Is Tall Tradition "Too Brittle" - an analysis

[Markal]

I think some recent changes went largely in favor of Tradition and it makes the tree much more engaging imo.

The power projection problem of Tradition has vanished quite a bit I'd say. I'm not totally affirmative since I didn't play a lot recently but my last game with Venice (tradition->statecraft->industry->freedom) has seen me projecting force all over the world efficiently from late renaissance early industrial. It's true you often have to commit to one side (either land or naval) but in the late game I have well over 100 supplies and my army is second in the world (I have picked up some puppets and vassals on the way). I have three navies, each dominant in their respective area and a small but experienced land force that is enough to manage my neighboors. It's true I got the Great Lighthouse and I picked the Arsenal of Venezia as my NW, so it's not the traditional Tradition play (but I'm Venice so...).

To me the main problem with tradition was not the supply limit but the experience of your army and the strength of cities. By playing mostly defensively you could never gain XP fast enough to project power efficiently, especially since capturing cities was such a grind. But now the cities are fairly weaker (which is great!) and the rework of the "capture X city" from city state is a huge boost: the quest (if I understood correctly) is set to assign you to conquer the closest hostile city. It makes it much more achievable. And once you start triggering the quest 2/3/4 times you get enough "free XP" for all your units to be level 4/5/6. You now have a small but very experienced army/navy that is quite efficient at projecting power quickly and efficiently. All of that without ever declaring war yourself.

It's still true I guess that if you play like a sitting duck never doing more than hiding on a citadel you are powerless if an AI becomes arunaway but that is a trade off you made implicitly in the first place.

 

[Thibix Magnus]

I think some recent changes went largely in favor of Tradition and it makes the tree much more engaging imo.

The power projection problem of Tradition has vanished quite a bit I'd say. I'm not totally affirmative since I didn't play a lot recently but my last game with Venice (tradition->statecraft->industry->freedom) has seen me projecting force all over the world efficiently from late renaissance early industrial. It's true you often have to commit to one side (either land or naval) but in the late game I have well over 100 supplies and my army is second in the world (I have picked up some puppets and vassals on the way). I have three navies, each dominant in their respective area and a small but experienced land force that is enough to manage my neighboors. It's true I got the Great Lighthouse and I picked the Arsenal of Venezia as my NW, so it's not the traditional Tradition play (but I'm Venice so...).

To me the main problem with tradition was not the supply limit but the experience of your army and the strength of cities. By playing mostly defensively you could never gain XP fast enough to project power efficiently, especially since capturing cities was such a grind. But now the cities are fairly weaker (which is great!) and the rework of the "capture X city" from city state is a huge boost: the quest (if I understood correctly) is set to assign you to conquer the closest hostile city. It makes it much more achievable. And once you start triggering the quest 2/3/4 times you get enough "free XP" for all your units to be level 4/5/6. You now have a small but very experienced army/navy that is quite efficient at projecting power quickly and efficiently. All of that without ever declaring war yourself.

It's still true I guess that if you play like a sitting duck never doing more than hiding on a citadel you are powerless if an AI becomes arunaway but that is a trade off you made implicitly in the first place.

I would say the same as you but more vehemently: Venice is reaaally different than tall tradition like, more supply cap on the long term than tall trad (you get more colonias than tradition can afford to settle or conquer), so little happiness issues that venice puppets might be better cities than my crappy tradition expos, so much money that building an army does not slow your infrastructure or wonders. The only drawback compared to regular tradition is founding a religion if god of commerce is unavailable. I would have expected science to be a disadvantage for venice but it really isn't given how bad normal tradition expos tend to be.

