Liberty Vs Tradition

I'm wondering though... Assuming you are not wanting to go for a culture victory, you could just avoid Tradition/Liberty and really early culture building in favor of expanding and/or building a decent amount of economy and military going. (using the hammers from monuments and investing them into works/scouts/settlers) To then kick in the culture a little bit later once Piety/Patronage unlocks?

You would end up with fewer social policies overall obviously (hence why I don't recommend it for Cultural approach to the game) but you could focus more of those SPs into either Patronage if you want to push a tech lead in the mid game, or Piety if you want to hulk smash.

My guess is you'd have to work a little on the timings in the opening but it seems interesting.

Without delayed SPs checked in game selection, it is nearly impossible to get to medieval without at least 2 SPs. That is, at 1CPT from capital, you need to get to medieval before turn 26 (impossible) to not have to waste 1 SP and before turn 71 to not waste 2 SPs.

This implies no monument, no liberty or tradition as the first forced policy, no culture ruin, no barb quest for a cultural CS etc. etc. etc.

The deal though is after you've spent 2 policies in the early trees, there is generally a very, very interesting 3rd or 4rth policy that is worth it like LE/Meritocracy/professionnal army.

It is possible not to do any extra culture from the start for lots of turns but it is generally not a good option because then your cities border expansion becomes soooo slow that you can't catch your luxuries which you could sell. This is also a reason why patronage usually opens up somewhere between the 3rd and the 4rth policy and not after the 2nd given you didn't friend/ally a cultural CS too early.

Last but not least, delaying early culture buildings by say 50 turns may feel like you will have many fewer SPs but it is really not the case. 50 turns of say 2 monuments is only 200 total culture. Sure this is enough to get your first 3 policies if you only have 2 cities but onceyou have 4-5 policies open, this turns to be less than the cost of the 6th policy. In other words, it would only turn you into trailling one SP. This is due to the exponential increase in cost.

Anyway the above example of culture building delaying is one of the reasons why early monument building is often overestimated. If your base border growth is fast enough to pump luxuries/resources out at your worker's working speed, there is hardly a real need for the monument (exception made to get the worker few turns earlier from citizenship or to get the meritocracy GP few turns earlier etc. to fit in a tightly timed opening strategy)

A good example is the resourceless domination strategy I've been throwing here and there in various threads. Since it uses honor->PA opener for pikes->upgrades rifles, you don't get any immediate benefits from your first 4 SPs all the way until you start upgrading your units. As such, for so long as my border growth is enough for my needs, I don't waste any precious hammers/gpt for culture buildings. I just then turn into more culture buildings/CSs once my rush is fielded/have hammers and gold to spare to help catch scholasticism nearly as fast as I would've with earlier culture approach
 
It's not so much about delaying the first 2, in fact I'd consider getting the first 2 in Honor either working towards professional army or just getting the GG. You'd get early map control and easy scouting, and not getting a culture boosting SP and putting your focus towards early expansion it would be possible to get the 3rd 4th and 5th SP faster than it would take to get 4th, 5th and 6th.

I might mess with it over the weekend so I'll have more info on how the timings actually work out, but seems like it wouldn't hurt you all that much or that the bonus for going Tradition/Liberty first is perhaps a slight exaggeration.

Not sure if I quite make sense as to why it would be interesting, but would make for some strong opening for non-cultural victories or Civs that have strong early UU or Great General (mongolia/china)
 
Mean but true. I mean come on, do we really believe that you can gain an advantage with no policies until x. Just not going to happen. Just isn't whatever the difficulty setting. An extra city very quickly, doesn't scale through time, oh come on. I'm willing to believe you can ignore most of the policies, but some are pretty useful to catch a wonder at the right time for a start, a GE is awfully useful when it gives you an expensive tech and a culture boost, plus quick culture scales to give you policies faster, added to an extra city. I mean really?

