I struggle when adopting Tradition.

I've heard a lot of people claim that Tradition is a lot better than Liberty, but for me Liberty always works out better.

Whenever I play on harder difficulties, the AI's settle fast and I feel that I have to claim my land fast before they settle all around me. Liberty helps with this.

Also the free GP at the end, which I usually use for GE and Hagia Sophia, is the only way I can seem to get my religion going early on.

I understand that some of the Tradition policies (such as Monarchy) seem inarguably than Liberty when taken at face value, but I feel that Liberty is a lot better for early game and helping you to get on your feet than Tradition is.

You might disagree with me, but I'm just speaking from my own experiences.

Liberty is more focused on short-mid terms goals. And this is where warfare enters this category.

Liberty will always surpass Tradition until the Med era but you need to learn how to leverage it. If you try to copy paste peaceful victories from Tradition you will always be behind due to higher maintenance and slower growth.

Liberty means lot of cities(good synergy with Piety and Sacred Sites) and/or early and strong warfare. Otherwise stick to Tradition.

If you have troubles with Tradition you should read guides and practice a bit more. Liberty is like the Great Library for new comers. They are shiny and attractive at first glance but they are in fact a poison if you don't know how to handle them.

There seems to be a pretty widespread consensus on here that Tradition is better than Liberty hands-down.

While I can definitely see the appeal in Tradition from the free culture buildings, Aqueducts, GE's with Faith and Monarchy policy, I feel that Liberty gets you off to a better start and is best for early game.

With Tradition, settlers seem to take forever to produce and you are missing out on growth during the time it takes to build them. Also, there might not always be a nearby CS to steal your first worker from, and even if there is, you will get a worker a lot sooner from just adopting Liberty. Wasting time early in the game building a worker the old-fashioned way is just really not optimal.

In addition, tile improvement construction takes forever with Tradition. I love being able to build a road in 2 turns with Liberty. And the free GP that you get from finishing Liberty is pretty fantastic IMO.


But I favor Liberty most of all just because I seem to do better every time I adopt it than when I do Tradition. I like the free Monuments and Aqueducts, but I feel most of Tradition's value lies in the finisher, and it takes a while to get to that.

And above all else, I feel like it takes forever for you to get off your feet with Tradition.

You don't have to steal a worker from a city state- you can also steal them from enemy civilizations. Usually something like 1-2 minimum, 3-4 = gold mine. This can be done much sooner than stealing from city states, because the AI starts with 2 workers iirc.

Keep in mind that if you play liberty, you are going to be building a lot of settlers anyways. In fact you will probably be hard building more settlers than if you went tradition, because you're going wide instead of tall. And if you're not going wide with Liberty, you may as well have gone Tradition.

You're missing a pretty big benefit to tradition over liberty- If you cannot finish Rationalism for whatever reason, with tradition you can buy Great Engineers. With Liberty, you can't do anything with your faith.

There was a really good post recently about the benefits/drawbacks of tradition/liberty. I remember that one of the main points was that with liberty, you're expecting to build lots of cities. To do that you need lots of space. Vs. the Diety AI, that isn't always a given, especially since they start with two settlers.

With a two settler start and enormous early game benefits, going wide early on is more likely to provoke them than going tall. And often times if you get a culture hut / couldn't scout enough- you have to blindly pick one or the other. With tradition you always have the option to go tall. With liberty, you kind of get shafted.

Edit: Filthyrobot also made a youtube about this last month, but it's an hour long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ-_os-4r3U

Tradition seems to be a redundant ftw social policy pick that gets boring when choosing it but is way better in military and everything overall except faith and piety unless you get Stonehenge early from wonder spamming. Tradition is a good social policy and makes it easy for you to get a win particularly science. The only issue that I have with tradition is that its very easy to use and it doesn't really provide an interesting challenge that keeps me awake unlike the other social policies that are different to use, benefit you in a really different way and also give that challenge that makesthings interesting and keeps you awake.

One of these days, if I ever find the time, I’m going to do an experiment. I’ll start a game on Standard speed, Prince level, Continents map. Then, as soon as I settle my capital, I’ll make 2 save files: “Liberty” and “Tradition.” I’ll play each one until I complete the corresponding SP tree.

Then, I’m going to compare both games:
On what turn did I finish the tree?
How many cities do I have and how big are they?
How much did I get to improve the surrounding tiles?
What is my Happiness, and how much Gold/turn, Culture/turn, and Science/turn do I have.

