First Three Social Policies

[PimpmyCiv]

ever played honor with aztecs, germans or songhai? its fine !

that the thing with honor, it is very civ stategy specific. Tough to fit into a "all purpose" approach to a game.

I think people are also missing the other benifit with Tradition... more tiles sooner. Which means better tiles to use and resources sooner. Which means quicker growth.

 

[Muskie]

Here is more of my thoughts on starts including which first four social policies I've taken to using, as threatened:

http://blog.muschamp.ca/2011/04/26/civilization-hockey-2/

 

[roguepro92]

i ussually to always get oligarchy at some point solely because i like playing defensive in wars. the 33% is just killer

 

[Lyoncet]

Here is more of my thoughts on starts including which first four social policies I've taken to using, as threatened:

http://blog.muschamp.ca/2011/04/26/civilization-hockey-2/

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the beating NC start has taken of late. It seems like people are slowly starting to shift away from it given the rather steep opportunity cost. To elaborate, the current of thought is that unless you use that early NC to grab, say, iron working and get an early lead through force (or you're doing 1-2 cities total anyways), the lead from the extra beakers shrinks as the game goes on while the opportunity cost from missing out on the early settler or world wonder grows, meaning you're stunting yourself in the long run.

I'm not saying that's completely right (although I've never really liked NC openings myself), but since you seem to have put quite a bit of thought into the strategy, I'd like to know what you think.

 

[slobberinbear]

I have tried hard lately to not follow a set path with either policies or openings. I am particularly experimenting with policy and "opening" combinations for certain situations.

For instance, in a recent game as Rome, I built a monument and took Tradition as it appeared I didn't have suitable land for a REX and I didn't see any early rush targets. My initial thought was to do a slow expansion, focusing on Tradition's policies, infrastructure buildings, and slow-learning Iron Working. I then had Darius on my doorstep very fast, who had taken Liberty and was bingeing on settlers like Kirstie Alley on ice cream. I immediately shifted into NC mode, built a lot of infrastructure (for later use with Glory of Rome) then took a few honor policies (Honor and Discipline). After I learned Philosophy, I went back and took Legalism for a free Temple and then took Landed Elite for growth. After some conquering of Darius, I took Oligarchy and the +happy for garrison policy in Honor, to have free garrison units that bumped defenses and added happiness.

Was this optimal? I don't know. Happiness was brutal in that game. But I had fun mixing and matching Tradition and Honor as needed, and the NC start allowed me to keep up in tech even though I lost the land grab (at least, until my Legions showed up).

 

[Nyanko]

So far, I have found Tradition, Liberty then Free Worker policy (whatever its called) are my first three techs. My fourth tech is decrease social policy cost for extra cities policy. I find myself going in that direction quite a bit

 

[qyll]

I beeline for meritocracy.

 

[jagdtigerciv]

Yeah, I never go Honor. It's useless now, because, like said, the benefits of Liberty and Tradition can often equal in a significantly larger civilization fielding a significantly larger military that no extra Great General, or 1.5 xp (as good as it sounds) can compete with.

 

[Deau]

I'm kind of worried they made Meritocracy too appealing.

I have to disagree. It is very dependant on your game plans, civs and even the land setup. For instance, in a Highlands map, Landed Elite in tradition will very likely outdo meritocracy.

If you play domination game, getting the 1.5 exp and early GG from the honor tree will give you a significant edge on your first rush thus allowing your early units to powerup so high that even later in game when techs are roughly equal, you will still have a solid edge over your opponents.

Don't get me wrong, Meritocracy does suit more win strats but other trees should not be disregarded. They seemingly could tune it down by making the free great person "random" or somewhat random but then it would likely be completely disregarded by players.

 

[Deau]

I'm yet another of those that struggle to resist Tradition's +3 cpt as my first SP. If I'm playing culture (often do), I just find that it's best.

I'm going to run through it's tree eventually anyway, and I tend to hard build Stonehenge and rarely miss out on getting it. I still usually take the GE from Meritocracy (4th SP, Liberty -> Worker SP -> Meritocracy), but like to either make a manufactory with it, or rush the oracle to get an extra SP.

What difficulty are you playing? The only time I managed to hard build stonehenge on immortal+ I was like playing Egypt, had gone tradition/20% wonder bonus as 2nd SP and I even think I managed to get a quarry on my marble before the end of the build (I was actually intentionnally trying to see if it was possible to hard build it before AIs would GE rush it).

 

[Deau]

I like going Tradition->Liberty->Free Worker if I can get at least one culture goody hut.

Then that's actually my first worker. It allows me to start scout,monument,granary. The benefits of the granary outweigh whatever the worker would build first. Then by the time I pop that free worker, it can do something useful like improve a calendar improvement right off the bat.

