How is Liberty Supposed to Work in BNW?

[isau]

Here's how BNW games have worked for me so far in terms of policies:

"Okay this game I think I'll do something different and go with Liberty. It's not as bad as Piety or Honor, there's a lot of space and maybe this time I can take advantage of it." (I've been picking larger maps to facilitate this...)

[end up with exactly as many cities as with Tradition, except struggling with gold and happiness and with a lackluster capital]

[get frustrated, reload with Tradition, and proceed to dominate]

Okay, here's the deal. Just speaking in terms of raw mathematics, there is just no way I can figure out to expand past two or three early cities unless you play Pangea and can trade for luxuries to support the happiness. It's mathematically impossible as far as I can tell to maintain enough happiness. You literally need a luxury resource per city to even attempt it and since the map scripts divide resources between continents and by regions at most a given region will have 6 or so resources. It's also not unusual for a continent to have zero accessible sea luxuries.

What ends up happening in every game I play is that even if I want to go wide, Tradition is better because it provides a foundation to survive the first 150 turns and nothing I can figure out lets me safely expand past that. Any time I've tried Liberty, aside from the faster earlier settler it ends up being a waste. I end up with exactly as many early cities and just can't get any bigger without going bottom up. The entire time I feel like I'm treading water and just barely staying balanced, with a single pillaged resource or overextension causing the whole empire to grind to a halt.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong though? I remember how Liberty worked in Vanilla and G&K and while it was never perfect I could at least use it decently. I guess I could also mod the game to "fix" it the way it worked in BNW but is there some sort of way to make it actually work without putting your empire behind where you would have been?

 

[Makavcio]

Well, I generally share your opinion and I was struggling with BNW until I switched form my liberty-oriented GK games to full tradition. Nonetheless, there are 2 viable uses for liberty in BNW, and a bonus one if you play Venice.

Starting from the latter, if you play as Venice, you get Great Merchant instead of a settler, so you get your 2nd city very early. Haven't tried it because one-city challenges are utterly unattractive to me. Let's not forget about an additional city gained with liberty's finisher.

The second option that gained some popularity among players is using liberty as a culture buff. You get +1 culture per city with its opener and some people find it useful. I'm not among them. I guess one could afford it when playing as Poland. Faster workers and production bonus from liberty are also interesting.

My strategy is different. I use liberty only when I'm forced to go medieval on all asses around me. Enemy capitals are always really great in BNW and if you capture one, you get enough gold and happiness to facilitate 1 more city. It means that with 2 capitals captured you get:
1 your capital + 2 standard cities settled by you + 2 capitals + 2 cities (settled or conquered) supported by captured capitals = 7 cities
When you expand liberty tree, add +1 happiness and +2 culture from honor, and connect everything with roads, you get a wide, rich, sustainable empire with tons of spare luxuries for trade. I'm testing it on immortal/standard/continents right now. The obvious downside of this approach is that everyone sees you as Hitler v2.0.

 

[Juanholio]

+1; good question. I've noticed this too. I find with tradition I go for 3-4 cities and at a push with liberty 4-5. Even with decent-to-good luxury variablility (which often you don't know at the time of taking the opening policy) I still hit the usual limitations which slow everything down. The extra city or two doesn't seem worth the hassle; and with the financial changes I find it hard to make the gold work.

No matter what VC I play it seems to me that I'm better off going tradition. Not least since staying small means you're not provoking neighbours into attacking and is much easier to defend with only a handful of archers.

 

[isau]

+1; good question. I've noticed this too. I find with tradition I go for 3-4 cities and at a push with liberty 4-5. Even with decent-to-good luxury variablility (which often you don't know at the time of taking the opening policy) I still hit the usual limitations which slow everything down. The extra city or two doesn't seem worth the hassle; and with the financial changes I find it hard to make the gold work.

No matter what VC I play it seems to me that I'm better off going tradition. Not least since staying small means you're not provoking neighbours into attacking and is much easier to defend with only a handful of archers.

