Contrast photo Journal tradition vs Progress

Up to t192

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They really don't seem to have many units. It is a bit confusing as they rolled over another player. Muskets also murder xbows rather easily. It is mostly just a case of which cities to take and I end up taking a bunch because my happyness is just capped at itty size anyway. Once the war is over I'll focus on more CS on the other side of them. And continue the war into Poland if they look weak.

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Up to T210

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Songhai had lots of nice wonders to conquer which is nice. Don't think I will be building many of my own this game. I won the treasure fleet mostly to see if I could. Was pretty close and I doubt it was really worth it but still. Not like I have much to do with my production anyway.

There is a bit of a tight choke vs Poland but above them are multiple CS allies so they are going to get somewhat swarmed by me. I also have indirect fire so I can push in and shell them somewhat. My army is also getting pretty huge so any losses don't really matter.

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Actually I'm struggling. Songhai and France are both strong in my game and declared war together. Not sure if my problems are due to tradition or just because I made some poor decisions.
I think the main reason is because you let France forward settled you, thus he became permanent aggressive and Songhai is very happy getting paid to pass by. Early border dispute is a big pain that can snowball diplomacy to late game.
If you blocked that France would have glare toward Maya more.
 
You seem to be rather far ahead of me, not sure how much it was pyramids vs me building up for more late game stuff. My religion doesn't do much other than war.
You didn't post your tech/social policy count but I'm ahead of RandomNub. If the goal is to compare tradition and progress, I feel like tradition does a much better job in terms of science and culture, even with a lot of yields missing due to national wonder bug. Eg: in my turn 110 enhance image I would have 81 science instead of just 70 if the bug wasn't there.
 
You didn't post your tech/social policy count but I'm ahead of RandomNub. If the goal is to compare tradition and progress, I feel like tradition does a much better job in terms of science and culture, even with a lot of yields missing due to national wonder bug. Eg: in my turn 110 enhance image I would have 81 science instead of just 70 if the bug wasn't there.

Yeah I agree I think tradition is just better. It is a bit hard to compare numbers with all the bonsues progress gets from making stuff but being better later on isn't very exciting.

But Progress is still fine, it just takes longer to get going.
 
Yeah I agree I think tradition is just better. It is a bit hard to compare numbers with all the bonsues progress gets from making stuff but being better later on isn't very exciting.

But Progress is still fine, it just takes longer to get going.
I feel like the fact that warring as tradition is harder really hurts it, especially on Deity where you have to be potentially more aggressive (depending on your neighbours) and its harder to win against the AI "passively" because they have so large passive bonuses. Less production and gold and also less unit cap than progress/authority makes this much harder if you find yourself in a situation like this (especially in CrazyGs situation with 2 fronts). The fact that you can have more units and create units faster as progress should not be overlooked, even if you have potentially more culture playing as tradition. I feel like progress and authority are much safer bets on Deity when you have to use military means to achieve victory.
 
I feel like the fact that warring as tradition is harder really hurts it, especially on Deity where you have to be potentially more aggressive (depending on your neighbours) and its harder to win against the AI "passively" because they have so large passive bonuses. Less production and gold and also less unit cap than progress/authority makes this much harder if you find yourself in a situation like this (especially in CrazyGs situation with 2 fronts). The fact that you can have more units and create units faster as progress should not be overlooked, even if you have potentially more culture playing as tradition. I feel like progress and authority are much safer bets on Deity when you have to use military means to achieve victory.


I just feel like I could have taken tradition and still built six cities and been better off. the cities would be slightly worse but a much better capital compensates for that. It just too so long for progress to get going that I cold simply have built the extra units with my capital anyway under tradition.

There is some value in being safer but tradition has a defensive boost to cities too.
 
I just feel like I could have taken tradition and still built six cities and been better off. the cities would be slightly worse but a much better capital compensates for that. It just too so long for progress to get going that I cold simply have built the extra units with my capital anyway under tradition.

There is some value in being safer but tradition has a defensive boost to cities too.
There's one specific aspect of the national wonder bug, the lack of 2 [IMG alt=":c5culture:"]https://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/civ5/culture.png[/IMG] to monuments, baths, and gardens, that I wonder if we shouldn't just adopt as a feature. This policy is such a cause of runaway snowballing and makes wide tradition competitive if not better than progress in terms of culture.

For the 10 culture per building to match just the monument, you need to build something every 5 turns in ancient/classical. To match bath + monument you would need 1 per 5 turns in medieval, and in renaissance you would need to build 1 every 5 turns to match all 3. That simply cannot be done (even if you had enough production you'll run out of buildings).

The math gets even worse for progress if you factor +% bonuses, such as a golden age.

