Getting tradition opener before liberty

[Adjuvant]

You pick tradition or you pick liberty. Pick both if you want... it's "your game"... but it's bad math. You're making the "better benefits" from "later policy trees" "come later".

I swear it's like we're arguing 12/2(1+2) here, over and over, bridging several threads, and it's making me rage. I honestly feel like we're being trolled by the people who say to "take policies in both liberty and tradition" because it's so blatantly obvious "not to".

 

[Ulthwithian]

CYZ: Flexibility in _what_, exactly? If you're taking Legalism and then stopping in Tradition, you have (by the math done here, at least) wasted Culture points. Even if Legalism can 'pay for itself' in terms of Culture, the Tradition opener certainly can't.

What are you getting out of it? Let's just make the assumption that you have finished Liberty (and, for just one benefit of finishing Liberty, you can finish the Wonder of your choice, start a Golden Age, found/enhance a religion, or get to the Medieval period faster), and you haven't gotten to the Medieval period yet, and you want to take Rationalism (and thus skip Piety). Okay, so you have the choice between Honor and Tradition. There are pros and cons there, but neither is really optimal.

Say you choose Tradition, and you get _another_ policy before you hit the Medieval era. I don't think I'd choose Legalism. I might choose one of the other Tradition policies, but not Legalism. (From a gpt issue, Oligarchy should save you more money. Wonders are wonders.) From a 'flexibility' perspective, I would think that Honor and Discipline might be a bit better than Tradition/something else.

 

[Adjuvant]

I "don't" do that. My "7th", if I'm not going piety will always be commerce or patronage. You know how to play this game. There's no reason to "let that happen".

 

[Ulthwithian]

Adjuvant: I was addressing CYZ, as my post notes. I am not sure what you are trying to contribute, here.

 

[Adjuvant]

Adjuvant: I was addressing CYZ, as my post notes. I am not sure what you are trying to contribute, here.

Send him a private message, then.

 

[budweiser]

You kinda need both trees. If you have full Liberty and 4 cities, they are not growing as fast as they could be if you had Tradition. If you have 4 cities and full Tradition, you are making social policies slower than you would if you had Liberty. For fastest growth and polices, you need Liberty and Traditon in certain combinations. The finishers themselves arent worth the belines.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Adjuvant: If the moderators have an issue with my use of the forums, I am sure they will inform me. Your concern is noted.

budweiser: If we had time to max both trees before others become available, you would be completely correct. However, comparing 'all Liberty + some Tradition' vs. 'all Tradition + some Liberty' is rather a false dichotomy, as there is at least one and possibly two other choices by the time you finish a tree. I will also note that you are the only person I have seen on these forums that advocates not finishing trees.

 

[budweiser]

Adjuvant: If the moderators have an issue with my use of the forums, I am sure they will inform me. Your concern is noted.

budweiser: If we had time to max both trees before others become available, you would be completely correct. However, comparing 'all Liberty + some Tradition' vs. 'all Tradition + some Liberty' is rather a false dichotomy, as there is at least one and possibly two other choices by the time you finish a tree. I will also note that you are the only person I have seen on these forums that advocates not finishing trees.

Yes, Piety will open up before you can finish both trees and Reformation is a mighty tasty pick for the Wonder builder. But after that you are free until the Industrial era. To be clear, I was saying leave both open, not finish one and leave the other open.

I am of course speaking from a cultural bias.

 

[Adjuvant]

Adjuvant: If the moderators have an issue with my use of the forums, I am sure they will inform me. Your concern is noted.

You made a statement in a public forum. I commented on your comments in a public forum. You informed me, "I wasn't talking to you". I insinuated, "You're talking to everyone, or go private." You said something meaningless. Now I've replied explaining what you didn't understand.

edit: also I want to play you guys in multi-player sometime.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Adjuvant: Again, your concern is noted.

budweiser: I would think that, from a Cultural CV perspective, you would want to at least finish Piety first, no? (At least get the cost reduction.) Also, from a Cultural CV perspective, if you are not trying to get them for their own benefits, but only to finish the game faster, there is _most definitely_ a proper order to gaining them.

 

[budweiser]

Adjuvant: Again, your concern is noted.

budweiser: I would think that, from a Cultural CV perspective, you would want to at least finish Piety first, no? (At least get the cost reduction.) Also, from a Cultural CV perspective, if you are not trying to get them for their own benefits, but only to finish the game faster, there is _most definitely_ a proper order to gaining them.

Right. I guess you would finish Piety before Freedom opens up. It would depend on the situtation.

Right now I am obessed with Representation and Reformation. Get those two working together once you have wonders in 2 or 3 cities and its nuts.

 

[Ulthwithian]

budweiser: Rather, yes. On that note, though, finishing Liberty can be quite useful for getting one of those Wonders. If you go with Piety, though, you really want to get Cathedrals.

I really rather don't like how Piety has gotten all schizophrenic with its ends and means.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Let's just make the assumption that you have finished Liberty (and, for just one benefit of finishing Liberty, you can finish the Wonder of your choice, start a Golden Age, found/enhance a religion, or get to the Medieval period faster), and you haven't gotten to the Medieval period yet, and you want to take Rationalism (and thus skip Piety). Okay, so you have the choice between Honor and Tradition. There are pros and cons there, but neither is really optimal.

