When to go to war when playing tradition

I mean, just +3 supply and a GG (another +2 supply with benefits if you like) is great for a tall empire, the near invulnerability until Dynamite is a bit more situational but potentially amazing.

If you're going on the offensive then it wil also make you happy that your opponent doesn't have the wall and when you drop a citadel onto him you'll have even more fun.
 
Fealty's opener and first policy are oh-so-tempting when they become available but in the long run I think it's a mistake to not go straight for the tree that supports your intended victory type. If you're Arabia that would be Artistry, for Austria Statecraft, etc. If you took tradition then most of the time fealty isn't the right medieval tree to follow up with.

That said, I'm convinced that military wonders like Terracotta Army and the Great Wall are excellent for tradition, not least because the extra supply limit is so valuable for a tall empire. You can't be entirely peaceful in any game because the AI will eventually attack you. If you want to turtle up with tradition and go builder mode, you must at least build a strong defensive military; the Great Wall is amazing for that.

Yeah, you're probably right when it comes to Civs with very obvious policy choices like those you mentioned. However, Tradition into Fealty has brought me great results with "hybrid" Civs like Japan, Indonesia, Assyria, etc.
And honestly, it really depends on the current situation of your game. Sometimes you gotta be proactive and wage economic warfare against rivals. I've found myself being one city away from a juicy monopoly (+10% gold, culture, etc can be very strong with a Tradition empire) and Fealty can really help with your conquest.

Also, let's not forget religion!! Fealty gives tons of faith so you can get lots of religious buildings. For example, Mosques, mandirs, stupas all scale fantastically with tradition. More faith leads to lots of great people for more GPTI and golden ages
 
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Yeah, you're probably right when it comes to Civs with very obvious policy choices like those you mentioned. However, Tradition into Fealty has brought me great results with "hybrid" Civs like Japan, Indonesia, Assyria, etc.
And honestly, it really depends on the current situation of your game. Sometimes you gotta be proactive and wage economic warfare against rivals. I've found myself being one city away from a juicy monopoly (+10% gold, culture, etc can be very strong with a Tradition empire) and Fealty can really help with your conquest.

Also, let's not forget religion!! Fealty gives tons of faith so you can get lots of religious buildings. For example, Mosques, mandirs, stupas all scale fantastically with tradition. More faith leads to lots of great people for more GPTI and golden ages

Yeah I see all the reasons for it... fealty's a really tempting tree with low-hanging fruit right in front of you coming out of the first ancient branch. I've dipped into fealty in a number of previous games.

The reason against doing this is, well... what's your planned victory type? If diplomatic or cultural, you're going to want to finish either statecraft or artistry. If you dipped into fealty, you'll eventually find yourself not opening industrial era trees because you haven't finished the medieval one. Then eventually find yourself not finishing an industrial branch because you want to go for ideological tenets. At either of those points in the game I suspect you might regret having dipped into fealty. Though it's always hard to calculate what paid off and what didn't in such a complex game.

At least I'm trying to be skeptical of it in recent games and resisting the temptation of fealty, at least for the sake of learning or experimentation.
 
Yeah I see all the reasons for it... fealty's a really tempting tree with low-hanging fruit right in front of you coming out of the first ancient branch. I've dipped into fealty in a number of previous games.

The reason against doing this is, well... what's your planned victory type? If diplomatic or cultural, you're going to want to finish either statecraft or artistry. If you dipped into fealty, you'll eventually find yourself not opening industrial era trees because you haven't finished the medieval one. Then eventually find yourself not finishing an industrial branch because you want to go for ideological tenets. At either of those points in the game I suspect you might regret having dipped into fealty. Though it's always hard to calculate what paid off and what didn't in such a complex game.

At least I'm trying to be skeptical of it in recent games and resisting the temptation of fealty, at least for the sake of learning or experimentation.

There's also the option of not finishing any of those trees, and picking off low-hanging fruit in all 3 intermediate trees.
 
The reason against doing this is, well... what's your planned victory type? If diplomatic or cultural, you're going to want to finish either statecraft or artistry.
Spreading religion far and wide does provide a modest diplomatic and tourism bonus. While artistry and statecraft are much more direct for their respective Victory type, Fealty can be a jack-of-all-trades by supporting a short term expansion/conquest/religious spread that gets a long term population growth bonus. Ideally, this works best if you founded your own religion because you can tailor your beliefs to your long term victory.

I would probably agree that Tradition into Fealty is not the optimal path most of the time. In my experience, it's best when you're already kinda ahead, have wonders like pyramids or Petra, have founded an early strong religion, etc so that you can be aggressive and capitalize on those "low-hanging fruit" as much as possible before the poor long term value becomes apparent
 
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