No other way but Tradition

So I was just experimenting today with some other starts... other than tradition. Why are they so worthless? By the time I hit the Medieval period, I'm so behind in science and wonders that it doesn't feel worth playing anymore.

I just don't get what it is about Tradition that makes it so powerful.

The Piety track is absolutely worthless. Horrible.

Anyway... take care.

I too use tradition a lot but every once in a while I semi "roleplay" my civilization. It is disappointing at times when you realize that some of the policies aren't balanced, but the game doesn't always have to be played min maxing stats. Mods also help the situation but in the end I agree with you.

Tradition in my mind is powerful because you have growth benefits and the early plus 3 culture per turn allows additional policies faster. With small empire benefits you have less worries on happiness and science(BNW includes science penalty per each city).

Tradition does seem like the preferred social policy.

Zaimejs said:

So I was just experimenting today with some other starts... other than tradition. Why are they so worthless? By the time I hit the Medieval period, I'm so behind in science and wonders that it doesn't feel worth playing anymore.

I just don't get what it is about Tradition that makes it so powerful.

The Piety track is absolutely worthless. Horrible.

Anyway... take care.

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Tradition certainly isn't the only way to go. Arguably it is the most powerful overall, but that depends on many things. However what tradition IS is the easiest type for most people to play because it fits the natural playstyle of many people. Especially if you're used to going tall/naturally inclined to go tall and go for SV/CV then tradition is obviously better. The more you play this the more you get used to this style, until you're a 'good player' (keep in mind I rely soley on tradition, none of this is meant as insult. This is knowledge gleaned from much greater minds on these forums!) and trying out other builds. However you're so ingrained into the style of playing of tradition that you try and play other builds like tradition; thus the most effective use of the other policies for most players is a hybrid with tradition (on that note I find tradition/honour is excellent for large maps, or as the Aztecs, and tradition/peity can be very good for Poland). However this isn't inherently due to the balance of the policies, more to do with the fact that the majority of the players prefer to play in the way tradition does.

In terms of current balance, many players can play a solid Liberty game on deity and win easily. In fact most of the Hall of Fame best times are set with Liberty, however it is widely accepted that Tradition is slightly too powerful. The main thing is that in the current state tradition is very powerful early game, getting less useful as the game goes on (+5 gpt from the cap is amazing at turn 30, at turn 200 it's minor). The main things that make it powerful are the free monuments - allows an extra scout/troop in the build order at start - the free aqueducts - those things are crazy good at growing a city fast - and the gpt and happiness from the capital, encouraging a 3-4 city start, pumping all the food to grow a crazy good capital; it is hardly surprising that is a common start in BNW. Liberty's best policies involve the free GP and cheaper culture amongst others, which are excellent long term choices - and so benefit the mid-late game more than tradition does. However as Civ is effectively a giant snowball - one more pop early game leads to more science, production, gold, etc so a minor advantage can have a major effect - this makes Liberty naturally a little weaker. Combined with then nerf to wide empires (-5% science penalty for each city) in BNW, it has made liberty rather unpopular. It's still very much effective, in many situations just as effective as tradition, but it requires a very different game plan, and attitude. And everything. Basically to do well with anything but tradition you'll need game balance to change towards the others quite drastically, or you'll need to go back 2-3 difficulties and effectively 'relearn' the game, thus why it is rather unpopular. Certainly still effective though.

Piety and Honour on the other hand, are plain bad compared to a tradition/liberty choice. In some very specific situations they are good, but even then the other two would still be effective, and they're almost certainly only ever really used as a hybrid, or to be completed second. Piety is very useful, with +25% increased gold early on and the very powerful reformation beliefs allowing the fastest recorded victory times, however it is a rather weak policy to pick as first choice unless you're in a very good starting spot for religion.

TL;dr

Tradition is what most people are used to, liberty requires a very different way of thinking and is only slightly unbalanced. Piety and honour are horribly balanced if they're intended to be first choice, but both are very effective as 2nd choice/hybrid choices.

Well explained.

I like Liberty more. Free worker, settler, golden age. Not to mention the free GP, giving you a free wonder or academy.

CaptainUnknown said:

I too use tradition a lot but every once in a while I semi "roleplay" my civilization. It is disappointing at times when you realize that some of the policies aren't balanced, but the game doesn't always have to be played min maxing stats.

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Yeah, it's true that other policies aren't as good as tradition, but that doesn't mean that they can't help you. Going honor/piety is pretty fun if you're playing a warmongery civ, and liberty can work well if you want to go wide and break the four city mold most of your games go in. Is it optimal? Meh, probably not. It is more fun to do from time to time though.

Liberty and Tradition are so far above Honor and Piety, unless you're playing Aztecs (or a few others) in which case Honor becomes viable. But for 95% of games taking Honor or Piety is just asking for a loss.

I'm experimenting around, and can say that Arcaian's explanation is spot-on (and comprehensive!)

Basically, tradition is the "strongest" opening track because (1) going tall is highly favored in Civ V/BNW, particularly for players below the upper echelon (which most definitely means me, so no judgments here) and (2) because its benefits are immediately apparent.

