If your running 2-3 cities is tradition a no brainer or is it debatable?

[Artifex1]

I wonder if liberty is still better? How far down tradition would you go?

 

[Lord Chambers]

It's a no brainer.

And important observation to make is that 3 of 5 Tradition policies scale better with more cities than fewer.

Aristocracy 	 +15% Production when building Wonders.
Oligarchy 	 Garrisoned units cost no maintenance and cities with a garrison gain +100% Ranged Combat Strength.
Legalism 	 Provides a free culture building in your first 4 cities.
 Landed Elite 	 +1 Happiness for every 10 Citizens in a City.
 Monarchy 	 +1 Gold and -1 Unhappiness for every 2 Citizens in the Capital.

Oligarchy and Landed Elite are pretty inconsequential, even if you have 15 cities. Legalism can be gamed to deliver big hammers by adopting it late in the game, particularly for a cultural victory or as Siam for earlier Wats. Oligarchy is useful for building wonders. The tradition opener (+3 culture in the capital only), Monarchy, and the tradition finisher (+15% growth in the capital) are all good boons.

So, if I want to build wonders, I'll adopt Aristocracy. If I know my capital will be a substantial portion of my empire's output, I might go all the way to Monarchy. But I'd probably only finish the tree in a cultural victory.

The no brainer part is that Tradition is not a very desirable destination overall. But if you only have 2 or 3 cities, the Liberty bonuses to your empire are even less desirable.

 

[MadDjinn]

It's a no brainer if you aren't on Deity.

On Deity, it's Liberty or bust. (heh... ok, you can go Tradition if you want)

the free worker/settler and free GP at the end make for a very fast setup of those cities. Meritocracy gives +1 happy/trad route + 5% off, so that equates to Landed Elite; without having to waste the SP on Landed Elite.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Perhaps more importantly, Liberty gives you a free Great Person when you finish it. That can translate to a GS for a double bulb (along with the Porcelain Tower) or a GE for a Wonder like Notre Dame.

Paradoxically, Tradition gets better as you run more cities. Liberty is stronger for quick starting a small empire, and doesn't scale as much as Tradition (particularly Oligarchy and the finisher) as you grow the empire.

 

[insaneweasel]

Tradition is pretty much crap now...Oligarchy STINKS for small empires, and so does Landed Elite. Aristocracy gives only a tiny bonus and legalism pretty much forces you to go with 4 cities or its wasted. At this point, Liberty>>>tradition.

 

[seasnake]

Oligarchy has nice synergy with the right side of the Honor tree, you take your least-valuable unit and put in a city and enjoy +1 happy, +100 attack, +2 culture and no maintenance. Build Walls and you have a tough city to take.

I think Tradition is nice, but you really need to plan ahead to get Legalism when Temples are available and you have four cities with monuments. So I fill open Tradition and Honor and work on the right side of Honor Tree even as I plot to get Legalism later.

 

[ImperialSteeze]

Landed elite is the WORST SP in the game. It doesn't even work on puppets.

 

[JamesCivFan]

It works for me if I remember right. Are you sure it doesn't work for you?

 

[MasterMishi]

Played a 2 city mp game last night, turtled with 2 cities wonderspamed (marble in 2nd city) until rifles. went lib and i outbuilt the 3 others going 2/3 city trad/honour

 

[FlowKey]

Tradition is a serious option IMO, but NOT a no brainer. When discussing SP choices, there seems to be a tendency to ignore the dynamic of a civ game, which leads to 'static' questions like the OPs.

When faced with the choice of your first SP (opening Trad, Lib or Hon), you are running ONE city, not 2-3! As MadDjinn pointed out, getting to the desired 2-3 developed cities goes a lot faster with free worker and settler from Liberty ... while working towards a free GP.

Which BTW doesn't mean Liberty IS a no brainer.

 

[ShahJahanII]

Keep in mind that Tradition is just for how you start.
I often go for a science victory, take tradition, then take order by the time the industrial era roles along, because I have 10+ cities.

 

[vexing]

liberty is a significantly better branch overall, regardless of empire size. the only exception would be occ.

