Authority Vs. Progress?

[Minh Le]

Hi guys.
Ive been doing some testing with Authority and Progress going for wide conquest play style. The result is Progress out perform Authority by a huge margin. Authority is good for a head start, the first few conquered cities give a lot of science, gold and culture. But the larger you grow, the less impact those instant yield give, while Progress really shine. Stronger science, food, gold, culture, better infrastructure, faster repairing tiles... What you really lose are just extra combat strength and heal on kill, but in some case you just dont need them. The other benefits are more than enough to compensate it. I think at least Authority should give more happiness, as for now it gives too little.
What are your thought guys?

 

[amateurgamer88]

This is just my personal experience from playing with the two trees so it's pretty bias.

First, I don't think it's fair to see what happens when we complete the two tree because that's indeed when Authority starts dropping in power and Progress starts getting stronger. When we look at the two trees early on, the hammers you get from Authority is quite powerful because they help you get more units and/or buildings that you need. If you have a neighbor like Greece, you'd want those extra hammers to prepare for early aggression. I don't find Progress to fare as well when it comes to preparing for those wars. Why? Progress rewards you for buildings and not units. If you are building units to deal with a threat, you are delaying the benefits you need to get ahead.

On the topic of units, Authority gives you a good position to put them to good use. Have a decent size army? You can deter wars from your neighbors and demand tributes from CS. Some quests like encampments can be done easier with Authority as well so you can get influence if you want. Big open map with lots of Barbarians? The culture and science are going to help you a lot more.

In those same situations, Progress gets slowed down because you can't produce units as quickly. However, we all know what happens when barbarians raid your cities and slow you down. If I go Authority, I can, for quite awhile, clear encampments with a Warrior and one Pathfinder. You will have a much harder time with Progress, especially if you need units to defend your capital. Progress requires buildings to shine but those early games can be unforgiving if all you build is buildings.

What do I think the biggest strength Authority has? It gives you the option to be extra aggressive in the early game and start snowballing then. Even if you don't snowball, you can cripple your neighbors drastically with a few strategic wars and it's a matter of cleaning them up for later. That sort of aggression can be done with Progress but you are less efficient and clearly picked the wrong policy.

While I agree that Progress is so much stronger mid and late game, you have to reach that stage to see it shine. For these two policies, I think they are balanced in that they are focusing on different stages of the game. Late game Authority can't compare to Progress but you can benefit from it sooner and we all know that spikes in yields earlier in the game translates to faster snowball. Progress rewards peaceful play because, unless you can take cities, wars hurt you. Authority relies on wars so, if you have lots of neighbors and, even if you don't decisively beat them in the first few wars, they are keeping you in the game inadvertently.

I don't think Authority should get more happiness because it shouldn't excel that much late game. If you picked Authority and didn't use it to get ahead of your neighbors, then you only have yourself to blame.

 

[Owlbebach]

Ive been doing some testing with Authority and Progress going for wide conquest play style. The result is Progress out perform Authority by a huge margin. Authority is good for a head start, the first few conquered cities give a lot of science, gold and culture. But the larger you grow, the less impact those instant yield give, while Progress really shine.

I have an idea for you. Try to play Standard speed.

Also if you take into accounts yields on kill - it is not so underperforming. They are actually very big

 

[Minh Le]

My point is:
- Authority yields on kill - conquest are gonna diminished as you grow, because cost increase while yield doesnt scale. The bigger your empire is, the stronger Progress is. So if I want to conquest - build a large empire, should I choose something that get weaker overtime or something that is gonna be stronger?
- Progress give me freedom. I can go to war, or stay in temporary peace to build things up. While Authority forces me to go to war constantly if I dont want to fall behind.
- I can criple my neighbour by any tree. Take an early worker is the easiest example.
Summary, Authority is good early, but fall off quick as you grow, but its a tree for conquering? So I think at least it should have something that compliment wide play. Maybe a little needs reduction?

 

[CppMaster]

Authority makes it easier to fight and take cities. If you can do the same with Progress then it's a superior choice in long run. Isn't it how it's supposed to be?

 

[Favorius]

My point is:
- Authority yields on kill - conquest are gonna diminished as you grow, because cost increase while yield doesnt scale. The bigger your empire is, the stronger Progress is. So if I want to conquest - build a large empire, should I choose something that get weaker overtime or something that is gonna be stronger?
- Progress give me freedom. I can go to war, or stay in temporary peace to build things up. While Authority forces me to go to war constantly if I dont want to fall behind.
- I can criple my neighbour by any tree. Take an early worker is the easiest example.
Summary, Authority is good early, but fall off quick as you grow, but its a tree for conquering? So I think at least it should have something that compliment wide play. Maybe a little needs reduction?

