Coming Back Around to Liberty

Seems to me you're just expanding too slow. I normally play on immortal with deity games thrown in here and there and I have no problem claiming space. I build my first settler as soon as my capital is pop 2. I usually steal 2 workers as well, which mitigates the citizenship policy in liberty. Even without stealing, the extra and faster workers still isn't worth opting for liberty over tradition for various reasons discussed on this forum for years.

b7fanatix said:

Yes, you have to hard build a monument in the cap, but that is quicker than building the worker directly, and later means you get a free ampitheatre as you fill out tradition. If you found new cities, they will lack monuments initially but these things can wait a few turns. You can catch up on culture but stagnating because you're only working +1 food +1 hammers unimproved plains has a nasty snowballing effect.

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So what you're saying is that you prefer getting a worker 5-10 tuns earlier to getting 10% growth and +2 Food in your capital, a whole bunch of culture, enough buffer-happiness to sell your first luxury, some gpt, Aristocracy right at the time when you want to start building the national college and aqueducts 10-20 turns earlier? And on top of that you accept being almost two policies behind for the rest of the game? For a worker? Well... okay. I guess.

Liberty lacks happiness, gold, food (and science by extension) and hammers (the extra food and the wonder building bonus in Tradition, plus the free monuments and aqueducts save a huge amount of hammers).

Tradition is overpowered, it has nothing to do with wide or tall. playing wide with 10 cities you are better off going with tradition than liberty.

I made a mod that adds most of the above to liberty (bar food, as i think liberty shouldent help with high pop - that is tradition's thing). you can see it in my signature.

layelaye said:

I made a mod that adds most of the above to liberty (bar food, as i think liberty shouldent help with high pop - that is tradition's thing). you can see it in my signature.

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Your signature isn't coming up on my computer. Link?

Ryika said:

So what you're saying is that you prefer getting a worker 5-10 tuns earlier to getting

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Ryika said:

10% growth and +2 Food in your capital,

Ryika said:

The policy giving that buff won't apply till you've almost finished the tree. Turn 80-100 or so.

Ryika said:

a whole bunch of culture,

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not much in it early on

Ryika said:

enough buffer-happiness to sell your first luxury,

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I get Monarchy on turn 77 after taking that diversion through Liberty. With a pop of 7 at that point, i didn't need any luxes up till then. Granted, i was rushing GL and NC and only had one city.

As for being behind in 2 social policies the rest of the game, maybe, but i usually get more policies than i need to fill one tree before Rationalism becomes available, and i'm not great at finding uses for the first policies in Patronage, Piety etc. I've also been playing as Poland on Empreror a lot recently, they get extra socials which makes my strat more viable, plus that free early worker is essential for winning the GL race.


I made a test game to see how many Beakers per Turn i could get going pure tradition vs liberty/tradition, using a generic civ (as regards social, tech), China.


Build order was

1. scout (tradition game)
2. worker
3. GL
4. NC
5. the rest...

in Liberty...

1. monument
2. scout
3. granary (writing wasn't finished yet, so i had to build something.. it only delayed start of GL 3 turns)
4. GL
5. NC
6. the rest

The idea was to found a second city by rush buying a settler after NC finishes.

I ran the tradition game first, which is a disadvantage , but i actually found more goodie huts anyway, and i got lucky and managed to steal another worker out of a barbarian camp at turn 60.

At turn 82 -

Beijing Pop 6
Shanghai Pop 1
Beakers per turn 28

Liberty/Tradition

Beijing Pop 7 (the granary effect)
Shanghai Pop 1
Beakers per turn 32 (bigger cap)


Tradition Timeline

T6 scout finished
T18 worker finished
T20 writing discovered, Liberty opener
T34 Legalism (free monument) enacted
T44 Monarchy (Extra gold and happiness)
T47 GL finished
T56 Aristocracy (15% wonder production bonus) enacted
T62 NC finished
T68 Shanghai founded


Liberty Timeline

T8 Monument finished
T14 Scout finished, start building Granary
T20 Writing researched
T22 Citizenship enacted (+25% tile improvement construction speed), receive free worker
T23 Granary finished, GL start
T48 GL finished (only one turn later despite starting 3 turns later, due to faster tile improvement gain in production and faster pop growth from having time to build granary)
T52 Legalism enacted
T60 NC finished
Not enough gold to buy a settler yet!
T69 Settler bought
T75 Shanghai founded
T77 Monarchy enacted

I don't know what this proves, other than there's not much in it either way, by turn 82.

