Liberty is very hard...

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, I still see a lot of good players in LP's blindly growing into 2f tiles early game. With Tradition, it doesn't really matter, in Capital at least, because every Citizen is at worst 2 Beakers, and you've probably built all it makes sense to build anyway without switching to that 2h-3h tile. Arguable mistake, no penalty. That makes Tradition best, right? No, just make fewer mistakes.

Or worse, I keep seeing LP's where that Grassland/Jungle city with no Hills is 6 pop just because it could get there, stuck building a Library, and meanwhile the magnificent Double-Iron, Horses, etc city is stuck at 3 pop building a Colosseum to support all the 2f workers down the road. Makes sense why players bad at managing cities would favor builds that have them managing fewer.

On the other hand, I see other players, notably as Shoshone, simply grow to work all bonus tiles, then switch to those unimproved 2h Hills. As Tradtiion. And get Turn 200 win times doing that.

There's actually a lot to consider, and people should be prepared to do that. Is it worth it to pay Maintenance for that Granary right now? Do I want to work that 2f3g Luxury tile or that 3f Farm? Do I go negative Happy to Settle or wait? Among these questions, what tiles am I growing Population to work within my satellite cities is among the most basic. You won't get the best results out of either Liberty or Tradition, not to mention your city placement, unless you're in the habit of asking those questions early game.

Another mistake I often see is people not switching tiles away from food while the empire is unhappy... gold and hammers are reduced soooo much less than food production... but someone's got that city working all food tiles to generate 0.75/turn...

 

[Laurwin]

guilty as charged.

That part about colosseum city stuck in hammers not growing, I did not quite understand the lesson to be learned from this? Don't work unnimproved tiles is this what you mean?

Although the part about jungle cities stuck building library, most people intend to buy science building, but maybe don't have cash to buy everything at the same time.

Frequently jungle cities do have bad production admittedly, library acts as "memory note" in production que to rush buy it at some time.

number of workers is limited in huge empires, perfect worker management (always improving those tiles intended to be worked, in near future) is often lacking in most civ5 lps.

Reasons for this are varied, but sometimes it's as simply as worker improving faraway "unworkable" resource tiles, to get coal, iron, oil etc... from border pops.

 

[kb27787]

I find the midgame 10-12 pop more than sufficient for most cities to stop growing until hospitals, it's not like you have happiness until then anyway. The guilds city needs at least 15 pop for CV and 18 for non-CV. It's not like tradition where you blindly push growth, because that's the I win button.

my playstyle must be really rigid because this sounds like blasphemy to me 10-12 pop until hospitals!!!??? No wonder you aren't unhappy... Seems I need to completely rewire my game plan if I want to take liberty. 18 pop for guild cities (usually the capitol)? My god, man...

Speaking from a science viewpoint, I'd rather just take two such cities and squeeze their pop into one city at 20+ or so (much more likely to happen in my games, but usually they are in close to their 30s by the time hospitals arrive, and I never really build them ).

 

[Laurwin]

pop is science

science is king.

science is war.

war is victory.

(pop is also hammers and gold though, which is important too in healthy amounts.)

 

[vladstrutzu]

Nope. I find that land is still power.

Liberty is good for wide, and I find wide is safer/better. Early/free settlers, an early academy in the national college city, extra hammers, more strategic resources, more luxuries (that you need ). You might anger some civs with early expansion, but you have the hammers to deal with it.

You just have to learn to play differently. I play Immortal and go liberty 4 times out of 5.

Just some tips:
- Build cities close to each other, make them coastal, aim for 8-10 cities on a standard map
- Block the AI from taking "your" land
- Take an early GS/Academy for your super science capital
- Send food to the capital to have a science equivalent to tradition
- Try Exploration +3 hammers for coastal cities
- Send food/hammers to new cities to get them to working (an extra 8-10 food/hammers for a small city makes a very big difference)
- Aim for smaller cities: growing from 25 to 26 can be harder than growing a 1 pop city to 10 ( and way less rewarding )
- Stop thinking you need Aqueducts
- Wide make Order very powerful
- If a civ gains to much power, remember that you have lots of extra hammers
- An early science victory can be achieved by conquering your neighbors
- A great empire requires a strong navy

Hope this helps people see the true benefits of liberty.

