Authority vs. Progress

[PapaRockett]

I'm finding it hard to justify choosing Authority over Progress for most war civs. Authority does give a small boost to production and unit combat strength but the lack of food and gold is a huge struggle. I can't invest in buildings easily, I can't work specialists very well because of the food. I can only see the advantage of Authority when playing a civ that has a strong early unit to guarantee a few victories (Songhai, Celts, Indonesia).

Perhaps I'm missing something? Is there that much of a benefit choosing Authority? Do I just ignore certain buildings to avoid gold maintenance?

 

[FoxOfWar]

I find Authority better when I have a lot of turf to 'myself' - that the nearest neighbour is not immediate. Largely because no civs nearby = a lot of barbarians. The production boost from the scaler and Tribute are also pretty good for getting those numerous cities going a lot quicker than Progress too.

But, admittedly I do play on Huge almost all the time so the scenario of not having any nearby neighbours (or one you can conquer before even finding other civs) is a lot more likely.

Depends also on terrain. Authority feels better on 'rough' starts (tundra, desert, etc).

Shortage of gold is sometimes an issue, but I find I can largely offset it by having my turf improved asap.

Had a recent Byzantium warmongering game where I was on ridiculous negative GPT until way later, but kept myself afloat with the belief that gets gold from inquisitors - I had four other religions on my continent, so my cities were constantly being bounced around religiously, and anything I would conquer would also need an inquisitor... That was fun, if weird.

 

[Cool2002]

I only go for domination victories and I also mostly go progress 1st too even though i will go authority 2nd a lot. Progress just seems better opener to me in general too but I like to build up and improve my own land quickly and wait to attack close to but before the renaissance era. Progress just kinda has no holes in yields in my opinion and you can play passively and not get behind too much.

Authority is more civ-dependant and has to be active early, otherwise I don't see how you'd keep up.. Authority does seem to really need you to be able to tribute CS early and often to be optimal and with some civs with early UU or mongol/zulu this can snowball early. I assume most people go for tribute and then imperium first, but no matter what path you chose getting that 3rd and 4th policy seems slow but urgently needed in authority..
I'm not that good of a player but either my science ,culture, or growth will be slow. Farming barbs ,Cs units, and stealing workers all help but isn't guaranteed.

I think the settler changes and tribute policy change also kinda hurt authority early growth, I guess it fits it's theme more but its slower to expand as you've said the food just isn't there. Capital will be focused on units usually to get tributes going but It's the early game so you'll have to sacrifice something.and wont be strong in all areas The recent weaker city strength probably helps authority some though; get some early captures with France or someone and you can be off to the races. I think the map type and settings you play on can make a big difference too, I like playing with more open space ( fewer ais and Cs than standard) so i guess that biases me towards progress too.

 

[kenneth1221]

For Authority, you need to kill stuff early. I don't think the optimal use of it is to hunt down barbs, but rather to kill a neighbor early for their land and their science and start snowballing.

Progress in theory is good for wide and ultra-wide games, especially if you have a lot of land you can claim nearby.

 

[Tantro]

Authority does as suggested, it sets a precedence for aggression and exertion of power. This is reflected in the different policies; that you need to exert that power to gain anything from it or you will fall behind progress players with lots of land to expand. If I have a lot of land nearby I'd rather go progress. Flavor wise I think authority is in a good place, but I almost never pick it unless I know I'm going to warmonger early on. But with Celts, etc. authority can be very strong indeed, especially if you're in a good position to keep abusing your civ neighbors and including city states.

Having said that I feel like certain policies are a bit counter-intuitive, like and from garrisons? I want to have my troops out and about exerting power, not sit at home guarding safe cities, but I guess this policy is for peace time when you're not in a position to warmonger or bully city states. Same with the 10 pop free unit feels lackluster as well, but at least it contributes to the overall theme and you can leave them as garrisons for no maintenance.

Overall I feel going authority is riskier than progress. Progress is a lot more predictable, but authority sets up late game with more resilience (war weariness reduction) against angry neighbors that every game eventually boils down to. GG for faith is neat. I think authority is a well designed tree, but I can see how choosing progress might feel safer with all its great passive benefits.

Time to play an authority game!

 

[crdvis16]

Gold problems should be largely solved by Imperium, clearing barbarian camps, and tribute from city states. These are all instant gold sources. It's pretty normal as Authority to be negative in GPT but having a pool of gold anyway from instant sources. If you're playing Authority you should have a strong early game army that is constantly busy clearing camps or tributing. If you're a civ without an early game UU then you can always go for 3-4 early spearmen or horsemen which should allow you to tribute every nearby CS at least once.

