Dralix
Killer of threads
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I see a bit of a contradiction in these two statements.
How is Liberty Supposed to Work in BNW?
- Thread starter isau
- Start date
I see a bit of a contradiction in these two statements.
Maybe before posting in this thread people should go back and read the original post. It was established that it seemed that Tradition was better than Liberty or that a different approach was needed. The question was asked...
What approach should that be? Or is Tradition the only optimal Social Policy when starting?
It is not really about 'good' and 'bad' players, but what principles should be applied in a Liberty SP opening and when to take this approach. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Liberty? On a typical map will Liberty always be less effective than Tradition and why?
My own limited experiences of Liberty at the moment is that it tends to upset the AI if I expand too widely early on which seems to be necessary if each new city must be able to secure a 'new' luxury. Otherwise I usually only get 4 cities. I think what Liberty does allow is:
Use fewer workers which saves a few hammers early on and gpt over the course of the game, I can actually run out of tiles to improve early on if I don't take this into account
Razing captured cities is an option, because of a quicker settler production rate
Generates more culture that Tradition once you found a fourth city
More cities can result in more gold eventually, but you have to really think if each city needs a particular building.
The free GP should be planned with your early goals, people like Babylon in part because they get a GS or is there a Classical/Medieval Wonder you simply must have
The +1 hammer seems trivial but of course does accumulate over the course of a game, a Monument & Aquaduct cost 150 hammers for example, and you get a extra hammers for all buildings.
Extra Happiness (and less unhappiness) kicks in once cities are connected by road so building non-luxury cites is a possibility to fill in the gaps
I am a Warmonger at heart and Liberty seems to get me into wars ...and I'm okay with that
What approach should that be? Or is Tradition the only optimal Social Policy when starting?
It is not really about 'good' and 'bad' players, but what principles should be applied in a Liberty SP opening and when to take this approach. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Liberty? On a typical map will Liberty always be less effective than Tradition and why?
My own limited experiences of Liberty at the moment is that it tends to upset the AI if I expand too widely early on which seems to be necessary if each new city must be able to secure a 'new' luxury. Otherwise I usually only get 4 cities. I think what Liberty does allow is:
Use fewer workers which saves a few hammers early on and gpt over the course of the game, I can actually run out of tiles to improve early on if I don't take this into account
Razing captured cities is an option, because of a quicker settler production rate
Generates more culture that Tradition once you found a fourth city
More cities can result in more gold eventually, but you have to really think if each city needs a particular building.
The free GP should be planned with your early goals, people like Babylon in part because they get a GS or is there a Classical/Medieval Wonder you simply must have
The +1 hammer seems trivial but of course does accumulate over the course of a game, a Monument & Aquaduct cost 150 hammers for example, and you get a extra hammers for all buildings.
Extra Happiness (and less unhappiness) kicks in once cities are connected by road so building non-luxury cites is a possibility to fill in the gaps
I am a Warmonger at heart and Liberty seems to get me into wars ...and I'm okay with that
It can and does get used on the highest difficulty with similar results. Optimal choice implies there is only one choice, thus no actual choice. You can choose to use Liberty and it does gives some other options and flexibility, but if you refuse to use anything but optimal, there will never be a convincing argument for you unless Liberty becomes the new optimal (at which point we'd have posts complaining how default-Libery is so boring and Tradition needs to be more competitive). Liberty vs. Tradition is far more competitive than any of the other policy trees.
Your earlier post made it sound like you are referring to multi-player? I don't play it, but I was under the impression that Liberty does very well in multi-player.
kaspergm
Deity
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I do get a slight feeling that you guys might be talking a bit besides each other, although I might be mistaken. There seems to be two discussions going here, one being how to play to use Liberty optimally, the other being whether (optimal) Liberty is as good as (or better than) (optimal) Tradition - with the general consensus about the term "good" meaning which lands you victory first.
From the original post this is the question (edited)
It has been suggested that it can/will put you behind in the early eras, it depends on how you measure being behind though. With Tradition you can get 3 cities up and at 10 pop with the NC, or so I have read (never managed it myself).
