Quest for Glory - Deity Challenge #6

[RuntyBassoon143]

Challenge: You must open Tradition BEFORE FINISHING the Liberty tree.

Civ: Songhai
Map: Continents (standard everything)
Opponents: Random

In the most recent GotM (Russia - 243), there was a discussion regarding the trade-offs between tradition and liberty, namely that liberty sacrifices the long-term value offered by tradition for faster expansion, in hopes that by starting to snowball earlier, you can convert your early tempo advantages into long-term value in other ways.

Border expansion for good, workable tiles in your capital was one of the pain points that was mentioned with the liberty opening, with some advocating that this can be alleviated by opening tradition. Personally, I have never been able to make this strategy work, as it always feels clunky compared to the streamlined Liberty-only approach.

This challenge is to see if we can find situations where opening tradition alongside a full Liberty opening might make sense.

The save begins on turn 6 in order to create the situation discussed previously where an early culture ruin might cause one to open Tradition before switching to Liberty.

Good luck!

Recap
T0: move to the hill.
T1: found Gao; research Pottery; build a scout.
T3: find a culture ruin
T4: meet India.
T6: find an upgrade ruin for our warrior.

 

[RuntyBassoon143]

@raider980 @Megalou @The_Black_Vegetable @vadalaz @Nizef @consentient @cocls @zxcvbob @leif erikson

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

I'll give this a shot, though as a disclaimer I have very little experience with Liberty. On occasions that I did try, I was usually struggling with gold, happiness, border expansion, and growth , but let's see how this goes.

 

[cocls]

I've play for a few turns. This maps is really very very unusual and should not represent the general situation.
I would not pick Tradition opener on this map if I go liberty because:

1. We are in an isolated continents with only me and India, luxury trade would be a big problem, so I should try to get happiness from religion. Piety opener would be the first priority after Collective Rule
2. because we will get a high culture yield from UB and religion, border expansion would not be a big problem in this game.
3. It's also very important to finish Liberty early to get a Great Admiral to trade luxury early with AI on the other continent.

 

[RuntyBassoon143]

I've play for a few turns. This maps is really very very unusual and should not represent the general situation.
I would not pick Tradition opener on this map if I go liberty

Yeah that’s the point though. Given the limited information we have on turn 6 when we get to choose our first policy, I’d say Tradition is a slam dunk. The only reason not to take it would be to try something unusual because of the challenge.

But I’d say if you rolled this game in any other situation Tradition is opened here 100% of the time, no exceptions.

Spoiler :

After opening tradition and scouting a bit more I don’t think Liberty is ever correct on this map, but the challenge is to make the best of it anyway. I’ve played up to turn 135 (no prior knowledge and my game is actually going much better than expected.

 

[raider980]

Oh cool, perfect thing for a rainy Saturday morning! I guess some will choose to open Tradition right away, and some will choose to open Tradition a bit later while they're in the middle of the Liberty Tree. I don't normally replay games but this might be a good opportunity to go back after and play like the first 100 or so turns a different way - going full Liberty.

 

[consentient]

This is a really bad map for Domination. I wiped out India and captured the Vatican before encountering other civs, so they didn't know about it. Rushed Navigation and took Madrid with Frigates, but nearly all the remaining capitals were inland and I couldn't be bothered to click 'next turn' until I got GWBs online. I would highly recommend that people sharing maps make them using Hellblazer and NOT settle the capital.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

I did finish the game, but as others have echoed, this map did not lend itself to Liberty. As for combining Liberty with the Tradition opener, I think it is justified if you can't (or don't want to) place cities close enough to each other so they can share tiles, and buy tiles for each other. In other words, if you settle your cities as if you were tradition, opening Tradition alongside Liberty might make sense. Of course, you need land suitable for Liberty in the first place, and in my experience and opinion, that is rare on Deity (although I know other players do manage to play Liberty successfully).

As for this game:

Spoiler :

Science victory turn 283.

I basically had the standard 4-city play, but now as Liberty rather than tradition. Since I did not feel I needed the border growth, I picked all of the Liberty policies except for Representation before I opened Tradition. To 'ease the pain' of the extra policy, I built Oracle (and was lucky to get it, since I did not rush for it). However, 4-city Liberty is considerably worse than 4-city Tradition, so my cities were small, and my tempo was bad. I planned to build some frigates and take a few extra cities, mainly Madrid as Tradition Isabella had built a nice collection of wonders. However, in part due to my poor tempo, and in part because she was Tradition and had Goddess of Protection, I lost one frigate per turn, so after taking Seville (which did have Hanging Gardens), I had to peace her, and I stuck with 5 cities for the rest of the game.

