Addicted to Liberty

[Juanholio]

I've read a few posts commenting how Tradition is much improved. Indeed I've adopted the full tradition tree in a current game and am impressed with the growth. I still feel, though, I'm missing a trick.

I like completing liberty for some obvious resions:
- the free worker
- the free settler
- the great persion (used to be a GE > manufactory but now a GP > religion)
- meritocracy can be a great boon to happiness.

I like to try get an early wonder in my games, usually GL sometimes stonehenge. Adopting tradition requires an extra 20 turns production or-so to build the worker and settler, so does this mean goodbye to early wonders?

 

[Ulthwithian]

Juan: Well, theoretically, the time you 'lose' to building that worker and settler could be made up in part by the 15% production bonus for Wonders.

The easiest part of Liberty is that you can concentrate on things OTHER than your city development/settlement plans. It narrows your concerns, to some degree.

Tradition, IME, gives at least as much Happiness through the Capital / bonus as Meritocracy. So that is at least moot.

 

[Prophet Skeram]

Juan: Well, theoretically, the time you 'lose' to building that worker and settler could be made up in part by the 15% production bonus for Wonders.

The easiest part of Liberty is that you can concentrate on things OTHER than your city development/settlement plans. It narrows your concerns, to some degree.

Tradition, IME, gives at least as much Happiness through the Capital / bonus as Meritocracy. So that is at least moot.

For me, Liberty (in German it's called "Independence" instead, so I was confused, when I first read "Liberty") just seems like the bigger advantage early on - if you're not going for an extremely tall / warmongering empire - because it basically gives you 810 gold for free and let's you focus on early wonders.

This can easily snowball, because you can take the perfect spots with great + luxuries etc.

Tradition is very good aswell, but I just tend to take it if I want to go tall, Honor is brillant for early warfare and really adds up over time (+ culture early on when barb hunting, later + EP and + gold from wars . . .).

So, I'm usually going for Liberty aswell.

 

[Bandersnatching]

After the expansion I still take liberty more often than the others, but Firaxis vastly improved the Tradition tree, and Honor is now useful more often to the point where liberty isn't an auto-pick.
I wish that you could get one or two of the capital-bonus policies before taking Legalism, though. Free Aqueducts and a growth bonus in your first four cities is much better than the empire-wide food/growth bonus pre-expansion, which strangely made Tradition a somewhat good wide empire policy tree.

 

[smellymummy]

playing with random civ, if i get a more culture centric leader i'll go tradition. warmongering honor obviously

that leaves the vast majority of others with liberty. so yeah i end up going that path more often than not.

nice suggestion about getting a great prophet through the liberty tree, think i'll try that out next time

 

[dexters]

Liberty opener is still great.

IMHO , Tradition as your 2nd SP works well if you're going for a strong core. A lot of Traditions benefits are a lot stronger when unlocked later.

 

[prince_caspian]

@OP: It's not a question of Tradition vs Liberty, it's about making every social policy competitive enough. I believe that those who went full Tradition, also took the free Liberty units to complement their tall strategy.

 

[Miravlix]

It always seem to come back to liberty and something else.

Honor + Liberty, Tradition + Liberty, Commerce + Liberty.

Religion means I no longer rush ages (It ups the cost of faith purchases), so getting to Renaissance takes a while.

The age delay makes me end up using liberty's GP on an engineer to pop a wonder I would be hard pressed to grab otherwise.

 

[jjkrause84]

I've used Liberty a few times, but I tend to go Tradition 85% of the time....can't get enough wonders (it's my years of Civ 4 coming out...)

 

[GhostSalsa]

The 15% boost to wonder building in tradition isn't even always better for your first wonder than the free hammer you get from republic. If your capitol is only managing six hammers, then one free hammer is a 16.67 boost to a wonder.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

A lot of Traditions benefits are a lot stronger when unlocked later.

I don't know that that's true any more. And the finisher is best if you finish it ASAP.

 

[Ulthwithian]

GhostSalsa: Naturally. However, in the long term, Tradition is certainly better for consistent building of Wonders than Liberty.

