Opening build: Liberty NC Expand [G&K]

While we are on the subject. I find that you can get 7 or 8 policies before Rationalism gets opened.

What about opening with Tradition(more culture points), then 3 left in Liberty like you say (get workers somehow else) AND then time Legalism for 3 or 4 free Amps when D&P is complete after NC?

This guide is just what I needed. What map settings and type do you play on(i.e. standard, 8 civs, pangea, standard luxuries), just curious?

geolawyerman said:

This guide is just what I needed. What map settings and type do you play on(i.e. standard, 8 civs, pangea, standard luxuries), just curious?

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Usually standard immortal and either continents or pangaea. I'll play deity from time to time (like for the challenges or GOTM). I don't usually mess around with the game pace or starting conditions, although I'll turn on raging barbs from time to time.

I find it very difficult to get GL even on Immortal =\

I just tried it a few times and I failed (if you saw my reply "Spain OP" thread I couldn't even get NC as Spain after finding a wonder on Turn 2). With Egypt, however, this is definitely feasible. I am currently trying to play Egypt on Pangaea, get Great Library and NC first with only a single city, then go for ICS. I am in renaissance era right now (turn 165ish) and I am doing pretty well (not in the lead though). I think this is a pretty good opening for Egypt if there are no aggressive neighbours around.

I had a go at this with the Deity challenge 1. Found myself in a pretty decent position.



The problem with this particular game was Japan put up absolutely zero resistance to Songhai and its capital was destroyed at like turn 60, so basically Sonhai is right next door with the biggest army and territory in the game lol. With a normal game though I think this would be an excellent start for this map, and is still definitely winnable from this position anyway.

Standard version does not need any workers until much later?

Buccaneer said:

Standard version does not need any workers until much later?

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You build them while philosophy is researching. I usually build one, steal one and get one free, so I have 3 by the time my cities go up. The greece game is an exception because I didn't get a chance to steal one and there were so many invading barbs that I had to produce a lot of warriors instead. I still have two workers though, you can see one is on the gold.

OP says he never has problem getting a religion...

On immortal I would say that I fail at getting a religion on at least 1 in ten starts when shrine is first build, even in second city. Many times getting a faith pantheon is just not possible.

pretty interesting strategy. When I go liberty I tend to expand a lot faster...to me it seems like delaying expansion is pretty risky when going liberty. But I will have to try it out.

for what it's worth, I went liberty on that deity challenge 1 map, but expanded fast to 3 cities before NC. The result was that my NC was later, but I had wayyy more CBs than you at that time, enough to take some cities.

Hustapha Thool said:

OP says he never has problem getting a religion...

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I didn't say that. I said Pantheon. Getting an actual religion is tough with this build, but it's tough with any build on deity. If you have a religious natural wonder or a couple of religious city states nearby that's probably your best shot. You're not going to do it with shrines alone, even if you get an early shrine.

Having said that, I still think the pantheon is worth getting, you can get a lot of benefit out of your tiles, and can always take monument to the gods to help your NC along.

I played around with this strat on Emperor with France. Standard/Normal/Continents.

It is definitely a strong/winning strategy with France. However, I don't think it is optimal, for a few reasons:

1) France has no bonus to religion -- at all -- and this strat basically sinks your shot at religion unless you are certain to use the liberty great person on a prophet. Now, I did this, and it is fine, but just an observation.

2) My main concern here is that you leave a *lot* of culture on the table as France if you go for this strat instead of expanding into cities earlier. I found my culture pace quite behind what it would normally be with France.

Basically, it seems to be the case that you trade culture/faith (and possibly a religion) for significantly increased/early science. Now, if you use this tech lead to hit musketeers early and wipe your continent or to hit education early to get still more tech to go deeper into the tree to get a different advantage, so be it Like I said, it's a strong/winning strategy.

However, with France, I just think you get a lot more out of the UA if you are settling cities earlier. I like having 4 cities by turn 40, which allows me to clear liberty between turn 60-70, for example.

This strat is great though, thanks for posting.

Would you say settling on luxuries is essential with this strategy to avoid -10 happiness?

kamex said:

Would you say settling on luxuries is essential with this strategy to avoid -10 happiness?

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If you can get 3-4 workers (hard build, buy, steal etc...) you'll only be in unhappiness for four or five turns until you can improve the lux. I wouldn't sacrifice a better settle spot even if it means some unhappiness, but I generally don't mind being in the red either.

Commonly I don't see myself able to found enough cities to make Liberty a decent choice. However, I do find myself more often considering it without trying to REX when I want to build a satellite Petra city.

On Immortal the AI usually builds it in the 90s. That's about the amount of turns I often need to hard build it in a tradition opening. That leaves the risk to be stuck with a useless desert city and having wasted plenty of hammers. When built with a liberty GE the risk of wasting hammers is reduced, I'm doing better science vice and if combined with the Oracle or a culture generating Civ like France Petra should be up considerably faster.

Can somebody give a little more details on how to achieve the GL by turn 35-40 ? I really don't see how it can be done. Usually I start and I need :
- 7 turns for the scout
- then 10 turns for the monument, I grow from 1 to 2 during this so it is done in 7/8 turns
- then granary another 12 turns
- and finally GL, that I therefore start around turn 27, need at that time around 30+ turns to complete. During this you have your workers improvements coming in, growing, choping, etc, and I finish GL around turn 45-50 (or more !).

My best was to get it at turn 45 and I had a +1 citizen and +20 culture (which got me quickly the 1st worker) bonus from goodies.

So really I don't see how to reduce this by 10+ turns ! The strat is pretty straight forward and it is the very beginning of the game so there is not much room to "deviate" from the plan. I tried focusing on food or on production, either way I'm way too late. (play on Emperor/Standard/Continents, tried with Babylon and Siam)

So in the end :
- How can you get scout+monument+granary in less than 25 turns ?
- And then how do you complete GL in 10 turns ?! (or a few more if you managed to speed up the previous step !)

Thanks for the help

gberetfr said:

Can somebody give a little more details on how to achieve the GL by turn 35-40 ?

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By settling on hill and manually controlling citizens.

If you do this correctly you can usually time Writing and completion of the granary on 20-22 and with some chopping finish GL before 40. Once you hit ~200 you need to sell 5gpt to the richest AI for 112 and rush buy a worker around turn 15. Granary resources help a lot (irrigated wheat especially), obviously forests and also purchasing high food tiles near the capital asap.

Wargizmo said:

Tech Order
Pottery -> Writing -> Mining -> AH (optional) -> Calendar -> Philosophy -> Archery -> Other luxuries -> Wheel -> research construction until 1 turn to go and then tech towards civil service.

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May i ask why you don't finish construction right away? It's often an important tech.

Bob Morane said:

May i ask why you don't finish construction right away? It's often an important tech.

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I'd guess to be able to build archers which are much cheaper than CB's.

Keep building archers, and then be able to insta-upgrade to CBs in one turn. On water maps, I'll do the same with Navigation, so I can build a few more galleasses.

Yes, always build (as much as possible) the cheaper unit to upgrade.

As far as GL, the best I've done on Immortal is 36 and that was still too late. I popped Writing early from a ruin, turned all hammer tiles on (including 3 gold) while losing food at size 3 and chopped. Got 37 turns down to 24 but that wasn't enough. In the end, I got a few hundred gold, a barely size 3 capital and an early hole. Don't ever try to build GL on Immortal+ (unless in the situation Pilgrim describes and even then, it would be risky).