Liberty Opener Demonstration

https://youtu.be/U9ZeSAtta40

Still kind of new to game. Used this map to get a feel for how to play Liberty well. All critiques, corrections, comments, and suggestions welcome

Overall it looks rather nice, but I have a few things to say regarding your city placements:

1) dublin should be place 1 tile NE or NW of where it was settled now. This is to take advantage of being next to a mountain (Observatory gives +50% science), and that is worth a lot more than settling on a fresh water hill. (A farm on the hill you settled now will give 2 food, 2 prod after Civil Service after all)

2) Douglas should also be settled next to a mountain instead. The raw desert tile to the west of the tile that Douglas is now settled would be a better spot. This is because the city will actually turn the flat desert into an ordinary tile (plains) and you'd once more get access to the Observatory.

Thanks for the feedback. I like the Douglas idea since it would be the same except I'd buy the cow tile rather than the deer. I'd lose the +2 faith per turn from forests, but that's little compared to the science boost you mentioned. Plus I noticed after I did the video that once I enhance my religion, I can let up on the hard faith generation since pagodas and mosques will actually start to bring in the faith a little too fast.

As for Dublin, I could settle it NE instead. Are you thinking to then drop a city between it and Cardiff? Say on the hill SW of the silver in order to be able to mine the silver? Or just stick to the silver to the west where Aberystwyth ended up? Aber seems like a bad spot for a city generally speaking since it has poor growth and production. Lots of jungle though, which I guess will be better later, right?

Also, can you help me with where you'd go from the end of the video? Do you spawn an army and start conquering stuff? Do you say, "My borders are established so I'll focus on infrastructure until somebody comes knocking"? I've been studying the early game so much I'm not entirely sure how to transition to the mid game.

What I've been trying with this map is focusing hard on culture to be able to pick up a reformation belief before renaissance so that once Rationalism is available, I'm not wasting policies in piety. The idea being so that I can later spend faith on great people. Which is why I've come to the conclusion that I had actually started accumulating faith a little too quickly.

I think you lack workers. Your number of cities vs number of workers looks unbalanced to me at the end of the video. While you successfully hook luxuries a ton of important stuff are not improved like the iron in the south which is good for trading and making the city more efficient.

I also think you are behind on schedule for science at the end. You have your happiness down but I'd be curious by what time you reach Education at this rate :/ I'd try improving my growth and library synchronization for a possible NC rushed by the liberty finisher. You miss the first golden age, you were very close to reaching it but then you dropped to 0 and then took the liberty golden age.

Finally, no trade route. That's really missing, either for boosting your cap or making gold/science on external.

Thanks for the feedback! All of my tiles get improved eventually. I focused on the luxes first so I could expand as wide as possible from the start.

I didn't realize that golden ages edged each other out like it sounds like you're saying. What would you do instead? The social policy that brings on a golden age kind of has to be the next pick at that point since it makes subsequent policies come faster, eh?

I'm still trying to figure out stuff like how to get out a caravan in a timely fashion. I realized after the video that I was generating too much faith. Since then, I've taken to NOT making shrines right away. I use that production time for things like caravan and/or military.

I'm still trying to learn though. If you'd be so kind as to show me how you'd handle it, I've actually uploaded the map in this thread. I would love to see how veterans perform a liberty opening on this map

While all your tiles will end up improved, faster is better. I usually try to aim so that my cities work as little unimproved tiles as possible. Try to reach around a worker per city. Either by slowing a little your expansion or being more aggressive on steals and self made workers. Consider making Pyramids too.

I would have tried to get the golden age before the policy pick. By trying to keep a positive happiness for a little longer.

You were actually 2 turns close to a natural Golden Age, but you settled Cork and delayed it. If you had skipped 2 turns instead you would have had the natural Golden Age, and actually get Representation sooner, not mentioning the extra 10 turns of early Golden Age. I think it was not optimal to prioritize the stone instead of iron for Cardiff, since it wasn't really ready to build the stone works. Selling the iron may not be viable at that difficulty but you should really get all the gold you can early on and just rush buy a lot of stuff (like a stone works in the capital). You did not sell any horses even though you did connect some early on. Also getting into war with the danes did not really pay off since he was far away and crippling him helped the Mayans more than it helped you. Them offering a city as a peace deal was incredible, but getting the city just to raze it was, in my opinion, a mistake. Since he was willing to give you a city I think he would have given you Wine + the 1gpt + a substantial lump sum of gold (if not all), and that deal would have made the war well worth it.

This is great stuff, guys. Thanks! I'm still new enough to the game that the things you were saying about warring with the Danes were ways I hadn't even thought of to look at it.

I think settling Glasgow and Aberstwyth were a mistake in general. Playing into the midgame, those locations just don't have enough yield to be useful. Cork had enough to be useful, but I didn't realize settling it a couple turns later would've been so much more beneficial.

@Acken: Wouldn't slowing expansion risk others settling it instead? How do you balance the production of workers/settlers/caravans/etc? If you'd be willing, I'd really like an example of what that would look like on this map.

