How to make proper use of Progress?

[Magean]

Hi,

My question is basically in the title. I'm not an expert player but I can use Authority or Tradition relatively well. Authority is versatile, helps against barbs, or against an annoying neighbor, it grants valuable hammers in all cities, a settler just in time... There's no way you can go wrong with it, unless you play a 100% peaceful-building game. Tradition is slightly more situational IMO: you need a well-located capital to fully leverage its benefits, it's obviously geared toward tall play, and requires more expertise in terms of picking the right buildings in secondary cities (since you get practically nothing to boost them, you can't afford to plan inadequately and lose hammers)... but the tree as a whole is still quite strong.

Now, when it comes to Progress... I'm at a loss. It seems to favor wide play, but doesn't help militarily... and wide empires tend to get into trouble with neighbors early on. When trying it, I feel, how to put it... squishy. It also seems to favor science, but on the long run, tall empires are better at teching than wide ones.

The real plus of Progress is that it seems to scale better with later eras than the other two Ancient trees. It's kind of a high risk/high reward path, isn't it? You need to start out in a relatively isolated position to make full use of it.

So, what is it for in general (not counting special synergies with some civs like Rome or Iroquois)? How to use it properly (I know other threads have touched the subject and I've read them, but they're somewhat outdated and focus on specific builds instead of the general purpose of Progress)?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[CrazyG]

Production is king for progress (not science). It has strong early science, which is nice. If you have issues with feeling squishy early on, get military theory early. Horsemen will make defense really easy for a while, and the extra science makes this affordable.

I always take the worker policy second. 99% of the time I take +2/+2 third. Don't settle additional cities until after you have taken the third policy (there are exceptions to this, but as a general rule settling too early will kill your culture). Settle 2-3 more cities, but not too many (it will kill your culture). AFter taking the 4th policy (+10/+10 for finishing a building) go as wide as possible. Just spam settlers and have new cities pump out monuments/shrines/councils. Focus everywhere (not ). You will growy anyways because bonus yields, but its best left until later. Right now all growing will do is kill your happiness.

Hope this helps, it took me a long time before I figured out progress

 

[Magean]

Production is king for progress (not science). It has strong early science, which is nice. If you have issues with feeling squishy early on, get military theory early. Horsemen will make defense really easy for a while, and the extra science makes this affordable.

I always take the worker policy second. 99% of the time I take +2/+2 third. Don't settle additional cities until after you have taken the third policy (there are exceptions to this, but as a general rule settling too early will kill your culture). Settle 2-3 more cities, but not too many (it will kill your culture). AFter taking the 4th policy (+10/+10 for finishing a building) go as wide as possible. Just spam settlers and have new cities pump out monuments/shrines/councils. Focus everywhere (not ). You will growy anyways because bonus yields, but its best left until later. Right now all growing will do is kill your happiness.

Hope this helps, it took me a long time before I figured out progress

Thanks. That helps with how to success with Progress, but I still don't get the purpose of the tree. Why would I take it over Tradition or Authority? Or rather, over Authority, since Tradition is about going tall so it's another realm. Even after having read your post, I'm still under the impression that Progress is a niche tree to be used when there's abnormal expansion room and little competition for it. Authority seems better at winning the settling race (free settler + barb control, not even counting possible early wars).

On the long run, Progress indeed beats Authority in terms of production, as you said, but then it still is the high-risk/high-reward tree you take when things are quiet.

 

[CrazyG]

Progress has several advantages over Authority. First of all, its the best early science tree.

I've come to really like its culture source as well, Authority's is potentially worth more but it requires spending resources to find and hunt barbarians. If Authority goes really wide, you basically end up having no science from policies, and the culture becomes pretty insignificant as well. The 10/10 policy for buildings is amazing, if you want to go wide why wouldn't you want this policy? Authority's 2 culture for garrisons is great at first but really falls off

Progress is free to go to war. Rush military theory, build like 3 horsemen and you can beat any civ without a UU. Just attack to cripple him and block settling positions. Authority would get culture for kills, but sometimes you aren't actually killing that many units. If you are on a really big landmass Authority often is better, on smaller continents the lack of barbs can help progress compete.

 

[Magean]

Progress has several advantages over Authority. First of all, its the best early science tree.

