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[member66170]

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[Santa Maria]

I would suggest not to weaken Tradition, but to strengthen Liberty and Honor.

In liberty the free setller should be available right after the opener as it was in vanilla.

? I kind of think Liberty is not that good right now.
And Honor is even worse.

 

[UnofficialJoe]

I agree with buffing the other trees, with liberty you want to be making as many settlers as soon as possible yet have to wait to get to collective rules means you either waste lots of production making settlers without it or you wait but then your cities are delayed loads. Also when looking at the honour tree I just feel it doesn't deliver enough punch to be worth while

 

[ChrisTheMean]

Its definitely stronger than it was, but remember when 90% of civs in your game would take liberty and there was literally no open space on a continent by the medeival era? That drove me nuts. Little crap cities everywhere. I love that there is some open space now. I have given a quite few run-throughs to both in BNW and I think they are closer now to where they need to be than they have ever been. Yeah, full tradition with 2-4 tall early cities is a beast now, but it should be. Tradition used to be a niche tree and only Ghandi and Ramses would fill it out. Now its the go to for growth, and liberty is still the go to for rexing. You can still snatch up all those lux and strategic resources with lib but you will take a hit to growth and happiness compared to the tall guy, as you should. I'm sure some tweaks are needed, but not by much IMO.

 

[MarshalN]

I think liberty's problem is that it doesn't have nearly as many smiles as tradition - tradition pretty much gives your capital unlimited growth by compensating for the unhappiness, but liberty doesn't even come close to fixing your happiness problem for more cities.

I think instead of just +1 happiness per city with connection, +2 might not be a bad buff. Making that connection takes effort, especially in the early game, and for empires that are, say, 6-7 cities, it will only net you about 12 happiness - enough for 3 cities (not counting population) and so still rather small as compensation. You'll run into happiness problems, but it won't be as acute. As it is right now liberty stalls out at about 4-5 cities anyway until you've got a big infrastructure going before you can continue expanding, unless you're really lucky with luxes.

 

[Vohbo]

I don't really think Tradition is all that overpowered. If it is at all, it's not by much. I use Tradition about as much as Liberty, and the difference is quite negligible. Liberty could use a small buff, and honor could use a major buff.
It seems to me that the benefits of Liberty are more hidden because it is perhaps too easy to steal workers early, so having a free one is less important. A free golden age is also very weak at the point you have to take it, adding very little and actually being a disadvantage later, so that talent should be changed I think.

 

[Montov]

Part of the problem is how Tradition has bonuses for wide empires, like the border growth and 15% food in every city. If you nerf that to the first 4 cities, and maybe give the growth bonus to somewhere in Honor and the border growth in Liberty, it would fix a lot.

 

[troublmaker]

If anything needs a buff its piety. The bonuses should be valuable whether or not you have a religion.

 

[Silverfuturist]

Yes, like the others said, give liberty a buff and the 2 trees should balance out. (This is my opinion now, if I discover some elaborate tricks with liberty, I would change my mind.)

In addition to the buffs above, perhaps make that free person liberty finisher NOT increase great person costs, and the policy golden age NOT increase golden age costs.

BUT NOTE: buffing liberty will make Poland even more OP than before!

Going 4 cities also means the AI is a lot easier to deal with than city spam.

The extra gold from the capital from tradition is a big deal over the course of the game. Liberty gives no gold bonuses (well except for short term GA), and with the gold changes in BNW, the capital gold policy seems like a must right now.

 

[Aaron90495]

Part of the problem is how Tradition has bonuses for wide empires, like the border growth and 15% food in every city. If you nerf that to the first 4 cities, and maybe give the growth bonus to somewhere in Honor and the border growth in Liberty, it would fix a lot.

The border growth applies to all cities, but 15% food is indeed only for the first four cities.

 

[FrostK]

I think first it is required to fix 'free workers' from AI and CSs.
AI probably should hate you a lot if u steal early worker. [Like any human will for sure.]
CS probably should protect worker. [Just change CS algoritm, so first warrior to def, then worker. And worker stay on same tile like warrior]

 

[Tibbz]

Really? I think liberty is stronger in BNW. I pretty much use liberty opener for the free settler and worker 90% of the time on diety.

Now that you can't trade your items without a DoF to other civs you cant just quickly buy a settler and worker going tradition like you could before.

 

[Chemical Toilet]

Tradition is fine where it stands I think, weakening it wouldn't add any substance to the game, but strengthening the other trees would.

Liberty needs to be able to combat the happiness and scientific penalties of going wide better, and perhaps give a bonus to building infrastructure faster. Going wide is discouraged right now despite it being a must in older civ games.

I'm not sure how to approach changing honor. I feel like the finisher should be available earlier, or there needs to be a way it can give you some sort of financial bonus earlier in the tree.

Piety needs at least one policy that helps speed infrastructure or boost happiness.

 

[kb27787]

Don't you dare.... DONT YOU DARE!!!!
I've never EVER not used tradition in all my games... (sometimes piety but...)
I think it's all tied to the fact that wide empires got nerfed (by the new gold caravan system and the 5% penalty for research) so I think the better way is strengthening liberty to compensate for this (say have a policy that makes each city connection gain more gold/science as well as happiness) and instead of one free worker, you get two etc.

 

[sendos]

I also agree that the other trees need to be strengthened. Tradition is truly the gold standard tree. Liberty should provide -25% unhappiness from number of cities (may also encourage India to go for liberty). Honor should enable military buildings to generate +2 culture in each building and +4 culture and +2 happiness for heroic epic, along with a 25% production bonus for military units during war and/or increase or alleviate production penalty when you have more units than the accepted unit limit. Piety is one of those trees where you have to finish it in order to achieve its real benefits. I've tried piety twice and I just can't resist heathen conversion. It's the only time when I get to produce an army really quickly without actually getting my cities to produce them and it makes -10 unhappiness somewhat more attractive because you produce 2-3 free units from barbs spawning at capital every 5 turns.

Another tree that might need strengthening is exploration. Otherwise, all the SP trees provide diverse gameplay.

 

[MarshalN]

Commerce can use a small buff too, it's not exactly useful other than lower purchase price

 

[sendos]

Commerce can use a small buff too, it's not exactly useful other than lower purchase price

Commerce doesn't really need a buff. Protectionism provides a nice boost in , land trade routes become a bit more effective and the finisher makes trading posts and GM's twice as effective in trade missions.

 

[ColdPhoenix]

I dont understand, 90% of people agree that Tradition is the strongest, and that many of the others are roughly equal, but people want to buff all the other trees rather than nerf tradition slightly. Where's the logic in that??

Having stronger, more distinct social policy trees makes for a more enjoyable game.

 

[Nivrax]

Having stronger, more distinct social policy trees makes for a more enjoyable game.

This. Having diverse, powerful perks to choose is way better than more balanced but weak ones. First one gives possibility of different openings, the other don't let you feel much change of your choices.

Moving settler back up would really speed expansion for Liberty (unless you luck on culture ruins it takes ages to get to the policy), maybe even give possible Lib2->Trad5 opening rather than 'have extra policies, get OP consulates'.

 

[Mesix]

If anything needs a buff its piety. The bonuses should be valuable whether or not you have a religion.

One idea to improve Piety would be to add some As it is right now, Piety is the only early social policy tree which does not offer any bonus . This makes social policies take longer in addition to having generally weaker social policies than the other tree options.

My recommendation would be to give +1 to Shrines and Temples. Perhaps this could be added to the 1st tier policy which gives +1 to Shrines and Temples.

This small tweak would help to balance Piety.