As my culture was reasonable, and I knew my space timing was going to be slow, I decided to complete Tradition, alongside Rationalism and Freedom. I did toy with the idea of domination instead of space, but Greece's game was so good, I'm not sure I could have pulled it off. His army was huge, he had 84000 gold (!), and of course all of the (remaining) city states. As it was, I nearly lost to a culture victory from Greece, but thanks to me instigating a war between Indonesia and Greece, he had no tourism modifiers on him, and Indonesia's culture saved me. As an aside, I learned a new tourism modifier today: fought together alongside a common foe (is that an autocracy policy, or something)?

 

[raider980]

I've played through T135 for comparison. Opened Tradition as usual then went full Liberty. BO was Scout, Scout (mistake but I didn't realize the size of our continent), M, Shr, Gr.

When I saw where India was and the size of our continent I figued I'd need to block Gandhi from coming east. Luckily I was able to block his settler with my two scouts and spearman (ruin upgrade). Then I rushed my first two settlers west to settle blocking cities Tombouctu and Jenne.

I'm actually doing really well I think. I got NC on T92 (early for me on Deity) and finished Liberty T105ish and got a Gr Ad to explore the seas and meet other AI. Alex is dominating the game and is pretty scary. He's even founded a city on my continent. I can't let him take Delhi because Gandhi has been building all the wonders left and right so I'm just going to have to take it first.

Here's some maps for comparison. I think I'm going to try and go full Liberty and not open Tradition and compare the two.

 

[RuntyBassoon143]

When I saw where India was and the size of our continent I figued I'd need to block Gandhi from coming east. Luckily I was able to block his settler with my two scouts and spearman (ruin upgrade). Then I rushed my first two settlers west to settle blocking cities Tombouctu and Jenne.

This was my plan as well but he founded Vijayanagara super early (same spot as where you have Tombouctu). On the bright side, he immediately offered friendship and sent a caravan to my capital.

I would have settled similar to you but with two minor (yet significant) changes. I would have put Tombouctu 1 tile to the east to get the silver in the third ring; I would have settled Jenne on the marble to be coastal (lighthouse is better than watermill and you get to exchange cargo ships with Taghaza), and tundra marble is not a tile I’m looking to work anyways.

I did not settle anything in the area where you have Tondibi. I think that slowed you down and will not end up being worth it.

 

[basior]

Thank you @RuntyBasson1 for rebooting this cool challange!

Ive played first first 120 or so turns. Maps indeed looks pretty weird, but hey, no one said its going to be easy

Ive found 4 cities and opened Tradition before free worker Liberty policy. Managed to snatch Oracle and HG (with GE)
Captured Dheli (had Machu Picchu) around t100 and now proceeding on Alex with Xbows. I'm planing to research Compas after Educations to look for rest of the victims.

 

[RuntyBassoon143]

Ive found 4 cities and opened Tradition before free worker Liberty policy.

I really thought about going for worker first, but I planned to only settle two expo, and didn’t want to waste Collective Rule.

Spoiler :

My plan was to steal a worker from Manila but it took 39 turns for them to produce one!

 

[Megalou]

Liberty-Republic-Collective Rule-Citizenship-Monarchy---Rest of liberty tree

Spoiler First ~100 turns :

Monarchy opener had two decent effects: I got Hanging Gardens in Gao. The citrus to the northwest (see screenshot) came within Gao's borders faster and made me afford Open borders with Greece and gave me the chance to explore the waters beyond Athens.

Indirectly, the free great person from the liberty tree was severely postponed because of the Monarchy opener. As the screen shot reveals, I have a small chance of getting Citchen Itza through a Great Engineer, which would be lucky. Getting Hanging Gardens was lucky too and I think that the dislike for the Monarchy opener may be exactly that it can make you a little too dependent on luck and chance. In comparison, going straight through the Liberty tree is likely to give you a solid go at rushing NC or Oracle with a free great engineer. It should be noted that I missed Oracle in this game.

The Indians seemed totally obsessed with building nothing but missionaries so this seems to be one of those games where you can spit out a CB task force and then go back to a builder's mode.

