I have no idea what to do as tradition

[GodDamnItAlexander]

So I've been trying to play Korea tradition recently. I think I'm on my tenth attempt right now, and I just realized I have no idea what I'm doing.
Wonders - when do you build them? Which ones are the most important? How many? Temple of artemis seems so good for the food, then again Hanging gardens is also amazing, but Mausoleum of halicarnassus synergises well with the great people spam and lets you send production to your other cities with trade routes. Then later on Angkor wat is great if you're peaceful so you can just nab tiles away from your neighbors naturally, Great wall is *great* against warmongers, and Hagia Sophia (not Cathedral of St.Basil, sorry) is very useful since it allows you to enhance your religion while still spamming missionaries if you get Apostolic Tradition.

Production - I always seem to fall behind on either buildings or army. There's just too much to build and not enough hammers.

Cities - How do you decide how many to settle? 2-3? 4-5? Just the cap?

Specialists - They seem very important, especially if you get Mastery, however they can totally stunt the growth of your cities.

How to play against warmongers/city spammers - Do you just forget about building wonders and try to maintain a big army? How do you set yourself up for fighting against Askia for example?

 

[tu_79]

I always seem to fall behind on either buildings or army

You are playing at your limit. That's good. Now, use that army for an advantage, or use your infrastructure for a decent defensive army.

For wonders, I think you are correctly identifying the best. I prefer Mausoleum, but there are things to consider. Hanging Gardens is the best for your wonderous capital, when you don't have much food (hills, mountains, deserts, tundra) nearby, Artemis is good when you have means of controlling your unhappiness and have the food. Mauseleum is good almost always, when you can work specialists. Probably some military wonders could be useful, those that give more supply limit, since your limit is probably too small. Saint Basel if you can't spread your religion (probably). Oracle never hurts.

A tradition city needs to be settled with enough protection and workers, imo. So, unless you find an amazing spot that you want to claim before your neighbours, send a protected settler and then a worker, and replace the garrison and the worker before producing a new settler. This could change if there are few improvable tiles, though. You can ignore happiness while settling, going into negative if necessary. I like my second city to be very close to capital, so I can connect it earlier and work on some good tiles, since my capital is probably not going to work on them (a typical tradition capital works on 3-4 tiles only).

For your production, tradition is always having trouble with that. You are very limited here, but there are a few things that can be done: build stoneworks (or mausoleum) and send traders for production in secondary cities. Chopp some trees. If you have many hills or mining resources, go for forge. If coastal, go for lighthouses and use always money for investing. Eventually, your high population will give you good income via city connections and decent production via well/water mill. If production is still an issue, you could plant a great engineer. A 8 pop city can usually take care for itself.

When you are too happy, you need to grow. This means focusing in food, but also giving preference to buildings that don't need specialists, as they usually gives more when not being worked, so your citizens can produce food for growth. Under 10 happiness, go for specialist buildings. Your main asset is your population size, so work on it. If you become too unhappy, try to slow science and growth, in that order.

Don't let your capital do all the work. You can place all guilds in your capital, but try to spread out your military production. Well, in Classical there is not many options, but in Middle Ages you could probably use a secondary city for land units, and another for naval units. Capitals have a small advantage producing diplomats, and you might want a friend or two, even if you don't want to compete for diplomacy, so you can save all your Great Diplomats for votes.

Also, I forgot to mention, use your city focus often. When WLTKD you get the best from focusing on food. When happiness is too high, focus on Great People, food is well managed. If your infrastructure is too weak, and you won't improve a lot with more people, you can focus on production, but having normal focus is usually the best.

 

[Matutin]

Wait, how do you supply your capital and its citizens, when you only work 3-4 tiles?

 

[GodDamnItAlexander]

You are playing at your limit. That's good. Now, use that army for an advantage, or use your infrastructure for a decent defensive army.

