Coming Back Around to Liberty

[GoldenHammer]

At least I think so. I've been trying a new strategy of going with Tradition for my first policy tree. For its long-term advantages, I like Tradition best of the four, especially being able to buy Great Engineers with Faith later in the game. (Also, no matter what else I do, opening Tradition is ALWAYS my first policy pick, mainly for the accelerated city radius growth although the extra 3 Culture isn't to be sneezed at in the early game, either.)

The problem is, I keep getting squeezed out in the settlement race when I go Tradition. It does me no good to have a long-term advantage if I can't settle a good four or five cities because I'm so slow to get there that others grab the space first. With Liberty, I know that won't happen because of the free Settler and the discount in producing Settlers thereafter.

If I could find a way around that, I still think Tradition is the stronger tree. Not only for the Engineer buying, but the bonus to Wonder building and the bigger happiness, money, and city growth bonuses esp. in the capital. But I'm about ready to give up on the tree except for that first policy choice, and go with opening Tradition and then moving to Liberty and going through the tree.

Any comments or suggestions?

 

[NKVD]

I always do both at the same time but i'm not a deity player...

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[Navelgazer]

I am also not a Diety player, but I (almost) always grab the Tradition opener first, then the Liberty opener a few turns later, and then tend to follow the Liberty tree more than the Tradition tree (and usually spend my free GP on a Prophet in order to secure or else quickly enhance my religion.

I just feel like the jumpstarts involved in Liberty free up so much time in the early steps that at my levels the bonuses are easily equal to those of Tradition, but again, I'm not a Diety player and am going more on gut than on tested mathematics, so I'm probably doing it wrong.

 

[reddishrecue]

Tradition is a strong tree, I agree with you on that, but liberty allows for more expansion and more hammers from republic. If neither of these social policies work out that well, piety and honor are also there. Take advantage of taking an early piety start because all the other non bnw expansions in civilization 5 don't allow you to choose piety at the start..

 

[Ryika]

If you want to found 4-5 cities very early on, then Liberty is obviously the better choice. However, Tradition doesn't "need" that many cities that early, so it's not really "not working", it just doesn't seem to fit the style of how you want to play. Either way, you'll most likely need to do some warfare - Tradition needs to add some cities later on, Liberty will most likely lead to you being attacked by a neighbor.

Opening tradition then Liberty is generally considered to be a bad idea. The culture it gives doesn't keep up with the additional costs for each new policy - the settler comes at almost the same time and you're sacrificing almost a whole lategame-policy, which is usually just worth way more than the additional tiles you get from the tradition opener. I'd only advice opening tradition if you're not really sure if you want (can) go for liberty or not.

 

[b7fanatix]

Liberty has it's advantages early game for sure.

If you opt for Tradition, you get a free monument, but you have to hard build another settler and you have to hard build your first worker. In fact, without the bonus to tile improvement speed you get with Liberty, a single worker is not able to build improvements fast enough in your capitol, so it's more like two free workers.

Later though, Tradition's bonuses to border expansion, happiness and food start to count.

As Poland, you can simply have your cake and eat it, finishing Liberty around the time you get NC at turn 80, then completing Tradition before Renaissance opens. Without the luxury of playing an OP , I'd probably take the Liberty opener and Citizenship, then Tradition Opener, Legalism and Monarchy (happiness bonus). I just struggle to get my early wonders up/settle in the places i want without a free worker.


Disclaimers -

OFC , if you play on Deity/Immortal you steal workers anyway so this doesn't apply.

 

[Memoryjar]

Left Liberty tree is amazing, right is weak. You can use left tree and then finish Tradition. It speed up settlement. But, you'll have aqueduct late.

Liberty slow down you in the beginning, not due to unhappiness issue but gold issue. If you start as strong as a Tradition game (2 or 3 workers, warriors, scout, archers) you will bankrupt. Even with lux trade. Monarchy miss a lot until you build you internal connection. So caravans are for AI, so early growth is slower.