The discussion seems to then have been reduced into a simple I play Tradition/Liberty and it is best because...
once again the original question...
...is there some sort of way to make it actually work without putting your empire behind where you would have been?
Not about which one is better!
DarthSheldonPhD
Warlord
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My findings:
1.)Liberty and Tradition are two paints on your palette to create your masterpiece, your game. Just like paints on the palette, would someone say, "Black is universally applicable whereas red is only beneficial at times, therefore red sucks, I'm throwing it off the palette and forever will only make black/white art"? To further the analogy, black and red can be quite complementary, just like liberty and tradition.
2.)If you are struggling with Liberty, a good "training wheel" scenario to try is Indonesia on a archipelago/small continents map. The bonus luxuries cover the happiness cost due to expansion, and the redundant unique lux means that the first few cities settled immediately add 6 GPT, addressing another BNW growth stunt, early game economy. Finally, in addition to the UA lux which covers the initial expansion happiness cost, each city that provides access to a new luxury (on the map), adds 4 happiness to the empire, making early Indonesia the antithesis of India (which is probably a good trait as noone except me seems to care for India
) early expansion provides extra happiness.
3.)I find Liberty and Tradition to be opposite not because one favors short/wide and the other favors tall/narrow, but because one provides many benefits that are critical early game but negligible late game, whereas the other has benefits that are game-breaking late game and more optional early game:
Liberty: crucial early, marginal late:republic: early game shaves off 2, 5 or 10 turns from construction times, late game maybe 1 turn collective rule: an extra settler early doubles your empire and adds 10-25% to research, late-game it adds an insignificant contribution to your empire and can actually be harmful to research. citizenship: while there are better options for getting early workers, an early-game bonus worker WILL find work and the faster build times are helpful, especially when added to pyramids making roads 2 turns instead of 3, late game much of your territory is improved and the best option for an extra worker is to disband him for the nickel that you get.
Tradition: optional early, game-breaking late: aristocracy: If the game is played at a challenging difficulty level, early game wonders are not an option to build with or without this policy with few exceptions, and the happiness bonus yields 0, maybe 1. late-game: with a tech lead and other build/buy options for the essentials, wonders can be considered and the policy helps. The happiness bonus is 3 or 4 in the capital and 1-3 in every other city. Legalism: the later you get it, the more hammers you get out of it Monarchy: 2 or 3 happiness and gold early, 20 or 30 happiness and gold late. Landed Elite and Finisher shaves a turn or 2 off of a small capital (or other city) growing, a half dozen turns off a large capital's growth.
This doesn't apply to every policy in both trees, such as representation and the Liberty finisher being more beneficial late and monarchy being able to fuel an early game economy/happiness bank, but the benefits of Liberty can be game-changing early and the benefits of Tradition likewise for later game.
4.) One of the benefits of Liberty is that it is a much more flexible policy tree than Tradition. The three gems within the Liberty tree are collective rule, a critical early game acquisition, representation which has more noticeable cultural effect later game and the golden age obviously provides more gold, culture and production later in the game, and the finisher which is better later (would you rather have a great scientist instead of your 100 GPP great person, or your 1400 GPP great person?) Therefore a suitable strategy for Liberty is to get as far as the free settler and then enjoy the benefits of pursuing piety or Honor (or even Tradition). Later in the game, when golden ages are moving policies along, great writers can write you half of a policy, and certain wonders give you a freebie, you can quickly knock off the remaining three polcies which becomes a worthwhile tangent adding tons of happiness, a golden age, hundred of culture saved on policies, an expensive GP, and the ability to quickly improve newly conquered lands. The three gems in Tradition are landed elite, monarchy and the finisher, forcing the Tradition player to not divert from start to finish.
