How is Liberty Supposed to Work in BNW?

[Redaxe]

Probably the best strategy for ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) or an early wide Civ is to play Egypt. Burial Tombs give you +2 and cost no maintenance. Hopefully you get a desert placement so you can get Desert folklore which will give you an early powerful religion and you can snag Pagodas and Mosques/Cathedrals.

That strategy with Liberty will net you +6 happiness per city including Meritocracy (liberty policy)

 

[Dentalfury]

I also agree that Liberty is problematic at best. But I still end up using it in about 50% of my games. If I from the outset plan on having more than 4 cities or going on a killing spree I will invest in it at the expense of Tradition but even in those game I always fill out both Tradition and Liberty trees going back and forth based on my needs or goals at the moment.

Right now i'm playing as the Dutch and I plan on having about 5 core cities with perhaps 6 to 8 in the wings based on how successful my games turns out and how aggressive my neighbors end up being (Shaka is among them...). So far my game is going well though, the only setback i've had so far in the game is losing out on Petra with a desert city specifically placed to with it in mind...

 

[Redaxe]

Amen to this. I'm just playing a wide game as Zulus, continents map standard size (Liberty/Honor/Exploration/Order), and I conquered my entire continent (minus city states) which means I now have 28 cities. I've been suffering terribly from unhappiness and lacking behind in science, there is a total of 5 or 6 different luxuries on my continent (which is not a lot when you have 28 cities!) and even though I have 5-6 surplus of each of them, nobody want to trade with me because they think I'm a warmonger. There is one (one!) stack of coal on my entire continent sitting outside CS territory, and while this obviously means it's worthwhile to control this spot, this is not enough to support such a big empire. On the bottomline I can say that I have gained absolutely nothing from going wide instead of going tall: My science has not been faster, my happiness has been MUCH worse, I'm still reliant on City State allies for strategic resources and I'm the pariah of the world for being a warmonger (two out of three wars started, I should say, by the other civs DoW'ing me, because they felt I was expanding too fast, but I know AI cares little about that).

Well there is a reason that luxuries tend be clumped so it helps facilitate trade and conquest. If your starting area had access to every luxury on the map then the devs may as well just remove luxuries altogether. But I would say your other problem is having 28 cities, just raze the ones that don't have access to resources you need or wonders. You don't need that many cities and it works against you.

But yeah I hope they do something to make terrain a bit more interesting if not in the next expansion then for Civ6. Types of resources like 'Rare Earth Metals' that would give a bonus to late game military unit production etc.

 

[jtwood]

Just to clarify, is the map/resource commentary basically stating that Liberty is actually playable on smaller maps but less viable as map size increases?

 

[Civsassin]

Liberty is much more situational, but unfortunately, decisions often have to be made early and with incomplete information. I have also found that delaying expansion can be helpful. This way, you can connect any luxury resources you have and get your science up and running. In my last game, I founded one city with the free settler, built libraries in both cities, and the NC before going for major expansion. I dominated the entire game on Immortal. It was one of my most convincing wins in a long while. All said and done, before beginning my warmongering, I had about 8 cities with only two on my original land mass. My highest population city was my capital with only 22 population. I used the free GE for Notre Dame, which I prioritized, since I was going wide. All in all, this game definitely flipped my opinion of Liberty. It is a viable strategy under the right conditions, while Tradition is a good starting policy tree in almost any start. That is the big difference between the two.

 

[kaspergm]

Well there is a reason that luxuries tend be clumped so it helps facilitate trade and conquest. If your starting area had access to every luxury on the map then the devs may as well just remove luxuries altogether. But I would say your other problem is having 28 cities, just raze the ones that don't have access to resources you need or wonders. You don't need that many cities and it works against you.

But yeah I hope they do something to make terrain a bit more interesting if not in the next expansion then for Civ6. Types of resources like 'Rare Earth Metals' that would give a bonus to late game military unit production etc.

I did get the number of cities wrong though, it was only 14, but still ...

Anyway, about the resources, this is definitely a very tough nut to crack. On one hand, I think we need incentive for expansion. On the other hand, it can be a pain to play a game without access to key resources ... god only knows how many civ games I've rage-quit since Civ III came out because I didn't have any access to Iron, Coal, Rubber, Aluminum or what-not resource played a crucial part in my strategy.

I can come up with two ways one could achieve this, and they could merge (but does not necessarily have to involve that) in a game feature á la coorporations from Civ IV (yes, I know, either you love them or you hate them). The two things are:

1. More focus on bonus resources and the number of resources you have access to.
2. Resources that only become available on the map at a certain point during the game, like in renaissance or industrial era.

