Need advice on Deity-Progress

[Ninal]

As I have mentioned in the progress-settler discussion me and my friends are struggling with progress at Deity level. We have all had recent wins with different Tradition Civs but can't seem to make progress work.

My personal playstyle preference is to either play peacefull small with tradition. Or peacefull - wide with progress. I love games where I can settle my land, develop my cities and use my military mostly for defense.

Do you guys have any general advice on how to play progress in the current patch and what Civs you consider "typical Progress civs"?

 

[CrazyG]

Not only do settlers cost a population, they also increase in cost based on how many cities you already have. I think that aspect hurts progress in particular.

Do you guys have any general advice on how to play progress in the current patch and what Civs you consider "typical Progress civs"?

Carthage is the queen of progress IMO.

Other civs that can work well are Shoshone, the Celts, or China.

 

[Ninal]

Hi @CrazyG I agree with you on Dido... Carthage is my first and only progress Deity Win so far.

I tried China a few times and got close to being succesfull but that was before the nerf of her UA from culture to gold.

Do you have any general advice on how to play progress nowadays or how to play the Civs you mentioned?

I feel like it is too hard to both settl 7-10 cities, have the military to defend them, get a religion and still keep up with policies and happiness. Is it better to settle slowly (like I do with tradition) to get some policies first or do you go settling first?

 

[CrazyG]

I feel like it is too hard to both settl 7-10 cities, have the military to defend them, get a religion and still keep up with policies and happiness. Is it better to settle slowly (like I do with tradition) to get some policies first or do you go settling first?

I find progress works best on starts with monopolies that give +2 or +3 of something, progress can plan to connect these quickly on just two or three cities. Cocoa with +2 culture is an example.

It's normal for progress to advance in social policies a little bit slower than tradition would at first. I don't think I've planted 10 settlers in a long time. I might use pioneers, but I think those late cities will hurt your science and culture if you use settlers.

 

[Ninal]

I might use pioneers, but I think those late cities will hurt your science and culture if you use settlers.

I've never been a great fan of "late cities" I'd rather settle them quickly and deal with the temporary slowing down of culture, science and happiness...

I don't think I've planted 10 settlers in a long time.

How many cities would you ideally settle with progress? And do you (nearly) always plan to conquer later on or do you think that "no-offensive wars just settling" is a real option in Vox Populi Deity?

 

[CrazyG]

How many cities would you ideally settle with progress? And do you (nearly) always plan to conquer later on or do you think that "no-offensive wars just settling" is a real option in Vox Populi Deity?

I won a totally peaceful Deity game with progress last patch (Babylon, science). I only had 5 cities.

As progress, I sometimes fight a very early war for land, but I can stay peaceful the rest of the game after that. Ideally, maybe 8 cities? Beyond that hurts happiness and makes growth difficult.

What map size do you play on? Moving to a bigger map size can dramatically help progress relative to tradition.

If you want to post a screenshot of a game of yours, I'll try to give more specific help.

 

[Ninal]

I won a totally peaceful Deity game with progress last patch (Babylon, science). I only had 5 cities.

Great Job! Why did you go progress instead of Tradition with so few cities?

maybe 8 cities? Beyond that hurts happiness and makes growth difficult.

Okay that makes sense...

What map size do you play on? Moving to a bigger map size can dramatically help progress relative to tradition.

I play on standard size normally. Why would a larger map size be better for progress? The amount of land per civilization should be more or less the same right?

If you want to post a screenshot of a game of yours, I'll try to give more specific help.

Great! I will try and start a game soon...

P.S. Why do you think the Celts are good at Progress? I expected them to be better with authority to abuse their early spearmen for tribute, culture and conquering....

 

[CrazyG]

P.S. Why do you think the Celts are good at Progress? I expected them to be better with authority to abuse their early spearmen for tribute, culture and conquering....

Celts are actually pretty good at anything. The spearmen UU still helps generate faith, progress can kill barbarians too. Their pantheon named Rhiannon is good with progress, culture per city for fast expansions and gold and production for any improved resource. Progress's biggest problem is low early culture.

Great Job! Why did you go progress instead of Tradition with so few cities?

That game was on an incense monopoly, which I got connected by turn 48 with progress's free worker. I would have put down more cities, but the AI beat me to settling locations.

I play on standard size normally. Why would a larger map size be better for progress? The amount of land per civilization should be more or less the same right?

The land is roughly the same, but I think overall you tend get about 1 more city on large than standard. You can get more luxuries to help with happiness too.

But the biggest difference is in culture and science. On standard, each city raises costs of tech and social policies by 7%. On large or bigger, it's only 5%. That's a very big difference.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

On standard settings, I can usually win with 6 or 7 cities when playing Progress while playing peacefully unless there's a huge AI runaway leader that conquers half the world. I wouldn't settle more than 7 cities, unless the 8th location is just legendary.

 

[Ninal]

elts are actually pretty good at anything. The spearmen UU still helps generate faith, progress can kill barbarians too. Their pantheon named Rhiannon is good with progress, culture per city for fast expansions and gold and production for any improved resource. Progress's biggest problem is low early culture.

Yep that makes sense... I guess that Cernunnos can be good too for progress on a heavy jungle or forest start?
Would you prioritise settling over early Pictish warriors when playing progress?

That game was on an incense monopoly, which I got connected by turn 48 with progress's free worker. I would have put down more cities, but the AI beat me to settling locations.

