Policies

I like the way Tradition is laid out. LE is great to get early (as well as late) so your core cities can get a good boost to pop, but you have to ask whether it's better to wait for Legalism to grant more costly buildings. It's one of those "interesting decisions" the mod aims for!

Seek said:

I like the way Tradition is laid out. LE is great to get early (as well as late) so your core cities can get a good boost to pop, but you have to ask whether it's better to wait for Legalism to grant more costly buildings. It's one of those "interesting decisions" the mod aims for!

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I agree with this, and thought of another decision that switching L and M would affect.

I use Tradition all the time, largely because I want the quick culture boost that L gives. But I rarely build temples early, unless I have no choice. Instead I focus on growth buildings.

By switching L and M, you are forcing me to build individual monuments if I want any culture, then rewarding me later with insta-temples (and HE) option. This effectively becomes a no-brainer direction to take. To me it makes more sense to make the HE something that has to be earned, but is much more achievable with a small civ than a large one... and again, a considered choice. (Making the Monument extra-cheap doesn't help - it would just make it a no-brainer for everyone.)

In effect, you would be delaying one of the basic points of Tradition - quick culture - for a no-brainer strat. Since the insta-temple strat can be achieved by choosing around L, why do this?

I'm not sure I understand your reasoning in the last two paragraphs, could you reword it?

For large-empire games I don't go into Tradition anymore. The reason for this although it gives us a small culture boost early, it significantly delays later policies due to the exponential cost per policy earned. I don't feel it's worth it in the long run.

In small empire games I'd typically go Tradition -> Legalism, then into Piety. I'd never get Monarchy until the end of the game because there's always more important priorities. Swapping the two adds more decision-making to this, because I have to weigh the additional cost of Monarchy and figure out when to go down that path.

Thalassicus said:

I'm not sure I understand your reasoning in the last two paragraphs, could you reword it?

For large-empire games I don't go into Tradition anymore. The reason for this although it gives us a small culture boost early, it significantly delays later policies due to the exponential cost per policy earned. I don't feel it's worth it in the long run.

In small empire games I'd typically go Tradition -> Legalism, then into Piety. I'd never get Monarchy until the end of the game because there's always more important priorities. Swapping the two adds more decision-making to this, because I have to weigh the additional cost of Monarchy and figure out when to go down that path.

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I rarely use Piety, and even then don’t take Monarchy all the time, so your own example of why it provides choice doesn’t apply to me. But even in your case, you would seemingly have to debate whether to take the so-so Monarchy in order to reap Legalism’s benefits. That is a choice… but it has nothing to do with the HE gambit, and exists only because Monarchy is not always appealing.

Rewording my earlier argument with a focus on decisions:

Tradition is a good policy for builders, regardless of victory goal. Early culture is one of the benefits – and getting a free monument at a time when hammers are scarce perfectly fits the bill in most cases.

After that, I may not build a temple for a long time if not focusing on a culture win, because I’d rather build pop-growth buildings. That is a choice that everyone has to make.

If Legalism is moved further down the tree, then you are forcing pretty much everyone using the Tradition tree to build a monument – no one is going to choose Tradition, then bypass monuments. Having done this, most players would be crazy not to take a free temple by choosing Legalism later on.

In the end, you are forcing me to follow a strategy that 1) I may not be interested in and 2) diminishes choice.

The problem with taking legalism for monuments is that it just doesn't seem worth it over taking the opening liberty policy. The choice here is between 1 culture and the potential to still build monuments for even more culture, and 4 of the cheapest building in the game. Sure, monuments give one more culture, but they also cost maintenance unlike liberty and monuments are not hard to get without the policy.

I agree that leaving it early in the tree presents an interesting choice, but I think this choice ultimately weakens the tradition tree. So far my most effective use of this policy has been to go Tradition > Liberty > Citizenship > Representation (Golden age helps build national college as much as aristocracy) > collective rule (followed by rapid expansion to 4 cities) > Meritocracy (GE for stonehenge) > Republic (By now I think I had all the monuments I needed for temples, but it just made sense) > Legalism > LE. This ended up being a cultural game, where taking liberty first made more sense because the effectiveness of its policies diminishes much more rapidly than for any other tree. I feel it's a problem when in order to get the most out of the tradition tree for a small empire cultural game, one must go into liberty first (feel free to debate whether or not I actually chose the most effective path; this forced me to put off piety and patronage longer than I would have liked).