Heavy tribute is especially powerful. Heavy production tribute can secure you early wonders or help speed build settlers to avoid losing turns of growth. Heavy faith tribute can help secure a religion. Heavy science/culture can each get you almost an entire early policy/tech. I think a lot of people that have trouble with Authority aren't using tribute to its full potential.

 

[andersw]

I mainly play authority (should probably try a bit of progress was a while since last time), I'm not saying auth is better but the main strong points are.
1. One hammer in every city for each policy, already at 3 policys this is equal to a mined hill.
2. Every kill provide yields (culture and in time science).
3. Landsknechts, you can purchase as many as you can afford and they dont require resources, get full exp on purchase and are good for the time period.
4. Tribute, hammer/gold on border expand and extra yields on city tribute.
5. Imperium, Culture and Science on settle and city conquer.
6. Free units (per 10 citizen), other than capital it can take some time to kick in but it does have value.
7. 25% Barb bonus means you clear camps with warriors or warrior+scout.

If you mainly play peacefully and/or phoney wars I assume progress is better, authority really starts to shine when you begin to take cities.
It also favors epic/marathon. (I play on epic)
Faith buying generals is extremely useful if you don't have hero worship in which case you will likely generate enough from conquest.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I feel that Progress is simply more consistent than Authority when it comes to what you can expect. With Authority, you rely more on luck to dictate on you can perform. First, barbarian camps are very important of early culture and gold. However, what if the closest barbarian camps are close to CS and are cleared before you get there? Next, the location of CS is also vital. If they are very far away, getting tributes regularly becomes very difficult, let alone heavy tributes. After that, the location of the closest AI also plays a major role. If you get a civ like Ethiopia who can get ahead in technology very quickly, then early wars are quite tough to win and getting a good timing for war will delay your yields since you won't get kills and/or cities from lack of wars. Authority has the potential to snowball very quickly or fall behind to the point where you just can't challenge your neighbors.

It's literally the high risk vs high reward style that simply cannot pay off as consistently as Progress. I think this is why more people like Progress because it can get the job done with wars without you falling behind in yields and needing to play a tons of catch up games.

 

[CrazyG]

What difficulty do you play on?

I think authority steadily becomes a lot less consistent on higher difficulties, because of how the other civs deal with barbarians. My experience on Deity is that unless you are quite isolated you will see very few barbarians, sometimes none at all within the first hundred turns. The AI just slaughters barbarians and clears the camps very quickly. They get more units on high difficulties, on a map like pangea there will be AI pathfinders and warriors everywhere, and barb camps cannot spawn on a tile if a major civ can see it (so starting near snow is actually quite helpful). If you can't clear a barb camp early on, that alone more or less shuts down authority in comparison to progress.

The other side of the coin is if you are isolated, sure there are barbarians to kill, but after that you need to fight major civs. If they are far away and you can't conquer too much, what was the point of authority?

In my experience, authority is stupidly strong if you can heavy tribute city states, which requires building horsemen or spearmen, neither of which is great in this meta. I suspect a new version is close, and changes to city defense or archer will really help authority. The heavy tribute for happiness and military CS are worth a lot more than the alliance is. Of course, you can heavy tribute while playing progress or tradition as well, but authority does get 25 extra culture per tribute.

This isn't consistent either though. If you start with 3 faith CS you can get a religion around turn 50 with a bit of luck. If you start with 3 food CS you can get like a 12 pop capital (hopefully you have tiles worth using). If an AI pledges to protect to CS, it slows you down so much. The only way to remove a pledge to protect is to totally kill that player.

So, a lot of high roll potential, but a lot of weakness as well. As authority you really want to start on mines or camps, not fishing boats or plantations, because you just don't have the early science to research very much.

 

[crdvis16]

I feel that Progress is simply more consistent than Authority when it comes to what you can expect. With Authority, you rely more on luck to dictate on you can perform. First, barbarian camps are very important of early culture and gold. However, what if the closest barbarian camps are close to CS and are cleared before you get there? Next, the location of CS is also vital. If they are very far away, getting tributes regularly becomes very difficult, let alone heavy tributes. After that, the location of the closest AI also plays a major role. If you get a civ like Ethiopia who can get ahead in technology very quickly, then early wars are quite tough to win and getting a good timing for war will delay your yields since you won't get kills and/or cities from lack of wars. Authority has the potential to snowball very quickly or fall behind to the point where you just can't challenge your neighbors.