@cocls, I would only pick Great Admiral if I was going for culture win, but sure, it is another reason to get through the Liberty tree ASAP.

 

[raider980]

I played it again without Tradition. It came out about the same at T100, maybe even a bit worse. I got NC slower and finished Liberty a few turns later. Its not a good comparison though; I played sloppily and wasn't paying as much attention because I already knew the layout of the land. And to me discovering the map is the best part so since I already knew it I wasn't that interested. I'll have to try straight Liberty across several games to see what happens.

 

[cocls]

win an 233T SV with my second try.
in my first try, I didn't pick tradition opener and play until arount 100T, then I found out that tradition opener probability will not be a bad idea even on this map
so I retry the game and pick tradition opener as the first policy, the overall strategy is the same with the first try.

Spoiler :

After some exploration, I found out that an early rush to take Indian capital is a must on this map, and we have enough horse in our capital, so chariot archer rush is an obvious choice.
Finally take Delhi in 57T,

policy order:
tradition opener - liberty left branch - piety opener - liberty right branch - patronage opener - aristocracy - rationalism + freedom + commerce opener

tech order:
pottery - mining - animal husbandry - wheel - luxury tech - sailing - philosophy - medal casting (around 110T) - civil service(around 120T) - education(arount 130T)

The biggest problem in this game is luxury trading (can not meet Greece and Spain before sailing, and AIs on the other continent before great admiral from liberty finisher)
so I decide to pick piety opener and beeline philosophy for UB in this game. I'm lucky in this game that India found a religion with pagodas in this games, making piety opener + UB powerful.
And after I purchase pagodas in most of my cities, I adopt religion from Portugal which have Religious Center and Feed the World.
because of happiness shortage, I only have 4 cities before finish Oracle, and found 4 extra cities after that aroung 90-110T

After philosophy, I decide to beeline Medal Casting. go directly into education is not a good idea in a slow start game. Civil Service is quite good on this map but we won't have enough happiness for our growth.
So medal casting first is the best choice in this game. An early workshop also help me generate a GE later for Forbidden Palace. The last fiiler policy I choose in this game is Aristocracy which is actually a good policy for happiness in midgame.

I finally win SV in 233T, a little bit slower than expect. The biggest mistake I made in the late game is that I totally forgot RA in this game. My recent science game is a sub-200T game, RA is really useless with a fast win. But in this slow start game, RA is very useful to speedup our victory. Another mistake is forgetting Porcelain Tower, which is gauranteed if I build it in time. Without these mistakes an 220+ winning is totally possible.

 

[basior]

Turn 191 Dom Victory - it was my second attempt at this map.

I have founded 3 expos and captured Dheli early.
Land army marched on Greece then Mongols and Indonesia.

2 navy(second one financed by selling all science/food buildings) armies captured Madrid, Porto, then cumulated on Washington.

Taking tradition was pretty insignificant (especially with Songhai good culture) compared to other (mostly army) decisions in this game.

 

[billby]

Challenge: You must open Tradition BEFORE FINISHING the Liberty tree.

Civ: Songhai
Map: Continents (standard everything)
Opponents: Random

In the most recent GotM (Russia - 243), there was a discussion regarding the trade-offs between tradition and liberty, namely that liberty sacrifices the long-term value offered by tradition for faster expansion, in hopes that by starting to snowball earlier, you can convert your early tempo advantages into long-term value in other ways.

Border expansion for good, workable tiles in your capital was one of the pain points that was mentioned with the liberty opening, with some advocating that this can be alleviated by opening tradition. Personally, I have never been able to make this strategy work, as it always feels clunky compared to the streamlined Liberty-only approach.

This challenge is to see if we can find situations where opening tradition alongside a full Liberty opening might make sense.

The save begins on turn 6 in order to create the situation discussed previously where an early culture ruin might cause one to open Tradition before switching to Liberty.

Good luck!

Recap
T0: move to the hill.
T1: found Gao; research Pottery; build a scout.
T3: find a culture ruin
T4: meet India.
T6: find an upgrade ruin for our warrior.

Are you saying you MUST move on to Liberty after opening Tradition or can you stick with that policy tree?

 

[basior]

Are you saying you MUST move on to Liberty after opening Tradition or can you stick with that policy tree?

Correct - the point is to have Tradition opened before finishing Liberty