What's wild about it is that I actually love attacking neighbors. I do it every game, when viable, even if not going full Domination, because I just like making the empire expand. But even for Domination games I do so much better with Tradition than anything else that it's really noticeable. Early happiness was nerfed so hard, and the penalties for establishing a new city are so high, that I can't figure out a way to flourish without turtling.

For Domination specifically, the policy that gives you no maintenance cost on a garrison + extra city attack ends up being better than anything in Honor.

I'm not even sure that Tradition is really "overpowered" as some people say. It just seems like they went way overboard with nerfing early expansion, thus staying small is the only real option and Tradition therefor the obvious route for every situation.

(I do firmly believe that Piety is ridiculously underpowered though, and would be in any version of the game.)



In terms of how to fix it, is the "right" fix a buff to the happiness policy in Tradition to give you a couple of cities happy-penalty free?

 

[Makavcio]

Early happiness was nerfed so hard, and the penalties for establishing a new city are so high, that I can't figure out a way to flourish without turtling.

You could read my post above. I'm describing there a completely viable route to a large empire

 

[isau]

You could read my post above. I'm describing there a completely viable route to a large empire

I've tried that but still find Tradition better than Liberty for it, mainly because capturing an early capital in BNW carries huge diplomatic penalties I can't weather yet at that stage. I don't have anything to bribe other civs with yet and really can't do much other than harass other the rival until they gift a city.

 

[Idleray]

The main advantage of liberty is for warmongers, I find. As a Warmonger I will typically have captured up to 10 more cities in the mid-late game, and that's when the cultural bonus kicks in and makes annexing cities more attractive. Liberty players will have a stronger mid-late game culture game.... with happiness bonuses typically rivalling the ones given by the Tradition policy that only works in the capital.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Add to this the fact that the AI will react to you having 'too many cities' early on and 4-city Tradition becomes an utter no-brainer IMO.

CAN you win with Liberty? Sure, you certainly can. But you CAN win with Piety too...it's just more difficult...kinda like going with Liberty instead of Tradition...

I really cant understand why this is not addressed in some way in the 'balancing' patch. It seems MORE than obvious that 4-city Tradition is the way to go in the vast majority of situations. Sure, you can contrive a situation where Liberty works, but as a matter of course, Tradition is almost always better. To me, that's a pretty big red flag as a 'balance' issue....

 

[Liegence]

If I can't settle 6 or more cities I don't even consider it. The real advantage you have to leverage is the 50 percent bonus hammers for settlers. As we all know is that 6 city spots is a really great opportunity, so if you had that start does it even matter?

As with happiness, horses/elephants and religions go along way helping handle the happiness.

 

[Matthew.]

What ends up happening in every game I play is that even if I want to go wide, Tradition is better because it provides a foundation to survive the first 150 turns

The game is designed to limit city expansion in the early game. Liberty or not.

Any time I've tried Liberty, aside from the faster earlier settler it ends up being a waste.

It is an investment, not instant gratification. Reduced policy cost and happiness per city connection allows for a wider empire, even if that wider empire doesn't happen until mid-game. Faster workers means working those additional cities without needing extra workers around.

I end up with exactly as many early cities and just can't get any bigger without going bottom up.

Outside of capital, you shouldn't have any difference in happiness issues. It is a long time before aristocracy kicks in on secondary cities; meritocracy will be in effect long before that time. As for capital, if you are unable to secure extra resources to support its growth (solo on small continent or whatever), then use the free GP on an academy. It is roughly equal to 5 population in the capital.

The entire time I feel like I'm treading water and just barely staying balanced, with a single pillaged resource or overextension causing the whole empire to grind to a halt

Probably trying to force a wider expansion before you can realistically do so. Luxuries fuel early expansion and unless you get more through domination or trading, you need to be careful how wide you expand. You can go 5-6 cities in the early game, but it is dependent on a number of factors. Keep in mind it takes 3 happiness just to settle a city, so supporting a 5th city takes more than 1 luxury.

Also, as a general rule I try to keep two luxuries just for my capital. A strong capital is always important.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong though?

Probably. Growth isn't as important in wider empires. Aqueducts and bigger food surpluses are needed to boost cities from 10-ish population up to the 20's, but overkill on anything less. In short, if you are trying to play a wide empire like a Tradition game, it is no wonder you are struggling.