Personally, though, even for a culture game I like Liberty a lot. I haven't done the literal math on it, but I feel like a lot of the bonuses work out similarly between Tradition and Liberty and so I tend to open both (Tradition first, then Liberty two turns later) and play around with which one I want at which point. Aristocracy, for instance, is great, and I want it - at some point. But Citizenship and Collective Rule are usually going to be earlier picks for me, because they save me even more turns for early wonders and set up more production for later, and I don't need Aristocracy until I'm creeping up on 10 citizens in a city. Landed Elite, likewise, is one I usually save until later on, so that I get more bang for my buck with it. Free monuments is great, but if I'm grabbing every gold bonus that I can (and I usually am) I'm probably just purchasing a monument when I get my city founded, and would rather get a free amphitheater or opera house.

Tradition's completion bonus is fantastic, of course, and pretty seductive to finishing it quickly, but I think Liberty offers enough to offset that instinct for a bit. (And, of course, Liberty's completion bonus can give you a religion if you're getting down to the wire, or a manufactury long before that that would normally be available, so it's pretty sweet as well.)

I'm not normally a warmonger, but I'm trying to play around with Honor a bit. So far I know that it works very well for Monty, okay for Boudicca, and that of course you'll be using it for Shaka, Attila, Genghis Khan and Ashurbanipal. For general use, it is not nearly as solid as Tradition or Liberty, but for the war-focused civs, it is essential, so that's that.

Piety... even as the Celts or Byzantium I'm not really interested. Maybe as Ethiopia. Frankly, I'm not a good enough player to make it worthwhile yet. Religion as a mechanic is just powerful enough in BNW where I'm going to make sure I have one, but not powerful enough for me to build any strategy around it. To put things in MtG terms, Piety is a Johnny track (meaning for experimental players) and its biggest issue is opportunity cost (in that it's not bad, except in terms of what you're not getting elsewhere by spending culture on it.)

So there it is: the game favors tall over wide (unless you're an experienced, good player), penalizes warmongering, and doesn't reward religion well enough. That's why Tradition is so strong. Figure out a way to make going big, aggressive, or religious to your advantage, though, and the picture changes sharply.

lokithepunishr said:

Liberty and Tradition are so far above Honor and Piety, unless you're playing Aztecs (or a few others) in which case Honor becomes viable. But for 95% of games taking Honor or Piety is just asking for a loss.

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I do have to agree here - liberty being 'underpowered' is mostly just playstyle issues. honour and piety are actually pitiful if they're designed to be first choices.

I can't imagine finishing Tradition before Liberty with any civ other than Venice, but I've probably gotten too used to the faster workers, settlers, etc.

And even with Venice, well, free MoV with the Liberty finisher...

Mr. Grieves said:

I can't imagine finishing Tradition before Liberty with any civ other than Venice, but I've probably gotten too used to the faster workers, settlers, etc.

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That's part of my point! Most people here are so used to playing in a tradition way - settle, grow to pop 4-5, pop a settler (normally buy this one if you can), build 2nd site, hard build (or buy if couldn't buy first) 3rd settler and place. If any room left, build 4th and settle. Rush libraries ASAP, build NC, then not really found another city.

Whereas you're so used to liberty, you'd have to drop 3 difficulty levels if you wanted to play tradition, get used to it and play up, like we'd have to do for liberty.

Liberty's good, but... strange. It offers some nice bonuses for Wide empires, but frankly doesn't offer as much as you'd hope at getting a Wide empire. There's an unhealthy gap where the free worker and settler were used (and appreciated), but the Happiness and Culture policies have not even begun to rival Tradition. Liberty's +Production per city seems nicer than it is: while 1 Hammer is decent amount early game, Tradition's food bonuses offer more citizens to work a Mine or something. Also, 5% towards buildings is pretty trivial any time you slice it: unless the building was going to take 20+ turns, it doesn't even save you one turn per building.

Tradition's crazy amount of free stuff is actually better for fast expanding in my experience: time not spent on a monument/aqueduct/etc is time you can spend on a settler or worker you need.

GoStu said:

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Tradition's crazy amount of free stuff is actually better for fast expanding in my experience: time not spent on a monument/aqueduct/etc is time you can spend on a settler or worker you need.

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This one depends on your difficulty. Liberty is certainly better for a wide empire, not including actually getting it. Liberty gives a free settler + 50% off settler production, effectively buy two get one free. If you're building say 7 cities for a total of 8 (rare, I know ) then you get 1 free, need to 'hard build' 6. That requires the same amount of production as hard building 4, so you can get almost the same amount of time used for 8 cities as for 4 for tradition. You can get 7 down quicker. Workers are the same, but most people just steal them anyway.

Problem is your cities will be rather underdeveloped early on, and you'll take a lot more time, and a LOT more micromanaging than with tradition, as you need to make the most of your start and not fall too far behind a tradition start. In the long run you will catch up in every way, problem is often the game's over by that time, if the tradition player plays well.

