So Tradition vs Liberty

Hakuoh

Warlord
Joined
Apr 1, 2013
Messages
115
Well i must say i like Liberty now much more.. I used it quiet often in G&K but now i always use it. Overall i still think Tradition is better in lategame but slows your early.

Gimme some opinions.
 
I like tradition more now, because BNW features support tall gameplay well. A few good trade routes are enough for a good income and extra cities end up costing beakers. Liberty does have the advantage of giving a settler and a worker, so early caravans are easier to get.
 
Just steal your neighbors workers. faster than getting free ones from policies, and cheaper. I stick with tradition, the bonuses are always with you throughout the game, whereas liberty is just a few 1 shot bonuses.
 
I find liberty even more useless now, b/c the "pressure" of getting your 3 cities out before turn 50 is really not there with BNW like it was before. NOW, I put out a 2nd settler where I used to build 2 Archers in my build order b/c I have (even in big warmonger games) yet to be declared on before Turn 100.
 
Tradition unlocks GE for faith-purchases, which is definitely better if you get to Industrial in a timely manner. Also, the extra gold/happiness in the capital is very helpful if you aren't going to be able to get caravans going quite as soon as you'd like.

Liberty, on the other hand, is not much changed except for one key element:
* Cultural Victory is now not dependent on staying small*
But that said, going wide still hurts social-policy accumulation.

I'd still likely go with Tradition more than Liberty. Even Honor might be better than Liberty in enough situations, even sometimes outside of going super-aggressive.
 
Neither. BNW is all about Piety.

Even Honor might be better than Liberty in enough situations, even sometimes outside of going super-aggressive.

With gold in short supply the Honor finisher - always the best of the ancient-era finishers - should be stronger than ever.
 
Liberty has received a passive nerf with the reduction of the bonuses for happiness providing buildings, reducing the power of an ICS strategy. At the same time, less early game gold means that free garrisons from Tradition is the most practical way of building an early game army. I'd say Liberty needs a buff to compete.
 
I personally choose both in most games. Works very well in BNW. Start with Tradition for the extra culture, switch to Liberty to get the free units and extra production which is incredibly nice early on - pick aristocraty to build the hanging gardens, then a 2nd settler and finish liberty. build a 2nd wonder with the free engineer - build a forth settler and buy the monument in your last city (by now all 4 cities should have monuments) pick legalism to get four free amphitheatres and finish tradition.
 
I've mostly been going Piety, actually. Granted, I've been playing Arabia and Indonesia, but still, I've found it to be mostly a good replacement for the other three, save for the comparable lack of culture. If your religion doesn't give culture, the policies basically stop coming in, which is frustrating when you're watching every other civ swipe reformation beliefs before you.

Between the two, I'm actually split. I think I tend to go with Tradition if I have extra production, cause then I can afford to build the extra worker/settler I'd be getting for free with Liberty.
 
Tradition has been a solid tree in G&K, but Liberty is just as good as it has always been considering it's niche role. If you are playing a wider empire, reduced policy costs and stupidly fast tile improvements (policy + pyramids) can't be beat.

The real question, as already brought up in this thread, is whether Piety as an Ancient era tree will be just as viable.
 
The real question, as already brought up in this thread, is whether Piety as an Ancient era tree will be just as viable

The Piety Opener+Organized Religion is enough to make even a non-religious civilization leader a religious one very quickly. The 50% cost reduction for shrines and +1 Faith is nothing to sneeze at early on, since +1 Faith is practically double faith production unless you manage to snag Stonehenge. Three core cities are producing +6 Faith a turn early on, and at only half the production cost.

Piety and Tradition go together extremely well. Tradition provides incredible buffs to growth in the capital and the finisher provides major growth buffs empire wide. Meanwhile, snagging Fertility Rights and, later Swords into Plowshares, Religious Communities, and Tithe can rapidly turn a handful of core cities into the biggest cities in the game.
 
All these divergent points of view just goes to show how much better BNW is when it comes to the early game and the balance of the early policy trees. There are so many different strategies available now where there weren't any before. I, for one, find myself mixing and matching trees now much more frequently than in G&K. Depending on which civ you are and your circumstances any one of the first four are plausible choices.
 
:deadhorse:

I think Liberty is solid. It used to be the case that you could save your early gold for a settler/worker but that's out of the picture now. On top of that the quick settler/worker can get an enormous situational benefit depending on your start (eg unlucky RNG with barbs, not a many hammers around, or better yet a great location that can and should be improved cheaply, quickly).

Also with the nerf of the culture buildings border expansion slows down pretty early, so you can't afford to wait for the resources at the 3rd ring hexes. I find myself building more cities, eg where 3 cities would do the job midterm, now I need four and soon. Tall doesn't mean 3-4 cities anymore, more like 6. So the +50% to settler production is not to be underestimated, especially since queing those settlers would cancel the Landed Elite/finisher benefit. It also makes no sense to save Legalism for anything but the first momument and the opportunity cost of that, that early is a bit meh.

It's just that Tradition has the bestest finisher that is always sorely missed when you don't have it. :gripe:

PS Chasing Piety feels like going out of your way for the entire duration and I don't like that feeling in the early game :/ Don't think that some vague mid game 'verstility' can save really slow starts.
 
Piety is definitely solid in BNW, particularly if there's a decent faith producing pantheon you want to take early.
 
It's weird not to see faith buys for ever spool. Not sure if that asymmetry is unbalancing.
 
I mix and match a bit

Generally my early game is piety and the +1 for shrines, then Liberty up to the free settler. That lets me get down two cities pumping out faith fairly early for a pantheon belief, and an early pantheon can be a big boost based on what your start has available.
 
Liberty looks like it'd run into gold issues. But then again, it wouldn't have to spent 500 gold a pop on settlers... so really it just has to break even more or less.

Liberty's worker policy does have a stealth buff. In the early game now, you don't even want more than one worker, because it suffocates your gold. Liberty's faster worker (almost 2x worker) means you're actually saving a bundle. Still not as much as Tradition's two +gold policies, but a Liberty start doesn't need as much gold as a Tradition start because of it.
 
Honor is surprisingly nice for a dip now

Barbarians spawn more in BNW, and more barb units are created by pillaged trade routes. If you find a nexus where caravans are often intercepted, you can kill a barb every couple of turns for an 8 culture boost, which is quite a lot in the early game, and end up with a couple upgraded units.
 
Who said you have to commit yourself with a whole Ancient Era policy tree? I tested a somewhat out-of-the-box strategy in my last game as Boudicca and it was quite solid: start with Liberty, go straight to the free settler, and then between it and the next policy, get my first Classical Era tech, if I hadn't done it yet. Then just rush Aesthetics while running like crazy for new lands with new luxuries to settle new cities negating the happiness hit, with the settler production bonus from Liberty speeding things up, and then the production bonus from Aesthetics, coupled with some internal trade routes, helping me to build Ceilidh Halls easier when I get the tech, providing the much needed happiness for my now wide empire, which now is good for cultural games because of the amount of possible archaeology stuff.
 
Tradition seems solid indeed. I usually don't have room to settle more than 4 cities anyway + I guess my style is quality over quantity.
 
Top Bottom