Exploration any good?

[Calouste]

Exploration tree + internal food sea trade route = instant city, just add water.

 

[NukeAJS]

I'm sure this was mentioned already, but it's situational. If you have a lot of coastal cities, it's phenomenal.

Revealing hidden antiquity sites can either be really useful or a complete waste. If you have a ton of cities, the extra artifacts can fill up those museums. If you get to archeology late and some of the artifacts have already been dug-up, hidden ones can help you get your museums filled up.

If you have just a couple of cities or get to archeology first (and make a lot of archeologists), the hidden sites are not useful.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Well as far as I can tell, the +4 from sea trade routes policy doesn't seem to work, or at least there's not indication that its working, making it annoying to finish the tree for hidden antiquity sites.

 

[pilot00]

Thats G&K thinking, it doesn't work in BNW with cheaper policies. You would have to not build monuments and avoid ruins to keep away from finishing at least two policies before rationalism is available.

Nah it can be done consistently if you beeline techs and avoid culture like the plague.
Youll finish tradition and perhaps get two filler policies or so.

Yes if you want to fill your museums and wonders with artifacts. Everything else is superfulous to the extra antiquity sites, only way to get them is Exploration.

I always seem to be overflowing with works without even trying. Once archeology ticks in I mostly cap the sites to prevent others from digging them up.

 

[BroOfTheSun]

Well as far as I can tell, the +4 from sea trade routes policy doesn't seem to work, or at least there's not indication that its working, making it annoying to finish the tree for hidden antiquity sites.

You don't see the affect instantly. Any new sea trade routes that you start, after you take this policy, will give you +4 gold.

 

[kaspergm]

Revealing hidden antiquity sites can either be really useful or a complete waste. If you have a ton of cities, the extra artifacts can fill up those museums. If you get to archeology late and some of the artifacts have already been dug-up, hidden ones can help you get your museums filled up.

The problem with the Hidden Antiquity sites, and this is one of my major peeves with BnW, is that the AI will still object to you digging them up within their lands even though they can't see them. I can see some reasons why they would make it that way from a realism point of view, but from a gameplay perspective, it's a really bad decision, because it means that you spend a lot of culture to unlock these hidden sites and then most of them are out of reach for you.

 

[_invy_]

Well as far as I can tell, the +4 from sea trade routes policy doesn't seem to work, or at least there's not indication that its working, making it annoying to finish the tree for hidden antiquity sites.

I know that +2 on land routes policy works one turn AFTER the policy is adopted, its possible its the same here, didn't check it.

 

[avl8]

You'll get full benefits from existing sea trade routes after you finish researching your current tech.
This is a bug probably, but its still there.
Same way works land trade routes policy.

Exploration opener is a must have for culture victory game. Louvre is a very good culture wonder, especially good with mass archeologist production. 4 slots + artist makes it very good pick, worth getting exploration opener for it.
Also on immortal+ ai wont get it fast. So with good teching and exploration opener you can have it.

 

[_invy_]

Exploration is obviously nice for maps where you end up with lots of coastal cities (small continents have nice maps), its just that there are several other good option in other trees. I was thinking few times about taking some points there, but always commerce or rationalism comes ahead, sometimes I just want Patronage or Aesthetics. Later on Ideologies.. Its decent tree, anyways some thoughts:

Navigation school - A Great Admiral appears. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Great Admirals are earned 25% faster. - I find this mostly a letdown, AI is dumb on the sea anyway and fleet is often spread around to benefit from Admiral. Its nice to have Admiral bonus when bombing cities, but you could just take one more turn to bomb the city and live fine anyway.

Naval tradition +1 Happiness for each Harbor, Seaport, or Lighthouse. - Some happy faces are nice, but many trees have better happy bonuses.

Merchant navy (Civ5) Merchant navy +1 Gold for each Harbor, Seaport, or Lighthouse. - This is also a bit weak, like +2.x gold per city, and these building cost maintenance and hammers and are not useful everywhere.

Rest of the policies are very good, opener and finisher especially. I think I might try playing Portugal with Liberty and Exploration for culture win.

 

[bob massingbird]

As other have stated, this tree is mostly for people who have lot and lots of coastal cities.

