Tradition/Progress vs Tradition/Fealty

[Stalker0]

The recent discussion came up about the "insanity" of going Progress after Tradition as opposed to the Medieval trees. My instant reaction was the same, the medieval trees are definitely better, going progress after tradition is simply not a good idea.

But....I like to throw down the science. So lets take a side by side look at the trees to see what we are getting here. I will start the winner of each category.

Assumptions (feel free to critique if you think any of these are gravely off).
1) All key buildings are built for purposes of bonuses.
2) A building is built every 10 turns in a city.
3) Scaling starts in the Medieval Era (since tradition was taken first).
4) A new person is born every 10 turns in a city.
5) 6 cities, assuming a more TALL focus since its a Tradition start.
6) Both Trees are finished.
7) Forbidden Palace and Taj Mahal are not built (we are looking at the tree on its own).
8) A new tech is researched every 8 turns.
9) 4 trade routes that get the burghers bonus.
10) Capital is Size 13 when Progress is first taken (strong capital with Tradition).
11) 1 pasture per city (more likely to be concentrated but for the ease is discussion).
12) 20 Happiness in the Empire
13) 15 non-specialist citizens per city.


Food

Progress: 3 Food/City + 2/3/4/5/6/7 food for every building built.
***Fealty: 11 Food/City
Fealty is just better on food period.

Science
Progress: 3 SPT. Raw 390 science when first taken, plus +4/5/6/7/8/9 SPT due to citizens in the capital.
Fealty: 5 SPT per city, +8 SPT from trade routes

Progress gets an immediate head start, and then stays neck and neck to Fealty with its citizen bonuses. However, fealty gets more science multiplier on its bonus. I think this one is close enough to call a tie.

Gold
***Progress: 2 GPT + 3/4.5/6/7.5/9/10.5 GPT from citizens
Fealty: 1 GPT

No contest here. Progress is significantly better in terms of gold production.

Hammers
Progress: 2 PPT + 10% for buildings
***Fealty: 3 PPT + 15% everything during WLTKD.

The burghers bonus is just baller once you learn to chain those WLTKD days towards the mid game. Really no question to me on this one.

Culture
***Progress: 14.4/20.6/26.9/33.1/39.4/45.6 CPT due to techs + 2/3/4/5/6/7 culture for buildings * 6 =
26.4/38.6/50.9/63.1/75.4/87.6 CPT overall.
Fealty: +5 CPT per city * 6 = +30, +8 from trade routes, +10 from happiness = +48 CPT overall.

They start out competitive but Progress keeps scaling up the culture as the game goes on.

Faith
***Fealty: No contest here. Fealty is the main go to for faith and religion.

Happiness
Progress: ~+15 happiness from population, -5% all unhappy.
Fealty: 6 happiness, -15% from boredom. +15 to defense (fights crime).

This one is tough. Its hard to guage how much progress' happiness will grow, and hard to know how much those yields reductors will help. If I assume Fealty's reductors give on average 1 less unhappy per city, we are at 15 vs 12. But Progress takes some time to get to 15 as well.

Its too close for me to call.

Misc
Progress: Faster workers (can assume certain bonuses will come online ~1-2 turns quicker than Fealty. Can buy great writers

Fealty: +15 defense, 50% faster religion spread in certain areas, +25% tourism for shared defense. Can buy great artists.

Another tough one. Ultimately I don't consider the faster religion to be important....if religion is your game than this entire topic is mute....fealty is the one for you. The tourism is not a great bonus if you aren't focusing on CV.

Faster workers are useful to everyone, any playstyle, any era. Personally I also think Great Writers are better than Great Artists. Once I start getting my eternal golden ages, Artists lose their luster, but Great Writers just keep going and going. However, you can argue that with the tremendous more faith you get for Fealty, you are going to bag probably 2 more GPs at least. That should not be discounted. Lastly, defense is always a nice thing to have, in some games its not important, in others its a godsend.

So ultimately I go with a tie here.


