Is it just me, or is Exploration awful?
The policies themselves are weak. The existing Commerce version of Naval Tradition has essentially been divided into 2 policies, and Exploration gives half of Trade Unions by boosting gold from naval buildings. The finisher boosts Archaeology, but nothing else about the tree really effects the new system. It's a mess.
It feels more "Coastal cities" and not necessarily "Exploration" (which doesn't always have to involve the sea).
Unlocks in the Medieval Era.
- Opener; +1 movement and +1 sight to Naval Units. Unlocks building the Louvre.
Opener is okay. Probably weaker than the current Commerce opener. Right now Naval Tradition gives you the new Exploration opener *plus* the free Admiral. I guess the Louvre is pretty good from what we've seen.
- Maritime Infrastructure; +3 Production in all Coastal Cities.
This can be very strong, especially if most/all of your cities are coastal. Right now you need to invest 3 policies to get this.
- Merchant Navy; +1 gold for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport; Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Naval Tradition
Weak. Helps defray costs by generating a little bit of gold. Useless for non-coastal cities.
- Naval Tradition; +1 happiness for each Lighthouse, Harbor and Seaport.Requires Maritime Infrastructure and Merchant Navy
I assume there must be a typo since Naval Tradition requires Merchant Navy but Merchant Navy requires Naval Tradition.
Okay, but probably much weaker than the current happiness for science buildings (Rationalism), happiness for defensive buildings (Honor), or even the vanilla happiness for cultural buildings (vanilla Piety).
- Treasure Fleets; +4 gold from all your Sea Trade Routes. Requires Merchant Navy.
Hard to say how useful this is. Depends on how well trade routes are implemented.
- Navigation School; Free Great Admiral. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Earn Great Admirals 25% faster. Requires Naval Tradition.
Great Admirals are very, very weak. Unless Brave New World significantly boosts Admirals, then this isn't all that great. Even Great Generals are better because at least you can use them for a land grab. With Great Admirals, there's little incentive to have more than a couple.
- Finisher; Show hidden Antiquity Sites. Purchase Great Admirals with Faith in the Industrial Era.
Seeing antiquity sites may be helpful. Worst case scenario is you send a random unit to the tile to guard it.
Great Admirals are one of the weakest Great People though (I'd argue the weakest - worst than Merchants) so being able to purchase them is not very good. The finisher definitely seems weak (unless Admirals get a major boost).
For "Exploration" I think it would have been nice to have stuff like:
- Extra movement for Scouts and civilian units
- Extra sight for *all* land units
- Access to "Ignore terrain" promotion for your land units
Etc.