Is Liberty 6 vs. Tradition 4 a push? 10 points of comparison

[futurehermit]

I'm trying to fully wrap my head around comparing Liberty vs. Tradition. I think that ICS is generally inferior to full tradition with 4 cities (or less, if culture for example), except in specific situations (e.g., see the maya/arabia thread).

However, what about comparing Tradition with 4 cities (Tradition 4) vs. Liberty with 6 cities (Liberty 6)? Is one or the other usually better or can we say it's a push (i.e., they are roughly equal)?

I'm picking 6 cities because:

a) Liberty gives one free settler outright and the equivalent of one free (compared to 4 under tradition) in terms of settler production bonus (4 + 1 + 1 = 6)

b) 2 more cities will increase social policy cost, but there is the policy in liberty that mitigates to make 4 @ 15% vs. 6 @ 10% roughly equal (I haven't done the hard math and am happy to be corrected on this if my guesstimating is off...)

Let's assume:

a) A generic civilization with no UA, UU, or UB
b) There is one unique luxury resource per city to expand into (up to the 6 for liberty)

What we want to know in terms of the comparison...is one clearly stronger for:

1) Happiness
2) Science (beakers per turn, from all sources)
3) Culture (policies per turn)
4) Production (hammers per turn)
5) Commerce (gpt)
6) Faith (fpt)
7) Growth (population per turn)
8) Diplomacy?
9) Warfare?
10) X-factor/other?

My guess is that tradition will be stronger for: science/growth and culture whereas liberty will be stronger for faith. Production and commerce I'm not sure about. Diplo likely tilts toward tradition whereas maybe warfare tilts toward liberty?

I'm worried that, in the end, if liberty is only clearly stronger in faith, is faith enough?

 

[budweiser]

My opinion of straight 4 city tradition is that you are giving the AI an 80 turn head start by doing that.

 

[Moriarte]

You won't find a clear winner here. Both trees are brilliant. Personally, i take tradition in open space locations with many neighbors. Liberty i favor in secluded locations, places with no trade partners. As for 4 versus 6 - Six cities will be stronger for all victory conditions, provided you grow them all tall. (above 20) Liberty is a clear winner for early warfare. As for culture, i lately favor a mix of two trees.

 

[firstconsul]

This is a good potential discourse -- I find it a particularly tough call. However, I have to lean toward liberty 6 as perhaps the most versatile start in the game, on a standard size map. One of the problems with tradition 4 is that you are esentially leaving land around you unclaimed, which WILL be claimed by the ai later on, further strengthening them and weakening you. I also feel that faith, gold and war capacity all favor liberty here, while culture (France being a notable exception), and population, and the diplomacy w/ regard to AI's will favor tradition. I put a very heavy value on faith and religion; I see it as an exponentially powerful resource. Very curious to see what others have to say on this.

 

[ense7en]

There are many factors to consider, but when space for cities is limited and i suspect i'll be stuck with only a few, or only want a few, Tradition makes more sense i think.

I think that the growth Tradition gives makes it a "better" tree early on simply because it get you nice tall cities much faster than Liberty can.

But if you are able to support a very empire, Tradition really has little that benefits that, whereas Liberty is designed for that.

I find i generally get off to better starts with Tradition, but if the game going to end up very wide due to war or simply because of excess space to settle, Liberty is very likely the best way to go.

In MP, i prefer Liberty simply because i want to get all the good city locations locked down as fast as possible before another human gets the spot.
With gold being extremely tough to come by in MP, there is no gold to rush buy settlers or really much of anything other than unit upgrades.
Going tall sitting on a few cities is generally not the best way to win in MP as a very wide player can outproduce you easily, not to mention will likely eventually surpass a tall player's ability for teching.

So for MP i consider Liberty a better tree in most cases.

But for SP i think it just depends on what kind of games you want to play.

 

[budweiser]

Discuss mining luxuries vs calendar luxuries in start location, IE hammer rich vs hammer poor terrain as a decision factor.

I think Liberty helps in hammer poor starts where tradition favors hammer rich.

 

[Dogmouth]

It's really all about the availability of early gold and space (the two are roughly inversly coordinated, because gold comes from trading with nearby neighbors). A tradition opening can build out to its early happy cap as long as you have enough luxes, civs to trade with, etc. Liberty can build out to its early happy cap even if you don't have a lot of trading partners. Notably, tradition has a higher early happy cam than liberty (Monarchy), so if the gold is flowing, Tradition 6 is probably better than Liberty 6.

 

[Light Cleric]

I think it's simply too hard to say one is better than the other in general. They're highly map dependent. It depends on your neighbors, your civilization, and a lot of other factors.

