Compare Liberty and Tradition, Head-to-Head

[IronfighterXXX]

After a short while, everyone will have forgotten it. I've had DoFs with people I stole workers from between 1 and 5 turns after I made peace. It's absurd. Not an exploit in my book, but it is stupid.

Yeah, maybe he is referring to situation before last patch.

Currently the warmonger penalty in ancient era practically is non-existent (as long as you don't take cities).

Now I declare war always when can steal worker, plunder trade route or even to get ruin. I also noticed they are more willing to DoF after war (even one more bonus )

 

[consentient]

What do you mean about DoW-ing to get a ruin?

 

[Cromagnus]

What do you mean about DoW-ing to get a ruin?

Well, I imagine he means DoWing so that what would normally be one move for the AI's scout turns into two moves because he's affected by your unit's zone of control.

(I do this to get ruins a lot)

 

[consentient]

I've never thought about doing that. I think I'm enough of a vicious scumbag early game as it is, but I will certainly try it.

 

[beetle]

My next try is to go back to turn 11, monument before shrine, and open Liberty. I will still try and get to Civil Service quickly after NC, but won’t be neglecting The Wheel so as to get Chariot Archers early. My Tradition games leaves too many pearls and gems unclaimed, so I think this still might be a decent map for demonstrating that Liberty can be competitive with Tradition.

My second full run through with Liberty was the strongest yet, so I am feeling better about it. I was faster teching to Civil Service, but still didn't have farms up in time.

I settled faster and better. Then Shoshone and Russia both DOW'd me simultaneously on turn 75. Totally predictable since I was 6 cities and no units besides the two scouts and warrior. That actually went fine though because on turn 76 my two chariots archers finished -- in the cities under attack. Shoshone mostly only sent pathfinders, and Russia a handful of warriors and archers. I tried counter-assaulting once I a few more CA available, but the terrain was no good.

Had I been building archers (like I would do normally with like 38-out-of-43 civs), (1) they would have spawned sooner, so maybe no DoW; and (2) the counter-attack would have gone better. It's okay, the role play is important to me.

My longer term game plan is to delay guilds until closer to Oxford for Radio for Ideologies for Autocracy for Futurism. I would very much enjoy spinning this towards a CV instead of SV.

This, even with To the Glory of God, didn't get me better than Exotic with the AI. So another slow SV while beating on the neighbors. In hindsight, I really should not have bother with Piety either. More RP.

Next up for me is the Shoshone and Korea maps on the Deity Tradition v Liberty thread. For the first time in while, I am feeling more encouraged that Liberty can be a good choice for me.

 

[LordBalkoth]

I keep getting them killed. I work so hard to get logistics, march, cover 2x. But then I end up being too aggressive with them as landships or maybe tanks.

No no no, I mean I kept them as *Camel Archers* for the entire game.

I am more interested know that you don't plan to worker steal! But really though, I would get more out of a screen shot and few notes every 50 turns.

I finished a playthrough last night but it went poorly in two regards.

1, I underestimated the Raging Barbarians at the start -- got several luxes pillaged and growth was crippled for a bit. Definitely was a bad start.

2, I got DoWed by Catherine at the end (was trying for a peaceful playthrough) and lost a city on the initial DoW as I expected to win just a few turns later. Then the rest (edit: and by "rest" I mean "red") mist descended, I declared war back on her shortly afterwards, and when the haze cleared I had my city back along with some of hers (and then I had to finish my last Spaceship part to avoid losing to the Shoshone). But my time was shot to hell due to her DoW and my vengeance.

I'll give it another go, but probably won't finish for potentially up to a week from now, we'll have to see.

 

[Acken]

Based on my Liberty game with Korea and the one during the America DCL I liked the following way to play Liberty (compared to other Liberty tries, not Tradition):

1. Go straight for 6+ cities and GE the NC. Rather than having to speed up your cities to get libraries asap like in tradition it will allow you to take more time. The only purpose is to make sure you will get Philosophy and all libraries when you finish Liberty.
In the America ICL I got a 6 cities NC on turn 76. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

2. Since Liberty has to control happiness there is no need to focus as much on food as Tradition. I usually just made sure my cities were, post aqueducts, somewhere between +5 and +10 food. Cities housing guilds or having science bonuses (NC, Observatories) can get higher to compensate for when you will have to fill the slots.

