Why is tradition so bad?

[apocalypse105]

I would move the free settler to tradition and away from liberty. A tall empire (not OCC) doesn't have the time/spare cities to build a settler and the free one would really help. Liberty on the other hand, would still have the faster building of settlers bonus.

I think that small change would balance out Liberty and Tradition nicely. IMHO.

Yeah and changing legalism and landed elite from places .

 

[joncnunn]

Commerce is map dependent.

On an Archepello type maps, you get:
Major production boost in all cities. And quicker since this unlocks in the Ren era.

I find that when I do my standard PT induced Astronomy that the only immediately useful Rationalism policy is the base one (for RAs) while I really could use the production boost.

Now on other maps such as Pangaea where there aren't many coastal cities, that greatly devalues Commerce.

i think commerce sucks.

i think commerce is probably the worst all around tree, but mostly because ive never gotten deep enough to spend more than 2 slots on autocracy or order.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Commerce is map dependent.

On an Archepello type maps, you get:
Major production boost in all cities. And quicker since this unlocks in the Ren era.

I find that when I do my standard PT induced Astronomy that the only immediately useful Rationalism policy is the base one (for RAs) while I really could use the production boost.

Now on other maps such as Pangaea where there aren't many coastal cities, that greatly devalues Commerce.

c'mon, i specifically cited commerce as having more value if you are doing a large navy-based game. why would crop that part out of my comment and address it?

 

[Androrc the Orc]

The weird thing is that tradition is for small empires, while liberty is for large empires. It should be the other way around (historically "liberty" civilizations were usually city-states and such or small republics, while "tradition" civilizations were usually large expansive empires, such as Persia).

 

[Wargizmo]

Commerce is at least useful in a couple of specific cases, the right side is amazing for large puppet empires where you'll have a lot of gold to burn, and the left side is pretty much required on archipelago maps.

Tradition just seems like there's never a good time to take it, there are always better trees available no matter what stage of the game you're at or what victory condition you're going for.

 

[apocalypse105]

I thinx the problem with tradition and commerce is that other trees are just way better and you usally allways go for those trees.


The same goes with order and autocracy.

 

[RedRover57]

I think the main problem with Tradition is that often accelerated city growth isn't needed and in fact can be detrimental in terms of maintaining happiness. Raw beakers/turn (generated in part by population) isn't that important when you can just blast through the tech tree with GS's and RA's. As long as you have enough pop to work your science specialists and best tiles for production and gold (plus enough food tiles so you don't starve), then there isn't much advantage to growing much larger. Settling cities on good sites with luxuries to sell is probably more important than the ability to work more gold tiles (e.g., trade posts) in your main cities. You can always increase your gold by puppeting and trading posting all the tiles in your puppets, in which case you don't want them to grow too much either for happiness issues.

VEM/UP mod has done a pretty good job of balancing Tradition and Liberty, and I switch between them for different games when I use this mod. But for vanilla games I almost always go Liberty except in very select situations.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i dont think Naval Tradition has any place in Commerce. that or i think it should be defined as Naval trade routes are not disrupted by enemy units (or worked water tiles are not disrupted). No longer losing gold from barbarians or war time units would be a direct benefit to gold. the +1 movement/sight is a bonus but i think it has nothing to do with Commerce. It might fit into Honor, but that tree is pretty good as is.

And i think Tradition needs to redefine Oligarchy. It should read: Units stationed (not garrisoned) in Cities cost no maintenance and Cities with Units stationed there receive 100% combat bonus.

And if im not mistaken, the happiness from Aristocracy doesnt come until you have a minimum of 10 pop. I think it should +1 happ from citizens from 1-10, 11-20, etc. and only for settled/annexed cities, not puppets.

I also think Aristocracy should lead into Monarchy, Landed Elite lead into Legalism, and Oligarchy staying in its own slot. It might not still be as powerful as Liberty, but the timing of getting Legalism and Landed Elite become more valuable.

 

[headcase]

the +1 movement/sight is a bonus but i think it has nothing to do with Commerce.

