I would appreciate some exposition on why 3-city Liberty can be stronger for early warmongering than 3-city liberty Tradition. Thanks!
Compare Liberty and Tradition, Head-to-Head
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consentient
Domination!
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Assuming my correction of your question, is correct, the answer is that:-
- you can expand faster (free settler and faster 2nd settler)
- Republic boosts production
- free worker at the right time
- build Pyramids and get it > 85% of the time (best wonder in game for war and for getting started - do NOT underestimate 2 more free workers)
- build Oracle to finish Liberty and use free GE to finish NC, so that you have 6-8 CBs, Construction (for Colosseums) AND NC by T80-90, without fail.
- T55-65 CBs can reliably take out or contain a neighbouring AI
- Liberty goes better with Commerce as a subsequent tree
- Liberty goes better with Honor as a subsequent tree
TLDR: Tradition's bonuses work well if you're building your own 3/4 cities and growing them. With war, growth isn't anywhere near as important, so most of Tradition's bonuses are irrelevant. You might get earlier Machinery with Tradition, but then you're gonna have to build units that you could have built a lot earlier and gathered some XP with.
Still TDLR?: If you only want to do Artillery rush or later tech units (XCOMs, Bombers), go Tradition. If you want to war before Artillery, go Honor or Liberty.
would like to expand on this a bit. apart from the social policy choice opening up pyramids, it's a very efficient wonder.
185 hammers for 2 workers which cost 70 hammers each. this means you're getting the improved tile speed for 45 hammers.
consentient
Domination!
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Yeah, plus Pillage-Repair in 1 turn, Roads in 2 turns, Lux in 4. All very sweet.
Plus a GE point, IIRC.
Plus a GE point, IIRC.
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
This has the (usually) unfortunate downside that if the nearby AIs haven't settled their 2nd city before you'll settle the capital outside the original border range they'll start moving to your starting spot and will surely beat your 1st optional settler there.
If this happens then you still have a capital that's much better than it would have been. Basically all your saying is that the AI gets a free settler and can settle wherever they want before you. Yeah, that's true and so they could take the superior spot first as well.
Against what? Prince AI? Try doing that in a real FFA with humans. The tradition guys will have bigger cities, more production, more science, more gold and you can't kill all of them at the same time. Anyone you don't kill will be in a far superior position than you.
Liberty runs out of steam very quickly. You can take out one tradition player with it but after that you're stuck with sub-par growth while the other guys are size 20+ by turn 100. You could run 5 caravans to your cap and you still won't keep up unless you have 10% growth and artemis combined.
After Medieval, liberty will just get outclassed by whoever is still alive unless you have rampant food everywhere in your territory.
Cromagnus
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I think a lot of the reason some people struggle with Tradition is that they wait too long to start building settlers (in general)...
Liberty gives you a free Settler between t30-t40. T40 is IMHO *way too late* to start building settlers, but with Liberty's Settler production bonus, you can kind of make up for it. Also, I think getting the free one *reminds* people to build Settlers. Like, oh, I should build one, they're cheap now!
With the nerf to Tradition, the free monument comes much later, which gives a slight edge to Liberty for fast starts. Before the nerf, the free monument (as a second policy) gave you time to build Settlers, and the first set of growth bonuses (available as a third policy) made up for the stagnation.
But, nonetheless, if you're struggling with Tradition, try building a Settler earlier. Size 4 at the latest, or even size 2. Why do people feel like they can't secure settling spots without waiting until t3x for a free settler? :boggle:
That all being said, with the exception of warlike victories (including the warlike variations of cultural and diplomatic victory)...
* Science = Victory
* Science = Growth
* Growth is limited by Happiness
* Growth + Happiness = Tradition
I love Liberty. It's totally superior for a lot of things. But Tradition, even with the nerf, is completely superior for science. If nothing else because of the 3 pillars of Civ "difficulty":
1) Unhappiness/city
2) Culture cost/city
3) Science penalty/city
Liberty is better at going wide... but wide just isn't very strong in Civ5.
Now, again, the Tradition nerf means that Liberty gets a faster start. Liberty Science Victory can be more *reliable* on Deity, where you need the production to defend yourself, and capturing capitals for Wonders can be very profitable, leading to a wider empire. In other words, if your Science Victory is going to be sub-optimal anyway due to conflict and the AI, then Liberty can regain the upper hand.