For wonders, I think you are correctly identifying the best. I prefer Mausoleum, but there are things to consider. Hanging Gardens is the best for your wonderous capital, when you don't have much food (hills, mountains, deserts, tundra) nearby, Artemis is good when you have means of controlling your unhappiness and have the food. Mauseleum is good almost always, when you can work specialists. Probably some military wonders could be useful, those that give more supply limit, since your limit is probably too small. Saint Basel if you can't spread your religion (probably). Oracle never hurts.

A tradition city needs to be settled with enough protection and workers, imo. So, unless you find an amazing spot that you want to claim before your neighbours, send a protected settler and then a worker, and replace the garrison and the worker before producing a new settler. This could change if there are few improvable tiles, though. You can ignore happiness while settling, going into negative if necessary. I like my second city to be very close to capital, so I can connect it earlier and work on some good tiles, since my capital is probably not going to work on them (a typical tradition capital works on 3-4 tiles only).

For your production, tradition is always having trouble with that. You are very limited here, but there are a few things that can be done: build stoneworks (or mausoleum) and send traders for production in secondary cities. Chopp some trees. If you have many hills or mining resources, go for forge. If coastal, go for lighthouses and use always money for investing. Eventually, your high population will give you good income via city connections and decent production via well/water mill. If production is still an issue, you could plant a great engineer. A 8 pop city can usually take care for itself.

When you are too happy, you need to grow. This means focusing in food, but also giving preference to buildings that don't need specialists, as they usually gives more when not being worked, so your citizens can produce food for growth. Under 10 happiness, go for specialist buildings. Your main asset is your population size, so work on it. If you become too unhappy, try to slow science and growth, in that order.

Don't let your capital do all the work. You can place all guilds in your capital, but try to spread out your military production. Well, in Classical there is not many options, but in Middle Ages you could probably use a secondary city for land units, and another for naval units. Capitals have a small advantage producing diplomats, and you might want a friend or two, even if you don't want to compete for diplomacy, so you can save all your Great Diplomats for votes.

Also, I forgot to mention, use your city focus often. When WLTKD you get the best from focusing on food. When happiness is too high, focus on Great People, food is well managed. If your infrastructure is too weak, and you won't improve a lot with more people, you can focus on production, but having normal focus is usually the best.

It's always impossible to finish all the buildings of your current era, right? If so, what are the priorities?
So far I've been prioritizing (assuming I'm happy and I already have a religion and temples) - 1. Production 2. Food 3.Science 4. Culture 5.Gold 6. Faith

 

[Workerspam]

I've found there are no hard or fast rules for tradition; I've gone 4 city India (3 neighbors forward settled me) and 12+ city China (specialist unhappiness was a challenge). I usually concentrate first on getting my capital up and running. This means monument/shrine, military (usually a couple archers), worker/work boats, granary/council, more military (horsemen or spearmen; barbarians start getting vicious about this time). I'll rush buy buildings but keep an eye on my gold; I usually hit a point where I run negative income for a bit and you really don't want to empty your treasury. I'll manually control my specialists; I always work the cultural specialists but the others depend on my growth rate. If I'm hurting for food I'll work land; I want to have a high enough population to work all my specialist slots once I close the tree.

Once my capital and initial military is on solid ground I'll go for a wonder if I feel I can get it (the ones you and tu_79 mention are all fine picks; I'll occasionally go Pyramids too) or a Settler. Once I grab the policy that grants +2 culture to monuments I'll pump out another 2-3 settlers. I want at least two cities for guilds/science and two for military/gold (at least one of these preferably on a coast). How many cities I settle comes down to the civ and how many good spots are nearby but I generally feel good with 5-8. I try to build extra settlers in my secondary cities so my capital grows uninterrupted.

Internal production trade routes are great to get new cities up and running; I'll occasionally run food routes to my capital if I feel it needs the help. I don't usually run external trade routes until all my cities have adequate production.

Your building priority is solid though I'll move up Culture buildings in my Culture/Science cities. My Military/Gold cities will be pumping out my military in between production/food buildings, adding the others as happiness or adequate military power dictate.

