What is the strength of the Lib-race?

[TeeWee]

I see a lot of players write about the Lib-race or using Liberalism by date X as a landmark. This implies that Liberalism is a very important milestone and is something worth beelining for. In fact, by calling it a race, it's even more pronounced: the goal is not to get it quickly, the goal is to get it first.

So my question is, what makes Liberalism so powerful that it's worth the opportunity cost of it?

Of course, the road to Liberalism is filled with good techs; CoL and CS is a possible path which are almost essential techs anyway. But is it worth delaying the techs necessary for medieval wars (Cats, Trebs, Macemen)? If so, why?

Part of the strength of the Lib-race must be the free tech; two techs for the price of one (and the cheaper one at that, often). But surely this cannot be the only reason. If so, then it would mean that losing the Lib race is almost catastrophic, as then you will have invested a lot into a lost race where second place has no value. In that case, it would be a better strategy to ignore Liberalism and gun for the tech you actually wanted in the first place!

Part of the strength of Liberalism must be the civics. Free Religion seems strong, but switching to Free Speech doesn't seem like a winning proposition very often.

So what is the power of Liberalism? What is the worth of Lib without the free tech compared to Lib with it? What techs would you sacrifice to get there and how does tech trading (or lack thereof) play a part?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

It's mainly a bulb path - you can bulb philosophy, paper (usually not worth it) and education on the way. The AI doesn't prioritise it and you can trade for useful techs (machinery, engineering, etc.) on the way.

 

[lymond]

For me first it is the free tech at an opportune time. As many will attest, medieval warfare in this game is often not a good bargain. As PS mentioned, you can bulb your way up to Lib and get a free tech. Often, I will delay Lib (tech to 1 turn) in order to tech/trade to setup getting an even juicier free tech. The free tech can play into your strategy such as later warfare with curs, rifles or cannons which is much easier than earlier warfare if you get those units fast. Likewise, you can go for a more peaceful approach that will set you up for culture or space.

I would not call losing Lib catastrophic though. I've won many a game either losing the "race" or not pursuing it directly in the first place.

 

[coanda]

It's just a path that naturally works well. It provides a free tech just as gunpowder war is becoming practical, which can give you a good timing attack. While researching your way up that path, you get a lot of techs the AI doesn't prioritize as much as the medieval econ. and military techs, which makes for great trading. And the great scientist preferences line up very nicely to make it convenient to research by bulbing, which is good because you're generating the great scientists by running science specialists... the most effective form of research early in the game.

 

[Grashopa]

Deity players always go this way because its the only path that allows you to make trades with the AI who are always far ahead of you early and education means the Oxford which allows you to catch up to the AI tech pace. Bulbing Great Scientists will take your game to another level when you can take advantage of getting education or say astronomy early.

At lower levels it is likely faster to get cavalry or cannons before starting to war and getting education early should get you to that point the quickest.

 

[madscientist]

The classic Lib path of Civil Service/Paper/Philosophy/Education/Liberalism rather than the mideival techs get you

1) The free Tech which can usually be backfilled for other techs.

2) Opens up MANY powerful civics: Burecracy (CS), Free Speech (LIB), and Free Religion (LIB). Get Printing Press for free and you have really empowered your cottages.

3) Philosophy can typically be backfilled for one of the stronger miedeval techs like Fuedalism/Machinery or maybe just Metal Casting at higher levels. Also Bulbing Phil often get's you a religion founded.

4) Education get's you Universities AND Oxford while your rivals are screwing around with Guilds/Banking/ Engineering (which you can backfill with education yourself.

5) Education early can launch you to gunpowder for a big advantage over middle age rival and their castles/walls.

Generally there is much more to the Liberalism race than just a free tech. I wrote a strategy article on the subject somewhere.

Found the article: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=301085

 

[plasmacannon]

I am curious. Does this strategy work for all of the leaders, or just well for FINs and PHIs?
and is there a game speed that you usually do this on, and not on others?

To me, I would think this takes the fun out of swordsmen+Treb battles, and may not work as well on marathon game speeds.
Elizabeth would be good, but, what about Boudica?

 

[stopstopp]

I am curious. Does this strategy work for all of the leaders, or just well for FINs and PHIs?
and is there a game speed that you usually do this on, and not on others?

To me, I would think this takes the fun out of swordsmen+Treb battles, and may not work as well on marathon game speeds.
Elizabeth would be good, but, what about Boudica?

It works on all leaders, just better for PHI leaders. You can still easily go for any sort of war, it just changes how and when you get there.

 

[TeeWee]

The classic Lib path of Civil Service/Paper/Philosophy/Education/Liberalism rather than the mideival techs get you

1) The free Tech which can usually be backfilled for other techs.

2) Opens up MANY powerful civics: Burecracy (CS), Free Speech (LIB), and Free Religion (LIB). Get Printing Press for free and you have really empowered your cottages.

