How to start with authority?

[hr_oskar]

I know how to win wars in VP. I can steal workers, snipe settlers and generally cripple my neighbours on deity. I enjoy stomping on the AI (if I don't they'll come for me anyway), pillaging its lands and taking its cities, etc.

But I just don't like the authority policy branch.

I know it's popular with a lot of players here, so I'm assuming I just haven't learnt to use it right. I must be missing something. Perhaps you can help me see where I'm going wrong.

I play tradition a lot, not with the intention of conquering the world, but I'm comfortable enough with early fighting with a tradition start. However, if I intend to be an expansionist (Rome is my favorite so far), I really prefer to start with progress. I find that with progress, everything falls neatly into place: I get my techs faster and then I get the next policy, the economy is excellent thanks to fast workers and flat bonuses. For successful warmongering I need a good economy and good tech, and it feels like progress gives me exactly that.

Okay, I'll just sum the pro's and con's of each tree as I see it:

Progress
+ Lots of early tech from the opener to get to military theory, mathematics and iron working fast.
+ Liberty helps me settle cities faster, get stolen workers back, and just develop the land much faster.
+ Fraternity as third policy helps me get the last bit of tech faster (with city connections) and is especially good if I can work mines to convert the food into hammers.
- No city defense or military boosts.
- No direct hammer bonus early on (I take expertise late, as the fourth or fifth policy).

Authority
+ The bonus against barbs can be very helpful early (I play with raging barbs).
+ The hammer bonus is a great opener and scaler. I value production highly.
+/- Imperium (free settler + city gain bonus) is an amazing policy but it comes a bit late, which is awkward.
- Tribute. With no bonus to border expansion I find this quite weak early on. The CS tribute part might as well not exist, is there any way to intimidate city states early enough for it to matter? I find myself wanting to get to Imperium but losing steam by having to take this policy first.
+/- Dominance is great, one of the top reasons to go for authority I guess. However, as the fourth policy the science comes too late to help prepare a classical rush. I guess it helps get to the medieval techs to keep my army updated.
+/- Discipline. The lowered maintenance is nice but I dislike how the only source of happiness in the tree is conditioned on keeping garrisons. I want my army in the field taking cities, not on garrison duty.
+/- Honor. The combat bonus and war weariness reduction are great long-term. Free units sound great on paper but I get the feeling that they're mainly there to act as garrisons for the Discipline bonus.
- No city defense bonus.
- The finishers are mostly irrelevant.

The feeling I get from authority is that it's better than progress in the long-term for sustained warfare throughout the game, but I'll get my early rush kicked off much faster with progress. Authority's tempo feels awkward to me. The latter tree isn't exactly bad in the long run either, as I'll always benefit from the bonuses to research, tile improvement and building construction.

How are you all making the best use of authority in the early game? Assuming a civ with no obvious authority synergies (Russia, Mongolia, maybe some others with very early +culture).

 

[CrazyG]

I don't like the garrisons and free units either. These two social policies seem to combine for 2 culture and 1 happiness in every city. The lower maintenance does become really valuable over time though (initially its somewhat negated because I have to spend gold on those garrisons).

However, playing with raging barbarians you should be able to snowball really easily with Authority. Try something like The Aztec with God of War and Authority, you get so many bonus yields for killing those massive numbers of barbarians. You can tribute City States pretty easily, you need a strong melee unit (its easier with Greece, Persia, the Celts, or Carthage's boats). To count as nearby the unit needs to be within 8 tiles of the city.

I wouldn't assume a civ with no synergies, you should always look for them. Brazil and China work well (culture = food and gold because tribute). Its also worth noting that authority tends to be stronger no maps with more land (more area for barbarians, progress synergizes well with coastal cities in my experience).

 

[chicorbeef]

Well, first off, I like beelining Bronze Working right off the bat for Spearmen to eliminate barb camps. You want to actually eliminate the camps because they each give you 25 culture, which is vital for early culture growth.

I build Monument second in my capital (Shrine first) because you want to get to the opener ASAP to get culture rolling. I invest in it if I can.

Getting Imperium Turns 30-40 is good timing for me, it can be later if your barb hunting is slow, which is not the end of the world.

