Artistry and Tradition are too stacked on each other.

[Legen]

Why not just +2 instead of +1 in all cities in engineer policy, or +2 in the capital at the opener?

As @rkkn wrote, and I find that Tradition's struggle in the early game is with growing the capital and using the specialists it keeps unlocking. Food is usually tight for Tradition until it unlocks the 5th and 6th policy.

Industry absolutely does not need more gold.

I never said it needed.

Adding +1 range would be a catastrophe. There is already a wonder that adds +1 range, so that is potential for 5 range in 1 city and 4 range everywhere else. 4 city range is and enormous buff, not just because that ring adds 24 possible attack tiles, it would allow you to attack cities with other cities directly, because 4 tiles in the minimum settle distance.

No. A thousand times no to that one.

It seems cities can't attack other cities though.

Just did a quick test with IGE, cities indeed can't attack other cities, regardless of range.

 

[pineappledan]

Doesn’t make me feel better that any tradition civ could use their city to hit any all but the units behind a city. It’s a terrible idea

 

[CppMaster]

it would allow you to attack cities with other cities directly

Reminds me of Worms Forts: Under Siege

 

[SullySaltlicker]

Even if you still couldn’t attack cities directly with other cities with 4+ range, giving that kind of bonus so early introduces even more problems with early game warfare, which IMO already has its fair share of issues. Don’t need another wrench thrown into that mess.

I will say that I approve of the Artistry opener only applying to GWAMs, as it otherwise makes it a bit too effective for science victory in late game to stack GP bonuses from Tradition, Artistry, and Rationalism to pop out Great Scientists, hoard them until the right moment, then hurry them all at once to jump to the last few techs you need.

 

[SpecifiedUsername]

I can't see how changing Artistry opener only applying to GWAMs would unstack it from tradition. Contrary, it would be a big nerf and lock it even more for tradition.

 

[Legen]

In order to get to 4+ range and hit units near a city, either you or your enemy need to be forward settled, and you need to wait until late Renaissance at the earliest with Fealty's wonder. That's far from ideal for a tree that lacks production, supply, early science, and that keeps the number of cities to a minimum. And in the case of Red Fort, it only applies to one city, the rest of the empire won't have the same ability.

Still, as an alternative, I assume you have no issue with the extra attack range applying to the Capital only? If your Capital is hitting units near an enemy city with this bonus, then it is the enemy that is forward settling you, and doing so blatantly aggressively. The range proposal was meant as an alternative to the +1 working range in the Capital anyways, it makes sense to keep it to the Capital only.

 

[Rekk]

I can't see how changing Artistry opener only applying to GWAMs would unstack it from tradition. Contrary, it would be a big nerf and lock it even more for tradition.

Everyone works WAMs. Tradition spends proportionally the most of its citizens on other specialists.

 

[SpecifiedUsername]

Everyone works GWAMs. Tradition spends proportionally the most of its citizens on other specialists.

Definetely not. I work much more specialists as progress, most of my cities work a library, some of them forge and market, as soon as they are unloocked. You got much faster population and infrastructure growth in progress cities allowing you to work more specialists faster. You have less border growth, so you can work specialists after locking all useful tiles. Tradition satellite cities are so poor, they need to work tiles to even catch up wit the the infrastructure for the first 100 or 150 turns of their existence. In total, I'm sure I nearly always work more specialists as progress, excluding first 70 turns when you work an artists and an engineer from policies. Tradition capital alone still generates great people faster in the capital, but it doesn't spend proportionally the most of its citizens on other specialists. It's even or even a sligthly win for progress.

 

[rkkn]

I can definitely agree with non-capital cities working far more specialists with progress than with tradition. When going tradition, it feels like working specialists outside of the capital is almost pointless. The non-capital cities are super weak, as noted, and also the capital has such an advantage on great person generation that no other city is almost ever going to generate one since the capital keeps moving the goalpost forward.

That said, I also rarely work merchants or engineers at all anyway, except for tradition capital in certain builds, since they are not worth it unless it will lead to a great person, or unless your gold is negative, which is never the case for me after progress's gold in every city policy.

 

[Rekk]

Let's talk about this in the realm of Artistry, whose bonuses regarding specialists involve Great Person generation.

Does Tradition generate more GEMSs than Progress? Is the difference larger or smaller than the rate at which they generate GWAMs? By how much?

 

[SpecifiedUsername]

Let's talk about this in the realm of Artistry, whose bonuses regarding specialists involve Great Person generation.