5.)I will digress that if I had to choose sides in the argument of SP tree vs. SP tree, I'd favor Tradition 10 out of 10 times. I played a game as France, a civilization that is well-suited towards liberty and pursued the liberty tree. Around turn 120, my five cities were struggling to maintain positive happiness, and the economy was just improving from negative to barely profitable. I needed to deploy 2 divisions of my military to ward off barb threats on different sides of my empire and then gave up when 2 battering rams and 6 horse archers marched onto an under-defended area of my land. Rather than rage-quit, I reloaded the initial auto save at turn 1 and tried again with Tradition. By the same time, my 3 cities were maintaining around +10 happiness, they were making about 30 gold/turn partially due to monarchy and the reduced maintenance but also due to the colossus's 5 GPT and the additional trade routes's 12 GPT, and the three cities were almost as good researching as the 5 city liberty. While I did lose both the fourth and fifth city sites, the extra production from population and gold enabled me to take it back aggressively. I had a similar experience and retry-with-tradition results with the Persians. I'm currently playing as the Maya using Liberty without tradition and it's going very well, but I think it's less because I'm playing Liberty well and more because Pacal is incredibly good. I imagine if I re-started and pursued Tradition instead, the results would be just as successful, probably more so.
1.)Liberty and Tradition are two paints on your palette to create your masterpiece, your game. Just like paints on the palette, would someone say, "Black is universally applicable whereas red is only beneficial at times, therefore red sucks, I'm throwing it off the palette and forever will only make black/white art"? To further the analogy, black and red can be quite complementary, just like liberty and tradition.
2.)If you are struggling with Liberty, a good "training wheel" scenario to try is Indonesia on a archipelago/small continents map. The bonus luxuries cover the happiness cost due to expansion, and the redundant unique lux means that the first few cities settled immediately add 6 GPT, addressing another BNW growth stunt, early game economy. Finally, in addition to the UA lux which covers the initial expansion happiness cost, each city that provides access to a new luxury (on the map), adds 4 happiness to the empire, making early Indonesia the antithesis of India (which is probably a good trait as noone except me seems to care for India
) early expansion provides extra happiness. 3.)I find Liberty and Tradition to be opposite not because one favors short/wide and the other favors tall/narrow, but because one provides many benefits that are critical early game but negligible late game, whereas the other has benefits that are game-breaking late game and more optional early game:
Liberty: crucial early, marginal late:republic: early game shaves off 2, 5 or 10 turns from construction times, late game maybe 1 turn collective rule: an extra settler early doubles your empire and adds 10-25% to research, late-game it adds an insignificant contribution to your empire and can actually be harmful to research. citizenship: while there are better options for getting early workers, an early-game bonus worker WILL find work and the faster build times are helpful, especially when added to pyramids making roads 2 turns instead of 3, late game much of your territory is improved and the best option for an extra worker is to disband him for the nickel that you get.
Tradition: optional early, game-breaking late: aristocracy: If the game is played at a challenging difficulty level, early game wonders are not an option to build with or without this policy with few exceptions, and the happiness bonus yields 0, maybe 1. late-game: with a tech lead and other build/buy options for the essentials, wonders can be considered and the policy helps. The happiness bonus is 3 or 4 in the capital and 1-3 in every other city. Legalism: the later you get it, the more hammers you get out of it Monarchy: 2 or 3 happiness and gold early, 20 or 30 happiness and gold late. Landed Elite and Finisher shaves a turn or 2 off of a small capital (or other city) growing, a half dozen turns off a large capital's growth.
This doesn't apply to every policy in both trees, such as representation and the Liberty finisher being more beneficial late and monarchy being able to fuel an early game economy/happiness bank, but the benefits of Liberty can be game-changing early and the benefits of Tradition likewise for later game.