It's his game though, so who cares? :)

Hell try it out guys, but you'll have to replay it where you didn't use any to really gain any worthwhile information. I'm not buying it though 'til I've seen pictures. :p

So anyway, I got to my apt. tonight and had the time to plug a few turns in. Went exactly with the Deity arabia/pangaea standard/standard setup with saving policies. I got currency on turn 68 hard teched, spent my 3 policies on scholasticism and dumped all of my gold into allying CSs.

I am currently on turn 105 and can already call for an easy win. I haven't used a single RA yet (which is really rough on deity usually) AND I am tech leader (this is usually close to impossible to be clear #1 at this early stage of the game). I was DoWed by greece/spain after spending all of my gold on CSs but the CSs act as a choke points. I even got to pick a super weak spain city that had 2 furs...a ressource I didn't have. This will provide me roughly 40g/turn as soon as the bazaar is up all the way till the end of the game.

Up to now, this feels like the smoothest deity game I've played since .275 and the key point in it WAS to save my first 3 SPs to push scholasticism really early and make full use of it's insane strength.

I'll come back to edit in a few days on what turn I got victory...I'll probably replay it as both science & diplo reply (diplo will obv be a faster win).

My F12 button for SSs has a glitch probably with my gaming keyboard setups and it does another automated so I can't throw any SSs 'till I'm done and will reuse a few saved turns to show the game

*edit* Mech infs on turn 175...I had to save on turn 171 to pick game path because my position was so strong I didn't want to ruin this by winning diplo super early. I'll reply it for the heck of diplo.
 
In 100% of my games I fully get the all the policies in both these branches other than Republic before anything else.

In what percentage of games do you roughly find yourself pursuing Liberty Vs Tradition?
 
So anyway, I got to my apt. tonight and had the time to plug a few turns in. Went exactly with the Deity arabia/pangaea standard/standard setup with saving policies. I got currency on turn 68 hard teched, spent my 3 policies on scholasticism and dumped all of my gold into allying CSs.

I am currently on turn 105 and can already call for an easy win. I haven't used a single RA yet (which is really rough on deity usually) AND I am tech leader (this is usually close to impossible to be clear #1 at this early stage of the game). I was DoWed by greece/spain after spending all of my gold on CSs but the CSs act as a choke points. I even got to pick a super weak spain city that had 2 furs...a ressource I didn't have. This will provide me roughly 40g/turn as soon as the bazaar is up all the way till the end of the game.

Up to now, this feels like the smoothest deity game I've played since .275 and the key point in it WAS to save my first 3 SPs to push scholasticism really early and make full use of it's insane strength.

I'll come back to edit in a few days on what turn I got victory...I'll probably replay it as both science & diplo reply (diplo will obv be a faster win).

My F12 button for SSs has a glitch probably with my gaming keyboard setups and it does another automated so I can't throw any SSs 'till I'm done and will reuse a few saved turns to show the game

Nice of you to conduct the experiment, but really, I wouldn't even bother. It's so obvious that straight scholasticism would be superior to anything in tradition/liberty (except maybe for abusive stuff like wats) that anyone disputing that just have to play the game more, and on higher levels.
 
Needless to say, your frst three policies are your most important, so make sure you intend to exploit them throughout the entire game before chosing. I tend to go tradition/aristocracy then either liberty or honor track. most of the three policies easily gained can go into the first three policy trees. Other than that I tend to choose policies that fit the situation at hand like piety for happiness or patronage for science and CS gains.
 
Nice of you to conduct the experiment, but really, I wouldn't even bother. It's so obvious that straight scholasticism would be superior to anything in tradition/liberty (except maybe for abusive stuff like wats) that anyone disputing that just have to play the game more, and on higher levels.

O I know...or at least was feeling exactly the same. I just didn't like the condescending tone used to blast Glassmage's legitimate post so I figured I would come with a better explanation/example as to why it is definitely not stupid to hold your SPs.

Hell even if it had been stupid I would probably have tried to come with a situation where it isn't so bad.
 
My question is, if you assume continents/pangaea, standard size/speed and a random civ what are the factors that will push you down each path? Consider your civ, your surrounding map features and the other civs you encounter.

