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[member66170]

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[IgnatiusTBarfat]

Yeah, all told it is better. I think Liberty, while still great, is not always the awesomesauce given that the free settler policy is moved below the production policy.

 

[smallfish]

Yeah, Tradition is currently my favorite opening build. Moving free settlers down was the best decision of the expansion,.

I've been mixing and match lately. First game was Honor and the Legalism/Meritocracy bits of Tradition. Second game, all policies of Tradition except the wonder hammer bonus. Third game, full Tradition followed by Liberty Left side and then jumped to Order.

 

[iconocast]

been tradition fanboi since vanilla, now its actualy realy good.

 

[ahawk]

Tradition is definitely better now.

In vanilla, I went Tradition maybe 20% of the time, usually when playing Aztec (Floating Gardens and the right starting tiles) or when given Marble near my capital (hard-build wonders reliably with all that extra speed).

In G&K, with Liberty being hampered a bit by, as many have noted, the free Settler being moved further back in the tree, I go Tradition probably 70% of the time, Honor 20%, and seldom Liberty.

That said, I'm reluctant to say that the 4 aquaducts is as good as we might at first glance think. After all, those 4 aquaducts have now replaced the old % bonus to food that the Tradition finisher used to give. This is how I see it: that old % bonus to food was nice because you could always build aquaducts later, and the two bonuses stacked up to provide massive growth. Now, however, you only get the one bonus (free aquaducts), which is nice, but given the new potential for happiness via religion, is actually not so great.

To sum it all up:

Vanilla = free % bonus to food with Tradition finisher, hard-build or buy aquaducts, get massive growth in the near future

G&K = 4 free aquaducts, no % bonus to food, get great growth immediately but ultimately get less growth throughout the whole game.

 

[Peacemongerer]

I think that the Aqueducts finisher was ultimately so that Tradition really would benefit tall empires with few cities, as the description says its trying to do. In vanilla, outside of the opener, legalism and the monarchy bonus, the bonuses applied to all cities, no matter how many. Now 4/6 are beneficial in only the first few cities. Still much more alluring than before, however.

 

[ahawk]

I think that the Aqueducts finisher was ultimately so that Tradition really would benefit tall empires with few cities, as the description says its trying to do. In vanilla, outside of the opener, legalism and the monarchy bonus, the bonuses applied to all cities, no matter how many. Now 4/6 are beneficial in only the first few cities. Still much more alluring than before, however.

Excellent point... I remember now that you said this that I used to often go Tradition after Liberty with huge, culture-producing empires and get the bonus for all cities. You're exactly right that it seems 4 aquaducts is a way of limiting Tradition to just those first 4 cities (which the old finisher bonus didn't do, since it applied to all cities you owned)

 

[bhavv]

I must be the only person who still doesn't like Tradition anymore then. Aqueducts are cheap and easy to build so to me the finisher has been neerfed, not improved. The wonder bonus and culture buildings are nice, but Liberty still provides a free worker, settler, GP and cheaper future policies. Collective Rule having been moved down isn't really that big a nerf, and the production boost policy above it is still very good to have.

 

[iconocast]

usualy teching the top of the tree for the culture stuff, so i get the aquaducts way b4 i could build them, and once u have tasted the huge boarders that culture/tradition gives u i cant go back to the tiny liberty ones ;P

 

[Billy Rubin]

Three things I've noticed which make me like tradition quite a lot more:

1) The policy that gives you free cultural buildings works on future cities that haven't been built yet. Means that if I pop it when my capital has a monument and my only other city nothing, I get 1 free monument now, 1 free temple now and 2 free monuments when I bother getting two more cities. Effectively means I don't have to worry about culture and still finish the tree before I hit medieval (2 out of 2 games on emperor), which is nice.

I'm pretty sure that it was that way before - played a few games of vanilla in anticipation of G&K and always got it before founding any city when focusing on tradition.

I also think the extra culture in capital is +3 rather than +2, which means you can get your second/third policy unlocked twice as fast as if you had liberty or honour. In addition the free settler from liberty has been moved back, making that tree slightly less good.

Combined, I think this may be my favourite starting tree now.

I always liked tradition - usually went for a combination of tradition of Tradition and Liberty (Tradition for the capital culture boost-> liberty for another +1 -> free culture buildings -> free settler and increase in trainig rate -> free worker and increase in tile improvement rate etc...). Moving the free settler down makes that approach a little tougher, but was a good decision.

 

[Nyanko]

Yeah, all told it is better. I think Liberty, while still great, is not always the awesomesauce given that the free settler policy is moved below the production policy.

I always found the benifit of liberty was mainly the policy reduction policy, rather than the free settler.etc Though tradition is more fun now with ots improvements