civnoob13
King
Is it a good idea to get the tradition opener (+3 culture) before going for liberty? The +3 culture doubles the rate of SPs (in comparison to +1 in liberty), so wouldn't it be actually faster to go there first to complete liberty?
Getting tradition opener before liberty
- Thread starter civnoob13
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I always open tradition before liberty for the +3 culture vs +1. Then I go for my free worker.
No the cost per policy grows exponentionally, up to the point where +3 culture doesn't matter at all.
You may get your first 3 policies faster but after that the effect is minimal and slows down. If you want to finish the Liberty tree as fast as possible, don't take the Tradition opener. Trust me, the math has been done one million times
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Also compare the effect of +3 culture and faster border growth to powerful late game policies like +15% research which would be delayed by 10-20 turns only because you wasted a policy on Tradition.
You may get your first 3 policies faster but after that the effect is minimal and slows down. If you want to finish the Liberty tree as fast as possible, don't take the Tradition opener. Trust me, the math has been done one million times
.Also compare the effect of +3 culture and faster border growth to powerful late game policies like +15% research which would be delayed by 10-20 turns only because you wasted a policy on Tradition.
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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Only open a tree if you plan to go down in it is good thinking. If you want liberty finisht fast you should just pick liberty policies.
There are way too many variables to calculate the effect of a tradition opener beyond a hundred turns, if that. It gets you to policies 2 & 3 faster, helps expand borders (perhaps getting a great resource sooner). Not taking it may help you finish Liberty sooner, but that is so far down the line that I do not think you can attribute any effect from taking Tradition first.
What is the minimum turns possible for finishing Liberty?
What is the minimum turns possible for finishing Liberty?
Aaron90495
King
I personally go for the Tradition opener because I always want the 15% wonder production policy (don't remember the name of it). I build quite a few wonders, so that probably saves me 30-40 turns of production per game.
bonafide11
Worker
I'm a fan of Tradition, but I don't think I'd pick Tradition first if I didn't plan to open any more SPs from it.
civnoob13
King
I'd agree It'd be a tad silly to get it if you never manage to do other tradition policies, but the whole of Tradition itself is very tempting too. If you plan on getting some of both but want a settler rush, it is worth it?
Also, is it stupid to found a city on a wheat resource and will you still get the +1 food with granary? Settling on luxuries or strategics effectively 'improves' them because you access the resource, do you get bonuses from that too?
Also, is it stupid to found a city on a wheat resource and will you still get the +1 food with granary? Settling on luxuries or strategics effectively 'improves' them because you access the resource, do you get bonuses from that too?
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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I think you get the food from granery but I do not know if you lose the extra food wheat gives to the tile.
To be honest, there aren't any variables.
Start the same map twice, build the exact same stuff and don't build a second city.
The first time, you take the Tradition opener, second time you don't. Now you can obviously see which approach is better (or just search the forums for the math).
Remember, as soon as you build a 2nd city, the Tradition opener gets comparatively weaker because Liberty opener gives you +1 culture per city.
But again, even in an OCC scenario, the Tradition opener slows you down after your 3rd or 4th policy (I don't know off the top of my head).
Becephalus
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It is a horrible idea unless you were going to take it anyway. It is ALWAYS faster if you are just trying to go down liberty to take Liberty first. It makes sense if you aren't sure which tree you are going to do first, or decide you mght want to take the free culture buildings as your second policy or whatever, but just to take it when you are doing liberty is a bad bad bad idea.
It slows you down immediately, from policy 1. Because you have to spend a policy on it. So yes you will get policy 2 MUCH MUCH faster, but it will still be slower than if you had just taken it directly (obviously because you would have gotten it when you took tradition), and it only gets worse after that. You will get any particular policy you are targeting slower than if you just went straight there (unless of course it was in the tradition tree, but then clearly you open with tradition).
It slows you down immediately, from policy 1. Because you have to spend a policy on it. So yes you will get policy 2 MUCH MUCH faster, but it will still be slower than if you had just taken it directly (obviously because you would have gotten it when you took tradition), and it only gets worse after that. You will get any particular policy you are targeting slower than if you just went straight there (unless of course it was in the tradition tree, but then clearly you open with tradition).
Even on identical maps, there are lots of things that will affect culture production. Most basically, popping a ruin with either culture or faith. there is no "all things being equal" in civ games. I do not think you can say that opening Liberty first will always or even usually allow you to finish liberty faster than if you open tradition first then race to finish liberty.
