I have come to a realization.

[Zx Zero Zx]

Winning Liberalism is very overrated. When the AI wins it they tend to be freaking idiots and take something stupid with it, like the Islam tech or Guilds or Engineering (Yes on Immortal I have seen the AI take Guilds and Engineering multiple times.) Lately I have found myself with absolutely trash tech rates while the AI was getting Lib, last game I had a whole 200 beakers per turn at 100% slider while HC was taking Lib. Whipping out units much more important than winning Lib.

 

[Mylene]

If you go for war early..i guess. Don't think it's overrated on Deity thou.
Lib is almost free if your GP generation is good, cos you can bulb most of it.

 

[Dirk1302]

It's the position you re' in. It's vital to win it if you go for a break out. If you acquired some 12-15 cities before intrinsic research rate and recovery are much more important. Basically winning lib needs to be converted into something tangible. By ~1350 AD there has been so much tech trading on deity that no knows anymore who won lib in the first place.

 

[Mylene]

It's part of the optimal tech tree, makes it valuable ~~

If you have a "super science city", Edu for Ox is optimal. Next tech is Lib, why not take it ~~
If not, and if you don't want to do Mil. Tradition, it helps towards Scientific Method.

Communism is one of the most powerful techs, once you get super Workshops/Watermills your production easily passes Deity AIs. Production = free choice of what you want to do, including research. All these techs are on GS bulb lines.

 

[Dirk1302]

Yes if you have enough cities to win you will often still go this route. Then again after losing lib you will probably ignore it and go either ->steel or ->rifling. Edu is key, lib in itself is not that interesting. Comm is strong but i would never bulb SM for it as i'm sure i'll get Sm in trade vs rp and some other tech for example.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Yes but going for Lib tends to SLOW down my win time, I'd rather just go for Steel after my Treb conquests, and taking out the rest of the AI with random crap and lots of siege. All you need to win is Cannons and random junk to take cities and protect your stack. :3 I tend to be much more of a warmonger than most people on CFC, I have like 5 Space race wins on my HS out of like 500 games.

But if you're in a position that you can start to blow out the AI in tech getting Lib is fine, but there is no reason you should slow down your win for it. It's really a trap, you can get Engineering and Civil Service, and win the game quite a bit faster than trying to get really far ahead in tech so you can get 1 free tech.

I used to always for the super strong Workshop/Watermill production base, but then I realized I was so far into the tech tree that I was losing 200-400 years on my finish dates, and just started whipping Trebs, Maces, and Pikes in the early ADs. But it really all depends on the start, if you have a super sick start where you can just explode in tech and get more than enough cities with out war you are better off going to Lib and taking Steel or Riffling with and starting your end game war then; but with all the mediocre cramped starts you usually get just start your endgame war a lot earlier with Medieval units.

 

[noto2]

Uhh, yeah, or you could try raising the difficulty level. Yes I have games where I win the game with a cannon war, but I can't do that in every game. You should play many games where the AI is just too strong to kill with cannons, if you can win with cannons in every game why not go to the next difficulty? Aren't you getting bored?

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Uhh, yeah, or you could try raising the difficulty level. Yes I have games where I win the game with a cannon war, but I can't do that in every game. You should play many games where the AI is just too strong to kill with cannons, if you can win with cannons in every game why not go to the next difficulty? Aren't you getting bored?

I can do this on Deity it is just a lot more thinking involved......

 

[Mylene]

I can do this on Deity it is just a lot more thinking involved......

Depending on the circumstances, of course
Saying you can always war early on Deity...no ~~

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Depending on the circumstances, of course
Saying you can always war early on Deity...no ~~

Of course, there's some starts where you get a whole 4 cities! And you can't do . It also depends on the leader you're playing, but I feel I can do it on EVERY IMM game.

 

[Mylene]

but I feel I can do it on EVERY IMM game.

I surely agree here

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Some of the primary benefits of the lib path are its trade value (AI rarely pursues it soon) and the bonus tech as icing. I don't see what you could tech alternatively that you couldn't use bulbed education + whatever to trade to receive along with extra gold. That's the problem with going the "bottom" path on the tech tree...the AI will keep up and research the same thing so either you're uber fast on it or you were better off trading into it.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

No I get that, I usually trade for all the part of Engineering, and go for the person who is closet to getting to Engineering to slow down research. But my main point was that people don't seem to ever try different things, and so the strategy has gotten kind of stagnant as of late. Everyone is telling the newer players to just go for Lib into Riffling. Somethings aren't as "optimal" as you think, it may be the best way to stay up in tech but it is not the fastest way to get a pretty sure victory.

 

[Dirk1302]

What strategy apart from not researching to lib do you propose? You mentioned treb conquest but that can be tough if the target has engineering.

 

[Archbob]

Divine right isn't all that bad to grab. It costs a decent amount of beakers, you discover a religion, and you can start building a wonder that gives you an immediate golden age. Plus you need it for other techs.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Divine right isn't all that bad to grab. It costs a decent amount of beakers, you discover a religion, and you can start building a wonder that gives you an immediate golden age. Plus you need it for other techs.

@.@ That's Nationalism for the Taj Mahal, and Divine right go into nothing!

Dirk: If you can take 1-2 Vassals before all the other AI get Engineering, which is not hard, you can usually just roll into the rest with whipping enough units. But there gets to a point where you have to use your Vassals to get to Steel, but after you have Steel the games won. But in terms of other strategies I'm really not sure what to tell you, that's why I come to CFC!

 

[Dirk1302]

Not hard, on deity? Depends on the map of course but there are a lot of maps where taking even one vassal pre eng is a pain.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Not hard, on deity? Depends on the map of course but there are a lot of maps where taking even one vassal pre eng is a pain.

Mm on a normal Pangaea where there isn't just 1 religion it's not THAT hard, but depending on who it is it can be the worst idea ever.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What strategy apart from not researching to lib do you propose? You mentioned treb conquest but that can be tough if the target has engineering.

Yeah I'm not seeing the benefit. If he just trades into engineering, where does he stop teching on the lib path? Education? If he does that he might as well win lib though IMO and get more trade value.

Engineering I could never make work on deity excepting the bulb treb rush which is fairly easy to do if the target is right. I've seen abigcivfan do it with treb + spy combos however.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Yeah I'm not seeing the benefit. If he just trades into engineering, where does he stop teching on the lib path? Education? If he does that he might as well win lib though IMO and get more trade value.

Engineering I could never make work on deity excepting the bulb treb rush which is fairly easy to do if the target is right. I've seen abigcivfan do it with treb + spy combos however.

I don't actually research down the Lib line really except for CS, it's a lot of tech brokering. Like trading Currency for MC, and Fued + random tech that's not great for Machinery, and trading something else to another AI for Construction. Getting it to work on Deity is all about speed, and I mean SPEED. You have to attack fast or get them into war to slow down the tech rate. When I do it on Deity I tend to be declaring with a stack of like 14 units, just to take one city while whipping out more units.

But what I will say about when I do go down the Lib line I find Oxford to be even MORE overrated than Lib. I haven't built it in my last 20 games or so, just don't have the time. Would much rather build units.