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A one city GL --> NC is something I stopped doing after prince. By the time you're ready to settle your subsequent cities, especially on deity, the AI has 3-4 cities up already leaving you with infertile lands for growth. That effectively negates the advantage you get from the early NC. This is assuming you can even get the GL two turns away from turn 50.

"10% growth and +2 Food in your capital. 'The policy giving that buff won't apply till you've almost finished the tree. Turn 80-100'"

No. Your build order is just wrong. You don't take Aristocracy before Landed Elite. And you do receive much more culture from tradition. But I guess if you don't expand, every advantage is negated, making it seem as if opening craperty isn't as bad. It's interesting you choose to use Poland, who effectively receives 6 policies for free.

sugerdady87 said:

A one city GL --> NC is something I stopped doing after prince. By the time you're ready to settle your subsequent cities, especially on deity, the AI has 3-4 cities up already leaving you with infertile lands for growth. That effectively negates the advantage you get from the early NC. This is assuming you can even get the GL two turns away from turn 50.

"10% growth and +2 Food in your capital. 'The policy giving that buff won't apply till you've almost finished the tree. Turn 80-100'"

No. Your build order is just wrong. You don't take Aristocracy before Landed Elite. And you do receive much more culture from tradition. But I guess if you don't expand, every advantage is negated, making it seem as if opening craperty isn't as bad. It's interesting you choose to use Poland, who effectively receives 6 policies for free.

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Alright, easy easy! I'm not saying i know better than you, if i played a game on Deity i would follow the advice experts like yourselves give and stick to tried and trusted methods. But i play on Empreror and can make this work. On lower difficulties i don't have so much success with Tradition and "cities first" approach. With Poland, getting the GL for free Philosophy puts you in a new era at least 8 turns early, and that means another free social policy before turn 45...

b7fanatix said:

Alright, easy easy! I'm not saying i know better than you, if i played a game on Deity i would follow the advice experts like yourselves give and stick to tried and trusted methods. But i play on Empreror and can make this work. On lower difficulties i don't have so much success with Tradition and "cities first" approach. With Poland, getting the GL for free Philosophy puts you in a new era at least 8 turns early, and that means another free social policy before turn 45...

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I'm not an expert, so maybe they are others who successfully one city NC expand on deity, just not me. But even on Emperor, turn 48 GL seems kind of late, or maybe it's just me. How successful are you at pulling it off around that time?

b7fanatix said:

The policy giving that buff won't apply till you've almost finished the tree. Turn 80-100 or so.

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As sugardady87 already said, it's the tech that you'll usually beeline - it comes way before that, if you're lucky with a culture ruin you can have it on turn 40(?) or so.

b7fanatix said:

I get Monarchy on turn 77 after taking that diversion through Liberty. With a pop of 7 at that point, i didn't need any luxes up till then. Granted, i was rushing GL and NC and only had one city.

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Well, again, Landed elite before Monarchy will usually grant you the most benefit.

Your timeline:
Again, wrong Policies. If you took Landed Elite first, you'd have gotten an additional SEVENTY-SIX food until turn 82. And +10% Growth on top of that. I don't have a food-pop-table at hand right now, but if you don't keep your city from growing by adding settlers, you should usually be able get 10 pop by around turn 80-90, although that's of course very dependent on the starting location..

And the biggest bonuses are still yet to come at that point - the Aqueducts are just awesome, you delay them by at least 2 policies, just as you delay every other policy by 2. So I'm still very confident that just beeling through Tradition would be way more effective. Even with a GL-First BO.. well... I'd even say that it would fit your strategy so much better - because getting Aqueducts EXACTLY at the point that you start expanding will make up for some of the growth that you lose by delaying your expansions.

So yeah... I still don't agree with your evaluations at all. ^^

sugerdady87 said:

I'm not an expert, so maybe they are others who successfully one city NC expand on deity, just not me. But even on Emperor, turn 48 GL seems kind of late, or maybe it's just me. How successful are you at pulling it off around that time?

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The test game i ran i followed certain rules, working only the tiles with highest food yield in both games for repeatability. In my normal games i get it out earlier than that , by chopping, maybe going production focus. A lot depends on your start location. I agree that on Deity , from the Let's Play videos i've seen, all available land is gone by turn 40, if you want more cities after that you have to conquer them.

Ryika said:

As sugardady87 already said, it's the tech that you'll usually beeline - it comes way before that, if you're lucky with a culture ruin you can have it on turn 40(?) or so.


