Tradition AND Liberty?

I know some folks pre-patch had hypothesized on the merits of going both tradition and liberty. Who has done that often and can you give an example of when that has goone really well for you? Has the new patch altered that strategy for you?

This last time that went well for me was back in Vanilla when free aqueducts weren't attached to completing Tradition. When that was the case Completing Liberty first and then getting the middle Tradition worked extremely well.

With both G&K and BNW both before or after the Halloween patch, any policies into Liberty before completing Tradition delay the very important free aqueducts while any policies into Tradition before completing Liberty delay the free Great Person.

You have to have serious early game culture to make it work. Aztecs or Poland work because you can get what you need from liberty for a quick expansion and then go back into tradition.

That growth bonus is too good making it foolish to push liberty all the way. Get the settler and then get back into tradition. You can finish the liberty tree later when you need the happiness and the instant repair.

Even then this is just making it work not really playing optimal. If you want fast win times you go tradition because it pays off before the game is over. If you want to play into the high 300's then you can go both.

I used to like to get the free worker and settler out of liberty and then go tradition all the way down to monarchy, and then complete liberty, but that is a real pain in the butt now that they added another req. for monarchy.

Iberian said:

You have to have serious early game culture to make it work. Aztecs or Poland work because you can get what you need from liberty for a quick expansion and then go back into tradition.

That growth bonus is too good making it foolish to push liberty all the way. Get the settler and then get back into tradition. You can finish the liberty tree later when you need the happiness and the instant repair.

Even then this is just making it work not really playing optimal. If you want fast win times you go tradition because it pays off before the game is over. If you want to play into the high 300's then you can go both.

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Excellent post! I do agree that dual Tradition / Liberty is not specifically for competitive gaming, but it can make for a fun wide game if indeed you get a good source of culture early. I fully agree the path you need is open Tradition -> Liberty up to the Settler -> Finisher Tradition -> Finish Liberty. Problem is that game is by now designed very much against going wide, particularly very early wide, so this means going straight through Liberty will often not help you an awful lot. Coupling with Tradition makes your first cities grow much faster, and by the time you finish Tradition, you'll probably be around the stage where you can actually afford to go wide which is when you need Liberty anyway.

Liberty and tradition both work well in some instances. I've seen liberty out work tradition in some cases where a larger peaceful empire beats tradition. I think tradition lets you sneak away with a victory easier than liberty though because most civilizations rather attack a larger empire since larger empires seem to have better odds at a victory in the long run than a smaller traditional empire. That doesn't happen if the large liberty empire remains untouched I think.

I used to do it, going tradition, then getting settler and worker from Liberty than completing Traditoon, but as I went up in difficulty, I found that Traditoon alone was better.

Turn off all victory conditions except for Time and play for the highest score possible. This combo (and Liberty in general) becomes much more viable.

reddishrecue said:

Liberty and tradition both work well in some instances. I've seen liberty out work tradition in some cases where a larger peaceful empire beats tradition. I think tradition lets you sneak away with a victory easier than liberty though because most civilizations rather attack a larger empire since larger empires seem to have better odds at a victory in the long run than a smaller traditional empire. That doesn't happen if the large liberty empire remains untouched I think.

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I don't think I have ever seen a game where you could win QUICKER with liberty. You can get a better score, dominate the AI more, win the game in any fashion you wont more with liberty but never a faster finish than a tradition opening.

Domination is close but the free happiness and gold from tradition early helps when you need it to conquer the first cap and upgrade to take the 2nd.

Iberian said:

You have to have serious early game culture to make it work. Aztecs or Poland work because you can get what you need from liberty for a quick expansion and then go back into tradition.

That growth bonus is too good making it foolish to push liberty all the way. Get the settler and then get back into tradition. You can finish the liberty tree later when you need the happiness and the instant repair.

Even then this is just making it work not really playing optimal. If you want fast win times you go tradition because it pays off before the game is over. If you want to play into the high 300's then you can go both.

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thanks! My current game as Scotland under James VI (JFD mod), I used the tactic you describe. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea, but wanted to try it. So far, it seems to be working well. I am not good enough to know if I am maximizing or not, but I am raking in cash, I have good science, my military is (by necessity) one of the more powerful. Sweden shares the bottom of the continent with me. They are stubbornly neutral, despite my attempts at befriending them. I gifted him gold, forgave him for spying (3x) spread my religion to all his cities (not easy when Ethiopia is just north of us). Alex is the northernmost civ on the continent and is city spamming like mad. He also had the largest army and was using it. Picking on Ethiopia (who had a DoF with me) and then attacked Sumer. Sumer was technologically the best, but ignored their army. they were hogging wonders and spamming missionaries and prophets. Norway, Greece and myself attacked Sumer. Greece took the capital before I could get there. Sumer gave me a decent 3rd city for peace. This gave me the platform I needed, as I was too far away and needed an outpost. I declared on Greece, seeing his army in a vulnerable position. He inconvenienced me by allying with a city state that is right in the way of my route to the northern front. That is where I left off. Norway has joined me against Greece (hefty bribe). I have 6 self-built cities and the one former Sumerian one. I am about to take Sumer's former capital, which is now a miniscule size 1. It has at least 3 world wonders though.
My plan is to cripple Greece, maybe to the point of extinction. My empire should be self-sufficient enough for happiness that I can go science if needed or I can choose domination or diplo, since Greece would be gone and I can then just buy off every CS.

