Liberalism in 1 AD?

[Eqqman]

In case anyone is interested, I've spent more time fooling around with this opening (the Rifles version) and I haven't been able to crack 1000 AD with it. With good play I can get Rifling finished in 1000-1100 but then I'm still working on Nationalism. Of course, once Rifles are available I could always come off caste system and whip some Rifles out while I wait for drafting.

 

[Elledge]

You've piqued my curiousity. I'll try the Rifling thing and see how I do.

 

[Elledge]

Well, after 3 or 4 tries my best was rifling in 1080 and nationalism finished in 1120. That was on normal speed islands large map, so no AI trades, but no AI bothering me either. And that was with pretty good (not best ever, but 4-out-of-5-star) land. This seems like a pretty tricky thing.

I made a load of mistakes in my game but not easily soluble ones. I didn't settle as aggressively as I should have, but doing so would really choke some of my capital growth; I got **** for GPs, I think I popped 5 or 6 scientists that I just ended up merging, but with my strategy it's very difficult to go caste system quickly because slavery is so important in getting secondary cities going. So I'd have to get really lucky to get GPs that I can bulb well, or something.

I think 900 AD is realistic for a very very good player with some experience. I may try this a few more times and see if I can at least break 1000.

Getting Pyramids would make it much easier. A start with stone would help. (Or marble, I had no marble : |)

EDIT: Why can't I attach the save? When I click "Upload" it uploads it but then complains it's an "invalid file."

 

[Eqqman]

I've done it enough times now that I can offer some more guidance on what to do. This is what I'm currently thinking is optimal, but I'm dying to know if somebody else has another plan that is consistently better.

Great People: Produce the following Great People in this order. Your own tech research should be going fast enough that they can be used as fast as they pop out, but if you're behind then just save them for a turn or two- don't pop them on something else.

• Great Merchant on Currency
• Great Merchant on Metal Casting
• Great Merchant on Civil Service
• Great Scientist on Education
• Great Merchant on Machinery
• Great Merchant on Printing Press
• Great Merchant on Guilds
• Great Merchant on Banking
• Great Artist on Nationalism

Do I think this is a lot? You bet. I haven't been able to pull it off unless I had a map where I could quickly get two separate Great Person farms running. Each is going to need to eventually handle 6 specialists even if it runs a food deficit to do so. It's not that common to get a map that will support that early in the game when you need it.

Tech Tree: There's a core of techs that have to be researched in order to claim Code of Laws with Oracle. You need to focus on keeping Workers busy and trying to get Oracle built as fast as you can. So the order of these techs is up to you based on how you're playing the early game: Mining/Bronze Working, Mysticism/Meditation/Priesthood, Agriculture/Wheel/Pottery/Writing.

After this period you should be able to progress down the following path in this order: Monarchy-> Mathematics-> Philosophy-> Paper. Mathematics must be finished before you can use the GM on Civil Service and the GS on Education. Paper must be finished before you can use the GM on Machinery and the GS on Education. Somewhere in this queue you can slip Alphabet. I would hold off on Alphabet as long as you can so that its relative price goes down and so that the AIs will have enough things that it is worth trading for them. It's not hard to end up in situations where each tech you have is worth 5x what they have in beakers, forcing you to make very lopsided trades. I haven't had any problems trading for Iron Working, Animal Husbandry, Hunting, & Polytheism, with Calendar & Construction coming later. You can also easily get Fishing & Sailing, but Sailing is going to block the GM path after you've bulbed Metal Casting, so if you either started with Fishing or find you need it, try to trade for Sailing as well. Sailing is a very common tech for early AI research so it should be very easy to pick it up.

After Paper then you have the following techs, not in this order: Feudalism, Gunpowder, and Liberalism. Start these but do not finish any of them except Gunpowder. Based on your speed of producing Great People you'll often be filling one or more of these with beakers to mark time while you wait to bulb a key tech. After the GM has been used on Printing Press you can then finish Feudalism to allow the next GMs to go down the Guilds/Banking line. It's unlikely that you can completely bulb out Printing Press and Education, so if you're really running behind on the GMs you can stick a turn or two researching each of those if you have to. But Gunpowder/Feud/Liberalism should be more than enough to cover this kind of emergency. Again, don't finish Liberalism until you can get Replaceable Parts as the free tech.