I've come to really like its culture source as well, Authority's is potentially worth more but it requires spending resources to find and hunt barbarians. If Authority goes really wide, you basically end up having no science from policies, and the culture becomes pretty insignificant as well. The 10/10 policy for buildings is amazing, if you want to go wide why wouldn't you want this policy? Authority's 2 culture for garrisons is great at first but really falls off

Progress is free to go to war. Rush military theory, build like 3 horsemen and you can beat any civ without a UU. Just attack to cripple him and block settling positions. Authority would get culture for kills, but sometimes you aren't actually killing that many units. If you are on a really big landmass Authority often is better, on smaller continents the lack of barbs can help progress compete.

Good point on the 10/10 policy.

By the way, when going wide with Progress, do you space your cities out normally or create as tight a grid as possible to maximize yields from connections? Like more ICS-y, with cities that won't grow much for a long while so why bother plan for them to work a large radius.

 

[CrazyG]

By the way, when going wide with Progress, do you space your cities out normally or create as tight a grid as possible to maximize yields from connections? Like more ICS-y, with cities that won't grow much for a long while so why bother plan for them to work a large radius.

It depends. If I plenty of land, I'll spread them out a little bit more. Generally I wouldn't found a city that couldn't work at least a couple resource tiles.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Note that the balance between progress and authority is quite dependant on your map settings. If you play an overpopulated map, authority will be the strongest, while if you play a map where you can peacefully settle 8-10 cities, progress is almost OP.

 

[Gokudo01]

I think that I only pick progress with strong early game civs. I know it's strange many people pick it with late game civs but I feel like it's the opposite. If I want to go wide with a late game civs, I pick authority because there is NO way that you can settle 8 + cities without wars when you have reached emperor.
If my civs has got the UU and the UB early, I tend to favor progress because it will reduce the fall off later.

all the upfront civs feel descent with progress, ethiopia, shoshone, the huns, songhai, etc ...

 

[CrazyG]

I think that I only pick progress with strong early game civs. I know it's strange many people pick it with late game civs but I feel like it's the opposite. If I want to go wide with a late game civs, I pick authority because there is NO way that you can settle 8 + cities without wars when you have reached emperor.
If my civs has got the UU and the UB early, I tend to favor progress because it will reduce the fall off later.

all the upfront civs feel descent with progress, ethiopia, shoshone, the huns, songhai, etc ...

I have never understood why so many people view Germany as a go-to progress civ for this exact reason. It really, really helps to have something helping you out in ancient era

 

[tu_79]

For me, Progress is the way to go when I suspect there are lots of unsettled land around my capital, so I can settle peacefully as much as I want.

CrazyG's is good advice, as always, but I tend to settle faster to avoid barb spamming.

 

[Workerspam]

CrazyG is on the money. I see Progress as the tree for strong, self sufficient secondary cities. Authority has stronger starting potential but the production falls off in midgame. Tradition secondary cities need a ton of help and I've found basically require you to specialize; you will simply lack the production to multitask outside your capital. I really miss the production power of Progress every time I go another route.

The 10F/10C and +20% for buildings is great synergy that lasts all game long. I frequently end up building almost every useful non specialist building in every city. Military cap is almost never a problem as every city is building the barracks line and wall line of buildings.

Early game I'll get Monument/Shrine and sometimes Council, Well, or Barracks in my capital. Try to time at least 3rd city for when I open the +2/+2 policy unless I have a strong early culture game going. In secondary cities after Monument/Shrines I'll concentrate on Military, Workers, and Settlers until I unlock the +10F/10C, then build the rest of the early key buildings. I lose out on yields a bit early (later councils sap my science) but doing this allows me to surge toward the 3F/3S policy which will catch me back up as I'll frequently have 6+ connected cities once I unlock it.

Early war isn't usually that bad. Authority only has 2 policies that actually aid your units in combat against other civs, and one of them is usually the last policy taken; you're not missing out on much by going Progress. As long as you build enough units to defend yourself and beeline Horsemen (preferred) or Spearmen you should be okay with antagonizing neighbors.

 

[Magean]

Thanks again y'all. Looks like I wasn't in the wrong with my early intuition - that Progress really shines when you have enough room for yourself. Your answers made me understand better the path to follow with this tree.

A couple more things:

-When do you think Tradition and Progress usually break even with one another? The usual 4 cities (including capital)? Baring specific Civs tailored for one or the other.