Conclusion:
Ultimately I can see why Tradition/Progress looks viable. Progress seems to hold its own against Fealty pretty well in this scenario, they both have advantages in different places. I personally think Fealty's base of more food and hammers will ultimately give you a stronger civ long turn...but Progress has enough solid bonuses that I don't consider it an automatic victory either way.

 

[ElliotS]

Also of note is that the headstart on tech from Progress can get you a military tech faster than the nearby AI thats colonized your land as you do #progress things. This can lead to a nice war to cripple them and take a shiny city or two. If things go really well, a vassal. Sure Fealty can help defense, but there's a lot of defensive value in a vassal.

 

[tu_79]

Here is something I think you overlooked:

With the extra food from Fealty, and the extra happiness (specially crime), you get to work more specialists. When you already have 8+ pop in a city, the best tiles (those that are better than a specialist in raw yields) are already worked on.
Also, when you focus on specialists, your building order is not the same, you want Forges and Libraries fast.

 

[Owlbebach]

I think you forgot about monasteries, and they are very strong.

Also the main problem with this analysis is that going Fealty after Tradition doesn't make any sense in the first place. At least if you try to maximize your effectiveness and ultimately try not only to win the game, but to win the game as fast as possible. Tradition is too much focused on Great People that in most of situations starting Tradition means you play Tourism Victory. There are several exclusions to that, such as Korea, but for most of civs it is true. Not saying that other victories are not possible with Tradition, but Tourism will just work better.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I think you forgot about monasteries, and they are very strong.

Also the main problem with this analysis is that going Fealty after Tradition doesn't make any sense in the first place. At least if you try to maximize your effectiveness and ultimately try not only to win the game, but to win the game as fast as possible. Tradition is too much focused on Great People that in most of situations starting Tradition means you play Tourism Victory. There are several exclusions to that, such as Korea, but for most of civs it is true. Not saying that other victories are not possible with Tradition, but Tourism will just work better.

Agree, tradition -> fealty is rarely optimal. But I think there is situations where tradition -> Statecraft is good (trivial example is Austria, but Statecraft is also good for Science victory)

 

[tu_79]

Agree, tradition -> fealty is rarely optimal.

Byzantium?

 

[Stalker0]

I think you forgot about monasteries, and they are very strong.

Also the main problem with this analysis is that going Fealty after Tradition doesn't make any sense in the first place. At least if you try to maximize your effectiveness and ultimately try not only to win the game, but to win the game as fast as possible. Tradition is too much focused on Great People that in most of situations starting Tradition means you play Tourism Victory. There are several exclusions to that, such as Korea, but for most of civs it is true. Not saying that other victories are not possible with Tradition, but Tourism will just work better.

Monastery bonuses were factored in. I did not factor in the specialist slot though (damn tooltip!!)

I think tradition/fealty is absolutely fine science victory play. As was said earlier, that extra food is good for specialists (or just even more grown). The defense is also nice. There have been several treads on the boards talking about how good fealty is.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Monastery bonuses were factored in. I did not factor in the specialist slot though (damn tooltip!!).

The specialist slot was removed, I think.

 

[Owlbebach]

The specialist slot was removed, I think.

Oh that changes a lot, i finally need to try a new version

I think tradition/fealty is absolutely fine science victory play. As was said earlier, that extra food is good for specialists (or just even more grown). The defense is also nice. There have been several treads on the boards talking about how good fealty is.

No it is not, cause Fealty directly scales from number of cities that you have. I mean yaeh, no doubts it can work and you will win after all, but it is not an optimal pick. If you play Tradition --> Science (which is a good choice only for Korea and maybe 1-2 other civs) than you can take Statecraft and get +1 science to your specialists. And for most of civs Tradition is bad for Science

 

[Workerspam]

And for most of civs Tradition is bad for Science

Can you explain your reasoning behind this statement? I tend to go Progress most of the time but when I've gone Tradition I've never felt like it hurt my science output, and I don't see anything in the trees that would directly push Progress over Tradition for science.

 

[tu_79]

Can you explain your reasoning behind this statement? I tend to go Progress most of the time but when I've gone Tradition I've never felt like it hurt my science output, and I don't see anything in the trees that would directly push Progress over Tradition for science.