I’m sure it would make for some interesting analysis . . . if I ever find that elusive time.

shaglio said:

One of these days, if I ever find the time, I’m going to do an experiment. I’ll start a game on Standard speed, Prince level, Continents map. Then, as soon as I settle my capital, I’ll make 2 save files: “Liberty” and “Tradition.” I’ll play each one until I complete the corresponding SP tree.

Then, I’m going to compare both games:
On what turn did I finish the tree?
How many cities do I have and how big are they?
How much did I get to improve the surrounding tiles?
What is my Happiness, and how much Gold/turn, Culture/turn, and Science/turn do I have.

I’m sure it would make for some interesting analysis . . . if I ever find that elusive time.

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In case anyone wants to try this, I just posted "Liberty" and "Tradition" saves of a recent game (on King however, not Prince) in the "Strategy and Tips" section. After a little exploring, I hit a culture ruin on Turn 14. I thought that the location looked promising for a Liberty start, so I saved it twice, once opening Tradition and once opening Liberty.

Athenaeum said:

I've heard a lot of people claim that Tradition is a lot better than Liberty, but for me Liberty always works out better.

Whenever I play on harder difficulties, the AI's settle fast and I feel that I have to claim my land fast before they settle all around me. Liberty helps with this.

Also the free GP at the end, which I usually use for GE and Hagia Sophia, is the only way I can seem to get my religion going early on.

I understand that some of the Tradition policies (such as Monarchy) seem inarguably than Liberty when taken at face value, but I feel that Liberty is a lot better for early game and helping you to get on your feet than Tradition is.

You might disagree with me, but I'm just speaking from my own experiences.

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This is why you 2 pop or 3 pop a settler with tradition which is actually faster than earning one with liberty.. Tradition beats liberty to that first crucial settler because most liberty players don't want to make settlers until they are getting the bonus.

Athenaeum said:

There seems to be a pretty widespread consensus on here that Tradition is better than Liberty hands-down.

While I can definitely see the appeal in Tradition from the free culture buildings, Aqueducts, GE's with Faith and Monarchy policy, I feel that Liberty gets you off to a better start and is best for early game.

With Tradition, settlers seem to take forever to produce and you are missing out on growth during the time it takes to build them. Also, there might not always be a nearby CS to steal your first worker from, and even if there is, you will get a worker a lot sooner from just adopting Liberty. Wasting time early in the game building a worker the old-fashioned way is just really not optimal.

In addition, tile improvement construction takes forever with Tradition. I love being able to build a road in 2 turns with Liberty. And the free GP that you get from finishing Liberty is pretty fantastic IMO.


But I favor Liberty most of all just because I seem to do better every time I adopt it than when I do Tradition. I like the free Monuments and Aqueducts, but I feel most of Tradition's value lies in the finisher, and it takes a while to get to that.

And above all else, I feel like it takes forever for you to get off your feet with Tradition.

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You can get enough workers and more by "spawn camping" a CS/civ: steal worker working on improvement, move unit 2 tiles away when CS can't see it, steal again when next worker pops out, so forth. This can give up to 3-4 free workers before they start building military escorts, at which point you can sue for peace.

You can also get workers by camping barb camps near CS: when barb caps worker, CS will badly damage barb, and use your unit swoop in to save the day, except you keep as many workers as you need. Also you can plunder barb camps, they usually have a worker inside and 1 nearby. With these two methods you need only build 1 worker and can get 4 free ones with minimal consequences. 5 workers is enough for a small empire.

As for settlers: have you tried working hills only when building them? City can't starve when building settlers, and this method reduces turn difference dramatically. Free monument from tradition saves 20-40 turns of production PER CITY and makes acquiring good land/luxes faster; what's the point of settler/worker spam if you've got nothing to improve and no tiles to work? Monarchy can give upwards of 15-20 happiness later in the game, and also provides enough gold to keep you afloat without dipping into negative. Landed elite is extremely vital for growth, as +2 food comes in when cities start taking 10+ turns to grow and +10% growth means each city can take 1 turn less to grow 1 size, which equates to a lot of turns saved. Aristocracy gives some more happiness and the wonder bonus ties a lot, as you'll be building a lot of national/world wonders anyways. Oligarchy provides a use for scouts after they finish exploring, and also some defense/gold.

The most important part of tradition imo is free aqueducts. 40% of food carried over means 40% of next growth threshold is already reached, which equates to about 75% faster growth. SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT. This is necessary and extremely beneficial for small empires, where as cities get bigger it becomes harder to find small sources of food, and will sustain you well into the late game. Whereas normally, you have to go engineering for aqueducts, which wastes time from teching to education and also 40+ turns of production total.