 

[Flaviusx]

Tradition is strong now...and I like it as my second tree. (Unless I'm playing OCC.)

But that free worker and especially settler from liberty are hard to beat. (That's 810 gold between the two.) So is the GP for completing the tree. At higher difficulty levels, again excepting OCC games, these become increasingly important.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Tradition is strong now...and I like it as my second tree. (Unless I'm playing OCC.)

But that free worker and especially settler from liberty are hard to beat. (That's 810 gold between the two.) So is the GP for completing the tree. At higher difficulty levels, again excepting OCC games, these become increasingly important.

That's true, but how many gold are four aqueducts and four monuments? How many great people/hammers/whatever you want from having a boatload of extra food? I think it's a lot closer than most people are letting on to yet.

 

[Flaviusx]

I don't want free monuments. I want free Opera Houses.

Similarly, aqueducts can wait.

Early on that settler and worker are huge. Tradition's benefits seem more tailored for the midgame, a lot of the stuff it offers are things I do indeed want...in the medieval era. The only really strong thing it offers early on is the 3 culture and cheaper border expansion, and it's very tempting to grab that one early and then work my way down liberty until filled, and then returning back to tradition later on.

 

[Unthinking Pain]

I don't want free monuments. I want free Opera Houses.

Similarly, aqueducts can wait.

Early on that settler and worker are huge. Tradition's benefits seem more tailored for the midgame, a lot of the stuff it offers are things I do indeed want...in the medieval era. The only really strong thing it offers early on is the 3 culture and cheaper border expansion, and it's very tempting to grab that one early and then work my way down liberty until filled, and then returning back to tradition later on.

You can do the work between two trees thing.

The free monuments are very handy early, as it means each new city can start doing something besides build a monument. Early advantages start snowballing sooner.

The free Aqueducts are priceless. That plus the finisher means Tradition gets 4 cities growing tall extremely well. There's just no reason to not want that happening ASAP if you're running a civ/strat that calls for it.

 

[compwiz1202]

You can do the work between two trees thing.

The free monuments are very handy early, as it means each new city can start doing something besides build a monument. Early advantages start snowballing sooner.

The free Aqueducts are priceless. That plus the finisher means Tradition gets 4 cities growing tall extremely well. There's just no reason to not want that happening ASAP if you're running a civ/strat that calls for it.

It's totally insane with all of tradition + 10% growth pantheon + 15% growth follower + 1 food for shrines and temples + 10% growth from Temple of Artemis + Hanging Gardens + Civil Service + if you can get the resouce for I love the King. Cities grow like crazy. The only downfall is that religion can't spread naturally since it takes longer to convert a citizen than to gain one. I also usually take 1% production per follower up to 15% instead of the food for shrines and temples. Now I need to play Monty on lakes with all that growth stuff

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I don't want free monuments. I want free Opera Houses.

Similarly, aqueducts can wait.

That's what I thought too, but more and more I'm thinking that that's a false economy of sorts. Four monuments early on will likely take longer to hard build early than the opera houses will midgame. Similarly, the early monuments will be a larger percentage of your overall culture at the time, and come at a time where the policies will come faster anyhow. You're going to end up filling up Tradition tree a lot faster than you'd fill the Liberty tree. That will speed you towards the end of the tree faster, getting the aqueducts online quicker which will grow your cities faster (helping production, science, etc). You can take that time you would have spent building monuments to pick up that worker instead.

Like I said, I still like Liberty too, but I think Tradition is very close. It probably depends on what kind of game you're playing, which is really the way it ought to be.

 

[Flaviusx]

I'm primarily interested in getting my religion sorted out early on, so rapid growth is actually somewhat counterproductive at this stage. The real race for growth for me begins in the medieval era. It comes down to timing.

 

[dexters]

I don't know that that's true any more. And the finisher is best if you finish it ASAP.

Yeah it's more balanced if you pick it first compared to how it was, but you can aim for free opera houses instead of monuments or maybe amphitheatre with legalism if you unlock it later.