 

[Baltman]

I agree with ense7en. I usually consider going liberty to be the stronger choice in MP. As stated science will most likely be in favor of a wider empire in the end. Production will also be larger with more cities. I like going for a religion and with more cities the effects of religion are increased(more cities that get a bonus) and more preasure. This is maybe more of an argument for going wide rather then stay at 4 cities.

I think that the finisher in liberty(free GP) is strong. It can mean that you get a key wonder for your Civ/strategy or grab a second prophet before everybody else giving you your choice of beliefs for the religion enchancement first. Or you could also get your scientist collection started.

So my vote is for liberty but I consider the trees pretty even just that liberty, I find, gives me more choices.

 

[kamex]

Discuss mining luxuries vs calendar luxuries in start location, IE hammer rich vs hammer poor terrain as a decision factor.

I think Liberty helps in hammer poor starts where tradition favors hammer rich.

Agree completely. Republic and hill settling really helps hammer starved starts!

 

[Tabarnak]

Both trees can do the job with appropriate strategy. Liberty has a better kicker start while Tradition seems better once you finish the tree.

In MP games if you can avoid early wars the Tradition tree will often be better.

 

[budweiser]

b) There is one unique luxury resource per city to expand into (up to the 6 for liberty)

Sometimes you don't have that on the map. You get like 6 cotton and one marble. Resource availability in itself is a decision point in choosing Liberty or Tradition.

 

[Matthew.]

You need to look at long-term to compare. Tradition is designed for smaller empires, Liberty for wider. If you insist on the rules of strictly 4 vs. 6, there is no clear winner. 4 vs 16? Liberty clearly is a better choice.

The issue is that currently the game favors taller over wider. No need to fight AI over territory (can usually get 4 cities right at the start) and 4 tall cities is more solid than 16, easier access to Nationals (which tend to be more beneficial than additional cities), etc.

 

[Deau]

You also forget to factor difficulty level/map type combo.

I can't remember the last liberty opener where I could handle the happiness/diplomacy of a 6 city REX before the availible locations left for the last few cities would plain suck.

As for a general analysis, one could argue that liberty would win most of the following:
1) Happiness
3) Culture (policies per turn)
4) Production (hammers per turn)
5) Commerce (gpt)
6) Faith (fpt)
9) Warfare?
10) X-factor/other?

and it could very well compete(win) on science/growth at various points in time in the game. The issue is it won't win on all fronts at once.

HPT are only worthwhile if you don't run the same BASE building setup in each of the 6 cities. If you do, 2 extra cities account for a 50% increase on building hammer costs so looking at HPT as a relevant number would be idiotic.

GPT will be ahead for so long as you indeed don't massively build everything everywhere such that you have "shittier" cities(in terms of science/culture/faith buildings expenses) funding your treasury. Otherwise, GPT is really mostly a matter of river tiles worked and this generally gives an edge to trad in the early game, then to liberty midgame and on once your cities break past 8-12 pop each (depending on river tiles and a few other "good" gold tiles aka not calendar based luxuries.

CPT is obvious unless you play at easier difficulties where you just stockpile wonders in your capital. In that scenario, taller tends to win as the "bonus" CPT outweights the gain of new cities. This was discussed in a different thread.

Warfare, to me, is the only obvious case where liberty wins and the same logic approach can be used as in the HPT discussion above. The only difference is you don't have a different "BASE" army for warfare with 6 cities compared to 4 cities so you just wind up with higher HPT to produce your army...

Happiness, is similar but reverse to GPT. In the early game, you will struggle more with a liberty REX than with a 4 city trad. This can put a crazy offset to early game growth and early game science which is why I find tradition to be far more versatile than liberty.

Faith is obvious...




I'd like to point out one very specific point over which I disagree with a few of the previous posters.

People were talking about if you have a hammer poor start, you should hit liberty. I see it the reverse way. Generally, if I have a hammer poor start, it means I have a food heavy start which compounds significantly better with the growth %bonuses from tradition. It does make you sightly more vulnerable to early warfare but it allows you to grow tall extremely fast. Running tradition if your cities are all hammer heavy and have too few food tiles to actually grow fast is completely counter productive.

The same can be thought of for liberty. The strength of liberty (in the early game) is to overcompensate lower science and growth by crazy hammers. Obviously here if you mind yourself to cap at 6 cities and no more you could miss out on something but nonetheless, under a liberty REX, size 2-3 (max 4) for cities #2-#6 is the way to go. Save the extra happiness for an additionnal city. The amount of hammers brought in by an extra city is better than that of an extra unimproved 2 food strict tile.