Reading back the overall thread, I also feel the lack of agency of tall, turtling play is often considered by many players as both 1) unavoidable and 2) well deserved. Hence the sense of "given" victory mentioned by the OP. I would say that 1) on the technical side, this lack of agency is not unavoidable, it really depends on the diplo AI formulation and its willingness to team up against a runaway civ. And about 2) the legitimacy of a turtling playstyle, I think playing the underdog, purposedly avoid the spotlight, not grabbing that extra wonder, always being the second threat, pulling strings and building a coalition against a runaway is just as interesting and rewarding as... simply being the runaway, winning a domination game by the industrial era with absolutely no care about public opinion (mongolia just took away all my awe about deity difficulty, I had to check again the settings to be sure). The summarize, skill in this game should not be measured in APM

 

[Markal]

I would say the same as you but more vehemently: Venice is reaaally different than tall tradition like, more supply cap on the long term than tall trad (you get more colonias than tradition can afford to settle or conquer), so little happiness issues that venice puppets might be better cities than my crappy tradition expos, so much money that building an army does not slow your infrastructure or wonders. The only drawback compared to regular tradition is founding a religion if god of commerce is unavailable. I would have expected science to be a disadvantage for venice but it really isn't given how bad normal tradition expos tend to be.

Reading back the overall thread, I also feel the lack of agency of tall, turtling play is often considered by many players as both 1) unavoidable and 2) well deserved. Hence the sense of "given" victory mentioned by the OP. I would say that 1) on the technical side, this lack of agency is not unavoidable, it really depends on the diplo AI formulation and its willingness to team up against a runaway civ. And about 2) the legitimacy of a turtling playstyle, I think playing the underdog, purposedly avoid the spotlight, not grabbing that extra wonder, always being the second threat, pulling strings and building a coalition against a runaway is just as interesting and rewarding as... simply being the runaway, winning a domination game by the industrial era with absolutely no care about public opinion (mongolia just took away all my awe about deity difficulty, I had to check again the settings to be sure). The summarize, skill in this game should not be measured in APM

I agree largely with you, especially on the last part.

As for Venice, I'd just nuance the fact that buying an army can be useful when your defenses are hammered down, but it won't help you project power before the tenet for freedom giving full-XP to draft units. Once again, to me the main issue with Tradition (my favorite playstyle) was leveling your small army, not building it. I have the feeling it's easier now but I'll have to try more games to be completely affirmative.

 

[pitofanavocado]

I think some recent changes went largely in favor of Tradition and it makes the tree much more engaging imo.

The power projection problem of Tradition has vanished quite a bit I'd say. I'm not totally affirmative since I didn't play a lot recently but my last game with Venice (tradition->statecraft->industry->freedom) has seen me projecting force all over the world efficiently from late renaissance early industrial. It's true you often have to commit to one side (either land or naval) but in the late game I have well over 100 supplies and my army is second in the world (I have picked up some puppets and vassals on the way). I have three navies, each dominant in their respective area and a small but experienced land force that is enough to manage my neighboors. It's true I got the Great Lighthouse and I picked the Arsenal of Venezia as my NW, so it's not the traditional Tradition play (but I'm Venice so...).

To me the main problem with tradition was not the supply limit but the experience of your army and the strength of cities. By playing mostly defensively you could never gain XP fast enough to project power efficiently, especially since capturing cities was such a grind. But now the cities are fairly weaker (which is great!) and the rework of the "capture X city" from city state is a huge boost: the quest (if I understood correctly) is set to assign you to conquer the closest hostile city. It makes it much more achievable. And once you start triggering the quest 2/3/4 times you get enough "free XP" for all your units to be level 4/5/6. You now have a small but very experienced army/navy that is quite efficient at projecting power quickly and efficiently. All of that without ever declaring war yourself.

It's still true I guess that if you play like a sitting duck never doing more than hiding on a citadel you are powerless if an AI becomes arunaway but that is a trade off you made implicitly in the first place.

Venice with Arsenal of Venezia is a pretttyy unique Tradition play though.

I agree that experience of army is a big issue, and I feel like adding supply limit goes against what you should expect from Tradition, which is a smaller but more advanced army with more advanced defenses.

I'm still thinking that you add something like Great General points and/or XP to all Units from Barb killing camps to the Justice policy.

 

[myclan]

By reading your thread and this,
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/is-policy-tradition-okay-as-is.685433/
I want to share my thought about tradition with both @CAYM and @Stalker0
We know the optimal play should be both "tall and wide", an Empire with 10+ cities all filled with ~20 citizens should win easily on standard map. While only "tall"(4 cities with 20+ citizens) or only "wide"(10 cities with <10 citizens) will suffer in late game, or even lose in high difficulty(Emperor+).