After, you need aqueduct. Engineering is needed if you want to grow. So Education is sometimes a bit later than with Tradition.
But if you play Liberty like Tradition, building Monument, Coliseum, aqueduct and Maximus, delay other building. So, it's always a race to have this building up, specially Universities or guilds.
At last, you won't have many room to settle 6 or 7 cities on Deity (maybe on Immortal). You'll win the race for wonderful spot. But without growth.

I go to full Liberty on Archipelago map or large islands. Less hammers, cargo ships, harbour make Liberty useful.

Otherwise, tradition.

If you're in the end of Tradition, try Reform and Rule mod. There's some interesting things.

 

[Sherlock]

I go with tradition and build queue of scout, worker, settler.

If I can grab a worker from the map I'll start building a settler as soon as my city hits size 2.

Get that 2nd city up fast is my new motto.

Then I switch over to liberty, grab the worker and settler (city number 3) and finish up tradition later.

 

[GoStu]

I'm of the opinion that Liberty is just straight-up weaker than Tradition. Getting those first four monuments for free means a few things:

1) 40 hammers saved per city, allowing them to get a second building.
2) Faster cultural growth than Liberty
3) saves 1gpt in maintenance on those forever.

That gold helps balance out the early game a bit. Also, monarchy tends to give you more happiness than the happiness policy of liberty, and it gives even more gold. Later, the free aqueducts are saving you more hammers and gold.

I find I can rush-buy a settler with tradition that I can't with liberty, and even with liberty builds I tend to hard-build my first settler before the free one. That means the half-cost later settler really ends up only helping my fourth and subsequent cities after that.

Liberty has a free hammer per city, but the extra food for the capital lets you cut a farmer in favor of a miner, and the extra growth for cities lets them get up and bigger to compensate.

Liberty's workers work faster, and it is an advantage, but it's not enough in my opinion. Hard-build or steal an extra worker or two and that's compensated for.

 

[Chum]

Yeah, I dunno where this notion that only high end players steal workers come from. Very early in the game, you don't need too many tile improvements, because you have no citizens anyway. And CS's and Civs are notoriously bad at losing workers and settlers to barbarian encampments, which you're clearly anyway because you want to be proactive about your own lands, plus earn influence from CS's.

If I see a worker in a barbarian camp, it's a 100% chance I take it if it belonged to a civ, and it's maybe 50/50 on whether I keep it if it came from a CS. Either way, I've got more than I need pretty early on.

 

[GoldenHammer]

If you want to found 4-5 cities very early on, then Liberty is obviously the better choice. However, Tradition doesn't "need" that many cities that early, so it's not really "not working"

When I say I can't found 4-5 cities, I don't mean "that early." I mean EVER. Because by the time I get around to being able to do that, all the space is gone. I'm lucky to get two going, including my capital. It's found them "that early," or forget it, because later, there's a city there already.

 

[GoldenHammer]

I'm of the opinion that Liberty is just straight-up weaker than Tradition. Getting those first four monuments for free means a few things:

Actually, IMO that particular policy is one of the weaker ones in the Tradition tree. The time spent to build a Monument in three cities (you pretty much have to build it in the capital anyway) isn't great. Compare this to the extra time needed to build Settlers and Workers in the capital and the opportunity cost is pretty high.

Also, if I don't take the Liberty policy that boosts worker speed (more important than the free worker), I always try to get the Pyramids, which gives you the same benefit plus two free workers, and that takes a good bit of time, too. In terms of time needed for things the other tree gives you, Tradition is actually worse than Liberty.

The really strong Tradition policies IMO are:

1) Just opening the tree -- that gives you the greatly accelerated city expansion. IMO, this is a must, whatever else you do. Since it's the first thing in the tree, the opportunity cost is low and the benefit very high.

2) Monarchy -- this boosts money and happiness all over your empire and it's the strongest single policy in the tree. Unfortunately, it's a late policy, which means it has a high opportunity cost, unlike opening the tree whose opportunity cost is quite low.