What is always faster? Opening Liberty or finishing liberty?
Show me the math please.
Becephalus
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Opening liberty first will in practice ALWAYS finish Liberty first. You would have to be playing an extremely odd way for it to not do so.
Basic case is you have 35 culture and 1pt.
So now you can have either 2pt or 4pt and 90? to go till your next policy.
So then in 45 or 23 more turns you get another choice, if you go traditon first then your cpt goes up to 5pt.
Then it is what 150 (if you haven't founded any cities)? I really don't remember.
So then you get it in 30 more turns, but by then a liberty opener would have popped it again too so will still be ahead of you in the tree.
So then lets say the next one is what 220?, and they will have ~100 more turns to get it while you have only 44. So you will catch them before your 4th and their 3rd policy. Except if you have got culture from a ruin or built a monument, or founded a city or done basically anything that effects culture, it makes this worse for starting tradition pre-liberty (if you are going liberty).
So if you really are just going to sit with 1 city and no monument, and not get any culture from killing units or popping ruins or wonders until turn ~100-150, then you want to pop tradition first. But you will only be ahead as long as you do none of those things, and liberty will always catch back up unless you do nothing else all game(because 3pt progressively means less and less compared to the additional cost).
If you are going to get tradition policies at some point by all means take it, but if you are JUST going liberty taking tradition first makes no sense unless you are actively trying to botch your game.
Of course you can easily choose to finish liberty first, but that is not the issue. The issue is: does opening tradition first and then rushing liberty mean that it will take you longer to finish liberty? I say no, because there are too many in game variables that will affect how many turns it takes to get to select the final Liberty policy.
Early game advantages can be very important. What's the value of having your first worker 50 turns earlier?
I thought there was a thread somewhere on the forum that went through all this in mathematical detail showing that, if you want to finish any tree other than Tradition, the fastest way was to pick the opener of the tree you want?
As I remember, Tradition opener speeds the first 2 or 3 policies, but after that, it works out that it would of been quicker to just go with whatever tree (Liberty usually) you actually wanted to finish?
As I remember, Tradition opener speeds the first 2 or 3 policies, but after that, it works out that it would of been quicker to just go with whatever tree (Liberty usually) you actually wanted to finish?
prince_caspian
Prince
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Some people in the strategy forum claim that Tradition and tall is now better than Liberty and wide. I was impressed when I saw a Russian space victory around T200 (no not vanilla) ostensibly going along these lines. After some tinkering myself I tend to think there is some credence to that - the +15% food and aqueducts are actually more powerful than they look.
But I find that opening Tradition then going Liberty to grab the free worker and settler to be a more plausible approach as you don't want it taken too late. As for the finisher, it seems there's also another claim by Madjinn that it should be delayed until later. So I guess opening Tradition followed by taking Liberty SPs is quite good but you don't have to immediately take the finisher now.
But I find that opening Tradition then going Liberty to grab the free worker and settler to be a more plausible approach as you don't want it taken too late. As for the finisher, it seems there's also another claim by Madjinn that it should be delayed until later. So I guess opening Tradition followed by taking Liberty SPs is quite good but you don't have to immediately take the finisher now.
Becephalus
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You won't get the worker earlier if you get tradition. That was the whole point of my post did you even read it? You only catch them by policy 4 (so probably the +1 production/city one) and only if you don't do anything else culturally, which seems super unlikely). Try in in a game sometime, it never ever pays off in practice IN THE SHORT OR LONG TERM if you have no intention of going further into the tradition tree.
Becephalus
King
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This is a completely separate issue.
Going tradition first will slow down how soon you get the settler/worker.
It does but then you are also down one policy because you spent one on tradition. It only pays off after the 4th policy, and only if you never do anything else (a sure recipe for disasater).
compwiz1202
King
I think you get the granary bonus too, but it's usually good to build cities on tiles with less than two food because the city always ups the food to two. I think that the city tile should have whatever tile improvement makes sense for the tile type and resource on it if applicable. I was testing all kinds of tile types and improvements with building to see what the yields would be, and some tiles with three food went down to two which made no sense. I love to build cities on silver/gold/copper/whatever else is two production and gold since food always goes to two no matter what it had before.
Also, if you build a city on a resource, you won't actually get the resource until you have the required tech.
Oh and for the OP, I would agree to only take the Tradition opener first if you plan to eventually finish Tradition.
