Is representation ever worth it?

[The Tollan]

What policies do the posters here think would be best to get in Liberty if you are only going for the first few (basically until the Middle Ages)? Suppose one is not playing as France.

Is it usually best to head for Meritocracy or is Republic preferable? Would it technically be more effective to just unlock Liberty and maybe get the worker bonus and then save up from later?

In my recent game as France (eventually won a cultural victory), I got all the Liberty options just before reaching the Medieval Era. I first went down to Collective Rule and Republic, then headed down from the worker bonus one to Representation, and finally got Meritocracy. This does have the significant drawback of making the next several policies substantially costlier but I wanted to test getting all Liberty choices in the order I mentioned.

While this is probably stating the obvious, Liberty is relatively more useful on large and huge maps. Although in the long run most Liberty bonuses dwindle into irrelevancy, they do seem to give some useful boost at first. At least cheaper settlers will help if you plan to build several cities quickly.

I would recommened considering Liberty if one is playing as Napoleon on large or huge maps. You don't have to build a huge amount of cities but you don't have to worry about SP acquisition slowing too much at first. The may questions involve defeating Barbarians and perhaps other civilizations. It might be good to save some of the SPs though rather than load up on Liberty at the beginning (if going for a cultural victory then you could come back later).

 

[Lyoncet]

I usually just run down the right branch of the tree; Citizenship is good apart from the silly rounding down of the bonus (so rounding up of turns to complete), representation is decent for the reasons mentioned above, and meritocracy can really be a boon if you're dedicated to the fast expansion strategy (although it certainly won't carry quick expansion on its own - it just eases the burden somewhat).

Collective rule is pretty awful; probably one of the wost policies in the game if not the absolute worst. The few turns it takes off the first pop growth make almost no discernible difference even if you don't maritime allies, and they're entirely unnoticeable if you do. Republic isn't as bad as it's often made out to be in my opinion, since the extra hammer right off the bat that early in the game means your first library/worker/warrior/whatever will get out a lot quicker, but that's about it. Once you get a growth or two you won't notice it, and as noted above, those first few growths will usually come really quickly.

I'd say overall Liberty is probably the weakest of the three ancient-era trees, since most of the bonuses 1) aren't that huge and 2) become laughably trivial past the early game (as opposed to things like +33% wonder speed or +100% experience from combat). But it certainly has its place for particular styles/strategies. And yeah, the right branch is your best bet if you're committed to that particular line.

 

[Vordeo]

Representation isn't very good, but if you're going for a culture win and have opened that tree it gives you a decent boost to those last few policies.

 

[alpaca]

Meritocracy is decent if you want a huge number of cities, the rest isn't so great but if you are set on a huge number of cities, representation becomes useful, too (1 culture is worth more than 1 hammer for a large part of the game). Republic is probably not worth taking Collective Rule to get to it.