Also by the time I get the free GE, I have the techs lined up for a free wonder, either the GL if I'm going spaceship or domination, or Stonehenge if cultural--sometimes I'll go Oracle.

Ever considered

Tradition - Free culture building (w/e is the name) - Landed Elite
lined up with
Scout - Worker - X

where X could be a granary for super growth, another worker, etc.
The loss of an early GE or GS can strongly affect specific game strats (like losing stonehenge on a cultural victory attempt is huge) but the super growth from LE and the free monument in your first 4 cities can be competitive if you have means to manage happiness from super growth.

* it doesn't seem to work as well for me for most strats on immortal/deity (although i'm def still a deity nub learning - damn mass lux sale cuts growth the crap out) but on lower difficulties the super growth used to allow me to outdo liberty benefits.

 

[Muskie]

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the beating NC start has taken of late. It seems like people are slowly starting to shift away from it given the rather steep opportunity cost. To elaborate, the current of thought is that unless you use that early NC to grab, say, iron working and get an early lead through force (or you're doing 1-2 cities total anyways), the lead from the extra beakers shrinks as the game goes on while the opportunity cost from missing out on the early settler or world wonder grows, meaning you're stunting yourself in the long run.

I'm not saying that's completely right (although I've never really liked NC openings myself), but since you seem to have put quite a bit of thought into the strategy, I'd like to know what you think.

I'm on my iPhone again so I have to focus. I got invited to take part in a research (market) project for people into history and video games so I did start another game. I chose Rome went all Liberty at the start and still haven't built my national college!

My thoughts on Civ as someone who has played every version is I like to build rather than destroy. However I value flexibility too. So always playing the same way doesn't appeal to me or seem wise. Over relying on the NC start is like beelining to the Great Library in say Civ 3. It can work out well, it can work out OK or you can lose the race.

The NC start is much less risky. I think if you play a random world, with random opponents and use a variety of Civilizations you need to explore your options and change courses. I was all set to try the NC start, I researched writing first. However Greece was all, "I like the land you like" after I built a second city. I'd wisely researched Iron Working next and started building a Legion and a Ballista. I also had England eying land near me and neither Rome nor Antium were on water so I founded a third city. I kept building libraries and culture, only had 3-4 units and Greece attacked.

One Legion and a Ballista plus roads and the Iron to build and replace my losses saw off the Greek invasion. But I wasn't in a forgiving mood, not with Alexander, not while I had my Legions, two Ballistas and eventually a Great General. It took time but I took all 3 Greek Cities. Puppeted them. Mean while I never got a tech lead or big culture and lots of great land went to Sulimen. I also got denounced as others who thought I was trying to win the same way as them.

I'm a peaceful builder, I wanted the Glory of Rome, instead I proved that infantry and artillery and strong defensive positions defeats cavalry, pikemen, archers, and aggression.

The point? Be adaptable! I think Tradition is OK but Liberty is Mo Betta. If you see good city sites sometimes you have to run over and settle them. If you have aggressive neighbors prepare for war, don't look weak. If you have better military technology/units and can survive the initial rush which I think was one cavalry, 2 phylxs, 3 archers, and 2 warriors, you have to press your advantage home.

Too often I'm too passive, too nice. The NC Start is a good idea, but you have to be adaptable. I don't know how I'll win or if I'll win. I have 3 puppets makes building national wonders hard. However I also have 7 cities which is pretty good for the Iron Age early Medieval period.

Well enough rambling.

 

[Mr. Sulu]

I (when starting in Ancient) take Liberty, as those settler and worker boosts come in handy, especially when you're trying to build a city, and the Republic: 1+Production always helps. When I get to the Medieval Era, I normally get Commerce (Good for naval, helps Production and reduces purchasing costs). When I arrive at the Renaissance I either get Freedom (For culture) or Rationalism (For Science). By the way, I normally get Civil Society (-50% Specialist food consumption), Constitution (+100% culture in cities with a wonder), and Free Speech (-25% Future policies) and just leave it at that, but Democracy sometimes helps (+50% Great person output). But Rationalism is great for Science, everyone of them improves happiness or Science (But, for more Culture go to Piety). Order next, the Production boosts are great and the reduced maintenance cost comes in handy. Sometimes I do Autocracy, (Great double Strategic Resources) but only when I start in the Industrial revolution, as Expansion is more important in the start of the game than Military power.

 

[Tabarnak]

Yeah, I never go Honor. It's useless now, because, like said, the benefits of Liberty and Tradition can often equal in a significantly larger civilization fielding a significantly larger military that no extra Great General, or 1.5 xp (as good as it sounds) can compete with.

