On liberty

[srvs]

In BNW I've been going mostly Liberty, but the opening has been bugging me:

1) If I go Citizenship -> Representation it takes too long before I get to Collective Rule. I have 4 cities up by turn 100 or so, which I'm guessing is way too late. So I go Citizenship -> Collective Rule but then Representation is worthless. I guess I can pump out settlers without Collective Rule, but then I'm just taking it for the free settler and the production bonus is worthless.

2) Which GP to take? I either go for GS, GA or GE and plant them but I'm never really sure. I mean, all three of them are useful. What do I want more of? Let's say I don't have a certain victory in mind. I usually go science-ish and go to war with a few civs and then finish with diplo/science victory because I cannot be bothered with war late-game.

 

[Deau]

4 cities by T100 is fine in BNW reality. You can always spare 1-2 trade routes for +4 food per turn to the last few satellite cities to get them up to par with your GnK standards. The hard part is to get all tiles improved for 4 cities as it's taxing on the number of workers.

The liberty GP should almost always be a GE to rush a wonder or a GP to catch the 5th religion if religion was part of your strategy yet you didn't get a lucky pantheon. In extreme rare cases where I'm lagging behind a lot on tech to the point where I don't expect to have a 2 turn window after a given tech to pop a wonder with the GE until late industrial, I will go GS and settle but currently, early game trade routes, at least at higher difficulties, help you catch up in tech significantly earlier than pre BNW.

So Citizenship first mostly depends on your difficulty level and the map itself. If you can delay the second settler slightly without losing your optimal second city location, go citizenship and try to build NC before planting the CR settler. REX to 4 immediately after. Otherwise, CR earlier will generally pay off the most. Especially if it allows you to plan closer to some AI effectively increasing your number of incoming trade routes

*edit* my bad I missed out you said you went all the way in representation. As Matthew and Justice mentioned, the debate is between going directly to CR or taking a 1 SP detour for citizenship. There is no debate as to the other 2 SPs to be picked last, their bonuses don't kick in early enough and the shear power of liberty are the free settler and worker. The 5% reduction of SP cost per city account for such little culture in the early game.

 

[Matthew.]

Just pick up Representation later. It still affects the cities settled before that and is used more for keeping policy cost low when you go to build your 5th, 6th, 7th+ cities.

 

[Justice1337]

Just pick up Representation later. It still affects the cities settled before that and is used more for keeping policy cost low when you go to build your 5th, 6th, 7th+ cities.

Yeah, this.

People come all the time talking Representation first, because it's hard for them to know that doing that is bad from an honest read. The policy is written poorly. It means that the additional cities modifier to SP costs is cut by 33%, from 10% to 6.6%'ish on a Standard sized map. So if you found 4 cities, you're paying about 20% more for policies than you would've been with one city, down from 30% as normal. It's not at all triggered by the actual founding of the cities, as it may seem to suggest. So, Representation 5th or even 6th is only about 60-80 culture more than Representation third. And most of the culture savings from it come after the 5th policy.


On Citizenship or Collective Rule, it's terrain and civ dependent. Sometimes you'll have Gems or something under Jungle as your luxuries, and you need double early Worker. Certain civ's like Russia and Huns can have multiple 2+ hammer improvements possible on their starts, and a T20 Citizenship is good there too to help out your early builds. In most all other cases, Collective Rule is better. It's hard to spare Scouting units to defend improvements from Barbs in the first place, and you can also steal a Worker from a City State at around T30 anyway. Citizenship is still quite good as a Pyramid-style benefit going into the later game, while it's harder to take advantage of Collective Rule's ancillary benefit.

 

[killmeplease]

do anybody build pyramids?

 

[Icono]

do anybody build pyramids?

If you can get away with it, absolutely. I've found a lot of the AI's in my games (usually Immortal level) go Tradition most of the time, so there is a lot less competition for it. The two free workers + improvement time reduction can really do a lot to get your cities going. But going liberty purely for pyramids is far from worth it, in my humble opinion.

 

[Autokrator48]

What I usually do is go directly to collective rule and once I get my free settler (usually about when the Granary is done) I hard build 2 Settlers in a row so that I can have a 4-city opening turn 40ish. From there, you absolutely want the NC (so no more cities) and to go to meritocracy, and, as the last policy, the GA (it would be least useful to take that first). Also, often times I found the free worker more useful after I get my other cities as it helps getting my resources up faster so I can soak up the unhappiness, if there is any.