Also, if you planning to finish Exploration, grab Cathedral belief in your religion, this will add another artifact slot in addition to your museums.

 

[wigwam]

Since sea-going trade routes are superior to caravans, I don't have enough land trade routes to make Commerce worth while, therefore Exploration.

There's actually only one policy in Commerce that improves land trade routes and only one in Exploration that improves sea trade. I actually think Commerce is the better tree for most games. 40% cheaper purchasing is sweet, and extra happiness is even better. You do have to take three mediocre policies just to get to Protectionism, though.

Both trees have great openers; Exploration has three policies that are good if you have mostly coastal cities and pretty bad otherwise, plus Treasure Fleets, which is almost always good. Navigation School is bad, but that's fine, because Exploration has the worst finisher of any tree—so why bother finishing?

I'd say if you can afford to build both Wonders, open both trees. Only fill out Exploration if you have a lot of coastal cities and/or a major naval military focus. Only fill out Commerce if you have a big empire that's going to need a lot of Happiness, if you're going to be rolling in gold and doing lots of rush-buying, or if you're Venice.

 

[robincox]

I think that exploration maybe far too good, build alot of costal cities and get +3 production in all costal cities and then +1 happiness for each lighthouse, harbour and seaport. This will jumpstart a civ with unhappiness problems and unproductive cities. And think about playing Carthage that has free harbours in all cities, thats alot of free happiness in a wide empire.

 

[Resipsa]

If you are a wide cultural empire its a super tree to help fill up all those museums.

 

[Tiggurix]

Naval tradition +1 Happiness for each Harbor, Seaport, or Lighthouse. - Some happy faces are nice, but many trees have better happy bonuses.

I think that Naval Tradition is generally agreed to be one of the strongest picks of the tree. If you're going farther into the tree than the opener you probably have lots of those buildings already, and this policy potentially gives you as much extra happiness for those buildings as some Ideological Tenets do for other buildings, especially if all your cities are coastal, which they should be, if you're going for this tree. Remember, every point of happiness is useful!

 

[Muskie]

I think I prefer Exploration to Aesthetics for culture generation, of course I often do both. I like to buy Great Engineers with Faith to rush wonders, but buying Musicians is nice. I collecting and filling my museums with art and artifects too, but it is a lot of work. Maybe Aesthetics is less work...

 

[Muskie]

It should go without saying that Polynesia with Exploration and an archipeligo map is smooth sailing. Greece and Carthage just declared war on me last night because I was doing too well, but I'm building an even bigger fleet and they'll never set foot on Polynesian soil, even after they destroyed most of my trade routes I still make 70+ GP a turn.

 

[Sheershaw]

I think what kinda bothers me is that this tree is kinda a mishmash of navy policies and archeology policies. Personally I would have made it a pure naval and coastal tree, and perhaps had it be unlocked in the Classical era, not the Medieval, and have it unlock something like the Great Lighthouse, not the Louvre. Right now I will frequently find myself taking the opener just for the Louvre and ignoring everything else. The hidden aniquites are nice, but not that nice, and it's not worth filling out some of the more mediocre policies just for the chance at finding antiquity sites that you may or may not get.

Also, does anyone else think the commerce tree would be more worthwhile if it granted an extra trade route or two? I'd prefer that to one extra gold from land routes (which, by the time I get to filling out Commerce, have fallen out of style compared to sea routes).

 

[Calouste]

Naval tradition +1 Happiness for each Harbor, Seaport, or Lighthouse. - Some happy faces are nice, but many trees have better happy bonuses.

Not really. Rationalism and Aesthetics don't have happy bonuses at all. Piety has an indirect bonus if you get a belief like Pagodas, because you can buy those buildings faster. Honor is capped at 1 happy per city, and Liberty is capped at about 1.5 per city. Of course it depends on your ratio of coastal to non-coastal cities if Naval Tradition is better or not, but if you go Exploration you will most likely have a lot of coastal cities. Commerce, Patronage and Tradition are the only trees that under most circumstances will give you more happy than Naval Tradition.

 

[pilot00]

Rarely do I concern myself with policy happiness, all happiness problems are solved by the ideology tenents so I don't think happiness from the rest of the policies should factor that much in a tree.