After Liberalism either finish Rifling right away or focus on getting Nationalism. You need Literature, Drama, and Music before a GA can be spent on Nationalism. If you are going to be the first to Music, then you're getting a bonus. If you pop a GA on your own in short order, then you could even burn him on Music to use the subsequent free GA from Music on Nationalism. Or research Music totally on your own and save them both, as I've been finding on Noble/Normal/Standard it takes 2 GAs to totally bulb Nationalism. Anyway there are lots of combos here- Use one GA on Nationalism and finish yourself, use none on Nationalism and save them both for Military Tradition, whatever. I made a mistake in my earlier commentary, you need Horseback Riding for the GA line, but only after Nationalism and before Militray Tradition. So HR is not required to pop Nationalism with GAs. Either way this is also something not too difficult to pick up in trade (at least on Pangea maps). Of course if you're getting impatient you can skip doing anything with GAs and just research Nationalism & Militray Tradition yourself when you're done with Rifling. In this case you might want to be starting work on GSs to help push you down the Artillery line. I've usually been stopping after I complete the opening but I should go on to find out what my earliest Artillery date is. You might be able to have Artillery out while your opponents are still dealing with Knights & Longbows, however Chemistry isn't that hard to pick up so it's likely going to be Artillery vs Grenadiers.

There are 5 turns of Anarchy created: 4 civics changes plus selection of a state religion to collect the pacificsm bonus. Spir/Philo helps a lot in this! Beyond that you may be forced to wait a few turns so that you can make 2 civics changes at a time instead of just 1. If anybody else had luck with this or a more effieicent plan I'd love to hear your results.

 

[Elledge]

Man, that is an insane amount of GP work. What is your actual beakerage around the time you get rifling? In my game I had 220 or so from my capital and about 130 total from satellite cities, so I wasn't doing as well as if I had really expanded, but I had enough that Military Tradition (for example) was a five- or six-turn tech. It also occured to me that with phi it wouldn't be tremendously hard to get Oxford up in time for it to make a difference (I had 4/7 or 5/7 cities for it, and I wasn't even trying.) I might try that in the future.

I have to think that if you could wedge Pyramids in there it would be an awesome bonus. Also, I'm surprised you don't get Great Library earlier, but I guess if you don't plan to use many scientists it isn't a really great help.

Also, if you're going to save Liberalism for that late (I used it on Printing Press personally) why not research RP and use it on Rifling? That's significantly more expensive.

And what are your map settings?

 

[Eqqman]

Well, after 3 or 4 tries my best was rifling in 1080 and nationalism finished in 1120. That was on normal speed islands large map, so no AI trades, but no AI bothering me either. And that was with pretty good (not best ever, but 4-out-of-5-star) land. This seems like a pretty tricky thing.

I made a load of mistakes in my game but not easily soluble ones. I didn't settle as aggressively as I should have, but doing so would really choke some of my capital growth; I got **** for GPs, I think I popped 5 or 6 scientists that I just ended up merging, but with my strategy it's very difficult to go caste system quickly because slavery is so important in getting secondary cities going. So I'd have to get really lucky to get GPs that I can bulb well, or something.

I think 900 AD is realistic for a very very good player with some experience. I may try this a few more times and see if I can at least break 1000.

Getting Pyramids would make it much easier. A start with stone would help. (Or marble, I had no marble : |)

Pyramids is interesting... since my plan is ditching the Great Prophet Masonry is no longer taboo, but it causes long-term problems for you if you want to try and use GAs on Nationalism/Military Tradition. I'm not sure if it's practical to try and produce both Oracle and Pyramids- although it would certainly save you researching Monarchy. I usually solve the early expansion problem by chopping out Workers and Settlers. If you can produce Oracle in a timely fashion (1800 BC or better) with regular hammers/whip then there is no hurry to chop it out. I've also been finding that as the capital keeps running into happiness limits, it becomes a good time to have it produce an extra Worker or two. It hasn't been unusual for me to have my capital being able to make a Worker in 4-5 turns once it has hit size 6 or more. I also give no regard at all to city overlap. The capital naturally claims every tile in its cross, your other cities only need to have 10-11 tiles of their own. Get the rest of your 'good' cities from the AI. Compact empires greatly reduce Barbarian activity (at least they do in vanilla) and help you get 4-6 cities out before the AI fills everything up. As long as I have my 2 Great Person farms I've been able to pull this off with as little as 4 cities. The downside is you want as many cities as you can get to earn the largest benefit from drafting.

 

[Eqqman]

Man, that is an insane amount of GP work. What is your actual beakerage around the time you get rifling? In my game I had 220 or so from my capital and about 130 total from satellite cities, so I wasn't doing as well as if I had really expanded, but I had enough that Military Tradition (for example) was a five- or six-turn tech. It also occured to me that with phi it wouldn't be tremendously hard to get Oxford up in time for it to make a difference (I had 4/7 or 5/7 cities for it, and I wasn't even trying.) I might try that in the future.

