What do you think of Exploration (policy tree)?

Callonia · Apr 4, 2015

I think I had like 6-10 cultural renaissances in a single game once cuz I combed the whole world with archeologists pillaging every ruin I could get my hands on. Ones that won't let me pillage.. i sent my military their way and pillaged the ruins forcibly xD That greatly accelerated my trip through autocracy ideology.

number51 · Apr 4, 2015

Callonia said:
I think I had like 6-10 cultural renaissances in a single game once cuz I combed the whole world with archeologists pillaging every ruin I could get my hands on. Ones that won't let me pillage.. i sent my military their way and pillaged the ruins forcibly xD That greatly accelerated my trip through autocracy ideology.

Thank you for a dose of reality.

The completely messed up math that has guys saying "4-6 tourism from hidden sites" is just wrong, but they keep stating it.

I'm not saying go for exploration, but please do not believe the "4-6" nonsense. If that's all you get then you don't know how to play the game and should avoid all social policies and spend the day learning how to play.

FaohKi · Apr 4, 2015

BlackWizard said:
You dont need exploration or any other policies to build Great Lighhouse. Exploration opens building Louvre

Haha! My bad, I wanted to say "It gives +1 :c5moves:

and +1 Sight for Naval units" But, I think, I wasn't thinking while posting that.

And thank you for correcting me sir.

Regards.

reddishrecue · Apr 4, 2015

Callonia said:
I think I had like 6-10 cultural renaissances in a single game once cuz I combed the whole world with archeologists pillaging every ruin I could get my hands on. Ones that won't let me pillage.. i sent my military their way and pillaged the ruins forcibly xD That greatly accelerated my trip through autocracy ideology.

6-10 really is similar to 4-6+. Hiddens add up if you allow yourself to expand in sea maps with liberty and exploration to get plenty of space for great works.

number51 · Apr 4, 2015

reddishrecue said:
6-10 really is similar to 4-6+. Hiddens add up if you allow yourself to expand in sea maps with liberty and exploration to get plenty of space for great works.

I don't think he was talking about 4-6 v 6-10 in tourism. He is talking about cultural renaissances, that's like using 6-10 Great Writers for Political treatise. 10 culture bombs, is a monster move, game changing.

Yes hidden sites are nice for tourism, but nuclear for culture.

MarauderCH · Apr 4, 2015

It is only worth taking when doing a Cultural Victory or as a Naval Civ or both. I take it when playing games as Venice. That Civ probably gets the most use out of it. I recently restarted a game from a save file because I had taken exploration on a whim and decided that I would have been better off taking Commerce. So I found a where I had a saved game and replayed it from there with great success.

reddishrecue · Apr 5, 2015

number51 said:
I don't think he was talking about 4-6 v 6-10 in tourism. He is talking about cultural renaissances, that's like using 6-10 Great Writers for Political treatise. 10 culture bombs, is a monster move, game changing.

Yes hidden sites are nice for tourism, but nuclear for culture.

Culture bombs could be better. They remove the worry of havingto have space for artifacts.

Tabarnak · Apr 5, 2015

For singleplayer pace the Exploration tree is sub par for reasons already mentionned.

But...in multiplayer games where tech pace is a bit slower you have time to get 2 more policies after either Tradition or Liberty. If you have 3 or more coastal cities then 2 policies to left side(+3 hammers per city) is a MUST.

It's a no brainer for experimented mp players. The hammer boost is counsiderable and can let you win a game in the long run(allow to rush more frigates too).

TheGuineaPig · Apr 6, 2015

Tabarnak is right about it being great for multiplayer, particularly because of the danger of frigate rushes. In multiplayer you can't put a city on an open sea and expect to keep it unless you have at least one more on the same coast. Often you have situations where you have multiple cities on opposite coasts due to a lack of places to expand, and you don't have the concentrated production to defend either. Getting the combat boosts of exploration and the extra hammers are huge for defending those cities, or frigate rushing someone else.

darkpigraph · Apr 6, 2015

I love the exploration tree - I think two things that let it down are a) the opener's movement and sight ,is not a quantifiable yield bonuses, however the useful it may be, and b) the free great admiral really is useless. Apart from that the policies are all good to great with maritime infrastructure being one of the top 3 policies in the game imo if you utilise it. I like the hidden archi sites, mainly for being a second crack at workable landmarks In your cities, secondly for potential gw bulbs and thirdly just for more artifacts, more tourism and theming bonuses. Louvre also nice.