But we can't be both "tall and wide" just in the early game, and need to choose one aspect to emphasize, according to maps/playing civilization.

If A chooses "Tall", while B chooses "Wide", A will have fewer cities than B. If no war occurs, B will finally have his cities developed(maybe a bit slower than A, but not important), and win the game.

So A should have a transient chance to beat B by war for balancing, that's the key of Tradition.

Let's examine some weakness of Current Tradition:

1.
For progress, there's +3 gold/city, just buy the richest land near your new built cities for the few citizens.
For tradition, wait for the culture to accumulate, maybe not the tile you want. Finally it will be faster with -20% acquiring new tiles cost, but less valuable tiles remained.
So I suggest a -25% gold cost to buy new land addition to -20% acquiring new tiles culture cost.

2.
For progress, there are free Yields come from cities itself, and -1 all needs to counter unhappiness.
For tradition, more unhappiness from need by more citizens per cities, while the latter citizens don't have a resource to work and yield less.
So I suggest maybe -2% Needs modifier per citizen in a city.
And maybe +1 production/culture/gold per 2 citizens by watermill/amphitheater/market to compensate the low yield of latter citizens.

3.
Faster great people is good, but not strong enough to beat your opponent by war. Also Engineers and Merchants yield little in early game.
So I suggest a scientist slot in EVERY cities to give a transient science advantage towards others.

These change may make Tradition REALLY POWERFUL in early game, thus have a chance to beat the Progress opponent. But these advantages just fade in late game, so "Wide" players also have a chance.

 

[John.B.C]

People here seem to get hang up on the world "Tall". IMO opinion it's also about Tradition as a policy tree even BEFORE one's cities become Tall... It suffers hugely from production issues and to my experience: often has happiness problems - long before it starts becoming tall! (on diety). I've tried many games now ... and after settling the third city without even having any population at all - the mere reality of plummeting below 50 starts to squeeze in on you. Add the fact that the Capital is in some way supposed to support the worthless satelite cities. It's 9 out of 10 times not up for this task while at the same time focusing on itself unless:

one doesn't get incredible land together with the perfect neighbours - which is just extremely rare!

A swamp/jungle sugar monopoly equals restart playing tradition.

Late game, the mere small size of land available might pose a problem (if also being squeezed by citadels ), if one lacks the resources for happiness and required for 'buildings/units', iron, horse coal, aluminum etc.

I'd like to repent somewhat on this post. I've been working on wining the game playing tradition and in my last game it turned out, that picking the correct religious policies, had those satelite cities 'pumped up' in no time (cooperation with internal trade routes - who needs pioneers when hammers are flowing? ). I didn't know about the power of universalism either before and that turned out to also be a very powerful belief for production and science in my capital (don't think I ever had such high production before).

Spoiler 1200 production in capital :

My original post was a bit emotional, somewhat revealing my lack of knowledge and experience (the game is hard). I just don't know how to play it right yet on diety. Anywhow, in this last game none of my original critizism was valid at all - whenever it's still the case in general - I'm no longer sure of. You'd have to ask someone else with more experience!

 

[alchx]

Let's examine some weakness of Current Tradition:

1.
For progress, there's +3 gold/city, just buy the richest land near your new built cities for the few citizens.
For tradition, wait for the culture to accumulate, maybe not the tile you want. Finally it will be faster with -20% acquiring new tiles cost, but less valuable tiles remained.
So I suggest a -25% gold cost to buy new land addition to -20% acquiring new tiles culture cost.

I'm playing an outdated version, so I could be wrong somewhere.

For the borders to grow, the Authority is forced to fight and kill units. Killing is sometimes not easy, since the AI knows how to run away with wounded units or protect them with healthy units.

Progress requires building buildings. Accordingly, progress either does not build an army and will be vulnerable, or does not build buildings and does not grow rapidly within its borders.

Tradition already has a Great Artist slot, which provides a lot of culture in the early game. It takes about 30 turns to birth the first specialist, after which the picture will passively generate culture and tourism. Other trees need to discover technology to build the Artists' Guild.

In addition, the Tradition is aimed at the fact that all resources are drawn to the capital, where the ruler beloved by the people lives. Caravans with food and hammers go to the capital so that there are many workers and specialists in the city. The remaining cities can be perceived as border cities to protect the capital.