Well, again, Landed elite before Monarchy will usually grant you the most benefit.

Your timeline:
Again, wrong Policies. If you took Landed Elite first, you'd have gotten an additional SEVENTY-SIX food until turn 82. And +10% Growth on top of that. I don't have a food-pop-table at hand right now, but if you don't keep your city from growing by adding settlers, you should usually be able get 10 pop by around turn 80-90, although that's of course very dependent on the starting location..

And the biggest bonuses are still yet to come at that point - the Aqueducts are just awesome, you delay them by at least 2 policies, just as you delay every other policy by 2. So I'm still very confident that just beeling through Tradition would be way more effective. Even with a GL-First BO.. well... I'd even say that it would fit your strategy so much better - because getting Aqueducts EXACTLY at the point that you start expanding will make up for some of the growth that you lose by delaying your expansions.

So yeah... I still don't agree with your evaluations at all. ^^

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I'm busy at work this week, i'll try the order you suggested, but also maybe a completely new approach based on Tradition, going wider earlier , forgetting GL and not building NC till i'm done expanding. I'm guessing that really comes into it's own on higher difficulties, since at lower levels i found 4 cities then run out of happiness anyway, it's just a question of how quickly i hit the Classical/Medieval smile crunch.

You're Poland ? Open Tradition then Liberty to collective rules, build 2 more settlers, then legalism when monuments are up, then NC T90, land elite, monarchy with Oracle and finish tradition a few turns later. Rules !
Classical, medieval eras and Oracle, it's 3 free social policy. So get the advantage of Liberty (hammers and cheap settlers) and finish tradition.
Look at this : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501378

If you love tradition but miss Liberty then mix as everyone is saying. The way you mix will simply be what you need--both trees have nice policies. I like to expand early, but wasting 10-15 hammers on each new city to get the monument and having snail-slow border expansion sucks so I might do something like this:

Build order for capital: scout-->monument-->shrine-->settler

1. Tradition Opener
2. Liberty Opener
3. Legalism
4. Republic
5. Collective Rule
6. Landed Elite
7. Monarchy
8. Oligarchy
9. Aristocracy
10. Representation

The other two policies in Liberty are okay but optional, you might want to open something else at this point. The finisher (A GP) is not actually free but is useful. I sometimes might finish, sometimes might not.

My reasoning:
1. Early culture and border expansion for capital
2. One more culture and opens path the Republic
3. Free Monuments just as I'm building my second city
4. Republic to help those new cities
5. Collective Rule (free settler and the 4th is half off)
6. Now that settlers are finished make my capital grow and catch up with landed elite.
7. Nice for Gold and happiness. Often needed as I'm running short on both with 4 growing cities
8. Trying to finish Tradition now for free aqueducts. This one is good because I'm often attacked around this point
9. Finishing tradition. My capitol is topping 10 so it also means one more smiley.
10. Ready to build many more cities and don't want to be culture-nerfed by it.

Next: expand like gangbusters if space is left. I play huge so there always is. But because of the severe culture penalties and happiness issues staying at 4 until this point is often advisable. Problem, as you said, is settlers in some capitals without good production can take 10 turns each. As this halts growth and building production this is not good. Diverting after the free monuments to take the left side of liberty gives a free settler and gives you 50% off on the 4th (you've built one before this point). So you spend only 1/4 of the time you would have on the last 2 settlers. It also gives you extra production to help out your 2-3 new cities. Directly after, Landed elite gets your capital back up to speed after the 1 1/2 settler slowdown.

Notes: The reason I hard-build a monument is I don't like waiting for the free one. It's better to get that +2 early (often can do far before the policy) and allow me to put off that policy until my second city. Also this gives me a free amphitheater later so I don't have to worry about building one for my first writer and the hammers for amphitheater is far more than monument. I build a shrine right after the first tech because you never know, if the AI is slow, you might get a decent pantheon which is definitely worth that investment. Maybe even a religion if the pantheon is a faith-based.

b7fanatix said:

Alright, easy easy! I'm not saying i know better than you, if i played a game on Deity i would follow the advice experts like yourselves give and stick to tried and trusted methods. But i play on Empreror and can make this work.

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Yeah, on emperor (with Poland, SPECIALLY) you could go full Honor then full Piety, still winning the game thus making it work.

Not that Liberty doesn't work at higher levels, there are some Deity players that go Liberty most of the time with great success. To most people Tradition is simply a superior option most of the time, way too much bonuses and most of them well timed and quite relevant. I'm on that group.