And stop suggesting it need to be buffed up in relation to tradition! I already find it better. And piety and to some degree honor need a buff badly.

 

[kb27787]

Nope. I find that land is still power.

Liberty is good for wide, and I find wide is safer/better. Early/free settlers, an early academy in the national college city, extra hammers, more strategic resources, more luxuries (that you need ). You might anger some civs with early expansion, but you have the hammers to deal with it.

You just have to learn to play differently. I play Immortal and go liberty 4 times out of 5.

Just some tips:
- Build cities close to each other, make them coastal, aim for 8-10 cities on a standard map
- Block the AI from taking "your" land
- Take an early GS/Academy for your super science capital
- Send food to the capital to have a science equivalent to tradition
- Try Exploration +3 hammers for coastal cities
- Send food/hammers to new cities to get them to working (an extra 8-10 food/hammers for a small city makes a very big difference)
- Aim for smaller cities: growing from 25 to 26 can be harder than growing a 1 pop city to 10 ( and way less rewarding )
- Stop thinking you need Aqueducts
- Wide make Order very powerful
- If a civ gains to much power, remember that you have lots of extra hammers
- An early science victory can be achieved by conquering your neighbors
- A great empire requires a strong navy

Hope this helps people see the true benefits of liberty.

And stop suggesting it need to be buffed up in relation to tradition! I already find it better. And piety and to some degree honor need a buff badly.

.... are you playing BNW? 8-10 cities seems a bit much... try playing deity and see where that gets you... (it's EXTREMELY hard AND unsafe to play on deity where AIs have their 3rd city by 25 turns)
And I cannot imagine on a standard map you can fit 8-10 good coastal cities...

And how come you don't need aqueducts? Unless your aim is to have your biggest city a mere size 20 by the game's end I don't see how aqueducts wouldn't be necessary. And for one thing, cities cannot "help" each other build spaceship parts... good luck spending 30 turns on a part when your city is size 10...

You know what? Prove it with a deity challenge. Then I'll believe you.

 

[adwcta]

Well, he said Immortal....

Deity is more like 6-8 cities, and it's not a guarantee you'll be able to get them peacefully (not that it seems like he was advocating peaceful play in the first place).

His aqueduct s point is obviously not about ALL cities. In a typical 8 city empire, at least two of my cities specifically do not have aqueducts. Pop is not free. It costs happy and hammer/gold opportunity cost. The point of a wide empire is that most of your cities are working only the best tiles (5+ resources). After that, they should be working specialist slots for the science (or trade posts).

Your NC city will obviously have aqueducts....

I mean, a lot of deity players do this liberty start.... On a consistent basis. The question is not whether this is viable. It's only whether it's more secure than tall, which is arguable, and whether tradition wouldn't give more bonuses than liberty for semi-wide play like this.

 

[budweiser]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but the key to Liberty is the knowledge that you will get more policies due to Representation before the end game than if you just took Tradition. The earlier you take it, the more policies you will get. Well, one or two more, I guess, but maybe more if you are maxing out culture and winning World's Fair, buying CS allies etc. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Like finish Rationalism sooner, get a free tech sooner, etc, etc.

But when you do take it, you have to have a GA so that is a consideration on the timing. You could be like, Hey I just built CI, let's have a vote! Or I just picked that Freedom policy, lets have a vote.

 

[Vitruvius]

.... are you playing BNW? 8-10 cities seems a bit much... try playing deity and see where that gets you... (it's EXTREMELY hard AND unsafe to play on deity where AIs have their 3rd city by 25 turns)
And I cannot imagine on a standard map you can fit 8-10 good coastal cities...

And how come you don't need aqueducts? Unless your aim is to have your biggest city a mere size 20 by the game's end I don't see how aqueducts wouldn't be necessary. And for one thing, cities cannot "help" each other build spaceship parts... good luck spending 30 turns on a part when your city is size 10...

You know what? Prove it with a deity challenge. Then I'll believe you.

