Tired of Trad - But what other options?

FilthyRobot

Chieftain
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Aug 26, 2013
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Hey Guys,

I really enjoy multiplayer civ in BNW, but I'm very, very bored with always having to open tradition to actually be competitive. Is anyone having success versus other strong players opening anything besides tradition? Tradition just seems to have everything you need early and late game.

-The opener is the fastest culture generator early, creates great cultural border growth which indirectly encourages city-growth and saves on early tile-buying expenses. Oh, and since it's MP, you're almost always heavily limited in expansion locations, which further encourages the 3-4 city games.
-Legalism lets you double-scout opener and avoid wasting early hammers on a monument, and then provides maintenance free monuments at the most gold sensitive portion of the game. Not to mention, it saves you hammers and gold in each of your expands too.
-Monarchy is the single most overpowered social policy in the game, providing lots of early happiness and gold, just when they're needed (expanding, no gold buildings, unlikely to be working many gold tiles since growing/settling) and it continues to scale all game, just getting better and better as your capital gets huge.
-Landed Elite is early growth, % based growth for the entire game. This equates to early production options, and fantastic science all game.
-Oligarchy is 3-4 maintenance free units, all game, for minimal defensive purposes, a little weaker than the others, but still yet another gold generating policy.
-Aristocracy is a small happiness boost and a moderate wonder production boost (oh, and larger cities are already better at wonder spamming due to having more centralized production)
-The closer is absurd, with 15% growth if your first 4 cities, free aqueducts (often before you'd get them otherwise) which combine growth and ANOTHER gold saver AND the ability to faith-purchase great engineers, who are disgustingly strong in MP.

What the hell can compete with this set of bonuses? BNW MP is early game gold starved and science-focused (even if you go domination, science is still king for the military tech) and tradition gives huge amounts of early gold and sustained, all-game, growth.

I'm fed up with being forced into Trad 6, Pat 2, Rat 2-6 but I really don't see competitive options. Hell, I'm even losing a duel atm where I tried a liberty opener vs trad. Help me out here, what else is even viable? How can any other tree/combination of trees actually compete?
 
Liberty is roughly equal to tradition. Getting those early settlerS and snagging strategic locationS before your opponents can is invaluable. Also, after filling out liberty you can go straight down the tradition tree to monarchy to get at least that ridiculous benefit.

Then you have the choice to either continue filling out tradition or do rationalism. Policies seem easier to obtain in BNW than the previous versions so this is very doable, especially with Napolean, Poland or Brazil.
 
Liberty is roughly equal to tradition. Getting those early settlerS and snagging strategic locationS before your opponents can is invaluable. Also, after filling out liberty you can go straight down the tradition tree to monarchy to get at least that ridiculous benefit.

What type of experience are you basing that statement on?

If you're rushing for specific location, you start the settler at 2-3 pop, which is way before the free settler from liberty.

Delaying trad by 3 liberty policies is going to basically prevent you from ever getting the trad finisher, which is both early, free aqueducts in your first 4 cities and faith-buying 2-3 engineers throughout the game.

Or if you do finish it, it will be in Ren, where those points need to go into rationalism AND you'll have missed out from the free happiness, culture, food and units from city-states with patronage.

Liberty expands are slower than the first trad expand unless you're also hard-building full cost settlers as liberty, which defeats the purpose of taking liberty at all...
 
In your multiplayer games, around what turns are people winning, and what are the victory conditions?

What are the settings for the duel?

If you play teamers vs. good players on skirmish map, the full tradition without liberty can be quite dangerous, esp if you start on the front line.

I have gotten science wins in under 180 turns with faith-spamming civs like Ethiopia, going full liberty. 8-12 cities. Enough faith to buy 5 great people (most scientists) for strategic bulbing. 1500+ faith per turn, because with Rationalism and working the specialists slots for all those cities the science goes crazy high up.

I have had similar results with Poland going full liberty/full piety. The 4th piety policy you pick the reformation belief for buying science buildings. So before ren era, I have bought 8 universities for 800 faith total during a time where I had more than 100 faith per turn! (little explored Piety reduces faith buying costs of buildings.)

However, my fastest wins (under 170 turns) involved going full tradition, but in duels or teamers that involve war I have not gone full tradition without liberty being involved.

But please note, those limited sample of good liberty times were based upon ideal conditions, like peace, CS allies, getting key wonders, good land, etc.
 
What type of experience are you basing that statement on?

If you're rushing for specific location, you start the settler at 2-3 pop, which is way before the free settler from liberty.

Delaying trad by 3 liberty policies is going to basically prevent you from ever getting the trad finisher, which is both early, free aqueducts in your first 4 cities and faith-buying 2-3 engineers throughout the game.

Or if you do finish it, it will be in Ren, where those points need to go into rationalism AND you'll have missed out from the free happiness, culture, food and units from city-states with patronage.

Liberty expands are slower than the first trad expand unless you're also hard-building full cost settlers as liberty, which defeats the purpose of taking liberty at all...

