Do Some of the Government Policy Cards Disapear?

[Mr Lunare]

I am enjoying the game so far, but the passive effects of technology are very poorly documented. I noticed as I advanced further down the tech tree, some of the cards that give bonuses in the government section no longer showed up. Are these timed by the era you are in or does unlocking certain policies make older ones obsolete?

[Rhudda]

The latter. If you hover over a civic, you'll see which policies it'll make obsolete. Or you could check the civilopedia, I guess.

[ウィッチ（？）]

When you research new civic, some of old cards will become obsolate and disappear. You just have to replace it with new card.

[Oliseo]

Yes. They are timed by both government cards AND by technology progressing.

[Fxlei]

Yes, some cards will disappear.
Often those cards have either become useless (after you've gotten your great prophet, getting more points towards a great prophet is useless), or they are replaced by better cards (-1 maintenance cost per unit per turn replaced by -2 maintenance cost per unit per turn or +2 great ... points/turn replaced by +4 great ... points/turn) or two cards get replaced by one that has both bonuses combined in one slot (+2 influence per turn and gold from envoys get merged). Generally, you won't loose any non-trivial bonuses.

[buzzshiza]

The most irritating one of these is the Wonder bonuses; it's very likely you'll reach the Industrial era (and obtain the next Policy Card for the bonus) while still building a Renaissance era Wonder (and lose the bonus). There are many cards that are just improvements, and it makes sense to obsolete them, but not this. It quite often takes awhile to fulfill some of the proper requirements for the Wonder locations.

[sithspit]

Nah, nothing like that: I'm in "One More Turn..." mode, everything is researched, and I HAD two Diplomatic policy slots. One card just suddenly vanished, so I replaced it with something else, then suddenly all of my housing and amenities went to crap. I go look, and THAT card is not only gone too, but I lost one of my two green slots! I've never seen this happen before.

[Evrach]

Originally posted by sithspit:

Nah, nothing like that: I'm in "One More Turn..." mode, everything is researched, and I HAD two Diplomatic policy slots. One card just suddenly vanished, so I replaced it with something else, then suddenly all of my housing and amenities went to crap. I go look, and THAT card is not only gone too, but I lost one of my two green slots! I've never seen this happen before.

Some policy cards can become obsolete when you discover some new civics.
Bonus slots can also disappear when the thing that gave you the bonus also disappear. Usualy, a wolrd congress resolution. But it can be a lot of things depending of your mods/settings.

[DaBo81]

Also, some of the policies are tied to governments. I think this is only the tier 3 governments, which unlock with powerful policy cards that specify they can only be used with democracy, or fascism, or communism

[jmerry82]

The specific mechanic on obsolescence here is that policy cards are obsoleted by other policy cards. Most of the time, you can just substitute in that new policy card for all the old advantages and more.

But for that partial turn when you had the empty policy slot, you don't get any benefits from your policies. So if you're getting amenities from a policy, your cities will all look unhappy. And you can fix the policies, but the apparent happiness won't be fixed unless you force the game to recalculate.

[MeniliteZ]

Originally posted by sithspit:

... I lost one of my two green slots! I've never seen this happen before.

I can't think of anything that would make you lose a Green card slot other than a government change, or you somehow lost control of your Potala Palace.

Or mods.

[MarkJohnson]

But why does it need to take away my builders 5-uses? I need it from turn 1 until end of game. LOL

[MeniliteZ]

Originally posted by MarkJohnson:

But why does it need to take away my builders 5-uses? I need it from turn 1 until end of game. LOL

I've never seen the card that gives +2 builder charges and +30% production to builders obsolete.

That said, it is quite annoying when a builder or more is completed on a turn when your policies deactivate and the builder(s) end up with 3 charges.

PS. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that card is required the entire game!

[jmerry82]

Right, the builder card/cards - that's a chain. First 30% to production, then +2 charges, then +30% to production and +2 charges. Each one in the chain obsoletes the earlier ones, of course. And that last one never obsoletes, because there's no fourth builder card.