You dont need to fit good cities. Playing wide sometimes means u are just fitting more cities in the same area as playing tall. You would be dropping your first 4 cities at pretty much the same locations as if you play tall. These are the good cities with good resources. Then you work on filling the holes inbetween these cities or extend your borders a little bit out. I play on fractal and i can often drop 8 cities on deity. But on continents or Pangaea its harder.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Cromagnus]

Liberty has its place. But filling in the holes is just counterproductive. Unless a city has awesome tiles, a unique luxury, and almost grows by itself, it's practically not worth building. And it is just incredibly rare to have 8-10 cities with good food tiles, good production tiles, money and unique luxuries... even if you did it's counter-productive in BNW.

Liberty: 9 pop-10 cities (each with unique lux)
(Total population 90)
Total happiness from number of cities: -27
Total happiness from population: -90
Liberty bonus *if they're all connected*: 9
Liberty bonus if none of them are occupied: 4.5
Total happiness from 9 luxuries: 36
Net unhappiness: 69.5

5-city tradition, pop 30, expos 20,15,15,10: (each with unique lux... 5 is way easier to get btw)
(Total population 90)

Total happiness from number of cities: -15
Total happiness from population: -90
Capital bonus: +15
+1/10 bonus: +8 (Fractions don't apply)
Total happiness from 5 luxuries: 20
Net unhappiness: 62

So, even in this *ideal* liberty case, we have more unhappiness. But that's just the start of the issues: Your science penalty is at 45% instead of 25%, so you need 16% more beakers. Even if you somehow managed to get 9 universities up fast (because all your 9 cities have good hammers... there's no way, unlike tradition, that you rush-bought them all) and 9 public schools up fast, and could handle the extra cost of Oxford, all of which is *TOTALLY UNLIKELY*, then you're still at a disadvantage:

NC science bonus with Rationalism: 100% (assume no observatories, +50% NC, +17% rationalism, +33% universities)

Non-NC science bonus: 50%

Ignoring the individual beakers bonuses from NC and Oxford for a moment:
Liberty:
10 pop with public schools generates 20 base beakers + 15 specialist bekers, for 35 total. x2 = 70.
8 x 35 (x1.5) = 210.
Total (280/1.45) = 193.
Tradition:
30 pop: 75x2 = 150.
Other city pop (60) generates 120 + 15 or, 135 (*1.5) = 207.
Total: (357/1.25) = 285.

Net difference: 47% faster research. Of course I left out some constants, so let's call it 45%. But that ignores another key difference between tall and wide. Rush-buying universities on t110, vs *starting to build them on t110* is an insanely big difference. By the time you get through labs, if you've been able to rush-buy them all, you've shaved 30-40 turns off victory. And being able to build Oxford quickly can't be over-valued... one free tech is one free tech, no matter how many cities you have.

Point is, "filling in cities" is just a bad, bad idea.

The advantage of Liberty in BNW is for conquest, and producing units. (including archaeologists)
You don't have time to build (and shouldn't) 9 libraries/universities/public schools, 9 markets, 9 workshops, 9 factories, 9 coliseums, etc., etc.

All that extra production comes in handy for getting an army up quickly. Or for mining out all the artifacts. But, since you can't reliably build 9 cities, we're talking Domination-assisted CV or Domination, period. (And you can't reliably build 5, let alone 9)

Make no mistake, Liberty has its advantages... but going wide is just fruitless in BNW. If you're playing on a Huge archipelago map as Dido on a low difficulty level, well, that's different. Kind of. But realistically, in BNW, the per-city bonus in Liberty primarily stands to defray costs as you capture capitals.

 

[kb27787]

You dont need to fit good cities. Playing wide sometimes means u are just fitting more cities in the same area as playing tall. You would be dropping your first 4 cities at pretty much the same locations as if you play tall. These are the good cities with good resources. Then you work on filling the holes inbetween these cities or extend your borders a little bit out. I play on fractal and i can often drop 8 cities on deity. But on continents or Pangaea its harder.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

... if you have the same area, then you have the same amount of resources...
The selling point of wide empires is usually the greater number of lux copies/strategics but that becomes moot if you have pretty much the same amount of hexes...

