Experimenting with Liberty + Patronage

igorsrs

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 28, 2016
Messages
36
Location
Brazilian Empire
While Civ6 still sucks (AI), I've been trying some non-standard openings with Civ V, avoiding either full Liberty or Tradition openers, and/or ignoring the standard early National College as well.

One of those wonky strategies ended up being pretty powerful, mixing Liberty opening (Colective Rule + Citizenship), followed by Patronage (till Scholasticism).

Liberty strong early game means extra cities with more rosources to sell. I also add some extra archers for barb quests. Patronage opener + Philanthropy makes CS bribes really efficient, and whenever I have excess happiness, I will sell ALL luxuries, INCLUDING last copies.

National College only gives 6 science + 0.75 per population in the capital. If Liberty is done right, your capital should be somewhat small (8 to 10) in the Middle ages. So, instead of sacrificing a lot of hammers on that, I try some wonders instead.

Petra sometimes is possible, but too much of a gamble. But Machu Picchu, is damn easy. Very few AIs take the Crossbow path, you can easily hard build it by turn 95ish by caravan feeding a city with a bunch (4~5) of mines around it, and beelining Guilds after getting all Ancient era techs.
(Opinion: For ANY Liberty strategy, I think you should be going for XBs anyway, to get some extra cities, always! It is not efficient to self found them all)

I don't think National College is required at all. Science may get a bit slow in the early Medieval, but when Scholasticism kicks in, things turn around. I can get a third of my science from it.

Liberty finisher engineer is better used in something crazier, like Forbidden Palace, LToP. If not possible, I use it to get a scientist instead.

I didn't find it too hard to get 6~8 CSs aliances by Renaissance, and ALL by Industrial (even against Alex). After that, any VC is pretty easy.
 
The other question I should have asked is: "which civ?" I'm guessing this would work better with some than others. I remember tommynt described a Tradition / Liberty mix with Poland.
 
So far I got it running with Morroco, Aztecs, Japan and Songhai.
Alex would be an obvious one here, but I dislike playing overpowered civs... it is like playing Immortal, easy mode.
I guess any civ with wide play potential should be fine, it is a Liberty based strategy.
I think it is more about the map, than about the civ. Gold rich maps (calendar and traping luxuries), for me, are liberty maps.
I don't think this could work well with Tradition, one have to finish it fast to get all the good bonuses fast.
Liberty right side is not amazing... good but not great... so you can delay it for a while.

There is more critical info, I could add, but those are from my personal play style.

Capital BO:
Scout
Monument and Scout (map dependent order)
Shrine
2 archers
Caravan (if I have a route safe from barbs, to an non-agressive AI, for science)
Settlers

Notice the 2 archers. Sometimes, a 3rd one may be added.
They are important to make the most out of the "barbarian age", for CS quests.
I find no problem delaying a city for 3~4 turns for the sake of getting a CS quest.

I also follow FilthyRobot liberty guide more closely than Acken's, specially on how wide I go.
I usually go for Crossbow + Knight conquest to expand my lands to at least 10 cities.
In my beter games I have 15+ cities before ideologies, even for "peaceful" victories (Science, cultural, diplo).
Domination is pretty obvious after that, but I don't always do.
But thats how I do, others are likely to disagree
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I played a zulu game recently where I went Liberty (full) -> Patronage -> Commerce -> Order. I meant to go autocracy but two civs went autocracy and none order so I just went for the free policies. Wasn't able to win with Domination because Hiawatha had good terrain + 20 something cities. I won an easy Diplomatic victory on the first world leader vote though. I was able to save a lot of gold from generating merchants and such, and they give ridiculous gold when you go patronage + commerce. I honestly think I played fairly sloppy and could have won a full domination if I had played better (or had got autocracy, I was really close). I ended up spamming merchant specialists last 40 turns or so because I realized where the game was going and that I didn't need the science, also started selling my research labs to maximize gold last 20 turns or so. I ended up with about 15,000 more than I needed, but whatever. AIs (England, Hiawatha) were being obnoxious about city states, so I dumped like 10k gold on cs the turn before first world leader vote and DoWed both of them to ensure they wouldn't flip cs. It's a really good combination for converting early conquest into a diplomatic victory. I didn't play it optimally for sure.. Would probably be disgusting with Greece, they are good CB rush because of Hoplites, and then get more out of patronage.