4.) One of the benefits of Liberty is that it is a much more flexible policy tree than Tradition. The three gems within the Liberty tree are collective rule, a critical early game acquisition, representation which has more noticeable cultural effect later game and the golden age obviously provides more gold, culture and production later in the game, and the finisher which is better later (would you rather have a great scientist instead of your 100 GPP great person, or your 1400 GPP great person?) Therefore a suitable strategy for Liberty is to get as far as the free settler and then enjoy the benefits of pursuing piety or Honor (or even Tradition). Later in the game, when golden ages are moving policies along, great writers can write you half of a policy, and certain wonders give you a freebie, you can quickly knock off the remaining three polcies which becomes a worthwhile tangent adding tons of happiness, a golden age, hundred of culture saved on policies, an expensive GP, and the ability to quickly improve newly conquered lands. The three gems in Tradition are landed elite, monarchy and the finisher, forcing the Tradition player to not divert from start to finish.
5.)I will digress that if I had to choose sides in the argument of SP tree vs. SP tree, I'd favor Tradition 10 out of 10 times. I played a game as France, a civilization that is well-suited towards liberty and pursued the liberty tree. Around turn 120, my five cities were struggling to maintain positive happiness, and the economy was just improving from negative to barely profitable. I needed to deploy 2 divisions of my military to ward off barb threats on different sides of my empire and then gave up when 2 battering rams and 6 horse archers marched onto an under-defended area of my land. Rather than rage-quit, I reloaded the initial auto save at turn 1 and tried again with Tradition. By the same time, my 3 cities were maintaining around +10 happiness, they were making about 30 gold/turn partially due to monarchy and the reduced maintenance but also due to the colossus's 5 GPT and the additional trade routes's 12 GPT, and the three cities were almost as good researching as the 5 city liberty. While I did lose both the fourth and fifth city sites, the extra production from population and gold enabled me to take it back aggressively. I had a similar experience and retry-with-tradition results with the Persians. I'm currently playing as the Maya using Liberty without tradition and it's going very well, but I think it's less because I'm playing Liberty well and more because Pacal is incredibly good. I imagine if I re-started and pursued Tradition instead, the results would be just as successful, probably more so.
Scott Jegg
Warlord
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When I play culture games, I generally rush to universities, back down for printing press, then back up to Archaeology and Architecture. I'll be aiming to take in all of Pisa, Globe Theatre, Sistine, and Uffizi. This is at immortal level.
I played this way several times with with different civs and different starts of liberty and tradition. Even though in most cases I can get to printing press a little faster with Tradition, with the bonus GPs from liberty, I can get all of those wonders more often than not with liberty, whereas it's a stretch with tradition. What's more, with liberty I'm always much stronger with military, and generally get all the city locations that I wanted. Happiness is not a problem, because I only need the leftmost three from liberty to start with, meaning I can dip into piety for an easy religion. This generally means a great boost in cash from initiation rites, plus either pagodas or other beliefs to boost happiness. Liberty will work in just about any terrain too, because you don't need to worry about big growth, and that 1 extra hammer makes a massive difference to getting things up and running. Settle cities on hills and you are a sorted.
I like both tradition and liberty, but I'm growing to prefer liberty. I don't really think the ICS of G&K is truly possible till the order happiness tenets kick in, which is maybe where people are going wrong with it. I wouldn't grow past 5 or 6 cities in the early stages just to keep things in check.
I just think it's plain wrong to say that tradition wins hands down.
I played this way several times with with different civs and different starts of liberty and tradition. Even though in most cases I can get to printing press a little faster with Tradition, with the bonus GPs from liberty, I can get all of those wonders more often than not with liberty, whereas it's a stretch with tradition. What's more, with liberty I'm always much stronger with military, and generally get all the city locations that I wanted. Happiness is not a problem, because I only need the leftmost three from liberty to start with, meaning I can dip into piety for an easy religion. This generally means a great boost in cash from initiation rites, plus either pagodas or other beliefs to boost happiness. Liberty will work in just about any terrain too, because you don't need to worry about big growth, and that 1 extra hammer makes a massive difference to getting things up and running. Settle cities on hills and you are a sorted.
I like both tradition and liberty, but I'm growing to prefer liberty. I don't really think the ICS of G&K is truly possible till the order happiness tenets kick in, which is maybe where people are going wrong with it. I wouldn't grow past 5 or 6 cities in the early stages just to keep things in check.