I think the argument here is:
more commerce leads to
more business leads to
more\better military contractors and\or minor innovations in boating leads to
better optical equipment and\or larger caravans of boats around the naval unit

That's my guess anyway

 

[Fluffball]

the free garrison policy seems out of place for tradition. they should keep something that gives cities a 100% city attack bonus, but change that it requires a garrison (albeit a free one) to get that because putting an archer/cannon/etc. in there isnt "free" since you cant re-garrison after an attack.

either make the garrison action not a movement cost for ranged units or dont require the unit to actually be garrisoned, just require it to be in the city. that would even let cities on coasts get the garrison bonus from triremes and other naval units (though not workers or work boats).

I haven't really used that policy in a long time so don't know the numbers but it would seem that he 100% attack bonus is designed to make up for the loss of a extra shot from a ranged garrisoned unit?
i.e. instead of taking two smaller shots with your city and the ranged unit you take one big shot with the city.
The only potential issue being when you may want to take two shots.e.g. you have a mostly dead target which could be killed by a small shot and thus would kill that and take a shot at another unit in the same turn.

 

[Scarpa]

The problem with that logic is it's pretty common for the unit to be able to hit much harder than the city, even with the Oligarchy bonus.

 

[FeiLing]

And also you want the experience for the unit anyway.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

you also want a bigger incentive to even go for Tradition. the way oligarchy is now isn't strong enough unless you have the garrison bonuses from Honor, and even it is not that necessary unless you are doing some ICS.

 

[apocalypse105]

I haven't really used that policy in a long time so don't know the numbers but it would seem that he 100% attack bonus is designed to make up for the loss of a extra shot from a ranged garrisoned unit?
i.e. instead of taking two smaller shots with your city and the ranged unit you take one big shot with the city.
The only potential issue being when you may want to take two shots.e.g. you have a mostly dead target which could be killed by a small shot and thus would kill that and take a shot at another unit in the same turn.

Garison you're archer shoot with the city to get the bonus (make sure you click the garison city then select you're archer and atack from the city

second turn select archer and garison him because he moved the past turn and atack with the city and so on

First atack with city then unit ...

 

[RonMar]

Garison you're archer shoot with the city to get the bonus (make sure you click the garison city then select you're archer and atack from the city

second turn select archer and garison him because he moved the past turn and atack with the city and so on

First atack with city then unit ...

That is the way I play with garisoned units. The unit in the city does double duty this way. It can be very effective with a garrisoned range unit.

 

[Silverfuturist]

you also want a bigger incentive to even go for Tradition. the way oligarchy is now isn't strong enough unless you have the garrison bonuses from Honor, and even it is not that necessary unless you are doing some ICS.

I am thinking oligarchy was done with multi-player in mind... that policy has made a big difference in many of my MP games. Combine it with Great Wall for even stronger impact. Against AI, well... the AI is so horrible at combat it feels like the policy is a waste to me.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

ah, ive only tried mp twice. i hadnt thought about that. to clarify, all of my argumentation/suggestions were for single player.

 

[vonbach]

I always play with Tradition. I get all that lovely city growth.
Liberty I save for after I've filled out the Piety tree. Unless I decide
to go with something else.

 

[Silverfuturist]

ah, ive only tried mp twice. i hadnt thought about that. to clarify, all of my argumentation/suggestions were for single player.

Thanks for the clarification - most posts are about single player, so I also assume that unless the post is on the tiny multiplayer section, it is single player. I am trying to get more players to experience the game as I believe it was designed - against intelligent opponents. Many of the game elements suddenly make sense in multiplayer - for example what look like lame units (lancers) against the AI become important against humans. Also, the "exploits" (like stealing all the AIs gold through deals, or getting all of the AIs to sign RAs, even ones that don't like you) evaporate against intelligent opponents. And finally, it is more satisfying to me when everybody has the same playing field and victory requires matching wits, not figuring out how to beat a dumb opponent that is given massive bonuses to compensate for not being able to think.

That being said, if people enjoy single player, that is cool also.

 

[Tabarnak]

That being said, if people enjoy single player, that is cool also.

That's the purpose of my sig