I've detailed the progression of all the available bonuses in this thread: http://forums.earthempires.com/...discussion-of-new-bonuses

With 2 exceptions (reduced expenses and construction costs), the bonuses become less effective as they progress. I suggest a few possible changes to the progressions:

1. Make all of the bonuses more effective as more points are spent.
2. Allow players to choose how many points they want to spend each time they use the bonus. This would allow a player with 1 pt remaining to choose any of the 1 pt bonuses instead of potentially losing the point as is possible with the current system if the player has already progressed all of the bonuses past the 1 pt tier.
3. Continue to require players to "unlock" the higher tier bonuses by spending points in each category.
4. Perhaps limit the number of times per day bonuses from each category can be used to encourage using a variety of bonus types each day.
5. Add more tiers of bonuses so that all bonuses scale from 1-8 points (or 2-8 points) as appropriate and applicable.

I second these suggestions (except for #4, not sure why countries who specialize or are in a certain phase should be required to spend them on less beneficial bonuses).

i'm quite happy with the way they work. if you ignore 2 turn bonuses(which were only ever an interim) these bonuses are great. i don't see why a bonus has to get better overall just because you spent more points on it.

When you use a bonus now, you cannot go back and use a previous level bonus. In longer games, you get into the situation where you either have to use points or relatively worthless bonuses or let points go to waste. E.g. You use 4 points on one bonus and 3 on another and have 1 pt left. If you don't have any 1 pt bonuses left, the point might expire. Not being able to choose the number of points to spend really locks players into only choosing certain bonuses. Sure, you can say that players need to be smart about deciding how to use points to prevent that from happening but the options are limited with the current system.

On the other hand, the first and second tier bonuses are more effective thanthe 3rd tier so why would anyone choose to spend points on tier 3 if they could just use a lower tier multiple times? Making all of the bonuses more effective as more points are spent resolves this. It doesn't have to be a huge change. Instead of 1 pt = +10%, 2 pts = +15%, 3pts =+20% it could be 1 pt = +7%, 2 pts=+16%, 3pts=+25%, etc.

pang said he was working on different ways of collecting bonus points in his original announcement. you're assuming always a max of 8 a day.

i dont think this apparent problem is as bad as its made out to be.