3. I use trade routes to reach that food goal rather than feeding the capital. The capital can still get 1 or 2 permanent routes regardless. Especially if you put the guilds there.

4. Aqueducts early are actually one of the most important thing. Even if you don't play a tall game as tradition it doesn't matter ! Aqueducts make every (extra) food worth 5/3 of it's original value (the inverse of 1-0.4) regardless of if you grow fast or not.

5. If I remember correctly combining #1 with #4 meant that I could get Engineering before Philosophy. Otherwise take it right after. I didn't find taking Civil Service to be a better deal, it's way further and playing Liberty you won't work that many river farms at that point. Also your cities will need something to work.

6. While I'm unsure of it I suggest trying to get Metal Casting for workshops before Education. Your cities need slightly more time to work the slots and you will speed up the production of universities anyway.

 

[consentient]

Well I still think it depends entirely on whether you aim to use conquest a lot.

If you're going for DomV, then 3 city NC and capturing all the other cities is still preferable to self-founding six, I think. Six cities could produce more units, but the bulk of the army should be made by then and upgraded. Admittedly, canons will be added later. But the cities have so little to build after the army is built, that even producing a 2nd army of the same size is no problem at all, regardless of production. Even Workshops are not needed, really. So I think there is no need for more than 3 self-founded cities for DomV, and since you will want to annex some captured cities and puppet others, building more to begin with will just give you more happiness problems.

If you're going to stop conquest at some point and pursue CV/SV/DiploV, then it's definitely good to self-found as many cities as you can handle happiness for, provided you found them early enough. In the DCL Russia, I pumped out a bunch of settlers so that after I stopped conquest, I had a total of 9 cities (7 self-founded).

By victory (T211) ALL of those cities had reached at least size 15 and were producing decent science. And this was an easy map where swift victory was possible. The longer a game goes on, the better those cities would be.

That's my view right now. I could be wrong.

 

[Acken]

Sure you could add archers somewhere instead of settlers and capture a couple cities with CB I guess.

But I'm mostly talking as a peaceful opener.

 

[Bleidraner]

For pure science and Liberty, I have tried both 6 planted 2 conquered and 8 planted for fastest finish time. My current thinking is very much in line with Acken's, the ideal is 6-8 planted depending on the map, conquest slows the opening too much except in those maps where you spawn really close to an enemy AI and you have no real option due to lack of space. The main issue is happiness, diplo hit and courthouse hammers/maintenance. This at deity of course, and for SV, in lower levels where happiness and diplo are not that important I have very succesfully done 5-6 planted 2 conquered for 220 finishes.

As for metal casting, I really want to try that, but currently I can only play a game every 2 weeks and I struggle even with that, so on Acke's map I am going for Edu after aqueducts. I cannot stress enough how important the aqueducts are for liberty. I think I will be able to finish The Korea map Tuesday and then try it on a HOF environment (i am replaying the first 100 turns of the Korea map, so previous map knowledge, not valid) with Caz and then Korea again.

 

[beetle]

No no no, I mean I kept them as *Camel Archers* for the entire game.

What is the point of that? I keep them as CA long after cavalry is available, but their ranged attack becomes irrelevant by the time tanks are available. Also, I think if you wait too long, the option to upgrade to cavalry disappears.

1, I underestimated the Raging Barbarians at the start -- got several luxes pillaged and growth was crippled for a bit. Definitely was a bad start.

I think I might have ignored that T11 camp for a few turns. It seemed stronger than usual to me, and definitely needed attention -- which is why I pointed it out when I posted the save. At deity SP, does ranging barbs make things easier or harder for the player?

2, I got DoWed by Catherine at the end (was trying for a peaceful playthrough) and lost a city on the initial DoW as I expected to win just a few turns later. Then the rest mist descended, I declared war back on her shortly afterwards, and when the haze cleared I had my city back along with some of hers (and then I had to finish my last Spaceship part to avoid losing to the Shoshone). But my time was shot to hell due to her DoW and my vengeance.