My game was:
Early CB rush to sack Egypt (he didn't build any wonders, what a dick). I think if he had built some wonders it might have helped me a lot.
Impi + XB for Askia, Boudicca, and Washington (Washington was really tough because he had minutemen + a lot of jungles near him)
(I got attacked by Morocco and England a lot here and had to defend for a bit)
Impi + artillery + cavalry + gatlings + xb for Ahmad Al Mansur (should have got this going faster)
I launched some wars to burn some of Hiawatha and Elizabeth's cities but didn't get close to the capitals. I went into a pattern of set up my logistics artillery on the city I wanted to raze, take it in 1-2 turns, and then use artillery to pick off unit surge before making peace. I mostly did it to Hiawatha to slow him down, as he was the leader in every stat by a large amount. I initially thought I might make it to Elizabeth, but she had pretty annoying terrain, planes, and a pretty mediocre capital so I decided not to push for it.
 
Last edited:
Liberty/Patronage is my standard play. I like to play with lots of CS.
 
After some time without Civ, I'm back trying this again
... and I changed my mind about that thing of ignoring the National College, to get more cities.
It helps you reach key techs faster, although in the long run it will fade away for superwide liberty empires.
And philosophy is just too good to ignore, because of the Oracle, a great wonder the AI usually ignore.
You get scholasticism faster, with a 4 city strategy, with Oracle + NC (both hard built).
You can expand later with Crossbows + Knights, capturing as many cities as possible.

I'm also mostly sure that the build order that I said previously, but opening with 2 scouts, is the optimal (or maybe pretty close):
  1. 2x Scouts (To get more ruins, and to give you more time to explore and possibly give up this Liberty plan for a more conventional Tradition strategy)
  2. Monument
  3. Shrine (Even if you are not going for a religion, you can get God King or another useful pantheon)
  4. 2x archers (Maybe even 3 , to get as many Barb camps quests as possible)
  5. Caravan (If you have a route safe from barbs, to get a sizable science boost)
  6. Settlers (Even if you don't have Collective Rule yet, you are probably in the turns 30s at this point)
And I still think that delaying liberty finisher for fast scholasticism is worth it, with this SP path:
  1. Liberty + Republic + Collective Rule (For the best use of liberty boost)
  2. Citizenship (you probably didn't reach the classical era yet, and it is not worth to rush it at all costs)
  3. Patronage + Philantropy + Scholasticism (To start the city state bribing snowball as soon as possible, and to get a great science boost from it)
  4. Meritocracy
  5. Representation (Get this LAST, to avoid getting any additional SP before Renaissance. From now on you want Rationalism + ideologies)
You are probably getting an Scientist from the finisher, but an engineer to may be useful to get the Forbidden Palace.
You shouldn't get an engineer for Pisa or Porcelain, it is counterproductive to spend a free Scientist or engineer to get another one, while bumping up the counters....
 
Last edited:
After some time without Civ, I'm back trying this again
... and I changed my mind about that thing of ignoring the National College, to get more cities.
It helps you reach key techs faster, although in the long run it will fade away for superwide liberty empires.
And philosophy is just too good to ignore, because of the Oracle, a great wonder the AI usually ignore.
You get scholasticism faster, with a 4 city strategy, with Oracle + NC (both hard built).
You can expand later with Crossbows + Knights, capturing as many cities as possible.