Ideally, one would have the choice between taking legalism early for monuments and later for temples without being forced to wait on LE. But this would put 4 policies in the first tier of tradition (unless you made aristocracy or oligarchy a prereq for monarchy and LE, both of which I believe would be poor choices). I think it would also be a no brainer to wait for temples here, since as you say no one goes tradition without building monuments. If putting monarchy as a prereq for LE and legalism proves to be too much of a deterrent, then I think monarchy would need a buff.

Im in the same position as txurce. As it is now, sometimes I go for quick monuments and sometimes i take some policies from liberty first so I can get temples. If you would switch the 2 policies then I would propably always be getting the free temples.

EDIT: I posted this without seeing busdrivers post.

@Busdriver
You have some very good points. And I have to admit that i much more often go for free temples. But I do got some strategies/builds where I go for quick monuments to get as much policies as possible for other trees.

I'd also like to be able to get temples without going for policies in tradition first. But would still like to be able to get those fast monuments. Maybe there is a good way to rearrange the policies in tradition

I like the control choosing "Food" gives to Maritime alliances, as well as the naval adjustments. I'm going to miss the Pioneer Fort being 50%, since I don't think it made America an obvious first-choice civ... although 50% anything may too much early in the game, and choosing the Fort was pretty much a no-brainer. It probably still is... but I do know that I'm not as eager to play America.

I don't understand why the Monarchy-Legalism switch was made when three people spoke up against it. I've already made an argument that it reduces choice. But I also don't see how it "improves the importance of Monarchy, balancing out the Tradition tree as a whole." It just forces me to take it if I want to get Legalism, even though Monarchy means nothing to me that early.

More importantly, it also plays into a vanilla bug regarding Legalism and temples. I confirmed this on the 2K site.

getting a free monument at a time when hammers are scarce

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I think the key part is I don't build monuments anymore in the early game, more cost-effective to purchase them and build other things. Like Busdriver mentioned, I also feel the value of +2-1 is marginal over +1, especially since the latter leads to other more valuable policies.

Still, I've been very focused on technical details of merging the various yields lately, so my thoughts aren't really in the right place to make a creative decision like this. Once I've had a few days to clear my head I'll go back to Legalism and Monarchy. In the meantime I'll just revert it back I guess. It's not really a big priority to me because I feel the Tradition tree as a whole is much improved over its vanilla release state.

I do try things out sometimes just to see what it's like.

The reason I reduced the Pioneer Fort is after experimenting with it a bit. In the medieval era new cities can grow 1 population every turn for 8-9 turns by pumping all the output of multiple maritimes into one city. That rate of growth felt much too fast for me. It's already very powerful with the low cost and how early it appears. Washington's UU is also VERY strong now, since we can easily get March with just a few kills, and there's more rough terrain now than before (Deserts in particular). Overall, my game just felt much easier with Washington than it did with other leaders.

I'm pretty meh on the tradition change myself. I think the tree is solid right now, I could go for the change or not. I see benefits either way.

Thalassicus said:

I think the key part is I don't build monuments anymore in the early game, more cost-effective to purchase them and build other things. Like Busdriver mentioned, I also feel the value of +2-1 is marginal over +1, especially since the latter leads to other more valuable policies.

Still, I've been very focused on technical details of merging the various yields lately, so my thoughts aren't really in the right place to make a creative decision like this. Once I've had a few days to clear my head I'll go back to Legalism and Monarchy. In the meantime I'll just revert it back I guess. It's not really a big priority to me because I feel the Tradition tree as a whole is much improved over its vanilla release state.

I do try things out sometimes just to see what it's like.

The reason I reduced the Pioneer Fort is after experimenting with it a bit. In the medieval era new cities can grow 1 population every turn for 8-9 turns by pumping all the output of multiple maritimes into one city. That rate of growth felt much too fast for me. It's already very powerful with the low cost and how early it appears. Washington's UU is also VERY strong now, since we can easily get March with just a few kills, and there's more rough terrain now than before (Deserts in particular). Overall, my game just felt much easier with Washington than it did with other leaders.

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Thanks for listening. If you are going to be giving the Monarchy/Legalism issue some more thought, I'm fine leaving it as it is until you do. It's a very interesting dilemma.

I hear you about the Pioneer Fort. While it didn't make America top dog, it did feel easier, as you said - even outrageous. That's why I can agree with it becoming a fond memory!