So basically my point is, don't use one tree or the other to poorly compensate for what your land has to offer but rather compound the strength of a tree with what your land has apparently too much of.

 

[futurehermit]

My opinion of straight 4 city tradition is that you are giving the AI an 80 turn head start by doing that.

Good point, I forgot to say in the op that you can include cities taken from the AI in the 4 vs. 6 comparison. One relevant factor there then is the question about which is stronger for warfare.

I think it's simply too hard to say one is better than the other in general. They're highly map dependent. It depends on your neighbors, your civilization, and a lot of other factors.

Well, yeah But, sometimes it's nice to tease apart the different variables, that's why I put the two assumptions to factor out map- and civ-specific influences. Once we get back to a real game, we have to mix them all together again, but for discussion/analysis, I thought it'd be interesting to look at tradition vs. liberty in a more generic sense. I realize that makes it more artificial though

b) There is one unique luxury resource per city to expand into (up to the 6 for liberty)

Sometimes you don't have that on the map. You get like 6 cotton and one marble. Resource availability in itself is a decision point in choosing Liberty or Tradition.

Yeah, this was something I noticed and, again, the reason why I put the two assumptions. Some maps really do pull one way or the other, but I wanted to factor out map-specific influences for this discussion.

You need to look at long-term to compare. Tradition is designed for smaller empires, Liberty for wider. If you insist on the rules of strictly 4 vs. 6, there is no clear winner. 4 vs 16? Liberty clearly is a better choice.

The issue is that currently the game favors taller over wider. No need to fight AI over territory (can usually get 4 cities right at the start) and 4 tall cities is more solid than 16, easier access to Nationals (which tend to be more beneficial than additional cities), etc.

Yep This also summarizes though why I assumed 4 vs. 6 in the first place -- to make it roughly equal. Because, liberty benefits wider, but the game mechanics favour smaller. But, what about the more modest case of 4 vs. 6 where it's close?

You also forget to factor difficulty level/map type combo.

I can't remember the last liberty opener where I could handle the happiness/diplomacy of a 6 city REX before the availible locations left for the last few cities would plain suck.

As for a general analysis, one could argue that liberty would win most of the following:
1) Happiness
3) Culture (policies per turn)
4) Production (hammers per turn)
5) Commerce (gpt)
6) Faith (fpt)
9) Warfare?
10) X-factor/other?

and it could very well compete(win) on science/growth at various points in time in the game. The issue is it won't win on all fronts at once.

HPT are only worthwhile if you don't run the same BASE building setup in each of the 6 cities. If you do, 2 extra cities account for a 50% increase on building hammer costs so looking at HPT as a relevant number would be idiotic.

GPT will be ahead for so long as you indeed don't massively build everything everywhere such that you have "shittier" cities(in terms of science/culture/faith buildings expenses) funding your treasury. Otherwise, GPT is really mostly a matter of river tiles worked and this generally gives an edge to trad in the early game, then to liberty midgame and on once your cities break past 8-12 pop each (depending on river tiles and a few other "good" gold tiles aka not calendar based luxuries.

CPT is obvious unless you play at easier difficulties where you just stockpile wonders in your capital. In that scenario, taller tends to win as the "bonus" CPT outweights the gain of new cities. This was discussed in a different thread.

Warfare, to me, is the only obvious case where liberty wins and the same logic approach can be used as in the HPT discussion above. The only difference is you don't have a different "BASE" army for warfare with 6 cities compared to 4 cities so you just wind up with higher HPT to produce your army...

Happiness, is similar but reverse to GPT. In the early game, you will struggle more with a liberty REX than with a 4 city trad. This can put a crazy offset to early game growth and early game science which is why I find tradition to be far more versatile than liberty.

Faith is obvious...


I'd like to point out one very specific point over which I disagree with a few of the previous posters.

People were talking about if you have a hammer poor start, you should hit liberty. I see it the reverse way. Generally, if I have a hammer poor start, it means I have a food heavy start which compounds significantly better with the growth %bonuses from tradition. It does make you sightly more vulnerable to early warfare but it allows you to grow tall extremely fast. Running tradition if your cities are all hammer heavy and have too few food tiles to actually grow fast is completely counter productive.

The same can be thought of for liberty. The strength of liberty (in the early game) is to overcompensate lower science and growth by crazy hammers. Obviously here if you mind yourself to cap at 6 cities and no more you could miss out on something but nonetheless, under a liberty REX, size 2-3 (max 4) for cities #2-#6 is the way to go. Save the extra happiness for an additionnal city. The amount of hammers brought in by an extra city is better than that of an extra unimproved 2 food strict tile.