I just think it's plain wrong to say that tradition wins hands down.
Gehennas
Warlord
Okay. Here is my noob opinion about liberty:
I usually play on King/Emperor + Large Map (Fractal) + Standard Speed. Liberty works quite well.
Of course, I tried it only in certain circimstances (this happens often enough on large maps):
1. I have good religious start. Religion is synergic with early expansion.
2. I have enough room to expand. If I haven't met anyone before turn 25, I am sure about it.
In this case liberty works much better than tradition. The main parts of the strategy are the following:
1. NC should be build while there are only 2 cities. After that you can start building settlers.
2. Religion should be founded asap. Important beliefs are Religious Center and Pagodas. You can replace them with any similar beliefs if these are already taken.
3. Also it is important to get piety opener and organized religion.
4. Granaries/aqueducts should be built in capital only and 2-3 most important production-heavy cities. Other cities should be TP-spammed with several farms and resource improvements.
5. As soon as you get ideology, you should pick + happiness tenets and build more farms in your TP-spammed cities.
I usually play on King/Emperor + Large Map (Fractal) + Standard Speed. Liberty works quite well.
Of course, I tried it only in certain circimstances (this happens often enough on large maps):
1. I have good religious start. Religion is synergic with early expansion.
2. I have enough room to expand. If I haven't met anyone before turn 25, I am sure about it.
In this case liberty works much better than tradition. The main parts of the strategy are the following:
1. NC should be build while there are only 2 cities. After that you can start building settlers.
2. Religion should be founded asap. Important beliefs are Religious Center and Pagodas. You can replace them with any similar beliefs if these are already taken.
3. Also it is important to get piety opener and organized religion.
4. Granaries/aqueducts should be built in capital only and 2-3 most important production-heavy cities. Other cities should be TP-spammed with several farms and resource improvements.
5. As soon as you get ideology, you should pick + happiness tenets and build more farms in your TP-spammed cities.
kaspergm
Deity
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I usually take the free Settler, build a third Settler, and then build Pyramids because I'm hitting a happiness roof for founding new cities anyway. But I'm not a really "pro" player.
Alziel
Warlord
I've been following this thread with interest and wanted to quickly throw in my own opinion.
As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of any game is to have fun. How you have that fun is a matter of personal taste.
Some people get a kick from beating the game at the highest difficulty level in the shortest amount of turns possible. This is fine and there is little doubt that on standard settings, Tradition will nearly always prove to be the optimum policy tree.
However, I've had plenty of games where I've started with Liberty or even Honour or Piety (or I 'mix and match') and still scored a win - and I had a huge amount of fun in those games. Each tree added a different flavour to the experience beyond what the random settings provide. Granted, many of these wins end up in the 400-500 turn range but I really couldn't care less. The path to the victory is where I get my kicks.
I also play on Emperor level and have no desire to go up to Immortal or Deity. I've played on both of these difficulty levels and scored wins on both as well - but I don't find playing at these levels fun at all. Any lower than Emperor is just too easy - for me the level I play at is what suits me best.
I agree that Liberty (and more so Honour and Piety) would benefit from a minor 'buff' (or Tradition could take a minor 'nerf') but I certainly would never say that the other trees are useless.
Personally, I like the idea of moving the purchase of GEs to Liberty and leaving Tradition without a Great Person finisher. But even if this (or any other 'buff') never happens it certainly won't stop me from playing with a Liberty start as often as I would choose Tradition or any other early policy tree.
At the end of the day, as long as a person enjoys the game and is having fun doing what they like to do who cares what other people think?
As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of any game is to have fun. How you have that fun is a matter of personal taste.
Some people get a kick from beating the game at the highest difficulty level in the shortest amount of turns possible. This is fine and there is little doubt that on standard settings, Tradition will nearly always prove to be the optimum policy tree.
