Tradition on immortal: Relatively useless?

[futurehermit]

I was playing as France on immortal today and thought I'd try for something different. I had marble in my capital and no really close neighbours. I was on a smallish continent with Songhai to my East--close, but far enough away that I could keep on decent terms. I thought, what the heck, I'll go for a cultural victory and start by going up the tradition line.

I lost out on all the early wonders--first one I got was the oracle giving me a free SP. I nabbed a few more as things went on. I got out a couple settlers to block off enough land. I quit awhile after getting all 5 tradition SPs.

I was able to get a few wonders, block off some land, and feel ok-ish about the game; however, I couldn't help but feel that I would've been WAY better off if I had sword-rushed Songhai (no horses) followed by ICSing my continent--i.e., either going up the honor or liberty trees.

The 6 tradition SPs:

1) Tradition: +1 food in the capital. Kinda meh.

2) Aristocracy: +33% production for wonders. Decent, but the AI takes all the really early wonders at the higher levels. Helps a bit for grabbing a couple mid-game wonders, but not decisive.

3) Oligarchy: +33% combat strength when fighting inside own borders. Decent, but means you're fighting defensively, which typically isn't a great sign.

4) Legalism: -33% unhappiness in capital from population (iirc). Kinda meh.

5) Landed Elite: +33% growth rate in capital. Decent, but probably only good for a OCC.

6) Monarchy: -50% cost for buying land. Decent, but not so amazing when you compare to ICSing where you're not paying to buy land.

Outside of a OCC (where I think this tree can shine, comparatively speaking), is this tree relatively useless?

 

[Slowpoke]

Tradition is pretty terrible. Just about every balance mod so far has buffed it. The sad thing is even OCC challenges avoid tradition, despite the fact that it's about buffing your capitol.

 

[stormerne]

No one forces you to open the whole tree! If you insist on trying for wonders at Immortal, go for 2 out of 6, get Aristocracy, then leave the tree alone. Otherwise, for a straight cultural victory, save your culture points, beeline a later era, and open a later tree.

 

[The Tollan]

It might be a good idea for a patch to alter Landed Elite and Legalism so that their benefits apply to a certain number of cities based on map size.

It could perhaps be based on the order in which you founded the cities. So, for example, maybe on a large map each would effect the first three cities one built.

Alternatively, Legalism could be based on cities with the largest population.

There may be mods that already do this but it is worth mentioning.

Monarchy seems relatively ineffective but it would be harder to determine what to do about it.

 

[futurehermit]

I know, I was just trying it out to get a feel for the whole tree. I'm thinking I'll completely avoid it in the future unless maybe playing as Egypt I'll consider Aristocracy.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I've been thinking about this and I still like Aristocracy for Culture.

Getting all the wonders isn't really that great - there are only a few that are really important. Stonehenge, Oracle, Sistine Chapel, Cristo Redentor and Opera House. Plus you want to get one in each city you have.

The rest only give one culture per turn. Building military and capturing puppets will give you better returns.

But you will get to build a lot of national wonders in a culture game, and you are going to have to fill out five whole trees, so I still think you get a good return.

Piety
Honor
Freedom
Patricianism (or whatever it is)
Tradition

Seem like a pretty good combination. If Tradition helps enough to score Stonehenge and Oracle then in my opinion its done enough to justify its place. You will be chronically short of production capability with only three cities so getting your critical wonders and national wonders out of the way quicker is worthwhile. Those hammers can then be used for buildings - which you will lack the gold to rush until much later in the game - or units which will help solve your gold problems eventually.

 

[avl8]

By the way, how exactly Landed elite works?

Does it provide some specific food bonus to your capital?
Does it stack with marytime CS bonuses?
Siam UU bonuses from CS?

 

[pi-r8]

Oligarchy is actually really good. Monarchy is kind of useful if you want to restrict yourself to not settling many cities. The others are terrible.

 

[EscapedGoat]

The first policy sets the tone for this tree. +1 food in the capital? that's a joke right?

It's like the policy from liberty that gives you 7.5 food per city you found (half food towards first citizen... yes, you need to keep early bonuses small because they have a snowball effect but these ones are just "off".

 

[glaivemaster]

Oligarchy is one of my favourite social policies, especially for cultural victories (not so much for domination, obviously). As a second-pick SP (and since you're not really fussed about the other two ancient-era ones anyway) you are actively able to defend yourself, which is important since you're almost certainly going to have a small army. If you go on the offensive you're likely to lose most of that army (bad plan) and have other civs call you a warmonger (going to DOW on you for a small army *and* being a warmonger, very bad). With Oligarchy it's so easy to just sit in your small empire, find a couple of defensible positions and destroy whatever waves of badguys that come your way. Especially powerful with defensive horses (so no fear of counterattacking on open terrain), archers/siege and later Nationalism (obliterating anything that comes near)

The rest of the tree though, meh

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, oligarchy is good and has good synergy with a small, wonder-building empire. If aristocracy was +50%, it combined with oligarchy would be pretty good and I would probably take them when playing for cultural.

 

[CharonJr]

For a cultural victory at immortal I tend to agree that Tradition is relatively useless.

Either you stay with a few cities, then the +100% to later age wonders (cause you will most likely get beaten to the early ones before you are able to establish a tech lead) will be fairly useless.

Or you want to spam cities, then you want to spend the few SPs that you get on more useful SPs.

It is nice at king level and lower, maybe even emporer (havent tried that myself), but at deity/immortal I prefer other SPs.

CharonJr

 

[Paeanblack]

3) Oligarchy: +33% combat strength when fighting inside own borders. Decent, but means you're fighting defensively, which typically isn't a great sign.

Even when you are on the attack, much of the combat can still happen within your own borders (recently conquered cities). With the right troop placement to take advantage of Oligarchy, it wouldn't be too hard to get at least 2/3rds of the combat to occur within your borders

 

[Varanid]

Oligarchy is great when you just conquer a city and it becomes friendly territory Stack that with the castle that buffs fighting inside friendly territory, and with flanking bonuses from honor and you become impossible to kill

 

[Tabarnak]

I dont play single player much, but i have a question.

Does oligarchy can help you when you declare AI war, but instead of fighting in his territory, can you bait him in your territory instead?

Does that make the AI to build more units than usual and make him waste some hammers?

In multiplayer this can be a lot useful if you plan to expand near ennemy, but still having a good chunk of land behind you that you want to settle.

 

[bryanw1995]

Oligarchy is actually really good. Monarchy is kind of useful if you want to restrict yourself to not settling many cities. The others are terrible.

+1. Oligarchy is very important even if you're going AW or just a very military playstyle, it's not difficult to arrange to have much/most of your combat on your home turf. for war-heavy games mil trad/discipline/oligarchy, nationalism and himeji are tough to beat as a team, though at higher difficulties himeji is hit or miss.

 

[MykC]

I also like Oligarchy when going offensive, I may not get it early but I will definetly get it the modern age. With the speed of the units in the modern age you often the opportunity to quickly take out a city even with defending units nearby. It becomes extremely powerful when you combines Oligarchy, Nationalism and that Wonder and get +33 +25 +25 for 83% buff in your borders.

Even then like the above said after you've conquered a city your often going to engage within your new borders.

 

[Lanstro]

At immortal, I still like getting tradition + aristocracy, even for some of my war-based games. Seems more useful than any other 2-policy combination out of the 3 starting trees.