Early Strategy with Liberty

[Redaxe]

Hi.
Since there's been a bit of mud been thrown back and forth about Liberty I'm interested to here what people think is the most appropriate way to approach Liberty.

Tradition is a bit simpler because you ideally want to finish the tree asap to get the free aqueducts. The only catch is whether you want to delay Monarchy & Landed Elite to get the bonus speed to building Wonders...

Liberty though plays a bit differently. Typically people take Republic and then Collective Rule. That makes most sense for planting lots of early cities, which most people recommend.

But what about opening Citizenship before Republic?
A free early worker and the bonus to worker speed can help you snag an early wonder or 2. I'm thinking if you wanted StoneHenge and/or Pyramids early to help facilitate grow your empire then a worker could be more useful then a flat +1 hammer. For instance the worker can chop trees and every early tile improvement yields an additional +1 food or hammer. It's not hard to see that the worker can be a better investment then the extra hammer although the catch is that you will get to Collective Rule later then you'd like. Yes you can get workers form citystates or other civs but it isn't always reliable and hey an extra worker is never a bad thing.

Has anyone tried that approach and found success with delaying your early settlers to build a wonder with the worker to speed things along? You'll delay your settlers a bit but at the same time you'll also have a bigger capital so you should be able to build those settlers a bit faster too.

Also another neat trick with Liberty is that if you delay Representation (free Golden Age and Great Person) until after you produce your first Great Person you actually increase the value of the tree quite significantly - if you think there are other policies you can invest in.

The free great person is essentially a free 100 GPP points, but if you delay the policy until you have your first GP then essentially the policy is giving you 200 free GPPs. Much better value!

The first great person and the first golden age are quite easy to get and if you time it so you finish Liberty just after you reach your first golden age you can end up with a 20 turn Golden Ages - not bad at all. Also it can be argued that it is better delaying the golden age until all your cities are planted. This means all your cities benefit from the golden age. You will also have a bigger population so you will be getting more benefit from the extra gold, production and culture, i.e. a size 4 expo city will get far more benefit from a golden age than a 1 population city will...

 

[inthesomeday]

So what exactly is the policy path you propose? Citizenship to republic to collective rule to meritocracy to representation?

 

[Redaxe]

So what exactly is the policy path you propose? Citizenship to republic to collective rule to meritocracy to representation?

Yep - not arguing its 100% optimal of course. There's not doubt it will delay settlers but perhaps in some circumstances that is not too detrimental

 

[sixty4half]

I've always struggled with the timing of Representation. I'm usually within 100 points of hitting a golden age, and if I take that policy it's like I just wasted 400 happy points since the slider resets to 0 after the golden age is over.

Maybe you take the Tradition opener to delay getting Representation? I could also see taking the Piety opener since it saves quite a few hammers. The hammers it saves gets multiplied by how many cities you found, and since you're going Liberty I am assuming you're going to be building 6-8 or more cities. If you were going for a DV then picking a policy in Patronage could work for delaying Representation.

 

[inthesomeday]

I've usually found the great scientist to be more important than timing a golden age, but knowing liberty any extra policies should go into commerce if unlocked, honor if not unlocked.
And yeah, an early worker would be nice. Of course stealing from a city state is easier, but it's possible you could not have that available to you. Usually though, the hammer from republic will absolutely be more relevant because it'll be happening four or five times by the time you'd get the worker off of citizenship. Going citizenship might be situationally nice but usually republic to collective is priority and that's for a good reason. But I definitely see the possibility of a worker being a more beneficial choice situationally.

 

[kaspergm]

No need to rush for Pyramids. AI seems to all but completely ignore this wonder.

 

[Redaxe]

No need to rush for Pyramids. AI seems to all but completely ignore this wonder.

It does go early sometimes although I concede that if you open Citizenship and then build Pyramids before settlers you'll have 3 workers standing around with nothing to do draining your treasury.
Without that Tradition opener you get very little early tile growth so that isn't particulary optimal either.

Stonehenge might work ok, if your map gives you jungle, or pastures or plantations you could catch up on the social policies with an early pantheon

 

[inthesomeday]

Also, humans do not ignore it and there's a pretty trendy strat in multi to go scout, monument, shrine, settler, pyramids, and sometimes I could see a citizenship worker being useful. Usually with this strategy you steal a worker off a cs, but it relies on early chops to work, and with no cs nearby it may be necessary. However usually I find the hammer off republic to be more meaningful, but again, in an all in rush situation where everyone you've met has got masonry it might become necessary.

 

[Wild_Woojsha]

For single player on standard settings:

Strategy 1: (3 city chariot/comp bow domination run on pangea-ish map)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503931

Strategy 2: (6-9 city power empire by turn 55 with everything you need to defend it)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=559009

Those are for Deity, which means if you play below deity they will just help you win faster. For multi-player, there is no cookie-cutter strategy guide because the AI can be predicted better than humans on the internet. Multi-player forum may help, but I doubt it, best to just join a no-quitters group and learn from experience.

 

[inthesomeday]

On multi happiness isn't the limit that your liberty extends to, but rather your defensibility

 

[komodowaran]

On multi happiness isn't the limit that your liberty extends to, but rather your defensibility

well in the current metha u can settle citys u can't defend with liberty as well since u have to expect to lose a city to honor generals
so u might as well loe the city u can't defend any way

 

[beetle]

It may be something I do wrong with Liberty, but I feel like I am just as picky with my Liberty expo spots as I am with Tradition. I go Liberty because four cities isn't enough to cover all the good dirt near my capital. But if I can cover that ground with five cities or six -- am I not better off with just five? The AI is always planting two weak cities instead of one strong city. It makes me a little crazy! Why would I emulate that poor behavior?

