Using Liberty with Carthage?

[brewgod]

Here is a question for you all:

I am currently in the beginnings of a new game on Prince. Before jumping up to King, I thought I would play one or two more games on Prince to fine tune some game play styles.

I love Carthage having a harbor when a new coastal city is built. How many of you break away from the 4 city MAX and build more around 6-8 cities and playing Continents using Carthage. But if you break away from the 4 city structure then Liberty? is a Must? for your game.

If you fill out Tradition first and then go to Liberty and fill that out too what would be a great 3 choice...Exploration giving a bonus to your coastal cities?

Also one last question...if you come across any other AI Capitol Cities on the coast while playing on Continents would you strive to Take Them Out making them your city number 5-7. Meaning build some military units and take them out rather than building a settler and starting new cities. Yes and take a Warmonger Hit but you would have great city locations and perhaps capture a World Wonder.

Any thoughts would be great.

Brew God

 

[Bandersnatching]

I go Liberty as often as I go Tradition, because I hate how powerful Tradition still is and don't want to always play the same game with it (that being the 3-4 city tall tradition build). Sometimes I only ever get 4 cities with Liberty and do fantastically, sometimes I go for like 6 with Tradition and do fine too. Carthage really benefits from Liberty and going wide in general, but I would say that you should scout out your landmass and determine how many cities you can put down without having to fight your neighbors, and then choose a policy tree based on that.
Liberty isn't a MUST if you went tradition but have lots of cities, nor is tradition a MUST if you didn't start with it but then played tall. It's just better to choose a policy based on how you expand in the beginning... most of the time the Classical and Medieval Era policy trees are better for reaching victory than the Ancient Era ones, so I wouldn't recommend choosing ancient policies over others except in a few circumstances.
When playing Carthage I almost always go Exploration, and that tree fits really well with Liberty because of all the flat city buffs it gets. But if you plan on Domination victory, going for Commerce would probably be the better choice - 40% reduction when purchasing units and buildings is very important for warmongering.
Regarding Capital-sniping: I usually don't do it unless I plan on Domination or the civ has been an opponent and thorn in my side the entire game, because the warmonger penalties are really big (at least on Immortal). Sure you get a good city, but I have found the diplomatic repercussions to be very severe, especially if the civ was well-liked internationally. If you must do it, then try to make the civ a pariah beforehand - bribe it to attack multiple civs, denounce it and hope your friends do too... if you can sway another civ into declaring war on them with you, that's even better, and you can end up with a higher diplo modifier (I think) by antagonizing one civ and fighting them than you can by just sitting there all peaceful and isolationist until the end of the game.
That was longer than I expected! I hope that some of this is useful though, and good luck. King should be fun and challenging compared to Prince.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

I'd be less inclined to finish liberty AND tradition, rather than picking either one and the moving to other policy trees later like certain policy's exploration when you have loads of coastal city's. When i would be aiming for 8 coastal city's i would work on liberty first and try to aquire that +3 hammers from exploration absolutly asap, thats like base +24 hammers for ze empire withought boni.

The pantheon messenger of the gods probably is great for a carthage who's going to plop a lot of coastal city's. Typicly a downside of wide expansion early on is that you sacrifice a bit on science to catch up later on. Because Carhtage makes it's city connections over water automaticly you'd also get the +2 science right away. If that afaik amounts to +14 science for having 8 city's, well then that works nicely to mitigate the early science issue's.

 

[Redaxe]

Your best bet with social policies for a wide Carthage game is to unlock Tradition from a culture ruin and then progress straight to Liberty.
If you play a wide empire you really need the bonus to border expansion as that will save you a lot of gold from having to buy land.
Once you finish liberty go into exploration for the infrastructure bonuses.

 

[beetle]

I agree that Tradition or Liberty as a second tree is not as strong as the other options which become available.

Your best bet with social policies for a wide Carthage game is to unlock Tradition from a culture ruin and then progress straight to Liberty.

I don't understand, how does an early culture ruin change anything? You still would not want to delay the half price settlers or GP finisher.

 

[JonnasN]

I think he's just saying to open Tradition just to enjoy increased border growth in every city. And +3 culture gain is more significant early on, so do it earlier.

