A new mod enters the ring - Introducing "Close to Home"

[Mjmd]

I would suggest two more options:
8) Make it no cost and put it earlier in the tech tree. Philosophy? Paper? That would give players more time to use it to improve cottages. With no cost it also has potential use in the late game by being significantly cheaper. This is the most CTH solution I can find.

I am not an expert on late game, but this makes a lot of sense to me. Paper makes the most sense to me (or printing press). Gives people who maybe have been whipping down a ton an option to catch in the economy and its at a point people are more likely to have a GA to switch. Its possible its too powerful / competes with serfdom too well then. It would have the odd effect of giving more of a reason later to switch into uni suffrage (because you have more towns), but also you have less incentive to actually research democracy then.

[Tarkeel]

This is probably a bad idea, but how about taking suggestion 2) and using excess health instead?

Moving it forward from Democracy is probably the best remaining option, although that makes it even less likely people will research it.

[Miguelito]

I don't think that PB59 shows that there's a problem with Emancipation. Some people are running it and arguably are doing well with it. Some prefer other options. I think the one thing that we ar enot seeing in that column is Caste System outside of GA, but you already announced a workshop rework so that should help. The hammer bonus is nothing huge and I guess neither is it intended to be so. If you want to try with 15% I guess that'd be fine as well, but ultimately you run Emancipation for the cottage growth bonus.
Moving it up on the tech tree sounds interesting on the one hand, because it would compete with slavery at a time when the whip is still very relevant (I guess that also makes that a significant Spi buff?). On the other hand, having it sit at Democracy has its peculiar cruel twist, because you want it early but it sits so far away. I'd consider swapping the techs for FS and Emancipation, but at the same time the Democracy tech would then be pretty onedimensional - you research it once you have grown a bunch of towns with Emancipation (or for the statue). So that takes away choices.

Meanwhile I do think that there is an evident problem with the economics column. Corps are just very attractive (also a function of map lushness), but you can't go without FM if you lean heavily into them.
Maybe -25% corps costs could be removed, but FM would need a strong bonus to compensate. But that would make 3/4 copr
SP will benefit from the workshop buff, but I'm wondering if it would make sense to extend the +1f to windmills, or even mines.
Environmentalism seems still pretty pointless. Maybe with some beaker or culture boni it could get at least niche uses while staying on theme. +2health for Public Transport though, on top of +6health ? Maybe if we reenabled poisoning wells? (as the only spy mission) But I disgress.

[chumchu]

I agree about problems with the economics column:

Mercantilism has a role and a drawback: specialist eco but no foreign trade.
Free trade has two roles: trade eco and cheap corporations
State Property has a large and a small role and a drawback: production eco, low distance maintenace but no corps
Environmentalism has two small roles: better health and better windmills/forest preserves.

I would say that mercantilism gives a clear bonus but the drawback is too big while environmentalism gives too small a bonus and the opportunity cost is too big. I would rather buff these two than nerf the other two.

[Charriu]

• Environmentalism: Available at Biology instead of Medicine, remove Corporation costs, +1 commerce on water tiles
  

I have planned something for Environmentalism already.


I don't think Mercantilism needs a buff. We've seen it used multiple times by now. Most often around the mid game when a lot of wars happened and therefore foreign trade routes were destroyed. There's also some synergy with PRO. It's ok if Mercantilism isn't used in the late game with corporations present, but even then foreign trade can collapse during that time making the cost of Mercantilism smaller.
Another option to balance the economy civics is to increase Free Market to High Cost.

EDIT: Note that on PB59 Free Market is OP mainly because you have so many options for foreign trade route and you rarely destroy those trade routes.

[civac2]

Mercantilism vs Free Trade is map-dependent and situation-dependent. It's not really a choice. In PB 59 Free Trade is quite obvisously superior but in my PB55 game Mercantilism was just as obviously the better choice. Similarly, vanrober used Mercantilism a lot in PB61.

[Tarkeel]

Mercantilism was also the one-right-choice for us in PB58.

[Charriu]

I don't think moving Emancipation aka the "improvements upgrade faster" civic earlier is a good solution. The cottage economy is already very strong in play and does not need a buff in my opinion, which this would be. Also without an additional bonus aside from the improvement related one, the civic feels totally pointless once you've grown all those cottages in this scenario. That's why I wanted to add a production related bonus to give it that additional meaning in the late game. After all this is the final civic in that column and all those civics have a use somewhat related to late game.

[Charriu]

New idea for a hammer related bonus on Emancipation in addition to the improvement upgrade speed:

+1 hammer for every source of happiness

This looks a bit more complicated, but it actually isn't. Sources of happiness are easily spotted as they all have different hovertext in the cityscreen over happiness. You stuff like "Our military presence makes us happy", "In our faith we trust", "OH YEAH!". So what exactly are the different sources of happiness. They are:

1. Happiness from Big Cities (Representation) or Military Happiness (Monarchy)
   
2. Master of a Vassal
   
3. State religion or Free Religion
   
4. Buildings (not wonders)
   
5. Wonders
   
6. Bonuses (Luxuries)
   
7. Features (Forest Preserve and Forests/Jungles under Environmentalism)
   
8. Commerce Happiness (Some buildings provide happiness when you turn on the culture slider)
   
9. Extra Happiness ("OH YEAH!" these are Charismatic bonus, Future Tech and Events)
   
10. Temporary Happiness (Events)
    
11. Handicap
    

As you can see I grouped some mutually exclusive sources together. So with everything on the table you would look at +11 hammers per city, but this also includes stuff we usually do not use in MP (Vassals and Events) without those we would be at +9 hammers, but for this to get into every city you would need:

1. Under Monarchy
   
2. State Religion or Free Religion
   
3. Have either a Palace, Temple, any building receiving happiness from civics or traits (all the others fall into different sources)
   
4. Notre Dame or Broadway, Hollywood or Rock 'n' Roll in specific cities
   
5. Any luxury resource
   
6. A forest preserve or run Environmentalism
   
7. Have a theatre and run 10% culture slider
   
8. Charismatic
   
9. Handicap
   

Now you might have spotted some things that even with that wouldn't make much sense, for example

• You wouldn't run Monarchy or Representation just for the +1 hammer if you have for example 2 towns and can use Universal Suffrage (which of course you can do, because it is on the same tech-
  
• Notre Dame might be gone or cities are spread upon different continents
  
• You already chopped all forest (how could you, think about all the little forest critters, you monster )
  
• Would somebody really run 10% culture with theatres everywhere just for +1 hammer? Maybe temporarily.
  

So I think a more realistic number that is easily achievable by everybody is +4 hammers per city for every turn with the potential for some more if need be.

1. Religion
   
2. Building
   
3. Luxury resource
   
4. Handicap
   

Of course numbers can be changed. Opinions?

[Tarkeel]

First impression is that it's thematic and probably not game breaking big. Side-effect is making religions more important.

I think a specialist-driven economy would plausibly run 10% culture for the hammer boost some of the time.