Is there any point in choosing anything other than tradition when starting off?

[PreLynMax]

I almost always start Liberty, because of my REX addiction.

 

[ldvhl]

I usually open Piety and get the bonus faith from the first tier for religion rush, then cherry-pick from Tradition and Liberty as needed based on my situation.

 

[Matthew.]

The other openers can work if you want them to, even on higher difficulties. It is usually rated as Liberty being a little behind Tradition and Honor/Piety being quite behind.

You will have a rougher game to start, but come mid-game things get back on track.

As to why you would want to, up to you. Variety? Challenge?

It is a long time before an Immortal AI will threaten a win (turn 350 range in BNW, it seems). You probably won't be getting sub-250 wins with sub-par openers, but we are talking a 100 turn difference... you can completely ignore policies and still hit the 350-ish mark

 

[Pembroke]

When exactly Tradition became no - brainer and obvious opener, was it BNW and trade routes? I remember period of total Liberty domination and relative Tradition - Liberty balance

Probably happened at the point when they switched the positions of Republic and Collective Rule in the Liberty Tree. Just two SPs used to give you the free settler. This was a bit overpowering, to say the least, so quite rightly needed to be nerfed.

However, now it's Tradition so the meta game problem remains. There's not much thought in the opening sequence. The SPs should be more balanced. *Different* but balanced. They should be tailored to help with different strategies and that way make you think *how* you want to try to win. Having one SP that dominates the others removes this choice and the planning that goes with it making the game less than it could be...

 

[Heretiv]

I guess the main point of not choosing tradition is that you want to have an interesting or different game.

 

[Browd]

Tradition became the popular default in G&K when they moved the Liberty settler back one policy, fixed Legalism and buffed the Tradition finisher.

 

[hnut]

Almost all of my games regardless of settings i open tradition, most games i fill liberty after that. Yeah, tradition opening seems to be the best start.

 

[Autoclave]

Almost all of my games regardless of settings i open tradition, most games i fill liberty after that. Yeah, tradition opening seems to be the best start.

what's the point of wasting your more culturally expensive later policies on something like liberty? paying a few hundred culture for a worker that you can build in 3 turns (at the stage when you have tradition completed)? Even a settler is not so valuable by then, same goes for +1 hammer per city.

Tradition does keep it's usefulness if acquired later in the game (although you might have already build the aqueducts), lliberty however is almost useless.

 

[Wodan]

I guess the main point of not choosing tradition is that you want to have an interesting or different game.

^ This

It's not like the others completely suck rocks. I think even the most ardent Tradition supporter would admit that.

 

[JimBobV]

With my games I tend to open tradition first, get at least on SP in it, and then I go for the liberty SP that gives me a free settler.

 

[Ninakoru]

Most of the time even on bigger maps you will aim for an initial 3-4 city empire, even with liberty quite harder and situational to go for 5 or 6 cities. The general feeling is that Tradition is a bit better than Liberty, but Honor and Piety for a human player: they lag too much behind in empire building to be really useful, and strong military/religion can never make it up for it.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=512567

As the breakdown shows, tradition just gives everything: Culture, gold, production, happiness and growth, and the most important is growth, backed up with happiness is an absolute priority on higher difficulties, because you need to catch up in science more than anything.

 

[lindsay40k]

Tradition has synergy with early caravans as well. If you've only got three food carriers, then three satellite cities for the capital to feed or leech makes sense - and so the tree that gives four cities a couple of good free buildings and makes a tall capital has a lot going for it.

Me, I always open with Tradition, because regardless of what kind of capitalist pig, fascist swine, or robber baron I want to become, that society's going to arise from various stages of development. I'll often go for Aristocracy to get GLib built, but opening Honour has a lot going for it. I need to cucle fewer units for barb defence, and I get a radar telling me where bottomless wells of culture, level 2 XP & CS influence appear. Even late on, you find little islands with encampments on them where your Frigates can get a couple of levels and farm you a Policy or two.

 

[Muskie]

You should always start tradition if the map is standard or smaller. On a standard map all you need are 4 cities and tradition buffs all of them. On larger maps you'll need double that so it's not as strong.

I think map size is too often neglected when people make their pronounciation as to the best Civ. On my laptop I always play smaller than standard for game processing speed and game completion time too.

I keep trying other openings. Before the expansions I was a confirmed Liberty opener and it was hard to give up the free settler and free worker and free great person, but they moved that stuff around and buffed tradition.

A long time ago I expiremented with Liberty and Tradition. Now I think Honor might be the second best or the best to use in addition to Liberty. I can usually found a pretty good religion thanks to Stonehenge.

Honor is good for gaining culture and money from barbarians, killing barbarians can also get you in good with nearby City States.

Patronage used to be part of my strategy and now post patch with diplomatic victories being harder maybe it will become a bigger part of my strategy but my next most important Civic after Tradition might be Commercial because more money is better.

My current game I am Arabia, I forget what I'm doing but Arabia just has more money, more money I can use on units including the mercenary pikeman now. I also can buy friends with money. Patronage is still good as is Rationalism.

But tradition for borders and free buildings then money, then science then once I have an ideology started I go back to finish off Patronage or Commerce or Rationalism. I usually open my ideology before I finish off my second Civic. I seem to be expanding more post patch as the AI is expanding less. I also have gotten pretty good at getting to Industrialization and buying a friend with coal.

Cheers,

 

[Cromagnus]

Liberty makes it easier to get 4 cities out on Deity. You'd be hard-pressed to get 3 settlers out as quickly with Tradition as you can with Liberty. And with the AI crowding you with their free settlers and mad production bonuses, this can make all the difference. The free GP at the end also helps on Deity, because a GE is pretty much the only way to reliably get a Wonder on Deity.