 

[myclan]

I'm playing an outdated version, so I could be wrong somewhere.

For the borders to grow, the Authority is forced to fight and kill units. Killing is sometimes not easy, since the AI knows how to run away with wounded units or protect them with healthy units.

Progress requires building buildings. Accordingly, progress either does not build an army and will be vulnerable, or does not build buildings and does not grow rapidly within its borders.

Tradition already has a Great Artist slot, which provides a lot of culture in the early game. It takes about 30 turns to birth the first specialist, after which the picture will passively generate culture and tourism. Other trees need to discover technology to build the Artists' Guild.

In addition, the Tradition is aimed at the fact that all resources are drawn to the capital, where the ruler beloved by the people lives. Caravans with food and hammers go to the capital so that there are many workers and specialists in the city. The remaining cities can be perceived as border cities to protect the capital.

You are right, border grows much faster in Tradition compared to Progress/Authority, especially in late game.

But think about early game.

You built a new city, 2 resource 1st ring, 2 more 2nd ring, you just settle down and buy the 2 2nd ring tiles, and satisfied with 4 pop if playing progress, all high yield citizen.

If playing authority, you settle down, next turn the free culture gained by building a new city will grasp a tile for you, and provide gold by expanding border, then buy the 2nd tile.

If playing Tradition, you have to rush a monument/smokehouse, waiting for the culture to accumulate, and finally get the tile you want. You can buy it of course, but there is no policies providing enough gold in Tradition.

 

[Stalker0]

If playing Tradition, you have to rush a monument/smokehouse, waiting for the culture to accumulate, and finally get the tile you want. You can buy it of course, but there is no policies providing enough gold in Tradition.

When I play tradition, I don't have to buy borders, they grow fast enough to keep up. its progress where I am buying borders. Border growth is a major strength of tradition.

 

[rkkn]

When I play tradition, I don't have to buy borders, they grow fast enough to keep up. its progress where I am buying borders. Border growth is a major strength of tradition.

the monument has to be built first tho, and with tradition that takes FOREVER
build monument, which takes like 15 turns (or more?), and then wait for borders to grow, which takes another 10
tradition's borders grow fast but only after the 2nd or so tile claimed. until then it's actually slower than even progress. And it doesn't catch up to authority until even later than that

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

Part of the issue, if passed, will be removed, cause monument will no longer increase border growth, and city starting border growth is increasing in return

 

[azum4roll]

The thing is there's no culture source at all in new cities. Unless you pop a Great Person there as soon as you found. And even then it's only a thing on Splendor.

 

[Diomedes_]

I think one of the fundamental reasons that Tall is quite brittle/weak is that specialists are actually pretty weak, however ridiculous that may sound. I think specialists are weak for two main reasons: 1) tiles in general, but mines and villages in particular, are quite strong, and 2) the amount of science and culture you can get from buildings alone is also quite high. It is almost always better to work a Mine than an Engineer, as Mines just give crazy production, don't eat food, and don't add Urbanization, and working production tiles to build more buildings is often better for your happiness and nearly just as good for your science/culture output than working specialists. Villages, too, are often better than working a Merchant for the same reasons.

I think the Mine nerf that will hopefully be implemented after this congress session should indirectly make specialists a bit stronger, but I still don't think it would be anywhere near enough. I think some other tile improvements deserve other nerfs at other points in the game as well, coupled with some specialist buffs. Currently, working that first and even second engineer, scientist, and/or merchant is just not a very big advantage for non-capital cities in Tall empires, as it takes so long to get that first GP and the yields are almost never worth the food cost and loss of production, as buildings and normal tiles are just so strong. And that is assuming that Tall empires have an easier time working specialists than Wide empires do, which is hardly always the case anyway.

 

[ma_kuh]

I liked the idea of some % of specialist points counting towards global totals, I'm sad that didn't get taken up. It would go a long way towards making non "core" cities have a reason to spend food on specialists.

