Liberty vs. Tradition - Deity Challenge

[Bleidraner]

Not sure if anybody will be interested in playing this, but there has been (yet another) discussion about the relative strengths of Liberty vs. Tradition. The original thread is titled "Compare Liberty and Tradition, Head-to-Head", in Strategy & Tips. I want to thank the original poster for creating such an interesting discussion. Various posters suggested playing both strategies in the same map, and Acken provided an initial save for Korea, he believes that is one of the civs that are well suited for the wide strategies that Liberty is ideally suited for. Some other posters suggested that everybody try to play the map first with one strategy then with the other. I will leave it to you guys to decide what you want to do. The relative strengths will be measured by fastest finish time, not survivability or any other qualitative aspect.

The designated victory condition is Science and the civilization is Korea. Other information:

Spoiler :

The map is a Pangea, difficulty is Deity, Standard speed, Standard size

Here is where you will start:

Spoiler :

Rules (really recommendations):
- The attempts have to close the chosen tree. Any hybrid approaches are valid and welcome, even opening Trad first then going to Liberty or any other combination as long as the chosen primary tree is closed.
- In general try to follow GOTM rules but frankly, whatever works for you, if you are into reloading knock yourself out. I will for instance try to play both Liberty and Tradition, so I will have prior knowledge of the map in one of the attempts. The idea here is to try to play as optimal a game as possible (optimal is defined as fastest finish time in this case) and get the Science Victory as soon as possible, so whatever works for the individual player.
- Please use spoiler tags if you decide to post spoiler information about the game.

This is the initial save file kindly provided by Acken. I tested it on a Mac and it works.

View attachment Korea%20Liberty.Civ5Save

Some final considerations. We are all (most of us) pretty much in agreement that Tradition is stronger than Liberty for a science victory. The question is, in all maps? With all civs? See Manpanzee's post in the thread mentioned above. Even if a hundred of us play this map, and all of us do 2 games, we will not offer a definite answer to the question, for various reasons, most of them mentioned in the thread. But hopefully we will see some interesting games and what is even more important, we will have some fun.

 

[Bleidraner]

Ok so my own approach. I usually play Tradition and I am a firm believer that it is stronger. But in this case I will play Liberty. I need more practice with it and I think it will be fun, and I think if anybody else decides to play there will be more Tradition proponents than Liberty ones, so Liberty will have at least 1 champion. I will try to do 6-8 cities, depending on what the map looks like (I still have not looked at it). That will be a challenge for me as I always struggle to keep concentration with wide empires, but hey trying to do something different here. I am not a good player of Liberty (or Korea of that matter) so any sugestions are welcome.

My most likely strategy will be open Tradition, then full Liberty. If it is a friendly map I will try to plant 7-8 cities, I may conquer somebody's cap if they are close enough, but it is unlikely as I think ANY war will slow me down (one of the advantages of Tradition in Deity, not so difficult to do it peacefully).

I don't expect my result to be competitive. I am good, but on a pure science game easily 30 turns slower than Ironfighter and 20 slower than power players like Acken, Vadalaz, Zenmaster and Manpanzee. I will be very happy if I can get a 250 with Liberty and a 230 with Tradition. Let's see what happens.

 

[Manpanzee]

Not to derail this thread before it gets started, but I think that Korea may not be the best civ to examine this with. It's true that the per-specialist boost benefits empires with more specialist slots, but Korea doesn't have any infrastructure bonuses and is also an amazing Tradition civ. I think Liberty is more likely to be seriously competitive with civs that don't necessarily have great bonuses for Tradition. The main characteristic I would look for is some kind of per-city bonus that kicks in early and enables a quick faith- or gold-based snowball.

Civs that stand out as good candidates to me are Shoshone, Maya, Ethiopia, Celts, Egypt, Russia, China, Arabia. And then maybe Netherlands, Songhai, Siam, Indonesia.

 

[Bleidraner]

Oh no problem Manpanzee. I am not really expecting anybody to play but me, so that's OK. Shosone or Maya, I like them both. After I finish with this, I will see if I can roll a good map for the Maya, I think it may be the strongest there. If you have any saves that are interesting, let me know.

Anybody that wants to chip in with opinions of who maybe the strongest Liberty civ, please do. If there is any kind of consensus I will post another thread.

 

[CraigMak]

Not to derail this thread before it gets started, but I think that Korea may not be the best civ to examine this with. It's true that the per-specialist boost benefits empires with more specialist slots, but Korea doesn't have any infrastructure bonuses and is also an amazing Tradition civ. I think Liberty is more likely to be seriously competitive with civs that don't necessarily have great bonuses for Tradition. The main characteristic I would look for is some kind of per-city bonus that kicks in early and enables a quick faith- or gold-based snowball.

Civs that stand out as good candidates to me are Shoshone, Maya, Ethiopia, Celts, Egypt, Russia, China, Arabia. And then maybe Netherlands, Songhai, Siam, Indonesia.

The civs you just stated would do well with liberty are severely OP civs. I think this is further evidence that liberty just can't compete. Let's think of this as if you had a civ with no abilities what so ever. Would you want to go liberty or tradition in that case.

Also, I don't think Korea is a good candidate for any discussion of this type because it is also a severely OP civ.

Netherlands and Indonesia(On Pangea) not so much though. If you can pull it off with those two I give you props.

 

[Bleidraner]

The civs you just stated would do well with liberty are severely OP civs. I think this is further evidence that liberty just can't compete. Let's think of this as if you had a civ with no abilities what so ever. Would you want to go liberty or tradition in that case.

Also, I don't think Korea is a good candidate for any discussion of this type because it is also a severely OP civ.

Netherlands and Indonesia(On Pangea) not so much though. If you can pull it off with those two I give you props.

