Should Liberty and Tradition be mutually exclusive?

[Androrc the Orc]

Flavor-wise, should Liberty and Tradition be mutually exclusive? Specially considering that in Tradition you have a "Monarchy" policy, while in Liberty you have a "Republic" policy and so on.

I have considered modding this change, but I have been unsure...

 

[LuCypher73]

My thought would be that you would probably want to use the option where you can carry over the culture points. If you are forced to spend them that mutual exclusivity might limit initial policy options too much.

Another option would be to tweak honor a little and make it more attractive

 

[kaspergm]

I think in many ways the three opening policies ought to be mutually exclusive, since after all they represent three very different ways of thinking. I do agree that if one beefed up Honor, it might even work fairly well in game as both Tradition and Liberty are quite equal trees, with Tradition perhaps having a slight edge. From a game perspective it might even make it a bit more fun because people tend to always open up with Tradition, no matter what game strategy they are aiming for, and if taking Tradition makes Liberty or Honor impossible, this might change for those who intend to go wide, which might result in some more variation in the final built.

 

[Irkalla]

I think in many ways the three opening policies ought to be mutually exclusive, since after all they represent three very different ways of thinking. I do agree that if one beefed up Honor, it might even work fairly well in game as both Tradition and Liberty are quite equal trees, with Tradition perhaps having a slight edge. From a game perspective it might even make it a bit more fun because people tend to always open up with Tradition, no matter what game strategy they are aiming for, and if taking Tradition makes Liberty or Honor impossible, this might change for those who intend to go wide, which might result in some more variation in the final built.

Only the lower level players always open Tradition. In higher level play, Liberty opener is almost ubiquitous.

 

[Atlas627]

Discrepancy between G&K and Vanilla above me? In G&K, it does indeed seem as though everyone goes Tradition. In Vanilla, all Liberty.

 

[kaspergm]

I guess it also can depend on circumstances and/or level, I only play on Emperor, but without having done the exact math, I feel that even if I want to go for a quick Collective Rule, I'll get there sooner if I start by taken Tradition opener for the extra CPT which is much more than I get from Liberty opener very early in game. But I guess one could fairly quickly do the math on that.

Edit >

Just to follow up on that, I did a quick math. Not taking possible culture ruins into account, and assuming that you build Scout-Scout-Monument and complete Monument after 20 turns to get some early policies, the math looks like this:

Straight Liberty
You need 25+30+60 Culture to get to Collective Rule. You'll pick Liberty opener > Republic > Collective Rule
- You'll earn first policy on turn 22 (having finished the monument on turn 21).
- You'll earn second policy after another 8 turns (2 CPT).
- You'll earn third policy after an additional 15 turns (2 CPT, assuming you haven't settled a second city by then - would you have?)
This means a total of 45 turns to get to Collective Rule, maybe slightly shorter if you manage to pop a second city before this for another +1 CPT.

Tradition opener, then Liberty
You need 25+30+60+105 Culture to get to Collecture Rule. You'll pick Tradition opener -> Liberty opener -> Republic -> Collective Rule
- You'll earn first policy on turn 22 (having finished the monument on turn 21)
- You'll earn second policy after another 5 turns (6 CPT).
- You'll earn third policy after another 9 turns (7 CPT).
- You'll earn fourth policy after another 15 turns (7 CPT, assuming you haven't settled a second city by then - which there's a slightly larger chance that you would have)
This means a total of 50 turns to get to Collective Rule, so you do actually get there faster by skipping Tradition. However, this requires that you build the Monument fairly quickly, pushing back Monument in the production cue will make the two break roughly even. On the other hand, finding a culture ruin will have greater impact for people going strict Liberty, because the 20 Culture from the ruin will cut 10 turns off at 2 CPT while only 3 turns off at 7 CPT.

So if we take beelining Collective Rule as the objective for a Liberty start (which is probably not a bad assumption) it actually pays out to skip Tradition. Go figure - I think I'll work on a mod that makes these trees incompatible just to try it, I always had the (seemingly wrong) feeling that taking early Tradition would promote early policy progression.

 

[Irkalla]

I guess it also can depend on circumstances and/or level, I only play on Emperor, but without having done the exact math, I feel that even if I want to go for a quick Collective Rule, I'll get there sooner if I start by taken Tradition opener for the extra CPT which is much more than I get from Liberty opener very early in game. But I guess one could fairly quickly do the math on that.

Edit >

Just to follow up on that, I did a quick math. Not taking possible culture ruins into account, and assuming that you build Scout-Scout-Monument and complete Monument after 20 turns to get some early policies, the math looks like this:

Straight Liberty
You need 25+30+60 Culture to get to Collective Rule. You'll pick Liberty opener > Republic > Collective Rule
- You'll earn first policy on turn 22 (having finished the monument on turn 21).
- You'll earn second policy after another 8 turns (2 CPT).
- You'll earn third policy after an additional 15 turns (2 CPT, assuming you haven't settled a second city by then - would you have?)
This means a total of 45 turns to get to Collective Rule, maybe slightly shorter if you manage to pop a second city before this for another +1 CPT.

Tradition opener, then Liberty
You need 25+30+60+105 Culture to get to Collecture Rule. You'll pick Tradition opener -> Liberty opener -> Republic -> Collective Rule
- You'll earn first policy on turn 22 (having finished the monument on turn 21)
- You'll earn second policy after another 5 turns (6 CPT).
- You'll earn third policy after another 9 turns (7 CPT).
- You'll earn fourth policy after another 15 turns (7 CPT, assuming you haven't settled a second city by then - which there's a slightly larger chance that you would have)
This means a total of 50 turns to get to Collective Rule, so you do actually get there faster by skipping Tradition. However, this requires that you build the Monument fairly quickly, pushing back Monument in the production cue will make the two break roughly even. On the other hand, finding a culture ruin will have greater impact for people going strict Liberty, because the 20 Culture from the ruin will cut 10 turns off at 2 CPT while only 3 turns off at 7 CPT.

So if we take beelining Collective Rule as the objective for a Liberty start (which is probably not a bad assumption) it actually pays out to skip Tradition. Go figure - I think I'll work on a mod that makes these trees incompatible just to try it, I always had the (seemingly wrong) feeling that taking early Tradition would promote early policy progression.

I was mainly talking about Deity play. I normally go Scout, Monument, Scout, Shrine, Warrior or something like that. I steal my first worker if I can. If I'm forced to, I buy him. I get my second one out of the worker policy of liberty as my first policy choice in the liberty tree.

After this, I'll buy a settler and get my second from collective rule. This requires a fairly good culture early game, which is hard to achieve without a pantheon that helps you out.

The early expansion is what's going to make or break your game. If you can properly expand early and define your general borders, then you won't have to squabble over land with third parties until much later. I call them third parties, because they like to try to come poop on you in the middle of a war.

Of course, If I have a civ capital within about 8-10 tiles of my own capital, and definitely so if they settle their first city in my direction, I'm going honor every time.