What is rest mist? Was that suppose to be red mist? (Which is what Google suggested when I looked up “rest mist”.)

I am relieved to know that veteran players get surprised by DoWs, as they are often a problem for me. My SV games are always slow because (1) I can’t seem to figure out how to make them really quick, and (2) I enjoy late game wars. On that map, I think you are bound to fight with either Shoshone or Russia or both.

I'll give it another go, but probably won't finish for potentially up to a week from now, we'll have to see.

This was the game where you started at my T11, correct? Would I be correct to assume you went 4 city Tradition? I would like to see you put the 3 expos, I think there is a range of good choices. Do you agree with me that this is an example of a map where 6+ city Liberty can be just as competitive as 4 city Tradition?

 

[beetle]

Coming back to a reply to me that I missed earlier...

Thinking you will take a beating is negative thinking, and in this situation, not really true, I think.

I overstated the situated -- I just meant that an early DoW was pretty hard-wired into that particular map RNG. I did not mean to imply that losing a city was inevitable.

So as long as you have 2-3 CBs per city, you will be fine, really.

Even One CB per city is enough in my experience. See above where I held off both Poca and Katy simultaneous from T75. One chariot archer each was enough!

If you've placed your cities well with defence in mind, and you manoeuvre the CBs and have a meat shield stand in front of them, you will quicky kill 4 or 5 units as they approach the city, and the army will retreat or offer peace. Take it, and they won't come again for a good while.

Yes, this is how things work for me most games.

You don't always need to follow them into their land and really let them have it - though recognising when this is a good option is an expert play that I myself could use some practice at.

This is what I have been practicing with. Sometimes I can take an early city, sometimes not. I have not yet been able to turn such situations into a steam roll.

NEVER agree to a DoW pact unless a) you want to conquer that civ; or b) they are far away and the size of your army means they will offer you cities or luxes for nothing after they take a pasting from whoever is next to them and asked you to do it. DoW-ing someone you are scared of attacking you when your army < theirs is folly.

This was me asking Katy to DoW Poca. It went okay, or at least it went much better than having Katy DoW me. As I wrote, I played with the map and reloaded enough that I was convinced early war with one or the other was inevitable. OTOH LordBalkoth seems to avoid an early fight when he played it. He prolly had 2 CBs per city, and I agree that would have put both Poca Katy on better behavior.

With most civs, I never bother with chariot archers. But with Arabia and a few others, I am committed to trying to make them work. Yes, there is opportunity cost with that attitude.

The maths you mention about hexes does not include the opportunity costs of lost turns. By T60 most of the scouting should be done. You will be lacking in this area if you pestered the poor barbs.

I was sorry that the scouting thread did not pick up any substantive discussion, because I mostly agree you. There is a payoff to leveling up scouts, but better later than soon. And with this map, that barb camp really needs to be dispatched (again, see LordBalkoth&#8217;s write up).

Sure but early settlers > any religion.

An early shrine is maybe half of a settler, and you can make it up. Pantheon payout is very relevant early game, and found or not is a big difference too.

I think Reformation is only worth it for certain culture games and for Piety Diplo. Otherwise the policies are far better spent elsewhere.

I actually agree, but for religious civs, I like the role-play. But I was very disappointed with UA as I could not point any to any specific effects, even with several play-throughs. You rated the UA as 2/5 but I think that was generous as doubled trade route pressure even with Religious Texts and the Grand Temple did nothing for me! I am sure my Tithe payout was better than usual, but nothing spectacular. Plus, none of that needed anything from Piety.

Steal them early or not at all, as stealing them after you've built that many defeats the point, enrages the AI, and is VERY risky (although this last point is not true in THIS case).

I only mentioned it less I be accused of being a total hypocrite.

I am definitely going to stop stealing workers and see how it would affect my game. The Shoshone map looks ideal for it.

The Shoshone map I never built a worker. I stole one from Washington, one from Morocco, and two from a CS. Then one from Liberty and two from Pyramids, and more from later wars. It was crazy.

Mostly I think it is only an exploit if you manage to nab an early settler. Worker hunting from T0 is still cheesy, and is why I personally prefer the &#8220;plus&#8221; maps -- so I am less tempted.