In what percentage of games do you roughly find yourself pursuing Liberty Vs Tradition?

In a vacuum, I would agree with your assumptions about the "strongest" openings. I lean towards Liberty about 75% of the time, because I find that I don't expand enough if I go Tradition. I get a lot of mileage out of Collective Rule's free settler and discounted settler cost.

My factors are civ and map situation -- specifically, the proximity of other civs/CSs, available land -- and whether I intend on building wonders early.

If you have the happiness and can focus on cultural output to maintain policy flow, an expansionistic Tradition / Liberty combo is incredible.
 
I usually plan on tradition, but click liberty instead. It seems more often than not I'm in a land grab race right from the start. If I don't go liberty, I end up with too small of an empire. If I have lots of room to expand, I will definitely go tradition, but too often than not the prime real estate is getting gobbled up, and that free settler and worker go a long way to help you get better cities.

Having your single city building a worker and a settler just seems to take forever if you have neighbors close by expanding. Instead get me a 2nd city earlier and I have more flexibility.
 
Geography is one of the biggest factors for me when choosing between the two.

If the starting position is crowded with other civs/city-states, tradition is the best; otherwise, liberty will be necessary because I'll increase my isolation without it.

Honour is used depending on if the civilization has an early UU or not.
 
Geography is one of the biggest factors for me when choosing between the two.

If the starting position is crowded with other civs/city-states, tradition is the best; otherwise, liberty will be necessary because I'll increase my isolation without it.

Honour is used depending on if the civilization has an early UU or not.

There is much more to honor than just an ancient/classical UU rush. PA is a sick SP for any warmongering. That being said, the OP was much more with regards to liberty vs tradition so I'll leave arguments around honor to a different thread :s
 
I will gladly play a deity game with policy saving up to prove you wrong. I stand by the other comment where I quoted you saying it was pretty stupid. It probably won't happen for a while though as the comp at my parents' place can't run civ5 :(.

Plan is: Arabia, any map...probably continent or pangaea for harder sub turn 100 defense. standard/standard. Small REX for different luxuries. I likely won't even do NC start and just do RAs to pop into medieval and dump gold into massive CSs w instant scholasticism. This will allow me to plow through tech, catch up and even pass most AIs. I'll see from there and go with the flow...hell I'll probably even do some warmongering just for fun since early scholasticism should leverage my game so hard that I will have most options availible.

Make sure you compare it to a game where you take favourable policies, like the extra city and the GP for quick tech or wonder or both, try not to let your personal bias make you do stupid things like settle in slightly the wrong place. Personally I can't see how you can make that much culture without a free city and wonder quickly especially as France, plus less science and less resource hook ups early on and hence less gold, seems to me the benefits are early and exponential. I'm sure it works well enough but is it better? Of course the problem is the game being so random anyway it would be hard to tell regardless, but meh, I'd accept it if you played similarly enough.
 
Make sure you compare it to a game where you take favourable policies, like the extra city and the GP for quick tech or wonder or both, try not to let your personal bias make you do stupid things like settle in slightly the wrong place. Personally I can't see how you can make that much culture without a free city and wonder quickly especially as France, plus less science and less resource hook ups early on and hence less gold, seems to me the benefits are early and exponential. I'm sure it works well enough but is it better? Of course the problem is the game being so random anyway it would be hard to tell regardless, but meh, I'd accept it if you played similarly enough.

Well I'm out of town again so I won't be able to tell the turns for the various victories for a while. Seeing how the game was playing when I saved on turn 171 (point in time when I had to pick between science/diplo/total dom), I expect diplo win in the 180-190 range which would be over 30 turns faster than my current best deity diplo. Probably 250-260 ish for domination since I didn't do any kind of rush 'till artillery(wasn't originally planning on dom). Science I am somewhat unsure since there are so many techs away but I guess 245 is a good estimate - 2 Waves of RAs, 6 different bubbles and enough cities/hammers to build the parts easily.

