National College ASAP and Liberty - How?

Use the map from Isabella Ridiculousness Deity Challenge I got a turn 39 NC using a 2 city opening as Spain. Or you could play the save, you will get the GL

revelation216 said:

The problem with building National College after building a lot of cities is you don't get the bonus to BPT and also it costs a lot more hammers for every city you build. So the general idea is to build 2-4 cities, build NC then settle more cities and/or invade other civs and take their cities!

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Why are you so obsessed with the NC? You don't have to push Science super-hard on Emperor. Turn 150 NC is fine.

Since you've taken Liberty and cooked the map to give you alot of space, you should just expand as much as you can and don't bother with any National Wonders for a while.

Also you're Arabia! Cover the map with cities and enjoy all the extra Luxuries and Oil

I have a doubt about the social policy "Representation", that reduces culture cost of new SP's: it applies only to cities founded after the SP is adopted or the culture cost of previously founded cities is also reduced?

Everytime I go Liberty I delay founding new cities until adopting "Representation", but after reading some threads I feel that I've been doing it wrong.

So, how does this SP exactly works?

It applies retroactively, in the sense that it does recompute the culture cost of future social policies to take into account already founded cities. You get no refund on the culture cost of policies you've already taken.

That's great! I feel sad for all mistakes on the past, but at least I can play Liberty with a totally different strategy.

Thank you!

Mutineer said:

Liberty designed for really wide empires, like 10 cities.

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Liberty was designed for the Vanilla game with totally different rules. No science penalty, no lose-all-your-trade-routes-when-your-neighbors-joint-DOW-you-for-settling-too-much. In BNW, Liberty doesn't work like it was designed to. It is my preferred opening tree, but claiming it sustains true early wide empires at all is a fantasy.

The reality of Liberty is: Early wide empires are always penalized in BNW because BNW makes it so much simpler and easier to turtle until ideology, pick up order, steal some cities and have them fully equipped by turn 250 - whereas an empire that opens with 10 cities wouldn't even have factories up by then. The reality of Liberty is, it works better if you start small.

Memoryjar said:

Damascus is in a bad location. Don't hope something of that city...
I see only one lux, copper, and it is not in your border. So unhappiness is not a surprise.
T70, you can't have Philo because you're researching Maths !

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Mecca and Medina are clearly (from the two gold) settled on a hill metal but it's not clear which metal.

I agree about Damascus though. Settling a no-lux city early is very dangerous for a liberty start.

And yes, if you're going Math or Guilds first, expect to play catchup on NC and Education. Yet, it can be done.

To the OP's question: As others have said, who cares about NC ASAP? On a liberty start you want to get the NC out of the way so you can settle more cities, yes. Just keep practicing and you'll find the rhythm that works best for you. I usually settle 3-4 and finish NC between turn 90-100, then settle a few more cities for a final count of 5-7, and almost never settle anything after turn 115 because raising anymore cities will make me miss the medieval NWs and delay my ideology open.

I don't usually have to steal workers (playing on Immortal) unless I am working with a weak civ, so you can take the advice of others about cheating off the inept AI or keep working on a strong build system that represents actual competence.

Here's my own recent Arabia open (Immortal / Huge / Continents) where Education was pushed back quite a bit to snag Machu Picchu first.



Note that city two, Medina on Lake Victoria (intended as a science city though I ended up moving my art guilds there instead) was settled with no luxes nearby. So it can work. Baghdad and Najran are on Spices and Gems so I have only have 5 different luxes for all 5 of my cities, but have still grown a lot. I settled 5 cities before NC instead of just 3 because I felt my happiness could sustain growth, and growth is strength. My happiness is primarily thanks to trades (I've already built all my Bazaars). I've got Pagodas belief but have only build one so far, obviously (low fpt). A bad screenshot because you can't see Petra and Colossus. Anyway the point is, NC and Education were delayed a lot due to snagging Currency and Guilds first. I also clearly don't have aqueducts since I don't even have Engineering yet (no bridges), so I am under a growth penalty in Mecca and Medina all for the sake of Machu Picchu.

This was the finish, 278 culture victory:



The lesson is that Liberty doesn't work by starting wide nor by snagging early NC. Liberty works by starting carefully and pays off after ideology when you expand more. So Liberty starts depend on nurturing a medium-wide empire where you have to time and place cities very carefully so they will be strong without the same pop levels as Tradition cities.

