Social Policy: Tradition (BNW)

Introduction

Tradition is one of four social policy trees that are available in the Ancient Era. Although the game claims "Tradition is best for small empires," it contains some of the best policies in the game for any empire.

From the release of the Gods & Kings expansion until the latest patch to Brave New World, Tradition was widely regarded as the strongest opening policy tree for most strategies. The recent change to Tradition (making Oligarchy a prerequisite for Legalism, Landed Elite and Monarchy) has enhanced the relative appeal of Liberty, restoring some balance to opening strategies.

The Policies

• Tradition
• Aristocracy
• Oligarchy
• Legalism
• Landed Elite
• Monarchy
• Finisher

General Use

• Abusing Legalism

The Policies

Tradition

Adopting Tradition greatly increases the rate of border expansion in cities and also grants 3 Culture in the Capital. Unlocks building the Hanging Gardens.

In addition to providing +3 culture per turn in the capital, the Tradition opener reduces the exponent in the cultural border expansion formula by 25% (from 1.1 to 0.825). This significantly cuts the amount of culture needed to acquire tiles, especially later ones; the 5th expanded tile costs about one-half as much as without Tradition, the 10th about one-third, as shown in the following chart:



Hanging Gardens is one of the best wonders in the game, providing a free Garden (even if the city in which it is built is not on a river), which increases by 25% the rate of Great Person generation, +1 culture, and +6 food, which is enough to support 3 specialists or 3 citizens working mined hills for additional production.

Aristocracy

+15% when building Wonders and +1 Happiness for every 10 Citizens in a City.

This production boost works on national wonders and world wonders. The percentage gain stacks additively with other boosts such as marble's +15% boost for Ancient and Classical Era wonders or a Workshop's +10% boost. The value of the wonder-production benefit depends entirely upon how many national and world wonders you expect to build.

The happiness portion of this policy adds one happiness for each multiple of 10 population a city reaches. Having twenty cities of 9 population each provides no happiness, while having one city with population 30 provides 3 happiness.

Oligarchy

Garrisoned units cost no maintenance and cities with a garrison gain +50% Ranged Combat Strength.

Uniformly regarded as the weakest Tradition policy, the importance of Oligarchy increased dramatically with the most recent BNW patch, which shifted Oligarchy from a stand-alone Tradition policy to the prerequisite policy for Legalism (which is, in turn, the prerequisite policy for both Landed Elite and Monarchy). In all but the most unusual of cases, Oligarchy will be the first Tradition policy you take (whereas it previously was usually taken last).

If a city contains a garrisoned unit, this policy changes the bombardment formula such that the damage is multiplied by 1.5 (which is slightly different than adding 50% combat strength). Unlike in vanilla, it is not necessary in G&K or BNW to first manually garrison a ranged unit in the city, then use the city's bombardment power to fire on attacking units, then use the ranged unit to attack remaining units. In G&K and BNW, units are automatically garrisoned if they are in the city center tile.

Oligarchy also eliminates garrisoned units' maintenance costs, allowing an empire to afford a larger army. When not at war, you should routinely garrison a unit in every city.

Legalism

Provides a free culture building in your first 4 cities.

In each of your first four cities, this policy grants the highest "culture divided by cost" building available to be built (with Great Work slots being treated as 2 culture for this purpose). This is generally the earliest technologically available building with exceptions for civs that have unique culture-producing buildings (see spoiler list below). With a free culture building, Legalism is a very attractive policy that both saves production and maintenance cost and accelerates the generation of culture. Note that this policy applies to the first four cities you have founded or captured (whether puppeted or annexed) at the time the policy is taken. If four cities have not yet been founded or captured at the time the policy is taken, the next cities founded will start with a Monument.

If there are no culture buildings available in one or more of your first four cities at the time the policy is taken, Legalism will provide no immediate benefit in those cities; rather, when you research the next technology that provides a new culture building, that building will automatically appear in any of your first four cities that did not already have a free Legalism culture building. If you have fewer than four cities, capturing a city (whether puppeted or annexed) after taking the policy neither grants that city a Monument nor counts against the four total. See the tips on Abusing Legalism below.

Landed Elite

+10% Growth and +2 in the Capital.

This policy increases raw food production in the capital by 2 and surplus food in the capital by 10%. The extra food can be used directly for growth, or to support one or more specialists, or to shift a citizen to work a production tile, all without impeding your capital's growth. The +10% growth bonus stacks additively with other modifiers, such as the +15% growth bonus from the Tradition finisher, a We Love the King Day (25% growth bonus for 20 turns), and relevant religious beliefs, such as Fertility Rites and Swords into Plowshares.