 

[stii]

I think one of the fundamental reasons that Tall is quite brittle/weak is that specialists are actually pretty weak, however ridiculous that may sound. I think specialists are weak for two main reasons: 1) tiles in general, but mines and villages in particular, are quite strong, and 2) the amount of science and culture you can get from buildings alone is also quite high. It is almost always better to work a Mine than an Engineer, as Mines just give crazy production, don't eat food, and don't add Urbanization, and working production tiles to build more buildings is often better for your happiness and nearly just as good for your science/culture output than working specialists. Villages, too, are often better than working a Merchant for the same reasons.

I think the Mine nerf that will hopefully be implemented after this congress session should indirectly make specialists a bit stronger, but I still don't think it would be anywhere near enough. I think some other tile improvements deserve other nerfs at other points in the game as well, coupled with some specialist buffs. Currently, working that first and even second engineer, scientist, and/or merchant is just not a very big advantage for non-capital cities in Tall empires, as it takes so long to get that first GP and the yields are almost never worth the food cost and loss of production, as buildings and normal tiles are just so strong. And that is assuming that Tall empires have an easier time working specialists than Wide empires do, which is hardly always the case anyway.

They do seem to have gradually got nerfed over time with other yields getting buffed. I'm not sure this is a bad thing in general but it is true.

 

[alchx]

Raising specialists is really difficult in the early game. But the more specialists there are, the more improvements they can create. The towns are especially good - food, hammers, gold. The very first engineer and his manufactory are the locomotive of the city for further development. Hills (and especially forests) will not be able to catch up in terms of productivity for a very long time. You can put a manufactory on a tile that can be processed by two or three cities and switch between needs.

Next, you can reform the religion by taking an enhancement (+4 science from each improvement).

In the mid-to-late game, push through Congress to pass further improvements.

After the 300th turn, you can use Engineers and Scientists for instant profit. The more Academies and Manufactories were created, the greater the immediate profit.

In addition, specialists make it possible to control the growth of cities. Too much population can lead to discontent in an empire, as tile income increases in different technologies at different times. The city's resource production may not keep up with the needs of the empire and the city if there is an excess population.

 

[alchx]

Culture and science can be delivered to cities by caravans. Build a caravan in the capital and move it to a new city. Then send from that city to another empire or CS. The trade routes indicate all the profit received - gold, science, culture. This also helps stabilize happiness in the city.

This way you can even get the religion you need (for example, from another continent) if you were unable to found it. Then buy a missionary and distribute it throughout the rest of your
cities.

Or neutralize the religion of a neighbor (not the founder of the religion) in the same way. You buy missionaries and send them to enemy cities. You have to be careful to deprive his city of the dominant religion and all religious bonuses, but not bring him a new religion. The absence of religious bonuses will slow down the enemy's development.

 

[cidk2000]

Ive won progress games most of the time the last tradition game 4 cities ended up fighting AI in wars because they wanted my land and whilst i had defended ok i couldnt rotate wounded troops fast enough because i had less supply.

Tradition tall just feels weak in comparision to any strategy from personal experience

 

[Thibix Magnus]

I agree largely with you, especially on the last part.

As for Venice, I'd just nuance the fact that buying an army can be useful when your defenses are hammered down, but it won't help you project power before the tenet for freedom giving full-XP to draft units. Once again, to me the main issue with Tradition (my favorite playstyle) was leveling your small army, not building it. I have the feeling it's easier now but I'll have to try more games to be completely affirmative.

the xp part is interesting. A funny tweak would be that militaristic city-states reward you with a fixed amount of xp to be shared among your army.
Edit: oooh it's already proposed... I should have counterproposed that there should be XP quests that don't rely on conquest.For example, provide a flat amount of xp distributed equally to the leader in number of policies.

 

[bryanw1995]

Ive won progress games most of the time the last tradition game 4 cities ended up fighting AI in wars because they wanted my land and whilst i had defended ok i couldnt rotate wounded troops fast enough because i had less supply.

Tradition tall just feels weak in comparision to any strategy from personal experience

I've been trying for weeks to make a strong Tradition game on Emperor, both in 4.xx and 3.10.14. The only one that I got to work was Korea in a 3.10.14 game, had 5 cities for early-mid game, took over Austria to get to 10, was competitive and probably on pace to win before I abandoned game. I've tried literally dozens of new games since, Tradition looks like a fun playstyle and I really want to master it, but Progress just feels so much stronger.