So basically my point is, don't use one tree or the other to poorly compensate for what your land has to offer but rather compound the strength of a tree with what your land has apparently too much of.

This is a really nice analysis, thanks! Good call on the difficulty level and map type (e.g., pangaea vs. continents). If we can talk generically across those, great, but that might be harder as immortal vs. king there will be a difference in competition. Let's assume emperor/continents, since emperor is kind of a middle-ground in terms of difficulty and continents is a middle ground between pangaea and archipelago.

Is liberty clearly better for culture? Many culture threads seem to advocate for tradition opening?

I really agree with your position on tradition for hammer-poor and liberty for hammer-rich, though I see what the other posters are saying. I'd rather exploit an advantage than mitigate a weakness, where possible.

 

[tommynt]

totalx depends on if u you care is teching (tradition) or if you want go war a lot aswell (liberty is on par) - and obviously also if u can expect a good amound of income for your lux ..

 

[Sidor1982]

For a longer time now I was comparing both openings and I've come to a couple of conclusions. They not necessarily exactly fit into this thread (as I play on 4-6 player maps and therefore compare 1 city tradition opening to 3 city liberty opening), but maybe you'll find them interesting anyway.

1 city tradition opening is better when it comes to science (quick NC), defense - one strong city instead of 3 weak ones, planning game on building of some early wonders, generating a lot of culture with no policy cost rising.

Minuses - no free units (workers usually have to be stolen), which have to be purchased or produced, liberty GP finisher is in my opinion way better than the tradition finisher, liberty policies are more useful in the long run (especially when going wide or on conquers). Going for tradition makes adopting 7th policy as Rationalism opener way more difficult than when going Liberty (you will have to adopt it before going into renaissaince)

3 city liberty opening is better used in the long run, where you don't plan to rush NC or any of the early wonders. The bonuses from rapid expansion pile up to cause a snowballing effect which gives more benefits than tradition from a certain point of the game. Especially the gold income from trade routes is here a factor.

Main minus - having a couple of weak early cities makes you very vulnerable to early AI rushes and losing one or two cities basically means the end of game on higher difficulty. Due to delaying of NC you'll be more behind in tech in the early game (comparing to tradition opening) but will be able to catch up once the cities start generating science from university specialists (the cities will be grown enough to work specialists right away and you'll have the money to buy the universities). It is the time in between that you need to survive.

 

[Arilian]

I like trad better, because you can play more peacefully vs AI if you have less cities.
6 city by turn 60 generally provoke a war or two.
But I am a builder...

 

[budweiser]

For a longer time now I was comparing both openings and I've come to a couple of conclusions. They not necessarily exactly fit into this thread (as I play on 4-6 player maps and therefore compare 1 city tradition opening to 3 city liberty opening), but maybe you'll find them interesting anyway.

1 city tradition opening is better when it comes to science (quick NC), defense - one strong city instead of 3 weak ones, planning game on building of some early wonders, generating a lot of culture with no policy cost rising.

Minuses - no free units (workers usually have to be stolen), which have to be purchased or produced, liberty GP finisher is in my opinion way better than the tradition finisher, liberty policies are more useful in the long run (especially when going wide or on conquers). Going for tradition makes adopting 7th policy as Rationalism opener way more difficult than when going Liberty (you will have to adopt it before going into renaissaince)

3 city liberty opening is better used in the long run, where you don't plan to rush NC or any of the early wonders. The bonuses from rapid expansion pile up to cause a snowballing effect which gives more benefits than tradition from a certain point of the game. Especially the gold income from trade routes is here a factor.

Main minus - having a couple of weak early cities makes you very vulnerable to early AI rushes and losing one or two cities basically means the end of game on higher difficulty. Due to delaying of NC you'll be more behind in tech in the early game (comparing to tradition opening) but will be able to catch up once the cities start generating science from university specialists (the cities will be grown enough to work specialists right away and you'll have the money to buy the universities). It is the time in between that you need to survive.

I agree this is how I approach things.

 

[Mesix]

I like to use both trees in many of my games. They are not mutually exclusive. I like to open Tradition for the +3 and then go through Liberty for early expansion. I find that this allows me to get the free settler and worker at opportune times, and a free great person during the late classical to early medieval era. After finishing Liberty, I like to switch back to Tradition. This allows me to abuse the four free buildings to the fullest getting 4 Amphitheaters or even Opera Houses. The later can make Hermitage buildable much earlier for a cultural victory or mid to late game social policy generation. I tend to play 4 cities tall with a wide empire of conquered puppets.