 

[LordBalkoth]

What is the point of that?

Camel. Archers.

They're. Archers. On. Camels.

(I never actually got involved in any war in the Atomic Era or beyond -- Shoshone DoWed me when he thought I was "weak" shortly after I took Moscow but before I had access to Cavalry. Logistics Camel Archers do quite well versus AI artillery when you're in friendly territory with roads. Beat his attack back and was at peace until end of game after that)

At deity SP, does ranging barbs make things easier or harder for the player?

Harder. AI has massive bonuses vs barbarians and unit spam on Deity. They don't really care about the Barbarians, just slows the player down.

What is rest mist? Was that suppose to be red mist? (Which is what Google suggested when I looked up “rest mist”.)

Yes, was meant to be "red mist." Aka "blood haze" or "bloodlust" or whatever.

I am relieved to know that veteran players get surprised by DoWs, as they are often a problem for me.

Well...I knew she was involved in a war with China and I wasn't in danger of a DoW from her while that was active. Except then she ended the war with China AND DoWed me on the same turn. Which rarely happens -- normally they take a few turns to lick their wounds and rebuild/reposition.

AI runaways are just really annoying on Deity.

On that map, I think you are bound to fight with either Shoshone or Russia or both.

Well...I'm not saying you're 100% wrong, but my initial playthrough with your turn 150 save had me involved in a war with Russia (that was started before I got the save) and then a very brief attempted invasion by the Shoshone. Completely peaceful for the rest of the game (basically from early Modern Era to end). Whereas the second playthrough was completely peaceful from turn 1 to 270ish and then Russia DoWed me.

So two very different situations. And if I had built up a bit more of a military I doubt Russia would have DoWed -- I was just racing to finish and thought I could launch before Russia got out of her war with China (and, worst case, bribe the Shoshone against Russia or vice versa if the Russia/China war ended).

This was the game where you started at my T11, correct? Would I be correct to assume you went 4 city Tradition? I would like to see you put the 3 expos, I think there is a range of good choices. Do you agree with me that this is an example of a map where 6+ city Liberty can be just as competitive as 4 city Tradition?

I actually deliberately picked three different satellite city spots as an experiment, so yes, there is a range of good choices and it's better than most Deity maps for Liberty.

Depends on what you mean by competitive. Last I heard no Liberty game had beaten the best Tradition game for science victory time. On the flip side, maybe there's Liberty games that took 5-10 more turns but had access to more resources and thus had an empire in better shape (including an actual army to defend with rather than trying to continuously bribe AIs to ignore you or whatever).

So how are you defining the word? Pure speed of victory? General demographics? Something else?

I overstated the situated -- I just meant that an early DoW was pretty hard-wired into that particular map RNG. I did not mean to imply that losing a city was inevitable.

That I would definitely disagree with, as I mentioned above. Was involved in 0 wars until 270ish on my second playthrough.

He prolly had 2 CBs per city, and I agree that would have put both Poca Katy on better behavior.

I think I had something like 3 Composite Bowmen and 3 Spearmen (which then got upgraded to Crossbowmen and Pikemen). Two of my cities were also positioned in a way that the Shoshone would have had significant troubles trying to attack them and I kept the non-garrisoned troops closer to Russia.

 

[beetle]

Harder. AI has massive bonuses vs barbarians and unit spam on Deity. They don't really care about the Barbarians, just slows the player down.

Nuts. It has been fun, but I will stop doing that then! I thought I been giving myself a little break...

I'm not saying you're 100% wrong...

It's okay. I was wrong.

...yes, there is a range of good choices and it's better than most Deity maps for Liberty. Depends on what you mean by competitive. Last I heard no Liberty game had beaten the best Tradition game for science victory time. On the flip side, maybe there's Liberty games that took 5-10 more turns but had access to more resources and thus had an empire in better shape (including an actual army to defend with rather than trying to continuously bribe AIs to ignore you or whatever).

The bigger picture is all that I am looking for. I am not looking for Liberty to have the best SV time. A game where Liberty takes 10 more turns but is stronger by every other metric is what I mean by competitive. I am feeling confident about that being possible for maybe the first time ever, so thank you!