 

[GodDamnItAlexander]

Wait, how do you supply your capital and its citizens, when you only work 3-4 tiles?

Tradition gives bonuses to food in your cap, and since you're always working your cap it works out just fine.

 

[CrazyG]

Wonders - when do you build them? Which ones are the most important? How many? Temple of artemis seems so good for the food, then again Hanging gardens is also amazing, but Mausoleum of halicarnassus synergises well with the great people spam and lets you send production to your other cities with trade routes. Then later on Angkor wat is great if you're peaceful so you can just nab tiles away from your neighbors naturally, Great wall is *great* against warmongers, and Hagia Sophia (not Cathedral of St.Basil, sorry) is very useful since it allows you to enhance your religion while still spamming missionaries if you get Apostolic Tradition.

Tradition is my most chosen policy tree, I'll share what works for me.

-Don't build Angkor Wat. Don't look at it, don't think about, don't even go for currency early. You already have a massive bonus to tile expansion. Spend the resources doing something else

What is that something else? Instead get Philosophy, Drama and Poetry, or Education. Oracle, Parthenon, and Sankore are all better wonders, or just spend the hammers building guilds, the school of philosophy, or Oxford. Currency is a good tech for the villages, but it can be delayed

-Temple of Artemis isn't bad, but this early on I have better things to do with my hammers

-Hanging Gardens is amazing, but the technology that unlocks it is generally not super important. An interesting thing about this wonder, it generally goes quite late, making it easy-ish to build, unless the Maya are in the game, in which case its quite difficult to build

-Mausoleum is amazing, it would get my vote for strongest wonder. All 4 effects are very strong in almost any circumstance for tradition. +10% production in your capital is amazing. Free WLTKD means bonus early growth. The culture for expending great people is worth so much throughout the course of the game. You don't have to focus so much on great people, but its an option and a very powerful one. Free stoneworks is awesome if your land has the relevant resources. It means that the wonder was effectively very cheap. If you don't have stone resources, it means you can do production routes much earlier than otherwise possible. Internal production routes make tradition's life so much easier. An internal trade route to newer city alleviates production issues, and connects them. Don't waste money or worker time on roads. The meta recently changed to make this wonder much easier to build, and it was a big boost for tradition (before it was luck if you managed to get it on immortal or higher)

-Cathedral of Saint Basil is extremely good. For a typical tradition empire, I would consider it much better than the Hagia Sophia. Tall empires aren't good at generating faith, don't expose your weakness. Don't put yourself in a position where reforming is difficult, just take the easy path. I have several times built Basil, then later on been able to reform normally. But I have never regretted building Basil at all, it itself has solid yields and having access to that reformation early is worth yields.

-Hagia isn't bad, but I need a special reason to build it. Like if I'm planning on using Zealotry for defense (great way to save hammers!), its a good way to save faith. But in general, there are better wonders at this part of the tech tree, and a ton of important buildings.

Oh, and I don't build temples early. Sometimes I don't build them till like industrial era. Its not an important building, once you have an enhanced religion faith isn't that important. For a few specific strategies this is clearly wrong, but in general after your religion is founded I don't recommend trading off other yields for faith

 

[Gokudo01]

I like your post , crazy, keep on talking about tradition.

 

[CrazyG]

I like your post , crazy, keep on talking about tradition.

Well thanks. I'm not sure what you are looking for though

The biggest weakness of tradition is no hammers in secondary cities. There are a few ways to address this. The first is production trade routes, which I talked about. The second is Earth Mother, 3 hammers per city is a big deal. Save gold and settle on a forest so you can build monuments instantly.

If you can't do either of those, you have to play really well. Tradition will reward understanding the game well, and punish mistakes harshly. If you built a granary when you should have council, its a big deal for production starved tradition cities. Avoid spending gold in the capital, I try to limit myself to just using 70 gold once (but I'll do more if gold ruins happen) until I get basic infrastructure up in other cities. After than, I actually neglect them quite a bit and instead focus on getting a strong capital. Things like Aquaducts don't matter much in secondary cities. I don't find growth very important outside the capital

I also build workers really early, sometimes before monument or shrine. The concept of tradition is that I have fewer citizens, but each one does more. This means I can't work unimproved tiles, other than stuff like Lakes or Cocoa.

