I struggle when adopting Tradition.

[Athenaeum]

In the Vanilla I could flourish with Tradition, because being small helped culture victory. But with the tourism feature replacing the utopia project, I feel that there is less incentive to be small.

I tried a few files with Korea and Tradition. I thought the wonder policy would mesh well, and the high food would allow me to load science buildings with specialists.

But with Tradition, it just seems like it takes me too long to build workers and settlers.

And I know some of you will tell me to steal a worker from a city-state, but they usually don't have workers until around turn 20, and then there's no telling how far away they are from my capital.

And then there's the issue with settlers.

And then I am also missing out on the free great person I get when finishing liberty, which I typically use to build a crucial wonder or great tile improvement.


So considering all these things, how do you flourish when adopting Tradition? Or is Tradition maybe just not the best choice for Korea?

And bonus question - what do you usually use your great person on (when you finish Liberty)? Do you feel it is wise to use it for a great engineer and free wonder?

 

[JohnMK]

No, Tradition is still the best choice, usually. Its benefits are potent and involve capital city growth & gold & happiness (Monarchy & Landed Elite & Oligarchy), faster border growth (opener), free monuments or amphitheaters (Legalism) which boosts border growth yet again in addition to social policy advancement, and then the extra +15% growth in all (or at least the first four cities) and free immediate aqueducts you get from finishing Tradition completely. That's powerful stuff. A free settler & worker rarely makes up for all that. And the so-called free great person from finishing Liberty isn't truly free -- it increases the cost of the next one.

A Tradition empire quickly snowballs into an empire of high population, productive, rich cities. It's a big difference. Try playing the same game over again, choosing a different path, and you'll see.

 

[Athenaeum]

No, Tradition is still the best choice, usually. Its benefits are potent and involve capital city growth & gold & happiness (Monarchy & Landed Elite & Oligarchy), faster border growth (opener), free monuments or amphitheaters (Legalism) which boosts border growth yet again in addition to social policy advancement, and then the extra +15% growth in all (or at least the first four cities) and free immediate aqueducts you get from finishing Tradition completely. That's powerful stuff. A free settler & worker rarely makes up for all that. And the so-called free great person from finishing Liberty isn't truly free -- it increases the cost of the next one.

A Tradition empire quickly snowballs into an empire of high population, productive, rich cities. It's a big difference. Try playing the same game over again, choosing a different path, and you'll see.

So how do you recommend I get over building settlers and workers? The liberty policies don't just give you free ones, they give you production bonuses while building future ones. While you're building a settler, you're missing out on all that growth that you would normally be getting from the Tradition tree.

The Great Person at the end is still free no matter how you cut it. Should we all avoid getting great people because it will up the cost of the next one? No, it's definitely preferrable to get an instantaneous Great Person than to load your specialist buildings for many turns.

 

[reddishrecue]

So how do you recommend I get over building settlers and workers? The liberty policies don't just give you free ones, they give you production bonuses while building future ones. While you're building a settler, you're missing out on all that growth that you would normally be getting from the Tradition tree.

The Great Person at the end is still free no matter how you cut it. Should we all avoid getting great people because it will up the cost of the next one? No, it's definitely preferrable to get an instantaneous Great Person than to load your specialist buildings for many turns.

The liberty tree does give you a free settler from one social policy and another free worker from another social policy. The ssocial policies differ because 1 increases worker work rate and the other increases settler production.

 

[joncnunn]

Tradition is all about making your few self built cities as tall as possible, especially the capital.
And about the only way to struggle with it is to build too many settlers. (Especially mistiming one that would delay NC completion)
In addition, completing the tree grants 4 free aquaducts even without the tech normally needed to build them.

 

[reddishrecue]

Tradition is all about making your few self built cities as tall as possible, especially the capital.
And about the only way to struggle with it is to build too many settlers. (Especially mistiming one that would delay NC completion)
In addition, completing the tree grants 4 free aquaducts even without the tech normally needed to build them.

Building settlers on tradition won't get you a settler production bonu like liberty does but tradition should make the capital grow fast enough to get enough production to build the settler quick enough. The patch has switched tradition to grow slower because landed elite no longer is available that easily. Wonder building aristocracy is available early which gives you a wonder building increase. When its worth it, a wonder start is worth it because you have aristocracy early after the tradition opener.

 

[shaglio]

So how do you recommend I get over building settlers and workers? The liberty policies don't just give you free ones, they give you production bonuses while building future ones. While you're building a settler, you're missing out on all that growth that you would normally be getting from the Tradition tree.

The Great Person at the end is still free no matter how you cut it. Should we all avoid getting great people because it will up the cost of the next one? No, it's definitely preferrable to get an instantaneous Great Person than to load your specialist buildings for many turns.

I know it's probably suboptimal, and probably won't work on Deity, but I set my capital to Production focus after it expands to size 2 (unless doing so stagnates growth), then I change it to Science focus after building the Writer's Guild (I always burn my GW's on Political Treatises).

In my other cities, I immediately set them to Production focus when they're founded and build a Granary first. I change them to Science focus when they eventually complete a University.

As for Workers and Settlers, I steal my first Worker from the nearest CS. After that, I usually wind up buying all my Settlers and the rest of my Workers unless there's a building lull in my Capital. I also like to build the Mausoleum and Colossus if I can, which help generate lots of gold to afford all the buying.