With regards to #1, the problem with the current bonus resource system is that they only play a role on the local plane. Sure, a couple of Wheat or Cows can be great for your city, but they don't do anything for you other than just boosting the city. What this means is that if you have no other benefit from founding the city, the resources themselves are pointless. We now have per-city penalties to culture, science, and happiness, and this puts a huge damper on the incentive to found new cities. Fixed number of trade routes doesn't help. Luxury resources are a bit better in this regard, because acces to a luxury resource will increase global happiness and potentially more copies to trade, but again, you pay with happiness to get happiness, so in the end, it might be a bad deal.

This leaves us with only stuff like strategic resources, archeology sites and natural wonders to motivate expansion. Strategic resources are a dangerous handle to turn, because leaving a civ completely cut off from say, Coal, means a huge setback in industrial era, yet on the other hand, if everybody has a little Coal, then you lose the incentive to expand for more. Control over archeological sites arguably are one of the major reasons to expand now, but that doesn't seem to cut it, and natural wonders are so few and normally always with city states (why, btw?) so as to not make them a real factor.

I do think a wider application of bonus resources could help with this. One of the turning points of the industrial revolution was the ability to mass produce stuff from new materials aquired from around the world. I think this is something we really need in the game. Possibly coupled with #2, namely new resources (bonus resources, or call them a completely new class of resources), this could provide a central part of the game: To control lands to get access to these new resources (and the old ones!) which you can then put to work in your factories and make goods to sell to other civs. Imagine something that works like the Great Works system, but where instead your Forges, Factories, Windmills, and I don't know what other buildings one could come up with, could be assigned different resources and in turn provide you new luxuries to sell.

That would both be great fun, and it would add a whole new level to the game in terms of importance of going wide. Then tall would still be standing as the powerhouses for Science, but with the disadvantage of less happiness (which they don't need anyway) and less economic output.

 

[Wodan]

Aqueducts/growth bonus is overrated.

I disagree with that. If anything, it's underrated. The biggest reason is, I think people forget that, unlike previous versions of Civ, your base science is equal to your # of population. In Civ 4, for example, it was based on commerce, not population.

You get the same number of trade routes for having 1 city or 10 cities. Trade routes are now a big part of your income and generally that income is increased from tall cities that have more buildings and population.

You're ignoring city connections to the capital. City connections =/= trade routes. Both provide income.

 

[Browd]

And income for city connections will eventually dwarf what you get from trade routes (or from tithe, for that matter).

 

[Cromagnus]

Liberty is great. Not as good as Tradition *IMHO* in BNW, but still very viable. Just don't think of it as going wide.

For me, Liberty serves three purposes.

#1) If you play it right, you *will* get 4 cities out faster. On Deity, you might need Liberty to get 4 cities out *at all* because of unchecked AI growth. I typically reach 4 15 turns faster from the free settler and cheaper production. It makes a big difference.
#2) It's the new Honor. Honor kind of sucks now. Liberty is very effective for warmongering because it handles the extra cities better. Tradition is really about one big capital. Liberty is about a lot of medium-sized cities, which is exactly what you get when warmongering. Plus, pyramid pillage-healing every turn is extremely effective. (Yes, arguably broken, but it makes Liberty suck less)
3) The free Great Person at the completion of Liberty is extremely effective. There's virtually no other way to get a GE or GS this early in the game. On Deity, this can be used effectively in 3 different ways:
* To rush a wonder that would be too expensive or you would most likely fail to get otherwise. (Machu Picchu for money, Notre Dame for happiness, Pisa for the GPP and another free Wonder, National College with 5-6 cities, Petra, etc.)
* To bulb a GS and rush to get early X-Bows, Caravels, Cannons or UU. This may sound like a waste, but the importance, on Deity, of clearing your continent before any AI gets caravels cannot be understated. You will have *zero* warmongering penalty if you do this. Getting Caravels before anyone else = controlling the World Congress on Continents.
* To plant a GS to help make up for your 5%/city extra cost

That all being said, they need to change the +5% to buildings in Liberty to -50% off the per city tech cost increase. (IE bringing it down to +2.5% per city)

This would restore Liberty to its former place as an equal with Tradition IMHO. Right now, it's nerfed for everything but early conquest.

However, keep in mind that early conquest is a very viable way to win with any VC. Capping two nearby capitals, then hunkering down with your 6-7 cities, can be very effective. If you start next to a known wonder-whore like Pacal, Egypt, etc. you can get some really nice free Wonders in good city locations. This makes up for the downside of extra cities.

 

[DarkAmen]

On a standard size map; Tradition is good to take up a fair amount of the map space and feels good. On a standard map Liberty doesn't allow you to expand too much more; so feels a little underwhelming. On a large map a 4 city trad start feels wrong as you get a lot of space around you and struggle with trade routes. liberty feels a lot better on large maps: with religion & coliseums for happiness whilst stopping growth on not v.good cities etc. you can grow quickly and it feels right

 

[Matthew.]