Granaries are a waste of maintenance. You will want them eventually to support scientist slots, but no need to rush them. Especially true with water mills--2 gold maintenance when you will be capped by happiness anyway is a waste. It can still be useful in capital though, especially if you have extra happiness available to support its growth and when trying to support artist slots. Aqueducts are rarely worth it except perhaps in the very late game. You can get to 9-10 pop. easy enough without them. Just more gold maintenance.

Don't bother with stables/forges unless you have multiple of those resources and/or plan on abusing the % modifier, otherwise the hammers spent barely pays for itself and you get additional gold maintenance on top of it. Workshops are excellent, but windmills can be ignored unless you plan on working the engineer slot.

Gardens and GP% modifier buildings are not as useful in wider empires. For example, if you are working GS slots in 8 different cities, it is a long time before the first city will get around to producing a second GS due to raising cost after every pop. Depending on the length of the game, a lot of cities won't produce more than 1 scientist, which means gardens are--yep--more gold maintenance. There is a reoccurring trend here, if you haven't discovered it yet.

The key part of making Liberty work is in the mid-game. You cannot and will not be able to boost a super capital to 50 population, so you need to push growth outwards. If conquering cities isn't your thing, you can still play wider but it is very dependent on luxury trades and city-state play. If you cannot do either, then you are playing a half-assed tall game without actually going tall. Stick with Tradition.

 

[Securion]

There is just not enough luxuries to settle more than four cities in any game, or on any map really. And thats why Liberty sucks, because in theory it does not. If you could find new luxuries and have more cities, Liberty would be working.

So basicly its a map script problem that kills Liberty. Not Liberty itself.

 

[sendos]

Furthermore, the Liberty finisher is so short term. It only works if you want to grab a wonder instantly with a GE or get faster tech with a GS. It's the sort of finisher that you have to leave for late game. This is because if you spend it early in game, all the GWAM's are useless, the great admirals and generals would drain your gpt unless you are next to a warmongering civ, so that leaves you with GE's, GS's and GP's.

 

[isau]

I think I may go ahead and mod Liberty until (hopefully) Firaxis fixes it. I guess the right policy to hit is the "bonus happiness per connected city" one. I just don't know how much to buff it just yet to make it work. Any ideas?

 

[Matthew.]

There is just not enough luxuries to settle more than four cities in any game, or on any map really. And thats why Liberty sucks, because in theory it does not. If you could find new luxuries and have more cities, Liberty would be working.

So basicly its a map script problem that kills Liberty. Not Liberty itself.

My last three games were this:

Germany 6 cities by turn 61, 8 cities by turn 135
Germany 5 cities by turn 62
Zulu 8 cities by turn 125

All Deity, standard pangaea default settings. Hit industrial era about turn 170-180, information era around 240-250.

I am not a very good Deity player. I can hold my own and win, but I cannot completely dominate it like some folk around here.

In short, the statement of not enough luxuries is false.

 

[Ninakoru]

I think I may go ahead and mod Liberty until (hopefully) Firaxis fixes it. I guess the right policy to hit is the "bonus happiness per connected city" one. I just don't know how much to buff it just yet to make it work. Any ideas?

I think you can boost the hapiness % cut from the same policy. a 7% instead of 5% would give 1 happiness per 15 pop instead of 20. That should help.

Tradition is stronger than liberty right now in most situations, but liberty can work great on bigger maps, where happiness isn't a big issue per city and the bonuses per city are still there. And is great on water maps, the +1 production makes a difference where production is quite limited.

But you need to know how to play liberty, it plays very different than tradition. It needs more planning and patience. You need to offset the happiness with local happiness boosters like colosseum or happiness from religion beliefs. You need to control growth and stay at stagnation or focusing on production at times. You need to control what you build because gold is a problem out of tradition.

But yeah, tradition own every other ancient policy, still liberty can work well if you know how to play it.

 

[Teagen]

I've tried four different games going liberty, and I really can't find a way to justify it.