Monarchy

+1 Gold and -1 Unhappiness for every 2 Citizens in the Capital.

This policy can provide a significant amount of happiness and gold in a large capital. The gold gained is modified as normal, such as by a Market's +25%. Note that Monarchy's effective -50% unhappiness is multiplicative with other unhappiness reducers; for example, each population in India's capital produces 0.25 unhappiness under Monarchy.

Finisher

Adopting all Policies in the Tradition tree will grant +15% Growth and a free Aqueduct in your first 4 cities. It also allows the purchase of Great Engineers with Faith starting in the Industrial Era.

With the finisher, all of your cities will enjoy a 15% growth bonus and your first four cities will get free Aqueducts -- saving production, maintenance cost and time and significantly increasing your cities' growth rates. Like Landed Elite, the 15% boost stacks additively with other growth bonuses, so your capital will enjoy a 25% growth rate (with Landed Elite's 10%). The free Aqueducts will appear automatically when you complete the Tradition policy tree, even if you have not yet researched Engineering. As with Legalism, you will get free Aqueducts in your first four cities, including any cities that you have conquered at the time you take the policy, but not cities that are conquered afterward.

The Tradition finisher also allows you to buy Great Engineers with faith beginning in the Industrial Era. Great Engineers are the most versatile type of Great Person, allowing you to hurry production of any wonder or, if you adopt the Order Ideology's Level 3 tenet, Spaceflight Pioneers, hurry production of Spaceship Parts for a Science Victory.

General Use

Tradition is one of the best policy trees for those who expect to found a relatively small number of cities that they want to grow tall. The opener provides an early culture boost and border expansion benefits, while allowing you to build the Hanging Gardens. Legalism provides further culture benefits, along with savings in production and maintenance costs. Landed Elite and the finisher boost city growth, while Monarchy defrays more unhappiness the larger your capital grows. Aristocracy provides a boost to wonder production and also grants happiness bonuses in larger cities. The entire tree is very focused and is widely regarded as the strongest choice to finish straight off.

Compared to straight Liberty, it excels in situations where high production tiles are available to put citizens to work and enough early gold is available to purchase rather than build settlers. However, although it does eventually provide substantial amounts of gold, its benefits are relatively back-loaded and won't facilitate rapid early expansion, which Liberty can.

There are a couple basic strategies for finishing Tradition optimally:

• Straight through: While building a Monument (either before or after a Scout) and scouting for a culture ruin or two, open Tradition and then take Oligarchy, then Legalism, and then Landed Elite and Monarchy (take Monarchy first if gold or happiness are a problem; otherwise take Landed Elite first for the growth boost in your capital) and finish with Aristocracy (hopefully in time to build your National College and other available wonders). This approach maximizes your growth and happiness benefits from Tradition.
  
  
• Mix with Liberty: Opening Tradition and then opening Liberty and beelining to Collective Rule and its free settler, is a popular strategy. Although opening Tradition first will delay getting to Collective Rule by approximately 7 turns, the border expansion benefit of the Tradition opener, and the ability to build Hanging Gardens, are viewed as worthy investments. After taking the Liberty opener, Republic and Collective Rule, you would shift back to Tradition and complete it as described above. By the time you are ready to take Legalism, you should have Monuments in several cities, so Legalism will provide Amphitheaters in those cities.

Abusing Legalism

Legalism's free culture building can be particularly useful to a few civilizations:

• Songhai
  Assuming you have built Monuments in your first 4 cities, and have researched Philosophy, Legalism will provide Songhai with its +2 +2 Mud Pyramid Mosques (Temple replacement). With four cities, this can provide an early 8-faith boost, making Songhai very efficient in generating Great Prophets and founding or enhancing their religion.
  
  
• Siam
  Siam's +3 +33% University replacement, the Wat, can be gained by having the Education technology as well as Amphitheaters and Libraries built in the first four cities. Opening with Tradition and waiting to take Legalism allows Siam to set up a minor infrastructure investment for a large return; gaining 4 free Wats after Education provides an immediate significant research and production boost.
  
  
• Culture Victory
  Any civ going for a culture victory can open Tradition to get early culture boost and pick Legalism for free cultural building (normally free Monuments or Amphitheaters). The tall empire strategy from Tradition branch is also quite suitable for any civs that are pursuing a Culture Victory.

Note: Amended from vanilla Tradition article by vexing and G&K Tradition article by LordLeoz.