Even without it, tradition is more than capable of keeping pace with progress/authority in terms of culture. For scaling culture you would still have have the 1[IMG alt=":c5culture:"]https://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/civ5/culture.png[/IMG] per 2 citizens in capital, extra specialists/great works, 50 culture per great person scaling with era, and 10% culture in the capital. My experience on Deity is that the top AI is almost always tradition and far ahead of the others. On this patch I'm seeing much more diversity among the top AI.
 
There's one specific aspect of the national wonder bug, the lack of 2 [IMG alt=":c5culture:"]https://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/civ5/culture.png[/IMG] to monuments, baths, and gardens, that I wonder if we shouldn't just adopt as a feature. This policy is such a cause of runaway snowballing and makes wide tradition competitive if not better than progress in terms of culture.

For the 10 culture per building to match just the monument, you need to build something every 5 turns in ancient/classical. To match bath + monument you would need 1 per 5 turns in medieval, and in renaissance you would need to build 1 every 5 turns to match all 3. That simply cannot be done (even if you had enough production you'll run out of buildings).

The math gets even worse for progress if you factor +% bonuses, such as a golden age.

Even without it, tradition is more than capable of keeping pace with progress/authority in terms of culture. For scaling culture you would still have have the 1[IMG alt=":c5culture:"]https://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/civ5/culture.png[/IMG] per 2 citizens in capital, extra specialists/great works, 50 culture per great person scaling with era, and 10% culture in the capital. My experience on Deity is that the top AI is almost always tradition and far ahead of the others. On this patch I'm seeing much more diversity among the top AI.

I think I might well have been making one every five turns later on, I had a pretty insane amount of production. There are lots of pretty useless building now. But that is later on so it matters a lot less. I think progress does out scale tradition given enough time. But that is pretty useless because late game matters so much less.

Think i'd rather buff progress than nerf tradition though. Really seems like the lots of cities policy should have a settler bonus somewhere
 
T166 Industrial
Spoiler :

3 turns ago I finished off Napoleon, taking my time to milk as much culture from terracotta kills as possible, then Askia declared on me. It's not going well for him. I built a hideous road network on the way to the French cities, now with Kilimanjaro bonus movement thanks to my oversea expansion, range+indirect fire musket veterans (fresh troops became medics or barrage into logistic wannabes) and a tech lead I am more confident and facetank those mandelakus. I have open borders with most other civs who became friendlier with me after I denounced Askia, every CS is my ally, only had to send a spy to two of them when a timely quest popped up.

I'm working toward the limit of my supply cap (even went into red for a bit before annexing the decent French cities and building some castles and harbors around), with most of the newbies being crossbowmen that I massed before they became obsolete, then mass upgraded them. You can also spot my fresh navy, they are level 4 already thanks to armories and the Orleans CS quest. I'm going to send them to the other side of the map... innocent military exercises I swear.

The next policy is going to be consulates, giving me enough science through Holy Law to complete Navigation. Completing the Statecraft policy tree gives Ethiopia a free tech, that'd be Rifling for my UU (a pretty meh defensive one, but we're looking at base 42 CS vs 25 mandelakus/tercios), field guns and even more important Industrial era: more instant yields from progress and religion, and a GPP of choice every 5 turns: I don't have any wonder on the wishlist, the last one I snatched with a GE has been Himeji, after a spy in Instanbul told me Suleiman was working on it (mostly out of spite but better have it than having to fight against it); I'll use the first ones as great diplomats just to secure more embassies, buying them in the expansions for better border growth from veneration culture.

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T176 Second Congress of Addis Ababa
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These have been 10 bloody turns, averaging one city down every 3 turns. Until 2 turns ago Casimir and Suleiman had a defensive pact up, the plan was to Annex Gao and Tombouctu for Ivory monopoly and some decent cities while razing the rest and vassalize whatever is left of Songhai before declaring on Poland. Then out of blue Portugal denounced me, everybody denounced me, Suleiman switched dp with Pacal meaning I could go war against Poland alone but then Maria declared on me. I'm really, really tempted to just brute force through them all but good ole Ashurbanipal went to war against the Maya and at the same time asked to be my bff. I can still pretend to not be a warmonger, afterall I am only fighting defensive wars... don't mind my Imperialism dip.

A funny Congress session, I have 13 delegates vs 10 of the world combined so I went overkill on world religion. People are supporting the dead French Scholars in Residence resolution and I failed to put enough votes to Nay the Global Peace Accords...too bad, it costs me about 80 gpt. I should have figured both Maya and Assyria wouldn't have vetoed their own religion, lesson learned.
Thanks to CS quests, Notre Dame and a Great Artist I bulbed for GAPs (I had nothing else to theme and don't plan to win to tourism at this point) I'm pretty much in a permanent GA, the next turn it'll trigger again and with chicken pizza, gold and porcellain monopoly it's going to last till the bloody end of the game I guess.

