Liberty is very hard...

[Tyrus]

I've mainly gone Tradition since launch day, and I'm much better at managing small empires. However, I decided to give wide a try today, and started up a game as Russia with the intention of opening Liberty. I even made the map one size bigger so I had room to expand.

I only played to Education before I quit. I was broke as sh** throughout most of the game, and by the end of it only had four cities down. I simply did not have enough happiness to expand faster than I do with Tradition. St. Petersburg was in a great location, working 4 horses and 2 sheep on a river in grasslands (with culture from pastures pantheon), but Moscow was falling way behind in pop. I had 10 pop in Moscow at Education while Carthage was closer to 20, and Carthage had a 10 pop lead on me on 3 cities. I was alone on a continent with Dido, but I managed to trade about 18 Horses and 8 Iron, which was barely enough to keep my gold above 0. My gold problems started around turn 25 and continued from there. My luxes included Silver, Gold, Ivory, and Citrus from Dido. Even using external trade routes, it was very tough. Even with over 14 pastures in my borders, I was behind.

In short, unless I'm playing Liberty wrong, Tradition would have been better. Maybe Liberty's bonuses kick in much later. I had cities connected to capital, and used the free GP on a GS. I feel like, ironically, Tradition can expand much faster. I was not able to get that big sprawling empire.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I agree, liberty is just worse at pretty much everything. It gives more early and late game happiness, more early game gold which means you can support a larger army and defend yourself at the most crucial time in the game, multiple GEs with faith at the industrial age vs a single GP when you finish liberty, higher capital pop which means more science, more production, etc, etc. Liberty just needs an overhaul.

 

[kb27787]

welcome to the club...
Liberty means unhappiness and lack of passive gold from pop in capitol. That itself rules liberty out from my playstyle.
Big sprawling empire usually needs a lot of things to keep it happy, and liberty fails to deliver on that (1 per city connected is pathetic)

 

[layelaye]

Spoiler :

ever since BNW, the game has become fairly one dimensional, and definetly more boring. the options present to the player are much smaller: you cant warmonger early, you cant build an army of melee units, and you must get tradition.

i have had success going semi wide (5-7 cities) using tradition. it was much easier then going semi wide with liberty, since tradition is so oerpowered.

the liberty tree dont give you any bonuses to expansion until the 3rd policy, which will take forever to get. even when you do get it, the landed elite tradition policy (+2 food and +!5% growth in the cap) easily outclasses it, as extra food turns into hammers when building settlers, and 2 extra hammers if you wish to expand early are often more then 50% hammer increase. it also definetly outclasses the free settler policy (collective rule? i always forget the names) for the rest of the game.

you will also get this policy faster due to the first 2 policies of tradition, which alone get you to 6 culture in the capital, and will give a free monument the second you settle the city. also, unlike the "free" worker liberty gives, tradition will grant you 4 maintenance free monuments.

monarchy is also the best source of happyness early game, being completly passive.
i often get it before settling my 2nd city, it will give you that 1-3 extra happy faces early game which will keep your empire happy until you can improve some luxaries.
early game when you have 1-2 workers at bets, you want those workers to improve luxaries so you can expand, not building roads (the source of happyness in liberty tree).

all in all, i find tradition to be superior in fast expansion, due to fast happyness ( monarchy) faster settlers (get to landed elite faster then liberty gets collective rule) and 2 instant free buildings in the first 4 cities.

even late game happyness from monarchy is much higher then the entire liberty tree's happyness. and tradition has aristocracy for even more happyness. and the science penalty makes going wide useless anyway.

TL;DR: dont go liberty. it has low happyness, 0 gold, 0 food, low culture and low hammers in comparison to tradition. even if you want to get 8 cities, tradition is the way to go.

 

[Memoryjar]

Liberty is more challenging than Tradition, if you're going tall. Liberty is my no-brainer if I plan going to late domination or other VC with dom. It means wide, looking for build army, not big science.
I recently begin to try to use it in every game.
Liberty tree is very hard. Tradition allows Monarchy and land elite after legalism. You can't have meritocracy after Citizenship, you need to have collective rule.
Liberty are powerful for free settler and free GP. GE in no-brainer, GS or GP more deliberate.
I used to open tradition, go for full liberty and pick legalism for amphis. It works a lot in Immortal for any VC. I need to build Oracle to finish Liberty below T90.
So, I test what is more effective, 2 to 4 NCcities and after Oracle. Or NCafter Oracle.