-Has anyone tried maximizing yields from Progress opener by sending food trade routes to the capital to maximize growth? I wonder if it's worth it. With all these buildings to upkeep, I guess gold from trade routes is really needed...

 

[CrazyG]

-When do you think Tradition and Progress usually break even with one another? The usual 4 cities (including capital)? Baring specific Civs tailored for one or the other.

Definitely more than 4. Progress wants a lot of cities, I would guess progress the breaking point is around 8. I usually aim for at least 10 cities rather quickly (some might be conquered)

 

[tu_79]

I guess gold from trade routes is really needed...

Villages. I usually have a couple of caravans crossing my empire with at least 3 villages in every city. But population also pays for itself, once your cities become populated (unlike Authority) your city connections are giving some surplus.

When do you think Tradition and Progress usually break even with one another?

It depends on what is your focus. Looking at raw score is not enough. Tradition goes through policies faster, produces quite some great people, this is something you don't notice looking at score. Actually, if you play Tradition properly, another player with Progress may never catch up. But a Progress player can use an army more often than Tradition. By Medieval, Progress can take on whoever it wants, specially those weak secondary tradition cities.

 

[Magean]

Definitely more than 4. Progress wants a lot of cities, I would guess progress the breaking point is around 8. I usually aim for at least 10 cities rather quickly (some might be conquered)

Well... The maps I play on may be too small for such numbers to be reliably reached. I guess 5-6 settled cities and a couple more from conquests would be far more of a reasonable goal.

Villages. I usually have a couple of caravans crossing my empire with at least 3 villages in every city. But population also pays for itself, once your cities become populated (unlike Authority) your city connections are giving some surplus.

And what do you do with your trade routes?

 

[tu_79]

And what do you do with your trade routes?

If I am lucky, I sent them to a city state that happens to be at the far end of my empire from the farthest city I can. Otherwise I send them to feed happy cities (capital can stand a lot more population than any other city) or to add production if I am unhappy.

 

[CrazyG]

Well... The maps I play on may be too small for such numbers to be reliably reached. I guess 5-6 settled cities and a couple more from conquests would be far more of a reasonable goal.

What map size are you playing on? I play on standard size/speed (8 civs)

 

[Magean]

If I am lucky, I sent them to a city state that happens to be at the far end of my empire from the farthest city I can. Otherwise I send them to feed happy cities (capital can stand a lot more population than any other city) or to add production if I am unhappy.

What do you mean by lucky? Don't you often have a CS to trade with?

What map size are you playing on? I play on standard size/speed (8 civs)

On standard I add a couple more Civs usually -- VP seems to have a different balance than Vanilla, I guess the default number of civs for Standard is 10 instead of 8 so I just stick with it. I interpreted it as Gazebo wanting to make it harder to found a religion and to compete for CS, since the ratio of CS and religions per civ is lower when adding more civs. I thought it was VP's assumed balance. Then I always set Sea Level on Low (script is Planet Simulator) to make more room for expansion. With these settings, there usually is room enough to settle a minimum of 5 cities, and you can go up to 8 when starting in the appropriate position.

That being said, I'm experimenting with Medium size (VP's new name for Small, as VP's Small is in fact Tiny). With Low sea level and only 7 civs (VP's default would be 8, but that's too much), you have good chances of being able to found more than 4 cities -- 8 is a stretch.

***

By the way, upon realizing you started isolated in your own big island and have enough room to found, say 5 or 6 cities (so not Progress "optimal" amount), but no other external threat than barbs, would you go Tradition or Progress? Isolation is usually bad for science early on so I was thinking Progress could help.

 

[Moi Magnus]

By the way, upon realizing you started isolated in your own big island and have enough room to found, say 5 or 6 cities (so not Progress "optimal" amount), but no other external threat than barbs, would you go Tradition or Progress? Isolation is usually bad for science early on so I was thinking Progress could help.

I would usually either put 8 cities closer to each other, either 4 cities with more space between.
If for some reason. 5-6 cities is really the perfect number of cities, then I think I will go progress and try to settle/capture more cities later on.

 

[tu_79]

What do you mean by lucky? Don't you often have a CS to trade with?

Not always. Sometimes there is no CS in my same land mass (trade cargoes don't account for villages), sometimes there is a foreign city between me and that CS. Theorically you can send caravans there, but if that neighbour declares war on you, bye bye caravan.