How to get a decent liberty start?.

Gamer1291

Chieftain
Joined
May 10, 2009
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Hey guys, I won many games always playing with tradition start up-to prince difficulty and then, I saw people telling me in steam forums to go for liberty start.

So looked up a few liberty guides and tried some games but I am not able to get a decent start.

I always end up building 4 cities in decent places and then run out of places to build more cities.

I am playing on continents and pangea maps small/standard size.

And also sometimes when I do have enough space to expand beyond 4 cities, I get unhappiness and negative gold income.

How am I supposed to expand 8 cities in one go? some say you should 8 cities before 100 turns but how is it possible with such unhappiness and negative income?.

How many cities should I expand? and should I stop expansion to build NC?.

I am not getting a proper start with liberty.
 
I've written on this subject extensively. It is definitely a riskier way to start off but it's definitely doable. You will have to realize though that with 8 cities it is unlikely you can just let them grow without worrying. Grow cities as you get the happiness and slow/turn off growth by putting citizens on production and science when you can't. I usually pick 2-3 core cities to try to grow taller and the rest I only grow as they produce more local happiness to support themselves. Your gold problem early game is actually easily solved by selling your greater amount of resources to AI. I usually have 8-12 iron/horse and can sell each of them one at a time for 2 gpt each. I might keep enough to have one horse unit but usually I'm selling almost all of it early game to get extra money to support my expansion and maintenance. Later once your cities start growing city connection will generate a lot of money but this take time. Tithes from a religion also helps a lot with a wide empire.

To make sure I have the space I usually aggressively forward-settle a neighbor to buy me more time. I also block settlers with my units to buy me even more time. Sometimes I also attack them and steal their workers and any settlers heading my way. This will give you more time and space to expand and it's the only way to do it on standard/Deity reliably in my opinion because the AI produce settlers faster then you.
 
Well you're not doing yourself any favors by using small maps, first off.

As for the other part, you're likely not expanding fast enough or in the correct order. Expand to your furthest viable locations first, and then backfill towards your capital.
 
I play small and liberty works perfectly fine. The first expands are the farthest ones you want-- border establishment settling-- prioritized by natural wonders, mineral luxes, and areas with reasonable growth.
The next expands are the ones with the best production that are closest to your capital.
As to unhappiness, it's irrelevant with liberty because the first few turns of founding a city you'll be working a hill or a high faith yield or something like this. Your expands don't need to grow until you have the happiness to grow your whole empire. Turns ~15-40 (quick speed) should be spent building settlers and escort units from the capital until you've established your empire properly. If you want 7 settlers, build them as fast as you can with CS/AI worker steals and tech priorities to get luxes up. Gold isn't a needed resource, but you need to keep your tech stable, so it's okay to work a few 1 hammer plantations/camps in place of hills when necessary to keep 0 GPT stable. Once happiness is above ~8 and your cities all out, start working growth where you need to, though most cities should have a granary up (expo build order= monument > (archer)/granary > (archer) > library, usually) and then your beaker rate will quickly catch up to/surpass a tradition empire. Pop your golden age when you're ready to start roading up, and after that gold should be fine.
 
I suggest a NQ Pangaea if you want the good stuff. I didn't like it much at start but now I feel like it's the only way I want to play because it really filters out the bad stuff you get in starting locations. Strategic Balance is embedded in it so you will *always* have strats near your cap at least
 
Your gold problem early game is actually easily solved by selling your greater amount of resources to AI. I usually have 8-12 iron/horse and can sell each of them one at a time for 2 gpt each.

I agree with your point but in my game the 2 of my neighboring AI's had both negative GPT so i couldn't even trade my extra lux or strategic resources.
 
I suggest a NQ Pangaea if you want the good stuff. I didn't like it much at start but now I feel like it's the only way I want to play because it really filters out the bad stuff you get in starting locations. Strategic Balance is embedded in it so you will *always* have strats near your cap at least


Sorry for a noob question but what do you mean by NQ ???
 
NQ Pangaea is a more-balanced custom pangaea script. It reduces awkward terrain features to create a bit more space. I think you can find it in the mods section?

I play immortal/deity and they usually have loads of money so your problem may actually be level differences. The gold actually gets easier at higher levels because the AI have tons of it to waste buying your stuff. ;) Make sure to sell to people farther away. You don't want to help out people that might use the military against you. Also, this is why scouting is important. You want to know as many people as possible early to maximize your trading options. Usually someone has non-negative gold if you can find them.
 
Sorry for a noob question but what do you mean by NQ ???

