Unhappiness playing Liberty

[Civ4Pengbo]

Hi Having problems going wide using Liberty. I think O have tradition sorted out with 4 or 5 cities but whenever I try to go Liberty instead of Tradition I end up with happiness problems.

Anyone got any hand y tips or strategies on what you need to prioritize?

After playing Russia so many times and seeing Cathy spam cities I thought playing as Russia might be fun to try as my first Liberty game but no such luck. My production is rubbish, I can't get my gpt up anywhere near useful and I have been fighting against unhappiness all game and can't build an army big enough to stop getting DoW. About the only thing working is bpt but even that is half of what it is when I go Tradition at the same stage. The one saving grace is that although my army is small it's one era ahead of anyone else and two ahead of most so they just splatter their troops on my few brave units.

 

[Browd]

Unless and until you get significant happiness boosts from religion (e.g., ceremonial burial and great spread of your religion plus happiness-giving religious buildings) a wide strategy requires that you carefully limit the populations of your Liberty cities, which also hurts your bpt.

You will eventually get 1 happiness per trade route from Meritocracy (plus 5% discount of unhappiness), but that does not usually come close to matching the happiness benefits from Monarchy and Aristocracy. Also, since you don't get the happiness advantages the AI gets, you cannot come close to matching the AI's ability to spam cities.

 

[kirbdog]

The AI get very large bonuses to happiness that allow them to expand like crazy.

I'd say get shrines as your first building in your non-capital cities. Take Messenger of the Gods as your pantheon (if you want more science) and Ceremonial Burial as your founder belief (for happiness). Also take advantage of settling on top of luxes and/or settling on hills for the extra hammer and/or settling in tight patterns to minimize road layout. If you are going to go MotG and Liberty, it is especially important to run roads ASAP.

 

[Optional]

Are you actively allying CS's at all? Keep an eye on their quests; you want as much free influence as possible. Pay extra to reach allied status sometimes, but don't use money only, as that's often too expensive.
Are you actively scouting to meet others and sell them your resources? Catherine gets double quantity from strategic resources, making a 4-pack horses an 8-pack. There's a lot of money in there from selling. You must always do that if you can.
That's mainly early game. Later indeed religion can do a lot.

 

[Civ4Pengbo]

Thanks Browd and kirbdog. My start looked fantastic but proved to be somewhat a poison chalice. I had 4 sugar, 1 cotton and 3 cows in my capital. Maybe going legendary start was not a good idea But this mean I had nightmares controlling my pop. There virtually no hills for miles but it was on a river and endless grassland.

On reflection based on my last Tradition game as Ghandi it probably screamed tradition all over it. I would probably have had a size 32 city by now on Tradition.

Unfortunately kirbdog Hiawatha was one of the other civs abd Boudicca another. Cerimonial burial was not even a sniff. I did get Church property but I guess I never managed to conquer the happiness enough to get the cities to make it effective.

Think I will have to try again. I hate starts where you get endless grass. Much prefer 50:50 plains and hills.

Are there any wonders that should be prioritized? I know early wonders are a no no mostly and are a waste of hammers. I do like the synergy from leaning tower of pisa > great engineer > porcelain tower > great scientist and can pull it off as regular as clock work in most games now, all be it still on King.

The other thing that happened in this game a lot was research agreements. I got a lot of requests and the ones I did seemed to be a waste of gold.

 

[Civ4Pengbo]

Not tried selling strategic resources. I do make heavy use of selling my lux resources and indeed Napoleon and Hiawatha kept me supplied with gold every 30 turns buying sugar and cotton.

Anyone any ideas what the going rate for strategic resources are? I know I can usually get 240 gold per lux going down to 209 or so if they are pissed with me but no idea what strategic res are worth.

I did have a lot of early CS allies but they soon started asking for wonders and great merchant/artists/engineers and I struggle with anything other than scientists usually.

Finally Arabia pulled something I haven't seen before. They bought my 3 closest CS then declared war on me and so did the CS. Life got semi-interesting for 10 turns. But the AI's on king can only seem to coordinate the first initial rush then send single units which are easy to clear up.

 

[kirbdog]

Normal speed, good relations, luxuries are 240 gold, strategics are 45 gold, embassies are 25 gold, and open borders are 50 gold.

 

[joncnunn]

Hi Having problems going wide using Liberty. I think O have tradition sorted out with 4 or 5 cities but whenever I try to go Liberty instead of Tradition I end up with happiness problems.

Anyone got any hand y tips or strategies on what you need to prioritize?

The main thing is you need to be planning on building several more cities than 4/5 for Liberty. I'm thinking 8+ self-built cites.

In addition; founding a lot of cities you want to de-emphasize food growth.
Happiness bonuses from religion also becomes important.

 

[Miravlix]

Early happiness is mercantile city states. They give you +3 (in early ages, the bonus is bigger later) just from being friend and as ally you get two lux resources in addition to the happiness bonus.

You then move into a social tree with happiness buffs. fx. honor gives 1 happiness pr. wall, castle, etc. Commerce gives extra happiness pr. lux. Even the research tree gives 1 happiness pr. education building. (It's a choice inside the trees. not simply for opening them)

And finally Order.

 

[Ninakoru]

If you are ahead in tech, you can build one of the happiness wonders to help with the problem.

Try to settle most of your cities to reach to as many luxuries/resources as possible. Sell extras for gold.

I like to keep 2-3 horses for my needs and sell the rest, same with iron.

 

[WarIsPeace]

Not tried selling strategic resources. I do make heavy use of selling my lux resources and indeed Napoleon and Hiawatha kept me supplied with gold every 30 turns buying sugar and cotton.

You weren't selling your only cotton, were you? If you have happiness problems, selling your only copy of a lux is rarely worth it.

 

[Vintage Port]

Pagodas can also help with the happiness when going wide.

 

[Deau]

The true way around ICS strategies lies in abuse of religion. Especially in early game when you just can't build or purchase happiness buildings.

As stated above though, you will generally want to control food growth in cities. That means keep your cities small and specialize them. Only massively grow cities with natural heavy food tiles and make them science powerhouses. Keep other cities to the point where you only work great/already improved tiles and stop growth beyond that.

Take a pantheon that can contribute to faith generation as you'll need ceremonial burial, massive spread (pref beyond your own lands) and pick happiness beliefs...like pagodas and possibly the one tied to shrine or temples (shrine one is great for early push since your small cities usually won't get temple up for a while).

You should also look for civs that are ICS friendly for the learning curve. Any civ with an early game UB with happiness bonus or any civ with a strong faith bias (ethiopia is great even though their UA yells tall strat)