I never liked authority much, it always felt lackluster. But once Gazebo said weakness of authority is intended because it lets you eliminate competition so you have more land/monopoly/luxuries etc.

Still I believe it can use some buffs, in form of courthouses getting need reductions under authority.

 

[Grabbl]

I think it's fine. It favours wide in the yields from border expansion and happiness / culture / production per city. And the yields from kills make it that your empire doesn't suffer from war (much) unless all other trees. That's a strong benefit. As soon as you want early war, I'm quite confident that Authority doesn't lose against Progress - of course, it requires a more active playstyle and certainly not only peaceful building like Progress.

 

[Owlbebach]

- Authority yields on kill - conquest are gonna diminished as you grow, because cost increase while yield doesnt scale

Actually yields do scale with units HP and in lategame you kill more units. But overall you are right i think, except that you might have some serious problems with early war with Progress. Authority snowballs much better, it is quite possible that you never catch up.

EDIT: i mean if you do it right - you'll have 4 policies for authority when Progress player has only 2

 

[civplayer33]

So if I want to conquest - build a large empire, should I choose something that get weaker overtime or something that is gonna be stronger?

Authority forces me to go to war constantly if I dont want to fall behind.

Like @amateurgamer88 laid out, you have a choice between early strength, which can easily lead to snowballing or late blooming, which requires you to muddle through until then.
In your current playthrough as the Aztec you chose Authority, not Progress, because Authority is what lets you maximize your power early on, especially as the Aztec get an early UU and UB as well. One could make the same argument against civs like the Aztec, namely that it's unfair that they get some early UU and UB and nothing good or special later on, while a civ like Germany gets a good UB and UU later in the game, which can help it a lot more at that stage of the game. Is that unfair? I don't think so; you make a choice when you choose your civ or policy and it is up to you to make the best of that choice. If you pick Authority and then don't go to war, you picked wrong. If you pick Progress and then turn into an early warmonger, you picked wrong. You wouldn't be so far ahead in your current Aztec playthrough if you had picked Progress instead of Authority; Authority let you snowball early at the cost of less support later in the game.

I can criple my neighbour by any tree. Take an early worker is the easiest example.

That's a strawman argument, obviously. Again, if Progress is just as good for waging war as Authority, why didn't you pick it? Because it isn't. Not even close.

 

[Gokudo01]

as i said before, people pick authority and expect to play like progress but with more war. Check CrazyG diety game with authority ( aztec ).
He started with units before shrine, he hunted barbarians and claimed tributes, the 3rd and 4th came so fast, he was so strong in this game.

Authority is not only about war, it's a different mind set, my builder order/expansion/tech planification are totally different if I pick progress or authority.
Moreover tribute scales really well.

 

[Minh Le]

Hmm... Maybe thats my play style which needs a fix. Thanks guys .

 

[CrazyG]

One thing about this, Authority is better on large land masses. If you expect early war but are on a tiny continent, progress will likely work out better.

 

[andersw]

While I'm not good enough to make a decent call for one or the othe, playing authority and comparing with lets plays I have noticed the following:
The slower speed the better authority is (not sure if progress gets any benefits for slow speed).
Raging barbs benefit authority.
A compact pangea benefit authority.
Full amount (or more) of city states benefits authority (tribute).
While diety is a lot harder, the AI produce a crap ton of units which means more culture and science from kills.

I can see that more free settle space, peaceful barbs and continents being very good for progress.

So when we are comparing the two, is that on what difficulty? and normal speed? all other settings on standard?

 

[Owlbebach]

The slower speed the better authority is (not sure if progress gets any benefits for slow speed).

I think it is the opposite. Authority on Epic has so much production that you run out of decent buildings to build. On Standard Authority really helps cause of production

 

[chicorbeef]

I think it is the opposite. Authority on Epic has so much production that you run out of decent buildings to build. On Standard Authority really helps cause of production

This isn't really an argument, Production-Tech ratio is the same on Epic as on Standard. It used to be bugged, that's probably why you remember it different.

 

[demondance]

I don't agree, Authority always be a 1st choice when you play at high level. I always want to go style settle fast, expand fast and snowball fast.

People usually go left branch, but go first 2 on right branch and spam settle. You dominate the early game and snowball like crazy. Culture and Happy bonus from 2nd policy of right branch is just ridiculous OP in early game.

The 1st right will give you science so go kill barbarian and declare war is a good choice. Just remain war as long as you can while settle down other city. Enemy can't snowball and you win a game.