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Maria declaration of war costed me a whole cargo ship. My colonies are protected by CS with their own Naus, I'm in no rush of sending the bulk of my navy there. Instead, I think I'll teach some piracy lessons to Suleiman coastal cities while teching toward Dynamite and cruisers.

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That's it, I might get bored by the micro and call it a win. Judging by #cities, map and science/culture output I'm on par with Stii Progress game... just 40ish turns quicker :p How's Tradition going?
 
Yeah it doesn't really seem like you are losing, it wasn't very close for me.

Spoiler end game spoilers :

I won on T268

 
Up to t236


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Much war pew pews. The AI is simply too far behind me now. In theroy equal on tech in practise behind on the only techs that matter. It is more a case of moving units now and upgrading. Landships coming soon for Portugal

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Okay so after playing a bit more I see what you see mean by the AI's lack of units. France had a decent initial wave but almost nothing backing it up.

I certainly won't win peacefully before stii did but I'm in a situation where I'm dominant. Maybe its how many hours I've played this mod but I don't find these large scale wars particularly enjoyable anymore. Can post some pics soon.
 
So you are saying you don't want to sign up for the always war play through? :)
 
I don't remember exactly what I did, I really wanted ancestor worship for two faith, two culture, one science building to invest and a first building in my progress cities. I think I started with monument, then invested shrine. I was very proud of my satellite cities being so strong early. But then after councils, steles, wells, instead of libraries, I should have built archers first. Barbarian dromon and archers wrecked one of my city defenses to zero, then france came without an
y effort :hammer2:Also, I played badly I think, got monopoly only on 68 and had lower yields than you guys I think? What do you think were my mistakes? I think without progress my cities would be so much weaker, I don't understand how you are able to play so well as tradition.

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Yea you've been greedy :p Still building settlers in Harar when at 4 cities, besieged by barbs and with France forward settling...you asked for it.

Libraries at 3 pop are a bad return of hammers, you can't realistically work the specialist hence better build the barrack if you're researching arenas (1 science vs 2, but soon they'll be worth 2 hammers too), workers or units if needed.

Ancestors is a good pantheon but in this particular game you're lacking early production and as Ethiopia you can found with just steles anyway (I lacked shrines in all my cities but 3 until Renaissance...then built them mostly because they were worth 30 instant culture ). God of All Creation or Tutelary Gods let you build settlers and infrastructure quicker, without the need of beelining councils either (those I build very late in build order outside of my capital, and only after the settlers phase is over and I can focus growth).

Scout more with the initial pathfinder, he's not good at dealing with barbarians while meeting more CS means more quests and there's usually something you can complete without efforts such as connect a resource or discover a civ or natural wonder. Instead of keeping the pathfinder at home, get a slinger or another warrior and clear the nearby camps before they spam more barbarians and spiral out of control: after 50+ turns barbarians are going to tech up and you'll start seeing archer and spearmen so you really want to clear them fast.

Generally speaking, play the map not the civ. You're cornered by two aggressive AIs with meh land and many barbarians and you discover all of that in the first 20 turns, plenty of time to adapt.
 
Exactly man, I was so greedy for :c5culture: and :c5faith:, :c5science: too. I went three production and faster civilians policy first, so my science wasn't that good. As progress councils are much better cause in first four cities they effectively give you more than 50% of your :c5science:, usually 7 to 11, which is huge to your culture in turn. I definitely agree they should be further down on a build order here, I shouldn't go ancestor too as it is not that needed and tutelary seems perfect here. In other words, I didn't play my civilization's advantages. The map about the map is also true, I was just bad at both :c5happy:. Thanks for the analysis, it gave me a lot of insight. Still don't understand how you can hold your ground and snowball as tradition on this start, but I'm only getting my feet wet again in Civ 5.

I do observe that AI is very slow to fund, in my games typically three of the religions are taken after turn 100. If you have the religion at turn 80 or 90, it's a guaranteed safe spot and you can bet it'll be a first one. I don't like it one bit, competition to religion should be more pressing to be fun.

How about another one? :rolleyes:
 
T205 Modern Era, and Victory next turn

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I'll spare you the military stategy details, aka roflstomp. Poland and Maya lasted maybe 5 turns then I sandwiched Portugal and Ottomans from 3 directions keeping my supply cap maxed. After I had a clear idea of the victory timing I simply worked gold processes everywhere, faith bought merchants and admirals while building constabularies and groceries where available to keep my unhappiness menageable. I could have saved quite some turns here if I spammed more units on the Ottos front, his coastal cities were no match but to push into Instanbul I should have rush bought more rookies from the nearby cities. Instead, I had to wait for the western and northern armies to converge. It was quite satisfactory though.
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No idea, I went Progress :p
Progress into Fealty? what about you @stii, what did you choose after progress?
Btw, thanks everyone for your posts. This kind of content was always my favorite. Really good for noobs like me. Please do more <3

Edit: I just remembered you went Statecraft
 
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