 

[reddishrecue]

I agree that Tradition or Liberty as a second tree is not as strong as the other options which become available.



I don't understand, how does an early culture ruin change anything? You still would not want to delay the half price settlers or GP finisher.

An early culture ruin can give you enough culture for the first social policy. SO when you get first tradition you get +3 culture in the capital for liberty.

 

[beetle]

Opening Tradition then full Liberty is not as strong as full Liberty from the start. An early culture ruin does not change that.

 

[shaglio]

Opening Tradition then full Liberty is not as strong as full Liberty from the start. An early culture ruin does not change that.

That would be true if he was only opening Tradition for the +3 Culture. But, I do believe he mentioned opening Tradition for the bonus the border expansion - the +3 Culture is just an added perk.

 

[brewgod]

From the info above,

I am thinking a route is to experiment with going full Tradition but on the second or third chance just open Liberty. I can fill it out later on in the game. Second full tree to fill out is Exploration. Then perhaps go back and fill out Liberty. By then the Pyramids will have been built by someone else.

When it comes to Ideology I will always go Freedom. Go with happy faces which help me with trade routes or coastal city production.

The only catch usually that will slow me down is that I love City States. So I will make open up their tree to get all the benefits I can when buying them off.

Also I don't want to be slowed down with Culture and Tourism. Love to open their tree up to start digging artifacts up.

I need to focus on Trade Routes and everything to capitalize on it.

Brew God

 

[reddishrecue]

Opening Tradition then full Liberty is not as strong as full Liberty from the start. An early culture ruin does not change that.

Yup... starting out liberty asap would be better because you get +1cpt per city. If doing this, make sure you build monuments to increase your cpt and finish the liberty tree quicker. Republic speeds up your building production for national wonders and resources.

 

[Redaxe]

Opening Tradition then full Liberty is not as strong as full Liberty from the start. An early culture ruin does not change that.

Well all you are essentially doing is delaying your settler slightly to get a permanent strong culture boost to your capital and a very underrated boost to border growth in ALL cities.

Ok sure you can get your settlers out a bit earlier with straight Liberty but with the Tradition opener each new city with the 1 free culture is going to have borders growing 4x faster - so essentially the same as each city having 2 monuments!
That will save you a lot in the long term, fast growing cities will have better access to higher yield tiles and you can grab more territory before AI civs get them. It sharply reduces the need to buy tiles which is very expensive especially considering that Liberty doesn't give you as much gold as Tradition. I really see the value in fast border growth, and that Tradition opener really helps your capital get all the bonus tiles quickly. In the mid game if you are still settling cities tiles can cost over 300 gold....

It's not easy to compare the two options but I really think a starting point in Tradition is stronger in the long run and really the right side of the Liberty Tree there is no hurry in finishing. Representation and Meritocracy are very weak policies in the early game: A Golden Age is going to be better when you have more and bigger cities running and the happiness effect isn't that noticeable until you have many cities. The Great Person is useful regardless of when they come.
Also you can build the Pyramids as an option to effectively get the bonuses of Citizenship

There is also one more potential benefit and that is the option to choose Oligarchy if you need it. Lets say you overextend your civ and you find yourself at war, Oligarchy can be a game changer if you need a defensive bonus. It also scales with a wide civ and will save you a lot of gold over the course of a game. Not saying you should choose this over a Liberty policy but it is a nice insurance to have if you need it.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I almost always open Tradition but then switch to Liberty and Beeline for the free Settler in all of my games (because I'm weird like that)

I was always curious if this means I get the Settler quicker than if I delay and get the Settler on the 3rd policy instead of Fourth.

 

[Browd]

You do not get the free settler quicker by opening Tradition -- that just slows you down.

Ignoring culture ruins (they affect specific turns when things happen, but not the speed between policies), if you beeline Liberty to Collective Rule (as your third policy), when you get Collective Rule will depend on when you prioritize a Monument in your capital's build order and whether you have a 4-, 5- or 6-hammer start, but the range of number of turns is narrow. If you go scout --> Monument and have a 6-hammer start (settling on a hill and working a food-giving single-hammer tile, like stone or plains wheat), you will finish your Monument on turn 11 and will open Liberty on turn 15, take Republic on turn 23 and get Collective Rule on turn 38. On the other hand, if you build a Monument first, with the same 6-hammer start, your Monument will finish on turn 7 and you will get Collective Rule on turn 35 -- 3 turns faster, but at the cost of 5-7 turns of early scouting (when you might have picked up a culture ruin and/or gotten more first-to-meet-a-City-State gold bonuses).

