Liberty

Why does everyone on the forum seem to hate it? I've tried the tall approach and it's just so boring for me. I like having expansive territory and lots of angry neighbors.

It's certainly not hate, but expansive play (more than say - 6 or more self founded cities) is what it's there for.

Tradition is for a tall game with four cities. The odd puppet here and there won't hurt much though

Tradition is just better 90% of the time that's all. At least in an FFA setting. Growing big is the key to victory most of the time because it leads to more science, gold, even hammers.

Going liberty you can certainly take out a tradition player early but then you're stuck with lack luster growth while everyone else is getting bigger and out teching you with large cities and early NC.

Liberty is king in duels and team games though because those are about city spam and massive unit production.

I don't think people hate Liberty, most just prefer Tradition.

I love Liberty, I still pick it less than 50% of my games - its requirements are simply higher than Tradition - space, luxuries, time to catch up, decent neighbours, etc. You don't get that every game.

But don't worry, read some DCLs or watch some LPs, you'll see that plenty of players pick it.

Liberty is often mentioned in the context of rapidly expanding to 6 or 8 cities, which is what you're supposed to do right? Well, the reason it doesn't really work is that there's a "little" problem with Liberty on high difficulty levels that almost no one seems to mention.

If you rapidly expand to a lot of cities your happiness and gold will be in terrible shape (if compared to a 4-city start) for a number of turns. Only once you improve your luxuries and have enough population to work good tiles. your cities are going to slowly pull ahead of the science and culture penalties and eventually make your empire stronger, BUT...

Before that happens you're going to become a victim of the infamous "They believe you are building new cities to quickly!" modifier, which on Emperor+ leades to a guaranteed early DoW from all but the most peaceful AIs. Talk all you want about how bad the AI is at war, but if your latest city is surrounded by 20 warriors 3 turns after founding it you are going to lose that city, period. Then you're going to ask yourself - why oh why haven't I just gone Tradition on this map?

Which brings as to the point a lot have already made - Tradition is the safe play. There is literally nothing that can go wrong. With Liberty there's a hell lot of things that can go wrong. Expand "too much" and you're taking a huge risk for a moderate pay-off many turns later, which understandably is off-putting for a lot of players. Why go through all that trouble if you can sit on your 3 cities for 300 turns and win anyway? That, my friend, is the question only you can answer.

Pengui6668 said:

Why does everyone on the forum seem to hate it?

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It is not hate so much as merely being objective regarding the game mechanics. Liberty is more fun IMHO, but Tradition is just OP, and my play is weak, so I need all the help I can!

Chunkook said:

I love Liberty, I still pick it less than 50% of my games - its requirements are simply higher than Tradition - space, luxuries, time to catch up, decent neighbours, etc. You don't get that every game.

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This well describes my attitude and experience.

IMO liberty is better than tradition in only marginal situations and more so towards the late game when the scaling happiness bonuses from ideologies come into play. It's also better than tradition in the first 60 turns or so in a standard game when you're settling cities, making roads or tile improvements. But between those turns tradition is much better, saving you production on monuments/aqueducts, and granting substantial growth in all cities.

Also liberty is harder to manage, as is most wide empires, and players don't like to fuss over all the management or lack the skill to do it at the same level with a 4 city empire.

Liberty is very nice if you want to war early. Especially with Persia, timing Representation with a Comp Bow/Immortal rush is incredibly powerful. I would also say it is pretty good with Shoshone, since one disadvantage of Liberty is the requirement to purchase tiles throughout the game due to slow border growth. With Shoshone's UA, this is not a problem and you can potentially cover huge swaths of land with 4-5 cities, stopping AI from dropping cities near you. Also, working the good tiles faster is always very nice.

I would say there are some civs who prefer Tradition though. Like Gandhi, Montezuma or Venice. The former two have huge potential for growth, and the latter has to grow well because the capital is the only city you can control what you can build with.

Paszczak said:

Liberty is often mentioned in the context of rapidly expanding to 6 or 8 cities, which is what you're supposed to do right? Well, the reason it doesn't really work is that there's a "little" problem with Liberty on high difficulty levels that almost no one seems to mention.

If you rapidly expand to a lot of cities your happiness and gold will be in terrible shape (if compared to a 4-city start) for a number of turns. Only once you improve your luxuries and have enough population to work good tiles. your cities are going to slowly pull ahead of the science and culture penalties and eventually make your empire stronger, BUT...

Before that happens you're going to become a victim of the infamous "They believe you are building new cities to quickly!" modifier, which on Emperor+ leades to a guaranteed early DoW from all but the most peaceful AIs. Talk all you want about how bad the AI is at war, but if your latest city is surrounded by 20 warriors 3 turns after founding it you are going to lose that city, period. Then you're going to ask yourself - why oh why haven't I just gone Tradition on this map?

Which brings as to the point a lot have already made - Tradition is the safe play. There is literally nothing that can go wrong. With Liberty there's a hell lot of things that can go wrong. Expand "too much" and you're taking a huge risk for a moderate pay-off many turns later, which understandably is off-putting for a lot of players. Why go through all that trouble if you can sit on your 3 cities for 300 turns and win anyway? That, my friend, is the question only you can answer.

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Yep and not just that but you only have to have a city 10 tiles from the AI capital and nearly all AIs will perceive you as a threat and start building an army to attack you. On higher difficulties this can really ruin your game and you don't have oligarchy either to protect you.

People that say Tradition is just for 4 cities are actually wrong. Tradition works well even up to 6 cities and beyond, it's just that the benefits tend to get weaker compared to Liberty. Even with 6 cities Tradition still gives you a 15% bonus to Wonders (very useful for getting National Wonders in the capital), 1 happiness per 10 citizens, a city defense bonus and free upkeep for the city garrison. Oh and I forgot that more cities means more faith which lets you buy more Great Engineers with Faith in the Industrial era. From there you can rush a handful of Wonders that can , improve your civ. Big Ben, Eiffel Tower, Neuschwanstein, Brandenburg Gate, Statue of Liberty all have some pretty game-changing effects that can make a wide civ a little more efficient.
Eiffel Tower is good if you need help with ideological pressure and a bit happiness, Neuschwanstein is great for boosting your culture, happiness & gold (always good for a civ that's overextended itself), Brandenburg Gate is great to create an elite army....

The main disadvantage is not getting the extra hammer from Republic to get the new city going faster but with trade routes that problem doesn't exist anymore. Sending a cargoship with hammers to a new city is very powerful.

I like weird set-ups, and the Scrambled Nations DLC, this month, fits the bill; RE: Russia . NO resources, vast area to conquer, and I feel that careful choices in mod selection, like "Rivers of Gold", hooked up with Liberty( full tree), and dips into other SPolicies; are needed to complete a win . Given a Tundra start, Raging Barbs, the 2 "Barbie+" mods, and "Caravansary Trade Routes" mod; this map IS workable .

Please refer to this excellent 2 hour guide on how to play Liberty properly: http://youtu.be/_3R1NzZQ5EY


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