It is based off the experience of me playing teamers and FFA pretty much every day. In teamers or an FFA with near or aggressive neighbors liberty is superior. You can rush a settler and get the liberty settler for 2 super early cities. Then make another.

Or you can build the city to pop 4 or 5 then pump settlers once you have Collective rule. You can rush a wonder and get GL, pyramids or Stonehenge and a city at the same time. Liberty is extremely versatile and kills tradition in the first 100 turns.
 
It is based off the experience of me playing teamers and FFA pretty much every day. In teamers or an FFA with near or aggressive neighbors liberty is superior. You can rush a settler and get the liberty settler for 2 super early cities. Then make another.

Or you can build the city to pop 4 or 5 then pump settlers once you have Collective rule. You can rush a wonder and get GL, pyramids or Stonehenge and a city at the same time. Liberty is extremely versatile and kills tradition in the first 100 turns.

Don't suppose you ever record games?

I'd really like to see liberty doing well, because in the online play I see/play, trad stomps liberty basically every time, with the exception being if there is huge amounts of land for the liberty player to work with (which is really rare).
 
In your multiplayer games, around what turns are people winning, and what are the victory conditions?

What are the settings for the duel?

Mostly 6-8 player FFAs on quick, but I've also done a few tiny-map sized duels, people seem to win around 175 or so, all VC allowed, but it's nearly always domination via late-game techs.
 
Don't suppose you ever record games?

I'd really like to see liberty doing well, because in the online play I see/play, trad stomps liberty basically every time, with the exception being if there is huge amounts of land for the liberty player to work with (which is really rare).

I have tried recording games before using fraps, however the games rapidly filled up my hard drive taking up 100's of gigs per game so I stopped.

Basically, the only time I use tradition to start is if there isn't many luxuries around to make cities or get money from or I'm stuck with physical barriers around me, preventing me from placing cities.

Most games I open with Liberty, bee line for that settler and spam settlers until I can't find anymore unique luxuries to build on or near. This is usually 4 - 6 cities. You can't really do that very well with tradition.

Once those cities are placed everything is situational so it's impossible to describe what you should be doing. The GE or GS from the Liberty finsher is also very strong for its timing.

What makes liberty very strong in BNW is the fact that you can feed your cap with caravans and get it huge regardless of if you have tradition or not. After filling out liberty I will usually fill out as much tradition as possible before I hit renaissance. With Poland the entire liberty tree then tradition tree can be filled out before rationalism is available. This is made possible due to great writers giving you free policies regardless of what civ you have combined with Poland's free policies and doing a cultural focus getting monuments early in every city.

Just last night I opened with liberty, placed 6 cities and still had a 25 pop cap by renaissance without starting with tradition. I think it works out perfect because at the beginning you want to get cities up as soon as possible to claim territory and then later you want them all to grow about the time you start opening up tradition policies. Monarchy really is the main squeeze in Tradition so you don't even need to proceed with tradition if you don't want to after acquiring that one. Free aqueducts is not that big a deal. You can build them relatively easily.
 
Usually,

Liberty--->NC opening with free worker first--->settlers

or

Liberty--->Free settler first--->More settlers--->NC

or

Tradition--->1 or 2 settlers--->NC--->more settlers

Both trees can achieve 5-7 cities before the turn 70 but easier with Liberty. Just make sure to not delay some important things.

But usually with Tradition 4-6 cities are more than enough. With Liberty you should build at least 6 cities or the Tradition tree will surpass this.

Of course, with some military, you can get more cities, from both trees :)
 
Thanks for all the responses, but I still don't buy it. What y'all are describing isn't the pattern of game play that I see in the multi-player FFA games I'm a part of.

Liberty Problems:
Space to expand to 6-10 cities that will surpass the tradition 3-4
Gold generation to afford building and unit maintenance
Centralized production to compete for world wonders
Happiness to grow the cities to useful sizes
Increasing culture cost grinding policy acquisition to a halt
National Wonders
Guild and specialists
Actually utilizing the tiles near your cities

I'm going to make a specific thread about a game I'm playing liberty with and see if I can get some specific recommendations that actually relate to this.
 
Liberty is better if there is a lot of room to expand - it really beats tradition only when you've got a lot of cities. Liberty + late game Order will make giant empires that can easily overproduce tradition empires. Wide empires will have much more city connections and more gold tiles. Also in BNW trade routes are extremely important.

I don't understand why you would need wonders when going wide. You can produce much more. You can make army and take those wonders you covet with force. I usually start wonder-grabbing only after tech lead, they're not worth it before it.

Happiness is a problem, yes. You will need happiness-boosting religion (ceremonial burials and pagodas). Happiness-boosting city-states are fine too.

Try to get that one liberty police which gives you -33% culture cost for new policies before expansion. I usually start my immortal liberty games by scout-scout-settler-warrior (worker from the liberty), build early second city, get that policy cost reducing SP and then rush with 2-3 hard-built settlers and the one from liberty tree.