With regard to the Minute Men - yes, they are really good now. And they were already pretty good before. I've noticed that I've been building some muskets in almost all my games.

Muskets are more useful now that Iron is limited, in particular.

I did also buff Washington in another small way... his non-combat units now get +1 sight range too. This might not seem like much, but it makes it a lot easier to avoid settlers and workers getting walloped by barbarians.

Thalassicus said:

I did also buff Washington in another small way... his non-combat units now get +1 sight range too. This might not seem like much, but it makes it a lot easier to avoid settlers and workers getting walloped by barbarians.

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Washington seems pretty much perfect right now, but I still think that his trait is boring or so called "flat".

Just noticed the free Great People on Tradition changes: has the tree been rearranged? The GE in particular seems very powerful (perhaps OP) at first tier to me.

(Sorry I'm on vacation and away from my comp this week, else I'd look for myself)

Seek said:

Just noticed the free Great People on Tradition changes: has the tree been rearranged? The GE in particular seems very powerful (perhaps OP) at first tier to me.

(Sorry I'm on vacation and away from my comp this week, else I'd look for myself)

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Yes, I think Thal went nuts last night. Just kidding - although I'm strongly considering junking my incredibly boring first Culture game for a fresh start with the steroids version of Tradition.

There was also a corresponding nerf to Meritocracy. My off-the-cuff sense is that Tradition is now built around GP, which makes sense for small civs, while Liberty is built around the free+buffed production settler/worker SP's - the right choice for big civs.

I'll move Aristocracy's effect to a higher tier in the tree.

I feel the GE and GA are good ways to boost the two underwhelming policies in the Tradition tree, and I also felt the Liberty tree was too powerful ever since its March-patch buffs. It's weird when the expansionist Liberty tree is better at getting world wonders than the culture/wonder focused Tradition tree.

I also shifted policy costs when I realized I'd made the total cost for victory higher than intended. This is the cumulative culture required to reach the cultural victory condition:

• Total cost same as vanilla (closest I could get was within <100 culture).
• Early policies are 45% less than vanilla, and 25% less than mod-old.
• Overall, victory can be achieved sooner than vanilla because income is higher from the Opera House and Museum.
• I feel favoring early policy generation better matches the distribution of policies over eras. There's lots of trees at the start, and fewer available towards the end.

Hum, wouldn't this be a problem for non cultural civilizations that want policies from a medieval or modern tree?

They won't adopt many policies and you have shifted these few toward the beginning of the game when only 3-4 trees are available...

QDI

I'm not sure I understand your question about non-cultural civs... could you rephrase?

I usually have 6 trees unlocked after ~30min, turn 81 in my current standard-speed game. My games last about ~10 hours for 300 turns. The majority of the game (for me at least) is spent with most of the trees unlocked.

Thal,

I really like the concept behind the Tradition changes. If it's not obvious, shelve my objection to the earlier Legalism/Monarchy swap, since we are now assessing much bigger changes.

Thalassicus said:

I usually have 6 trees unlocked after ~30min, turn 81 in my current standard-speed game. My games last about ~10 hours for 300 turns. The majority of the game (for me at least) is spent with most of the trees unlocked.

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Is this playing for a cultural win? And how do your games last so long after such fast starts? Do culture wins take that long? (I remember you saying that you tend to win before spending much time with modern units.)

Sorry Thal, it was late

If I am not aiming at a cultural victory, I will unlock few policies in the course of the game. If you make the early ones cheaper and the latter ones more expensive, I will get most of my policies before I unlock certain trees.

For example, if I want to unlock all commerce but I receive 5-6 policies before Middle-Age, it will be very hard to achieve my goal.

Just to say, I prefer a more linear pace for policies.

(I only play in Marathon so I cannot really compare with you)

QDI

@Txurce
I might have phrased it strangely... what I mean is in my current game as Washington I've reached the medieval era by turn 80 out of ~300, with over half the trees unlocked and available for selection. We spend most of the game with most of the trees unlocked.


@QDI
I might have mistakenly given the impression that things will be more expensive in the medieval era, which is not the case. We can get 25 policies with about half as much culture as before. If you got 10 policies in vanilla by the time you filled out Commerce, you'll get 13 now.

To think of it another way...

Once you reach the same point you'll have 3 free policies. You'll probably also fill out Commerce sooner since costs are reduced. If you want to save up these free policies, we don't have to build monuments.

This is the base culture required to get # policies. The percentages are the change between vanilla and this mod.