I will say that in one playthrough, I did a lot of dropping cities on top of luxes so as to not have to develop them. What workers I had were able to develop other tiles sooner and it felt like a faster start. However, they were so resource poor compared to my more spread out settling that I didn't know where to go from there. That's why I've taken to settling where so much good stuff is within a couple tiles. But it takes longer to develop it all. I can't even imagine where I'd fit the Pyramids in. Though I'd love the buff and the early engineer points. Could you show me how you'd do it please?

Also, I like the idea of not working unimproved tiles. However, if your workers are that numerou/moving that quickly, what do you do with them once everything's improved? I realize there's roads to lay down and eventually trading posts, etc. Just seems like there'd be a lot of downtime.

Thanks for all the advice! Started a new run. I had my worker(s) focus on the tiles the citizens were going to be working ahead of luxes. Since I wasn't straight spamming settlers, this worked out just fine in the happiness department. Though I still got to all the luxes I could to get a golden age up as soon as possible. Not spamming settlers, I was even able to time it that if I got friendly with a maritime CS, I got to benefit from some of the food

Some other advantages of not just spamming settlers is that I was able to put off Trapping for a bit and grabbed an early Writing. This allowed my first couple settles to work on libraries right after a monument. This along with an early caravan to a civ made for a better early science game overall. I also made sure to sell every horse/iron that I could since I didn't need to use them right away. I was also a bit more forward with my military units, which allowed for a couple more tributes than I'd normally get, so money was consistently higher.

Here's where I'm at right now:

http://i.imgur.com/di88L3D.jpg

Turn 89 Liberty start with 7 cities and I just finished National College! Thanks for the tip for using the Liberty finish GE to rush NC. Meanwhile, I have a settler in place that was just waiting the 1 day for NC to get up before settling. And another settler who will settle next turn. So by next turn, I'll have 9 cities up, most tiles of existing cities developed, almost all roads in place, and happiness and gold will be fine for a bit.

At the moment, I have 9 workers. Though that was mostly unintentional. I had the one I made as my 3rd build, early ones from Persia and Colombo. I was able to grab one of the Mayan's workers shortly thereafter. By this point, I actually had too many since I was settling more slowly. I actually held off on Pyramids until shortly before NC since I knew a couple more expands were coming. Then I happened to find a barb camp with one of France's settlers, which I kept.

Having the workers forcus on tiles the citizens were working over luxes was really helpful. My problem is that I still don't know where to go from here. Because all of my settles are relatively abundant in resources, I'm tempted to go for a science victory. Only building as much military as I need to defend. Which will be a lot since I'm literally in everybody's face except for Denmark.

To that end, where to put my next social policies? Thus far, my attempts at Liberty have gone into Piety to get a reformation belief in order to be able to buy great people with faith. The problem with that is that it takes unlocking and putting 4 social policies into it. I can usually hit Rationalism before all that and this game, my science is well ahead of where I usually am. So I was thinking instead to put a couple points into Tradition just to help with wonder-building. Or perhaps I should go commerce to stave off the impending gold troubles?

Looks a lot more solid to me. But you need to fix the growth of some cities like Douglas. Liberty grows slower but it still needs decent growth. Make granaries.
Also you should be teching Engineering just after Philosophy so you can make Aqueducts (and a route). Get sailing for the 2nd route too. That kind of stuff is way more important than amphitheaters at this point of the game as are shrines and temples.

Depends how many you get before reaching renaissance. Here are a few options:
1policy:
Patronage
Commerce

2 policies (the most common):
Patronage: Consulate or better gifts and can get scholasticism later
Aesthetics: If you plan to get a culture victory, get cultural centers
Commerce: If you plan to get mercantilism later, the second policy is a bit of a wast though (mercenary army).
Tradition: Aristocracy If you expect happiness to be difficult. Helps with wonders.
Exploration: If you have many city on the coast and plan naval domination.
Piety: Good faith boost, synergize well with a wide game since it will give you 70hammers worth per cities with the opener and then 2 faith per city.

3 policies:
Patronage: Scholasticism if you have many CS allies, although not very strong on Prince.
Commerce: Mercantilism
Aesthetics: Again if you get a culture victory

4 policies:
Piety: Reformation. However this usually means your renaissance timing was really slow...

Acken is Honor left side viable at 3 policies before renaissance if you plan on warmongering a lot, or even a Domination Victory? Looks like India kind of forward settled and the extra Great Generals, and experienced army could make it easier.

Personally at this point I would strongly consider Mercantilism which if added with the Big Ben and Order's Skyscrapers would give a nice bonus in rush buying buildings, but Mercenary Army is really a waste as the Celts, because most likely you have 4-5 Pictish Warriors which can be upgraded to super-pikemen almost as strong as long swords, that have the pillaging ability same as landsknechts.

I agree with everything Acken said and wouldonce again point out that I think Dublin should be settled next to Kailash instead of on the hill where it's at now. +50% science is worth so much more than the extra hammer from the hill (that can still be farmed for 2 food, 2 hammers thanks to fresh water)

I'll nag you to death about that

claudiupb said:

Acken is Honor left side viable at 3 policies before renaissance

Click to expand...

