No other way but Tradition

About the granary: Is still high priority even on liberty, you have to be more careful to build things until you consolidate your economy, but granary is still a top option even if you don't grow, the two food can be used to sustain a worked mountain with a mine improvement if you can't grow at any moment: can be like a workshop in terms of production, and much cheaper.

About buying tiles, you have to keep your mind clear of what tiles you really need, as cost goes up with each purchase, but yeah, unlike tradition, you are usually buying lots of tiles.

About the GE for petra, If you had the idea of finishing Liberty by that time, culture from pastures would have helped to do so.
 
I need to figure out how to take screenshots. I just got through 186 turns of Tradition. The only major difference in the games is that the one where I was playing Liberty took a lot longer and it was more painful. But after the same number of turns, my score was almost identical. I ended up in 4th place. Same era... basically the same science gains. I had two less cities, but my capital is 16 vs. 13. Everything is running more smoothly in tradition, but overall, I am still in a similar spot.

Both games have Kashmir in a runaway situation. I think I'd have been better off in both games to take out Mongolia and expand my empire via conquering. I think that's the best way to win this game.

I think I was actually farther along on the cultural situation in the Liberty game which is weird to me. More cities. But I had at least three more.

I did get a religion in the tradition game but only because I took Desert faith. I should try one more game with God of the Open Sky and go for culture. See where I get with that. Go an early rush against Mongolia. See what happens.

Or I should just play another game and forget this little quest for knowledge. I'm not sure why I'm so far behind in either game.
 
IMO what makes Tradition absolutely crush the other trees is the free Aqueducts. There are some other great things in there, but getting such a useful building completely free so early in the game and without needing the tech to build it makes it just completely outclass the other trees. It's a huge hammer savings. And meanwhile Honor has to hard build its Barracks, which aren't even that great or needed outside 1 or 2 cities.

It's worth asking why, this late in the dev of Civ 5, melee units take any damage at all for attacking ranged units. Part of the reason Honor is so bad is it focuses on melee units, and these units are still regularly outdamaged by archers, because the melee unit has to sacrifice its own HP to attack a unit it has a bonus against, but archers don't. The amount of damage city attack + archers do to melee units even with Honor is ridiculous, and then the melee unit has to use its own HP to even have a chance to kill an archer. If the Honor finisher allowed melee units to attack archers and seige units without losing HP it would play a much more useful role.
 
Hey Z,

Just my two cents, but as an immortal player who almost exclusively plays (and wins) with Liberty, I have a few
Suggestions.

1. Aim for Machu Pichu with your GE for finishing Liberty. Going 5-6 cities and likely more puppeted ones if you war, the trade gain is significant.

2. Make sure to have enough workers. Pyramids helps, but I only build it once my capital is big enough and often leave it late. Sometimes I miss it, but the AI isn't a fan of Pyramids so I can get it if I'm careful. Otherwise I ignore early wonders. Possible exception to colossus if a coastal capital.

3. Sell the cap out of your iron and horses. If you don't scout well, you miss trading partners. DOF when possible, otherwise you can still sell with per turn gold. Make sure, if possible, to have a coastal city, and more if map allows. Sending early triremes out is great. With good city placement you should have lots of iron, horse, and luxury copies.

4. With all my gold, I generally buy CS allies. Extra culture, faith, food, or units are helpful, as is luxury happiness.

5. Especially on large maps think about combining Liberty with the left side of Patronage. If you can ally with 6-10 CS you can get a lovely science bump and a serious happiness bump (luxury bonus for third policy).

6. Also with lots of gold from your raw materials, you can afford to run internal trade routes to your capital, instead of abroad. Grow Your capital and two internal routes help.

7. Think about war expansion. Not too soon, mind you. But if you run specialists when you get Universities, you can save a few GS and rush some artillery. A nice big empire With Machu. Quite nice.

