So Tradition vs Liberty

Piety as an ancient SP tree is quite good, but is limited by several things that Liberty and Tradition aren't:

1) There are no Piety SPs providing happiness.

2) Piety depends greatly on having a means to actually generate faith. Be it a unique ability, building, or unit, or a lucky natural wonder nearby, or a wide-enough civ fast enough to have a good number of shrines and temples up, whatever it is, you may not really have it until mid-game, by which time there may not be a religion left to found depending on the difficulty level.

3) Piety does very little to help you expand wide or grow tall. Liberty provides a settler and boosts building production; Tradition closer boosts growth via free aquaducts in the first 4 cities and +15% growth boost.


Piety is really only best when taken first under fairly specific strategies, a few of which include:

* Egypt taking Piety to crank out Burial Tombs to help go wide
* Mayans taking Piety to crank out their UB and get great science from a wide strat right away
* Siam going for the incredible (and exploitative) Wat-and-University combo; even when fixed, buying Wats with faith will still be pretty powerful
* Going for an early reformation belief (personally, the missionary conversion of barbs is very powerful in many cases)

piety

I've had good success with both liberty & tradition so far. Honor too, with the increased barbs. Piety seems pretty situational as an opener because it's hard to make use of religion without a lot of cities, and it's hard to make a lot of cities without liberty.

And that is coming from one of the few people who actually liked piety in G&K.

ahawk said:

Piety as an ancient SP tree is quite good, but is limited by several things that Liberty and Tradition aren't:

1) There are no Piety SPs providing happiness.

2) Piety depends greatly on having a means to actually generate faith.

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1.) That's what the religion is for

2.)ANYONE can generate a great amount of faith with piety. Sure, some civs are better off than others, like the celts and Mayans, but with the belief for building shrines and temples faster, and the +1 faith, it becomes very easy to get one. In addition, your pantheon should almost always be a faith generating pantheon if you're going for a religion. Most resources have a faith generation bonus, but if you're unlucky enough not to have one, then choose the failsafe. Gain faith for a battle won within 4 tiles of your city. This is probably the most underrated pantheon in the game, I use it quite often and is very effective for generating faith in both the early and late game, since the faith generation will help against barbs and Germany's panzers. If you are STILL having trouble with faith generation, then you could always expand to another city and quickly build your half cost shrine and temple. Just 2 cities with those building grants you 10 faith per turn. Even Venice can easily gain a religion, I just did it in a recent game. They can use their Great Merchant to ally a nearby religious city state. Piety is wonderful.

piety/religion is great, my only problem is taking it as an opener. The first two policies just don't do very much to a small empire. Later once you've expanded to a decent number of cities then they are powerful. I am going to try liberty through collective rule then into piety...but this was already a good strategy in G&K.

I start with tradition for the early culture surge and wonder production with aristocracy before shifting to and finishing liberty off. The free settler and free GE work great for a tall empire, too. Once I've got my four cities--about all I can hope for on huge with max players and city states--I usually wait until acoustics for legalism and then finish off tradition later. That was really late in the game last time, though, because I was so tempted by aesthetics and rationalism first.

Cant sacrifice my growth, thereby my production and science science output for a settler and a worker. The improvements though are a Godsend, especially in epic which I play, they just cant compete to the growth bonuses. The capital always turns monstrous and the aqueducts simply rule (especially if you dont have the tech yet )

Liberty will help you set up a bit faster but in the long run you will limp behind especially in the science race.

Given the AIs passive behavior I altered my plans to hard build my settlers now and I feel a lot more sure with tradition now.

one (minor) nerf to tradition is that engineering is a lot more attractive technology now, since it grants an extra trade route. So a liberty player will be more likely to build aqueducts early, and a tradition player will have to research it anyway or lose out on income.

pilot00 said:

Liberty will help you set up a bit faster but in the long run you will limp behind especially in the science race.

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I wouldn't be so sure now that universities , public schools and research labs can be purchased with faith and order allows new cities to start at 4 pop. Religion/order combo can easily get +10 happiness per city. monument , temple and university alone give +5

Bas1c said:

I wouldn't be so sure now that universities , public schools and research labs can be purchased with faith and order allows new cities to start at 4 pop. Religion/order combo can easily get +10 happiness per city. monument , temple and university alone give +5

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By the time you are in a position to take order 4 core cities properly improved will be around 25 pop. The capital more. Yes you can start to ICS the map once you reach that part of the game, and hope for the best, but what will happen if I take order and do the same as well?

I will have the same bonuses, thereby out science and out produce you by virtue of my core. I have tried relentlessly to prove to myself that liberty is a match for tradition by mixing religion. The results were always the same (more so now that liberty is locked from the hanging gardens): Food production means=science. Science tramples everything.