Never really played fractal though. The most I've fit on a Pangaea map was 6 (of course could've fit more between the spaces but that would not have given anything extra)

Even with representation since culture does not scale linearly with cities anymore unless you are Polynesia (thanks to guilds) I don't think there's going to be much difference in the net amount of SP you get... (mind you, I don't like the liberty tree because once it's finished and the GP is picked, it's done. Whereas tradition gives you GE for faith, and the growth bonus lasts all game)

 

[adwcta]

Haha, I like how Cro assumed the population of tall and wide were the same, and concluded that wide had a science penalty. You also pretended that the capital and NC city has 10 pop!?!? My eyes... my eyes.... Yes Cro, given your assumptions, your conclusion about the weirdest way to play liberty is 100% correct.

You should never ever ever play peaceful 8-city wide if you end up with the same pop as tall. Like, ever.

You also calculated the science penalty wrong, but w/e, the real math wouldn't change the conclusion from a baseline of equal pop, even if you redistributed the pop correctly. What you basically proved, Cro, is that the base +science from science buildings is not sufficient to counter the science penalty by itself. That is correct. You will need a bigger total population.

You've also calculated unhappiness, without considering that wide has much more happiness than tall, to offset a good chunk of that unhappiness. Granted, that's not a liberty thing, but it is a wide thing, and you're comparing liberty-semi-wide with tradition 5-city tall.

"Filling in" cities is not black and white. Just as a very basic measure, extra cities means extra great people (stop growth to do this) and extra faith. It also allows you more religious pressure to help keep your religion alive passively, spread to local city states, etc. You also end up with more/faster social policies, through representation and digs and museums. And more tourism from the digs. That's just what a city does passively. In addition to this, you can focus each city on one thing, whether it be culture (room for GWs), science (growth), gold (trade posts), or extra military units.

Wide is not just for domination. It's also definitely better for culture victories and comparable for science victories and diplo victories. Of course, you can't do all of those at once, but whichever your focus is, you can do it on par or better than tradition. Tradition's only actual benefit is that it's easier to play, and for science/diplo the results are on par with a much more complicated liberty-wide playstyle. But, for culture and conquest, it doesn't really compete.

::shakes head::

 

[tommynt]

building more as 6 cities is just very wrong - totaly wrong apart maybe a domination game on a huge map.

IF u want go past 4-6 cities u have to conquer some, its just so much better, opponent caps usually got new lux, good land, pop, buildings .. everything u need. Own filter cities just give nothing apart slowing u down.

There is nothing wrong about 10 cities as long as 6 of them are opponent capitals.

 

[Cromagnus]

"Tradition's only actual benefit is that it's easier to play, and for science/diplo the results are on par with a much more complicated liberty-wide playstyle."

This is just simply not true. It takes *time* set up the infrastructure necessary for your 'complicated liberty-wide playstyle' to build all the buildings it needs to compensate. Yes there's more total happiness with more cities, because you can build more coliseums, and if you can afford it, more faith buildings, but all that takes time. That time sets you back. By the time you catch up on the back end, the Tradition game is already long-since won.

Also, you can win this way on low difficulty level, but it will be a struggle at best on high difficulty level, even if you can find the space. A struggle to find places to put cities. A struggle to protect them. A struggle to feed them. At BEST you've generated a solution that isn't as good. In the typical case though you've set yourself up for failure.

Now, in the case of cultural victory, there are only two reasons wide is good: 1) There's a hard limit to the tourism output of a city. 2) You can't rush-buy archaeologists.

But until you need archaeologists and museums, wide is STILL bad even for CV. It's reducing your tech rate, draining your resources, and otherwise interfering. Which is why Domination-assisted CV is best. Because you don't want to have that city draining resources all the way up until the time you actually need it. Far better to capture a capital with GW already in it, with museums and wonders and everything else.

Liberty only holds its own post-BNW because of conquest, and that's arguably only true because of the Pyramids. In a game where you don't get the Pyramids, (which often happens on Deity) Tradition conquest is comparable. To say that Tradition's only benefit is that it is easier to play is ridiculous. It's SO MUCH better designed for science in the context of BNW, and science is everything when not discussing domination. Liberty = production. Tradition = growth. Science = growth. Science = victory.

What tommy said. 10 cities works great if they're mostly capitals. Otherwise it's such a waste of time. It's not just *complicated*, it's *inferior*.