All that being said, there are really 8+ victory types in civ 5. Liberty is better at half of them. Tradition is better at the other half.
Liberty:
1) Sacred Sites Cultural Victory (Not full liberty, but more liberty than tradition!)
2) Free Liberty GM Cultural Victory (nuke all opponents, GM bomb the last one when you complete Liberty... before they can generate enough culture)
3) Regular Domination
Tradition:
1) OCC Domination (which can be faster on certain difficulties)
2) Regular Cultural Victory
3) Regular Diplomatic Victory
4) Science Victory
Toss-up:
1) Warlike diplomatic victory (Tradition can have a slight edge... depends on many factors, like whether you get juicy wonders from city capture and/or borrow Jesuit Education from an AI)
2) Time victory (You need both)
So, maybe Tradition is slightly better in the sense that it's better at more of the different ways to play. But, on a Huge Marathon map or very low difficulty? Liberty regains the upper hand in almost every type of victory, because of reduced penalties.
But, why choose? Blended Liberty + Tradition is yummy.
Liberty gives you a free Settler between t30-t40. T40 is IMHO *way too late* to start building settlers, but with Liberty's Settler production bonus, you can kind of make up for it. Also, I think getting the free one *reminds* people to build Settlers. Like, oh, I should build one, they're cheap now!
With the nerf to Tradition, the free monument comes much later, which gives a slight edge to Liberty for fast starts. Before the nerf, the free monument (as a second policy) gave you time to build Settlers, and the first set of growth bonuses (available as a third policy) made up for the stagnation.
But, nonetheless, if you're struggling with Tradition, try building a Settler earlier. Size 4 at the latest, or even size 2. Why do people feel like they can't secure settling spots without waiting until t3x for a free settler? :boggle:
That all being said, with the exception of warlike victories (including the warlike variations of cultural and diplomatic victory)...
* Science = Victory
* Science = Growth
* Growth is limited by Happiness
* Growth + Happiness = Tradition
I love Liberty. It's totally superior for a lot of things. But Tradition, even with the nerf, is completely superior for science. If nothing else because of the 3 pillars of Civ "difficulty":
1) Unhappiness/city
2) Culture cost/city
3) Science penalty/city
Liberty is better at going wide... but wide just isn't very strong in Civ5.
Now, again, the Tradition nerf means that Liberty gets a faster start. Liberty Science Victory can be more *reliable* on Deity, where you need the production to defend yourself, and capturing capitals for Wonders can be very profitable, leading to a wider empire. In other words, if your Science Victory is going to be sub-optimal anyway due to conflict and the AI, then Liberty can regain the upper hand.
All that being said, there are really 8+ victory types in civ 5. Liberty is better at half of them. Tradition is better at the other half.
Liberty:
1) Sacred Sites Cultural Victory (Not full liberty, but more liberty than tradition!)
2) Free Liberty GM Cultural Victory (nuke all opponents, GM bomb the last one when you complete Liberty... before they can generate enough culture)
3) Regular Domination
Tradition:
1) OCC Domination (which can be faster on certain difficulties)
2) Regular Cultural Victory
3) Regular Diplomatic Victory
4) Science Victory
Toss-up:
1) Warlike diplomatic victory (Tradition can have a slight edge... depends on many factors, like whether you get juicy wonders from city capture and/or borrow Jesuit Education from an AI)
2) Time victory (You need both)
So, maybe Tradition is slightly better in the sense that it's better at more of the different ways to play. But, on a Huge Marathon map or very low difficulty? Liberty regains the upper hand in almost every type of victory, because of reduced penalties.
But, why choose? Blended Liberty + Tradition is yummy.
consentient
Domination!
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You know what, I think you MP guys should REALLY learn to accept that most of the players in this forum only play SP, and that when we are posting our Strategy and Tips it applies to SP only. And FYI, I have the most finishes on the DCL, and have worked hard to be the best player I can be, even if I'm not anywhere near the best player on here...so I don't appreciate the comment about Prince AI.
MP and SP are not comparable, so please stop trying to compare them.
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
Not entirely what I meant and this obviously only happens on Deity with AIs having two starting settlers.
