Getting tradition opener before liberty

[Xile]

If you're not going into tradition, don't pick the opener. Maybe you get the free worker a couple of turns earlier, but in the late game you can end up missing out on a lot better policy or getting it too late for it to matter.

 

[civzombie]

This issue has come up a lot.

One factor that I did not see mentioned in the thread is the new rule about free great persons not actually being free. With the way that new rule works, it is actually better to generate a great person prior to earning the "free" great person from liberty. I feel that this change adds to the consider-taking-the-first-tradition-policy-before-starting-liberty-side-of-the-scale (whew).

 

[RealHuhn]

Your figures are incorrect. You will get the free Worker on turn 69, not turn 60.

Wow, you're right. My mistake. I edited the post.
So opening with Tradition doesn't give you any Liberty policy faster which completely defeats the point of taking the opener only for the culture boost.

Whatever you're both trying to argue there, that chart is for 1 city. Do you often have one city by your 6th policy? I don't.

It was just for testing. As soon as you build a 2nd city, opening with Liberty gets even stronger.

This issue has come up a lot.

One factor that I did not see mentioned in the thread is the new rule about free great persons not actually being free. With the way that new rule works, it is actually better to generate a great person prior to earning the "free" great person from liberty. I feel that this change adds to the consider-taking-the-first-tradition-policy-before-starting-liberty-side-of-the-scale (whew).

I doubt that you can generate a great person by yourself before you finish the tree. There aren't any specialist slots available in early game. Delaying +1 happiness per city doesn't sound like a good plan either.
But when you really want to do it, I'd say there are better alternatives. Patronage or commerce openers are both pretty good, for example.

 

[prince_caspian]

I doubt that you can generate a great person by yourself before you finish the tree. There aren't any specialist slots available in early game. Delaying +1 happiness per city doesn't sound like a good plan either.

Just pointing out, it's possible to generate a GP from early wonders like SH/GL/HG, slow but possible.

 

[Halcyan2]

In the early game, the +3 culture is more useful than than the +1 culture per city, however this quickly gets eclipsed.

As others have mentioned, the exponential cost of SP's makes it questionable choosing SP's mainly based on their culture output.

The biggest advantage to the Tradition IMHO is the faster border growth, which I feel really gets shortchanged. At the very least, the screen should tell you how much faster you are acquiring tiles (you can figure it out from the coding). Also note that the +3 culture helps you get more tiles in your capital (combined with the cost reduction).

Tradition is more viable in G&K, but I always feel like I should save Legalism for later. Even with the improved Legalism (with FREE and maintenance FREE buildings) I still feel like I should save it for the more costly upkeep buildings (though economy is easier to manage at that point).

Aristocracy *is* nice but I often find that the +1 production from Republic (which is now earlier in the tree) is often more useful in the early game.

Unless you have a production of 7 or more (technically 6 and 2/3), the 15% bonus is going to be less than the flat 1. In addition the hammer from Republic does get multiplied by modifiers. So if I am going for wonders, I often still prefer getting Republic first (and then shooting for Aristocracy).

Also, the free Worker from Citizenship can also increase your production output, possibly more than Aristocracy would. The worker can build multiple improvements over time (mine, stable). Or you can improve your luxuries, sell them for GP and then buy production buildings. Of course the question here is when you would get your worker if you didn't choose Citizenship.

 

[Mesix]

This debate is in too many threads. From my "every day" experience, by math, it's redundant and a "wasted policy" to branch both liberty and tradition. Those points are simply better spent in commerce or patronage. To me, the "smartest challenge" is to crack medieval era before that 7th policy, especially if you go oracle, unless you intend a culture victory wherein you're going piety anyway.

Be honest and do the math. "One more policy toward" cultural diplomacy/landed elite or protectionism is a no-brainer advantage over "a free settler" or "a culture policy you choose just to work to pay yourself back for it".

I guess that is what makes my strategy different. I generally ignore Patronage and Commerce policy trees. After finishing Liberty and at least part of Tradition, I generally move onto either Piety (for Cultural VC games) or Rationalism (for all other VC). I only take Commerce if I have an abundance of coastal cities for the +3 , and then only if I am not going to a Cultural VC because I don't much care for the policies on the right half of Commerce and view them as wasted opportunities to take something better.

I find that having both Liberty and Tradition is nice. I often wait to finish Tradition until my happiness is very high in the mid game and can support the bonus and population growth. As was mentioned earlier, it can be very beneficial to save the 4 free buildings for later in the game.

 

[Mesix]

EDIT: Changed the post because one of my numbers weren't correct!!!

Ok, here we go: Settings: Standart speed and map size, buildorder scout - monument (finished on turn 12)

TRADITION OPENER
Turn | per turn | policy | culture required for next policy
00 1 nothing. 25
16 6 tradition 30
21 7 liberty... 60
30 7 republic 105
45 7 settler... 170
69 7 worker.. 255
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIBERTY OPENER
00 1 nothing 25
16 4 liberty.. 30
24 4 republic 60
39 4 settler.. 105
65 4 worker. 170

With Liberty opener you actually get all the Liberty policies faster than with the Tradition opener.