If you want an example of the power of tradition then see this sub-t250 Babylon SV, which was made possible by the various policies of tradition.

beetle said:

Any choices that delays the Tradition and/or Liberty finishers will result in a weaker game. Try it!

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My experience is that Tradition you want to finish ASAP but Liberty isn't quite so necessary.
For instance if I'm playing Liberty I would always take the Tradition opener first (which if you get early enough - from a culture ruin) is arguably a free policy. The border growth bonus and extra culture from the capital will save you a lot of gold in the long term from having to purchase tiles.
Tradition Opener also lets you build the Hanging Gardens (which I find is quite easy since few AIs ever seem to take Tradition now). This is useful as Liberty because it lets your capital work specialists without sacrificing growth. For an inland city it is basically like having an extra 1.5 food caravans.

Regarding Liberty I always leave Representation to last, and I don't mind delaying it. I figure that it is best to get a golden age from accumulated happiness as it only costs 500 points to trigger.
Finishing Liberty after I get my first Golden age means I really do get a free golden age sometimes you can trigger them both at the same time for a mega 20 turn Golden age. Delaying Representation until I have more cities up also means that more cities will get the benefit of the Golden Age. A population 4 city will get much more benefit of a golden age than a population 1 city.

The free Great Person is also not necessary to rush ASAP. If you want an an early academy than yes you will want to finish Liberty earlier but if you want to get a free Wonder it is ok to delay the Liberty finisher if that Wonder is in the medieval or renaissance era depending on what Wonder you covet.

What do others think of this - delaying Representation policy finisher from Liberty until after you get your first Golden Age?

Athenaeum said:

Btw, how do you guys recommend getting over the negative diplomacy you acquire from stealing a CS worker early on?

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This caused a load of problems for me in my last game. I had settled a city further away from my capital near the Iraquois to work Mount Kailash and I had stolen a worker from a citystate.
It seemed to cause an issue with Germany as I got hit by that 'They have early concerns about your warmongering - they hate warmongers'.
Sure enough about 20 turns later Germany marched an army from about 30 tiles away (well away from me) to attack my new city at Mount Kailash. He had about 20 units; not just German swordsmen but also handaxes and brutes.
So in that game it really didn't pay off. And the thing is I totally didn't expect Germany to do that, I've never seen an AI march an army that far that early just to declare war over a stolen worker.

I agree that I overstated the value of the Liberty finisher.

Redaxe said:

For instance if I'm playing Liberty I would always take the Tradition opener first (which if you get early enough - from a culture ruin) is arguably a free policy.

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It would have been better to get the free and half price settlers that much sooner. The math is clear that, in terms of net culture only, opening Tradition slows down policy acquisition. It is a popular strategy, but it does not come close to paying for itself.

If it is the border growth from the Tradition that is so valuable, why not take that after getting started with Liberty?

The free Great Person is also not necessary to rush ASAP. If you want an an early academy than yes you will want to finish Liberty earlier but if you want to get a free Wonder it is ok to delay the Liberty finisher if that Wonder is in the medieval or renaissance era depending on what Wonder you covet.

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This is a good point. Even when I go full-bore Liberty I can miss all the ancient era wonders. I respect that the early academy is a very strong play, but I really covet those wonders!

The most valuable policy in the Liberty tree is the half price settlers. That is why you don’t want to pursue Liberty by opening Tradition. People who talk about needing to hard build their first settler when going with Liberty are inevitably the same people who have sabotaged themselves by opening Tradition first.

What do others think of this - delaying Representation policy finisher from Liberty until after you get your first Golden Age?

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That seems like it might be quite clever! More cities at that point too!

JohnMK said:

And the so-called free great person from finishing Liberty isn't truly free -- it increases the cost of the next one.

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Really? omg I didn't know that... That sucks

The Great Person at the end is still free no matter how you cut it.

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No, he is right, I didn't know it increased the cost, but if it does, it's MUCH less useful.


Let me make an example. I don't know teh real values, I'm going to exagerate for the example.

Lets say in a full game you get a total of 1000 great person points. You go tradition. Lets say you get the first with 100, the second with another 200, the third with 300 and the fourth with 400 (total 1000). So you got 4.

Lets say now you go liberty. So you get the "free" one. But it counts for the cost of next ones so the second one still costs 200, the third at 300 and the fourth 400. (total 900) You just gained 100 great people points, but since later ones cost so much more, you didn't really got a free one, you just made the first one earlier. But at the end of the game you will most probably just get the same number of GP than without that policy.