However, I've had plenty of games where I've started with Liberty or even Honour or Piety (or I 'mix and match') and still scored a win - and I had a huge amount of fun in those games. Each tree added a different flavour to the experience beyond what the random settings provide. Granted, many of these wins end up in the 400-500 turn range but I really couldn't care less. The path to the victory is where I get my kicks.
I also play on Emperor level and have no desire to go up to Immortal or Deity. I've played on both of these difficulty levels and scored wins on both as well - but I don't find playing at these levels fun at all. Any lower than Emperor is just too easy - for me the level I play at is what suits me best.
I agree that Liberty (and more so Honour and Piety) would benefit from a minor 'buff' (or Tradition could take a minor 'nerf') but I certainly would never say that the other trees are useless.
Personally, I like the idea of moving the purchase of GEs to Liberty and leaving Tradition without a Great Person finisher. But even if this (or any other 'buff') never happens it certainly won't stop me from playing with a Liberty start as often as I would choose Tradition or any other early policy tree.
At the end of the day, as long as a person enjoys the game and is having fun doing what they like to do who cares what other people think?
I completely agree, Liberty/Honor games seem more fun for some reason. Maybe it is because they throw up unexpected situations more often than a by the numbers Tradition approach.
kaspergm
Deity
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Very well-written post. We are completely identical on everything except the last part (and that I still have to win on Deity
). Great Engineers are arguably the strongest GP along with GS, so both getting a free GP AND buy GE would be unjust. Unless you want to put the free GP over in Tradition, but not sure that'll be better ...How about Liberty gets the option to buy Settlers with faith? Just a random thought ...
Any time a player starts a liberty game, quits, and reloads the game and goes tradition, tradition will be better for that game, due to the knowledge gained from the liberty start. You already know where the good spots to settle cities are, who your neighbors are, and it will affect your play.
But if that proves to you tradition is "better" than liberty, so be it for you.
Wide empires take time to build. I am glad ICS is no longer a valid strategy. With liberty one needs to understand when to build a city, that does not cripple your empire. Not a thought for a traditional player. That 33% decrease in policy cost per city adds up over time.
Yes I forward settle on the AI to get strong city locations. I plan it, and won't forward settle on someone like Attila. I also pledge to not settle in their lands again, keep that promise, and have a trading partner.
I also dip into the tradition tree, for the benefits over there.
Do I win the game by turn 240, no, not my goal. I have done a 265 win on deity, a boring, got to do this next game. Got to overcome the heavy starting bonus the AI gets.
For those who just want to break it down to the mathematical formulas, of which is the "optimal" tree, go for it. But remember that the optimal mathematical formulas took years and years to overcome the human chess player, in a less complex game.
But if that proves to you tradition is "better" than liberty, so be it for you.
Wide empires take time to build. I am glad ICS is no longer a valid strategy. With liberty one needs to understand when to build a city, that does not cripple your empire. Not a thought for a traditional player. That 33% decrease in policy cost per city adds up over time.
Yes I forward settle on the AI to get strong city locations. I plan it, and won't forward settle on someone like Attila. I also pledge to not settle in their lands again, keep that promise, and have a trading partner.
I also dip into the tradition tree, for the benefits over there.
Do I win the game by turn 240, no, not my goal. I have done a 265 win on deity, a boring, got to do this next game. Got to overcome the heavy starting bonus the AI gets.
For those who just want to break it down to the mathematical formulas, of which is the "optimal" tree, go for it. But remember that the optimal mathematical formulas took years and years to overcome the human chess player, in a less complex game.
Here is an American game. Deity standard pangaea.
Turn 115:
Turn 200:
Turn 322
I was positive happiness for all game except for the last couple of cities. Yes, I am aware that Venice as a neighbor made it easier to settle cities, although I'd still probably hit 6.
Full Liberty, full Commerce, only Rationalism opener and Secularism, then various Autocracy tenets as the game progressed. Didn't bother with Research Labs or Factories (in retrospect, the factories may have been useful but I had "won" the game by around 290 and had nothing else to do with my cities, so I just kept training more units).
