Choosing Social Policies

[chicorbeef]

Hi everyone, I was just curious as to what other people think the current social policy meta in the game is like.

Starting a fresh game, what makes you decide to pick Tradition, Progress or Authority? Terrain, neighbours, civ, etc? Same for the medieval/industrial social policy trees.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

Usually what civ I play influences that the most. I am not quite at "playing civs in an unorthodox way" yet, so I play Korea and Arabia as tradition and Songhai or Aztecs as authority. Thank god progress was recently buffed, I used to not pick that as pretty much any civ because authority was almost always better even if you werent going all out war. So the last game I started I picked progress for the first time in quite a while as Carthage. Still not sure it is better than authority because of how much you can tribute early with quinquiremes, but it is at least not a "wrong" pick any more.

 

[Melchizedek]

Which civ you're playing is very important, but here are some other considerations:

• Is the capital on good terrain? (This is more important for Tradition.)
  
• Are nearby settlement locations strong? (If there are two or three excellent locations that hook up your monopoly, Tradition is looking good. If there are many good locations OR not many nearby and you'll need to expand into better land, then Progress/Authority are indicated.)
  
• Which / how many major civs are nearby?
  
• Which / how many city states are nearby? (Very important throughout the game, but immediately having a lot of nearby CS is a boost to Authority. You can also begin to plan your CS strategy and whether statecraft and building many diplo units will be part of this game.)
  
• In light of the above, how many good cities could you self-settle? (Progress doesn't absolutely have to settle fast, but it has to settle numerous cities to be successful.)
  
• In light of the above, are there good targets for early war and/or tributing? (This is the main question for Authority.)
  
• Does the terrain well lend itself to any early wonders? (Pyramids in particular is easiest to get and most valuable with tradition. Wonders that are unlocked a tech further up the chain are easier with Progress because of the tech boost.)
  
• Which monopolies are available? (GA monopolies and, to a lesser extent % monopolies --> Tradition, while direct yield monopolies are better for Progress/Authority.)

 

[Noob Fanboy]

My favorite one is Progress, I feel the power spike at mid game is really good (even before the buff), unless you are playing a Civ with a good early UU wars at the beginning can be detrimental, one mistake and your game is over. Fighting in Medieval is a lot more safer

 

[chicorbeef]

Thanks for the replies. I have a habit of going Authority warmonger and trying to conquer neighbours even when I don't really need to or the terrain is not viable (need to learn to embrace Tradition even as non-Tradition civs) and though I actually have a decent track record with Progress I don't find myself wanting to use it often, simply because it often leads to pissing off your neighbours and having to deal with wars you gain no benefit from.

What about medieval/industrial policies? Statecraft seems more or less geared towards Diplo, especially now that spying has been revamped.