Always take Tradition opener?

[noto2]

Hey everyone. I got into the habit of opening Tradition ALWAYS, no matter what, for the faster border expansion, regardless of whether I planned on actually taking any policies from tradition or my game strategy.

I recently decided this was a bad habit and forced myself not to... but when I used to open with Tradition I rarely had to buy tiles. I certainly spent very little gold on tiles in a typical game.

Now that I didn't take Tradition, I find my border expansion seems painfully slow, and I have to spend a fortune on tiles.

What I want to ask is, is this actually true? I've searched for the actual formula but I can't find it. Does Tradition really speed up border expansion significantly? Or is it all in my head?

 

[10000hours]

I always thought this % was reported, but I just did some Googling and couldn't find it. It's definitely significant, and you also get the +3 culture in your capital so the borders expand even faster (Liberty is +1 I believe).

If you do end up skipping it and going Liberty, you should consider prioritizing cultural buildings as the culture produced by each city determines how fast the borders expand. If you want to get really micro-managey, you can move your great works to cities where you want the borders to expand faster as well. Play around with it and you'll find the right balance so you won't be buying too many tiles.

 

[Browd]

The Tradition opener significantly reduces the exponent in the tile acquisition culture-cost formula (which applies to all cities, not just the capital): http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=541054#Tradition

 

[lindsay40k]

My usual opponent likes to go pure liberty to chop GLib & NC, spread out, then GE Petra. It's a gambit that really can't afford the slight delay in policies, though I'm not sure how culture ruins affect that.

 

[noto2]

@Lindsay: I hate delaying Liberty, getting that worker and settler ASAP is better, but I am so used to tradition's border expansion now, that without it my borders seem like molasses. It's really hard not to take it, since it's just the opener- just 1 policy. Also, it opens the Hanging Gardens, which I build in hammer heavy/food poor starts.

 

[lindsay40k]

it opens the Hanging Gardens, which I build in hammer heavy/food poor starts.

Also pretty important if you've got a city with a mountain of food for specialists but no freshwater for a Garden.

 

[noto2]

It seems the game forces me to make excuses for not just going Tradition all the time...

 

[ShakaKhan]

If you want to get really micro-managey, you can move your great works to cities where you want the borders to expand faster as well. Play around with it and you'll find the right balance so you won't be buying too many tiles.

As a tradition player in 4/5 games, I found this to be absolutely critical when switching to liberty. I had the same experiences as the OP because, on paper, Tradition seems simply better - only tree with growth bonuses (and more population means more of everything else) PLUS the best happiness potential of any SP tree (commerce has potential to be close, all others are distant) PLUS a decent economic bonus, and little bonuses to defense, free buildings, and wonders as well.

In practice though, the biggest detriment to tradition players switching to liberty is the borders - since you don't have tradition, you don't get the bonuses to border pops and since you're wider even earlier, you don't have the economy to spend money on tiles, and you don't have monarchy to help out. Getting some GW's and shifting them around (I usually just keep as many in the newest city as soon as it gets the buildings to support them) helps prevent drying out a non-existent economy.

 

[Iberian]

I started out as a Liberty player, converted to tradition and now run whichever based on what game I want to play and what land I was dealt. Playing Liberty means you will have to use that extra production on getting the cultural building up and running, same with aqueducts. You can't just forget about them like you did in Tradition. Also means you have to lineup your tech path to meet the timelines when you will need those buildings.

Typically I will pick liberty for a quick 2 or 4 city start and then go conquering, especially if I find I am not on Pangea. Then I will fill the map with 10-12 cities and typically it is over from there.

 

[ShakaKhan]

Typically I will pick liberty for a quick 2 or 4 city start and then go conquering, especially if I find I am not on Pangea.

why?

Then I will fill the map with 10-12.

what difficulty?

 

[beetle]

With some of my Liberty games, buying tiles gets crazy expensive -- but some games I hardly bother. I have not figured out the pattern. Looking the formula Browd posted, I am surprised that I do not very the cost every time I try Liberty!

From that table, why do you have to open Tradition early? It seems the effects are only really dramatic after a city has expanded several times. So, if you are going to take the Tradition opener primarily for the border growth, why not wait until after Collective Rule?

 

[Iberian]

If you are not on Pangea you can typically conquer the continent before running out of happiness and finding your army outclassed by the last rival or two. (unless you play Mongols then it doesn't matter)

Doesn't matter, but the more cities you build the later your victory will be but your score will be higher. If you roll a continents map (this takes even longer than islands) you will be into the 300's before you win on Deity. Even Immortal will roll 300. Ironically Emperor takes longer if you go for total domination because the tech rate is so slow. You typically can get X-COMs by 250ish and that is key to winning the overseas war. I have a core I7 with an SSD and turn times are still 5+ minutes late game. No joke but the last 20 turns take as long as the first 200.


*I almost always play to completely conquer the entire map taking the last capital as the last city of the weakest civ. I am not good at optimizing for fast space victories at any level.