 

[reddishrecue]

I know it's probably suboptimal, and probably won't work on Deity, but I set my capital to Production focus after it expands to size 2 (unless doing so stagnates growth), then I change it to Science focus after building the Writer's Guild (I always burn my GW's on Political Treatises).

In my other cities, I immediately set them to Production focus when they're founded and build a Granary first. I change them to Science focus when they eventually complete a University.

As for Workers and Settlers, I steal my first Worker from the nearest CS. After that, I usually wind up buying all my Settlers and the rest of my Workers unless there's a building lull in my Capital. I also like to build the Mausoleum and Colossus if I can, which help generate lots of gold to afford all the buying.

With universities you don't need a larger population to make science and instead can rely on food and a pair of scientist like you do with the library.

 

[CraigMak]

4 city tradition is pretty much the best strat for every victory condition aside from going super early war. In that case it's liberty.

 

[joncnunn]

4 city tradition is pretty much the best strat for every victory condition aside from going super early war. In that case it's liberty.

I would argue Tradition is still better for super early war if it's:
A. An unplanned Defensive one (Tradition bonus to city ranged attack) OR
B. If you are planning on keeping the AIs cities instead of razing and relocating to the proper location (Monarchy's 50% pop unhappiness in the capital reduction would then trump free settler + reduced settler cost.)

 

[LordBalkoth]

But with Tradition, it just seems like it takes me too long to build workers and settlers.

What turn did you have either your first three (if you went NC before 4th city) or first four (if you went NC after 4th city) cities settled?

 

[beetle]

So how do you recommend I get over building settlers and workers?

Well, for optimal Tradition play, you should only ever found four cities. So you are hung up on as few as 3 units, and ideally one of those you save up to rush buy. You are correct that building settlers pauses growth. I usually wait until my cap is at size 4 and it reports to be 20+ turns to the next pop. Even if all the cap builds is those 3 settlers for ~24 turns I am in good shape.

After one worker for the cap, additional workers can wait until all four cities are founded. And maybe by then I have gotten one from barbs or a CS or an AI. Building workers doesn’t slow city growth, and I get by with just one per city. (Most players like a couple more, but so long as you can improve tiles faster than the city is growing, things are fine.) Except for luxes (for the happiness), improving a tile helps less than maybe it should.

 

[dino_yoshi13]

One thing to point out though is that tradition and liberty are not mutually exclusive. You can open both policy trees and take stuff from both trees from the beginning of the game.

 

[beetle]

Any choices that delays the Tradition and/or Liberty finishers will result in a weaker game. Try it!

 

[Athenaeum]

Any choices that delays the Tradition and/or Liberty finishers will result in a weaker game. Try it!

I agree with this thinking. This is why I try not to get hung up adopting policies from both trees.

I've been succeeding a lot more with Tradition lately. I guess the main problems is when you spawn in land where there is already plenty of food, but no production, Tradition becomes less beneficial and possibly even sub-optimal. The couple of files where I struggled with Tradition were in areas such as this I believe.

 

[Athenaeum]

Btw, how do you guys recommend getting over the negative diplomacy you acquire from stealing a CS worker early on?

 

[beetle]

Aqueducts are a relatively high-hammer building, so that feels like a big production boost on its own. So are you suggesting Liberty for, say, lots of grassland? The common argument I see is that Liberty works well for several low-pop cities (e.g., Russia in Tundra).

There is no negative diplomacy for stealing a CS worker early on! One totally inexplicable loophole is that CS relations improve while you are at war with the CS. So steal a 2nd and 3rd worker (from the same CS, no peace in between steals), and then make peace. You will be at the exact same score with them as you would be if you had make peace with them after the first worker steal. It is totally broken. CS worker steals make me feel like I am cheating. I only started worker stealing when I moved up to Deity, but I am addicted now. I mostly play the plus maps (which initially put the CS out of range) so as to avoid temptation...

 

[CraigMak]

I would argue Tradition is still better for super early war if it's:
A. An unplanned Defensive one (Tradition bonus to city ranged attack) OR
B. If you are planning on keeping the AIs cities instead of razing and relocating to the proper location (Monarchy's 50% pop unhappiness in the capital reduction would then trump free settler + reduced settler cost.)

Liberty is the best choice for an all out brawl because of the free city and ability to produce more settlers at a cheaper cost. Plus you get the worker which is crucial if you are building units with no time to make a worker.

More cities = more hammers = war won

Duels and teamers are usually liberty games because production is king in war.

Tradition does have a nice timing where it can get to xbows before liberty but that's not an early all out brawl. If you let a tradition player get xbows and you're going liberty then you have a pretty big problem on your hands unless your production is vastly superior.

 

[Biologist]

I recently completed a Tradition cultural victory on Emperor difficulty as Poland. I started small, and in the industrial/modern/atomic eras I puppeted numerous enemy cities after ideological wars broke out, which boosted my tourism hugely (from captured great works/wonders).

This guide helped me tremendously in determining how to prioritize settlers, workers, and military:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371

 

[phillipwyllie]

Btw, how do you guys recommend getting over the negative diplomacy you acquire from stealing a CS worker early on?

Do you mean the CS in question or other AI civs?
If the CS then you can sue for peace immediate and fulfill it's quests. Or give the worker back once you are in a position to build your own. Of course you will need to have the worker captured and subsequently "rescued". EUI gives you the ability to rename your units so that would be useful here.
If you mean other AI civs then say you will "withdraw immediately" and give out stuff cheaper than they would normally pay for it. A free luxury usually smooths things over.