Also, of course your capital wouldn't be the same size as your expos. I was giving the benefit of the doubt, unhappiness-wise. Realistically, tack on 20 extra unhappiness (with no way to compensate for it other than spending all your faith, money and hammers on happiness, thus further devaluing your wide empire)

If you actually went tall in the capital with Liberty, you'd run out of happiness even faster. You'd still be behind in beakers, even if you somehow managed to have the same population, but you wouldn't, you'd need MORE population, and while you're building coliseums, granaries, libraries, etc. etc. etc., for all those cities, your population growth is limited by happiness. Even if you had enough trade routes to boost all those cities up, you'd still be stuck in the mire because of unhappiness. Even a unique lux in every city (which wouldn't happen) and crap tons of duplicates, and ideal situations for lux-to-lux trades, still wouldn't keep up. It's fragile, inferior, and wrong.

Which reminds me, the recent G-Major has me thinking that Gajah Madah might be the ideal "wide" civ nowadays if you're playing on huge archipelago. On a typical 4-5 cities start, you then get 3 more w/ guaranteed unique resources + one tradeable copy in each. Not to mention each city immediately starts with +2gpt. And chances are you get a few more uniques. So that could get you to 8 cities. But when? You're not pumping out all those settlers when you're building NC. Not when you're growing the capital. At some point you have to break to build libraries and grow the capital. So, your second set of expos doesn't come out until later, and they *barely* have time to build a granary and a monument by the time you're wanting to build Oxford. So now you're watching this 8-hammer city take turns to build a university. And that's your good expo. It's still slower, but at least when you pump food trade routes into those cities, there's a *chance* for them to hold their own happiness-wise. But, it's pretty clear that it takes a special civ & map & map-size for Wide to work. And "work" is defined by "slower tech rate" which translates, on Deity, to a struggle to keep up, not get destroyed, etc. etc.

Bah, I'm one of liberty's biggest proponents, but let's be realistic about what it can do.

 

[Stacked_Deck]

The way I see it another big nerf to Liberty was Piety being moved to the ancient era. It used to be that if I focused on religion (to the detriment of other things) I had a reasonable chance of getting some happiness buildings. Now with every other civ starting with Piety you're lucky if you can even get one on Immortal, I dread to think what it would be like on Deity.

 

[Cromagnus]

The way I see it another big nerf to Liberty was Piety being moved to the ancient era. It used to be that if I focused on religion (to the detriment of other things) I had a reasonable chance of getting some happiness buildings. Now with every other civ starting with Piety you're lucky if you can even get one on Immortal, I dread to think what it would be like on Deity.

On Deity, you just need to get faith-generation. Your neighbor's religion will get you happiness buildings. But, that's not exactly a reliable strategy. Your point is valid. Although, honestly, it's a struggle to get a religion even when the AI doesn't go Piety. They tend to get the first pantheons, which means they get the best faith-generating pantheons. A bad tundra or desert start doesn't slow them down, so they can be spewing faith and get the best beliefs. Even if they're stupid about it, and go DF with one desert tile, it still screws you.

 

[adwcta]

Cro, let's break this down into three parts. Assume Mongolia, for simplicity's sake.

1) Do you think 8 city liberty at a turn 0, 50, 60, 80, 90, 100, 120, 130 setup basis would produce more science, assuming that that's the empire's focus, or a 4-city tradition (give liberty a +20% pop edge, with a 20 and 25 size cities (25 being NC city), and 6 size 10 cities; tradition goes 35-25-20-15.)? Over the course of 250 turns. Factor in great scientists, RAs, and an academy early for liberty in NC city (at the opportunity cost of 1 food).

There is one correct answer: Yes, it does. (5 city tradition may be different). I've done the math on this before, giving liberty's 5-8 cities all sorts of penalties, like no buying science buildings, etc. The breakeven point is something like +12-15% pop for 250 turns. The equation changes when 1) you're finishing the game significantly under 250 turns (usually with a science-civ), which is incredibly pointless, as no Deity AI has ever won before 250, even under optimal all friendly RA conditions as Korea, or 2) you fail at growing or setting up your 8 cities. I've also tested this out extensively in BNW on both Immortal and Deity, as I mainly play peaceful. Immortal is actually better for Tradition's total science output relative to Liberty's. This doesn't mean Liberty's always better. You can fail at so many of the above things. But, if you can ensure that you do not fail at them, Liberty IS better.