CraigMark, I think (almost) nobody is disputing that Tradition is stronger. But with all maps? With all civs? That's what we are trying to see here. We are trying to rig the game so Liberty has a chance. Don't care if it is an OP civ, can liberty do better is the question.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Um well. Manpanzee played as the Shoshone. Any argument using the Shoshone should be considered invalid. You can play Piety-Exploration as Shoshone and still do well.

 

[Bleidraner]

Um well. Manpanzee played as the Shoshone. Any argument using the Shoshone should be considered invalid. You can play Piety-Exploration as Shoshone and still do well.

Manpanzee posted a t228 HOF entry using Liberty as his main tree. This is not just doing well, it is superior play. i still have to submit a t228 using Tradition so I should know.

In fact, once the submission goes through, only 3 players will have posted a better Deity Science at Standard, Standard result in the Hall of Fame: Ironfighter, Acken, Thorak.

 

[Nikola K]

slightly offtopic,but i've played this map actually as it looked very interesting and i've used liberty, though i finished with DomV,still Acken was right,this map is insane for liberty.Had 7 cities by turn 110 edu 106 nc 84(on4cities) and i think there is even place for maybe 8 or 9 if going peaceful,for dom 7 was probably overkill but w/e,just wanted to have fun conquering the world ^^
Ps:But probably Trad with 5-6 cities would also be very strong,so i am very eager to see the results you guys get since this map is very beautiful,as i won't be playing it again,would consider replayiing if it wasn't only SV condition(would try Honor Domination prolly ^^ )

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Manpanzee posted a t228 HOF entry using Liberty as his main tree. This is not just doing well, it is superior play.

I meant you can do well with Piety-Exploration, which are considered the weakest trees.

T228 is superior play, but you also need the right civ to accomplish that. Can this be done with Japan, for example, or the Ottomans?

 

[adcarrymaokai]

The Shoshone basically have Tradition opener and then some more to begin with, and then your pathfinders give you what you actually want at the moment, and not some sh*tty "barbarian encampment discovered." Pick a culture ruin on t3 and start snowballing with either tree.

 

[Acken]

This map has a lot of things stacked toward giving Korea an incredible wide liberty game. People playing the map will probably quickly know why... Lot of space, MANY unique luxuries and horses and easy to get religion.

No amount of one map comparison will prove things one way or another. That's not really the point of the experiment. The point is to give tries, now with Korea on an excellent map and see where things stands.

Will help people practice Liberty at the same time.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

The map is great, except your neighbor

Spoiler :

Dido

Last time this AI spawned next to me on Deity, I rage-quit the game for 2 months. That Netherlands map...

 

[stormtrooper412]

Hey that's Acken's map. I gave it a spin last night and went 5 city Liberty and got Education on 101. It has the potential to be severely amazing.

 

[Bleidraner]

He you guys are fast. It will probably take me a couple of weeks to play through.

 

[Acken]

So that's weird. I was able to reach the end of the tree around T200 with a good T174 plastics without using a single GS nor oxford but I was 2 policies away from tier 3 freedom... I would have had way more science than necessary since I reached the end without needing faith GS.

Tried it with a 8 cities NC liberty (finished lib T80 thanks to a cultural CS). Opened tradition.

Will have to give it another try while making sure culture is stronger. The whole game had a very similar pace as what I usually get using tradition.

I used the following opener:
Grab engineering before philosophy. Keep making cities up to how much you want in the end. After Libraries make Aqueducts. Amusingly it will give you aqueducts around the same time Tradition usually does.
Finish Liberty, rush NC with it. Grab metal casting, make workshop after aqueducts then go education.

I got Edu on turn 105 with 8 cities most equipped with a workshop and an aqueduct and being size 4 to 10.

However I had to fight angry neighbors :/

 

[consentient]

Cheers Acken. I might try this opener and see how it translates to an Artillery domination push. Of course I would probably reach Dynamite quicker if I merely turtled, but with Liberty I can have more cities to spam them once I hit it. What I will probably do is spam 3 out of each city, then switch to full specialist and beeline something more advanced as a backup in case Artillery doesn't cut it.

 

[Bleidraner]

So that's weird. I was able to reach the end of the tree around T200 with a good T174 plastics without using a single GS nor oxford but I was 2 policies away from tier 3 freedom... I would have had way more science than necessary since I reached the end without needing faith GS.

Tried it with a 8 cities NC liberty (finished lib T80 thanks to a cultural CS). Opened tradition.

Will have to give it another try while making sure culture is stronger. The whole game had a very similar pace as what I usually get using tradition.

I used the following opener:
Grab engineering before philosophy. Keep making cities up to how much you want in the end. After Libraries make Aqueducts. Amusingly it will give you aqueducts around the same time Tradition usually does.
Finish Liberty, rush NC with it. Grab metal casting, make workshop after aqueducts then go education.

I got Edu on turn 105 with 8 cities most equipped with a workshop and an aqueduct and being size 4 to 10.

However I had to fight angry neighbors :/

Wow that's quite spectacular, if you had not had the culture issue, that would be a 205ish win. But exploding culture costs are one of the problems with wide. Religion may be the answer to that or CSs, still have not looked at the map. My own plan does not include Workshops before Edu, but engineering to Edu, with the usual detours for trade routes. But then I am still at t0. May have some time to play this weekend.

And I would like to avoid war, but that will be impossible I fear. War. War never ends...

 

[adcarrymaokai]

No screenshots, people?

 

[budweiser]

Isnt it really just about the starting dirt?

Re: Shoshone, if you make the right picks, you can get a never ending expansion roller ball going with them. You settle on the luxuries and take a culture pantheon, and build units.