Oh, and while people like Order, I like Freedom a lot. Get specialists which cost half food, get a hammer (Statue of Liberty) and two science (left side Rationalism), produces late game powerhouse science. I often have 10 specialists in my cities and more in capital.
 
The Tradition Finisher is overpowered, while Liberty's finisher is horrendous.

I'm sorry, what's wrong with a free GE? Aqueducts are nice, but isn't a free wonder? Machu? Or Save it for Porcelain tower if you want science and play peaceful?
 
Third time is the best yet! I took God of Open Skies... I don't think that was what I should have done. Still need to get more faith. But I got the Hanging Gardens this time... all the difference. My capital became a powerhouse of production and my science went off the map. I also settled my Great Merchant. Good times.

I was about 100 points up on the other two starts by turn 186... I kept playing and ended up getting Leaning Tower, Porcelain Tower, Taj Majal and some others.

I am not certain what made the biggest difference, but interestingly, the AIs, which I had very little to do with, ended up very different. Kashmir was no longer a runaway. Even got punked by Shoshone who was in the lead, but not by much. 2nd place was Denmark. Go figure.

This is a large island game. All my cities are coastal. I didn't even come close to Petra. Missed the Machu Pichu by 6 turns. Never got a great engineer, but by turn 200ish I had four great scientists planted near my capitol and I was churning out science. Pretty sure I have an easy science victory if I want it.

Funny thing is that in all three games, Genghis was peaceful. Never even tried to start a war. And in this last game, he took the Great Library. Weird.
 
Interesting results, testing the same game with both Liberty and Tradition. We should probably try this experiment, too.
 
Thee the game I believe liberty is the best starting tree.

Reason, At time when come to choise policy I explore my island and found shaka, but had no chance to steal worker. So, reasoning:
Start pretty poor, but lot of space to freely expand with lots of difrent lux. Dificulty stealing worker. So, Tradition - poor capital,
Honor - Not really possibility to early war,
Piety - poor production start.
Liberty - lot of space++++

Save is at end of initial expansion. Went liberty, eventually found portugal and steal 3 workers from them, after shaka declare war and take there city made peace. Trying to build pyramids for more workers, currently on 6 cities.

I provide autosave of starting position if you want to try different strats, but I believe all other openings are inferior there.

Immortal level.
 

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Thee the game I believe liberty is the best starting tree.

Reason, At time when come to choise policy I explore my island and found shaka, but had no chance to steal worker. So, reasoning:
Start pretty poor, but lot of space to freely expand with lots of difrent lux. Dificulty stealing worker. So, Tradition - poor capital,
Honor - Not really possibility to early war,
Piety - poor production start.
Liberty - lot of space++++

Save is at end of initial expansion. Went liberty, eventually found portugal and steal 3 workers from them, after shaka declare war and take there city made peace. Trying to build pyramids for more workers, currently on 6 cities.

I provide autosave of starting position if you want to try different strats, but I believe all other openings are inferior there.

Immortal level.


Not in a position to open the save here but from the save title I presume this is a Monty game?

I find it hard not to open Honour with Monty regardless, as if I can find a barbarian camp to farm, the culture provided is massive.

Still, in terms of Tradition vs Liberty, your approach and result sounds very reasonable.
 
I do have to agree here - liberty being 'underpowered' is mostly just playstyle issues. honour and piety are actually pitiful if they're designed to be first choices.

That's a bingo!

/maybe they're not (designed as first choices)
 
I would like to express my gratitude to the developers for making the ICS strategy that plagued all previous games less powerful. Finally I have a game were I can go tall and can focus my attention on a few cities, but not some ridiculous empires with 80 cities like in Civ 2.

Thank you thank you thank you. I am happy man.
 
The trees should be balanced:
- pick liberty if you are going wide, tradition if going tall, honor if going total war
- pick rationalism if going science, piety if going culture
- pick freedom if tall, autocracy if war, and Order if wide.

But the bias is for playing peaceful and tall.
 
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