I went Tradition opener/Liberty opener/ Republic/citizenship/collective rule/ back to trad. for the entire tree/finish liberty/Patronage opener to get Forb.Palace/ now in Rationalism

When I do fast domination wins, happiness is all I care about. Get the happiness out of Tradition, then go grab the +1 happiness per connected city out of Liberty, then maybe get the one for garrisons out of Honor. My growth is happiness-limited. I don't need more growth; I need happiness. I may finish Liberty, and it's to get the GE so I can throw up Forbidden Palace or Notre Dame.

The honor tree doesn't emphasize on growth that much which can allow for more happiness. The social policy that gives happiness per garrisoned unit is also in honor tree. You get +2 culture as well so you don't have to worry about building a monument in a new city when you need to expand to luxury tiles sooner.

Before the fall patch, if I felt like going mega wide I would take a religious civ then open tradition->Legalism for free monuments, then Liberty->Citizenship for the worker, then take the 2 happiness policies in tradition (monarchy->aristocracy) then meritocracy in liberty as the road network finishes up for even more happy, then move on to Rationalism.

It wasn't nearly as good as full tradition (holy crap instant, free, maintenance free aqueducts in your whole empire & a growth finisher 50% better than fertility rites). It is perhaps only comparable in strength in contrived & bizarre circumstances. One that comes to mind being claiming ~6-7 settlements quickly against peaceful yet expansive neighbors inside a large no man's land - with lots of resources spread over lots of food-poor dirt - and no backyard whatsoever for yourself, preventing you from expanding in waves.

Now tradition is a full commit sorta thing, the only reasonable splash imo is the opener and maybe aristocracy. Liberty beeline to collective rule doesn't have time to open tradition until the GP, or at least post-collective rule, no matter how tempting it is to snatch tradition opener on a culture ruin. It's just worse because you'll miss your REX timing and/or the GP will be too late to do any of the really cool stuff (fast academy, medieval wonderbomb on high difficulty, admiral scout the deep water and meet the other 2 continents in the medieval era, instant religion, etc.). I'm pretty sure full tradition is still the best opener.

you want aquaducts asap so the liberty detour only harms you. and by the time you have finished tradition liberty's bonuses look pathetic. +1 culture, +1 hammers? meh. there are only 2 policies you really need - happiness and great person, by the cost of 6. And the num cities policy cost discounter wont compensate for the rest.

So basically what you are saying is, for BNW, even if going wide tradition over Liberity.

Tradition and Liberty work okay for Venice - Tradition boosts the capital's growth and wonder production capability whilst the free settler is a Great Venetian Merchant so you can go for two puppeted city states fairly quickly if you make a beeline for it.

rover6695 said:

So basically what you are saying is, for BNW, even if going wide tradition over Liberity.

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Early (<T100) self found wide then liberty. Late (>T100) conquered wide then tradition.

rover6695 said:

So basically what you are saying is, for BNW, even if going wide tradition over Liberity[sic].

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Yes. Tradition is just that good.
Consider the following, your next 3 cities will automatically receive a free monument as soon as you settle them and when you finish the tree, free aqueducts and all future cities get a growth bonus.

The only time Liberty is going to be better is if you are pushing religion and ironically if that is the case, you are going to be better either pushing Piety tree or dipping between the two trees instead.

In G&K Liberty was a serious contender for Tradition because you could REX much easier and religion was stronger in that game too so having 10 cities by turn <100 was a viable tactic.
Trying that in BNW can you do it? Yes you can. But would you want too? I'm not so sure you would. Consistantly you will find yourself behind in science and city development against a (human) foe who has opened Tradition and good luck holding those cities when they turn up with crossbowmen while you are struggling to reach compositie bowmen.
Science is the machine that pushes Civ games forward and any setup/playstyle that harms your science rate is almost always a suboptimal playstyle.

What about if going wide, but starting say Renissance or later? Would liberity be better than as opposed to the beginning era?

rover6695 said:

What about if going wide, but starting say Renissance or later? Would liberity be better than as opposed to the beginning era?

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Depends on if you are self founding the cities. Self founding cities after renaissance means you are sacrificing almost 100 turns that the cities could have spent building infrastructure and growing. And the later the era, the larger the city needs to be to pay for it self in terms of science penalty. In the early era, extra cities actually speed up science than slowing it down.