Anyway, Tradition or Liberty have no influence on my time to win.

For my present gameplay, Liberty is easier for having 3 to 4 cities NC faster. It had a cost, manage unhappiness.

 

[Gehennas]

I think it depends on difficulty.
If you play on King and below, you can afford getting your own religion - it helps much in your expansion. +2 happiness per Temple or pagodas is a must-have belief.

I think, Russia is not so obvious choice for the wide game. Of course, krepost is more valuable when you don't have tradition opener, but it doesn't help much. I'd recommend to try Egypt.

Also, you may consider getting GE for rushing Notre Dame.

Maybe Liberty's bonuses kick in much later.

They will. In industrial era. Also, wide approach is more useful for diplomatic victory in my experience.

 

[Thorak]

Tradition is certainly MUCH easier to use than liberty. If you can't handle happiness then liberty is certainly not for you.

Handling happiness usually involves trading away luxuries/strategic resources for gold to the AI and then buy out mercantile city states (1 mercantile city state ally will give you 10-11 happiness alone, if you manage to find 2 with different resources double that).

Exploring the map to find wonders/city states is the key to wide empires as I see it.

Lately, I've been experimenting with a mix of liberty/tradition though combined with building oracle before NC. This usually means I get to 4-5 cities before NC, start building oracle as soon as philosophy hits while getting libraries in my other cities.

This requires a lot more room to expand and a lot more practice than going tradition and buying 2 settlers for gold however.

Also, all civs are not suited for wide empires. I would say inca, maya, ethiopia, egypt, poland works rather well with wide.

Anyway, it's all up to how you want to play and what victory condition you want to pursue. For early domination, liberty will probably be your best bet...

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Try to use the strategic land purchase strategy:

You Place cities far away from your capital in spot they can purchase tiles so that opponents will be blocked of from the land so that you can take all the land for yourself.

 

[Memoryjar]

I tried. Doesn't really work versus Shoshones.

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

Try to use the strategic land purchase strategy:

You Place cities far away from your capital in spot they can purchase tiles so that opponents will be blocked of from the land so that you can take all the land for yourself.

This is what I meant when i said "antagonize the french"
obviously it works for any AI.
If you do this, prepare for war, especially against known war mongers and expansionists.

 

[adwcta]

This is what I thought too, until I committed myself to the tree, dropping down 2 difficulty levels and working my way back to deity. Now, for most civs, I start Liberty, regardless of win condition, as long as my capital is not grass+mountain. Turn times are not as good as tradition for most civs, but for many civs they are better. Most people here give advice purely based on tradition starts, and they are uncomfortable using liberty. So, you have to scrap half of that advice, because it's inapplicable, and hurtful. You just have to get used to the start... It's very different.

It works well though after you learn it, not like Piety. I've tried Piety and have concluded that as it stands, it's only viable for diplo and domination, and tradition/liberty does both better for almost all civs.

I'm sure there are some good LPs out there that can teach you. I prefer to figure things out myself, but if you're really struggling, one video can probably point out your obvious mistakes.

Russia's fine for going wide, but make sure you know how to play a tundra start.

 

[isau]

The reason Liberty is so frustrating is it's practically founded on the idea that the player can get ahold of Pagodas or another religious happiness building. The fact that at higher difficulties this is a major gamble, and critical wonders like the one that gives +10 Happy (I forgot which one that is at the moment) are snapped up by the AI, makes going wide very frustrating. What ends up happening with Liberty/Piety/Honor is the empire spends so long stuck at around 4 cities due to happiness issues that you would have done better to have gone Tradition which specializes in that. The other 3 trees do very little to actually help you acquire the larger empire that they supposedly benefit.

Liberty is also not helped at all by the fact that Tradition lets you faith-buy Engineers while Liberty can't faith buy anything. If anything it makes sense that Engineers should belong to Liberty, not Tradition.

