Liberty Wide Game Guide (Acken's version)

Go to video settings and uncheck "fullscreen." I bought a new computer with a huge screen, and it was screwing my screenshots, until I changed to almost full screen window mode.

yeah that was probably it. but when not fullscreened it was causing desktop toolbar problems clicking on things at the bottom of the screen, from unit info to tile choices. and i cant move the toolbar to the top either because the games tools are up there, like religion, tourism, policies. i should probably look up some driver updates for this. its an LG 29" ultrawide that scales the whole thing pretty well other than the fullscreen issue.

and thanks for looking, J_Kovic. im curious where you settled. the save file says from t0 though. was that a copy error? i'll load it in a few minutes and see. also, instead of a GS i took a GE for Sistine. hopefully it wont go in the next 14 turns when Acoustics finishes.
 
okay, that is a good start, J_Kovic. i see you are friends with the right people too but i'd be afraid of being so close to Marrakesh and Venice. backstabs can still happen and you have no mil units really. but you have 3 coastal spots for good trade. and your total culture is about twice what mine is at the same turn. its interesting that Bratislava is now a venice puppet. in mine it was allied with China so a war would be tough. and i had allied Riga but they got couped by Iroquois the turn after i agreed to a DoF with them. that was some duplicitous stuff right there, haha. thanks for the save. i think i'll play both through to see how much it matters with/without Petra. still surprised i was able to get Petra to begin with. only maybe happened 3 or 4 other times in all my deity games.
 
yeah that was probably it. but when not fullscreened it was causing desktop toolbar problems clicking on things at the bottom of the screen, from unit info to tile choices. and i cant move the toolbar to the top either because the games tools are up there, like religion, tourism, policies. i should probably look up some driver updates for this. its an LG 29" ultrawide that scales the whole thing pretty well other than the fullscreen issue.
The toolbar appears when you alt-tab, true, but you can also just switch to windowed mode just to take screenshots and then go back to regular. It's a hassle, but unless you have a second screen, the ways to take screenshots in this game are limited... unless you find some way. :)
 
okay, that is a good start, J_Kovic. i see you are friends with the right people too but i'd be afraid of being so close to Marrakesh and Venice. backstabs can still happen and you have no mil units really. but you have 3 coastal spots for good trade. and your total culture is about twice what mine is at the same turn. its interesting that Bratislava is now a venice puppet. in mine it was allied with China so a war would be tough. and i had allied Riga but they got couped by Iroquois the turn after i agreed to a DoF with them. that was some duplicitous stuff right there, haha. thanks for the save. i think i'll play both through to see how much it matters with/without Petra. still surprised i was able to get Petra to begin with. only maybe happened 3 or 4 other times in all my deity games.

You'll have to play some diplomatic games to get this strategy work. Morocco doesn't usually backstab you, and when chinese troops started moving towards my borders, I tribed them (or other way around) to attack England. That area near Morocco capital is also quite easy to defend. And Venice doesn't usually have big troops.

Petra would have been good for that capital spot but it is a great spot even without it.
 
Hello, long time on and off player, short time lurker, first time poster.

This guide is great overall and it was a good starting point for me, but I think it may be downplaying wide play a little. I've been playing wide excusively this month on immortal, and have found several instances where it's not just fun but also ideal.

Spoiler :


I think this image should be enough to explain everything.

This is one of the strongest starting areas and execution I've found for going wide, even though I messed up with National College timing by forgetting about it and delaying about 50 turns in exchange for an expansion spot that was not in contention(the bottom left one on the minimap next to Venice). I'm probably strong enough to go for any victory except cultural at this point.

I don't think the biggest starting location requirement for wide play is room, since you can always make room. In this game, I opened up by building my first expansion city at Osaka and then spamming archers to pin down the Netherlands in a very long war. The war eventually ended in me upgrading all of my archers to composite bowmen and him surrendering Rotterdam. I then went to war again just to take out his settler and got a peace treaty with no strings attached. I have no warmonger penalty at all, Netherlands doesn't even hold a grudge, and I made room by pinning down my nearest neighbor.

I'd say the biggest requirement for going wide is religion. Religion is the biggest incentive to go wide, since more cities is the only way to get more faith production. It's also the biggest requirement, since it will give you the happiness that's needed to expand faster and harder. If your starting location does not give you a strong early religion, it's not a good game to go wide in(although you always can if you want).

So the two reasons why I consider this the ideal starting location thus far for me to go wide are: 1=Mt Sinai, and 2=Gems. The great thing about gems is that it doesn't need to be improved to immediately start giving +2 faith. As I stated earlier, my first spot skipped everything and went straight to Osaka just to work Mt. Sinai. In fact, it stayed at 1 pop for a very long time doing only that. I then got Tear of the Gods pantheon for the Gems and Pearls +2 faith.I had 7 Gems very early in the game pumping out 14 faith, and 8 faith from Sinai giving me 22 faith before anyone else has even founded a religion. I got both Mosques and Pagodas in my religion, and it just snowballs from there to give me even more faith.