I think I had something like 3 Composite Bowmen and 3 Spearmen (which then got upgraded to Crossbowmen and Pikemen).

Agreed, 6 contemporary units for 4 city Tradition is enough to coax civil behavior out AI neighbors most games. I was not meeting that minimal requirement...

Two of my cities were also positioned in a way that the Shoshone would have had significant troubles trying to attack them...

Does the AI ever take terrain into account when deciding to DoW or not? (I mean other than wanting X units close before the DoW trigger.) Your positioning of units sounds reasonable.

 

[consentient]

I completely disagree about raging barbs. I think that the Deity AI OFTEN runs into problems with them. You will see more captured settlers in camps, you will see slower expansions, and you can even sometimes see AI scouts and warriors being murdered by the barbs. IF the human player knows how to deal with raging barbs (which means slightly different play to normal) then it's definitely easier.

 

[Bleidraner]

I completely disagree about raging barbs. I think that the Deity AI OFTEN runs into problems with them. You will see more captured settlers in camps, you will see slower expansions, and you can even sometimes see AI scouts and warriors being murdered by the barbs. IF the human player knows how to deal with raging barbs (which means slightly different play to normal) then it's definitely easier.

+1. Not easier but definitely faster, AI suffers more than human.

 

[LordBalkoth]

The bigger picture is all that I am looking for. I am not looking for Liberty to have the best SV time. A game where Liberty takes 10 more turns but is stronger by every other metric is what I mean by competitive. I am feeling confident about that being possible for maybe the first time ever, so thank you!

Well, don't thank me yet as I'm not sure that's still the case. Generally speaking, Liberty seems it tries to have three main advantages:

1, more territory for more resources. Easy to get a 3-4 city Tradition empire that has no Alumimum and/or no Oil and so on. Harder for that to happen with a 6-8 city Liberty empire.

2, each city matters less. That may sound like an odd thing to say, but if you get DoWed then having city #7 or #8 on the edge of your empire have half of its tiles pillaged while you fend off the AI is a lot less damaging than halving only four cities and one of them getting half of its tiles pillaged. Obviously ideally you don't get DoWed or have your tiles pillaged but you're less vulnerable in that regard.

3, longer term strength. Liberty can eventually grow larger than Tradition (Meritocracy alone will outstrip Monarchy with a large enough empire, you have more happiness buildings per citizen (and I'm counting policy bonuses there too), and equal (or ideally superior) access to luxuries) and thus that yields more science/production/gold/etc on top of having more cities. The catch is that Tradition is generally considered better in the mid-game (more growth, faster building of essentials, more "spare time" in cities for units, etc). So the earlier the game ends the better off Tradition is compared to Liberty (with the exception of Domination victory). But since Civ tends to be a snowballing game getting ahead earlier tends to matter a lot more.

Does the AI ever take terrain into account when deciding to DoW or not? (I mean other than wanting X units close before the DoW trigger.) Your positioning of units sounds reasonable.

I know it takes into account city strength (which gets bonuses from hills, obviously) but I'm not sure beyond that. I do know it considers something like "tile strength" where it tries to figure out how many units could attack a tile...but does so badly. Presumably it might consider things like checking the immediate terrain around a city to see how many tiles it could attack from, if the city is next to mountains (and thus harder to assault), etc but I'm not sure. I seriously doubt it goes as far as trying to calculate chokepoints and such into its decisions.

I completely disagree about raging barbs. I think that the Deity AI OFTEN runs into problems with them. You will see more captured settlers in camps, you will see slower expansions, and you can even sometimes see AI scouts and warriors being murdered by the barbs. IF the human player knows how to deal with raging barbs (which means slightly different play to normal) then it's definitely easier.

I certainly haven't done an exhaustive case study, but my general impression from some games with Raging Barbarians was that the Deity AI...basically didn't care. Yeah, maybe it loses a few more settlers...but it can replace those insanely fast anyway. Yeah, it can lose some military units to the barbarians...but it can replace those insanely fast anyway. I didn't seem to notice any significant difference for the AI.

On the flip side, you as the player obviously have to deal with the extra barbarians. Which means more military units early on which means slower settlers/workers/buildings. My general feel was that this slowdown for the player was larger than the slowdown for the AI.