It's literally the high risk vs high reward style that simply cannot pay off as consistently as Progress. I think this is why more people like Progress because it can get the job done with wars without you falling behind in yields and needing to play a tons of catch up games.

The risk of going progress is not having enough land to settle to truly take advantage of its bonuses, so it's not without some risk of its own. You're probably right that Authority is higher risk, higher reward though.

Having said that, in general I've found that I don't often get screwed over in all 3 ways when playing Authority. Either I have a decent number of barbarians to hunt, a decent number of CSs to tribute, or a neighbor who is a decent potential victim of my aggression. It's rare to fail on all 3 of those in the same game because they are somewhat mutually exclusive.

What difficulty do you play on?

I think authority steadily becomes a lot less consistent on higher difficulties, because of how the other civs deal with barbarians. My experience on Deity is that unless you are quite isolated you will see very few barbarians, sometimes none at all within the first hundred turns. The AI just slaughters barbarians and clears the camps very quickly. They get more units on high difficulties, on a map like pangea there will be AI pathfinders and warriors everywhere, and barb camps cannot spawn on a tile if a major civ can see it (so starting near snow is actually quite helpful). If you can't clear a barb camp early on, that alone more or less shuts down authority in comparison to progress.

The other side of the coin is if you are isolated, sure there are barbarians to kill, but after that you need to fight major civs. If they are far away and you can't conquer too much, what was the point of authority?

In my experience, authority is stupidly strong if you can heavy tribute city states, which requires building horsemen or spearmen, neither of which is great in this meta. I suspect a new version is close, and changes to city defense or archer will really help authority. The heavy tribute for happiness and military CS are worth a lot more than the alliance is. Of course, you can heavy tribute while playing progress or tradition as well, but authority does get 25 extra culture per tribute.

This isn't consistent either though. If you start with 3 faith CS you can get a religion around turn 50 with a bit of luck. If you start with 3 food CS you can get like a 12 pop capital (hopefully you have tiles worth using). If an AI pledges to protect to CS, it slows you down so much. The only way to remove a pledge to protect is to totally kill that player.

So, a lot of high roll potential, but a lot of weakness as well. As authority you really want to start on mines or camps, not fishing boats or plantations, because you just don't have the early science to research very much.

I haven't had many games personally where I can't find any barbarians. But I also play continents so maybe it's an issue for pangaea primarily? The number of barbarians can no doubt vary, though. I also personally don't run into the issue of being isolated since I don't play games where bad luck puts me on a mini continent by myself regardless of what opening policy I want to use (meaning, I abandon games as soon as I realize I'm by myself). In an isolation authority game I would think that more available barbarians along with CS tribute followed by CS conquering could bridge the gap until you can invade and attack AI?

Totally agree on the power and variability of CS tribute. However, I see getting early spears or horsemen for tribute as not a huge drawback despite ranged units being somewhat superior. You typically only need 4 spears/horses or so to initially tribute and after that you can still get archers->cbows for when you plan to attack an AI.

 

[cerk]

Heavy tribute is broken really. Played a progress carthage on communitas and I was in renaissance after tributing 3 militaristic CS, while the AIs were stealing Drama and poetry from me. Repeated tributing of 1 mercantile CS got me some a great engineer to half a great engineer worth of production which let me build Stonehenge, Great wall, Parthenon, Temple of Artemis, colossus. This was with progress, so no double yields on tribute that you get from authority and no 30 scaling culture.

 

[Tantro]

A short, authority play-by-play. Celts, Pangea, normal speed, Immortal, turn 147.

Had a bit of a rough start, missed pyramid with one turn to Venice (feels super bad). Coffee also not super great, but still very important to field any army. Decided to stick it out to see if Morocco could be taken out quickly before restarting. He went tradition and was already wonder whoring. Built two Pictish warriors and three archers, went north to demand two gold tributes before marching onward. Bought a couple more PWs with the gold earned from bully. Terrains around Marrakech was good for an assault and he only had one archer as garrison and a warrior in defense. The warrior ran away for some reason, lol. Guess he was reading the writing on the wall.

Marrakech got captured after losing my scout and two PW to the city (14 CS). It was totally worth it though because he had built three wonders already, more than making up for losing pyramids in the beginning. Here I made a mistake. I should've annexed and starved the city down to one pop to offset the unhappiness, but chose puppet instead. Missed out on 5 culture and 2 faith for a long time.

