Minimum number of cities to justify taking liberty?

[Artifex1]

Number of cities at 4?

 

[Babri]

Number of cities at 4?

For such a small empire I would prefer Tradition. I would say if I want to create cities more than 6-7 then I'll choose liberty.

 

[MadDjinn]

1.

Taking Liberty to the end gives a free Great Person of your choice. So 1 is the minimum number of cities to justify it. (not to mention the free Settler to give you a 2nd city, free worker, free golden age, extra production and meritocracy)

 

[bcaiko]

Yeah, I usually end up taking the Tradition opener (to get to early policies faster) then heading down the Liberty and Honor tracks depending on what's going on in game. Liberty is an easy way to save funds on workers and settlers, though. It's a great track.

 

[swmaniac]

As MadDjinn said: 1.
Liberty is a great policy tree in general, the game designers evidently tried to make it specialized towards expansion but they managed to just make it great. Under current circumstances there is no reason I would forgo liberty.

 

[Furycrab]

As MadDjinn said: 1.
Liberty is a great policy tree in general, the game designers evidently tried to make it specialized towards expansion but they managed to just make it great. Under current circumstances there is no reason I would forgo liberty.

Well Honor still stands more or less on it's own, but they hit Tradition really hard.

The problem is that even if you plan on going wonder heavy early game, you don't save enough time setting up your first 3-4 cities. 15% wonder speed =! free first settler. I know it sounds weird but it's tall empires that could really use something "like" a free settler or worker so that it can have all that extra time to pump out early wonders and national wonders. (It doesn't need the +50% production or worker speed though)

 

[Babri]

1.

Taking Liberty to the end gives a free Great Person of your choice. So 1 is the minimum number of cities to justify it. (not to mention the free Settler to give you a 2nd city, free worker, free golden age, extra production and meritocracy)

On the other hand Tradition boosts a small tall empire more. Liberty would definately help a 1 city empire so would Autocracy opener help a peaceful nation. However generally Tradition & then going for Patronage or Freedom could be a better idea.

 

[vexing]

Number of cities at 4?

depends if you're talking about just the opener or the entire branch,
the opener itself is never worthwhile - it's only useful in that it opens up other things.
the branch as a whole is probably the best of the opening three for most games (regardless of number of cities - even occ), finishing it for the free GP will guarantee one of the early powerful wonders such as hagia sophia (+ porcelain tower)

I usually end up taking the Tradition opener (to get to early policies faster)

while intuitively this may seem to help, it ends up hurting a lot after a few policies. policy costs increase exponentially so spending a policy purely to get more policies doesn't work out beneficially. you get tradition + four other policies a lot later than you'd have gotten the four other policies if you went directly for them.

 

[nokmirt]

Are you playing on duel map? Why would you want to have one city or even just four cities?

 

[Misterboy]

I'm finding I almost always take the Liberty opener and then go for the settler and worker. They are just such a huge boost early on.

So I think any size empire can benefit.

 

[nokmirt]

I'm finding I almost always take the Liberty opener and then go for the settler and worker. They are just such a huge boost early on.

So I think any size empire can benefit.

I do the same. It depends on your map and how close your neighbors are. I have recently played as France with the TSL GEM mod, and Rome and Spain were very close. I needed to expand as fast as possible in a short time, so the free settler really helps, because room for expansion runs out very fast. If I am lucky, I end up with my capital, and a city in Southern France, Northern Italy, to block Rome and Spain, and last but not least, Brest to gather up a portion of the English Channel, it is important to have a northern port city.

In any case, it is a close run thing, all I can do is try to build these cities up and stave off the Romans and Spanish, until I am able to expand into North Africa.

 

[BSPollux]

I like to start with the +3 and +1 Culture via SP and build a monument as my first move, followed by one worker and then Stonehenge to boost my early culture

2nd worker and 1st settler come by Sp, after SH i build the 2nd&3rd settler. By then the first three citys will have monuments. when the 4ths is settled I take the free culture buildings.

 

[odin_toelust]

Are you playing on duel map? Why would you want to have one city or even just four cities?

It is often beneficial to have very few cities, especially if one is going for a culture win. Otherwise its nice to get out those national wonders easily, keep SP costs down, happiness up, etc etc

Hard to see where things will shake out with the current patch, but in .275 it could be argued that 1-3 cities (mostly 1 imo) was optimal.