Hitting Liberalism in the BCs

J

Jman5

Warlord
Joined
Apr 13, 2010
Messages
164
As a fun experiment, I have been trying to get to Liberalism before 1 AD in a noble/normal game. I've managed to hit 50 AD twice, but I think I can do a lot better.

The basic themes so far have been:

  • Two cities total
  • Use Egypt's monument UB to get an early Great Prophet to bulb theology
  • Self tech paper while timing oracle to finish just as paper completes (usually between 700 and 900 BC)
  • Choose Education as free technology
  • Meanwhile City 2 has been running 2 scientists from library for a great scientist
  • Things slow down here as I am forced to tech COL, Alphabet, and mathematics (for bulb and tech pre-requisites)
  • Great Scientist pops and I bulb philosophy
  • long haul, tech to liberalism (about 20 turns)

So are there any sort of tricks or ideas I can use to get there a few turns earlier? I feel like Either Ramses or Saladin are important because you can get early prophets with them.

Also, because it's noble, trading for COL, alphabet, or mathematics will be impossible in this time frame. However on the plus side I can usually get oracle late for education bulb.

My 3 main points of concern are
  • At what point do cottages become equal to and then better than a regular scientist (3 beakers). Because I have to hit COL kind of late, I can only run 2 scientists for most of this.
  • How many Cities should I go for if liberalism is the only important thing in the game? (I don't need to be strong enough to win later, this is just for fun) If you can't answer due to it being dependent on the game, what factors play into this? Two cities definitely seemed faster than one, and I can stay at 100% beakers the whole time. Will a third city pay off in the short time until 1 AD?
  • Finally, how do I determine if a beaker modifying building will pay off? Obviously, if I can chop one out, that's one thing, but what about if I have to divert into hammers instead of commerce tiles? I'm founding at least Christianity, Confucianism, and Taoism in that order, plus I have the university to consider.

Bonus Question: Is civil service worth teching? It doesn't seem to be, but I thought I'd ask.
 
Jman5 said:
[*]At what point do cottages become equal to and then better than a regular scientist (3 beakers). Because I have to hit COL kind of late, I can only run 2 scientists for most of this.
Click to expand...
Cottage (10 turns * 1 coin/turn) + hamlet (20 turns * 2 coin/turn) + village (40 turns * 3 coin/turn) + town (30 turns * 4 coin/turn) on grass flatland. But since the equivalent of two green cottages is a farm + scientist, you can halve those turn counts to 5 + 10 + 20 + 15. So unless you can start working the cottage more than 50 turns before your goal (liberalism), a scientist is better for your purpose.

[*]How many Cities should I go for if liberalism is the only important thing in the game? (I don't need to be strong enough to win later, this is just for fun) If you can't answer due to it being dependent on the game, what factors play into this? Two cities definitely seemed faster than one, and I can stay at 100% beakers the whole time. Will a third city pay off in the short time until 1 AD?
Click to expand...
Probably somewhere in the vicinity of 6 cities is ideal, although it depends largely on what food sources and rivers there are nearby.

[*]Finally, how do I determine if a beaker modifying building will pay off? Obviously, if I can chop one out, that's one thing, but what about if I have to divert into hammers instead of commerce tiles? I'm founding at least Christianity, Confucianism, and Taoism in that order, plus I have the university to consider.[/list]
Click to expand...
Assume a turn completion date for your goal. Then it's pretty easy to calculate.

Bonus Question: Is civil service worth teching? It doesn't seem to be, but I thought I'd ask.
Click to expand...
If you're using scientists, it doesn't matter. If you're using cottages, then yes. Note that a bureau capital throws off the math I listed above.
 
DaveMcW said:
Forget prophets and Theology, the Civil Service path is much faster.
Click to expand...

What would you use oracle for because I can't get to education in time any other way. Also, what techs would you focus on bulbing?

Oh and if you aren't going for prophets, what civ/leader would you pick?
 
shyuhe said:
Cottage (10 turns * 1 coin/turn) + hamlet (20 turns * 2 coin/turn) + village (40 turns * 3 coin/turn) + town (30 turns * 4 coin/turn) on grass flatland. But since the equivalent of two green cottages is a farm + scientist, you can halve those turn counts to 5 + 10 + 20 + 15. So unless you can start working the cottage more than 50 turns before your goal (liberalism), a scientist is better for your purpose.


Probably somewhere in the vicinity of 6 cities is ideal, although it depends largely on what food sources and rivers there are nearby.