As for comparing the games. I play on deity and even though I don't play/post for HoF, I still always play in a competitive perspective thus any games which I compare the above with didn't have any negative bias to prove a point or anything.

The issue in your idea of "making up for that much culture, etc" is that the exponential cost increase on SPs kinda solves this by itself. By this, I mean that even if you do produce less culture early in the game even to the point where a given start has 6 SPs on turn 100 and the other game only has 4 SPs on turn 100...is that the gap between the two games will slowly catch up to the point where there is really only one SP difference and sometimes "less than a full SP". As such, if your worse SP gives marginal benefits, then you have gained close to nothing from having one more SPs.

I kind highlighted that idea when I proved doing tradition->liberty->citizenship->meritocracy was very awful compared to liberty->citizenship->meritocracy UNLESS you intended to go deep into tradition for LE (or say played shongai for 4 mud pyramid mosque).

Ultimately, the reason why hoarding SPs is more powerful than opening any of the 3 trees is because of the broken scaling of scholasticism at higher levels. It is commonly agreed that NC start is the most reliable mean to help catch up AIs some (they start way ahead due to initial bonuses on emperor+). It is not the only way to go, hard early REX can do fine if you can survive the wars but NC is the most played/most reliable/works with nearly every strat.

Now a standard NC start will get you to 30 or so BPT around turn 60 and then very slowly increasing to like 40-50 BPT around turn 120 depending on how much you REX and how good you is your growth. Unless you play france, GE rushed stonehenge and spent all your gold on cultural CSs, a 6 or 7 SP lineup to get scholasticism won't ever come before turn 120 (and that's very generous). In the very example of my played game hoarding SPs, I unlocked scholasticism on turn 68. At the time, my BPT went from 38 to 85. This is fine renaissance science production obtained the very turn I entered medieval. I could've likely just saved the game there, given it to king/emperor player who never beat deity and watched him plow through it easily...

Being Tech leader is the better way to win any strat - also why most competitive players vote babylon as the best all-star civ. One of the reasons why deity is so hard is because of how much you need to catch the AIs tech-wise. Turn 70 scholasticism with decent gold managing will push you much, much further tech wise than anything else you could do.

Anyway Joseph, I don't know what difficulty level you play but if it is king+, I suggest you try to play a game where you try hoarding SPs to scholasticism (prince, the CSs BPT production is alright but not significant to the point of leveraging a game). You will have to adjust your standard opener to build worker and purchase/build settler but as soon as you pop scholasticism and have a few CS allies you'll clearly see my point :p
 
too often than not the prime real estate is getting gobbled up, and that free settler and worker go a long way to help you get better cities.

If you're surrounded by other civs, go honour.

Most of the time I go tradition because the effects are just stronger in the long run. Most victories you want 4-5 cities anyway, stick with tradition. I only go liberty if there's enough open land to seriously spam 10+ settlers in capital. If you do, everyone will hate you and nobody will sign research agreements with you.
 
It really depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

Landed Elite is generally the best choice for a generic empire and strategy. The production bonus that results from more rapid growth to population caps and the effective extra citizen in every city working :c5production: means that LE is the overall :c5production: maximizer for an empire with three or more cities.

Meritocracy is for focused strategies. If you're planning to stay at a single city you settle for a Culture win, the GE or Manufactory will do more for you than Landed Elite. Either you get a critical early Wonder you'd otherwise lose out on, or a larger :c5production: bonus.

Meritocracy can also be extremely powerful on Deity, because the city-states produce a ton of :c5science:. You can use Meritocracy to get into Medieval very early, then use Cultural allies to get Scholasticism up and running early. Again, this only works well for an empire with one or perhaps two cities due to spiraling policy :c5culture: costs as you expand.

Finally, Meritocracy can let you get Longswords (or Rifles with the Babs) on the ground much earlier than you otherwise could, which makes early warmongering possible even on Deity.

