Early game what is your favorite policies on a decent sized continent?

[Artifex1]

If you start on a good sized continent early game with other opponents. What is your favorite policy paths? Or does it matter?

 

[Tabarnak]

If you have enough space to delay expansion, go for the NC first(or with 2 cities if a culture ruins and gold is cought in time).

If a warmonger neighbor is close you can go for honor and kill some barbs for xp and culture and get a GG with while beelining for iron to get with 2nd city.

If you have a very juicy capital and crap land around you can go for Tradition and stick with 1 or 2 cities for a long time before expanding by force. Build the Hanging Gardens and make your capital a beast.

 

[flairin]

before the patch I really shot for patronage, but now it has been honor

 

[Artifex1]

Is liberty any good early?

 

[Strategist83]

Artifex, you need to understand the piece of advice Tabarnak is giving you: Everything is depending on the map you are playing and the civilization you are. It is not meaningful to ask whether Liberty is good. They're all good, but good for different situations.

 

[Artifex1]

He said go NC fist if you can delay expansion, what is NC? (I am a CIV 5 noob btw)

 

[dayfax]

what is NC?

NC = "National College Start."

You put off expanding at first in order to research writing, build a library, and then build the National College mini-wonder.

Doing this gives you a +50% science boost at the start of the game which is an enormous advantage.

The trade off is that it takes time, and you risk losing prime real estate to the AI.

 

[Tabarnak]

I forgot to say that a NC first approach is better followed with the Liberty tree. And probably the best overall strat. It even works well in multiplayer(at least when you have enough space).

 

[kaltorak]

There's few games where I don't take tradition. I have a hard time losing some of those SPs.

 

[shihuacao]

Honor is the way to go.

 

[ColinTH]

Pre patch it was Tradition on Archipelago and Liberty on Pangea. Post patch it is most of, or maybe even the whole Honor Policy Tree on both. Any future Policies after Honor are a mix and match from all over. I certainly wouldn't waste my time trying to get to the bottom of the Tradition Policy tree post patch!

 

[Johan de Witt]

I usually take the Tradition opener. This almost doesn't slow your policy acquisition down but increases your border growth a lot. Some games (Germany for example), I take the Honor opener.

My next step depends. If I want to settle a lot of cities, I tend to go for Liberty to get the policy to reduce the amount of needed for new policies from cities (forgot the name). If I want to build some early wonders, I got for Aristocracy. If I want to get large cities quickly, I try to finish Tradition as soon as possible. Otherwise, I take the free worker from Liberty and then either go Patronage (if it's possible) or finish the Liberty tree for the Great Person.

 

[Camikaze]

I haven't really formed a very coherent post-patch strategy/favourite, but Liberty has been looking pretty good to me. Meritocracy doesn't give you the same as it did, but it's still more attractive than Tradition, or Honor, which is really only attractive if I'm looking for a domination game.

 

[MasterMishi]

liberty unless you have barbs on maybe honour, check the mp threads on liberty tactics

 

[HeavyTwenty]

Liberty into Patronage.

 

[Civsassin]

If I wind up with neighbors, I like to research Tradition for Oligarchy. I've found it and a few defensive units can put off even the most aggressive early DoW. If you get Oligarchy and follow the Honor path to the point you get culture and happiness for garrisoned units, you can have a militarily powerful empire with no cost for the units. A good ranged unit or unit with the ability to move after attacking is extremely useful for repelling attackers, particularly the unit that can destroy an enemy and return to the city as a garrison.

 

[Mods]

Honor, followed by liberty and piety for a massive, happy empire

 

[Becomedeath]

I forgot to say that a NC first approach is better followed with the Liberty tree. And probably the best overall strat. It even works well in multiplayer(at least when you have enough space).

I'm finding that following following Liberty with the fast settling of a few cities and throwing up a library in each and then using your GE to hurry the NC actually gives a far better boost to tech than just holding back on expansion.

It also lets you get a better foothold on the continent\island\pangea before your rivals do. Moreover, I like to hold off building the NC until I've found a mountain to park a city near so I can stick an observatory in it as well.

I've been told several times to hold back on early expansion, but so far in my experience it's never proved to be a problem. In fact the games where I have held back and tried to follow this advice have been some of my worst.

Just personal experience. Perhaps it's because I'm happier to sacrifice an early game advantage for late game tech domination.

 

[Poomermon]

I think liberty is the best overall starting tree. I like how every policy is useful and the bigger your empire is the better pay-offs are. Also the finishing great engineer (who really chooses anything else?) is the best reward for finishing a tree. Get something like Notre Dame, Hanging Gardens or Porcelain Tower with it. If you play your cards right you should already be in renaissance when you finish liberty and next policy tree should be rationalism.

Tradition is okay for a small empire but it also has some crappy policies so I'm not sure it is worth it to finish the tree.

Honor got a major boost in the patch but extra combat bonuses are kinda overkill against AI imo. Still it is ideal for early warmonger that likes to kill barbs like Monty, Askia or Bismarck.

 

[chazzycat]

I also prefer quick expansion to delaying for the NC, and liberty is great for this. Citizenship & Collective rule are very powerful for any start, and if you truly go REXing, the other three policies work very well.

My main problem is that the AI all tend to attack me relentlessly when I expand a bit. So, remember to mix in a few warriors & archers in your early builds if you go this route.

Honor is a very strong option now, it has a lot to offer in early culture & happiness, in addition to the wartime benefits.

Tradition is still great for super-capitals, those with unique temples, wonder-builders, etc.. But I feel it's a bit more situational with the changes to landed elite, not as universally useful.