VainoValkea said:

I like tradition more now, because BNW features support tall gameplay well. A few good trade routes are enough for a good income and extra cities end up costing beakers. Liberty does have the advantage of giving a settler and a worker, so early caravans are easier to get.

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I too think Tradition gained especially in crowded maps. I was a long time Liberty supporter and I still miss free workers and settlers, but I love buy Great Engineers on Faith.

That addition is a huge win for starting and finishing Tradition.

Prior to BNW and it still works I quickly research and build Stonehedge. This pretty much guarantees me a religion. I don't need the first religion, I don't even need the biggest religion, but I think founding a religion is better than not founding a religion and every game so far of BNW I've done so.

Losing out on Stonehedge isn't the apocolypse, but it is one of the least map and civ dependent means of founding a religion. Tradition still helps build early Wonders which have their purposes. I think growing too fast too soon pisses off the neighbours and you read all these threads about "I don't have enough money" or "I don't have enough happiness" the answer is usually you expanded too fast and didn't build enough infrastructure in your early cities. Trade routes are infrastructure.

I definitely don't have an optimal strategy but I still like Stonehedge of all the Ancient Wonders of the World, maybe if you only play for one victory condition, there is something better but for a slow and steady growth strategy it is good to start with Tradition and good to found a relgion.

I also think cherry picking from Tradition and Liberty may be more viable, I still would finish tradition to rush buy Engineers to rush build key late game wonders with all the faith Stonehedge produces over time.

rodrigoq said:

Just steal your neighbors workers. faster than getting free ones from policies, and cheaper. I stick with tradition, the bonuses are always with you throughout the game, whereas liberty is just a few 1 shot bonuses.

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You can go Liberty and still steal a worker, especially useful if you rush for the Settler.

I find that Liberty, for a tree that's supposed to be about expansion, just doesn't give enough happiness to make more than 3-4 cities worthwhile. If I'm staying that small, I'd much rather have Tradition. If I want to expand more, Piety can help build a happy-oriented religion to make it possible.

I suck at going wide, no matter who I play I'd pick Tradition. Even Shoshone. Honor I guess can be worth it for early early warmongers, but I can't see myself ever going Piety. Tradition gives such essential growth that I can't see being changed for a better religion.

Tradition does put a very specific limit on you though (free culture building and aqueduct in the first FOUR cities, hint hint, nudge nudge).

Wulf38 said:

I find that Liberty, for a tree that's supposed to be about expansion, just doesn't give enough happiness to make more than 3-4 cities worthwhile. If I'm staying that small, I'd much rather have Tradition. If I want to expand more, Piety can help build a happy-oriented religion to make it possible.

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Try Liberty with Indonesia. Your first three cities on other land masses are unhappiness free + you get a second copy of each of the three new luxuries, which can be immediately traded for other luxuries or sold for gold. I like Liberty normally -- I actually bounce between Liberty and Tradition -- but with Indonesia, it is easy to get six + cities up quickly and more as time goes by.

Civsassin said:

Try Liberty with Indonesia. Your first three cities on other land masses are unhappiness free + you get a second copy of each of the three new luxuries, which can be immediately traded for other luxuries or sold for gold. I like Liberty normally -- I actually bounce between Liberty and Tradition -- but with Indonesia, it is easy to get six + cities up quickly and more as time goes by.

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They get two copies of a free luxury though, which, if combines with another luxury, more than makes up for it. Everybody else has to go through happiness hell though.

Arrowstorm said:

They get two copies of a free luxury though, which, if combines with another luxury, more than makes up for it. Everybody else has to go through happiness hell though.

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That is why liberty is only good on a luxury resource rich map. Scout early if you think you may want to go liberty.

I went Tradition all the time in G&K. Now that BNW is here, I go almost exclusively Liberty in the early game. My capital is now spending the early game making trade routes and units to defend myself. I don't have time to build a settler or a worker, and certainly don't have the gold to buy either. So liberty helps me get the things I would otherwise have to sacrifice for trade route establishment early in the game.

Later on in the game I open up some tradition policies, but that is once my kingdom is set p

A tradition/piety mix to start with seems to work pretty well. Free monuments and cheap shrines give a jump-start to culture and religion. I only go a short way into the piety tree before finishing off the tradition tree. At that point, assuming I have a viable religion in the works, then back to the piety tree.

Free happiness from Monarchy is what makes appealing a Trad start if you have the hammers to produce settlers. You can support food trades for your first 2 cities, making a pretty huge boost in population, rising science, production and gold.

I find Tradition still stronger than Liberty, mainly because of the weak AI at REX time and army size.