Assume a turn completion date for your goal. Then it's pretty easy to calculate.


If you're using scientists, it doesn't matter. If you're using cottages, then yes. Note that a bureau capital throws off the math I listed above.
Click to expand...

Cottages don't give Great Scientist Points. Which in this specific scenario makes them a lot worse than your calculation shows. I doubt that in this scenario you even have 50 turns between discovering Pottery and 1AD. Not even counting the worker turns you need to put in after Pottery, where you can pre-chop for a Library.

@Cusanus: Pericles for the cheap Libraries seems to be the best bet. And if you want to make things easier, assign him to a Civ with better starting techs, like China.
 
Play vanilla and a philosophical leader, oracle civil service. Not sure if financial or spiritual is better. Just run caste/pacifism, and you should only have to build 1-2 libraries.
 
I got it in 20BC on Deity in that "how early can you get Lib" game somebody posted a while back, with Gandhi. Philosophical is pretty cool as you can essentially bulb everything - Philosphy, Paper, Education and Lib. I went the shorter Theology path to Paper, CS wouldn't have been any use to me as I had no cottages.

Deity is probably faster for Lib as you can trade a lot of techs with the AI. Not sure though, I've only played Noble once and that was over a year ago, I assume the techs are cheaper so it might balance out.
 
Well I'm trying to get it using BTS without pairing up a leader with a different civilization than normal.

I got it in 20BC on Deity in that "how early can you get Lib" game somebody posted a while back, with Gandhi. Philosophical is pretty cool as you can essentially bulb everything - Philosphy, Paper, Education and Lib. I went the shorter Theology path to Paper, CS
Click to expand...

Yeah I was going through some of the older posts, but it seemed like none of them followed the criteria I was looking for.
1. Normal speed
2. no cooked or advanced start with pre-built cities
3. minimal tech trading so it's comparable on lower difficulty levels.

The ghandi one was on epic speed so the date gets a little out of whack unfortunately.

I'm going to try going Ghandi with a bigger focus on specialists to see if I can whittle down the date a little. Or do you guys think there is a better philosophical leader to pick?
 
I didn't cook any settings, although it's a slightly generous start:

Civ4ScreenShot0592.jpg


Civ4ScreenShot0593.jpg


I used one GS on an academy, oracle -- education, and triggered a golden age with my second GS (not really necessary). I think the only tech I traded for was mysticism.
 

Attachments

Now you can take Masonry with Liberalism.
 
Wow! So it seems that it's more than doable.

By the way, I think your 4000 BC one is the wrong save. :)

edit: so wait, you didn't bulb a single tech? I'm even more impressed now.
 
Nonsense. Take nationalism, switch to nationhood, and you get the rare and much-coveted ability to draft warriors!
 
Jman5 said:
Wow! So it seems that it's more than doable.

By the way, I think your 4000 BC one is the wrong save. :)

edit: so wait, you didn't bulb a single tech? I'm even more impressed now.
Click to expand...

Correct, I did not bulb a single tech. I think I've fixed the 4000 BC save to the correct one now.
 
If you don't bulb philosophy is it faster to go the drama route for it?

EDIT: Probably not in BtS. Maybe in vanilla/warlords where there is no aesthetics.
 
Well although it is rather impressive to grab lib in the BC's, I think it would be more effective overall to just play and grab lib around 1000AD. It is gimmicky to get lib this soon, but no more. At least ZI think that is what it is, unless someone can of course showcase a game where grabbing lib in the BSC era is indeed a strong move.

Also I think you need to plan a lot ahead to pull this feat off, and by the time you need to execute the plan for an insanely early lib it is way too early to tell if it will be a good idea or not.
 
Well I know in multiplayer with my friends it usually has a huge psychological impact the earlier I hit liberalism.

Example: 'Liberalism this early? I'm only at swordsmen! GG I give up.'
 
Jman5 said:
Well I know in multiplayer with my friends it usually has a huge psychological impact the earlier I hit liberalism.

Example: 'Liberalism this early? I'm only at swordsmen! GG I give up.'
Click to expand...
And they do not figure that this is an open invitation for the entire world to smack the bejeezus out of you? Wow. :D
 
How jaded are you guys that you aren't impressed by a 300 B.C liberalism. That is easily one of the most insane things I've ever seen. I think it's far harder to accomplish something like that on noble than on higher levels where you can trade for a lot of techs.

Seriously shyuhe that was bloody amazing.
 
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