Of course, if you're going for Domination and are building an army to attack with early game then obviously those barbarians are a lot less of an issue since you have a bunch of military units anyway (and possibly even Honor to easily spot camps before they spit out a bunch of units).

Admittedly, it's been a while since I did Raging Barbarians in single player and I was definitely much worse when I tried that (not just one game, mind you, but several) so I could be off on my conclusion, but that's the thought process behind it.

+1. Not easier but definitely faster, AI suffers more than human.

That...doesn't make any sense. AI suffering more than the human makes it easier overall. And overall the game is *slower* since you need to build more military early on than you would otherwise.

 

[Bleidraner]

That...doesn't make any sense. AI suffering more than the human makes it easier overall. And overall the game is *slower* since you need to build more military early on than you would otherwise.

Yes probably did not explain myself very well. What I meant is with raging barbarians you can get faster finish times because the AI does not deal with them very well, but only if you know how, as handling them is definitely harder. It is like driving a Ferrari vs a Volvo, it is harder but once you know how, you will get a better result. I especially like it in domination games, less cities to conquer. On science games, it is bad overall, as science does not depend (much) on what the AI does.

 

[beetle]

I can understand raging barbarians impeding the AI more than player, but I cannot understand it resulting in noticeably faster finish times! The early game is when I feel I need more of a break, but even with a very fast game, barbs (raging or not) are off the map for the last 150 turns. Maybe with a cooked map, like half as many civs so the barbs really have time to populate? Otherwise, I think you would be hard pressed to demonstrate that raging barbs means one less city for even one civ on average. So not even much help for domination.

 

[nmp0098]

It&#8217;s a small sample size, but I was inspired by this thread I played a peaceful Liberty game DCL 28. I don&#8217;t usually play Liberty, but it worked well for me on this map and my finish time was in line my Tradition games. I probably fought more wars, but I was in a decent position to fight them. I took the advice from this thread, not that it was necessarily phrased this way, and played a peaceful Liberty game while working the tech tree and early build order like I was war-mongering. After getting a good result, I&#8217;m left wondering why I ever tried to play Liberty like Tradition when going for a peaceful victory condition. I went Order because the civ was Russia, but it really felt like Freedom or Autocracy (and their associated late game tactics) would have worked well from that foundation too. I would definitely have to mix in early conquest if I didn&#8217;t have the space the self-found a lot of good cities, though.

I can think of a case where I&#8217;ve completed Tradition (or Honor) and want to go back into Liberty: during a late game domination run where I&#8217;m holding a lot of cities. Liberty has one of 3 social policies that help global happiness and therefore allow you to control more cities. It&#8217;s not uncommon for a domination run that pushes to turn 300 or beyond to have a ton of culture to push social policies, and I&#8217;ve received more happiness from Liberty than Commerce on maps with a lot of cities/land.

I&#8217;m not sure why everyone adds the Tradition opener to Liberty. That 3 culture gets washed out once you get the guilds up and running, and early growth is not super important with Liberty. If I do buy more tiles with Liberty, and I&#8217;m not sure I actually do, it&#8217;s because I have more cities. I seem to buy a lot of tiles with Tradition too, more in my expos. That +1 everywhere helps the expos pop borders, and is more culture total once you found your 4th city. I think it&#8217;s competitive for total border growth across the empire. Wouldn&#8217;t a point in Patronage, Commerce, or Aesthetics be stronger overall? For example, sure getting the Wonder bonus is nice, but I think getting the production discount on culture buildings would be of more benefit with wide play.

I agree the AI suffers far more from Raging Barbs than humans. This is because settlers get assigned a &#8220;Patrol&#8221; action when waiting for an escort and wander near borders with no knowledge of a barb the AI saw last turn, provided their boldness flavor doesn&#8217;t have them trying to settle alone. With raging barbs on, I get more CS influence from quests and worker liberation, come up on more AI workers/settlers captured by barbs, and play a generally safer game because I have a little more military early on. Also, on Epic/Marathon raging barbs and the honor opener can break the game wide open. I think the effect on finish time is less clear.