2) Do you think 8 city liberty would produce more net happiness/unhappiness overall than 4-city tradition?

There is one correct answer: No, it has a net unhappiness of something like ~30 unhappiness (do not assume a unique lux per city, that's very unrealistic; assume 2 starting luxes, a unique lux for first expansion and a unique lux for every 2 cities after that). This happiness issue is a big deal, and rightly so, liberty's greatest weakness besides finding spots.

3) How many choices (each one possibly being wrong) do you have to make over the course of the game, playing 8-city Liberty vs 4-city Tradition?

Answer: Liberty has to make a LOT more choices. More than just twice that of Tradition. Some of these choices WILL be wrong. But, if you can minimize the wrong choices, you can get ahead in science, if that's what you want to do. Overall, I'd say once you factor in Liberty's difficulty, and the need for ton more happiness resources (especially at that low-happiness time of renaissance/industrial), which costs a lot of gold, Liberty's slightly worse than Tradition at science. But, you can't go around pretending Liberty has 8 cities up and running and saying that's STILL worse than Tradition. It's simply not true.

It's separate questions. One goes to show how good a strategy is at producing science. The others show how difficult it is to execute the strategy. Liberty is harder, but even in science, it's more secure. Liberty's also back-loaded, which means if you miss the turn 250 time, your chances of victory is still significantly higher than Tradition.

Ignore military. Focus on 8 city vs 4 city. Focus on Liberty vs Tradition. I've told you the breakpoints. 8-city Liberty > 8 city Tradition in raw bonuses (and easy of setting up). 8-city Liberty > 4 city Tradition in total science output over 250 turns. It's pretty balanced for science, if the assumption is that you can squeeze 6-8 cities into an area, which you usually can, or, at least you'll know whether you can or not before 25 turns are up and you have to pick between liberty/tradition (the backup of a CB rush to clear room is also not a terribly crippling thing, though it will ultimately set you back ~10 turns, and more importantly cost you Sistine if you wanted to do culture).

For culture, Liberty won't miss any wonders if you play it right (maybe you can get Globe and Sistine, but I can only ever get one of those two even with Tradition). It IS slower than Tradition to get to the Internet endgame, but it has a higher tourism output, which is what matters. Tradition can hit Internet, and then stall. Liberty always ends the game at Internet. It just hits it 20-25 turns later than Tradition would. So, again, trading ACTUAL security for the arbitrary turn time measure.

Let's put it this way: For most civs, Liberty's 8 city > 4-city Tradition for science. For certain civs, or if Tradition expands to more cities (the resource breakpoint is 7 cities, the science breakpoint may be 5, or 6 at worst), then Tradition is superior for Science. A very similar case happens with gold output. Liberty is also clearly favored for game-long warfare and clearly favored for tourism victories on Deity. Wide-play also synergizes with more UA/UB/UIs for more civs than Tall-play in general, so you get extra bonuses for wide, that have nothing to do with Liberty/Tradition.

 

[Cromagnus]

It's funny that you're comparing a "safe, low-risk approach" but also calling out that the strategy is harder. It can't be harder and more secure at the same time.

Also, and this is I think where you and I just disagree: Tradition gets you a tech lead sooner because it maximizes early growth with the least unhappiness cost, and gets your universities out faster. An early tech lead is generally safer.. for any VC. You're more likely to get Wonders. Plus, if you're behind in tech, you're more vulnerable. If you play it totally conservatively, and go for Construction before Philosophy, Machinery before Education, Industrialization before Scientific Theory, you're not safer, you're MORE at risk, because of your slower tech rate. The same thing applies to Liberty. Nobody's arguing that 10 cities don't eventually generate more beakers, even proportionately more. But by the time it does, Tradition has the game won, and not through some "high-risk" strategy. Expanding to 8-10 cities is *by definition* high risk. The AI will hate you, you're more at risk of not getting enough happiness. The only time this is even arguably not true is when you have a *RIDICULOUS* faith output... so high that you can afford to dump 8 pagodas & 8 Mosques out there, or something like that. But, in an efficient science game, you hit rationalism after the tradition closer, you hit the industrial era so soon that you didn't even have to waste a single drop of faith on anything but GS, you spent your beliefs on +15% growth, etc. etc.