Expanding early is vital, but don't overexpand-often times I stop at 6 cities. That's just a ballpark number, but my point is there is no need to expand like a madman.

Lastly, I think capturing cities is the most important part. If you don't capture cities early, you are wasting a large part of Imperium's bonuses and not building your empire.

I also think an often overlooked important part of when to play Authority is when the terrain is relatively clear, it makes it easier to farm barbs, expand quickly and warmonger.

 

[tu_79]

Imperium lets you delay Pottery. Using your warrior army to farm culture on barbs, then neighbours, grants a free settler. Not rushing Pottery is the same as rushing a military unit like horseman or swordsman.

I think rushing Dominance science might work if you decide to not settle more cities in a while. If you kill a lot before settling more cities, that's good science, and culture. You are letting your neighbours to settle closer to your capital, with their unprotected cities soon to become puppets, you are letting more barbs spawn.

 

[ElliotS]

If you have an Early UU then Tribute is great, because you can actually get a really good amount of culture from bullying city-states.

If you don't have an early UU and don't think you can sufficiently tribute then Dominance is actually a good first policy. I used to rush Imperium 100% of the time and not settle until I got it, but settling one or two cities, getting Dominance first and Imperium 3rd actually feels much stronger. Hell, I might suggest this even if you have an Early UU as Tributing is quite good on it's own.

Being able to rush through techs from barbarians and harassment wars is really good. I often find myself the tech leader on Deity if things go well.

If Gazebo wants to buff authority then switching Dominance and Tribute would be nice. I still wouldn't go Dominance -> Imperium every game, but I would most games.

I don't think authority really needs it, but IDK what stats or sentiment shows. (Well right now it seems like warmongers are a bit OP, so that could skew it a bit.)

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

If Gazebo wants to buff authority then switching Dominance and Tribute would be nice. I still wouldn't go Dominance -> Imperium every game, but I would most games.

This.

 

[hr_oskar]

Thanks for all the comments, it's quite helpful.

I tested a game with Assyria going for lots of early units to farm barbs for Imperium, not founding any cities before that. Only got it on t47 - quite late for my taste - but then I hit a bit of a barb drought after clearing the first camp. For techs I went Trapping > Mining > Bronze Working, then finally Pottery. I should clearly get Pottery earlier, so that I can get my first settler built before Imperium; ideally it should be ready to found a city on the turn I get the policy, with the next settler already under construction.

Dominance first is definitely something to try out - especially with the Aztecs. In that case I'd go for one very early settler and then wait for Imperium before founding additional cities.

I disagree with Dominance and Tribute trading places, from a design point of view. There's a beautiful synergy between Tribute and Imperium - found a city, get enough culture for border growth, then get food and gold from that; instant size 2 city with a key tile claimed. With those two policies adopted, I can settle cities in a way I'd be reluctant to do with Progress in particular -- one tile away from something important (natural wonder, horses, etc). Especially good with zero-food natural wonders actually, because the food boost lets the city work the wonder right away without stagnating.

I clearly have to give tribute demands a closer look. I've never managed to do it so I'd ended up concluding that the requirements are so high that it's just not a relevant game mechanic. Aside from UU's, how is the city state "fear factor" calculated? Do they fear siege weapons? Is it based on combat strength? % of world military power?

Discipline and Honor still don't sit well with me. Something feels wrong about having to tie down such a large part of my supply limit with crappy spearmen garrisons. It's like a part of Dominance (the supply limit bonus), Discipline and Honor all combine to yield a final +1 happiness and +2 culture per city. Maybe I'm being spoiled but psychologically it doesn't feel right.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

To be honest, I'm finding Discipline&Honor so lackluster that lately I've been trying out a combo of Authority&Progress instead (choosing 3 authority policies (first on the left and first on the right) and then going 3 progress policies (the left side of the tree)). On Immortal it works just fine, I like it much better than the Full Authority tree. Maybe this will change with the changes to puppeting, but as it stands now, I have lots and lots of puppets when playing aggressively, and in those cases Discipline&Honor feel lacklustre compared to the Progress' bonus re: building buildings and 2p/2g to all cities. We'll see.