The AI ranks the original spawn points much higher than any other spot on the map and hence will try to settle multiple ones of those if possible. Any other spot is a fair game for later settlers. They may or may not want to settle nearby decent spots later with a built settler but that takes ~20 turns by which time one should have tools available to block such an unwanted approach; those means are rarely available on ~T5. By moving far enough from the original spot one opens up a potential vulnerabilily which may screw up further plans but it's still about RNG; sometimes a troll city 4 tiles away from capital can be beneficial.
ToborajniN
Warlord
Can I be really boring and say that this entire comparison is a bit pointless, as it would be extremely tricky to compare the two paths unless you get ideal lands and other ideal conditions. What I mean is ofc that you often find that your starting lands are better suited for either trad or liberty. Both will ofc be viable, but one would very often gain an "upper hand". Does this mean that the SP path is better overall though? No, it means that it's better in that certain scenario.
Thus: If you make a playthrough as the one you mentioned to compare the two, then you would have to re-roll the map a billion times to find a perfectly balanced set of territory to actually be able to compare the two paths 'head-to-head'.
Thus: If you make a playthrough as the one you mentioned to compare the two, then you would have to re-roll the map a billion times to find a perfectly balanced set of territory to actually be able to compare the two paths 'head-to-head'.
consentient
Domination!
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I agree it's largely pointless, but it seems to keep cropping up - not because people who play Liberty are unwilling to admit Tradition is good (of course we know it is) but because Tradition fanboys refuse to admit Liberty is better at some stuff.
I have a Mac. Is it an all-round better machine than the long series of PCs I used before it? Yeah. Is it good for gaming? Of course not.
Thank heavens that Firaxis didn't make Tradition so that it was better for everything. If one starting tree was better for everything, then it would render the other 3 irrelevant. Thankfully they didn't, and the other trees have applications that generate results that wouldn't be quite as strong, in context, on Tradition. Those of us that enjoy early war know that Tradition is a distant 3rd for this.
I have a Mac. Is it an all-round better machine than the long series of PCs I used before it? Yeah. Is it good for gaming? Of course not.
Thank heavens that Firaxis didn't make Tradition so that it was better for everything. If one starting tree was better for everything, then it would render the other 3 irrelevant. Thankfully they didn't, and the other trees have applications that generate results that wouldn't be quite as strong, in context, on Tradition. Those of us that enjoy early war know that Tradition is a distant 3rd for this.
Early warmonger is strong strategy. From my own experimenting with replaying maps, Tradition has worked out as good or better for early warmongering, and there are actually good players that write about how to war early with Tradition, so I looking forward to exploiting the distinction more. Tradition seems strong no matter what VC you are aiming for.
This is why I asked about 3-city Liberty, as I still have not been able to convert an early cap snipe into a Domination VC. I seem to get hopeless bogged down as I hit the Industrial era. But when playing Liberty I feel like I am doing it wrong if I don't found 6+ of my own cities. I will look to give Liberty a try on maps with less space!
Cromagnus
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Tradition is under-rated for early war. Especially for OCC. With a strong capital, the happiness bonus in the capital can really make a difference. For fast domination there's a strong argument for never building a second city. And with fast domination the distances between your captured capitals is often too great to benefit from roads. But that's not an argument for pure Tradition. It's an argument for Monarchy + Liberty, Monarchy + Honor, or Monarchy + Commerce. Since they nerfed the policy tree for Tradition, the Monarchy play for early war is now less effective, but that policy comes at just the right time to compensate for occupation unhappiness. I think with regards to *early* war, Honor, Tradition & Liberty are fairly well-balanced, because it really has more to do with dirt and map luck. Lots of unique resources and good city spots nearby? Liberty. Lots of barb quests from Mercantile CS? Honor. It just varies a lot.
For Medieval+ starts to war, Liberty can become superior. The Liberty finisher helps get Chivalry, Machinery, Compass, Navigation or Artillery faster. You typically have self-built cities connected with roads, and the constantly under-valued Pyramids pillage-repair becomes very relevant.
But, it's not as clearly superior, because if you're starting the war with bombers or other mid-to-late game techs, Tradition is faster at getting to them.