After that, a good numbers of barb huts spawned around my territory (probably around 5-6 huts). After wiping out the barbarians, and to keep up the pressure, I declared on Nebu, south of Marrakech. Nippur had Walls of Babylon and garrisoned by a Bowman (Tradition). City hit my army hard, which consisted of four CBs, six PWs and a GG, but Nebu couldn't reinforce because of his jungle start so I ended up only losing one PW and a CB. Annexed Nippur, bought two tiles and planted a citadel next to Babylon for good measure. Got some nice yields from capture with Hero Worship and Imperium.

Thanks to Imperium, tributes and Celtic Morrigan pantheon ( , and on unit kill) - policy wise, it all amounted to full Authority tree just as Chivalry tech was researched. Alahambra is hopefully mine in one turn, and thanks to a timely bully quest I also have my first +1 range CB.

Verdict, Authority is pretty good.

Spoiler :

 

[crdvis16]

A short, authority play-by-play. Celts, Pangea, normal speed, Immortal, turn 147.

Had a bit of a rough start, missed pyramid with one turn to Venice (feels super bad). Coffee also not super great, but still very important to field any army. Decided to stick it out to see if Morocco could be taken out quickly before restarting. He went tradition and was already wonder whoring. Built two Pictish warriors and three archers, went north to demand two gold tributes before marching onward. Bought a couple more PWs with the gold earned from bully. Terrains around Marrakech was good for an assault and he only had one archer as garrison and a warrior in defense. The warrior ran away for some reason, lol. Guess he was reading the writing on the wall.

Marrakech got captured after losing my scout and two PW to the city (14 CS). It was totally worth it though because he had built three wonders already, more than making up for losing pyramids in the beginning. Here I made a mistake. I should've annexed and starved the city down to one pop to offset the unhappiness, but chose puppet instead. Missed out on 5 culture and 2 faith for a long time.

After that, a good numbers of barb huts spawned around my territory (probably around 5-6 huts). After wiping out the barbarians, and to keep up the pressure, I declared on Nebu, south of Marrakech. Nippur had Walls of Babylon and garrisoned by a Bowman (Tradition). City hit my army hard, which consisted of four CBs, six PWs and a GG, but Nebu couldn't reinforce because of his jungle start so I ended up only losing one PW and a CB. Annexed Nippur, bought two tiles and planted a citadel next to Babylon for good measure. Got some nice yields from capture with Hero Worship and Imperium.

Thanks to Imperium, tributes and Celtic Morrigan pantheon ( , and on unit kill) - policy wise, it all amounted to full Authority tree just as Chivalry tech was researched. Alahambra is hopefully mine in one turn, and thanks to a timely bully quest I also have my first +1 range CB.

Verdict, Authority is pretty good.

Spoiler :

View attachment 544825

Invading Babylon at the height of his defensive power (UU bowmen and UB walls) was ballsy, though I suppose you also have your UU.

 

[andersw]

A short, authority play-by-play. Celts, Pangea, normal speed, Immortal, turn 147.

Had a bit of a rough start, missed pyramid with one turn to Venice (feels super bad). Coffee also not super great, but still very important to field any army. Decided to stick it out to see if Morocco could be taken out quickly before restarting. He went tradition and was already wonder whoring. Built two Pictish warriors and three archers, went north to demand two gold tributes before marching onward. Bought a couple more PWs with the gold earned from bully. Terrains around Marrakech was good for an assault and he only had one archer as garrison and a warrior in defense. The warrior ran away for some reason, lol. Guess he was reading the writing on the wall.

Marrakech got captured after losing my scout and two PW to the city (14 CS). It was totally worth it though because he had built three wonders already, more than making up for losing pyramids in the beginning. Here I made a mistake. I should've annexed and starved the city down to one pop to offset the unhappiness, but chose puppet instead. Missed out on 5 culture and 2 faith for a long time.

After that, a good numbers of barb huts spawned around my territory (probably around 5-6 huts). After wiping out the barbarians, and to keep up the pressure, I declared on Nebu, south of Marrakech. Nippur had Walls of Babylon and garrisoned by a Bowman (Tradition). City hit my army hard, which consisted of four CBs, six PWs and a GG, but Nebu couldn't reinforce because of his jungle start so I ended up only losing one PW and a CB. Annexed Nippur, bought two tiles and planted a citadel next to Babylon for good measure. Got some nice yields from capture with Hero Worship and Imperium.