Progressive seems nice on paper but the bonus come so late as I usually fall behind enemy and can not stop them snowballing. Also, Progressive suffer a lot from Happy penalty from expansion your kingdom.

My opinion, raw production bonus from Authority is the best scaling in game. More product = faster unit, faster building.

Tradition needs to be remade. It is trash, tbh.

Conclusion: Authority scale way better in early game and allow player to snowball crazy in order to archive any kind of victory. Progressive suffer from expansion, and culture. Lack of production stop city snowball and weak on army always put player in alarm state.

 

[ryanmusante]

I don't agree, Authority always be a 1st choice when you play at high level. I always want to go style settle fast, expand fast and snowball fast

What difficulty level and map options?

 

[chicorbeef]

I don't agree, Authority always be a 1st choice when you play at high level. I always want to go style settle fast, expand fast and snowball fast.

People usually go left branch, but go first 2 on right branch and spam settle. You dominate the early game and snowball like crazy. Culture and Happy bonus from 2nd policy of right branch is just ridiculous OP in early game.

The 1st right will give you science so go kill barbarian and declare war is a good choice. Just remain war as long as you can while settle down other city. Enemy can't snowball and you win a game.

Progressive seems nice on paper but the bonus come so late as I usually fall behind enemy and can not stop them snowballing. Also, Progressive suffer a lot from Happy penalty from expansion your kingdom.

My opinion, raw production bonus from Authority is the best scaling in game. More product = faster unit, faster building.

Tradition needs to be remade. It is trash, tbh.

Conclusion: Authority scale way better in early game and allow player to snowball crazy in order to archive any kind of victory. Progressive suffer from expansion, and culture. Lack of production stop city snowball and weak on army always put player in alarm state.

Tbh, I am starting to like Authority the best too, because the amount of early game warring I've been having in my games is really high, and I need that Production to survive a lot of the time.

Tradition is far from trash, however. It's meant to be played differently-it's best at Culture, and a small culture victory is a totally viable way of playing. I think it's tilted a bit towards civs like Arabia/Korea etc., civs that actually have synergy with it, but it's a solid tree.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I don't agree, Authority always be a 1st choice when you play at high level. I always want to go style settle fast, expand fast and snowball fast.

People usually go left branch, but go first 2 on right branch and spam settle. You dominate the early game and snowball like crazy. Culture and Happy bonus from 2nd policy of right branch is just ridiculous OP in early game.

The 1st right will give you science so go kill barbarian and declare war is a good choice. Just remain war as long as you can while settle down other city. Enemy can't snowball and you win a game.

Progressive seems nice on paper but the bonus come so late as I usually fall behind enemy and can not stop them snowballing. Also, Progressive suffer a lot from Happy penalty from expansion your kingdom.

My opinion, raw production bonus from Authority is the best scaling in game. More product = faster unit, faster building.

Tradition needs to be remade. It is trash, tbh.

Conclusion: Authority scale way better in early game and allow player to snowball crazy in order to archive any kind of victory. Progressive suffer from expansion, and culture. Lack of production stop city snowball and weak on army always put player in alarm state.

I have to heavily disagree with Authority always being the first choice. There are two situations where I know Progress surpasses Authority. First, your closest neighbor is too far away to wage effective warfare due to the distance you have to cover to reach them. That gives AI on higher levels lots of time to bolster their forces and you'll be struggling to mount an effective offensive with slow reinforcements. The other situation is when you're isolated from the other civs. Who will you war against if you have no neighbors?

I enjoy Authority a lot myself but I know it has its downfalls. Progress is safer in that you don't need wars to steadily catch up. Authority relies on war a lot which, while it can make you snowball, it can also make you more vulnerable as you warring with one neighbor might make another neighbor take advantage.

The two trees have their situations and one might favor our playstyle more. If one favors our playstyle more, it doesn't mean the other is horrible. I'm terrible with Tradition but I don't doubt it's garbage. I'm just garbage when it comes to playing it as it doesn't suit me at all.

 

[amateurgamer88]

Tbh, I am starting to like Authority the best too, because the amount of early game warring I've been having in my games is really high, and I need that Production to survive a lot of the time.

Tradition is far from trash, however. It's meant to be played differently-it's best at Culture, and a small culture victory is a totally viable way of playing. I think it's tilted a bit towards civs like Arabia/Korea etc., civs that actually have synergy with it, but it's a solid tree.

Tradition is also very dependent on the game pace. I find it much harder to play on Marathon than Authority or Progress. There are lots of factors that affect the strength of each of these trees. The start and your neighbors can make a huge difference too. I agree that none of them are trash and just require a different approach.