Yes, although maybe you'll want to find an experience dummy to really make use of that.

How do you know how many policies you'll pick up before you make it to renaissance?

ToborajniN said:

I agree with everything Acken said and wouldonce again point out that I think Dublin should be settled next to Kailash instead of on the hill where it's at now. +50% science is worth so much more than the extra hammer from the hill (that can still be farmed for 2 food, 2 hammers thanks to fresh water)

I'll nag you to death about that

Click to expand...

And I bow to the wisdom being shared

I tried it once and I wasn't satisfied with the early game results. Settling to the SE of Kailish, I wasn't able to really pick up any resources at all. It made the city all but useless to me. Then I had to decide whether to leave a hole in my cities or drop another one in between my first two settles. Then the cities overlapped in a way I wasn't comfortable with and I don't think the resources supported.

I did move the city to the SW next to the mountain in every playthrough since you mentioned it. Even there, the fact that this map is almost entirely inland, I found that going for an observatory felt like a waste of techs in the early game. I'm sure I'd go for it later when those techs are required for like archaeology and biology.

But as you can see from Acken's mention of Amphitheaters, I'm still trying to learn build order and such. I was favoring amps before because I'm not used to going wide and wanted to counteract the culture (esp. since I was prioritizing reformation before). Also because it's the requisite for Celidh Hall. If I have 9 cities and only 1 is on the mountain, it feels like a waste of techs that early to go for an observatory.

I'm still learning. Please by all means show me the error of my ways. How would a city to the SE of Kailish be good for anything other than Kailish? As it is, I stop working Kailish shortly after I enhance my religion to focus on more important things since there's already too much faith per turn by that point.

Only experience can say how many policies you'll get. I'd say count 15 to 20 turns per policy and 40 turns between NC and renaissance. Also you may include the Oracle.

Is there a way to estimate how soon until you'll hit renaissance? I could count up the days the tech tree lists, but it'll be accelerating.

Thanks again for all the helpful input, one and all! I'm learning a lot

40 to 50 turns after NC

http://i.imgur.com/9dTnNGk.jpg

So it's turn 50 on a new playthrough. I won't need trapping for a bit. It's also going to be a bit before I'm ready for philosophy. Do you think I should go with sailing just to be able to get a 2nd caravan? A caravan could boost my science intake by about 18%.

I've got 2 expands right now building monuments and another settler about to come out for a relatively long expand. There's also another really good long expand I could benefit from grabbing quickly. Assuming I did go with sailing for another caravan, how should I get the caravan? I'll probably have the money to buy it straightaway, which I think is the way to go. My capital can't afford the down time right now and my expands don't have the hammers to bring it in quickly yet. Also buying it would allow me to pick the city of origin. What do you think?

Alrighty. Started over again (been playing mostly just this map for almost a month now trying to learn). Here's where I'm at now:

http://i.imgur.com/d9QQOnb.jpg

Managed to get National College on turn 89 with 7 cities again. However, it was more of a challenge this time. Last time, I had befriended a couple of cultured CSs, which accelerated my policies. This time, I wasn't as fortunate. So I built Oracle in my capital to make up for it. This means that I don't have Pyramids built, nor do I have a couple settlers ready to drop cities like I did last time I accomplished this. Small matter overall since NC is more important, eh?

My tech path was improved thanks to advice here. This time, after I took calendar, I went for sailing to get a 2nd caravan up early. I wouldn't be surprised if by this point, the science boost paid for the time I invested in sailing already. Also, I went philosophy and engineering to get aqueducts up. My growth overall is a bit better than before. This is partly because when I settled my first expand, rather than letting it stay stagnant just to work Mt. Kailish, I bought a granary so it could have some growth.

From this point, I should be able to drop 2 more cities and focus on infrastructure. I have the same 7 workers I would've had last time if I hadn't built Pyramids. However, without pyramids, this means I'm only just getting started on roads. Which I'm okay with; NC was most important.

Do you guys bother with a writer's guild at all? My capital only has 5 tiles worth working right now, so I'm thinking a writer's guild would give my 6th citizen something to do until I have university/workshop up. Either way, I think I'm going to be focusing on civil service and then education. Should my satellite cities be focusing on markets or amphitheaters in the downtime between aqueducts and universities? Should I take the time to get workshops up (even if unmanned) before universities or after?

@TobarajniN: I tried doing it your way again. I just can't get past it on this map. Being liberty, I try to focus on getting everything in 2 rings of the city. Counting out to 3 though, it meshes perfectly with my SE city and barely overlaps with my NE settle. Question for you though: When you do put cities against mountains like that, do you try to build NC in that city to stack the boosts?

Liberty has to delay the guild (or working the slot rather) because of the slower growth. But yes you need it starting the medieval era some time after NC.

The best way to go at guilds is to designate one or 2 cities that are food heavy (wheats, river grassland etc) and still have some hammers to actually make the guild of course. Then they'll grow most of the time and will therefore be the first choice for rush-buying infrastructure.
Bonus if city can make a garden. If need be, a trade route to kickstart that city can help too.

With celts you can make amphitheaters but at this point you also have to decide on what victory you're aiming for.