Tradition, Heroic Epic, and Building Units

[Vuffster]

Hi all,

Longtime lurker, first-time poster on the VP forums. Played a lot of Civ V, especially BNW, and have been playing VP casually on and off for about a year, usually just sticking to Prince difficulty.

I almost always play peaceful games, choosing Tradition and focusing on Great People. As a result, production lags, and it's easy to focus overmuch on buildings and wonders rather than the units needed to convince the AI to go to war with someone else. Usually, it seems to make sense to build the Heroic Epic in the capital (instant Morale for existing units + boost), but that just clogs the capital's production queue that much more.

Potential solutions I can think of:
1. Buy, rather than build, more units in the capital. Downsides: less starting XP and is not Tradition's strength.
2. Build the Heroic Epic in a secondary city. Downsides: less in capital and no Morale for units already built there.
3. Be much more selective about Wonders. Downsides: weaker peaceful play and just not as fun.

Any thoughts on this balancing act from other frequent Tradition players?

 

[YukiN]

Hi all,

Longtime lurker, first-time poster on the VP forums. Played a lot of Civ V, especially BNW, and have been playing VP casually on and off for about a year, usually just sticking to Prince difficulty.

I almost always play peaceful games, choosing Tradition and focusing on Great People. As a result, production lags, and it's easy to focus overmuch on buildings and wonders rather than the units needed to convince the AI to go to war with someone else. Usually, it seems to make sense to build the Heroic Epic in the capital (instant Morale for existing units + boost), but that just clogs the capital's production queue that much more.

Potential solutions I can think of:
1. Buy, rather than build, more units in the capital. Downsides: less starting XP and is not Tradition's strength.
2. Build the Heroic Epic in a secondary city. Downsides: less in capital and no Morale for units already built there.
3. Be much more selective about Wonders. Downsides: weaker peaceful play and just not as fun.

Any thoughts on this balancing act from other frequent Tradition players?

There should be a city that is production heavy focusing on units and military buildings. That's where I would put Heroic Epic.

The units you have built in the capital will become obsolete, and you probably won't have the gold or the promotions to justify upgrades. Disband or gift those and build new units from your military city.

 

[crdvis16]

I agree with Yukin. Off-load the production of units to a secondary city after the early game is over and build heroic epic there. The production gain from the heroic epic will be minuscule in the long run and the capital won't miss it.

In general, I would say it's a good idea to off-load production of units and caravans/cargo ships to secondary cities if possible so that the capital can focus on growth and production of more important things. I generally treat my secondary cities as much less important than the capital when playing tradition so I'm less worried if they happen to fall behind a little in infrastructure as long as they can make some units for defense.

Note that my advice would be different if I went authority and plan to get some military wonders built in my capital.

 

[Stalker0]

Yukin nailed it. Tradition play needs a good military focused city, and it isn't your capital.

 

[Vuffster]

Thanks, all. I figured that was probably the best solution; I often had a military-focused city in Vanilla, but got thrown off by the retroactive Morale promotion in VP. Will try it in my next game and report back.