New Beta Version - October 8th (10-8)

[tu_79]

If you wanted to give extra supply to Tradition "in theme", here are a few options:

1) Increase supply by X% of your capitals population (bigger capital = even more supply)
2) GG and/or GA grants +1 supply on expenditure (focus on GP)
3) Have the national buildings with a building prereq also grant a +1 supply (already in the tree, just add in the +1 supply).


Or....maybe I need to just accept that tradition is very tough for coastal play, and requires a focus on those military wonders to be viable, and that is ok.

I'd be fine with citadels giving 1 more supply to tradition. The other options just let tradition players to fall into conformity only to rage quit once they realize they can't defend themselves.
Edit. However, why not give such effect to Statecraft? It's a rather handy tree for this kind of thing.

 

[Stalker0]

Edit. However, why not give such effect to Statecraft? It's a rather handy tree for this kind of thing.

Some kind of "+1 supply for every CS ally" or something like that? I could see that.

 

[tu_79]

Some kind of "+1 supply for every CS ally" or something like that? I could see that.

Hmm. It scales with map size. Is that okay?

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Then, what is tradition weakness, just not being able to expand too much?

That, and generally weaker production in secondary cities. Under my change, Trad civs would still not be able to out-supply a Pro civ, unless the Pro civ was playing poorly (see below).

As for supply balance with my proposal: A Pro civ should have a minimum of 6+ cities (Standard map size) cranking out advanced infrastructure in order to excel. Going wide often brings conquest into the fold, and successful Pro play should still retain a supply advantage over a Trad civ. If a Pro civ failed to outnumber an opposing Trad civ, then that's their problem they didn't capitalize and execute on their policy choice which relies on high city count to maximize potential. Authority speaks for itself; if Authority players gripe about a case where they're out-supplied by a Trad civ, then I have no sympathy because it means they failed to expand their empire by force.

@Stalker0 , the pop and citadel ideas are cool, but they bring inconsistency and variability between different Trad civs under different circumstances. The citadel +1 supply also unfortunately doesn't solve the issue; you'd only be looking at around +5 extra supply by end-game on average, and that's assuming you've had many wars and actually popped those GG's for citadels instead of keeping them active for their combat boost to defend your empire. That's not enough to be tangible.

My idea gives every Trad civ that finishes the tree a consistently black and white +10 (#'s could be adjusted to settle on specific number with era scaling) supply by Information era. That's your defensive fleet right there. Having the extra cap for 6 more frigates throughout Renaissance is not overpowered and won't allow you to go on some conquering spree, but it makes an impact defensively. This would also allow conquered or whittled down Trad civs to actually compete again eventually and potentially regain some lost ground over the course of a game. E.g. That 2 city vassal is of no worry after being initially conquered, but now in Modern era they've built a tangible army to fight back with due to not being restricted by the supply received from just 2 cities. You or the AI can't liberate yourself with 15 units, but you can with 25...

 

[pineappledan]

Meh. Tradition already has massive perks to growth, and supply scales off that. If supply with tradition really is a problem (I don’t think it is), then just add +2-3 supply to the royal guardhouse

 

[cerk]

How do you guys even manage to found 6+ cities on a standard sized map. I usually hit 5 before my borders clash with my neighbours'.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I don't think that Tradition needs any buffs. They are doing well and shouldn't be fielding massive armies and navies. There should be a challenge for Tradition and it's managing your smaller supply limit to defend your border. If you settle in defensible locations, then you shouldn't need as many units to defend each cities. We're also talking about Immortal difficulty which's supposed to be tough.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Giving extra supply to Tradition would make it much more appealing compared to Progress. If that's the wish of Gazebo/community, so be it, but I'm personally against it, as it goes against the flavour of Tradition.

 

[tu_79]

How do you guys even manage to found 6+ cities on a standard sized map. I usually hit 5 before my borders clash with my neighbours'.