3) Finishing the tree, which gives you the free Aqueducts in four cities and boosts city growth overall, plus you can buy Great Engineers starting in the Industrial Era. This is MUCH stronger than finishing Liberty, which gives you a single Great Person of your choice. But finishing the tree, of course, has a very high opportunity cost.

It's a question of opportunity costs. Tradition is a stronger tree overall, I must agree. But if the opportunity cost is an empire that can't get off the ground, that's too pricey.

 

[Chum]

Actually, IMO that particular policy is one of the weaker ones in the Tradition tree. The time spent to build a Monument in three cities (you pretty much have to build it in the capital anyway) isn't great. Compare this to the extra time needed to build Settlers and Workers in the capital and the opportunity cost is pretty high.

The capital is generally (not always, but generally) your highest production city, and it's the furthest ahead on buildings. I am routinely running out of things to build in the capital if I'm not focusing on wonders, or am in a wonder drought tech wise. The opportunity cost to crank out a worker or a settler in minimal turns (I don't know what the standard speed is conversion to my anecdote is, but I generally see these down to 1-3 turns on quick fairly early in the game) is very, very low.

Also, if I don't take the Liberty policy that boosts worker speed (more important than the free worker), I always try to get the Pyramids, which gives you the same benefit plus two free workers, and that takes a good bit of time, too. In terms of time needed for things the other tree gives you, Tradition is actually worse than Liberty.

Liberty is required for Pyramids. There's no reason to open Liberty if you're not going to finish the tree, and there's no reason to stop what you're doing in Tradition to open liberty. This entire paragraph makes no sense.

2) Monarchy -- this boosts money and happiness all over your empire and it's the strongest single policy in the tree. Unfortunately, it's a late policy, which means it has a high opportunity cost, unlike opening the tree whose opportunity cost is quite low.

It's generally the 3rd or perhaps 4th policy you take, depending on whether you need the food production or the happiness. It's not exactly "Late."

It's a question of opportunity costs. Tradition is a stronger tree overall, I must agree. But if the opportunity cost is an empire that can't get off the ground, that's too pricey.

This is a matter of perspective. I've never felt I need 5 cities. I've won a ton of games with 2 or 3. If I have 5 cities, it's because I either expanded very late for unique luxes, or I conquered a couple. You don't need a sprawling, continent-wide empire in order to flourish.

 

[Ninakoru]

There's a general consensus on how Tradition is more suited to game's current state. Very few people claim Liberty can out-perform Tradition on a normal basis.

Liberty gives you some special properties Tradition lack, namely the ability to fast expand and work the tiles faster, but all the huge benefits Tradition give usually make those bonuses just no enough to compare on equal ground.

 

[GoldenHammer]

The opportunity cost to crank out a worker or a settler in minimal turns (I don't know what the standard speed is conversion to my anecdote is, but I generally see these down to 1-3 turns on quick fairly early in the game) is very, very low.

I don't play on quick speed so can't answer that, but without the settler production boost from the Liberty policy (which is one I don't get usually unless I'm going to finish the tree), it's not trivial. Plus bear in mind that while you're building a settler, you're also not growing your population.

Perhaps what I mean by the term "opportunity cost" isn't clear. I mean what you're not doing because you're doing what you're doing. The value of the free settler policy in Liberty is that you can be building say a granary and a library instead of a settler, and not sacrificing any city growth to get that second city. It's not the settler by itself, but what you could be doing instead of building it.

There's no reason to open Liberty if you're not going to finish the tree

I disagree. Long-term, the strongest Liberty policy is Republic, which boosts production of everything, especially buildings. It's well worth opening the tree to get that plus the 1 culture per city you get from opening it, and there's nothing in Tradition that substitutes for it, unlike the policy that gives you +1 happiness from city connections (Tradition has better happy boosters), or the faster worker speed which the Pyramids gives you, too, or the faster setter production which you really don't need except in the early game. Since I'm going to open Liberty anyway, I usually go for the Pyramids, as that lets me ignore the free worker policy, and it's pretty easy to get the Pyramids unlike, say, the Great Library which is very hard to get unless you sacrifice everything else and beeline Writing and go for it immediately.