If my example would continue, GP would cost 10'000 points and you still just gained 100.

Thats why he said it wasnt really "free". It's better called making the first one appear earlier.

beetle said:

I agree that I overstated the value of the Liberty finisher.



It would have been better to get the free and half price settlers that much sooner. The math is clear that, in terms of net culture only, opening Tradition slows down policy acquisition. It is a popular strategy, but it does not come close to paying for itself.

If it is the border growth from the Tradition that is so valuable, why not take that after getting started with Liberty?



This is a good point. Even when I go full-bore Liberty I can miss all the ancient era wonders. I respect that the early academy is a very strong play, but I really covet those wonders!

The most valuable policy in the Liberty tree is the half price settlers. That is why you don’t want to pursue Liberty by opening Tradition. People who talk about needing to hard build their first settler when going with Liberty are inevitably the same people who have sabotaged themselves by opening Tradition first.



That seems like it might be quite clever! More cities at that point too!

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Yeah i've heard people argue both ways in regards to opening Tradition before Liberty. If you can't find a culture ruin within 15 turns you're probably best to just forget Tradition opener.
Most times though you can get an early culture ruin and yes using that to open Tradition might slow down your free settler by a few turns but if you're that worried about the AI stealing your land than may you don't really have sufficient space to play Liberty???
The other thing of course is that if you get the early culture ruin often you haven't explored well enough to know if starting with Liberty is even a good idea. Opening with Tradition gives you more time to decide so I don't think its a wasted policy. Delaying the settler bonus isn't necessarily the end of the world either - your capital might be 1 size bigger which means you can build those settlers even faster or maybe get an early water mill in first?

I suppose you could take the Tradition opener later but I always think that there are better social policies to take later and you miss out on all that early capital border growth.

krc said:

In case anyone wants to try this, I just posted "Liberty" and "Tradition" saves of a recent game (on King however, not Prince) in the "Strategy and Tips" section. After a little exploring, I hit a culture ruin on Turn 14. I thought that the location looked promising for a Liberty start, so I saved it twice, once opening Tradition and once opening Liberty.

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Very interesting! I'll have to keep an eye on this thread to see how things develop. Unfortunately, as you mentioned in one of your later posts, it seems to be devolving into yet another Tradition vs. Liberty argument. The point of that thread, obviously, is to get away from the hearsay arguments (the theoraticals and hypotheticals) and provide some concrete analysis with actual comparative results (as best as possible).

Redaxe said:

If you can't find a culture ruin within 15 turns you're probably best to just forget Tradition opener.

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How does a culture ruin change the math behind the Tradition opener paying for itself or not? Being lucky with ruins, or playing Poland, might make it so you can get away with sub-optimal play -- but is it not still sub-optimal play?

shaglio said:

The point of that thread, obviously, is to get away from the hearsay arguments (the theoraticals and hypotheticals) and provide some concrete analysis with actual comparative results (as best as possible).

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I think looking at the policy cost table is easy and conclusive as far opening Tradition to pursue Liberty goes.

An early ruin or monument-first BO really only helps unlock your opener and next two social policies noticeably quickly. Early game, you culture is roughly linear, ~2-3 cpt, but cost for each policy is roughly doubling. Here's the numbers from wikia assuming standard map size and pace and just one city:


Look at the jump between 3rd and 4th pick! The Tradition opener is just not enough of a culture engine to justify it on its own. The Tradition opener would have to generate 160 culture on its own, in the turns it otherwise takes you to the to the second pick in a tree. Opening Honor before Tradition or Liberty has the same challenge.

beetle said:

I think looking at the policy cost table is easy and conclusive as far opening Tradition to pursue Liberty goes.

An early ruin or monument-first BO really only helps unlock your opener and next two social policies noticeably quickly. Early game, you culture is roughly linear, ~2-3 cpt, but cost for each policy is roughly doubling. Here's the numbers from wikia assuming standard map size and pace and just one city:

1st (opener) |2nd|3rd|4th|5th
25|45|90|160|245

Look at the jump between 3rd and 4th pick! The Tradition opener is just not enough of a culture engine to justify it on its own. The Tradition opener would have to generate 160 culture on its own, in the turns it otherwise takes you to the to the second pick in a tree. Opening Honor before Tradition or Liberty has the same challenge.

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I'm not sure if you meant to respond to my post or if you accidentally quoted me, but I'm not sure what your post has to do with mine. I was talking about playing out 2 games from the same start, one going Tradition and the other going Liberty, then comparing various things between the 2 games.