I had an early Incense monopoly on my last Deity victory with Tradition Byzantium. It rocks!

The land is roughly the same, but I think overall you tend get about 1 more city on large than standard. You can get more luxuries to help with happiness too.

But the biggest difference is in culture and science. On standard, each city raises costs of tech and social policies by 7%. On large or bigger, it's only 5%. That's a very big difference.

Oh wow I didn't know that! I've learned something new again.... As I always do when I talk to you

 

[CrazyG]

Yep that makes sense... I guess that Cernunnos can be good too for progress on a heavy jungle or forest start?
Would you prioritise settling over early Pictish warriors when playing progress?

I'd probably want two pictish warriors, then just spam settlers.

 

[stii]

Progress just has a fundamental mismatch with deity. You want to build lots of cities but there often isn't enough space. Opening progress is such a gamble, you are much better off going tradition and just building 7 cities if there is space, then you are better off if there is only room for 4.

That said it does make the game more challenging but I think playing a bigger map for more space defeats the point somewhat.

 

[Ninal]

Yeah progress seems to be in a bad spot right now. At least that’s How me and my friends see it. That’s why I think that progress should get a serious advantage with settler production (as discussed in the other thread)...

 

[CrazyG]

Yeah I strongly prefer tradition to progress on Deity. I played 4 babylon games last patch to really test out which is better for a science victory, 2 with progress and 2 with tradition, and tradition was clearly and substantially better. I thought that might just be a Babylon thing though.

Here are some break downs that are really favorable to tradition

Spoiler Production :

Tradition gets 3 production in the capital + 1 production per city (which means 4 in the cap). Compare to progress's 2 hammers per city.

Progress has less total production 1, 2, or 3 cities. It breaks even at 4, and only pulls ahead at 5.
However, this doesn't consider that tradition also has an engineer slot and 2 extra population. Let's say those two pop work the engineer and a productionless tile. Now tradition remains ahead until the 7th city.

Progress does get 10% towards buildings which over time becomes valuable. But tradition gets 10% production in the capital too, and picks up production from longer golden ages. This does favor progress but not by that much and it takes a while.

Spoiler Culture :

Tradition can actually get more culture in expansions.

+2 culture to monuments, baths, and gardens is really good. 2 to monuments beats 10 bonus for buildings for most of ancient and classical eras.
In medieval era, you would need a building every 5 turns to match a tradition city with monument and baths.
In renaissance, you need it every 5 turns to match monument + baths + garden.

In industrial, tradition is done scaling but it becomes really hard to consistently be completing a new building every 7 or 8 turns. Even if progress is earning slightly more in expansions, it still has no comparison in the capital.

 

[stii]

I'm glad you did some tests because I was pretty sure tradition was just better but running a bunch of peaceful games does take rather a long time. Progress having all those bonus yields makes it so hard to tell how much of anything you are really getting.

Tradition is just so much more front loaded. Even if the break even was at five cities you'd have a long time where tradition was much better.

 

[Ninal]

Thanks for the testing @CrazyG it confirms what me and my friends have found out as well. One of my friends recently got his 4th Deity victory with tradition babylon after failing to succeed at Babylon with progress.

I think it is pretty clear that, at least at Deity, progress is outperformed by Tradition and Authority. I think there are two ways to solve it. Either make Progress early game less weak or make the "pay-off" late game stronger.

My ideal would be that Progress becomes King at the peacefull wide game. At the very least progress should be able to establish a larger (6-10 cities) empire with quick settlers and get the means to build infrastructure and the means to profit from going wide.

As it stands Progress sucks so hard early game that the modest late game rewards are (on average) simply not enough to make up for it.

 

[ICanHasName?]

I do think it's odd that the wide tree doesnt get the free settler. You need early settlers to even be able to go wide, and auth gets a free one while trad gets free pop and stuff in the capitol to build one.

 

[Stalker0]

Yeah I strongly prefer tradition to progress on Deity. I played 4 babylon games last patch to really test out which is better for a science victory, 2 with progress and 2 with tradition, and tradition was clearly and substantially better. I thought that might just be a Babylon thing though.

How many cities did you have in each of your runs?

 

[Stalker0]

In industrial, tradition is done scaling but it becomes really hard to consistently be completing a new building every 7 or 8 turns. Even if progress is earning slightly more in expansions, it still has no comparison in the capital.

Don't forgot the Great Writer faith buys...that is a tremendous source of late game culture for Progress.

 

[CrazyG]

Don't forgot the Great Writer faith buys...that is a tremendous source of late game culture for Progress.

I would have agreed with before these games.

In these games tradition was just crushing progress in culture. Extra golden age length, 10% culture in the capital, more great works and 3 extra specialist slots to use. The progress games were like 3 social policies behind as of industrial era, the great writers weren't enough.

Another thing is by the time you bulb great writers (and you probably enact world's fair around this time), tradition's cities earn 4 or 6 culture from tradition each. Progress's cities earn 0 culture unless they build buildings. So if you switch the culture process during world's fair, or just to boost great writers in general, tradition's expansion actually have more culture.

Tradition also has more great works to boost those great writers, and while it cannot faith purchase it generate more of them naturally.

How many cities did you have in each of your runs?

For progress I had 5 and 7, that's just how the land worked out. I know it isn't ideal but progress was really far behind the tradition games by like turn 90, I don't think extra cities would have been enough.