Finished tradition, Liberty next for a warmonger?

[Xiao Xiong]

I am Attila, planning on war mongering. However, as it turned out the situation called for a turtle start, production rich but food poor capitol so I beelined hanging gardens instead, then picked up oracle, national college, even national epic (so cheap with only one city).

Still, I am itching to war monger, once I get education, university, Oxford, I will switch to the bottom half of the tech tree.

So.. while I have only one city now, I expect to "go wide" real soon. Ahem. So I missed out on my UU's but hey I can still raze cities in double time.

Finished tradition. Do I go down the honour path? Opener is useless now that the world is getting crowded. I think liberty is a better choice for a mid game warmonger. So I would fill out both tradition and liberty, with a break to pick up a few policies from rationalism when it comes.

Extra culture and production per city, workers repair pillaged tiles faster, extra happiness once I annex, the free great person is always nice. Only downside is I don't really need a settler, though I can use him to replace a badly sited AI city after I raze.

I am not sure if the culture policy cost reduction applies to captured cities? It says less cost per city you "FOUND". Do I get a break on cities I puppet, or annex?

 

[joshua43214]

what difficulty level? We really need to know to give good suggestions.

Full tradition and full liberty is going to not good on any difficulty level.
Best place after tradition is almost always commerce. If you will wrap the game up in under 220 turns, just toss 2 or 3 into commerce, and then what ever. If the game will last to 220+ turns, you want to open rationalism pretty quick and get secularism - and science focus a lot, get an ideology.

When I sandbag on Emperor or below, I often just take Tradition to Monarchy (gold and happiness), then full honor - right side first for Arty rush (65 gold to upgrade canons), left side first for CB rush. For Immortal or Deity, I like Full Tradition, 2 in commerce, secularism, Autocracy to the cheap unit purchase then whatever gives happiness, and turtle to Education then bee line to and bulb dynamite with Oxford. You can clean up most maps in under 250 turns with this strat on high difficulty

 

[Plumfairy]

I wouldn't go Honor. If you're going to dabble in Honor, it's best to do it early so that the policies are actually somewhat useful for you as you get them. Right now, probably the only policy that's helpful for you is the +happiness/+culture one. And you would need to spend 3 picks to get it.

Commerce is a solid choice, like joshua said. The opener of Patronage can be damn useful, depending on how your gaming is shaping up. (Because most of your gold will be needed for troop upgrades and/or rushing buildings, it's probably not worthwhile to go deeper into Patronage.) The opener of Exploration can also be really useful. You're right on the cusp of getting caravels, and Exploration really helps them zip around faster to find CS's and other AI to trade with. In addition, if your map has a decent amount of water, the increased movement is really handy when you're moving your fleet from conquest to conquest. The +happiness policy in Exploration can also be really helpful if you have a bunch of coastal cities. +Happiness is a warmonger's best friend.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

Playing immortal.

 

[joshua43214]

Playing immortal.

Then you can not afford to waste time opening Liberty. Tradition opener is pretty much an arty rush. Get 3 or 4 cities going, get arty (bulb with Oxford) and focus on science. Try to clear the map before the AI gets flight, otherwise you will have to turtle up for another 30ish turns getting anti-aircraft. You basically play peaceful with tradition til arty, then go conquer.

EDIT: Attila is not a good choice for tradition - he does better better with an early liberty rush.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

Then you can not afford to waste time opening Liberty. Tradition opener is pretty much an arty rush. Get 3 or 4 cities going, get arty (bulb with Oxford) and focus on science. Try to clear the map before the AI gets flight, otherwise you will have to turtle up for another 30ish turns getting anti-aircraft. You basically play peaceful with tradition til arty, then go conquer.

EDIT: Attila is not a good choice for tradition - he does better better with an early liberty rush.

Yeah but the opening forced my hand in this game, a great start actually, but not for attila. No lux in the inner two rings but all river tiles, including lots of river side hills, but all one food plus one hammer plains, or two hammer hills. One wheat, a cow in the third ring. All lux in third ring.

I pretty much had to go scout scout, shrine, monument by policy, granary, library, water mill, beeline hanging garden, build temples. That gave me fertility rites, feed the world. Plus the tradition growth bonus and borders.

At that point I was getting a lot of farms going, and lots of civilians to work all those hammers. Now my capital is developing into a natural wonder spammer and I can also pump out units every other turn. Once I get hydro it will be a production powerhouse.

But I had to focus on developing food through policy and buildings initially, so no early rush.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Commerce for protectionism and cheaper rush buy for aircraft and nukes