3) Philosophy can typically be backfilled for one of the stronger miedeval techs like Fuedalism/Machinery or maybe just Metal Casting at higher levels. Also Bulbing Phil often get's you a religion founded.

4) Education get's you Universities AND Oxford while your rivals are screwing around with Guilds/Banking/ Engineering (which you can backfill with education yourself.

5) Education early can launch you to gunpowder for a big advantage over middle age rival and their castles/walls.

Generally there is much more to the Liberalism race than just a free tech. I wrote a strategy article on the subject somewhere.

Found the article: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=301085

I've read your article extensively before posting this question. Your article assumes the Liberalism-beeline is worthwhile and describes good strategies to get there, but it does not fully address why it is worthwhile in great detail.

The points you name up here though are worth pondering. Thanks.

 

[RJM]

In my experience - up to and including Emperor - it's a pretty one-sided race. The AI doesn't give liberalism much priority. (OK, maybe its education that the AI doesn't prioritise, but provided you don't trade education to them, it amounts to the same thing.) Most of the time you can even afford to delay the completion of lib research to obtain a better free tech (if you want to).

 

[jwez11007]

The Lib-beeline is full of powerful multi-faceted techs that help boost your research potential and with appropriate political maneuvering catch up or surpass AI advantages (at least up to immortal). As stated the lib race techs line up nicely with GS bulb preferences, meaning its easy to get them first for multiple tech trades earning 2-3X beaker multipliers on a number of strong techs. This by itself makes this path strong as tech trades are "the greatest beaker multiplier in the game.

You also unlock many powerful economic civics/buildings along the way and at the end you're awarded with a further 2-3 scientists worth of beakers. While I do enjoy teching away from this path from time to time, it's rarely in your best interest to ignore it. The techs on the beeline are individually strong (except maybe paper) and at the end you're rewarded with 2-3 GPs. I don't see any other tech on the tree with a stronger beeline+such a great bonus. Not to mention even losing lib leaves you with another tradeable tech as AIs tend to ignore it after the free tech's been grabbed IIRC. Unless medieval war is a must lib wins out as optimum.

 

[Iranon]

The technologies towards Liberalism aren't prioritised by the AI, so they're good trade value. With a deep beeline, you can also snag a rather expensive tech... preferably a game-changing one. A slingshot to Steel is often game-deciding, and very achievable on Immortal. Nationalism is considered the safe choice, can extend the lead nicely via the Taj Mahal and becomes useful in an eventual Rifleman war.
Either way, a Liberalism-assisted dash to an army of cannons or riflemen against longbows can decide games on any level.

It's hardly the only strong approach though - the medieval age allows one to wage at tech parity and numerical inferiority, because units are specialised, counters are hard and the AI's tactical weaknesses can be exploited very effectively.

 

[Agramon]

1. Some really good techs: CS for bureau !!!, paper for map trade, edu for science/uni/oxford
2. High trade value: most techs are expensive monopoly techs, that you can trade a lot of other techs for + money.
3. Free tech at your choice + free tech denied to a competitor ;-)
4. Some techs (philo, edu, lib) bulbable by easily available GS.
5. Chance to bulb own religion on the way.

Downside: Military is a bit of a gamble. Have to play good diplomatic game + more or less peacefully.

 

[strangestranger]

The Liberalism beeline becomes more and more important as the difficulty goes up.
Since it becomes very difficult to keep up with the AI, your main objective is to get monopoly techs to trade to get yourself at tech parity.
Which is why the Lib. beeline is a good idea. Education and Liberalism aren't a priority of the AI, and you can get a tech with it.

 

[TeeWee]

Pondering on a bit:
The Lib-beeline is good not just because of Lib, but because of the intermediate steps are good as well. So you sacrifice the immediate ability to wage war in the medieval age for solidifying your economic and research base, with CoL, CS, Philo (religion, pacifism), Edu (Uni, Oxford), Lib (Free Speech, Free Religion) among the benefits.

Furthermore, many key techs are Great Scientist-bulbable, so they take less time than the beaker-total would suggest.

At higher difficulty levels (everybody has differing opinions on what is "higher") one cannot hope to keep up with the AI by normal means, so if you have AI-low-priority techs, you can trade with AI to fill up the holes your deliberately creating by beelining. This way, you get more return on beakers than by competing in the same research lines as the AI.

On top of all that, you get the chance to get a free tech at an opportune moment: powerful techs can be available if you time it right / get lucky; Nationalism / Astronomy are strong, if you are able to delay further potentially game changing like Steel.

Extra cherries on top: a stab at founding Taoism.

Given all that, the the research line is strong because if focuses on the economic and research multipliers. It has a downside if you acutely need military presence. It's dynamic is also different on lower levels where you can easily outtech the AI, so you don't need the military techs that badly but can't trade your techs because you're so far ahead that meaningful trades dry up rather quickly. But then again, you're probably playing a level too low once that happens.