Helpful?

 

[Gokudo01]

Reading a diety player is like reading a zigzagzigal guide : i read it, try to understand why and integrate it to my gaming logic because so many things i havenot been able to figure out alone and the game moves so fast

 

[tu_79]

Reading a diety player is like reading a zigzagzigal guide : i read it, try to understand why and integrate it to my gaming logic because so many things i havenot been able to figure out alone and the game moves so fast

Yeah, the problem is in sentences like: "if you build a granary when you should have built a council, you'll regret!". How the *** are we going to know that we should have built a council instead? I use happiness and development as a trigger for choosing one or the other. My algorithm is: Do I have enough happiness (5-10)? If so, do I have my cities well developed? If not, I go for food, else I go for science. Without happiness, I build any other thing, because more pop and more tech only makes me more unhappy. Early game is more tricky, since there are not many specialist slots, and there might not be enough good improved tiles, in these circumstances, growing is not that good an idea, but usually, asigning a worker to every city is enough to always have something workable.
I start with Tradition most of the time, and I agree with everything CrazyG said, even when not being a deity player myself (by the way, do you say diety as a joke?). I was starting to think that temples were not very useful when I'm sucking at faith generation, but there is always the doubt: what if my religion is so bad precisely because I wasn't fast with temples? Specially doubtful when I'm picking next Piety. But then I realize that I don't need temple's happiness bonus, I'm all for the +9 production from money buildings (coastal, +6 production otherwise), then monasteries. Then internal trade routes, which I may still be using some (production in smaller cities, securing a trade route for villages). I know the standard is Aesthetics, but I'm usually falling behind in science (I blaim my algorithm) and staying well in policies, and my army is usually too small to engage in many city states alliances, so that leaves Piety.

 

[CrazyG]

Yeah, the problem is in sentences like: "if you build a granary when you should have built a council, you'll regret!". How the *** are we going to know that we should have built a council instead? I use happiness and development as a trigger for choosing one or the other. My algorithm is: Do I have enough happiness (5-10)? If so, do I have my cities well developed? If not, I go for food, else I go for science. Without happiness, I build any other thing, because more pop and more tech only makes me more unhappy. Early game is more tricky, since there are not many specialist slots, and there might not be enough good improved tiles, in these circumstances, growing is not that good an idea, but usually, asigning a worker to every city is enough to always have something workable.

I think that being like a zigzagzigal guide was meant as a complement (zig was a person who wrote a series of detailed guides for Vanilla civ 5). At least that is how I took it...

The granary is a pretty weak building unless its hitting several resources with that +1 food, I'd usually go council first unless I hit at least 2 wheat/deer/whatever. Outside my capital I really don't care much about growth, the exceptions are really low food cities (which don't have deer/wheat/etc). The council gets a high priority for me, especially if I already have my 4th policy. And that is just an example, I feel like to play tradition well takes experience, because its important to know what building to get now, and what to wait on. Especially in medieval era, when there are so many strong buildings available, and it depends on the situation

I don't like Piety for tradition currently. It used to be a good option, but Sankore getting moved was a big loss. The slower social policy gains hurts Piety more than others IMO, because its opener is mediocre. The faith discount comes too late, I will have already built cathedrals and bought a couple missionaries when I unlock it. I give up too many yields by waiting. The / from markets and caravansaries isn't as good as it seems; for me, these get a low priority in secondary tradition cities. I'm pretty sure I've launched spaceships while most cities till didn't have caravansaries.

