Longturn Forum

Now everyone can switch to tribalism at T0 and it may make sense since tribalism gives you more free units. However it might improve the game to make tribalism require Ceremonial Burial since it may be considered an upgrade. Very few people build CB first anyway. Maybe not adding this to the next more traditional game but on a more experimental one like LT40. LT42 might be a game like that.

I strongly disagree with this on several levels...

Firstly, at the start of the game Despotism or Tribalism is a clear choice between two very different routes. High Corruption/Low Waste or High Waste/Low Corruption, Decentralised Shield upkeep or Centralised Gold upkeep (Remember despotism has +100% gold bonus in capital too).
Requiring CB be researched first would mean no choice of gov, without expending time and trade and having a revolution at critical point where it will also set you back further compared to everyone else. So no choice, only one way to play the game, everyone will do the same...

Secondly, after the start everyones priority will be getting rid of the -1 resource penalty for ancient governments. There are currently 3 different options for this which in recent games have taken about the same time to achieve.
1. Tribal with pyramids, that already requires researching Masonry and building a wonder. (A choice of getting there by production instead of trade)
2. Despotism with pyramids, which no one does...
3. Monarchy, which already requires research of Ceremonial Burial and other stuff. (A choice of getting there by trade instead of production)
If you have to research ceremonial burial anyway, then the monarchy route is probably quicker. So once again less options, no real choice of playing style.
I dont think any player should be forced to research something unless they actually need it. If I choose the Trialism route I usually dont research CB and Monarchy until I want to do Feudalism. I dont even build Temples!

If you think there are too many free units with tribalism, why not just reduce the number of free units?
Or if you think Tribalism is too strong compared to Despotism, why not improve Despotism?
I like Tribal with Pyramids because it is actually a serious option for a player who favours production over trade. Its a kind of Communism Lite. I see no reason why anyone would want to use Despotism with Pyramids instead of Monarchy though, so maybe making that option more attractive would balance the game and create more options not less.

Despotism+Pyramids could be a sort of Fundamentalism Lite option. It may be worth the poor trade if there was near zero dissent/unhappy citizens (To counter the fact that tribal can use 3 free military units to keep order) and the centralised gold bonus was more significant. So even later in the game it could be a workable temporary solution to high unhappiness, maybe even add increased population growth in capital or something so players can choose a Low Trade/High Growth strategy of they wish.

More options not more limits please!

Thanks Lord_P! Good points!

Maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all.

No problem, sorry for ranting. I dont mind new settings to make things interesting, just not things that will limit the game

I think making Despotism a Crap Economy/High Growth option could be interesting, since rapture growth is (rightly) not possible.
Maybe half the granary size for cities above size 4?
So no extra advantage in the early game, its balanced with Tribalism, but if used later with pyramids gives players the option of sacrificing research and production to boost their population. So temporarily go for a poor economy if you think the boost to your cities is worth it.

why should "ceremonial burial" be a brutal prerequisite to tribalism? and shall any tech-less civilisations starts inherently in a tribal state anyhow?

naturally one might consider tribalism less stable than despotism, as its increasing "civil" and "military" unrest:
translated by "[Lord_P]...High Corruption/Low Waste or High Waste/Low Corruption, Decentralised Shield upkeep or Centralised Gold upkeep (Remember despotism has +100% gold bonus in capital too). ..."

the world history lacks of examples of "great" tribal civilisations; there shall be catastrophic point where it all implodes;
and a despot always shown up in the records when this certain limit of unified population size is overtaken.

tribes "unity", I guess, can be improved with "ceremonial burial" + "alphabet" + "horses"

which shall counter this civil/military waste and unrest,
because how I represent it: "ceremonial burial" could have been the factor to improve identity of collective minds, "alphabet" its control, and "horses" its mobility.

so by applying some correctors when those techs are found, this could give a more supple and intuitive way of influencing the worth of tribalism than forcing hard tech prerequisites ?