In the last G-Minor III(domination,prince,epic), the best strategy was to go honor right of the bat to get a (second)GG to help Persia's immortals travel faster around the inland sea, reaching capitals at lightning speed.

 

[RealHuhn]

What about Tradition - Legalism - Monarchy - Landed Elite

When you have a capital with enough food and 2-3 luxuries, getting early monarchy is a huge boost.
You can sell all your luxuries and continue to grow without worrying about happiness or GPT.

It's usually an extra 300-600 gold very early in the game (on emperor+) which leads you to a lot of possible choices.
Grow even further or get high production with an early maritime city state? Focus on culture city states for early scholatism? Buy or upgrade more units for early conquest? Buy settlers?

City states give you luxuries, too, so you can continue to sell your stuff without any break.

Very powerful in my opinion! Money is king.

 

[Deau]

What about Tradition - Legalism - Monarchy - Landed Elite

When you have a capital with enough food and 2-3 luxuries, getting early monarchy is a huge boost.
You can sell all your luxuries and continue to grow without worrying about happiness or GPT.

It's usually an extra 300-600 gold very early in the game (on emperor+) which leads you to a lot of possible choices.
Grow even further or get high production with an early maritime city state? Focus on culture city states for early scholatism? Buy or upgrade more units for early conquest? Buy settlers?

City states give you luxuries, too, so you can continue to sell your stuff without any break.

Very powerful in my opinion! Money is king.

But you should not need monarchy to be able to sell your luxuries. At very worse, use your luxury sale to buy a CS that has a luxury. You will gain more growth from a maritime CS that provides you a lux than by keeping your lux. On top of that, going solely for growth early really gimps your hammer output. It is good for some strats/civs but really on emperor+, you should not be scared of stopping growth and going into negative happiness for so long as it won't bring you below -9.

As a good example, if I see a spot with 2+ luxuries availible to settle, I will more often than not go ahead and settle it for so long as my happiness is above or equal to -6. Sure it's going to remain a size one city for a while but the repeated 600g from the lux sales outdoes the negative happiness by a huge margin. Ultimately, it may provide me a city to surrender for a peace treaty in the late game when I'm close to a science or diplo victory

So again I fall back to my argument that monarchy is much more of a OCC SP. I can make it to medieval before the 4rth policy consistently in emperor-deity and theocracy for dom or scholasticism for other VCs one SP earlier outdoes monarchy.

 

[KevinMiles90000]

So again I fall back to my argument that monarchy is much more of a OCC SP. I can make it to medieval before the 4rth policy consistently in emperor-deity and theocracy for dom or scholasticism for other VCs one SP earlier outdoes monarchy.

I just had a 40 population capital in the last game I played. 20 gold/happiness is nothing to laugh at.

 

[Deau]

I just had a 40 population capital in the last game I played. 20 gold/happiness is nothing to laugh at.

Again, I said in one of my bunch of posts in this thread that it's a situational SP. Regardless, you did not have 40 pop by the renaissance and picking monarchy early in the game was likely worse than jumping in another tree at the time. Cities supergrowth comes in late game because going super tall before getting a few clutch techs cripples early beakers&hammers.

It's up with other situationnal late game happiness SP. Have a huge capital? go monarchy, have a huge empire(in terms of total citizens)? go theocracy. Superusing specialists? get the freedom tree etc. each one is situationnal but picking any very early in the game is generally a bad idea unless you play so far below your game level capacities that you can tell exactly how the game will turn out.

That beeing said, theocracy will almost always outdo the others if happiness is such a huge concern. And if it isn't, the benefits of faster GAs is generally beaten by better SPs.

 

[iggymnrr]

I've been testing things at king level post-patch. NC starts seem more frequent to me, random maps with no immediate strategy to impose. Sometimes its meritocracy, sometimes deep into tradition, sometimes early merchant navy. It just seems to pay off. (And sometimes its no NC start.)

 

[zenmurphy]

My SP pursuits and starts are highly situational.

I will say that in a very particular instance I have found the honor tree's 1.5xp to be hugely helpful.

Play on an Archi map and going for a domination victory I have found rushing the upgrades on your boats so that you get x2 attacks per turn is the game turner. I was behind on King/Archi and Emperor/Archi with Elizabeth and x2 attacks per turn ships allowed me to harass the leader to the the point of crippling them. Bombarding just doesn't quite pack the potent punch it needs to with x1 attacks. Getting x2 attacks and x1 or x2 range = good game, thanks for coming.

I think x2 attack ships is the most important key to success in a domination archi game, therefore honor becomes very valid for me in that situation. I haven't found another situation in which I find it viable though.

Also, playing standard, low sea level, archi map, I don't think I have ever found a city I couldn't bombard.