If you want science, with tradition, you need to work the scientists. But you want to work the artists, the writers, the musicians, the engineers, ... Culture, on the other hand, comes with a few buildings that are going to be built eventually.
With Progress, you get raw science in your cities, no matter what you work, and you can build the science buildings faster.

An example, my neighbour Harald has picked Progress, and I took Tradition. Our trade routes are granting science to me and culture to Harald.

 

[Owlbebach]

Can you explain your reasoning behind this statement? I tend to go Progress most of the time but when I've gone Tradition I've never felt like it hurt my science output, and I don't see anything in the trees that would directly push Progress over Tradition for science.

Tradition is simply too weak for the first half of the game. It starts soooo sloow, you have zero hammers in your cities. You can't build stuff and Science is a very snowbalish victory. With Progress and Authority you have more hammers -> build scientific buildings faster -> reach new scientific buildings earlier.

For Tourism victory it is different cause you can't build stuff but you actually don't need to. And Tradition priveds you additional specialists in your capital that you can't get in any other way so Tradition player will ALWAYS have more tourism than anyone else (if played correctly ofcourse)

 

[Stalker0]

Seems like I need to do a tradition vs progress review next!

Tradition starts much faster than progress to me because it’s culture and faith kick in much quicker. With 2 policies you have +5 culture in the capital, so you get through the tree faster. And a tradition player has a much easier time getting a religion, and getting thst religion quicker. That’s further bonuses you can’t. This is further clinched with the end policies. Suddenly you can get 4-6 more culture per city with your monuments, baths, etc.

Progress eventually catches up (and maybe surpasses it) due to the scaling of the culture per building policy. But early on, my culture is much higher with tradition than with progress

 

[Owlbebach]

Seems like I need to do a tradition vs progress review next!

Tradition starts much faster than progress to me because it’s culture and faith kick in much quicker. With 2 policies you have +5 culture in the capital, so you get through the tree faster. And a tradition player has a much easier time getting a religion, and getting thst religion quicker. That’s further bonuses you can’t. This is further clinched with the end policies. Suddenly you can get 4-6 more culture per city with your monuments, baths, etc.

Progress eventually catches up (and maybe surpasses it) due to the scaling of the culture per building policy. But early on, my culture is much higher with tradition than with progress

Tradition starts faster in the capital. In fact, if you have enough faith or if you do not persue Religion that you can take Engeneer policy as your 2nd, whic is a HUGE boost. Actually Tradition can pump Settlers way faster than Authority. However the problem is that you secondary cities are absolute trash for the first 80 turns

 

[Workerspam]

Tradition starts much faster than progress to me because it’s culture and faith kick in much quicker. With 2 policies you have +5 culture in the capital, so you get through the tree faster.

I've been tech saving when I go Progress. Research a tech until you have 1-2 turns left then switch. Do this until you unlock the first policy in Progress (switching the current research if needed so you don't complete a tech from the science in capital part of the policy) then finish all your partially completed techs for the culture boost. Most games it's worth 30-45 culture at the cost of delaying the reveal of bonus and strategic resources; it's the rare game when doing this delays something I want to build. If I have early culture luxuries I've occasionally been able to open up the 3rd progress policy (2/2 each city) before settling my second city.

 

[tu_79]

Seems like I need to do a tradition vs progress review next!

Tradition starts much faster than progress to me because it’s culture and faith kick in much quicker. With 2 policies you have +5 culture in the capital, so you get through the tree faster. And a tradition player has a much easier time getting a religion, and getting thst religion quicker. That’s further bonuses you can’t. This is further clinched with the end policies. Suddenly you can get 4-6 more culture per city with your monuments, baths, etc.

Progress eventually catches up (and maybe surpasses it) due to the scaling of the culture per building policy. But early on, my culture is much higher with tradition than with progress

My tradition cities are almost all of them underdeveloped. The exception is playing extremely tall, but there are supply issues. Progress can be played tall too.
I fear the biggest effect is based on the settling model rather than policies themselves.