 

[ColossusXXIII]

Deity players always go this way because its the only path that allows you to make trades with the AI who are always far ahead of you early and education means the Oxford which allows you to catch up to the AI tech pace. Bulbing Great Scientists will take your game to another level when you can take advantage of getting education or say astronomy early.

At lower levels it is likely faster to get cavalry or cannons before starting to war and getting education early should get you to that point the quickest.

I play exclusively on Deity now, but am by no means very good. However i can speak from some extensive experience as i've been playing since Civ 2. I've tried the lib race about 10-15 times with varying leaders but mostly with ghandi. My settings Deity/marathon/large or huge map/dom or conquest/no brokering/no events/no barbs/no huts. Anyways of the few attempts I made at this race, I was successful twice. To achieve this I had to avoid rexing and war almost completely and stay at around 8-10 cities. Also i had to avoid the bottom half of the tech tree like the plague. So when I actually got to lib (just barely), I couldn't get any game breaking free techs like steel. Both times I had to settle on Nationalism... Which would have made sense if I had time to build the taj, but some ai's had already researched Nationalism and were building it. Plus neither time did i have more than muskets to leverage through drafting. not exactly game breaking. All this to say that my only wins on Deity have come from being extremely aggressive militarily early and then maintaining that until I am forced to halt and save my economy from crashing, then as soon as it's possible again WAR!!!! Skipping all the medieval techs to get some semi useful free techs just makes you a ripe target, and back trading lib techs to get them will end up losing you the race most times. It's just not a strategy that's reliable enough to work often enough to be useful. Plus going through some of the medieval techs opens up the opportunity to build/whip markets, grocers, and banks. Building these buildings lets you get your slider up high enough to enjoy the benefits of your libraries and universities. Plus running merchant specialists lets you get Gm's instead of GS's, and Gm's IMO are way better. their trade missions let you run your slider at 100% for huge amounts of turns even if you're at war (IMO this like a mini scientific golden age). or you can use the gold to rush buy/upgrade/bribe Ai civs/buy techs off them. Anyways Gm's IMO are more versatile than GS's and they even have good techs they can bulb.

sorry to drag on... but ON DEITY IMO this is not at all a reliable strategy (although on noble I once in a Multi-Player game got lib>steel before one of the players even had construction... it was a wrap). It's not worth skipping techs, or not expanding to full size potential. If there's anyone out there that can consistently pull off lib>steel on Deity and still expand and win large scale wars, i'd be very impressed. IMO ON DEITY you must be ultra aggressive EARLY to win, someone on this forum keeps posting Land=Power. This is one of the universal truths of civ... Kill anyone you can whenever the opportunity arises, and don't hand cuff yourself to any single strategy. particularly one that takes such a massive sacrifice and whose outcome is doubtful at best. You are much better off using your advantage- superior battle planning (hopefully), rather than trying to compete against their research advantage. Zara Yaqob can't go for lib if you wipe out his civilization right? And if you then control his land and your land aren't you then twice as big as your neighbor? which means a bigger economy, which snowballs into faster teching in the long run and thus dominance. But hey if you also take that other neighbor's land won't you be 3 times a big and thus 3 times as powerful. Land=power and can't you just take techs from your enemies as tribute anyhow? If you want to be a deity player , you must learn to seize every possible opportunity. Locking yourself into a tech path which leaves you almost defenseless and cripples your ability to wage war (for an entire age) simply limits your options too much. You must be an opportunist and be very flexible, the opportunity cost of Lib is just too high to gamble on. Build solid economic fundamentals and keep your economy alive while you wage opportunistic and winnable wars. You are much more likely to be able to out tech most of the Ai's to bronze working (whip axe rush) or to construction for example. Why not leverage siege advantage and gain territory then? It makes more sense than trying to push for siege advantage much later in the game (ie. lib>steel). LAND=POWER!!!!!

 

[gilmore606]

To me 90% of the reason is what an earlier poster said -- medieval war doesn't pay off very well for the aggressor, so you might as well turtle up during that era and shoot for brainy techs, that is, the Liberalism beeline.

This makes most of my games feel very samey after the first 100 turns because I'm always doing this beeline, building Oxford, then slingshotting into rifles or cannons for the big war. I'd really love to see an outline of a strategy that totally ignores Liberalism and maximizes medieval war power...anyone?

 

[DaveMcW]

I'd really love to see an outline of a strategy that totally ignores Liberalism and maximizes medieval war power...anyone?

Like the poster above you said, play marathon speed.

 

[Ataxerxes]

One advantage I didn't notice above of liberalism bee-line is Paper is on that path. On a large map (Say Earth18) you can get obscene amounts of gold from being the map broker.

I always try to get to Liberalism in part due to the tech path of Paper-Education. 2 very powerful techs. The AI really short-changes itself by not going this path.

Military shouldn't be too bad if you have somebody relatively advanced to trade with.

 

[Farm Boy]

Just to address one thing in ColossusXXIII's post: selecting the "no tech brokering" option fundamentally changes how research plays out, particularly on difficulties where the AI has significant research bonuses.