If the new Migration system is strong
Whatnow? Migration system? I know they were planning to add the migration system mod for the American UA (which I don't think is a good idea, it's not fun to lose population, it would be simpler to model by just giving you food from international trade routes) but I didn't see anything about adopting a migration system that affects other civs. That seems like a big change away from vanilla.
We already had a significant amount of discussion about policy trees.
eg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=505047
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=505960
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=505023
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=505241
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=505016
So we don't need to reinvent the wheel.
I think the main conclusions for Tradition were:
a) take the faster culture expansion off the opener, and put it in the tree or the finisher.
b) The free aqueducts should require the tech, it's too powerful to get aqueducts in the early game (and with a single city you can power through the whole policy tree very quickly).
c) Mixed views on whether we need 2 growth boosting policies or whether they should be merged
d) Oligarchy too weak, though views were mixed on whether it needed a change.
e) No need for free culture buildings, you can already get policies very fast, monuments are cheap, and free ampitheaters are not very useful.
Here was one alternative design proposal:
So how about:
Opener: +3 culture in capital, enables hanging gardens, +1 culture on ampitheater, opera house, museum.
Aristocracy: +15% wonder production, +1 culture per world wonder.
Landed elite: +2 food in the capital, free aqueduct in first 4 cities (when tech is available)
Monarchy: +1 gold and -1 unhappy for every 2 citizens in the capital.
Legalism: Faster border expansion and ???free culture on some culture buildings???
Oligarchy: free maintenance for garrisoned units and and +50% ranged strength in cities with garrisons.
Finisher: +15% surplus food in all cities. Great engineers purchased with Faith in industrial era.
In regards to the main question in the OP, I think we can live with 2 civs not getting their UB if they go Tradition. That's probably a smaller problem than causing crashes if people have other mods active, which I presume is the result of changing the dll? Alternatively we could change those civs.
But it would also be fine to drop the free aqueduct and have a single growth boosting policy, we could then something that boosted production in your first 4 cities. The combination of Landed Elite and the finisher is a big part of what makes Tradition more powerful than Liberty or Honor.