Liberty DOES work for starting wide 10 cities empire, you just need to combine it with piety. Your religion should concentrate on getting as mach happiness as possible, ideally combined with Jesuit education. You put 3 in liberty until free settler, then piety until finish then You have choise to finish liberty for additional happiness or try to get happiness from other branches. You concentrate on happiness ahead of everything else. You research and build pattern should be very different from tradition one.

You First research Happiness tech, for example your first classical tech should be construction.
you enter feudal age try theology. Your next priority will be money, so after theology you usually beeline Guilds.

You Stay in feudal age as long as possible in order to use You religion as mach as possible. (by researching all feudal tech except 1 leaving it at 1 turn (usually metallurgy) and then getting printing press.

Your first Renaissance tech should be printing press.

Your city build should be very different too. Typical build order in new cities would be Obelisk- shrine- Any happiness buildings (circus , stonework, coliseum)-temple.
You will Catch to AI in science around industrial age and most often will get ideology first.
(That work up to immortal difficulty). On deity you usually simply do not have space to expand and your expansion piss off AI loaded with units too early. You will be Dowed on immortal but will be able to hold with composites with out problem if you pay attention.

And final point, if you want to stay small, you will be No different from 4 cities tradition, just mach less effective. There is NO advantage to go 4 cities liberty against 4 cities Tradition. Actually 4 cities tradition will always be better.

Mutineer said:

Liberty DOES work for starting wide 10 cities empire, you just need to combine it with piety.

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Your post doesn't address the alternative. It's fruitless to post a BNW early-wide guide if it isn't going to excel over a turtle and expand-post-ideology-by-conquest approach. And it isn't. Start wide = don't have factories anywhere by 250. Start small, already have Iron Curtain and be rolling over sophisticated AI cities which keep half their good buildings by 220. That's the standard. It doesn't matter if you manage happiness and fail at beating turtle-expand.

And no, it isn't pointless to adopt Liberty over Tradition on a small or (more consistent with my playstyle) medium-wide (5 to 7 cities) start. Tradition doesn't leverage late game expansion as well as Liberty. Tradition can get to ideology and begin conquest faster but will be slowed down by it, whereas liberty scales and scales.

Remember the whole issue here is that BNW is designed to hem early expansion and make late expansion easy. It takes a lot of fine tuning to make a liberty start work but you reap the benefits after turn 200 when, if you snagged early ideology open and World Fair win, limitless expansion is virtually free. If you're playing games targeting a turn 300 finish, Liberty is better than Tradition. If you're targeting a turn 250 finish then Tradition is better. BNW is going to hem you in early either way or punish you (make before-turn-350 victory impossible) for trying to start too wide, it's not really a social policy issue.

I'm not really even a "supporter" of using Liberty for turtling, I've made multiple posts complaining at how inadequate Liberty is at facilitating early and mid-game expansion relative to turtling strats (due to BNWs science penalty, non-scaling gold income (trade routes), and the unfathomable opportunity cost of not rushing Ideology/World Fair win on turn 200). It's just - this is the only competitive way to use it. And if you don't use it, you can't leverage late game conquest as well, you get capped on culture.

Sorry but start wide and I will have factories about 210-220.

Mutineer said:

Sorry but start wide and I will have factories about 210-220.

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Oh ok. Thanks for this assertion. Look, you're assuming a wide religion game, your entire guide was implicitly based on being able to get Pagodas belief and a good pantheon, which is fine as a conditional strat but isn't a realistic assessment of Liberty's current strengths and weaknesses. BNW encourages small starts. If a player wants to use Liberty as a flexible tree and not just for cherry-picked good-religion starts, they can, but the approach has to be realistic.

it does not based on pagodas.

lets look how to do wide happiness religion.
1) Pantheon - 1 happy for cities with pop 6+.

For 10 cities you will have enough faith just from piety shrine-temples, so you DO NOT NEED faith or generating pantheon.
2) Founder believe, you can choice between 1 happy per 2 cities or 1 happy per 8 followers. Choice depends on how mach you think you can spread your religion to city states. About renaissance time every city state following your religion will give you 1 happy.