If you *do* get the Pyramids, pillage-healing is uber for warmongering. (Although Pyramids will be gone before you get the free GE, so this is not reliable)

There are a few other nice things about Liberty. It plays a tiny bit nicer with war. Later on in a domination game when you're annexing capitals, you'll be glad you have that -33% culture increase per city.

The finisher is very flexible.

Other than all that, Tradition > everything because the game as it stands heavily favors tall, peaceful science-focused strategies.

 

[RedRover57]

I think I have to disagree with you Cromagnus. I haven't done a scientific comparison between Tradition and Liberty starts on Deity, but I feel that in general Tradition is faster to achieve a 4-city start than Liberty. This is because (1) the free settler policy comes too late in Liberty, (2) free worker isn't as important since you can just steal one instead, (3) Tradition allows you to grow your capital very quickly and spam out settlers fairly quickly once you reach pop 4 (particularly if you build an early granary so that you can work mines) and (4) Monarchy means less unhappiness issue. I rarely have a problem getting my 3 additional cities up by T60 or so using Tradition (assuming the map has the space), which means a sub-85 NC if you save cash to buy a library in city 4.

Edit: However, I do admit that there are some situations where Liberty could be better. One would be an extremely production-poor start, such as mostly jungle or river grasslands with few hills or pastures. But on the majority of maps I would say that Tradition is faster.

 

[Cromagnus]

1) The free settler comes in at the third policy. Even without a culture ruin, that's T45 at worst, and the next 2 settlers come out fast. If you stop growing your capital at size 4 to grow a settler, you're (usually) still not getting a settler out until t45, but if you do 3 in a row you've stagnated your city for 25 turns. With Liberty, you only stagnate for like 12.

 

[Wodan]

(4) Monarchy means less unhappiness issue.

I'm at a loss why people keep saying this, ignoring Meritocracy.

While it's true on Deity you're more likely to be limited in total number of cities, that is still not often the case especially on larger maps. But if you're stuck with 4 cities and choosing between Monarchy or Meritocracy, the break-even point would seem to be size 8 of your capitol (that's where you'll get +4 instead of +3).

But in general, I'd say if you're going Liberty, and don't get totally shafted by location or small map, you could get 5 or 6 cities, which would raise the break-even point to size 12 or size 14 of your capitol.

Bottom line I think it's safe to say that Monarchy and Meritocracy are fairly comparable. So, again, I'm at a loss why people keep saying Monarchy is a benefit of Tradition and totally ignoring Meritocracy. Doing this doesn't earn you any favors in an honest debate.

 

[Browd]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but 12 or 14 pop in your capital is not what a Tradition play is about. At size 30 in your capital (a more realistic goal) and size 20 in three other cities, Aristocracy will give you 6 happiness and Monarchy will give you 15. Meritocracy doesn't match that until you have 20 cities connected to your capital by City Connections.

Meritocracy is indeed a core benefit of Liberty, but when comparing happiness benefits alone, Liberty's Meritocracy pales in comparison to Tradition's Monarchy and Aristocracy.

 

[Civsassin]

I often open tradition and honor together. Oligarchy and Military Caste compliment each other well. Plus, the culture from opening Tradition and killing barbarians can really help rip through the rest of the trees.

 

[Cromagnus]

I'm at a loss why people keep saying this, ignoring Meritocracy.

While it's true on Deity you're more likely to be limited in total number of cities, that is still not often the case especially on larger maps. But if you're stuck with 4 cities and choosing between Monarchy or Meritocracy, the break-even point would seem to be size 8 of your capitol (that's where you'll get +4 instead of +3).

But in general, I'd say if you're going Liberty, and don't get totally shafted by location or small map, you could get 5 or 6 cities, which would raise the break-even point to size 12 or size 14 of your capitol.

Bottom line I think it's safe to say that Monarchy and Meritocracy are fairly comparable. So, again, I'm at a loss why people keep saying Monarchy is a benefit of Tradition and totally ignoring Meritocracy. Doing this doesn't earn you any favors in an honest debate.

How much gpt turn is there in Liberty, outside of the Golden Age? If you plant a Great Merchant, what, 5?

Tradition, via Monarchy, over the course of a typical game (where your capital goes from size 1 to 30) is 8gpt + the 8 free buildings = 16gpt.

Liberty gpt = zero.

Happiness in Tradition, in a typical game, when you're at 30pop in the capital, is about +21, +18 for the capital, (-1/2citizens, +1/10) and +3 for the rest of your cities at least. This averages out to +1 happiness/3 citizens.

From Liberty, at -5% +1/city, you get 2 happiness for each size 20 city. In order to get 21 happiness, you'd need 10 size 20 cities. Or 12 size 16 cities. But the total unhappiness from citizens that you get from 180-200 total population is crushing.

In Tradition, you get that same amount of happiness, with roughly 60 population.

How much growth is there in Liberty? Zero? I'm not sure why people even debate this.

The value of liberty is in the free GP and the fast settlers/workers, and the early flexibility. And it's better, arguably, in the end-game *if you're capturing cities connected by roads to your capital and annexing them*.

Liberty shines on Deity because of the flexibility. I typically get my first settler out by turn 35, and I've got all 3 out by turn 47. That's tough to do with Tradition, because you'd be stagnating your capital from turn 20-47.

But let's be realistic, there's just way more happiness, growth and gold in Tradition.