I'm liking BNW's new domination game. The 5% tech penalty really curbs the snowball effect, so you actually get a chance to use late-game military units. Hiawatha went massive runaway with a peak beaker per turn of like 3500, yet he didn't finish the tech tree. On my side, I picked up like 4 new techs by the time I started conquering (~turn 230) to when I finished. Tech rate practically freezes.
Turn 115:
Turn 200:
Turn 322
I was positive happiness for all game except for the last couple of cities. Yes, I am aware that Venice as a neighbor made it easier to settle cities, although I'd still probably hit 6.
Full Liberty, full Commerce, only Rationalism opener and Secularism, then various Autocracy tenets as the game progressed. Didn't bother with Research Labs or Factories (in retrospect, the factories may have been useful but I had "won" the game by around 290 and had nothing else to do with my cities, so I just kept training more units).
I'm liking BNW's new domination game. The 5% tech penalty really curbs the snowball effect, so you actually get a chance to use late-game military units. Hiawatha went massive runaway with a peak beaker per turn of like 3500, yet he didn't finish the tech tree. On my side, I picked up like 4 new techs by the time I started conquering (~turn 230) to when I finished. Tech rate practically freezes.
Gort
Emperor
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- Nov 7, 2010
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- 1,518
This reads so damn cheesily. "Tradition might be a more powerful tree, but Liberty has heart!" *bursts into tears at just how goddamn beautiful one set of bonuses is compared to another*
Ninakoru
A deity on Emperor
First of all I suspect your post is just a troll post, but anyways:
Well, even Tradition is much simpler, I guess you don't master Tradition, weird enough being a Deity player. Tradition will net you equal or more science than liberty, with both played to their fullest.
Seriously?? First of all, the 25% faster workers on paper is less than 20% higher speed, because how turn times are calculated, the system always rounds up. True Pyramids is low priority for AI, but sometimes is goes off blazing fast, so is not reliable at all. You usually finish working tiles quite fast because usually you have much less population working tiles than in tradition...
In Deity, your supposed level of usual play, Temple of Artemis is a bit hard to get. 10% is not "just as good" than 15% plus 25% in capital, and you should count in a policy-free wonder to compare two policies, because tradition can get temple of artemis, and BTW has a easier time doing so.
Funny comming from a player who doesn't hit industrial first with Tradition... This is the main reason I think your post is just trolling.
Cromagnus
Deity
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- Sep 11, 2012
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- 2,272
Since the patch, I'm only getting a 50% success rate going for Pyramids. One time it went on turn 38, often by turn 44. If you try to get it earlier than that you have no archers, and since the patch the AI spams units and WILL DoW you, and WILL own you. So, the Pyramids are now a risk, just like HG. Your Liberty strategy can't rely on Pyramids anymore, and let's be honest, everyone who goes Liberty *does* rely on getting it.
Does that make Tradition better? No. Neither tree requires a Wonder to be successful. However, Liberty's unlockable Wonder shaves many turns off the early game, and HG does not. Sure, HG makes you grow faster, but that benefit is not nearly as immediate and drastic as the benefit of 3 workers and 50% better tile construction rate. Here's why:
You *need* to get a second and third city out ASAP on Deity to secure luxuries and create a defensible perimeter, and to get cities close to your neighbors for trade routes and (if you're so inclined) conquest. This is not optional. OCC is not effective on Deity right now in BNW. (With the significant exception of Sun God & 3+ wheat tiles and mad hills, holy growth machine!! But I digress...)
Nothing in Tradition helps you get out that second and third city as fast as Liberty. Tradition helps eventually, but you have to work all those tiles first. Liberty helps you work those tiles faster and that is huge. Faster sale of luxuries and strategics for gpt, faster chop, faster farms. It's very significant, despite the rounding. Every action is at least one turn faster, and you're getting those workers out faster.