I'm also mostly sure that the build order that I said previously, but opening with 2 scouts, is the optimal (or maybe pretty close):
  1. 2x Scouts (To get more ruins, and to give you more time to explore and possibly give up this Liberty plan for a more conventional Tradition strategy)
  2. Monument
  3. Shrine (Even if you are not going for a religion, you can get God King or another useful pantheon)
  4. 2x archers (Maybe even 3 , to get as many Barb camps quests as possible)
  5. Caravan (If you have a route safe from barbs, to get a sizable science boost)
  6. Settlers (Even if you don't have Collective Rule yet, you are probably in the turns 30s at this point)
And I still think that delaying liberty finisher for fast scholasticism is worth it, with this SP path:
  1. Liberty + Republic + Collective Rule (For the best use of liberty boost)
  2. Citizenship (you probably didn't reach the classical era yet, and it is not worth to rush it at all costs)
  3. Patronage + Philantropy + Scholasticism (To start the city state bribing snowball as soon as possible, and to get a great science boost from it)
  4. Meritocracy
  5. Representation (Get this LAST, to avoid getting any additional SP before Renaissance. From now on you want Rationalism + ideologies)
You are probably getting an Scientist from the finisher, but an engineer to may be useful to get the Forbidden Palace.
You shouldn't get an engineer for Pisa or Porcelain, it is counterproductive to spend a free Scientist or engineer to get another one, while bumping up the counters....
What are your results like? Personally I think that it is a cheesy strat that works if the Civ has a CS controlling UA. Otherwise, the standard Patronage opener into fast Rationalism will be stronger.
 
This is one example game (Deity challenge Lineup 11).
And this one was hard, I had to beat Alex in that city state game.
And I could finish this some good 10 turns earlier, as you can see, I still had over 4000 faith to buy great musicians/scientists.
Captura de Tela (5).png

But to make this strategy work, I made a few assumptions:
  • Using liberty to make a superwide empire (15+ cities)
  • Using military conquest to capture as many cities as you want
  • Self founding only a few cities (4 seems optimal)
  • Adding some archers to the early build queue, to get some barb camp quests and get some city states aliances EARLY (important)
  • When you get more than 6 excess happiness, sell luxuries, even a last copy, to get gold to bribe more city states (this is the city state bribery snowball), the earlier, the better
  • Using a grand strategy like this one in the guide, in the early and mid game: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/domination-on-immortal-deity-a-noobs-guide.547630/
The idea I was trying here is to make use of more powerful social policies than those in the right side of liberty.
Meritocracy and Representation are GREAT.... but only later in the game. They have a minute impact early.
I'm trying to make liberty a little bit stronger.

And by the way, if you go Liberty with military conquest, you will get more than 7 Social Policies before Reinaissance. In most of my games, I get 9 or 10.
Liberty + Patronage opener only simply won't happen (assuming you are not using social policy saving game rules)
 
I find it interesting since in a sense you are exchanging happiness + scientist of liberty for (hopefully) happiness from CS and science from scholasticism. Going few cities + conquest also make the NC easier to get so not have to rely as much as I do on the GE in Liberty when capital production is low. Also not relying on roads for happiness will free worker time and usually you are not making that much money early on.

Definitely a sound and viable strat in my opinion. Not necessarily the most competitive but I like good plans like these.
 
Glad you liked it Acken, you are the best player I know, and your LPs helped me improve a lot.

And yeah, this stategy won't achieve SVs and CVs as fast as a "traditional" 4-5 city peaceful in good maps, specially SVs.
But it makes CVs possible in bad maps (that DCL11 map, with low production + runaway Alex would be hell to try a peaceful CV, I tried it :()
DomVs become trivial, because CS armies help so much with defense, and it wears other AIs armiest down.

There is also a chance of failure, you need at least 3 CS aliances really early (before turn 90), and around 6 by the renaissance, you will have to dump MOST of the gold in CS bribes.
This is a "fail fast" approach, if you get to turn 90, no alliances and low gold, you can pretty much scrap the game as a loss, or a slow/boring game.
CS aliances give such heavy bonuses, science, and it gives dominance in the congress, so ou can pass anything you want (I like worlds fair, cultural herritage, historical landmarks, intenational games).

The problem is the tech path, going machinery + chirvalry will slow down your universities, and that slows down the entire game, but a 9-11 crossbow + 6-8 knight army will let you capture any city in range before turn 150-170.
It feels nice to be the biggest, scariest thing on the map.
 
Top Bottom