A while back I played a bunch of one city challenges, which is basically an extreme version of playing tradition, and I feel like I learned a lot from it. It forced me to really think about how to spend resources, especially faith. I have a limited amount, is it really worth converting those CS or my neighbor? Even if I get an easy spread because my neighbors didn't found, should I spread to them? If allow my neighbor to play another 50 turns without religion, it makes him a lot weaker, and I usually want weak neighbors.

 

[Gokudo01]

I misspelled deity and It was a compliment, yes.

 

[tu_79]

I think that being like a zigzagzigal guide was meant as a complement (zig was a person who wrote a series of detailed guides for Vanilla civ 5). At least that is how I took it...

The granary is a pretty weak building unless its hitting several resources with that +1 food, I'd usually go council first unless I hit at least 2 wheat/deer/whatever. Outside my capital I really don't care much about growth, the exceptions are really low food cities (which don't have deer/wheat/etc). The council gets a high priority for me, especially if I already have my 4th policy. And that is just an example, I feel like to play tradition well takes experience, because its important to know what building to get now, and what to wait on. Especially in medieval era, when there are so many strong buildings available, and it depends on the situation

I don't like Piety for tradition currently. It used to be a good option, but Sankore getting moved was a big loss. The slower social policy gains hurts Piety more than others IMO, because its opener is mediocre. The faith discount comes too late, I will have already built cathedrals and bought a couple missionaries when I unlock it. I give up too many yields by waiting. The / from markets and caravansaries isn't as good as it seems; for me, these get a low priority in secondary tradition cities. I'm pretty sure I've launched spaceships while most cities till didn't have caravansaries.

A while back I played a bunch of one city challenges, which is basically an extreme version of playing tradition, and I feel like I learned a lot from it. It forced me to really think about how to spend resources, especially faith. I have a limited amount, is it really worth converting those CS or my neighbor? Even if I get an easy spread because my neighbors didn't found, should I spread to them? If allow my neighbor to play another 50 turns without religion, it makes him a lot weaker, and I usually want weak neighbors.

Well, thanks. I was noticing the weak start from piety too, but I think it promotes going for a second prophet first. Also, the problems that you mentioned for piety doesn't seem exclusive to tradition.(they were already discussed)

I used to convert 3 to 4 civs in standard with Polynesia, and the extra votes paid off, but those were progress games. I kind of try to do the same thing while playing small, but it's not going so well, mostly for my small faith production. Maybe I should accept that non religious tradition civs can only keep a religion for themselves and plan accordingly.

 

[CrazyG]

Well, thanks. I was noticing the weak start from piety too, but I think it promotes going for a second prophet first. Also, the problems that you mentioned for piety doesn't seem exclusive to tradition.(they were already discussed)

They aren't exclusive to tradition by any means, but I find tradition gets hit harder. Like the market caravansary buff, I actually might never build those buildings (other than in the capital) so its really not a very good buff. I actually want markets as progress, to fight poverty, and I might even work the specialist. As tradition, pretty much ignore the merchant buildings outside the capital (There are exceptions to all my advice, this is just in general). I'm going to work writers and scientists in secondary cities, not merchants

I think a market costs 110 hammers, so it takes 55 turns just for those to pay for themselves, which is way too long to consider this a production boost. 110 hammers for 3 and 1 isn't bad, but I find it weaker than what Aesthetics gives you. Why buff buildings I don't want, when instead I can buff buildings that I already want to built (like guilds)

 

[Gazebo]

They aren't exclusive to tradition by any means, but I find tradition gets hit harder. Like the market caravansary buff, I actually might never build those buildings (other than in the capital) so its really not a very good buff. I actually want markets as progress, to fight poverty, and I might even work the specialist. As tradition, pretty much ignore the merchant buildings outside the capital (There are exceptions to all my advice, this is just in general). I'm going to work writers and scientists in secondary cities, not merchants

I think a market costs 110 hammers, so it takes 55 turns just for those to pay for themselves, which is way too long to consider this a production boost. 110 hammers for 3 and 1 isn't bad, but I find it weaker than what Aesthetics gives you. Why buff buildings I don't want, when instead I can buff buildings that I already want to built (like guilds)

For the record, I'm going to rework piety's opener and 1st policy soon to reflect the slower policy acquisition. Piety is really underperforming right now.