National wonders. They are really meant to tradition empires, but I've managed to get them nearly always with 6-city wide empire. Just forget about barracks and shires and other useless things, focus on libraries, monuments, colosseums/circuses and markets. If the civ has a UB, it will probably be good for wide empires.

You will get more specialists with wide empire. More cities -> more universities -> more GS:ses. Cost of great person's won't go up with number of cities.

Building improvements is really sometimes problem. Wide empires need more workers and more soldiers, but they can also produce more. It all is just about good city locations.

The greatest problem in wide empires is that horrible tech cost. I can handle it by rushing for libraries and universities (and nat. wonders) as soon as it is possible.

You'll need specialization. Build a production city to the hills. Then science city next to river and plains. Get some little colonies for luxuries etc. If you try to be good in everything, you'll fail.
 
What y'all are describing isn't the pattern of game play that I see in the multi-player FFA games I'm a part of.

maybe its not the problem of the trees but of the players?

With no1 building army/attacking the use of liberty really diminishes.

What liberty is just best at is at turn 30-60.

While in these turn the tradition player is usually building settlers in cap and grannies/libraries in the few outer cities.
The Liberty player can get up 5 cities in like no time and build there an army of like 10 units in 10-15 turns.
No way that a tradition player can defend all these units without HUGE land advanatge.

Also with fewer turn needed to build settler, you can pretty easily grab wonders in cap.
 
maybe its not the problem of the trees but of the players?

With no1 building army/attacking the use of liberty really diminishes.

What liberty is just best at is at turn 30-60.

That's a fairly interesting, although depressing, point. 6+ FFAs might be best served by Trad, since the game tends to be decided by long term tech and production decisions with pretty targeted wars. Every time I go to war early in FFAs I spend the rest of the game trying to catch the tech leaders or get to specific war techs quikcly enough that they aren't obsolete (xbow, frigates, arts, planes, battleships, XCOMs, etc.)

You can't really keep up on science and production with players who aren't at war while you're at war, so you might be able to kill your 1-2 neighbors early as liberty, but then you're facing 3 remaining Trad powerhouses in the late game.

But, I started this thread because I want options and the logical conclusion from the line of thought you've laid out is that Trad is better in FFAs. I don't want Trad->Patronage->Rationalism to be my only competitive choice for FFAs, just like I don't want Liberty to be my only competitive choice for 1v1s (not that I find it's working there either). I'd like to be able to actually choose between Trad/Lib/Honor/Piety early and then have other social policy choices later.
 
u can do a mix and do lib till free settler and then go full tradition - that way u get best out of both trees and finish lib later in the game for the free golden age and free dude

I ll link guide to do that in my signature later.

After trying lot of different things I am pretty sure that this is best sp path - at least if game isnt a all out killing spree
 
so you might be able to kill your 1-2 neighbors early as liberty, but then you're facing 3 remaining Trad powerhouses in the late game.

really in the the very long run:
killing = more cities = more science = faster test = more production = more units = winning

Killing gives just a medium term setback, in the turns of building army and in the turns making the captured cities REAL cities (getting courthouses up, managing your empire happyness, ..)

But in the long run = bigger = better
 
u can do a mix and do lib till free settler and then go full tradition - that way u get best out of both trees and finish lib later in the game for the free golden age and free dude

I ll link guide to do that in my signature later.

After trying lot of different things I am pretty sure that this is best sp path - at least if game isnt a all out killing spree

in some case i rush first 2 trad for wonders and then swith lib for free settler and worker adn then decide what to complete based on my empire etc

sure the mix for trad and libr is best in some order depending on strategy
 
in some case i rush first 2 trad for wonders

this aint no good idea, the 15% bonus is a horrible sp. The 1 Hammer from liberty is hardly worse. And u delay the free settler for like 15-20 turns...
 
well i dont always play with N vs S or fast battle maps :D
if the settings allow to defend building national college+ hanging gardens etc make the empire explode early and i think better to not have the second city early, so i get second free city a bit later

why not finish tradition then ?
well i think at that point would be redundant to have even more food cause you are gonna expand there and couldnt afford it, also with only 1 city the 3 4 turns for settler are too much imo

but im open to suggestions if you have any
 
Liberty is quite a lot better on standard speed instead of quick speed. (Try it!)
 
Here is another option - start the game in eras other than ancient. In Medieval and higher, each new city comes with pre-made buildings, and at the start you have policies right away (the higher the era start, the more free buildings and policies.) In these cases, you pick the free settler policy right away, add it to the other settlers at the start and you get 4 instead of 3 cities (the higher the era start, the more units/workers/settlers you start with.

Or play the game with skirmish/teamer, where going full tradition is often doom. Just played a 3x3 on skirmish where the other team's front civ went full tradition as the Aztecs and they had no chance stopping the xbow rush (knights were not even needed.) Their production was about 1/3 of the leader, and 1/2 of most other civs. Full tradition in 3x3s and 4x4 has worked for a civ in the back on occasion, but I would be hesitant.
 
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