Basically, your strategy is higher risk on Deity and more likely to fail. But, prove me wrong. Submit even just one t250 Deity SV with 10 cities and the timings you suggest for expos. I won't bother to submit a 3, 4 or 5-city one because there are tons of those on these forums. And by the way, in G&K the AI did occasionally win in t25x timeframes, so a t230 strategy was inherently "safer". It may not be necessary anymore, but IMHO it should be. I recognize that's a matter of opinion, but I preferred it when there was actual risk of losing. Arguing that Liberty is stronger because the AI now sucks so you don't have to win fast... is ... I just can't agree with that logic.

 

[kb27787]

The only time this is even arguably not true is when you have a *RIDICULOUS* faith output... so high that you can afford to dump 8 pagodas & 8 Mosques out there, or something like that.

you'd be better off using the faith for GP...

I take it people who love these buildings either make 100 fpt or tech so so so so slowly that their costs remain cheap... assuming these are bought even in medieval 16 faith buildings is 3200 faith that's 2 great people of your choice and a holy site...
If you go into renaissance the cost goes up to 4800 and by industrial no idiot should still by buying these buildings.

Liberty is also clearly favored for game-long warfare and clearly favored for tourism victories on Deity.

REALLY? As far as I know everyone says CV is very capitol-centric, aside from sacred sites cheese which is not really viable on deity. Sistine is very gettable on deity btw. If your tourism post-internet has stalled and failed to get an AI into "rising" and influential within 30 turns at most, something has gone wrong and you should've bailed out. It is very hard to finish a deity CV relying on artifacts/landmarks alone. What really gets the job done is cultural heritage sites + wonders in your NVC city.

You seem to neglect the diplomatic repercussions of going wide (not necessarily because of pissing the AI early game I'm not really thinking about that); CV is also very diplomatically-centered (in contrast to DV in which friendship with CS is important here friendship with major civs is key); +80% from OB and routes is so huge that no amount of landmarks or artifacts will make up the difference if the cultural runaway hates your guts; the number of neighbors you have will affect your strategy of keeping peace with them while ideologies come into play and your friends start hating each other and call you to pick sides.

That, and only freedom has a boost to GMs but it is really unpopular with many AIs (and for a wide empire freedom does not provide nearly enough happiness), order can work but you need to out-happy the AI, not an easy thing to do especially against autocracy adopters; people seem to misunderstand that once you go CV, you won't feel any ideological pressure. That is simply not true. In 80% of my CV games I felt ideological pressure at one point or another (sometimes I've gone into revolutionary wave only to come back to win 30 turns later); your early game tourism, unless you've had a marvelous wonderful game full of wonders most likely will not even get to "exotic" with AIs pre-hotels when ideologies come online; there is a very scary period around t150-200+ where people start picking ideologies and yours is starting to take some hits (AIs love the early adopter policies, so don't count on the cultural runaways siding with you);

Here, if you are unlucky you can be staring at a scenario where someone proposes world ideology:XXX in the face; vote it down, and it's war, or at least they'll hate you so much they won't open their borders and maybe get you embargoed, etc; vote it up and rebels start spawning for example. Here, if you had gone 3 cities in my experience, you can even afford to vote it up for a green modifier, take the hit and go into revolutionary wave, be affected by 10 swords/hammers, and still be in the green. I struggle with 4 cities if this happens. I cannot imagine what it would be like with 8.

CV (peaceful ones at least) is a lot of diplomatic tip-toeing; having less neighbors and less land to defend and less worries about happiness at least simplifies the equation a little bit. Not only diplomacy, but science, money, infrastructure, wonders, military... you can afford to be lax in one aspect, but be lax in two and your CV becomes impossible.... my goodness deity CV is complicated enough as it is, I certainly would not want to go wide just to make it even worse.
My two cents anyway.

 

[anthropophage]

A 200 faith pagoda needs 100 turns to break even on faith costs, and it gave you happiness and culture to boot...