 

[Becephalus]

liberty is a significantly better branch overall, regardless of empire size. the only exception would be occ.

Liberty is pretty ridiculous. Several of the policies are excellent, tradition and honor on the other hand are hit and miss.

 

[AbbieRevo]

It's a no brainer.

Oligarchy and Landed Elite are pretty inconsequential, even if you have 15 cities. Legalism can be gamed to deliver big hammers by adopting it late in the game, particularly for a cultural victory or as Siam for earlier Wats. Oligarchy is useful for building wonders. The tradition opener (+3 culture in the capital only), Monarchy, and the tradition finisher (+15% growth in the capital) are all good boons.

So, if I want to build wonders, I'll adopt Aristocracy. If I know my capital will be a substantial portion of my empire's output, I might go all the way to Monarchy. But I'd probably only finish the tree in a cultural victory.

The no brainer part is that Tradition is not a very desirable destination overall. But if you only have 2 or 3 cities, the Liberty bonuses to your empire are even less desirable.

Pardon my ignorance, but I was under the impression that Legalism just granted free monuments in your first four cities, and that if for example, you had already constructed a monument in your capital, then you would lose some of the benefit.

Am I correct in assuming from your statement that this is not true, that in fact Legalism can be used to acquire Temples, or even Opera Houses?

Please, elaborate if you please.

 

[FlowKey]

^ yes! it's a common strategy within a culture game:
- settle 4 cities
- get previous buildings (monument and temples)
- get to aucoustics
- pick Legalism
et voilà: four free opera houses

 

[Drawmeus]

Tradition needs to really jack up your city growth more than it does. The finisher is awesome, but something requiring either 2 or 3 policies spent should jack up population growth. Tradition needs a way to use all of that excess happiness; saving it for golden ages is not a good use.

 

[chazzycat]

I'm with Vexing here...tradition for OCC only. For that, it is great because of monarchy & aristocracy. The fact that half the policies aren't very beneficial to tall empires is a big turnoff. Well, that and how awesome Liberty is. What they did with landed elite is a huge head scratcher...it just doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Roxlimn]

I'm with Martin. Paradoxically, Tradition is better with more cities, and larger cities. Landed Elite only looks worthless when you have 3 cities. When you have 10 cities of 20+ population each, Landed Elite gets you a cool +20 happiness. In addition, Oligarchy under the same setup allows you to build up as many as ten military units, maintenance-free. You only pay for them when you gear up and actually go to war.

Liberty is good when you have a small, startup empire. Late in the game, the benefit of +1 Settler is pretty worthless. Tradition's first few options are okay-ish in the early game, but you really want to take the rest of it once you've really gotten your empire up and running.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

One thing I always find kind of amusing is that people bash landed elite (with good reason) but then praise meritocracy which is actually in general pretty much the same. Anyways... As others have said, the in game description of the branches is very misleading. Tradition can work fine for a wide empire and liberty can work fine for a small empire.

If you compare them branch to branch, tradition actually provides more effective production, happiness, and gold savings. However a direct branch comparison doesn't reveal the entire scenario. Tradition's bonuses take a lot longer to come online than Liberty's. Liberty saves you critical production in the early game that Tradition can't compete with in the form of a free worker and free settler. Used properly, those bonuses can cascade into large gains. That's what makes Liberty such a powerful branch. Not to mention the free GP.

OTOH, Tradition's bonuses get better the longer the game goes on so if you can overcome / survive that early loss of production... or use it's bonuses to grab something critical your empire can surpass a liberty based one.

It's situational though. Your civ, your land, your play style all influences the choice. You can even dabble and grab some policies from both. For some civs / victory conditions this is quite powerful, too.

 

[Roxlimn]

I've done a Liberty + Tradition opener with Egypt in lieu of Liberty + Honor or Liberty + Piety. Aristocracy is strong with Egypt, and once you get past Organized Religion, taking Landed Elite afterwards pretty much hands you an open invitation to rush for Hospitals and Medical Labs.

I never loved Hanging Gardens so much as I did once I got Monarchy. I'm thinking of trying it in Delhi later today.