 

[ElliotS]

Thanks for all the comments, it's quite helpful.

I tested a game with Assyria going for lots of early units to farm barbs for Imperium, not founding any cities before that. Only got it on t47 - quite late for my taste - but then I hit a bit of a barb drought after clearing the first camp. For techs I went Trapping > Mining > Bronze Working, then finally Pottery. I should clearly get Pottery earlier, so that I can get my first settler built before Imperium; ideally it should be ready to found a city on the turn I get the policy, with the next settler already under construction.

Dominance first is definitely something to try out - especially with the Aztecs. In that case I'd go for one very early settler and then wait for Imperium before founding additional cities.

I disagree with Dominance and Tribute trading places, from a design point of view. There's a beautiful synergy between Tribute and Imperium - found a city, get enough culture for border growth, then get food and gold from that; instant size 2 city with a key tile claimed. With those two policies adopted, I can settle cities in a way I'd be reluctant to do with Progress in particular -- one tile away from something important (natural wonder, horses, etc). Especially good with zero-food natural wonders actually, because the food boost lets the city work the wonder right away without stagnating.

I clearly have to give tribute demands a closer look. I've never managed to do it so I'd ended up concluding that the requirements are so high that it's just not a relevant game mechanic. Aside from UU's, how is the city state "fear factor" calculated? Do they fear siege weapons? Is it based on combat strength? % of world military power?

Discipline and Honor still don't sit well with me. Something feels wrong about having to tie down such a large part of my supply limit with crappy spearmen garrisons. It's like a part of Dominance (the supply limit bonus), Discipline and Honor all combine to yield a final +1 happiness and +2 culture per city. Maybe I'm being spoiled but psychologically it doesn't feel right.

I mean discipline is the best happiness policy in ancient era branches imo. I always have enough supply unit, and it turns a spearman into a monument. It's not like you don't already want garrisons to combat crime unhappiness and defend a city. Puppets are the big problem. I wonder if @Gazebo could make Discipline work on puppet cities. That seems to work both thematically and balance-wise with the newest change.

As for "I disagree with Dominance and Tribute trading places, from a design point of view. There's a beautiful synergy between Tribute and Imperium" I get that, but if I could choose in any order I wanted I would choose Dominance -> Imperium -> Tribute 9/10 games.

>"I clearly have to give tribute demands a closer look. I've never managed to do it so I'd ended up concluding that the requirements are so high that it's just not a relevant game mechanic. Aside from UU's, how is the city state "fear factor" calculated? Do they fear siege weapons? Is it based on combat strength? % of world military power?"

They fear military power close to them, and total military power. Spear UUs are great because a few of them will make you the #1 world power for a bit and provide easy, easy, easy heavy tribute by moving 3-4 within a few tiles of a city state when it still has warriors early.

As a note @CrazyG Gazebo tweaked the formula so units count more at 1 tile away or in city state boarders than 8 tiles away IIRC, and that seems to work for me. This makes early tribute easier even if an AI across the world has a big army.

Also I'm pretty sure it does count ranged units based on RCS.

It requires some practice to develop an intuitive sense for what's "enough" to demand tribute at a time, but learning will boost your play. Tribute is great for progress and tradition too if you've got the forces to spare and nothing extra to do.

 

[hr_oskar]

To be honest, I'm finding Discipline&Honor so lackluster that lately I've been trying out a combo of Authority&Progress instead (choosing 3 authority policies (first on the left and first on the right) and then going 3 progress policies (the left side of the tree)). On Immortal it works just fine, I like it much better than the Full Authority tree. Maybe this will change with the changes to puppeting, but as it stands now, I have lots and lots of puppets when playing aggressively, and in those cases Discipline&Honor feel lacklustre compared to the Progress' bonus re: building buildings and 2p/2g to all cities. We'll see.

Your choices leave you without any happiness policy, so you'll be under even more pressure to keep building stuff in your cities just to stay content.

If I were to mix n' match with authority, then the first that comes to mind is open Authority, then Tradition -> Sovereignty then back to Authority for Tribute. Though I doubt I'd ever actually do that. Mixing medieval policies makes some sense to me but the ancient trees feel like they work best in depth.