No need to rush for Pyramids. AI seems to all but completely ignore this wonder.

Hmm. AI beats me to it about one-in-four games. I cannot recommend being too causal about it!

so u might as well lose the city u can't defend any way

So why settle that city in the first place?

 

[Redaxe]

I go Liberty because four cities isn't enough to cover all the good dirt near my capital.

Who says you can't plant 5-6 cities with Tradition? Ok some of the Tradition bonuses fall off after 4 cities but some stay on.
No matter how many cities you plant as Tradition you still get the

• Increase to tile expansion rate
• +15% increase to building wonders. Ok not that relevant but your capital won't be punished as badly when building National Wonders if you plant extra cities. With the food bonuses your capital gets you can work more production tiles so you get a major advantage over liberty when it comes to National Wonders...
• 1 happiness per 10 citizens
• Garrisoned unit costs no maintenance - this can save 1-6 gold per city per turn... Liberty gets no gold bonuses and has to pay for a larger army because it generally will have more enemies from rapid expansion
• +50% ranged combat strength per city with garrison (makes border cities a bit tougher)
• +15% growth
• You can purchase late game engineers to snag key wonders. More cities will give your more faith so more engineers and other late game great people... Buying certain wonders, i.e. Neuschwanstein, Statue of Liberty... can enhance the viability of having many cities

Also BNW introduced trade routes which provide additional means for cities to catch up. Who cares about Liberty's free +1 hammer when you can route a cargo ship with +8 hammers to a new expo...
Additionally having a couple more cities makes it much easier to win citystate quests the require faith or culture generation.

 

[beetle]

Who says you can't plant 5-6 cities with Tradition? Ok some of the Tradition bonuses fall off after 4 cities but some stay on.

I have gone up to six cities with Tradition. It just seems like lack of planning or foresight on my part. If the 5th / 6th city can be productive enough to build the prerequisite NW buildings, then they are okay. But they never seem to help towards VC. Whereas my other expos are building units and each will contribute a SS (if I am working on SV). But the Tradition 5th / 6th city is probably there to keep the AIs off my continent -- so worth it just for that.

 

[inthesomeday]

Being picky about city planting is actually one of tradition's biggest flaws, you need lots to validate a tradition city, whereas all a liberty city needs is a hill to plant, a hill to work, a lux, and either two or three growth tiles or a nearby river/lake for farming. All of this can fit within the very first ring of a liberty city but it almost always is somewhere within the second ring. If one of the growth tiles or an extra lux is in the third ring, no biggie, just buy out to it because gold gain doesn't scale by number of cities.
Being too picky when you plant liberty can be a downfall, especially because you rarely work outside the second ring.

 

[beetle]

...whereas all a liberty city needs is a hill to plant, a hill to work, a lux, and either two or three growth tiles or a nearby river/lake for farming.

But that is all you need for a Tradition city to be quite productive too! In the other thread you mention your Liberty cities being 5/6 tiles apart -- but that is also optimal for Tradition placement as well.

I agree that player habit tend to be more choosy with Tradition spots as compared to Liberty. I don't agree that the game mechanics support a clear distinction. It would be different if people thought strong Liberty play was 8+ cities 3/4 tiles distant. But people like peaceful Liberty for as few six cities at 5/6 tiles distant. That is the same kind of pattern you do for 5/6 city Tradition.

 

[inthesomeday]

I did not say 5-6 tiles apart, I said 5-6 tiles to work. Liberty cities should be no more than 3-5 tiles apart, or you are being far too conservative about city placement.

 

[sugerdady87]

Being picky about city planting is actually one of tradition's biggest flaws, you need lots to validate a tradition city, whereas all a liberty city needs is a hill to plant, a hill to work, a lux, and either two or three growth tiles or a nearby river/lake for farming. All of this can fit within the very first ring of a liberty city but it almost always is somewhere within the second ring. If one of the growth tiles or an extra lux is in the third ring, no biggie, just buy out to it because gold gain doesn't scale by number of cities.
Being too picky when you plant liberty can be a downfall, especially because you rarely work outside the second ring.

If you can find a spot with liberty, you can do the same with tradition, and vice versa. City location isn't something particular to a social policy.

 

[Sclb]

If you can find a spot with liberty, you can do the same with tradition, and vice versa. City location isn't something particular to a social policy.

No, you're missing the point. Liberty cities can be tightly spaced since you don't need to work many tiles due to smaller population. You'll often see city share tiles in the 3rd ring or even 2nd rings. You usually wouldn't place tradition cities that close together since you'll run out of good tiles to work quickly or even have unemployed citizens. The point of liberty is to plant as many cities as possible given the available happiness.

 

[beetle]

The point of liberty is to plant as many cities as possible given the available happiness.

I don't think that is the point of Liberty play so much as the means. I think the main objective of Liberty is to let you claim as much territory as possible, and extra cities is the mechanism by which you do so.

If you can control a continent just as well with six cities as seven, would you plant the seventh city? Or would that depend on other factors? If the continent has a surplus of luxes, would that make a difference? I think I would stop as soon as was confident I did not leave room for an AI to land on my shores. If I can cover all the luxes and exposed strategic resources, and block the AIs, why use seven cities if six does all that?