Chicoutimi · Apr 6, 2015

Exploration useles? I take it almost everytime i got coastal start, it is the only tree that give you amazing bonus without filling it completly.
+3 flat production per city?!?! Omg this is god good.
+3 local happiness per city? It saved my ass many times while waiting for ideology.
+3 flat gold per city? OK this is too much coastal start with exploration is just too good

seriously these 3 policies are some of the best available in ALL TREES and YOU DONT EVEN NEED to fill it completly
on the other hand you got commerce tree where you need to fill like 5 policy to finally have the last and good one

Exploration is just perfect to spend a few policy point while waiting for rationalism

kibbles · Apr 8, 2015

Chicoutimi said:
Exploration useles? I take it almost everytime i got coastal start, it is the only tree that give you amazing bonus without filling it completly.
+3 flat production per city?!?! Omg this is god good.
+3 local happiness per city? It saved my ass many times while waiting for ideology.
+3 flat gold per city? OK this is too much coastal start with exploration is just too good

seriously these 3 policies are some of the best available in ALL TREES and YOU DONT EVEN NEED to fill it completly
on the other hand you got commerce tree where you need to fill like 5 policy to finally have the last and good one

Exploration is just perfect to spend a few policy point while waiting for rationalism

I'm with this guy. Exploration is my go to for any naval based civ, and at that, I vastly prefer it on a map like large islands or small continents. The +3 production bonus is quite powerful, pushing all of your naval cities to be productive enough to be useful for military or other production. If you are depending a lot on naval trade, and have East India company, not only does that national wonder become more useful than colossus, but you get +4 gold per route for even more money to spend on city states or infrastructure.

On the other hand, I know the bonus for filling the tree isn't the greatest, I often opt for rationalism once I hit industrial.

Redaxe · Apr 9, 2015

kibbles said:
I'm with this guy. Exploration is my go to for any naval based civ, and at that, I vastly prefer it on a map like large islands or small continents. The +3 production bonus is quite powerful, pushing all of your naval cities to be productive enough to be useful for military or other production. If you are depending a lot on naval trade, and have East India company, not only does that national wonder become more useful than colossus, but you get +4 gold per route for even more money to spend on city states or infrastructure.

On the other hand, I know the bonus for filling the tree isn't the greatest, I often opt for rationalism once I hit industrial.

If you are playing Infinite City Sprawl or something close to it then I'd argue that Exploration is essential. Usually I find that opening Tradition, then filling Liberty and proceeding straight to Exploration is the way to go. If you can end up getting the rationalism policy that grants gold from science buildings your city income really does become insane

Acken · Apr 9, 2015

Its main use is for naval domination. The bonus to coastal cities and ship movements are great.

The problem is the rest of the tree has to compete with rationalism which is also a problem of Commerce and Patronage. And finally it's a weird mix between military, economy and... culture ?

It's just not well thought out if you ask me.

CraigMak · Apr 13, 2015

The opener is great for a coastal civ and the +3 hammers as well. The problem is that you want to fill out tradition first and then rationalism is so strong that not getting it is bad no matter what exploration has to offer.

So in those games that you have coastal cities and finished tradition already but are not in the renaissance era then go for it.

What do you think of Exploration (policy tree)?

Callonia

Deity

number51

Warlord

FaohKi

Warlord

reddishrecue

Some dude on civfans

number51

Warlord

MarauderCH

Warlord

reddishrecue

Some dude on civfans

Tabarnak

Cut your lousy hairs!

TheGuineaPig

Chieftain

darkpigraph

Chieftain

Chicoutimi

Chieftain

kibbles

Warlord

Redaxe

Emperor

Acken

Deity

CraigMak

The Borg

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