Yeah, great person generation. Not only GWAM generation. That's why all specialists get +1 culture and why you can get free person of choice not GWAM of choice and why you get gold bonus for any great person, not only GWAM. That's why I think it must retain its bonus to all great people, not only GWAM. Cause its golden age, great works, and ALL great people generation tree. Any trimming of this is not only a nerf to an already least useful and the weakest medieval tree, but also against the spirit of the tree. I really hope you can see this.

Does Tradition generate more GEMSs than Progress? Is the difference larger or smaller than the rate at which they generate GWAMs? By how much?

I sense that you think it's wrong if it doesn't? If so, I beg to differ . Progress is "scientific advancement" (academies) and "robust infrastructure" (towns, manufactories) tree. I don't think you'll get any answers that will help determine the difference in generation. Especially since only a capital does GP job in tradition and you rotate specialist to get the great person with lowest point required, while amassing percentage bonuses to get back to the more expensive ones, so you produce one each five turns or so to get all the bonuses like Sankore or GA points or ceremonial burial. You also will get this very obscured by beliefs, artistry, and rationalism modifiers. And stuff like Arabia or Korea UA.
Tradition is impressive capital with early specialists. It doesn't say you need to get best at generating all specialists or be the best at constructing wonders.
I don't see any problems with Progress generating more GEMS. It's okay cause you can use use progress to just spam buildings & army, or buildings and diplo units, or wonders and religion, and forego specialists, or focus on them, cause it gives you flexibility and enough infrastructure to be good at something you choose, while not giving you strong bonuses in any of the ways. Progress tend to favor different beliefs and wonders (and notably can't build Sankore), so rewards from expanding a great person (which in the mid-game are as or more important than direct benefits) differ greatly from tradition.
Tradition would definitely generate more GEMS if the player would focus on that. But that's usually weaker than focusing on GWAM (both for progress and tradition).
I just wish artistry was more useful for something else but completely cultural warmonger with hero worship, or tradition. Trimming bonus specialist to GWAM is a step in a wrong direction IMO. I think it's a fealty opener, if any, that is OP and warrants adjustment (with fealty being strong all around to any playstyle, spitting-but-mirrored image of artistry). But maybe I'm in the minority . Anyway that's another topic.

 

[Legen]

About GP on Artistry, I suggested the 33% on GWAM and removal of 50 gold on GP birth because the OP wanted to differentiate Artistry further from Tradition by decoupling GP generation. The original discussion on a previous thread was only about decoupling GA between these two trees, since you can have GA civs that don't have GP related bonuses (Brazil, Egypt, certain mod civs like JFD's Meiji) going for both trees almost mandatorily. While I think Artistry's focus points heavily on great works, I don't think the tree needs to give up GP focus in order to decouple from Tradition's focuses. As long as Tradition shares at most one focus with Artistry, that's enough; Fealty shares the growth theme with Tradition without locking the latter into it, and infrastructure with Progress without locking it away from, say, Statecraft.

On a note, I think part of why Artistry is paired with Tradition so often also has to do with the former having no clear shared focus with either Progress or Authority. At the very least, Artistry could have one or two of its wide bonuses buffed, such as the scaler.

I do think Artistry is too slow compared to Fealty, since the most desirable aspects of the tree are on Cultural Heritage and on the finisher, with the latter even requiring a late Industrial Era tech on a medieval tree. Overall, I think Artistry could be buffed by having more of its bonuses frontloaded into the earlier policies.

Keeping the proposal simple and without the more controversial parts:

Tradition
Opener - 4 food (or more) in the Capital instead of 2 food. +10% Growth (or more) in all cities instead of +5% Growth.
Splendor - Remove the 50 Golden Age Points from GP expenditure.
Finisher - Remove +25% Golden Age length.

Artistry
Scaler - Buff to yields, e.g. "+5 GAP and +1 Science per city".
Refinement - Gain "+2 Culture and Production to Amphitheaters and Opera Houses".
Cultural Heritage - Loses "+2 Culture and Production to Amphitheaters and Opera Houses".

 

[Cebrudras]

I would really recommend just adding the bonus working range even if it doesn't synergise with anything other than the border growth stuff. It's just neat and flavourful. I was super surprised when I heard from that other poster with their modmod that such a weird change just works without issues.

 

[Stalker0]

I can definitely agree with non-capital cities working far more specialists with progress than with tradition. When going tradition, it feels like working specialists outside of the capital is almost pointless. The non-capital cities are super weak, as noted, and also the capital has such an advantage on great person generation that no other city is almost ever going to generate one since the capital keeps moving the goalpost forward.

That said, I also rarely work merchants or engineers at all anyway, except for tradition capital in certain builds, since they are not worth it unless it will lead to a great person, or unless your gold is negative, which is never the case for me after progress's gold in every city policy.