I do agree that going wide is usually not ideal and mostly just for fun, but I just wanted to throw in an example of a starting location where, if executed properly, the wide way is the best way.
 
Just read through this thread, and I couldn't see any mention of Neuschwanstein. It gives you +2 :c5happy:, and an additional +1 :c5happy: per castle. I know the castle isn't a fashionable building, but it's maintenance free, and the additional :c5gold: and :c5culture: plus the happiness surely make it a lot more fashionable.

And the AI rarely builds it for some reason so it's quite easy to grab.
 
I agree, it's a really good one to have. But for one of those "really fast games" you don't even get to make before you're done
 
I've tried my hands on Liberty Deity for the past week, and it still works...but it's way harder to justify Liberty. I still believe religion is the biggest incentive and requirement to go Liberty, but it's usually very difficult to get a good one going early enough. It comes down to how fast you can get your Pantheon. If my Japan example above was on Deity, I believe it would still work just as good, but having a Faith-producing NW nearby isn't exactly an every game occurrence.

It's depressing when you're 1 turn away from founding a pantheon and then it gets pushed back 5 more turns because someone else founded a pantheon...and then 5 more turns...and 5 more turns...until I finally found one 30 turns into the game. This is while going Scout-Scout-Shrine too. I'm still guaranteed a religion, but it's not early and strong enough to justify Liberty. I've pretty much conceded to go Tradition unless I find a Faith NW or I roll one of the civs that can produce early Faith.
 
With Liberty, when do you stop founding new cities? I played a game yesterday; Persia on a Mesopotamia map with raging barbs, Emperor level, quick pace. I started in the extreme top right corner of the map. There was no fresh water anywhere, but lots of unique luxuries scattered about. So I decided to give Liberty a try (I almost always play Tradition) I rather quickly settled 5 or 6 cities, founded the 3rd religion and still got Pagodas, built Temple of Artemis and Chichen Itza (I seldom get that one), and basically explored and fought barbs. My nearest neighbor was pretty far away with rough terrain between, and only 2 nearby CS's. So I didn't steal anything. My national college was kinda late, turn 110 or so (remember this is quick speed), then I settled a couple of more cities. When I discovered Biology, I settled one more city to get some oil. And I stopped settling because I thought that was enough. (and it was getting tedious managing build queues) The AI's never stopped settling new cities; I think Rome had over30 cities by the end if the game and most of the other AIs weren't far behind. I had room for at least 10 more cities; should I have kept churning out settlers during the Renaissance era, when I could build Satrap's Courts for the gold and happiness to support them? That would pretty much mean no more national wonders, but I'd already built NC, National Epic, Heroic Epic (not in my capital) and Ironworks.

I was planniing to pursue both domination and culture victories, but being so far away from everybody I went for an easy science victory instead. I was never in a war the whole game. I should have picked a fight with Rome just to make use of my Honor finisher, but I was still getting gold and culture from barbs; they never went away because all the unsettled rough terrain.
 
I play Liberty in about half my Deity games nowadays. It is not as reliable as Tradition, but it feels like more fun. It could also be that the novelty has not worn off.

I am still working out NC timings. At the moment, it seems to me that two or three city NC is the way to go. Then a fast expansion phase, but modest enough so that Oxford timing is still competitive with Tradition. This seems to work out between 6 and 10 cities. After Oxford, I will expand a few more cities to capture Coal or Aluminum (only if needed, but seems to be the case more often than not), or to pick up a neglected NW. At this point in the game, I usually work on Hermitage and NSA because reasons. After that, especially if I am running Order or Autocracy, I will keep expanding steadily until VC.

The problem I have found with 6-8 city NC is that (1) NC is late (as compared to 4-city Tradition); (2) it usually pisses off the AIs like crazy; and (3) I frequently have cash flow problems (which tanks science). As I wrote, I am still trying to figure out the patterns that work for me. The instructions in this thread (and other Liberty threads) have not really worked for me. But then, I still cannot be bothered to micro-manage which tiles are worked.

At Emperor and below (GotM) how I play nowadays is:
  1. beeline Writing
  2. build the Great Library (for Philosophy)
  3. build NC
  4. Have fun with my leisure game!
 
With Liberty, when do you stop founding new cities?

The general consensus is that for standard-size maps, there is enough happiness for about 8 cities on pangea, 6-7 cities on continents. Going any wider requires strong religion / FoY / UB. If you are going for SV/CV/DipV, you should stop at 8 and do not compromise city quality.

It is important to ensure that there is enough population in each city, build your universities and open rationalism / secularism asap so that you can get ahead in science.
 
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