G

 

[tu_79]

For the record, I'm going to rework piety's opener and 1st policy soon to reflect the slower policy acquisition. Piety is really underperforming right now.

G

Please, make it useful for tall civs that don't want to spread outside, as it was before.

 

[Gokudo01]

@CrazyG ok crazy after trying and trying again i come to the conclusion that i should never put any academy in the capital, you don't have the population to work it and you will be able to reduce the number of specialist in your satellite which help them to grow and to build stuff.

I've got a question : should I keep all merchant for town or should I get some trade missions for some wltkd ? after how many merchant is it worth ?

Scientist : when do you start to use discover technology ?

Obviously, Engineers should be use to speed up wonders when you need it but what do you do with the extras ? capital or satellite ?

Spoiler :

The step up is really big from immortal to deity.

 

[CrazyG]

@CrazyG ok crazy after trying and trying again i come to the conclusion that i should never put any academy in the capital, you don't have the population to work it and you will be able to reduce the number of specialist in your satellite which help them to grow and to build stuff.

I've got a question : should I keep all merchant for town or should I get some trade missions for some wltkd ? after how many merchant is it worth ?

Scientist : when do you start to use discover technology ?

Obviously, Engineers should be use to speed up wonders when you need it but what do you do with the extras ? capital or satellite ?

Spoiler :

The step up is really big from immortal to deity.

The exact timing on this stuff will vary for different win conditions.

If pursuing science win (or anything that puts me towards the late game) I plant scientists, and try to produce them ASAP. Put them on top of things like marble, stone, or pastures tiles. Your capital gets a big modifier on science, especially if you take divine inheritance, so I always put the academies there. If your capital is overworked, put towns and holy sites in the other cities, or try tiles that can be worked by both cities.

I'm not sure the exact timing to start discovering with great scientists after the most recent change, but generally I will discover techs after public schools are built. If you have a special reason to go earlier (like you want a key military unit), its okay to do so. I'm in the minority on this, but I think that the Academy is the best tile in the game when going tall. Its the key to a strong late game

Great Merchants usually go to towns unless my capital is "stuck" on a resource I can't get (like if a CS has the only copy). I want to keep WLTKD going in my capital all the time, especially after the Circus Maximus is built. Generally speaking, the great merchant is a low priority great person

I almost never build a manufactory,wonders are so much more powerful. If no wonders are available right now, just wait. The exception is usually with the first great engineer, which sometimes becomes a manufactory, but I really just don't like that improvement. I've used great engineers on arenas and watermills rather than manufactories

 

[Galbias]

When playing Tradition, GP-focused civs my favorite belief combo is Mastery + Cathedrals. Mastery is obviously pretty generally useful, and with Mastery-boosted Engineers and the extra production on Farms, you just spam Farms everywhere and work them for big food while still getting good production out of them, only rarely do I work non-resource Mines or Lumber Mills. I also like grabbing Sainthood and TTGOG along with Wonders like Mausoleum and Sankore that give bonuses on GP use so you can just get a bunch of yields every time you use a GP, and with TTGOG you can faith-buy a GP every 5 turns.

I also really like going Justice as my first Policy and working the Engineer immediately. iirc Specialists in Ancient Era only take 1 Food so his yields are basically 1f 3p, and you can get a early GE to use on something. Manufactories are nice but there's almost always a Wonder it will be better spent on. Building-wise I prioritize Production and then Food in all cities (but especially secondary ones, oftentimes I'll beeline for Windmills and Grocers, and LTIP is obviously a great Wonder for Tradition), you want to find a balance between growth and working specialists.

The guide 8bitBob did is a bit dated and is specifically for Science Tradition China (before China's ability was changed, they're better at Culture now) but I think is still mostly relevant: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...nce-victory-guide-win-before-turn-300.603913/