Still not saying Liberty is better. But it IS more flexible. Bad food in your start? Not enough luxuries? No observatory? No seaport? Is there a good NW nearby? Not close enough to neighbors for trade routes? Liberty gets you that second and third spot faster, without *sacrificing growth in your capital* building settlers. And *that* is huge. The free one, and the reduced build time, equate to stagnating your capital from turn 30-50 or so, instead of stagnating from turn 45-50. Oh, and that worker you didn't have time to build because you were stagnating to build settlers? It's chopping forest to reduce your settler build time.
For Deity, flexibility is everything. I still have more wins on Deity with Tradition, because I played it exclusively for so long, but Liberty is quickly becoming my favorite because I have less *bad starts*. IE higher win percentage. Deity forces you to adjust to your situation, and Liberty is just better at that. In my opinion. Tradition, if you get a good start, equals a faster victory in most cases, with the exception of Domination, where I feel Liberty has the edge on most maps, but Tradition is more vulnerable to bad starts.
Eh, whatever. I like them both. The real problem is Honor and Piety sucking so bad. Let's debate Liberty vs Tradition when they aren't both worlds better than the other two!
Does that make Tradition better? No. Neither tree requires a Wonder to be successful. However, Liberty's unlockable Wonder shaves many turns off the early game, and HG does not. Sure, HG makes you grow faster, but that benefit is not nearly as immediate and drastic as the benefit of 3 workers and 50% better tile construction rate. Here's why:
You *need* to get a second and third city out ASAP on Deity to secure luxuries and create a defensible perimeter, and to get cities close to your neighbors for trade routes and (if you're so inclined) conquest. This is not optional. OCC is not effective on Deity right now in BNW. (With the significant exception of Sun God & 3+ wheat tiles and mad hills, holy growth machine!! But I digress...)
Nothing in Tradition helps you get out that second and third city as fast as Liberty. Tradition helps eventually, but you have to work all those tiles first. Liberty helps you work those tiles faster and that is huge. Faster sale of luxuries and strategics for gpt, faster chop, faster farms. It's very significant, despite the rounding. Every action is at least one turn faster, and you're getting those workers out faster.
Still not saying Liberty is better. But it IS more flexible. Bad food in your start? Not enough luxuries? No observatory? No seaport? Is there a good NW nearby? Not close enough to neighbors for trade routes? Liberty gets you that second and third spot faster, without *sacrificing growth in your capital* building settlers. And *that* is huge. The free one, and the reduced build time, equate to stagnating your capital from turn 30-50 or so, instead of stagnating from turn 45-50. Oh, and that worker you didn't have time to build because you were stagnating to build settlers? It's chopping forest to reduce your settler build time.
For Deity, flexibility is everything. I still have more wins on Deity with Tradition, because I played it exclusively for so long, but Liberty is quickly becoming my favorite because I have less *bad starts*. IE higher win percentage. Deity forces you to adjust to your situation, and Liberty is just better at that. In my opinion. Tradition, if you get a good start, equals a faster victory in most cases, with the exception of Domination, where I feel Liberty has the edge on most maps, but Tradition is more vulnerable to bad starts.
Eh, whatever. I like them both. The real problem is Honor and Piety sucking so bad. Let's debate Liberty vs Tradition when they aren't both worlds better than the other two!
Wodan
Deity
This logic rests upon the assumption that there is only one optimal game play style. I refuse to believe that.
Quite a few factors affect play style: terrain, choice of civ, enemy civs, randomness of various sorts, and even player preconceptions and choices.
What play style is optimal for one set of circumstances will not be optimal in others.
And social policies support differing play styles differently.
I'd be willing to grant that for one set of circumstances there is one optimal play style and one optimal social policy selection, but given that circumstances change dramatically that's pretty much a moot conclusion to make.
Ninakoru
A deity on Emperor
There's is no cookie-cutter play style that must be used always, but many of the options are always the same because they will be most of the time if not always the best decision, that the problem if it is not balanced.
While liberty can be from time to time better to tradition, honor and piety are unplayable on deity, only as support second branches. Rationalism is in a similar position, windmills are often a waste, nobody cares about great merchants, etc.
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