It's basically like upping the difficulty level from king to emperor or something. All of the benefits of liberty seem so short term, while the benefits of tradition keep going well into the late game (even the +8 gold from the free buildings is useful forever!).

I guess if it were possible to expand to 15-20 cities the long term benefits of liberty might seem better (+1 hammer/culture, extra money/happiness from city connections, faster workers) but it's just SOOO hard to get to that level where it's noticeable.

Basically if you stick with ~4-6 cities the whole game and go liberty you trade off long term gains for short term boosts...which in the end, of course, just isn't worth it. Liberty NEEDS the big empire to justify it, but the BNW changes just don't make it possible to expand like that anymore.

 

[Silverman6083]

If I want to go wide I tend to do this:
Tradition-Legalism-Monarchy-Liberty-Citizenship-Merictocracy-Commerce-Trade Unions-Representation-Republic-(CR whenever I need a certain GP)-Rest of Commerce-Rationalism-Humanism-Free Thought-Order

 

[FilthyRobot]

Isau, I feel your pain. I asked this same question over in the multiplayer forum

Tired of Trad!
Let's talk Liberty

I didn't get good answers either; mostly I just got trolled:

At least 80% of the time liberty is superior to tradition. Even in a big FFA

is it so hard to understand that all your problems arent related to social policies but to bad gameplay?

The clearest argument I've pieced together from the threads is that Liberty, supposedly, gets access to better city spots for less hammers invested (cheaper settlers). This plus the +1h/city leads to a production advantage over Trad, that is then supposed to translate into an early military victory.

I've had people suggest that Liberty might also be stronger on standard speed and on smaller maps where the city-positions are really limited and the units have a longer shelf life.

People, for the most part, aren't addressing the gold/happiness issues that you and I are seeing or seem to imply that they don't have these issues.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

to truly go wide you either have to beline every bit of happiness policy you can get your hands on. or you need to play Egypt and get an early religion With Liberty. both work. but it is far easier to do with Egypt.

So my adwise to you is play Egypt/maya/songhai/poland if you want to go wide.

The other civs just cannot do it reliably by peaceful means.

The main reason Liberty is not that strong online is worker stealing from City states. without those free workers tradition would be weakened alot compared to Liberty.

Ok lets say you are a Vanilla civ and want to go wide. here is what you should pick: Liberty opener-free worker-honoer to military caste-meritocracy-tradition to monarchy-finish rest of tradtion.
Second you need to get a Natural faith Wonder nearby or build the Stonehenge. And pick messenger of the gods and all other happiness bonuses you can get from religion.

Third and perhaps most important you need good land to exspand to With little competition.

As Egypt it is far easier: Get collective rule-and get 2 Points in piety and finish Liberty. Get the great Library for early temples. Build shrines and temples first in Your newfound cities. Steal all the workers you can get from City states and do it again and again. Choose religion godess of love, ceremonial burial-feed the world-religois settlements- defender of the gods.

 

[JamesCivFan]

I had the same opinion too, until I found the big thread of the Zulu domination game guide. I am trying domination victory with tradition now (the guide clearly says to go Liberty), but I am struggling with happiness and thinking that I could also have the reduced policy costs from Liberty, I believe that -at least in this game- Liberty would be indeed a better option.

But, with that said, for a peaceful game, I kinda find it hard to choose Liberty for the following reasons:

1) If you choose to go with the free Settler first, you have to wait until turn~40, and you can actually get one out with Tradition by turn 40 anyway. I wish they would put the policy back to where it was in the Tree.

2) Again, choosing the Settler first, leaves you with the option of either stealing a worker from your neighbor, be it a civ or a CS, or hard building/buying one. In Tradition, you get your monument for free, so you can focus on a shrine, worker, granary, etc. I have found out and set this "rule" in any game I'm playing: Not having a worker by turn 25, maximum, will lead to serious falling behind in everything.

3) I saw in an above post that the guy had 6 cities by turn 61. I would love to see a detailed guide on how to do that, without struggling with happiness, and science later on. Because, realistically, you won't be able to have 6 libraries and build a rather expensive National College. Seeing MadDjinn's India video, he went for the NC pretty late (at turn 100, I believe) and he was struggling with science all game long.