Prosperity tree underappreciated

[Thinkamancer]

While reading the subreddit and the Paradox forums, I get the feeling that Prosperity is severely underappreciated.

I get why Expansion is king, for good reason. Growth is king, and Expansion is growth, but Prosperity deserves special mention, concerning flexibility and strategic resources. Let's look at the details:

• +10% mining station output means strategic deposits in space also give +10%
  
  
• -10% building upkeep means upgraded buildings cost 0.9/1.8 specials in upkeep. It also means habitat maintenance is reduced by 10% because the upkeep in on the capital building.
  
  
• 5% specialist output. One of the reasons efficient bureaucracy gets so much love is 6% to science. This is 5% to science, consumer goods, alloys, unity, refined strategic resources, and so on.
  
  
• 1 free clerk/city district. I keep seeing complaints about economies tanking because building a specialist building takes workers off the primary resources. Clerks are the answer!. Just lower prio on the (many, many) clerk jobs you have, to keep the mines running, and when they are working, each clerk is helping.
  
  
• -10% building cost means that first research lab upgrade costs 45 instead of 50 gas, and so on.
  
  
• +1 housing: fewer city districts mean more resource districts, while unlocking building slots. Free housing helps growth by increasing migration attraction.
  
  
• finisher: it will be a while until you hit 50 pops, but merchants are very good at making useful stuff out of thin air.

I've posted the same thing on the subreddit, I just want to reach people with my PSA

 

[Dragonchampion]

Yeah, with the nerf to Expansion, it's become my go-to first tradition tree. It's just so good.

 

[#Tukuro]

The only tree that feels weak now is domination. Because most of the bonuses aren't useful till much later on.

 

[fodazd]

As a megacorp, I usually pick Prosperity as my first tradition tree. I think it's good.

 

[pryr]

As far as i know nothing is reducing job upkeep and building upkeep reduction is not that good as it seems.

 

[Peerless Girl]

It is later, believe me. Honestly none of the trees outright suck now, depending on situation, which is great!

 

[Damedius]

I usually take it third now.
I take Discovery first just because I feel it's wasted if you don't take it early, then expansion. After that Prosperity.
Taking Discovery is probably sub optimal but I feel like it gets worse the longer you put it off.

 

[Talanic]

I feel Prosperity is strong but most of those bonuses scale well later. Expansion cutting influence costs and getting my first worlds going is a more immediate boost, and while Prosperity is good, it can wait until I need extra housing from city districts and extra clerks.

 

[Bouchart]

I don't think Prosperity is useful as the first pick since you really need to have a few colonies established before the bonuses are noticeable. Second or third is probably better. With Discovery and Expansion you start getting the benefits right away.

 

[AlanC9]

The only tree that feels weak now is domination. Because most of the bonuses aren't useful till much later on.

Better than it used to be, though. The only thing that was useful in the old tree was the governor level cap unless you were making vassals.

 

[#Tukuro]

Better than it used to be, though. The only thing that was useful in the old tree was the governor level cap unless you were making vassals.

The 50% tributary income bonus (25% to 37.5%) was extremely useful. Especially in MP. One reason being that it taxed raw income, and 37.5% is very close to the actual surplus you get from pop production early-game. Thus leaving your tributaries with too few resources to actually revolt...
The hard part was getting to the point where you were "superior" using the old metric. But if you really wanted to, you could just release the planets right after, and have the AI deal with it.