 

[lindsay40k]

The other thing about Tradition is it's versatile. If you're choosing your first SP before knowing about your surroundings, it's a non-committal choice that has the strongest of the openers. Find a Faith NW next door? Switch to Piety, maybe pausing to grab Aristocracy for Djenne/Borobudur. Find a second location with a pile of wet desert hills? Switch to Liberty and GE Petra. Attila appears, screaming abuse? Get cracking on left side Honor and become the biggest fish.

 

[Sclb]

Once you know that gold is limiting factor for buying tiles, you might want to revisit WHERE to plant cities in the first place. It is actually fine to plant cities close together in liberty. Most likely you also want to keep luxuries close within 2 tiles. Since cities aren't going to grow extremely large, you can afford to have them close together and share tiles.

Doesn't matter, but the more cities you build the later your victory will be but your score will be higher. If you roll a continents map (this takes even longer than islands) you will be into the 300's before you win on Deity. Even Immortal will roll 300. Ironically Emperor takes longer if you go for total domination because the tech rate is so slow. You typically can get X-COMs by 250ish and that is key to winning the overseas war. I have a core I7 with an SSD and turn times are still 5+ minutes late game. No joke but the last 20 turns take as long as the first 200.

Yes, total conquest takes a very long time on deity especially. But the game never requires you to do that, you can actually win within a few turns of getting X-coms if you just snipe capitals. AI loves to settle on every possible 1 tile islands, snow covered land anywhere on the map.

 

[Knowtalent]

Its generally accepted that tradition is the best policy tree. Domination victory makes Liberty viable, but only on continents where you might need to get to astronomy before you can finish killing AI

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[darkskies]

I always go tradition opener, as it greatly speeds up the next few policies. Then I usually grab honor to pick up as much gold as possible then go down liberty to get the production and free settler and sometimes the worker (depends on situation). After that I often go to patronage to max out city state bonuses (at least to science). I usually play immortal or deity with marathon time, huge maps and raging barbs though. Sometimes if I have really aggressive neighbors I'll go down honor to get a great general fast and then 50% experience point increase to get my archers up to three range faster. If happiness is a problem by that time usually I'll have roads up and can go back to liberty if needed though the 50% happiness increase from city states usually does the trick. The one thing I don't like about this is the bonus you get from filling out patronage since the great people you get are not really free (they increase the turns to your next great persons in that category).

Once in a rare while I'll open with honor if there are a bunch of barbs right next to me, as the culture from killing them can actually be more than you can get from tradition, but there have to be a lot of them and then the second policy will be tradition as they will be thinned out by then.

 

[Redaxe]

The consensus from the experts is that Tradition will never pay for itself in culture so if your just doing it for the +3 culture per turn then don't take this policy.

However if you want the Border expansion and a chance at getting the Hanging Gardens then yes the Tradition Opener can be very useful. It will help you claim tiles more quickly which is protective against AI that forward settle you and it will save you a tonne of gold too.

If you're going Liberty I tend to think that the initial Tradition opener is only viable if you can get a culture ruin - otherwise it just takes too long to get to the settler bonus. The initial tradition opener will always end up delaying the settler policy but with a culture ruin - it is probably no more than a few turns so I think that is a worthwhile tradeoff.

Many people recommend with Liberty that you should start building settlers even before you get the settler policy - i.e. right after you build your opening scouts and shrine. And workers - well you can steal those from CSs and AIs

 

[darkskies]

I don't like stealing workers from CS and by the time I'm ready for war it would be too long. A lot of people seem to forget that along with the free worker you get a reduction in time to build. Maybe it's not enough on faster settings but on marathon it is significant.

As for culture from tradition I see it this way (assume no culture goodie hut and marathon settings): it takes 70 turns to get your first policy, if you then choose tradition it takes 17 turns to get your next policy (in my case that will be honor usually) but if you go with say liberty then you are looking at 28 turns. And it's cumulative for some time until you start getting good big amounts of culture. It's even more significant on islands or isolated areas where there are few or no city states to get culture from. And of course there are the boarder and possible hanging garden bonuses as mentioned. Finally though often I'll build monument quite early if I've chosen tradition opener I can put it off for something else I may need for a higher priority

If I role Bismarck then for sure I'll go honor first and start barb hunting immediately.

 

[lindsay40k]

A lot of people seem to forget that along with the free worker you get a reduction in time to build. Maybe it's not enough on faster settings but on marathon it is significant.

On standard, building (or stealing) the Pyramids means you can repair pillaged stuff in a single turn. That's huge in a warmongering situation.

Pretty sure on quick you get same turn roads, but I don't play on that speed.

 

[Xahz]

Its generally accepted that tradition is the best policy tree. Domination victory makes Liberty viable, but only on continents where you might need to get to astronomy before you can finish killing AI

"Generally accepted" by whom? That was maybe true before the patch that pushed Legalism back - now Liberty and even Honor are quite competitive depending on what civ you are playing. If you're going for any sort of early war, Tradition is painfully slow; being forced to take two basically useless policies before you can get to the growth and happiness puts you way far behind. And there are a LOT of civs that want to war early.

Note: Obviously Legalism is not useless, but when you first get it you're generally only on one city, meaning it won't help you until later turns.