they'll lose their crusading bonuses, so making the Kaiserdom weaken enemy religious pressure can both protect the Teutons' religion AND help convert the lands they conquer by the sword, while not help expanding their religion to outside their own borders.  

Early Modern

Edo Japanese

The Edo are way too overtuned with their LT. +1 influence per district would grant plenty of influence already, having it give +3 is absolutely too strong. Other than that, its weaker EQ is counterbalanced by the amazing EU and its LT, even after nerfed.

Ming

While the Ming were in the weaker side on Victor, with several players reporting that civics were too easy to get, I think that once you can adjust stability to make it harder to stay at 100% all the time (my suggestion would be reducing the effects of "free" stability sources like Procession and religion, and reducing the stability effects of luxury resources), this can be a very good pick. I would not change anything about the Ming.

Ottomans

Another civilization that is on the weaker side, the Ottomans have a nice EQ and EU and is only let down by its lackluster LT. I would increase the LT reduction from 15 to 25%, and have it apply to not only attach outpost, but also to found cities. Other than that, they're in a good spot. 

Spanish

Another example of the "conquering expansionist" type, the Spanish are in a great position. While their EQ is on the weaker side, their fantastic LT and great EU make for it, so I would not change it.

I like the proposed change to the teutonic Kaiserdom. Big fan of that.

Delving a little deeper on the Tourism mechanics, here's an initial draft of which could be the tourism sources up to Industrial era. Only thing that isn't in the table is the Industrial LT/EQ, since I couldn't play with them and can't assess which cultures could have a buff on that area. My thematic reasoning is that Tourism should represent not only direct "tourist" revenue, but the amount of exploitable economic resources that the private sector could employ and and a government could harvest through tax, treaties and royalties (thus representing economic yields of your cultural influence).

I agree with most of your ideas. They sound better than what the game offered in victor, at least for Aesthete and Expansionist abilities.
I would love to see something around these lines in a future build !!

martinovich89 wrote:

Agreed for the Romans. They need some love, and some more interesting LT.

A interesting idea I just came up for a new Roman LT is to model their powerful and lasting cultural influence over the lands they conquered as such: "Roman Law: Add any territories you gain in a peace deal to your Sphere of Influence for free."  

docktorkain wrote:

Bit technical here, but here's a proposed mathematical model to calculate the Influence cost of adding a territory to your sphere of influence.

Made an adjustment to the above formula (both in the description and in the google sheets calculator) to reduce the impact of the Distance modifier. While I do like its behaviour (it encourages moving your capital closer to the enemy border for maximum economic benefits, a very interesting risk/reward assessment), it was scaling too hard and was overpowering other modifiers such as ideology or proximity. The change was to divide "D" value by four: instead of each territory adding +100% to the influence cost, each one will add only +25%. This still makes distant lands very costly to convert, but will even out the playing field and allow for any given empire to hold over larger spheres if they focus on it. 

8housesofelixir, on discord, added to the discussion of Expansionist abilities:

"Annexing/building a military installation a random but strategic part of other's territory was a common practice throughout the history, and a lot of the Expansionists in the game had done it as well (there is literally a former British concession as well as a former Russian concession in my hometown). I wonder how that can be translated into the game on the strategical grounds (esp. with the mechanic of trade routes, controlling strategical points will be important). One thing I can think of (probably not the best way) is to introduce it as a unique diplomatic action for Expansionists. An Expansionist can propose to buy a territory of others as a diplo proposal/demand (so it will have a cooldown time (5-10 turns?) with an adequate money cost and not being a clickfest), others can refuse the demand but with the cost of generating a grievance. (If Expansionist waged the war eventually they may took that territory with a discounted war desire cost.) In this way the land-grab and the diplomatic leverage can work together as part of Expansionist's toolkit. I think it can model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concessions_and_leases_in_international_relations ." 

This would make the expansionist abilities as such: the Influence bomb ability and this "buy territory" diplo action which would ignore sphere of influence (as opposed to the ability proposed in the opening post which required Sphering first).