Collective Rule only makes sense if you're going to be able to follow it up with Landed Elite. It works well for France and for civs such as Siam and Songhai that can get strong Culture buildings from Legalism. The idea is to use the capital's early :c5production: to settle as many cities as possible early on, use Legalism to speed up :c5culture: acquisition, then use LE to turn all of those cities into :c5production: powerhouses. If you have a lot of Horses and can quickly grab Horseback Riding to slap up Stables and Circuses, you can have ridiculous :c5production: numbers very early on. A nice side effect for Siam is the large :c5science: boost from free Wats.

It's no accident that every civ which can quickly go Collective Rule -> LE is considered a top-tier civ.
 
Tradition-Liberty-Honor

I like opening up my choices.
If I decide to enter a tree,
... I commit to all the policies required to open up the next set of choices.
For me,
... I'm more interested in engaging PLAY 8)
... than winning.
 
Meritocracy is for focused strategies. If you're planning to stay at a single city you settle for a Culture win, the GE or Manufactory will do more for you than Landed Elite. Either you get a critical early Wonder you'd otherwise lose out on, or a larger :c5production: bonus.

i've switched my view on this. i think going directly for landed elite seems to put you in a stronger position overall than getting a manufactory. the growth compounds everything nicely, and monarchy is quite nice in occ
 
It really depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

Landed Elite is generally the best choice for a generic empire and strategy. The production bonus that results from more rapid growth to population caps and the effective extra citizen in every city working :c5production: means that LE is the overall :c5production: maximizer for an empire with three or more cities.

Meritocracy is for focused strategies. If you're planning to stay at a single city you settle for a Culture win, the GE or Manufactory will do more for you than Landed Elite. Either you get a critical early Wonder you'd otherwise lose out on, or a larger :c5production: bonus.

Meritocracy can also be extremely powerful on Deity, because the city-states produce a ton of :c5science:. You can use Meritocracy to get into Medieval very early, then use Cultural allies to get Scholasticism up and running early. Again, this only works well for an empire with one or perhaps two cities due to spiraling policy :c5culture: costs as you expand.

Finally, Meritocracy can let you get Longswords (or Rifles with the Babs) on the ground much earlier than you otherwise could, which makes early warmongering possible even on Deity.

Collective Rule only makes sense if you're going to be able to follow it up with Landed Elite. It works well for France and for civs such as Siam and Songhai that can get strong Culture buildings from Legalism. The idea is to use the capital's early :c5production: to settle as many cities as possible early on, use Legalism to speed up :c5culture: acquisition, then use LE to turn all of those cities into :c5production: powerhouses. If you have a lot of Horses and can quickly grab Horseback Riding to slap up Stables and Circuses, you can have ridiculous :c5production: numbers very early on. A nice side effect for Siam is the large :c5science: boost from free Wats.

It's no accident that every civ which can quickly go Collective Rule -> LE is considered a top-tier civ.

Amen to that.

The first paragraph is strong for multiplayer. The extra food is needed to fill 2 scientists slots later with universities without crippling growth and production. Science whores are rarely a threat(excepted a LS rush from meritocracy, but still a rare occurence, not always easy to get money in time) if you can keep production high enough.

Liberty>Tradition for short term mini-goals/rushes :

Fast 2nd city for blocking, early rush, HE--->sword/LS rush with 1 city, early wonder

Tradition>Liberty for long term/overall goals :

Hammers, growth, large army potential in ADs, science. Mid game wonders. Artillery rush.
 
i've switched my view on this. i think going directly for landed elite seems to put you in a stronger position overall than getting a manufactory. the growth compounds everything nicely, and monarchy is quite nice in occ

In an OCC it's sufficiently inexpensive to get growth via Maritimes that growth isn't a primary consideration. Also, by the time you're starting to struggle to grow you should be working Tradition.

Monarchy can be very good on intermediate difficulties where :c5happy: can become a problem relatively early. On a lower difficulty the :c5happy: constraint doesn't bind very tightly, and the additional :c5gold: from Monarchy isn't worth the early policy IMO.

I'd argue that it's hard to beat Scholasticism in a Deity OCC if you're not playing :c5culture:.
 
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