If authority needed a buff (which it probably doesn't), my suggestion would be to have some/all of the culture from unit kills go to the capital's local culture. That would lead to more early border growth, leading to more tribute-procs early on and a stronger capital.

 

[chicorbeef]

I don't want Dominance/Tribute to switch places. Authority is fine IMO.

I prefer to finish Authority because it doubles the border expansion bonuses, which is a big deal to me. I like the whole tree.

 

[Owlbebach]

My experience tell me that delaying ALL cities before Imperium is really bad, much better to get 1st one before Imperium, but earlier. Though it is quite easy to calculate whether it is worth waiting or settling.
Also it is very good to get Settlers to settling points and wait, just be sure not to loose them to Barbs
Another thing that i found to be very important is Barb hunting. Barb camp is easy to take with 3 Warriors OR 2 Warriors + Pathfinder OR Warrior + Archer. I usually have 2 groups of hunters if there is not too many neighbors around.
There is another important thing I'm not quite sure how to explain, but there is a way to move your troops so that you leave as much fog of war as you can and move in circles. This way you can increase the amount of camps you can get.

To be honest, I'm finding Discipline&Honor so lackluster that lately I've been trying out a combo of Authority&Progress instead (choosing 3 authority policies (first on the left and first on the right) and then going 3 progress policies (the left side of the tree))

I tried this back in time but understood that it is quite bad due to unhappiness.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

I've been having success with this on Immortal, not Deity. I basically always manage to found a religion and I usually select Mandirs&one other religious building, so I get lots of needs reduction from that. Plus I puppet A LOT, meaning I don't have many cities producing unhappiness. I haven't had any problems with unhappiness when using this strategy (except for the early game, where I usually hover around -5), mid- and late- game I usually have around 30 or 40 happiness.

We'll see how the recent changes (to happiness from luxuries&population, tech-related unhappiness, puppet unhappiness) impact this. I'm think I'll adjust by picking Pacifism&Churches, plus either Borobodur or One world/one religion, to get the difference in (un)happiness lost with the current changes.

In any case, I'd love to see the Authority tree reworked a bit, there's lots of good ideas in this thread. Of course if that'd lead to a danger of becoming too good compared to Tradition&Progress, it might be best to leave it intact instead of embarking on another overhaul of all ancient policy trees.

 

[hr_oskar]

In any case, I'd love to see the Authority tree reworked a bit, there's lots of good ideas in this thread. Of course if that'd lead to a danger of becoming too good compared to Tradition&Progress, it might be best to leave it intact instead of embarking on another overhaul of all ancient policy trees.

Regarding ancient policies balance, Progress feels strongest to me personally, almost too good relative to the other two. But I suspect it's partly because it's the easiest to play. Progress kind of just wants you to play Civ and then pats you on the back for it. Authority is more conditional (kill units, take cities, expand borders) and tradition forces you to rethink and relearn a lot of things. If Gazebo and the experienced players here say the trees are balanced and fine, I'll take their word for it.

 

[hr_oskar]

They fear military power close to them, and total military power. Spear UUs are great because a few of them will make you the #1 world power for a bit and provide easy, easy, easy heavy tribute by moving 3-4 within a few tiles of a city state when it still has warriors early.

I'll definitely focus on testing this to get a feel for it. Not just for authority as you say, just for any kind of start. I'd also think mounted units are most effective for collecting tribute, to minimize the strategic cost of deploying the army next to city states.

I mean discipline is the best happiness policy in ancient era branches imo. I always have enough supply unit, and it turns a spearman into a monument. It's not like you don't already want garrisons to combat crime unhappiness and defend a city. Puppets are the big problem. I wonder if @Gazebo could make Discipline work on puppet cities. That seems to work both thematically and balance-wise with the newest change

Funny how sometimes supply limit is sometimes dismissed as not a big factor but then when tradition starts are discussed it sounds as if opening tradition permanently reduces the supply cap to 5. My personal experience is that a supply limit of 10-20 is typical early-to-mid game, and that's low enough to be quite relevant, as I like to build lots of units.

 

[Stalker0]

Authority is just fine, we don’t need to be changing it this late in the game.