I forgot a point... It was between turn 300 and 400 or something like that...

True, but regardless of level, new outposts can become prohibitive without Customary Laws (though I suppose by turn 300-400, there's little else to spend influence on, that's true).

I never uses Customary Laws... and was the player grabing the most land. I never even got an aesthete culture before the 4th era, plus I was freaking late for having been vassalized for a long time, lacking stability (took me 250 turns to get set), etc. There's no excuse for the AI being never grabing those territories.

Wait, you never use Customary Laws?  Do you leave that civic alone or do you take Codified Laws?  There seems to be so much savings in influence in the first three eras at least, I can't imagine not taking it.

Indeed, I never take it and prefer to go with »codified laws«.

I didn't calculate how much the cost difference is but:

1. I don't want to switch, it takes time and you have to pay to get the civic, then cancel it, then apply the new one
2. I still get a (small) reduction for attaching districts
3. I usually produce enough influence not to care too much about lacking influence
4. I tend to play early aesthete cultures
5. I tend to grab some IP on the way
6. I have no interest at all to push towards »Tradition« and am happy to go »Progress« instead
7. I play for fun, not to min-max everything, even in MP
8. I like to do things differently (this game, for example, I did not build any MQ, at all)
9. I am a simple average player.
   
   

I might try to calculate the difference between the two options later.

RedSirus wrote:

I can't imagine not taking it.

Maybe, you should try it.

Cure_off wrote:

Indeed, I never take it and prefer to go with »codified laws«.

I didn't calculate how much the cost difference is but:

1. I don't want to switch, it takes time and you have to pay to get the civic, then cancel it, then apply the new one
2. I still get a (small) reduction for attaching districts
3. I usually produce enough influence not to care too much about lacking influence
4. I tend to play early aesthete cultures
5. I tend to grab some IP on the way
6. I have no interest at all to push towards »Tradition« and am happy to go »Progress« instead
7. I play for fun, not to min-max everything, even in MP
8. I like to do things differently (this game, for example, I did not build any MQ, at all)
9. I am a simple average player.
   
   

I might try to calculate the difference between the two options later.

RedSirus wrote:

I can't imagine not taking it.

Maybe, you should try it.

Getting a bit passive-aggressive for my tastes, but challenge accepted, I'll try without it next time.  I certainly don't play to min-max everything (the consideration of cancelling it and applying Codified Laws for later savings doesn't cross my mind), but I just found Customary Laws one of those things where I suffered strongly in my early games of Humankind when I didn't get it and the AIs all outsettled me.  We're trying to look for things that are too powerful vs. the alternatives, (like Liberty vs Order) and I think of Customary Laws as one of those overly-optimal "no choices".  But I'll try going with Codified Laws on my next game.

Oh, but regarding 6 (having to interesting in pushing towards tradition), that's what I found quite pleasant about pairing Customary Laws with Natural Right, is that they cancel each other out in terms of the ideology axis and provide a nice benefit on settling outposts without sliding too far into tradition or progress.

RedSirus wrote:

Getting a bit passive-aggressive for my tastes

Not my intention. I'm very sorry if that's how my post felt to you.

»Codified Laws« might need a boost and I may be the only player taking it, but it doesn't feel like an hinderance to me.

Regarding #6, that can be useful, indeed. I play surely differently and never focus on science early on, I only get much of it when playing the Zhou in a nice setting. Otherwise, science production remains meager for me, I put scientists the last in slots and upon reaching the classical era benefits from the +10% science more than a little bit of stability, as slots start to get filled.

Cure_off wrote:

RedSirus wrote:

Getting a bit passive-aggressive for my tastes

Not my intention. I'm very sorry if that's how my post felt to you.

»Codified Laws« might need a boost and I may be the only player taking it, but it doesn't feel like an hinderance to me.

Regarding #6, that can be useful, indeed. I play surely differently and never focus on science early on, I only get much of it when playing the Zhou in a nice setting. Otherwise, science production remains meager for me, I put scientists the last in slots and upon reaching the classical era benefits from the +10% science more than a little bit of stability, as slots start to get filled.

All good!

Haha, I do wonder how many people prefer Codified Laws vs Customary Laws.  I'm guessing Amplitude has some stats on that, like they do with culture choice, and they haven't touched this civic.  I much prefer running the Progress ideology, myself, but I also hate losing the culture and religion wars and so I'll skew faith if it means not getting a pile of grievances against me.  When I'm not playing Zhou (who I love, but you need the right territory for them), I'll try to put at least one population in the science slot first so I can keep up at least a bit.  As the Zhou, though, those people can go elsewhere, which is nice.

When placing people on science slots early, I always get to the last research too fast. Grabing the third influence star, at double points most of the time, remains one of my goal in peaceful games.
As for the Zhou, I find their LT more interesting than most and the EQ, while weak without mountains, can still be useful for some stability + being a RQ.

Cure_off wrote:
As for the Zhou, I find their LT more interesting than most and the EQ, while weak without mountains, can still be useful for some stability + being a RQ

The Zhou are a great example of an interesting, multidisciplinary culture that isn't just "All food all the time" or "Money money money" (I do love the Ghanaians, but they're a little one-note).  It's neat (and admittedly a little odd) having an Aesthete culture that's good at science and stability and doesn't actually get any influence bonuses apart from secondarily, though their higher stability potential, and directly through its affinity ability.

I'd have loved to see more "mixed affinity" Cultures, like instead of the Dutch doubling down on money in their LT, EQ, and Affinity, it would have been neat if their EQ were polders instead of the VOC warehouse, and they could be a food-money culture.

I've also noticed this too. 

I thought it was more due to how AI values territories. Some territories are basically worthless unless you hate border gore - because they have no commodities, rivers or forests. Conversely, I've seen AIs run across the entire continent just to claim a territory with resources fully in my "natural" border but I hadn't claimed it yet. And they were an ally so there was nothing I could do about it and they turned it into a 1 province city.

In this case, the first territory, in the north, has a small river and allows the placement of a good outpost with big yields, which makes it de facto useful. You can also see that »Black« took some islands that were not better.
I'd add that my surprise is also tied to the fact that, by renouncing to grab those territories, the AI makes getting expansion stars much more complicated. I don't know if the AI tries to stay above a certain threshold for stability and only get new territories if above, but they should be able to trade a bit of it for more land: Braun finished the game with 13 territories, pink with 4 and Black spent 1/3 of the game in the last era.

Hello folks,

I can think of multiple ways to explain this (the territories could be considered useless or the nearby cities could have Stability issue) but I can't be sure unless I have a look at your situation. Do you have the save file showcasing the issue by any chance?

Anyway, thank you for your feedback,

Alex.

I can't share saves, as I play through a third party.
As I've shown, there seemed to have been no reason for black not to grab those territories: she had a one territory city just accross them and had therefore no stability issue (if the stability is only weighted globally, it is a shame, but even in that case, she could have taken those during 100 tuns as her stability was quite high). She would have benefited from the strong industry yields to boost the city. Furthermore, she was lacking territories to get expansion stars (she ended up with only 26 territories at the end of the game) and spent 100 turns looking at those territories without grabing them.
It is far from a single issue. I see it in almost every game I play and I already opened a thread some time ago.