If you use these same assumptions (no culture ruins, 6-hammer start and Monument first), opening Tradition before opening Liberty pushes Collective Rule back 7 turns (from turn 35 to turn 42). The punch-line is that you should not open Tradition on the assumption that you will get you your free Liberty settler more quickly -- in fact, it will only slow you down.

That being said, there can be real benefits to opening Tradition. First, the Tradition opener's border expansion boost can be sufficient justification alone for taking the Tradition opener. Second, opening Tradition allows you to build the Hanging Gardens, which provides a free Garden and provides enough food to support 3 specialists or citizens working 3 mined hills for stronger production.

So, there you are.

 

[kzcosme]

These days I have played lots of games on Prince to get some achievements and Dido was on my list.
On Archipelago, I wanted to found lots of cities quickly, near luxuries, to get a nice benefit from her UA, so Liberty was a no-brainer, especially the left side.
The 2 beakers from every city connection pantheon permitted not to fall behind in science race; the early UUs ate the barbs for breakfast, and with the Honor opener, farming culture was essencial to keep SP coming. Exploration and happiness religion did the trick too.
Result: an early powerhouse that snowballed the rest of the game.

 

[reddishrecue]

These days I have played lots of games on Prince to get some achievements and Dido was on my list.
On Archipelago, I wanted to found lots of cities quickly, near luxuries, to get a nice benefit from her UA, so Liberty was a no-brainer, especially the left side.
The 2 beakers from every city connection pantheon permitted not to fall behind in science race; the early UUs ate the barbs for breakfast, and with the Honor opener, farming culture was essencial to keep SP coming. Exploration and happiness religion did the trick too.
Result: an early powerhouse that snowballed the rest of the game.

I imagined a strategy similar to this. Free harbors for carthage really do get trade routes earlier and much quicker than inland road building. Thanks for sharing.

 

[kzcosme]

I imagined a strategy similar to this. Free harbors for carthage really do get trade routes earlier and much quicker than inland road building. Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome. In late game, I remember that the amount of gold earned with city connections (10 cities, standard map) was similar to that obtained with trade routes. Sadly, I didn't have mountains neaby to get Machu Picchu...

 

[BruinBound]

I actually just started a game with Carthage doing Liberty on a water map. Please check out the Let's Play below if interested!

I already recorded a few episodes and I am underwhelmed by the extra gold from the harbors. The city connections without roads are not making too much of a difference. The harbors also weren't helpful as it took me forever to meet multiple AI's and the routes with the ones I knew were quite poor.

Overall, its nice to save on the maintenance for roads, but it is hardly a game-changer. Having a harbor in every city for trade routes also doesn't do much more than having just built it in your best trade city I fear...

 

[beetle]

I am underwhelmed by the extra gold from the harbors. The city connections without roads are not making too much of a difference... its nice to save on the maintenance for roads, but it is hardly a game-changer. Having a harbor in every city for trade routes also doesn't do much more than having just built it in your best trade city I fear...

That is quite disappointing, but a little reassuring. I try to get as much as I can out of each UA/UU/etc., but the free harbors were never very noticeable. I though it was just me!

These days I have played lots of games on Prince to get some achievements and Dido was on my list... Result: an early powerhouse that snowballed the rest of the game.

So is the experience perspective and conclusion so different because Prince v Deity?

I am still looking for a civ that does really well with Liberty at Deity. I have won a (very) few game at Deity using Liberty. But each time I have replayed those maps going with Tradition instead, and my Tradition games end up being significantly stronger.

 

[kzcosme]

I think the UA has great value. Get some early gold, finance early expansion, units and buildings. Obviously you need to found cities like a maniac to get more advantage.

I agree that perception may be different on Deity, though. You can try and see for yourself. [emoji6]