Place your first cities far away so you can claim more territory than your neighbor. Best place is where these cities block the path of foreign settlers. Then place each city every 3 to 4 tiles apart.
Of course, this does not work with Askia as neighbor.

 

[Stalker0]

Place your first cities far away so you can claim more territory than your neighbor. Best place is where these cities block the path of foreign settlers. Then place each city every 3 to 4 tiles apart.
Of course, this does not work with Askia as neighbor.

Agreed, though its not always possible depending on the map. You want to push your borders forward to limit opponent's expansion, and then fill your back pocket. Also, be on the look out for ways to maximize your number of cities. Its often worth put one city in a slightly less optimal position if it makes room for an entire new city.

That said, with aggressive AI settlers I may only get 5 or even 4 cities, and in the worst cases 3. At that point you have to seriously consider warring options to break out.

 

[tu_79]

That said, with aggressive AI settlers I may only get 5 or even 4 cities, and in the worst cases 3. At that point you have to seriously consider warring options to break out.

Depends on map. I've been able to place 7 cities in my last progress game. 5 around capital, 1 on the other side of a city state, 1 in a big island. Immediate neighbour was Sweden (and he did attack before I was finished with my settling).
Edit. And they were settled quite apart, 5 to 6 tiles away most of them. Guess having Venice at the south helped.

 

[andersw]

How do you guys even manage to found 6+ cities on a standard sized map. I usually hit 5 before my borders clash with my neighbours'.

Low sea level helps a lot to create more room, I still get variance but this also depends on my wonder choices and if I take god of the sea/fertility which allow faster settle thanks to food or something else.
Was able to settle 7 in current game, could have gotten more but wanted wonders and war preparations.
Still had a somewhat close call with Arabia.

On the current patch, ducal stable culture is nice (well I liked this building even before), I enjoy emperor with no free worker, will see how AI does onwards, rolled the Arabs and its not a good day to be Byzantine.

Spoiler :

 

[Stalker0]

Depends on map. I've been able to place 7 cities in my last progress game. 5 around capital, 1 on the other side of a city state, 1 in a big island. Immediate neighbour was Sweden (and he did attack before I was finished with my settling).
Edit. And they were settled quite apart, 5 to 6 tiles away most of them. Guess having Venice at the south helped.

By helped you mean made all the difference in the world

 

[andersw]

Btw who swapped place on the siege upgrades?
Oh well I guess field upgraded siege isn't useless ...

 

[CrazyG]

Tradition really only has supply issues when navies get involved, at least in my experience.

Meh. Tradition already has massive perks to growth, and supply scales off that. If supply with tradition really is a problem (I don’t think it is), then just add +2-3 supply to the royal guardhouse

This is the best suggestion.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Meh. Tradition already has massive perks to growth, and supply scales off that. If supply with tradition really is a problem (I don’t think it is), then just add +2-3 supply to the royal guardhouse

An extra 2-3 units are inconsequential and might as well not even be there. What if the supply scaling off pop was increased for Trad finisher, so that each civ would have anywhere between 7-10 extra supply from pop in late-game compared to a civ that didn't go Trad? After pondering a bit more, I still prefer the initial proposal for consistency; I might've came out of the gate a little to hot with +2, but at +1 supply scaling with era (through 8 eras of the game), that's +8 ships for defense, which is sufficient and reasonable.

I don't think that Tradition needs any buffs. They are doing well and shouldn't be fielding massive armies and navies. There should be a challenge for Tradition and it's managing your smaller supply limit to defend your border.

An extra couple supply introducing itself gradually and incrementally as the game progresses through eras will not allow Trad civs to spontaneously start fielding massive armies / navies out of the blue. Read my prior post; six extra Corvettes / Frigates in Renaissance isn't opening up the flood gates for a conquering spree, but it certainly is enough to help defend a couple coastal cities, while not making you invulnerable. They also have to create/buy these extra units at a slower pace/increased cost compared to a Progress civ. Also, you still wouldn't be able to upgrade these extra ships into Industrial without securing the necessary strategics anyways, so there are still some potential restrictions as to not allow complete freedom.