Thanks to Imperium, tributes and Celtic Morrigan pantheon ( , and on unit kill) - policy wise, it all amounted to full Authority tree just as Chivalry tech was researched. Alahambra is hopefully mine in one turn, and thanks to a timely bully quest I also have my first +1 range CB.

Verdict, Authority is pretty good.

Spoiler :

View attachment 544825

Yeah I find those starts where nearest opponent capital extremely close to be broken, I wish there was a map script with min distance, I've even had maps where three capitals are visible in one screen shot.

 

[Stalker0]

At the end of the day, warring still remains the strongest strat in Civ 5, and Authority helps you war more. More CS, healing on your melee units as they kill, less war weariness. All add up to your war machine.

 

[CrazyG]

Heavy tribute is broken really.

I agree.

At the end of the day, warring still remains the strongest strat in Civ 5, and Authority helps you war more. More CS, healing on your melee units as they kill, less war weariness. All add up to your war machine.

I think there is a common fallacy (not saying it's you in particular) of I want to fight, therefore authority. Or I tribute CS, therefore authority. Progress can work pretty well with both of those strategies. Progress's easy science in particular is so valuable if you want to rush spearmen or horsemen. Right now I find early science really tough with authority (I skip pottery some games).

 

[Bromar1]

The only way to remove a pledge to protect is to totally kill that player

Doesn't the AI also have the same 10 turn grace period to increase it's military strength to meet the requirement?

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I play a lot of conquest games mostly on emperor and i finally stepped to immortal and it's going well but i almost always go for progress or even tradition yet i have never found the authority tree appealing for a couple of reasons.
1- Barbarians, the prime source for early culture are nowhere to be seen after the first few turns in emperor and immortal while with progress you can prioritize the left side of the policy tree to get culture from just building stuff sometimes it requires delaying the monument/shrine in the second city but it really helps.
2-Authority is extremely dependent on the map and your proximity to other civs and more importantly other CS; spawning on an island or a peninsula is just a bad start to pick authority.
3-Early conquest requires you to sacrifice the infrastructure & settling and unless you go on a conquest spree which is not always feasible above Emperor could and will set you far behind the rest of the players.
4-Science from authority is dependent on killing units which is not a consistent way to get it since you usually aim to rush & capture cities and you are guaranteed to fall behind in terms of technology unless you get a science monopoly like citrus or lapis.
5-i find the garrison policy from authority pretty weird and counter intuitive rather than an alternative way to gain culture.
6-Progress scales much better in the mid-late game and the infrastructure you invest on early in the game you can get more land & cities in late medieval and early renaissance thanks to the power of canons that are not countered by any renaissance building unlike trebuchets and catapults that have to get through castles and walls respectively.

 

[crdvis16]

I play a lot of conquest games mostly on emperor and i finally stepped to immortal and it's going well but i almost always go for progress or even tradition yet i have never found the authority tree appealing for a couple of reasons.
1- Barbarians, the prime source for early culture are nowhere to be seen after the first few turns in emperor and immortal while with progress you can prioritize the left side of the policy tree to get culture from just building stuff sometimes it requires delaying the monument/shrine in the second city but it really helps.
2-Authority is extremely dependent on the map and your proximity to other civs and more importantly other CS; spawning on an island or a peninsula is just a bad start to pick authority.
3-Early conquest requires you to sacrifice the infrastructure & settling and unless you go on a conquest spree which is not always feasible above Emperor could and will set you far behind the rest of the players.
4-Science from authority is dependent on killing units which is not a consistent way to get it since you usually aim to rush & capture cities and you are guaranteed to fall behind in terms of technology unless you get a science monopoly like citrus or lapis.
5-i find the garrison policy from authority pretty weird and counter intuitive rather than an alternative way to gain culture.
6-Progress scales much better in the mid-late game and the infrastructure you invest on early in the game you can get more land & cities in late medieval and early renaissance thanks to the power of canons that are not countered by any renaissance building unlike trebuchets and catapults that have to get through castles and walls respectively.

Tribute can solve a lot of these issues. It's the best way to get ahead as authority IMO. I would suggest giving authority another go where you make a conscious effort to tribute early and often by beelining an early UU, spears, or horsemen.

 

[zeofig]

Authority is insanely good with tribute abuse. I play Oval/Standard/Immortal. One thing people might not realise is that you can just kill a CS's units, and then they become easy to tribute. Plus you get to kill their units. CS are piñatas. Also the heal on kill policy never goes out of style.