I agree that there's backend costs to adopting a 1st level tree when you could be starting a second, but I think in practice there's no better way to plot through the slow policy period of mid game.

The reason is happiness and money: Piety and Rationalism don't give you full boost unless you are happy. They are basically scams in mid-game. Especiall after liberty open, which leaves you at very low surplus happiness if you have followed the instructions on the box and actually expanded. To make full use of piety and rationalism, you'd need to waste time on coliseums and theaters. Meanwhile, how are you building amphitheaters? So where is your culture growth coming from? Ok build those now. Meanwhile, how are you building aquaducts? So where is your citizen growth coming from?

Commerce and Patronage, you have to be rich to benefit from? You have to be rich to keep CS allies and you have to be rich to connect lots of luxuries and benefit from Protectionism. Who is rich in mid game?

Meanwhile, here was a second policy tree that would have given you eight free buildings (and thus save you having to build a treasury at inflated cost), and would have basically solved your happiness problem without having to build coliseums! You can't win the game by halting growth halfway. Tradition is a great follower to Liberty. TOO great, is what I feel.

Patronage, Piety, Rationalism and Commerce are _not_ productive until later on. They don't feed the roots like Tradition does.

 

[Ulthwithian]

GhostSalsa: Oh, I certainly agree. The issue is whether or not you should stop with Legalism.

Also, I disagree with some of your Piety discussion. Picking up Piety means focusing on Religion, and focusing on Religion means having a lot of Faith. In that way, it's very hard _not_ to take a lot of religious buildings for your follower beliefs.

Religious buildings are incredibly useful for maintaining Happiness. For a CV, I would go with Cathedrals and Pagodas. This gets around the 'when to build amphitheaters' question.

 

[Glassmage]

I save all my policies and open all Patronage and Commerce....

 

[Ulthwithian]

Glassmage: I am very curious as to how that works out. I might have to try it...

 

[RealHuhn]

You pick tradition or you pick liberty. Pick both if you want... it's "your game"... but it's bad math. You're making the "better benefits" from "later policy trees" "come later".

I swear it's like we're arguing 12/2(1+2) here, over and over, bridging several threads, and it's making me rage. I honestly feel like we're being trolled by the people who say to "take policies in both liberty and tradition" because it's so blatantly obvious "not to".

I agree. It's a huge waste of time to even write constructive posts here. People just ignore the facts and invent crazy scenarios to back up their false statements.
Or they simply don't understand the math. Who knows.

Anyway, it's a game, play however you want to, make your horrible decisions. I'm outta here.

 

[Adjuvant]

I agree. It's a huge waste of time to even write constructive posts here. People just ignore the facts and invent crazy scenarios to back up their false statements.
Or they simply don't understand the math. Who knows.

Anyway, it's a game, play however you want to, make your horrible decisions. I'm outta here.

This. (except I'm not leaving )

 

[Mesix]

When choosing to go down both trees, there is another element that comes into play. The free great person from Liberty is no longer free. When you get the free great person, the cost of the next great person increases. Delaying the Liberty great person until after you have generated one from early wonder points might be a good idea. I'm going to play a few games and try this out.

I didn't know that Legalism will now build future culture buildings as they become available. Thanks for sharing this tidbit. I can take it a lot earlier if I don't have to wait for the technology to be available for Opera Houses.

One other thing: legalism. Keeping that as an option is always good. Especially since it has been improved with the expansion (you get a culture building as soon as it becomes available, so if you can't build a ampitheatre yet but you already have a monument, you'll get the ampitheatre as soon as you tech it).

Even if you're not planning for it especially, there's still the case where you need to pick a policy but you haven't reached the appropiate age for piety/rationalism yet. Then it can be very very usefull as back-up policy.

So I stick to my point. Liberty first is best if you only care about th GP. There's too many other factors to be able to calculate in other situations.

I find that Tradition and Liberty complement each other nicely. I typically open Tradition, then Liberty, then get the bonus and the free settler. The settler is especially nice because building one take a long time early in the game and I generally don't have enough gold to buy one yet. After the free one, I eventually reach a point where my capital can build a third and I can purchase a fourth to round out my early expansion. Staying with four tall core cities and building a puppet empire works very well in my experience. By the time I have finished both Tradition and Liberty, Rationalism is open. I find that Piety (mostly because I prefer Rationalism), Patronage, and Commerce do not fit my play style very well. The Tradition/Liberty combo is much better than wasting time on any of these mediocre alternatives.

 

[ChipB]

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).

I'm glad I'm not the only one that sees this as the primary benefit of the Tradition opener. If I'm remembering correctly its actually a 75% reduction in border growth cost and it applies to all of your cities (not just the capital). Its a HUGE help in filling in those spaces between cities if you aren't doing ICS city placement and border growth always seems glacially slow to me when I don't pick up Tradition.

To me, the +3 culture is just an added bonus that mean that picking up Tradition for the border expansion is nearly free. Sure I won't be finishing Liberty (or Honor or whatever) quite as quickly, but I'll only be a couple turns behind which is a small price to pay for super fast border expansion imo.