Usually, the best idea when you're playing, if you don't have a wonder in mind you think you have a decent chance of building with a GE, is to just go with GS and place an academy as early science boost tends to stack up pretty quickly, especially on higher levels (it also kinds of make-up for your turn 80 NC).

 

[_invy_]

do anybody build pyramids?

I got it on immortal in one of my games. I had a good capital and needed workers so why not.. AI don't proritize it in BNW it seems.

 

[livsbrand]

do anybody build pyramids?

I have a really hard time staying away from Pyramids when I pick Liberty, the worker speed is too beautiful. All you need is a decent start with a couple forests to chop, and it's yours every time. Even easier if you have some wheat or deer or whatever. I might stay away if I get some start with no extra or from resources, no hills and 0-1 forests to chop.

 

[casualplayer]

I have a really hard time staying away from Pyramids when I pick Liberty, the worker speed is too beautiful. All you need is a decent start with a couple forests to chop, and it's yours every time. Even easier if you have some wheat or deer or whatever. I might stay away if I get some start with no extra or from resources, no hills and 0-1 forests to chop.

It can be done in Deity and save your forests for something more important. AI seems to like just about anything but Liberty. Watch and see what SP trees the AI are doing and if no one is in Liberty you know you have it all to yourself now. If I see my neighbors are neglecting Tradition I'll take a stab at Hanging Gardens. If they are neglecting Rationalism I can gun for the Porcelain Tower (so opening Rationalism early got even more awesome.) It's a pretty sweet BNW modification being able to "scout" to see if anyone is competing with you for the same SP opener Wonders, or even being capable of competing.

But I agree with the beautiful turboWorkers. I've been pleased with my results from a Liberty/Masonry beeline open. The biggest drawback I've found is choking out your GPT in the early game by having too many Workers. Wish you could give them away for influence with AI or City-States.

 

[livsbrand]

The biggest drawback I've found is choking out your GPT in the early game by having too many Workers. Wish you could give them away for influence with AI or City-States.

Definitely. It's a catch 22 for me where I don't really see any use for all the workers unless I can crank out 2-3 settlers so I can have 4-5 cities straight after Pyramids, but then I have a really hard time surviving.

 

[RealHuhn]

My Liberty strategy changed quite a lot in BNW and I'm still not 100% sure what works best.

Liberty/Piety/ICS mix obviously benefits from free settler first.

But for everything else I like to go monument first, then free worker coupled with a culture pantheon to reach the free settler earlier.
Early food trades are key now and the free worker makes room for early granary/caravan combination. Depending on your pantheon, you might have to build a settler before you get the free one though. But with a few improved production tiles from the early worker, it's actually pretty fast to build one anyway.
Remember you can work nothing but hills while building settlers without losing any population.

So yeah, build a settler, feed the city with food trades, get the free settler, feed again, rinse and repeat.
Happiness cap is reached quickly though and it might be more suited for Tradition. But I like Representation for more policies and the free Engineer. You can also expand a lot faster whenever you feel like it.

If no other AI goes Liberty, it's also possible to build the Pyramids in your 2nd city in a reasonable amount of time. With food trades, new cities can work production tiles immediately and you also get the +1 hammer per city.

 

[chumchu]

I've been trying out 4 cities poland on immortal in slightly different way:

You need ~4 forests near your capital and some decent production tiles.

build order: scout, monument, granary, the great library~turn 35 (stop growing at 4 pop if necessary, chop forests), national college ~ turn 45, settler, settler

policies: liberty, free worker, republic, collective rule (from getting to classical)
tech: pottery, writing, mining, animal husbandry/calendar (depends on when the library finishes

The liberty worker comes earlier than workers stolen from city states and you keep one more potential city state ally. With the free social policy you still get the settler turn 35, in time to settle the turn national college is completed.
With this opening you should have an early tech lead to do a cavalry rush or wonders. You can finish liberty ~ turn 65 for an early great scientist or prophet with the oracle, or go into tradition to get your food going before using your free golden age.