Giving extra supply to Tradition would make it much more appealing compared to Progress. If that's the wish of Gazebo/community, so be it, but I'm personally against it, as it goes against the flavour of Tradition.

How would it be more appealing? You won't even really notice it in the first few eras as the smaller number will be less impactful, but it'll start to aid as the game progresses. Nobody would look and say, "Hmm, I was going Progress, but now I'm going Trad instead because I'll have +2 supply in Classical". In a scenario where we have 2 civs (1 Trad vs 1 Pro) with 6 cities each, the supply would now slightly favour the Trad civ (if they finish the tree), but adding just one extra city for the Pro civ would make up that difference in supply. Many times the gap will be even wider between city count, and the Pro civ will exceed the Trad's supply. Again, if the Pro civ can't establish a higher city count than the Trad civ, then I've no sympathy because that's lack of execution and your even supply is the result of sub-optimal play, so increase it by widening your empire like Progress civs are supposed to...

I don't want to get too much into this like it's my hill to die on (I didn't even bring this issue up, just figured I'd touch on Stalker's complaint because I see what he's getting at), but the idea came to me and I figured I'd throw it out there. Quite frankly, I think it's a good one, and as explained in my initial post, would even bring a new element into the game regarding Trad vassals that have no shot of ever liberating themselves in the current system -- I find Trad civs tend to generally be conquered easier (aside from the capital) than others due to their (usually) peaceful intentions and obvious supply disadvantage.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Tradition don't need any more buffs.
That extra hammer for tradition was in my eyes already strange and too much.
Now all early trees have extra hammers per city in their utility kit and I want to ask, if all your choices have atleast +1 hammer, why not simply add +1 hammer for the city center for ebery one and the problem would be solved.

Same could be true for supply. Give everyone +3 base supply and it's fine. For tradition, this makes a difference in the early stages, but progress and authority shouldn't care that much about it.

 

[Earf]

Place your first cities far away so you can claim more territory than your neighbor. Best place is where these cities block the path of foreign settlers. Then place each city every 3 to 4 tiles apart.
Of course, this does not work with Askia as neighbor.

On going Progress and settling 6+ cities, how do you manage early game happiness? I find I can't go past 5 cities in the early game without running into an unhappiness spiral. Settling a 6th city usually means all my cities are unhappy and revolting. And I play on Large maps, so space isn't so much an issue. All my progress games usually get to 5 cities before I have to start taking space with my neighbors.

 

[civ_player]

Stone works has different requirements in tech tree tooltip and help page. In my case I have stone in two cities and in neither of them I can build stone works (thus can't build the respective wonder). What can cause this?

 

[pineappledan]

It is new code, and air power is something we have to be careful with because - frankly - the human is a lot better at managing the abstraction. TBH I'd rather see Terracotta change than Pentagon, the instant effect is more useful late-game (and easier to time correctly) than it is on Terracotta. Terracotta is a weird wonder, it isn't even in the right location time-wise. I'd like to move and change it.

The code for giving carriers increased cargo via promotions exists, so you can just give all carriers a “fleet carrier” promotion via the pentagon.

I don’t think throwing more wrenches at the early game is worth it. The Terracotta Army has lots of fans and early game balance is much more tested and the balance more calcified than the late game. Not sure what you would even do with the terracotta that would be nearly as fun or interesting as what it already does; I think you risk just making it a throwaway wonder.

not sure what you mean about the terracotta not being in the right time period. They were made for the first Qin emperor in the 3rd century BC. The Qin dynasty seems like a fair enough parallel to western classical antiquity, unless you’re going to make Finding some 1:1 historical bookend between civ’s whiggish timeline and Chinese history a hill to die on.