Can ANYTHING beat TARF? (Tradition-Aesthetics-Rationalism-Freedom)

[GhostSalsa]

Freedom also has Arsenal of Democracy. A straight boost towards unit production is going to help a domination victory. So that's two tenants that are directly tied to domination.

Freedom doesn't have any happiness boosts tied directly to conquest like Autocracy and Order do but it's certainly much better for domination than the other two are for the victory conditions they aren't supposed to aim for. It's not super imbalanced or anything but it is a slap in the face to the professed game design so it's one of those things that really bugs me. >.>

I agree the other two are shorted a bit... but come on, the happiness is huge! Freedom's policies already don't scale to small cities - there is no cheap happiness for Freedom once you add cities that aren't already fully constructed and staffed with specialists. That's why foreign legion makes sense for smacking someone down but not conquering them. As Venice I ran over the Huns with my fl's but razed every city I took, going one at a time to avoid upping my science costs.

If you conquered with freedom you would be throwing away the whole tree.

 

[Callonia]

I go Tradition - Honor - Exploration - Autocracy then Commerce.
I find it to be quite unbeatable on king and one time on emperor for me anyways.

 

[GoStu]

Freedom also has Arsenal of Democracy. A straight boost towards unit production is going to help a domination victory. So that's two tenants that are directly tied to domination.

Freedom doesn't have any happiness boosts tied directly to conquest like Autocracy and Order do but it's certainly much better for domination than the other two are for the victory conditions they aren't supposed to aim for. It's not super imbalanced or anything but it is a slap in the face to the professed game design so it's one of those things that really bugs me. >.>

Firaxis seems to have the illusion that tall empires are weak. Look at Oligarchy; it's a stupidly powerful defensive social policy that makes taking those cities a pain in the neck.

I do admit that losing any cities of a 4-city Tradition build would be agonizing, but that should be the risk these builds take when they decide to not expand, or tech military, or do anything but tech and build wonders. Instead they get a couple defensive bonuses so strong across Tradition and Freedom that they're very very very annoying to take.

 

[GKShaman]

The five year plan in Order makes all mines - 5 production. If there is a resource its even more. This feels broken to me...

 

[direblade99]

I win consistently on Prince without Rationalism or Freedom; TARF is certainly beatable.

But that's prince. On prince you could probably win if you modded the game to give you no policies at all.

 

[kaspergm]

The five year plan in Order makes all mines - 5 production. If there is a resource its even more. This feels broken to me...

It's good, but not broken. It certainly is a nice production boost, but at that point you also get a lot of production from buildings, specialists etc., and while the buildings will modify the extra production from the mines also, I don't think it's actually a game breaker.

 

[Resipsa]

But I guess the question is - Can anything beat this strategy?

Probably already been said but Liberty/Commerce/Rationalism/Autocracy can beat it down with units.

 

[zxcvbob]

(I know this is an old thread) I almost never take Aesthetics. But I just finished a game as Babylon at emperor level where I did the TARF thing. All victory conditions were off except domination and culture. I ended up with a culture victory because I could coast the last 20 turns, but could have gone domination (I did have 3 capitals, only 3 remaining, France and Austria and the Siam capital captured early-on by Austria.) France would be easy; Austria a little harder, but I'm about 8 techs ahead of her and my nuclear subs and missile cruisers rule the seas. I'm also allied with *every* CS.

It was fun watching Napoleon trying to capture Attila's only city (which I had liberated from Shaka) while I had all 6 surrounded tiles occupied. Then I gifted Attila a rocket artillery (and 1 aluminum), a missile cruiser, and a nuclear sub. French units just kept swimming into the meat grinder...

I may "just one more turn" and start a world war just for fun.

 

[Browd]

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