NQ stands for No Quitters and is a group on steam who gathers players that play multiplayer civ games and abide by certain honor rules (the main one being no quitting). For this purpose there are also a series of mods that improve the game, including some map scripts like the NQ Pangaea.
 
I agree with your point but in my game the 2 of my neighboring AI's had both negative GPT so i couldn't even trade my extra lux or strategic resources.

This only happens on Prince and Below.
For the sake of further discussion, are you still on Prince and below or have you moved up to King? Tactics change dramatically above Prince as the AI has more money.
 
Liberty is tough. Remember too that in a liberty game your social policies give you less happiness then in a traditional game. +1 happiness for every city connected to the capital is usually less then -1 unhappiness for every 2 people in your capital.

For liberty to be worth it you need to have min 6 cities with lots of resources to make up for the happiness deficit, 5 cities with tradition is actually better then 5 cities with liberty.
 
having less space due to proximity to AI doesn't rule out a liberty start, it just means you'll have to warmonger

i generally fight more when i start liberty than when i do tradition
 
Start on a Huge map, or (if you have a slow computer) underload a standard map (i.e. less AI's than the recommended settings). Also dont go archipelago or similar island maps, unless you're Carthage or Polynesia
 
having less space due to proximity to AI doesn't rule out a liberty start, it just means you'll have to warmonger

i generally fight more when i start liberty than when i do tradition

Me too! If you are picking a wide play style then you can't let the AI get in the way of your dreams of rapid expansion :lol:
 
The only thing I'd say is that happiness is probably going to be your biggest issue
Try and secure any sources of faith on the map early and try to get a religion. Pagoda's are the strongest follower belief for Liberty. Scout well (always start with 2 scouts). Look for religious citystates & see if you can complete quests for them.

The other thing is I'd ignore the usual advice about prioritising the NC & libraries.
So prioritise your early tech towards Construction. You'll need Colosseums in your cities before Libraries. Trust me happiness will be your biggest issue. If a Colosseum lets you grow a city from 4 to 6, you've essentially provided the value of a library plus getting an extra 2 citizens which means more production and more gold from city connections. You're library will then be much faster to build anyway because now your city is working an extra 2 tiles... Don't underestimate the value of colosseums, they seem expensive to build but the sooner you get your cities bigger the quicker they start pulling their own weight.

Some liberty players can stagger their expansion and fit an early NC in before they plant all their expo's. This is difficult to do and rather situational. If you're a beginner I'd ignore the NC until you finish Liberty and use the final policy to get a free engineer to rush the NC. The NC for Liberty is not quite as important as people make it out to be. Your capital is going to be small anyway - you're spending a lot of time building settlers presumably and you don't get the food/happiness bonuses from Tradition nor the free Aqueduct.

A size 8 capital will give you an extra 10bpt I guess (and it's not easy getting to size 8 if you're planting a lot of early cities). Fitting in that early National College is a big commitment and will probably delay your other expo's - personally I'd rather build the Oracle if I had the choice. You'd get a free Social Policy which you can use to finish Liberty earlier to get either an academy or a wonder. You can also keep the engineer until you are ready to build the NC.

You may also need composite bowmen for defense. So imo Construction is the most important technology for a liberty player.
 
Best case Liberty game: three coastal core cities, with a trade route feeding them; a mountain one for NC, a river delta for NE & Guilds, and a hilly one for HE. Satellite cities shouldn't grow much beyond their ability to run decent tiles (resources and NWs) and as many Scientists as possible; rivers are better than mountains, as their main purpose is GS bulbs and gold for CSs. As borders grab more luxes and such, techs reveal more resources, and buildings enable more Scientists, growth can be permitted.

The core cities should be growing as much as is manageable; as long as the NE is filling all its specialist slots, the NC should be getting the priority. And if you're an evil swine, you should have a city next to a CS whipping boy that you'll rob of luxes with a GG and endlessly milk for XP.

DANG IT I PROMISED MYSELF I'D SPEND THIS WEEKEND PAINTING WORD BEARERS, now I'm going to play CiV AGAIN
 
Just like real life. No big(wide) empire was made in a peaceful way.

I don't really mind going to war early game for the AI lands but the thing is without war itself happiness is a issue with liberty.

So I don't really think i can afford early war for land with liberty start and also unit maintenance is also an issue early game.

I am still currently playing on prince difficulty and trying to master liberty start.

Should I build worker early like scout>monument>shrine/worker? because I don't want to waste time waiting for CS to make worker and steal and bring to my capital safe from barbarians.

Also when spamming settlers should I make workers in between for new cities?.
 
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