 

[Memoryjar]

Free aqueducts miss me a lot, around T90-110, thousand times more than a GE at T200+.
I agree with adwcta. It's hard to open tradition after improve your liberty games. It became my no-brainer.

adwcta : Piety for SV. I tried it a few on Emperor, need to improve and test on Immortal. Jesuit Education is wonderful, or GS at industrial era without rationalism complete. A this point, Aqueducts are not a problem. Rather than Liberty, culture and gold are better. Happiness not such a problem. Oracle is a must have. Education T120 with Korea is my best result (market specialist). Didn't try Babylon and Poland, only faith civs and Korea.

 

[adwcta]

So, it's a dirty dirty lie that liberty needs a faith building. Shrine for +1 happiness works fine, temples for 2 also work (you just have to stagger your settlements more, and commit harder to religion). When you miss out on faith buildings, commit to using that extra faith to spread religion to create diplo. E.g. spreading your faith to civ with most CS, and creating good diplo will get That civ to propose your religion as world religion. There's like a 70 percent chance that one of the civs with the most CSs will not have founded a religion. Fight for it. Its incredibly clutch for CV, and otherwise good too. CS religion also saves you influence loss. And of course, you'll get some benefit from founder belief, like gold or happiness.

This is not G&K's liberty tree, and should not be played that way.

Korea is great for liberty, so is Babs. The key is to only grow certain cities, and the best way to stop growth is scientist slots and trade posts.

I would add a per city science penalty discount to the tree, and boost the culture one, but it's otherwise a balanced tree. Tradition is a bit too strong right now, but not by that much.

Anyway, someone's written a BNW liberty guide by now right?

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

I play at emperor these days, and I dont have a problem with wide games / Liberty starts.
I agree that Traditions seems easier, but Liberty seems to be better for domination.

I cant speak for Diety level play. Ill let the super pros here handle that.

The *main thing* with liberty-wide is knowing and handling the rate of expansion. You will certainly be able to pump out three settlers fast (one free, two built). That gets you to 4 cities. after that.... you get to choose based on how things are going. Conquer? plant and grow?

You need to get the smiles happening, so horses / ivory take on a slightly increased importance.
I dont see why its difficult to get *some* happiness from religion. Even AI religion can grant you some happiness, so use that if you must. You should have more lux copies as well as unique lux, as well as strategics, so you need to trade and trade and trade...

if your cities are small, then use trade routes to feed them more. I LOVE having 2 or 3 coastal cities when going wide, because that means fewer roads, and great yield from cargo ships.

I certainly find going wide is easier with the right Civ (Iraquois is a favorite, Russia, Rome, Polland is good for everything, Shoshone perhaps, inca?, Washington has some advantages). I am sure the list could go on.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Also, all civs are not suited for wide empires. I would say inca, maya, ethiopia, egypt, poland works rather well with wide.

Why are the Maya well suited for liberty? I just started a game as them (random civ pick) and I plan on going wide (for a change); so I'm curious. Thanks in advance

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I would say that if:

1) You have access to a culture CS
2) You think you can build the Oracle

that Liberty for the settlers, then Tradition is extremely viable, and may be the superior strategy in many/most cases. Fast start plus you get the happiness boost you need from Monarchy ...

 

[joncnunn]

I think is more self founding wide is very hard combined with the fact that Tradition is so easy to use that makes it appear that Liberty is very hard.

Piety & Honor are generally rated lower than Liberty.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Why are the Maya well suited for liberty? I just started a game as them (random civ pick) and I plan on going wide (for a change); so I'm curious. Thanks in advance

The Mayan UB replaces the shrine, is maintenance free, and gives extra science. Build those first in each city and it helps counter the science penalty for going wide.

 

[CraigMak]

Liberty is still good but you must play differently. Tradition, I would say is easier and allows for a more complacent game that doesn't require adapting. With Liberty you want to make a city in every location you see that's good. You want to make the cities close together so you get money from city connections. You need to grow your cities with food caravans. You must be proactive with Liberty and think about what your empire needs and solve those problems as they come up.

Liberty does struggle with money a bit until you have markets. You really don't want to be spamming building after building in all of your cities. That will make you broke fast. You want lots of cities with lots of luxuries which you work for gold.