I have to think that if you could wedge Pyramids in there it would be an awesome bonus. Also, I'm surprised you don't get Great Library earlier, but I guess if you don't plan to use many scientists it isn't a really great help.

Also, if you're going to save Liberalism for that late (I used it on Printing Press personally) why not research RP and use it on Rifling? That's significantly more expensive.

And what are your map settings?

Unmodified Replaceable Parts is 1600 while Rifling is 1400. Instinct tells you that maybe you want to claim Rifling for free, but researching RP has always been a big deal for me- well over 10 turns, and it is too much of a pain to try and get a Great Person to bulb it. I never build Great Library nor do I use a GS on Academy. The times I've gone an Academy route, I've seen it shave maybe 1 turn off one of the more expensive techs. So short-term, it has never proven better than saving ~10 turns I get from a bulb. I think you're consistenly using map settings that give you cheaper techs than I end up with. I'm doing these runs on Noble/Normal/Standard/Pangea. I'm certainly being out-beakered though. When I don't have Financial my capital is only doing ~175 beakers near the end. Oxford is also a decent idea, provided you managed to get 6 cities from settlement or war.

 

[Elledge]

I'm doing them on Noble/Normal/Large/Islands, so my techs should be slightly more expensive (due to larger map size), but almost the same. I'll play the rest on standard like you. (Presumably we get all the techs before any AI does, so there's not much bonus on people-who-already-know-it.)

I'm mystified though because for me Replacable Parts was 2550 if I recall and Rifling was like 3300. Maybe I was playing on Epic or something and I didn't notice I don't normally play on anything higher than quick so I might not have realized. I know that sounds insane and extremely strange so perhaps I just somehow zoned out and mentally swapped the two costs, but one definitely cost 2500ish (same as Education if I recall) and one was in the 3000s.

An academy in your capital is a huge difference : O For me it makes a difference of perhaps 100 beakers per turn near the end, and 40 or so almost immediately (once I have CS.) That's only 10-20 turns before it gives more payoff than putting him into a tech.

EDIT: OK, no, I was definitely on normal, and RP is 2520, and Rifling is 3360. I'm playing Warlords, are you? I'll try it with vanilla civ.

EDIT 2: No, it's exactly the same with vanilla civ. You really ****ed up your settings somehow or something. On a Standard map, they're 2340 and 3120 respectively. Better double-check them.

 

[Eqqman]

I'm mystified though because for me Replacable Parts was 2550 if I recall and Rifling was like 3300.

An academy in your capital is a huge difference : O For me it makes a difference of perhaps 100 beakers per turn near the end, and 40 or so almost immediately (once I have CS.) That's only 10-20 turns before it gives more payoff than putting him into a tech.

Correct as usual, uncle Friday. In-game I had Rifling costing 3120 and Replaceable Parts at 2340 (same as Education, as you said). However, I was looking at the tech tree flowchart that comes in the PDFs where the prices are reversed. So the PDF is either a misprint or maybe they swapped these tech prices in a patch at some point.

I can give the Academy route a try. I find it hard to believe that extra beakers from Academy more than makes up for all the extra techs you have to research yourself going up the Printing Press and Banking lines- plus building Pyramids is a huge deal, and Great Library means you have to divert to Polytheism/Literature faster than I typically do. But maybe it doesn't matter much since we're not having a significantly huge variance in completion times.

 

[mrhell]

I've been reading a lot here for months, but never posting; just "learning." Or so I thought. Until I tried the strategies in this thread.
All this time I've been reading here I thought that the people posting on here were such better civ players than me. Then I try this strategy(and then a few others posted around here) and I realize it's all talk. One guy makes up a BS story about some "achievement"(it is a video game after all), and everybody has to make up a better tale about themselves; nobody dares admit any of it is BS. It's just like the Emporer's New Clothes.
I'm not for a second trying to claim I'm some awesome civ player. I'm OK, I'm sure there are plenty of better players than me, and some of them might even post here. But following the strategies here, I've never seen last place faster. I thought maybe I'm making a mistake, and tried over and over - but just a distant last place, no progress, nothing. I've seen beginners do better than what these phony "strategies" can actually achieve.
The only explanation besides complete and total BS is that someone is putting phony strategies out there to make people perform worse in multiplayer - instead of making yourself a better player, make everyone else worse.
Either way, I'm going back to my old strategies and actually winning again. I felt it was only right I put this warning out there so anybody else who happens along this thread knows not to waste their time.