It's generally the 3rd or perhaps 4th policy you take, depending on whether you need the food production or the happiness. It's not exactly "Late."

Third or fourth policy IS late. There are only six policies in the whole tree, counting opening it in the first place.

This is a matter of perspective. I've never felt I need 5 cities.

4 actually, if playing Tradition. It's kind of built around the idea of 4. But they have to be good city sites, not something trashy.

I would ideally prefer to take just the opening and Republic from Liberty and finish the Tradition tree, but except in a really isolated start I'm finding that I can't get away with that.

 

[GoldenHammer]

There's a general consensus on how Tradition is more suited to game's current state. Very few people claim Liberty can out-perform Tradition on a normal basis.

Liberty gives you some special properties Tradition lack, namely the ability to fast expand and work the tiles faster, but all the huge benefits Tradition give usually make those bonuses just no enough to compare on equal ground.

Again, though, you have to factor in opportunity cost and what you're giving up. If you just look at the benefits in theory side by side, you're right, which is why I would prefer to go Tradition. But if going Tradition means that the other civs grab all of the city sites and you can't get your empire off the ground, those superior benefits don't do you any good.

I would still go Tradition with an isolated start, like the game I have going presently, where I'm sharing the land mass with three other civs but they're all very distant from my capital location and I have plenty of space and time. But most games I don't have that luxury.

I would also go Tradition, obviously, if playing Venice or a one-city challenge.

 

[Ryika]

I disagree. Long-term, the strongest Liberty policy is Republic, which boosts production of everything, especially buildings. It's well worth opening the tree to get that plus the 1 culture per city you get from opening it, and there's nothing in Tradition that substitutes for it, unlike the policy that gives you +1 happiness from city connections (Tradition has better happy boosters), or the faster worker speed which the Pyramids gives you, too, or the faster setter production which you really don't need except in the early game. Since I'm going to open Liberty anyway, I usually go for the Pyramids, as that lets me ignore the free worker policy, and it's pretty easy to get the Pyramids unlike, say, the Great Library which is very hard to get unless you sacrifice everything else and beeline Writing and go for it immediately.

Committing to Liberty is worse than going for Tradition, but it has its advantages and it works great with certain playstyles - opening liberty and NOT finishing the tree on the other hand is just bad and has no advantages at all.

The +1 Production is ridiculously worthless if you compare it to the population growth you're missing by delaying Tradition. A single Pop per city is worth more production than the Policy.

The Culture per City never makes up for the 2+ additional Policies that you take.

The Pyramids aren't that much cheaper than just building two workers, and they're a bigger commitment. Also, you can just steal workers, which makes them even less interesting. And the additional speed just isn't needed for Tradition.

It's just a bad strategy.

Again, though, you have to factor in opportunity cost and what you're giving up. If you just look at the benefits in theory side by side, you're right, which is why I would prefer to go Tradition. But if going Tradition means that the other civs grab all of the city sites and you can't get your empire off the ground, those superior benefits don't do you any good.

If that happens frequently, then you're probably just delaying your expansions too much. You shouldn't really have any problem planting a total of 3 cities at good spots. Again, that's generally not a problem that Tradition-Openings have.

And if you're really spawned between expansion-heavy Civs, then Tradition has good 2-City-Aggro Openings to deal with that.

 

[Chum]

I don't play on quick speed so can't answer that, but without the settler production boost from the Liberty policy (which is one I don't get usually unless I'm going to finish the tree), it's not trivial. Plus bear in mind that while you're building a settler, you're also not growing your population.

Perhaps what I mean by the term "opportunity cost" isn't clear. I mean what you're not doing because you're doing what you're doing. The value of the free settler policy in Liberty is that you can be building say a granary and a library instead of a settler, and not sacrificing any city growth to get that second city. It's not the settler by itself, but what you could be doing instead of building it.

I know what opportunity cost is, and I addressed that. You just didn't read it.

