Military traditions

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The military traditions screen allows picking a tradition tree and view the individual traditions in it.

Military traditions represent the accumulated practices and expertise of a country's military and reward nations that keep a particularly experienced or well-trained army. They typically give various military-related bonuses and modifiers as well as unlock new unit abilities, unique combat tactics, and special unit types, often promoting the use of different unit compositions and strategies, though some traditions can also have various economic effects such as creating pops, constructing buildings, giving economic modifiers, or granting innovations and province investments.

Each tradition group is associated with to one or more culture groups and consists of two separate tradition trees, each based on a different group of realms or cultures within the group and typically with a different focus. begins with a starting bonus that branches into three separate paths, each linear and typically based on the traditions of a particular culture or nation that uses the tree. Each military tradition costs 80 military experience and requires that the nation has adopted all previous traditions and meets any prerequisites; however, it is otherwise possible to freely choose between any available tradition at no extra cost.

Military tradition types

There are seven different military traditions groups in the world, each tied to one or more culture groups with two trees inside each group. Each country starts with access to at least one military tradition group based on its primary culture, with a few countries also starting with access to one or more tradition trees outside of their groups. Every tradition tree except for Indian Kingdom unlocks one other military tradition group; adopting these traditions always requires that the country has an integrated culture in one of the relevant culture groups which has at least either 1/4 of the pops of the primary culture or 500 pops (once the primary culture is larger than 2000 pops).

By working its way through these traditions to embrace foreign influence, it is possible for every country to eventually get access to every tradition group (and adopt every tradition) with sufficient military experience and pops of the required culture groups.

Barbarian

Main article: Barbarian traditions

The Barbarian traditions encompass the fighting styles of the peoples of Hispania, Gaul, Britannia, and Germania, among others. They mostly relied on large formations of lightly armored infantry equipped with spears or swords, supported by nimble chariot formations or light cavalry, and made extensive use of ambush tactics, especially in forests.

Greek

Main article: Greek traditions

The Greek traditions cover the tactics of the peoples of the Hellenistic empires and the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Indian

Main article: Indian traditions

The Indian traditions highlight the strengths of the Mauryan kingdom and its neighbors, using large formations of Indian war elephants to smash through the enemy, supported by fast moving archers and chariots who can maneuver around the dispersed troops. They also used complex formations such as the legendary Blooming Lotus, or Padma Vyuha.

Italic

Main article: Italic traditions

The Italic traditions represent the focus on heavily armored and disciplined infantry found in the Etruscan, Roman and other Latin states. They came to favor the sword over the spear, and relied on quickly closing ground with and dispersing less well equipped infantry using strict formations, such as the Triplex Acies, with supporting light cavalry and skirmishers.

Levantine

Main article: Levantine traditions

The Levantine traditions concentrate on the strong naval presence of the Phoenician cities and the use of phalanx tactics, light infantry, and camelry in the arid deserts of the Levant, Egypt, and Arabia. The Phoenicians were the most prominent traders of the Mediterranean, giving them unmatched experience with seafaring and ship building.

North African

Main article: North African traditions

The North African traditions concentrate on the strengths of the Phoenician merchant state of Carthage and the surrounding nations. The Carthaginians had a strong naval tradition built on centuries of Mediterranean trade, and made use of heavy infantry and African war elephants supported by light infantry and cavalry to smash through enemy formations.

Persian

Main article: Persian traditions

The Persian traditions cover the tactics of the peoples of the Scythian steppe and satellites of the former Achaemenid empire. Life on and around the steppe has forged these peoples into exquisite horsemen who, armed with a bow, can harry and surround their opponents from beyond their reach, while their infantry concentrates on whittling down the worn out formation.

Military tradition unlocks

Group	Military tradition tree	Unlocks	Levy Size	Found City Cost	Innovation	Starting EXP	Combat Tactics	Ships	Abilities
Barbarian	Celtic	Italic					Hit-and-Run
Barbarian	Britannic	North African	Yes			Yes
Greek	Greek Poleis	Levantine					Phalanx, Cavalry Skirmish		Slave raid
Greek	Greek Kingdom	Persian		Yes		Yes		Octere, Mega-Polyreme	Military Colonies
Italic	Roman	Greek	Yes		Yes(two +3)		Triplex Acies		Build Military Road
Italic	Italic Tribe	Barbarian							Construct Border Fort
Levantine	Levantine Kingdom	North African		Yes	Yes(+4)				Military Colonies
Levantine	Levantine Maritime	Greek					Phalanx	Octere, Mega-Polyreme
Indian	Indian Kingdom		Yes		Yes(+4)		Padma Vyuha
Indian	Indian Tribe	Persian						Octere	Slave raid
North African	Punic	Levantine	Yes
North African	Numidan	Italic					Cavalry Skirmish
Persian	Persian	Indian		Yes				Octere	Military Colonies
Persian	Persian Rural	Levantine	Yes		Yes(+4)		Cavalry Skirmish

Strategy

Main article: Military experience

Disbanding a levy that has been raised for at least 8 months will grant grant 0.015 military experience for each point of cohort experience.

By stacking Starting Experience modifier from Military Traditions, Deities, and Inventions, levy size modifiers from Laws and Military Traditions, and Experience Decay modifier from National Idea, Capital bonus, and Inventions, one can eventually unlock multiple military traditions every year.

References

Military Traditions

Barbarian • Greek • Indian • Italic • Levantine • North African • Persian

Mechanics