I disagree with that. If anything, it's underrated. The biggest reason is, I think people forget that, unlike previous versions of Civ, your base science is equal to your # of population. In Civ 4, for example, it was based on commerce, not population.

Growth increases exponentially. To get from 1 - 15 pop. is stupid easy, but to get from 15 to 25 takes a lot of effort. With very wide play, you won't be pushing cities to the 20+ range until the very late game. At which point, if you need/want the aqueduct you can just build it in two turns.

The point is people overvalue it too much when comparing the two trees. Yes, it is nice to get ASAP, especially without the tech, if you are trying to abuse Monarchy and get a 40+ size capital, but needing to hard build them in a wider game is far from being an issue.

 

[BroOfTheSun]

This thread should come with a disclaimer. The majority of players in this thread play on standard size maps, where it has already been proven that Tradition is better than Liberty for a majority of games (i.e. let's just say going Tradition over Liberty gives you a faster win by about 80% of games). Note I'm saying faster win...you can still win with Liberty. I'm guessing a majority of players here are Deity players as well, who follow the current meta game. So you're examples are from Deity games(?)

Just want to say, there are more map sizes besides Standard. Liberty works really well in Large and Huge maps. Much better than tradition does.

Bottom line, Tradition's bonuses apply to 4 cities ONLY. Liberty's bonuses apply to all cities. That is the main difference between these policy trees. Tradition scales with population in 4 cities. Liberty scales with # of cities. Some things in this game were designed to work on larger maps sizes. Some of them were designed with smaller maps sizes in mind. The developers gave us a lot of options to work with. Pick a larger map, go with Liberty, settle lots of cities. Pick a smaller map, go with Tradition, settle four cities. (either way, it's a game of civ. Please just try to have fun).

End thread...please move on.

 

[Matthew.]

How much would you say you benefited from taking Liberty in this game instead of taking Tradition? I mean, with 6 cities, you're not much over the 4-city tradition target. Certainly, the free Settler and increased Settler production will have saved you some time, but overall, how do you evaluate this?

Cities were settled at about turn 63ish, which would be tough to do without a lot of gold spent on settlers in Tradition. I'm getting 50% less penalty on future policies. Since I didn't need to burn gold on getting settlers out, it allowed me to save up for units/upgrades and to secure a mercantile CS after finishing a quest. It doesn't seem like it would make a difference, but I really like the +1 hammer when pumping out archers from secondary cities.

I'm not arguing you cannot play wide with Tradition, just as you can play tall with Liberty. I'm only arguing that the game still does allow you to play quite wide, and Liberty is a decent tree when considering such play. 7/8 difficulties it plays just fine, and still viable on Deity if you are willing to play aggressively (AI won't let you peacefully settle 8 cities unless you are very lucky on the map set-up).

I'm willing to bet that all the people saying it is impossible to play beyond 4 cities, if they were to post screenshots of where their empire fell apart, there would be obvious mistakes the player made and nothing to do with base mechanics. In other words, it is a player error which can be solved just by learning how to play differently.

 

[Matthew.]

(i.e. let's just say going Tradition over Liberty gives you a faster win by about 80% of games). Note I'm saying faster win...you can still win with Liberty.

And yet the finish times are close enough where it is a trivial issue, so there is no significant reason to choose Tradition over Liberty. It reminds me of queen vs. king pawn openings in chess: thousands of computer simulations have been done and the game has been analyzed to death, yet grandmasters will still choose one or the other depending on various factors, even though one opening may show a 64% win rate over a 57% win rate.

The only reason I'm so vocal is some of you are making it sound like opening with Liberty is like opening with a G7 pawn (which would be the Honor tree ), when in reality the two trees are actually very similar.

End thread...please move on.

Thanks for letting us know what we can or cannot discuss

 

[Wodan]

Growth increases exponentially. To get from 1 - 15 pop. is stupid easy, but to get from 15 to 25 takes a lot of effort.

To grow from 1-2 with a 40% head start gets you the extra pop that much sooner. That's an extra citizen working a tile AND giving you +1 for that many turns.
And again from 2-3.
And again from 3-4.
And again for 4-5.
And again 5-6.
And again 6-7.
And again 7-8.
And again 8-9.
And again 9-10.
And again 10-11.
and again 11-12.
And again 12-13.
And again 13-14.
And so on for the bigger city sizes too, which apparently is all that you value.

I don't care if it's "stupid easy," you get bonus and and more.

Speed is everything in this game... if I'm getting everything sooner than you, then I win.

The point is people overvalue it too much when comparing the two trees. Yes, it is nice to get ASAP, especially without the tech, if you are trying to abuse Monarchy and get a 40+ size capital, but needing to hard build them in a wider game is far from being an issue.

Never said it was an issue. I said people undervalued it.

Anyway, while the Tradition player is getting free and , the Liberty player is doubling-down, paying extra . That's a huge swing.