I disagree. Long-term, the strongest Liberty policy is Republic, which boosts production of everything, especially buildings. It's well worth opening the tree to get that plus the 1 culture per city you get from opening it, and there's nothing in Tradition that substitutes for it

1 production is peanuts. You know what else is peanuts? 5% production when constructing buildings. Late game, most of my cities are doing ~100 production per turn. Another 5 makes or breaks exactly nothing, doubly so since by that time, my cities are usually pumping out archeologists, and I'm buying buildings. You're the one that fails to see the opportunity cost here, because look at what you're giving up for that 1 production. It's not worth it.

unlike the policy that gives you +1 happiness from city connections (Tradition has better happy boosters), or the faster worker speed which the Pyramids gives you, too, or the faster setter production which you really don't need except in the early game. Since I'm going to open Liberty anyway, I usually go for the Pyramids, as that lets me ignore the free worker policy, and it's pretty easy to get the Pyramids unlike, say, the Great Library which is very hard to get unless you sacrifice everything else and beeline Writing and go for it immediately.

That's cool. Too bad no one mentioned the Great Library anywhere, or any of that might be relevant.

Third or fourth policy IS late. There are only six policies in the whole tree, counting opening it in the first place.

It's late by liberty standards. +3 culture as your first policy, plus if you choose to hard build a monument, you're pulling 7 culture almost immediately upon game start. It takes absolutely no time at all to get Monarchy. Luck out and get a culture ruin right off the bat? You can have it within 20 turns. I have gotten Monarchy before my city grew to 4. If that's late, I don't know what to tell you.

4 actually, if playing Tradition. It's kind of built around the idea of 4. But they have to be good city sites, not something trashy.

I know what the tree is built around, but this isn't some kind of theoretical knowledge dump where we compare hypothetical outcomes based upon pretend games. Real games require you to have more or less cities as the situation dictates. Go ahead and say on turn 1 of any game that you're going to have 4 cities and you're going tradition and it's going to be the most optimal gameplay you can have for that game. But the real world isn't like that.

 

[b7fanatix]

At King difficulty I open Liberty and take the free worker (Citizenship) then switch to Tradition.

It'll be a while before i can steal a worker on this difficulty level , and hard building one takes ages.

With the need to get your early scouts out it can be turn 30 before you have a worker otherwise, and that's a long time to be stuck with unimproved tiles. Even then , without the construction speed buff from citizenship, you need two just so you can improve tiles as fast as your population grows.

Yes, you have to hard build a monument in the cap, but that is quicker than building the worker directly, and later means you get a free ampitheatre as you fill out tradition. If you found new cities, they will lack monuments initially but these things can wait a few turns. You can catch up on culture but stagnating because you're only working +1 food +1 hammers unimproved plains has a nasty snowballing effect.

Taking the first two in Liberty means you don't benefit from faster border growth till turn 50/60 but TBH your pop is so small you're unlikely to need it till then. Ditto the happiness boost from Monarchy..

 

[nimling]

I would only open Tradition if I intended to take further policies in that tree, and it is better to take Tradition's finisher ASAP than to branch off to other trees. 3 culture per turn seems like a lot early on, but once writers' guild etc. come online it becomes less and less important.

Filling out Tradition and then going down liberty might make sense on some maps, especially large maps with a lot of room for expansion. At that point there are a lot of options though. Ideally you can time it so Representation is taken during a happiness-induced golden age, or just before a happiness-induced GA would trigger. At such a late point in the game, Republic and Collective Rule aren't very good at all, so it is unlikely that the Liberty tree would be finished. Picking policies from the classical or medieval era trees until rationalism is available is probably better.

A straight liberty opener isn't too bad, since it is not absolutely critical to take liberty finisher as soon as possible, and the culture saved from representation will pay off tremendously once an empire can exceed 6 cities. Border expansion sucks early on, but a way around that is to make sure crucial tiles are within 2 tiles of a city site. That way the game's auto-tile allocation prioritizes them, and it's relatively cheap to buy the tile if absolutely necessary.