Now for followers believe you just need to secure one +2 and one +1, which could be Padogas, temples or even gardens if lots of your cities on rivers.


Total it will give you +5 or more happiness per city from religion, which you will be able to secure EVERY GAME!

Some additional points:

I really like cheaper missionaries for enchanter believe.

WHy? What happened if you plant 10 cities all around? First they will get NOT YOUR's religion. And it is good, because most of you own happiness really kick in for cities which are size 8+.


So, first what I do is buying not my religion religious buildings, and only after converting them to my religion. Faith buildings give instant happiness not depended on city size. So, I am ofter finished with 3 religious buildings in every of my cities. If my neighbors get religion faster then me I tend even to choice interfaith dialog for founder believe. I will have to convert cities to my religion anyway, might as well get some science form it.

Mutineer said:

it does not based on pagodas.

lets look how to do wide happiness religion.
1) Pantheon - 1 happy for cities with pop 6+.

For 10 cities you will have enough faith just from piety shrine-temples, so you DO NOT NEED faith or generating pantheon.
2) Founder believe, you can choice between 1 happy per 2 cities or 1 happy per 8 followers. Choice depends on how mach you think you can spread your religion to city states. About renaissance time every city state following your religion will give you 1 happy.

Now for followers believe you just need to secure one +2 and one +1, which could be Padogas, temples or even gardens if lots of your cities on rivers.


Total it will give you +5 or more happiness per city from religion, which you will be able to secure EVERY GAME!

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interesting, I might just have to try this out. I've tried really wide once before but it didn't work out and my science was behind. But since then I feel I have a stronger grasp on the game mechanics. I could imagine Maya being a good Civ with Pyramids & free Great People.
Do you suggest any particular Civs or Wonders to do this on?

No wanders at all until Renaissance, first wander I am goring for is forbidden palace..

You can try to go for other happiness wanders but probability to get them is about 0.

You will fail behind in tech in med+ renaissance age. You will enter industrial on pair with everyone else, but with mach faster research rate. (that is based on immortal difficulty).

You should be able to start fighting from crossbow era, even you behind tech at that time crossbows are relevant for a long time. Starting from industrial era your production will go try the roof.

I would try for the Oracle if possible. You have a lot of social policies to fill. You prefer early temples right so when do you go for philosophy?

yes philosophy for temples, not for NC,
My typical build order is something like scout, scout, (if needed 1 more scout), (granary if there are granary resources) shrine, obelisk(or other way around depends) archer archer.

Typical idea is to grow capital to size so it can work all special ties, then switch to non stop settler production when get settler production bonus. I may or may not build library at grow time depends on size I will producing settlers. If capital get to size 6 I do build library.

I tend to chose one of ai to steal workers and contain on one city, this creating space for good cities.

I think learning to master an early 3 city NC is a good habit to get into when planning for immortal and beyond. What i like to do is open with tradition on first policy for that early culture boost and then straight into completing liberty. For anyone whose serious about not pissing off your neightbours and maximising early city output, an early built worker is essential for preparing for happiness hit due to expanding, got to improve those luxuries quick. My build order normally looks like this >monument >scout >worker >settler >library >granary. I normally settle the second and third cities within 3-4 turns of each other thanks to liberties free settler. Steal two workers max. Monument straight away in the new cities to encourage border growth into those important tiles and improve mines straight off the bat to rush out the libraries. Chop forests. Dont get side tracked from the goal - get that NC. Then settle again quickly after....

You don't always need an early NC
I used to be a firm believer in that you do but after playing the The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game #5 I now see the benefits of building granaries first in my expos. This is of course dependent on the map, and the civ......

Mutineer said:

And final point, if you want to stay small, you will be No different from 4 cities tradition, just mach less effective. There is NO advantage to go 4 cities liberty against 4 cities Tradition. Actually 4 cities tradition will always be better.

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Of course there is. A free settler. A free worker. Faster improvement times. A good shot at the Pyramids which is the most powerful wonder in the game. A free Great Person (another Wonder, decent science boost, religion). Faster army. Less happiness issues later if you puppet a ton of other players' cities. Many of the top players choose liberty frequently. They wouldn't do so if it was as bad as people like you make out.