 

[Matthew.]

Speed is everything in this game... if I'm getting everything sooner than you, then I win.

Growing 1 pop in 8 cities without aqueducts is faster than 2 pop in 4 cities with aqueducts

Edit: In case it wasn't clear, I'm not disagreeing that aqueducts aren't great, but my original comment was based upon comparing the two trees and, in theory, if you are expanding with Liberty you are getting growth you wouldn't normally have, which makes the free aqueducts from the finisher not as powerful as it seems. Of course, you can play Tradition, get the finisher, and conquer later (probably the optimal choice), but either way if you are able to expand at the cost of delayed aqueducts, you are not actually behind.

 

[Depravo]

On the bottomline I can say that I have gained absolutely nothing from going wide instead of going tall: My science has not been faster, my happiness has been MUCH worse, I'm still reliant on City State allies for strategic resources and I'm the pariah of the world for being a warmonger ...

Yeah but... YOU CONTROL THE WHOLE CONTINENT

Sounds like it's time to excise every remaining rival capital with your no doubt bloated military and win the game before you fall decisively behind in tech.

 

[CraigMak]

I will try address your issues with liberty. The most obvious advantage is that you get your settler out sooner and +50% to settler production. This allows you to snag that land early and get your cities growing/making their foundation earlier. Happiness problems occur if your cap has only 1 unique lux and there are not many other unique lux around. Then you want to go tradition. Most games I find many luxuries to expand on or near. Plus try to get +1 happiness from rivers and an early worker to improve luxuries early so you can plant more cities. Open up luxury techs early as well. Try to plan cities 4 - 5 hexes apart so that you can connect them with roads early and get the +1 happy from city connections from liberty. As for your gold issues, if you are planting your cities near luxuries, some with redundant luxuries you can work them all for gold, then connect your cities with roads for more gold. If you do not build more cities with liberty than tradition you will fail to see any benefits from liberty. I can usually keep my cap as big as a tradition player very easily. This is because with more cities, I have more caravans that can send food to my cap and make it grow. The tradition player may have better growth policies but they may only have two other cities to give it caravans. Imagine a liberty player with 6 cities all sending food caravans to the cap. This will keep up or out pace the tradition player's growth. Also once you finish liberty you can begin filling out tradition policies and try to get mega OP monarchy for a massive gold and happiness bonus in the mid game. Liberty will have a production advantage with more cities and +1 hammer per city, this production advantage will win wars. The national college can be delayed for a while. I usually plant 4 - 5 cities let them grow, get a library and go for NC then plant more cities. Remember, everything is situational, if you don't have much room or many luxuries around liberty is not the way to go. Although I find it is the better choice 80% of the time due to its superior ability to obtain military conquest of early neighbors.

 

[Ninakoru]

Yeah, liberty should be better on bigger maps.... And liberty should be great because you offset more cities with more local happiness...

On practice tradition is better nayways. Just from experience. Even I prefer the liberty style of play, due to playing civ from over 10 years.

Liberty is seriously capped with gold and happiness, tradition is always fluid through the game. You keep your cities growing fast without happiness and gold issues, you get awesome-timed free-maintenance buildings, you get best prod from higher pop, and tons of passives that makes your life much easier.

My last game was on a large map, epic speed, gone tradition and peacefully landed 10 cities. No problems at all (Immortal), won by culture while being top 1 science 10 techs ahead, 600gpt, 30 happiness, 600 culture, many wonders...

OK, was Emperor, vey easy to me, but I couldn't get such a monster empire with liberty, happiness cap, and minor bonuses like culture cut, +1 culture and +1 prod can't compete the monster early setup you get from tradition.

 

[jtwood]

Yeah, liberty should be better on bigger maps.... And liberty should be great because you offset more cities with more local happiness...

I've been sporadically trying to play Liberty on a huge map for the last couple weeks, and I'm finding that you get the space to exploit Liberty, but the aforementioned, homogenous nature of luxury resources makes it hard to utilize that space properly without another crutch. Specifically, the clustered nature of luxuries multiplied by a huge map means that you have to build cities very far apart in order to get access to different resources. Otherwise, you just end up with 16 copies of the same resource. Because you have to build so far apart on a huge map, the Liberty city connection benefit becomes economically difficult to utilize, since the roads will have to be longer.

There are ways around this, of course. For example, I had one game that worked out eventually but only because I was playing Portugal on a map that had some good, seaside plots for cities. I was able to expand nicely by posting cities along the coastlines and hooking them up with harbors before finally boosting my happiness with Portugal's unique CS ability. If I had not had the harbor option, the whole plan would have been undermined by the cost of building double-digit length roads to connect cities that were built to exploit various luxury resources.

Anyway, this is my first foray into huge maps. Are they even worth playing? Seems like the game wasn't really optimized for them.