From Liberty to Tradition and i cant switch back

[Hakuoh]

When i started playing Civ in Vanilla i always went with Liberty expanding fast and grab everything good as possible but the hapiness was a big issue with it and your Borders will expand slow as a snail. As i went up in difficulti i had more and more problems.
In the middle of G&Ks i switched to Tradition and wasnt impressed by the slow start etc.
But i keept playing with it and was surprised how good it is and how easy it is to keep your happiness. Now in BNW i have my tipical tradition and build order with almost every Civ because its super easy and effectiv.
Libertys Happiness from roadconections is nice but the 5% is totally trash.. So you need 20 population to trigger 100% that someone isnt unhappy..

 

[Tabarnak]

Welcome in da club!

 

[reddishrecue]

Tradition does bring success sometimes..

 

[Mutineer]

Yes, liberty is really useful only for few civs. Tradition has everything, lots of happiness, grow, border grow, free buildings, powerful cities, bonuses to wanders .. everything.

Liberty gives mach less free hammers, have very little happiness ( city connected you have 6 cities you got 6 happiness. size 12 capital does same and + additional some.

In addition, workers steals gives additional free production to tradition why mach less useful to liberty.

 

[ArguCa]

I love small Trade Empires. So, usually pick Tradition but Liberty -with Honor- is good for offensive empires.

 

[Bad Wolf]

Yeah Tradition is just all around better for getting some really crucial early boosts (getting free Aqueducts before Engineering is just sick), and I find it's better later on once your capital is huge and the happiness bonus from Monarchy is about the same as the happiness bonus from Meritocracy. The obvious three trade-offs are:
1) Free great person early on (very versatile, especially useful for religion games)
2) Social policy accumulation is much slower (but can be offset slightly with religion or Military Caste)
3) Early second (or third) city

So, usually pick Tradition but Liberty -with Honor- is good for offensive empires.

I agree this is probably the best combo for early war-mongering. (I usually go heavy into one early SP tree and dabble a bit in another.)

Tradition-Honor also works well and is more versatile, with Military Caste and Oligarchy synergizing really well no matter what kind of victory you're going for. Liberty-Piety is also great for religion, allowing you to spread out early and get lots of temples and shrines pumping out x2 faith; Tradition-Piety if you want to stay small. Then of course there's Tradition-Liberty, which I've tried on occasion and it actually usually works out really well, you end up with mad culture and happiness.

I've never tried Honor-Piety - has anyone? Is it any good? Seems like it would be underpowered to me.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Libertys Happiness from roadconections is nice but the 5% is totally trash.. So you need 20 population to trigger 100% that someone isnt unhappy..

-Control your growth with manual citizen assignment.

-In situations where you have surplus luxes, prioritize Astronomy and meet the second continent to get more luxes. I've even used my free great person on Admiral on 1 or 2 liberty games because it's 12-20 more happiness 50 turns earlier.

-Trigger ideology early with fast factories or radio beeline. 4 policies into Order and you won't have any more happiness issues. With World Fair win you can get this done by turn ~220 even on a relaxed game.

 

[danaphanous]

I agree that Tradition is way easier initially. +3 cpt immediately and super-fast border growth is powerful as with liberty it can take until turn 100 to get the happiness to found 4 cities where the culture output surpasses tradition. That saying, the total culture gain from having liberty open is better long-term if you are going wide as are the happiness bonuses. It's not enough to make going wide easy, but it does make it easier.

However, I agree with you on the power of the free aqueducts and culture buildings. Liberty has nothing as good initially. The free worker? worthless...but if you aren't near any CSs it can get you one faster than any other method. The 15% tile improvement rate however is somewhat useful. In my REX games the workers always lag behind without this open. The free settler is likewise pretty worthless compared to tradition counterparts but the 50% reduction in capitol production is arguably pretty good. If you're okay with halting capitol growth frequently then you can build all your settlers there pretty easily, and the down-times are much shorter.

I would say that by far the most useful policy in liberty with no comparison in tradition is the 33% policy cost reduction for each city. I did the calculations once, and building any new city massively increases policy costs. I think the rule of thumb for standard, standard was every 5 cities adds 100% to policy costs so having a widish 11-city empire means policies cost you 3x as much as a single-city empire. Liberty is only small consolation, but without it going wide you are screwed with policies. The above example with liberty finished, you can have 11*1.33 or almost 15 cities for the same cost in policies. If you go tradition for the core-city bonuses and then try to expand later you will not have these bonuses and there is no substitute. There are other ways of getting happiness and production but no other workaround for the policy cost increases other than investing 33% extra effort into culture. This, besides faster border growth is why you always build monument first btw.

 

[Tandaw]

I found tradition really good when I first started playing the game. I would always build these micro-trade empires that had DoFs with everyone on the map. Then my whole game would be spent mashing the next turn button. After a couple hundred hours into Civ I just cannot do it any more. No matter the victory type or difficulty, if I don't go to war with somebody I find it gets a little monotinous.

I've found over time that even though tradition makes you rock your early game, I can always do better with a wide liberty 5+ cities empire. Meritocracy and Military Caste paired with good city placement and an early pick on religous beliefs pretty much ensures no happiness problems.

 

[CraigMak]

In games where there are CS and you can steal workers and get tributes to buy workers or settlers, tradition is crazy strong.

If there are no CS around such as on pangea plus then liberty is much better. Not because of the free worker policy but because liberty's extra early hammers allows you to crank out workers early. Tradition also obviously can't make the pyramids.

Tradition generally plants its 4 cities on only 1 worker the entire time then has to make workers much later than liberty. Liberty can 2 pop at the same time as getting a liberty settler then crank out workers and units already on 3 cities.

It will take tradition a very long time to get to this point since the cap is making those settlers for quite a while. Tradition will be on minimal workers and units until all the settlers are done.

 

[GoStu]

Tradition sure is easier to get the best use out of than Liberty. Liberty starts to shine when your empire's getting pretty big, but I find there's a lot of grey area between where Tradition is clearly superior and where Liberty is.

The extra gold from Monarchy is huge, to me. That's often my entire profit margin (or a hell of a lot of it) and represents how I rush-buy a new building or two in a city, or a settler, or a worker. Saving time on building monuments in new cities also lets them move up faster in their build order.

The extra hammer in Liberty is nice, but the free Monument represents 40 freebies right off the bat. By the time Tradition's bonuses peter out (5+ cities), the Tradition empire's strong core can spare things like food caravans, or rush-buying, etc.

 

[Memoryjar]

Extra hammer, free settler and worker, less culture.
Not as strong as Tradition with its ending (free acqueduct and boost growth) but playable. My basics opening on archipelago and large islands.

IMHO, you need a lux in your first ring to avoid bankrupt. Without, I lost so many liberty games due to buildings maintenance. Liberty is really not made for anything but domination.