Why? Because you have to "pay" more culture for one additional policy:
Required culture for worker with Tradition opener:..... 25+30+60+105+170
Required culture for worker without Tradition opener: 25+30+60+105
=> 170 more culture required which can't be compensated by the +3 per turn.

And it gets worse:
Because you picked the Tradition opener, you always have to pay more for the same amount of useful policies (in late game tradition opener is useless culture wise).

Think about it. You might have to pay 1500 more culture to get to the next policy in Rationalism, just because you picked the Tradition opener.
=> Definately not a good idea.

Conclusion: Don't take the Tradition opener when you don't plan to use anything else in Tradition and you don't need the extra border expansion.

Your calculations only show when you will get Liberty policies. If your only aim is to get Liberty policies and never get anything else in Tradition, then yes, it would be a waste to open Tradition for the +3 . If, however, you plan to get the bonus buildings, wonder production, or & growth from Tradition, then there is no wasted policy.

Policy 1 Tradition Opener
Policy 2 Liberty Opener
Policy 3 ...1 pick from Liberty
Policy 4 ...2 pick from Liberty
Policy 5 ...3 pick from Liberty
Policy 6 ...4 pick from Liberty
Policy 7 Liberty Finisher
Policy 8 ...1 pick from Tradition

Vs.

Policy 1 Liberty Opener
Policy 2 ...1 pick from Liberty
Policy 3 ...2 pick from Liberty
Policy 4 ...3 pick from Liberty
Policy 5 ...4 pick from Liberty
Policy 6 Liberty Finisher
Policy 7 Tradition Opener
Policy 8 ...1 pick from Tradition

In this case, the bonus +3 will get you to Policy #8 much faster than if you put off the Tradition opener in favor of a slightly faster run through Liberty.

 

[RealHuhn]

@Mesix:

Conclusion: Don't take the Tradition opener when you don't plan to use anything else in Tradition and you don't need the extra border expansion.

Last sentence of my quoted post.

[snip]
I find that having both Liberty and Tradition is nice. I often wait to finish Tradition until my happiness is very high in the mid game and can support the bonus and population growth. As was mentioned earlier, it can be very beneficial to save the 4 free buildings for later in the game.

I don't think it's very beneficial. Again, you don't want to take policies which boost your culture just for the purpose of getting more culture. It exponentially increases all your following policy costs. Free aqueducts at, what, turn 130 (?) is very weak as well.
Only exception here is filling the Piety tree when you want to win a cultural victory (and early Legalism when you want to get the Tradition finisher of course).

When your goal is to finish Rationalism as fast as possible, it is indeed better (like Halcyan2 said in post#45) to delay your 7th policy until Rationalism is available, for example by delaying amphitheatres or not getting allied with cultural CSs.

And it's easy to say why: Look at the "required costs" again:
It might look like this in the late game (I don't know the exact numbers and they are highly dependant on your number of cities):
Required costs for finishing Rationalism without the Tradition opener + Legalism (free culture buildings):
25+30+60+105+170+ ......... + 1500 + 1700
Required costs for finishing Rationalism with the Tradition opener + Legalism:
25+30+60+105+170+ ......... + 1500 + 1700 + 2000 + 2400

=> Just because you picked two more policies in the early game, you have to spent the additonal culture for two more policies in late game. In this example, you need 2000 + 2400 = 4400 more to reach your goal. And what do you save for taking Tradition opener + Legalism after filling Liberty? Maybe 16 gold per turn for 4 free opera houses. The culture boost is negligible because costs get very high and if you want you can always build opera houses in your cities anyway (or rushbuy them because you took the right side of Commerce instead of wasting policies on Tradition, or getting easier influence with cultural city states because you took Patronage policies instead of wasting).

By the way, I don't want to come across as someone who thinks his opinion is untouchable. But this is just a very logical conclusion and you have to convince me when you think I'm wrong.

 

[Becephalus]

I like that people are still discussing an issue I answer in post 11.

 

[RealHuhn]

I like that people are still discussing an issue I answer in post 11.

Well, just saying something doesn't make it automatically right. And many people didn't believe us.
That's why I tried to give mathematical evidence and it also revealed a bit of extra information (like delaying policies for faster late game policies for ex.)

 

[Becephalus]

Well the purpose of the forum is to share information, I hope people don't think I would misinform them just for the giggles. I answered the question so definitively because I knew the answer. Then people argued because people on the internet seem to not be able to stop themselves from arguing regardless of whether they have reason to or not.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

I just finished the liberty tree (used all of my SP selections on that one tree) and now Piety, Patronage and Commerce are available. But I'm still very tempted to take the Tradition opener and then take Legalism for the four +3 culture buildings (I already have monuments everywhere).