And of course MP is totally different. But even in MP, there have been people who were fairly successful at proving Tradition could hold up with the right civs. Ethiopia, for one. But, it's kind of a pointless debate. Those who see one or the other as clearly superior probably haven't played the game in all its wondrous variations.
For Medieval+ starts to war, Liberty can become superior. The Liberty finisher helps get Chivalry, Machinery, Compass, Navigation or Artillery faster. You typically have self-built cities connected with roads, and the constantly under-valued Pyramids pillage-repair becomes very relevant.
But, it's not as clearly superior, because if you're starting the war with bombers or other mid-to-late game techs, Tradition is faster at getting to them.
And of course MP is totally different. But even in MP, there have been people who were fairly successful at proving Tradition could hold up with the right civs. Ethiopia, for one. But, it's kind of a pointless debate. Those who see one or the other as clearly superior probably haven't played the game in all its wondrous variations.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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MP itself makes a lot of assumptions, because of how the "standard" has been set (quick speed, FFA, map size, etc). If you're running 6 man FFA maps tradition is a lot more attractive than 1v1 for an overly extreme example. Non standard settings/maps could easily change what's attractive, even the difficulty level set could change that a bit (say you put it on super easy and happiness isn't a real constraint to anywhere near the same degree).
First of all, MP under the rules that are commonly used (simultaneous turns) isn't even a real game, so it shouldn't be considered. I would only consider strategy valid if it was based on human vs. human matchups with valid settings, or something close to that. (The AI is pretty bad and high-level strategies involve manipulating AI stupidity more than anything, but even a good AI wouldn't be able to pull off the gambits a human can.) Civ V is also a deeply flawed game of filling buckets, and there aren't many paths through the tech tree that matter. Ranged combat is stupid.
Liberty makes a lot more sense on bigger maps and for late starts, too. Not all games start in Ancient era / Small map / Continents. Setting up 4 cities earlier than Tradition can have some nice long-term payoffs, and the free settler/worker frees up production for important builds in the capital. Either pick needs to get 4 cities sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, ranged combat in Civ V is so unbalancing and stupid that it renders most strategy moot.
The silly way trade routes work is another black mark on Civ V. Food coming out the ass of a cargo ship, really?
Liberty makes a lot more sense on bigger maps and for late starts, too. Not all games start in Ancient era / Small map / Continents. Setting up 4 cities earlier than Tradition can have some nice long-term payoffs, and the free settler/worker frees up production for important builds in the capital. Either pick needs to get 4 cities sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, ranged combat in Civ V is so unbalancing and stupid that it renders most strategy moot.
The silly way trade routes work is another black mark on Civ V. Food coming out the ass of a cargo ship, really?
Does SS CV allow for policies outside of Piety? Or is that a possibility now that Reformation is earlier in the Piety tree?
I am not familiar with this one! Is there a DCL or something where this is demonstrated? I would love to read more, but is it really much different than super fast early domination? If you can kill all-but-one of the AI opponents before closing out your first policy tree, what chance does the last AI have?
Cromagnus
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This is the Liberation strategy. Where you kill off an AI before they acquire 100 total culture, and then later gift their capital to Alexander. His flavor settings are such that he *always* liberates gifted cities. So, right before you attack his final city, you gift the other guy's capital to him. Then you finish Alexander off, do a music tour in the other guy's borders, and voila, cultural victory around t100. Since you need a GM earlier than you could realistically get one without Liberty, it's a Liberty-only strategy.
So yes it's super-fast early war. A Great Musician, on Standard speed, generates either tourism/turn*10 or 100 tourism, whichever is greater. Which is the only way to generate that kind of tourism that early without Sacred Sites. In some cases, this is *faster* than Sacred Sites. You can win by t70 if you get lucky and an AI opens Piety and doesn't build a Monument.
Regarding Sacred Sites: A lot of SS strategies depend on the cheap-to-build Settlers from Liberty. So it's not a full Liberty strategy, but it's certainly more useful than Tradition for SS.
consentient
Domination!
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I'd love to see an LP of this GM strategy. I love the way you find interesting game mechanics, Cromagnus. I'm beginning to wonder if you're the guy that discovered the Animar, Soul of Elements combo in Duel Commander Magic: the Gathering!