I'd want to like piety, but with the aggressivity of the AI towards trying to jam their religion down your throat, it becomes more of a frustration than anything else. In truth, I don't really prioritize religion anymore. faith yes, but i can usually choose which of the AIs religion i prefer and focus on other things

dashwinner said:

I'd want to like piety, but with the aggressivity of the AI towards trying to jam their religion down your throat, it becomes more of a frustration than anything else. In truth, I don't really prioritize religion anymore. faith yes, but i can usually choose which of the AIs religion i prefer and focus on other things

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Again this is a difficulty thing. On King and below the AI hardly even get religions, and they rarely aggressively try and take yours out. Piety is obviously much more useful there. Same as honour is much more useful with raging barbarians, or Liberty is much more useful on a huge map. Depends on your settings

The trees are more balanced than people think. Of course, not perfectly, and they go in descending order of power vs flexibility trade off. Tradition is strongest, but Liberty can close later and still be fine picking a GE (especially on a water map where you can't get roads), half of Honor's right side won't be useful until mid game, if you're aggressive early, which you should be, and Piety practically forces you to jump to another tree after the first 2 policies.

The problem is the criteria used for judging "good". The arbitrary standard of turn time is generally used, and the weirdest difficulty (deity). The game is radically different on even Immortal (where the trees are far more balanced than deity). Both of these factors favor Tradition.

A fetish for turn times means that things are usually judged on a 250 or less turn basis, an utterly pointless metric as even on deity, the AI won't win until turn 300, which is already fast for a 500 turn game. Given 300 turns, Liberty outshines tradition, given 500, its not even close.

Deity difficulty also means enhanced AI aggression at your expansion and less room to expand peacefully with the AI starting with 2 capitals (even immortal makes a huge difference).

This is just between Tradition and Liberty. Honor and Piety don't get better with any metric, and only very few civs should start with them (I think this was intended).

Arcaian said:

This one depends on your difficulty. Liberty is certainly better for a wide empire, not including actually getting it. Liberty gives a free settler + 50% off settler production, effectively buy two get one free. If you're building say 7 cities for a total of 8 (rare, I know ) then you get 1 free, need to 'hard build' 6. That requires the same amount of production as hard building 4, so you can get almost the same amount of time used for 8 cities as for 4 for tradition. You can get 7 down quicker. Workers are the same, but most people just steal them anyway.

Problem is your cities will be rather underdeveloped early on, and you'll take a lot more time, and a LOT more micromanaging than with tradition, as you need to make the most of your start and not fall too far behind a tradition start. In the long run you will catch up in every way, problem is often the game's over by that time, if the tradition player plays well.

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Liberty's bonus to settler production only applies to the Capital, though. Generally, I don't hard-build more than a couple settlers from the Capital - other cities get that job so I don't stunt my capital's growth. Either they're hard-built elsewhere, or bought.

adwcta said:

The trees are more balanced than people think. Of course, not perfectly, and they go in descending order of power vs flexibility trade off. Tradition is strongest, but Liberty can close later and still be fine picking a GE (especially on a water map where you can't get roads), half of Honor's right side won't be useful until mid game, if you're aggressive early, which you should be, and Piety practically forces you to jump to another tree after the first 2 policies.

The problem is the criteria used for judging "good". The arbitrary standard of turn time is generally used, and the weirdest difficulty (deity). The game is radically different on even Immortal (where the trees are far more balanced than deity). Both of these factors favor Tradition.

A fetish for turn times means that things are usually judged on a 250 or less turn basis, an utterly pointless metric as even on deity, the AI won't win until turn 300, which is already fast for a 500 turn game. Given 300 turns, Liberty outshines tradition, given 500, its not even close.

Deity difficulty also means enhanced AI aggression at your expansion and less room to expand peacefully with the AI starting with 2 capitals (even immortal makes a huge difference).

This is just between Tradition and Liberty. Honor and Piety don't get better with any metric, and only very few civs should start with them (I think this was intended).

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I agree. I generally ignore advice talking about victories at those times, and the persons who only give their advice based around Deity, win on turn 250ish.

For some reason you all consider Tradition vs Liberty to be Tall vs Wide, when infact i play tradition exclusively and still go wide, simply because tradition is more powerful at wide play then liberty.

the "fast settler" in liberty is 3 policies in, and you have to build a monument for it to come at any reasonable rate. When i feel like fast expanding, i get a settler as soon as my cap hits 2 or 3 pop. at this point i cant get 3 policies in liberty, but might be able to get 3 policies with tradition. traditions extra food actually translates into production when building settlers, if you go over what you need to feed your citizens, and in those early stages it often translates to 40-50% faster build speed on the settler.

gold and happyness- no point in discussing. monarchy and oligarchy destroys liberty in that aspect, even with a tiny cap monarchy will outdo in gold and happyness what the entire liberty tree can offer.

The free buildings in traditon are essential for Fast expansion, faaar outdoing libertie's building bonus in both production and GPT. and for some reason they work for 4 cities instead of 3 or 2, which makes tradition very viable when pursuing anj 8-city wide empire, as i often do.