But my religion has Papal Primacy as it's founder belief; so the Patronage Tree is tempting. Also, I'm playing as The Netherlands and I've read that many players feel that their UA goes well with Commerce.

So my next social policy choice is going to be a difficult one. Which one do you suggest I pick? Thanks in advance.

 

[RealHuhn]

I just finished the liberty tree (used all of my SP selections on that one tree) and now Piety, Patronage and Commerce are available. But I'm still very tempted to take the Tradition opener and then take Legalism for the four +3 culture buildings (I already have monuments everywhere).

But my religion has Papal Primacy as it's founder belief; so the Patronage Tree is tempting. Also, I'm playing as The Netherlands and I've read that many players feel that their UA goes well with Commerce.

So my next social policy choice is going to be a difficult one. Which one do you suggest I pick? Thanks in advance.

No offense but have you read anything in this thread?
Going back to Tradition only for the culture buildings is pretty much the worst thing you can do. It's not tempting, it's a huge mistake.

Regarding the other possible choices: Papal Primacy is pretty useless without Patronage and whatever the policy is called which adds another +20 influence to every city state. So if you already spread your religion to a few CS, go with Patronage and get the friend status for free.
If you need more culture, just build amphitheatres or focus on cultural CS.

 

[Buccaneer]

Almost never (open Tradition before Liberty). Moreso in vanilla than in GK but still open and complete Liberty first or at least get your free worker and golden age first before going on to Patronage etc.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

No offense but have you read anything in this thread?
Going back to Tradition only for the culture buildings is pretty much the worst thing you can do. It's not tempting, it's a huge mistake.

Regarding the other possible choices: Papal Primacy is pretty useless without Patronage and whatever the policy is called which adds another +20 influence to every city state. So if you already spread your religion to a few CS, go with Patronage and get the friend status for free.
If you need more culture, just build amphitheatres or focus on cultural CS.

No offence taken. I haven't read everything in this thread. I believe I've made the mistake of taking Papal Primacy in the hope of substituting it for patronage. but having four +3 cultural buildings does save a lot of hammers (production).

 

[Hpuk]

If you are not going to go any deeper to tradition, it is a very silly move.
The four culture buildings will not help you in any way, since the only advantage is getting more culture, but by taking 2 policies of tradition you have already spent more culture than you'll ever be able to get with the 4 free culture buildings.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

There is one situation where I would consider opening tradition and then go liberty:
If I have several early game ressources scattered within 2-3 hex range around my capital that I want to get connected asap.

Tradition opener reduces culture cost for tile expension around the capital by a significant amount (-75% iirc?).

 

[Ulthwithian]

GAGA: While that's all well and good, the question in the OP is whether taking the Tradition opener speeds you through the Liberty tree. And, AFAIK, it does not.

Now, here's a related question. How much culture do you need to generate through the _Honor_ opener to justify taking it by itself in the game? Perhaps a culture/turn number would be a better way to discuss this. I will take a look through the information here and try to answer it myself...

All right. Using the information from the previous page, it seems like if you build a monument on turn 12, and take Honor first, you should get Honor on turn 16. Liberty will get to its worker by turn 65. The difference in the total culture cost between taking Honor and Liberty is the cost of the final policy, correct? In this case, 255. This means that if you want to 'speed up' Liberty by taking Honor, you must obtain at _least_ 255 Culture _through Honor_ between turns 16 and 65. (I do realize that this snowballs, and the number to finish Liberty is higher, but I don't have data past what was posted.)

Therefore, if you can earn _on average_ 5.2 Honor per turn with Honor, you will get your Worker at the same time as Liberty. This does not seem very likely, even at 8 Culture/Barbarian warrior you kill.

I'll also note that the numbers in the charts still don't tell the entire story of Liberty vs. Tradition, as you assume that you do not settle the Settler you receive until after you obtain the Worker. That changes the numbers slightly on both ends.

 

[Hpuk]

For a policy that only generates culture to be worth it, it would have to give you culture equal or greater than the added culture cost of the last two policies you are going to get in that game (in my games at least, this usually translates to well over 4k culture).
In practice, it would have to be a lot more, since you'll be 1 social policy behind almost the whole game and thus lose out on all the production, food, happiness, science and other bonuses you might get with that one extra policy.

Utopia project is a different thing of course, then you'll want to get those culture generating social policies obviously.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Hpuk: Understood, but what is interesting about the Honor opener is that, unlike Tradition, its Culture/turn is variable. On certain maps (primarily thinking Water maps here), Barbarians are also likely to live longer in the game.

Also, unlike the OP, I am not trying to see if the Honor opener will help finish Liberty quicker (that is almost certainly not true), but on higher difficulties and the increased pressure by AIs to attack, it might be nice to be one policy closer to things like Discipline if AIs DoW you before you are quite ready.

I'm trying to analyze the impact of delaying from that perspective.