I agree, though the number of specialists as a % of my total pop is likely higher with tradition, just because I work so many capital specialists with tradition and my total pop tends to be lower. But with progress I often work more specialists in total.

 

[Stalker0]

So the issue I am seeing in this thread is that its starting to split off from "tradition and artistry need to be more unique" to "tradition needs a buff".

The opinions on Tradition vs Progress seem to flip faster than a coin in the air. One month Tradition is OP, next month its garbage....over and over again.

That to me suggests balance, if we can't agree long term on which tree is better....seems like that's pretty balanced to me.

 

[pineappledan]

I can definitely agree with non-capital cities working far more specialists with progress than with tradition. When going tradition, it feels like working specialists outside of the capital is almost pointless. The non-capital cities are super weak, as noted, and also the capital has such an advantage on great person generation that no other city is almost ever going to generate one since the capital keeps moving the goalpost forward.

That said, I also rarely work merchants or engineers at all anyway, except for tradition capital in certain builds, since they are not worth it unless it will lead to a great person, or unless your gold is negative, which is never the case for me after progress's gold in every city policy.

In civ 6 great people are generated on empire. I think that overall that's a worse system, but it does resolve that frustration with a lot of GPPs from specialists worked in non-capital cities amounting to nothing. @ridjack and I were musing that it would be a big improvement if 2/3 GPPs generated in a city stayed there, but the other 1/3rd went into a global pot. A Great Person would be born whenever a city's local pot + global pot reaches the threshold. That would make at least some of the GPPs on empire go towards something, and mean that there is some benefit to global GP rate bonuses, gardens, etc. outside your core guild cities.

I'm putting together a few changes and going to release them soon in my tweaks mod:

Tradition
Splendor - Expending a Great Person grants 50 Culture (currently 50 Golden Age Points and Culture)
Finisher - Add +1 City working range in capital. Remove +25% Golden Age length

Artistry
Opener - +25% Great Person Rate in all Cities replaced with Earn Great Artists, Writers, and Musicians +25% faster
Heritage - Removed 200GAP from constructing World Wonders. Lowered yields on University from 46 to 44Added -25% GAPs needed to trigger a Golden Age
National Treasure - Removed 50 on GP expend. added 250 from constructing World Wonders, Scaling with Era

Overall this removes 2 policy bonuses that are found elsewhere (yield on GP expend and GA length), and adds 2 new ones (working range in capital, GA meter reduction), so more diverse mechanics overall (yay)
Removes all GA-related bonuses from Tradition
Removes overt GEMS bonuses from Artistry without affecting the GWAM bonuses.
Removes overlap of early GAPs on expend with Pyramids.

The relative power of the GA meter reduction and the working tile radius increase would need playtesting, but I think these bonuses will be a pretty big buff to Artistry. The GA meter reduction effectively makes each point of GAPs stronger. Might need to take some sources of GAPs off the rest of the tree to compensate, like reducing the scaler to 1 per city.

 

[Rekk]

it would be a big improvement if 2/3 GPPs generated in a city stayed there, but the other 1/3rd went into a global pot. A Great Person would be born whenever a city's local pot + global pot reaches the threshold. That would make at least some of the GPPs on empire go towards something, and mean that there is some benefit to global GP rate bonuses, gardens, etc. outside your core guild cities.

This is 100% doable. Even the UI shouldn't be all that difficult, given that we would duplicate what is done with production.

 

[pineappledan]

This is 100% doable. Even the UI shouldn't be all that difficult, given that we would duplicate what is done with production.

Having just got done fiddling with SpecialistRates while implementing the Manchu's ability it seems very doable, yeah. The only difficulty would be that GPPs would accrue faster in mid-late game, but be pretty much unaffected in early game, so we would need to adjust the GPP birth thresholds to make them cost more GPPs, but do it in a way that doesn't make GPPs too slow to start.

 

[CppMaster]

In civ 6 great people are generated on empire. I think that overall that's a worse system

Why do you think that? What's wrong with global GPPs?

 

[pineappledan]

In civ 6 there is a finite pool of great people with unique bonuses in each era, and it's first-come-first-serve to get them, based on global accrual of GPPs. I was talking more about the entire GP system in civ 6, which I think is needlessly complex and unrewarding.

I find nothing particularly wrong with having local GP generation, I think it makes sense to have them localized just for immersion reasons. However, it would be nice to have somewhere for GPPs to go in secondary and tertiary cities, so it doesn't feel totally pointless to have GPPs accrue in those cities.