 

[Idlenessss]

This is all such a moot point, if you guys are talkign multiplayer. The way you KEEP your rivals from trying these tricky tricks is Make Them Worry About You. Something any decent player of any game of strategy must do, more or less. In multiplyer, handle the present, not the distant future, and bring the present to rivals so they arent dreaming so much of the future.
Like chess. Capture the center, mobilize your forces. and quickly. Otherwise your opp is seriously goign to have military tradition by move 15.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Sounds dodgy.

You can slingshot for liberalism if you like. I'll slingshot for macemen and conquer all your cities

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Galileo44]

First, you are responding to a post that is 9 months old. Plus, there are some crazy people who micromanage everything to play really well. I don't find that fun, but some do. Some strategies advertised here work well for everyone, other only work for the extreme players. I would not be so quick to judge the great number of people who come here giving or asking for advice.

 

[Idlenessss]

This is all so hilarious also, how on earth are you really gettign EVERYTHING. its like, ok the way you win is build every damn useful wonder and tech 12 times faster thn everyone...sheeeeeesh....
reminds me of this multiplayer i was doing lately...im greece...im builing soldiers....sgandi is next to me....message comes up saying he built stonehenge. Im a reasonable guy, I contact him and see if hes going to be useful to me, but he wont even accept open borders to give us both a commerce kick over other guys on the map. 3 turns later his bronze access city is belonging to me. Guy disconnects turn after. wonder if he was slingshoting for liberalism?...we will never know...

 

[A+ombomb]

I managed to get not only liberalism, but Cavalry by 1AD (in fact, by 50bc), attached is the save. The start isn't anything that special, maybe slightly above average. I chose the mali, mostly because they do not start with fishing and they are financial. The spiritual was a nice perk, as it shaves turns off the final product and allows me the ability to adopt every civic as I get it. It is difficult to say that if elizabeth did not start with fishing if she would be a faster leader. I used all of the same types of settings that I saw others use - normal game speed, noble difficulty, etc. I am fairly sure I could pull off rifling by 1AD as well, with some more time and optimal land. Great scientists can grab both printing press and gunpowder with the correct technologies already taken, so that makes it actually a bit easy to do the slingshot.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/40148/MissLadyLuck1_BC-0050.CivWarlordsSave

 

[anglosaxon]

The earliest I've got Liberalism on Monarch is by 1000AD.

 

[DutchJob]

OMG. I must really suck. these schemes take more G. People then I normally produce the whole game. Furthermore, doesn't staying so small for soo long take lots of fun away?

I just can't settle 6 cities by 1 AD AND get massive amounts of GP's of whatever kind + build a wonder or two.

Early wars or ones a bit later, which give all the tropical resources on your continent for example, I won't start about.

Or is map size of THAT much influence? (play mainly Large)

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Fastest I got nationalism through liberalism was 300AD-ish. I could do it faster too, but it's kinda pointless. I had like 2 cavalry when Shaka attacked me with dozens of swordsman and axeman.

 

[slowcar]

what's the point in developing slingshots that work on noble?

 

[Stolen Rutters]

The only explanation besides complete and total BS is that someone is putting phony strategies out there to make people perform worse in multiplayer - instead of making yourself a better player, make everyone else worse.
Either way, I'm going back to my old strategies and actually winning again. I felt it was only right I put this warning out there so anybody else who happens along this thread knows not to waste their time.

Not everyone plays this game for the same reasons. I thought this was assumed. I also assumed that playing a game is by definition "wasting my time". It's a good thing, something I try to do at least once a week for sanity. It's kind of the reason I post so much on this forum too.

The goal of trying for a Liberalism slingshot isn't to win on multiplayer. The goal is to play around with the game...

In a real SP game, just getting to liberalism first is a "maybe" goal in a larger picture, depending on your direction for victory. You can get astronomy as the free tech if you are on an isolated island with no neighbors, for instance. You could beeline for astronomy directly and build up your economy later, and give up the nice and highly useful techs that you could get by taking the "longer way" through liberalism. In fact first-to-liberalism is almost like a catch-up gambit from that standpoint, except for the fact that you set your economy up a bit earlier (civil service anyone?).

Getting it by 1AD is just a thought exercise. You are seriously sacrificing units, growth, and military building to get your science rate high enough to hit Liberalism by 1AD. All esoteric gambits are like that and they will almost certainly fail on multiplayer.

oh, back to topic: I do occasionally get liberalism first but I seriously doubt it was ever before 1000AD. I play monarch SP. I really got to fix my sig.