After Liberty, What?

[ferrierj]

Every guide seems to think Liberty is the best starting Policy and all the others are for special cases, special Nations, or special strategies. Most also talk about getting Rationalism quickly. But I've found almost nothing that talks about what comes after Liberty. Recommendations?

[Phryxo]

Liberty isn't always the best option. Everything depends on the map. If you have few luxuries around you and you are going to limit yourself to having 4 cities, Liberty is MUCH worse than Tradition. Honestly, if you are just starting out, Tradition is a much better tree for you. Liberty doesn't have the happiness, food or gold bonuses (at least comparable) that Tradition offers.

Anyway, in regards to your question: what victory condition are you going for? Science? Pick Commerce right side until you can open Rationalism. Culture? Pick Aesthetics. If you are done with Liberty and haven't entered Medieval then picking up Tradition's opening policy may not be a bad idea (it gives you direct bonuses) and, later on, you could get Aristocracy for some happiness relief (and wonder production) if you have spare policies .

[rresuggan]

i play on emperor with random civs 8 civs 16 cs usually on continents with strategic resources, i always take tradition fill left top then take honor to deal with the barbarians who are a real pain at the start and take out as many camps as possible i start with scout monument worker buy an archer research pottery mining (if near resource) then wheel (if on river) build granary shrine water mill temple of artemis settler to build on coast (if capitol is inland) finish tradition tree then the 2 right hand honor after that i pick patronage (if i have a chance at forbidden palace) or 3rd point in honor to reduce upgrade costs (very helpful when upgrading later era units) always take rationalism when available and open exploration for +1 sight and movement for your fleet

[Phryxo]

That is an absolutely massive number of policies to go through. At around what turn do you finish your games?

[shmewdog]

I must disagree with Liberty is the best. It requires you to have lots of different luxuries to combat the unhapiness early game before you get happiness buildings, and you basically have to found a religion to get any use out of it. I like Tradition in 90% of my games. Steal a worker from a city state so you don't ave to build one, and you also get out of hard building a monument, freeing up alot of early game production. I like to focus lots of growth on my capitol to get alot of mileage out of the policy that gives +1 gold and +1 happiness per 2 citizens in capitol.

[Matthew]

Wonder what guides you are looking at, because Tradition is typically the recommended starting policy. You can almost never go wrong with going Tradition.

At the same time:

Originally posted by Phryxo:

Liberty is MUCH worse than Tradition.

is false. Honor is MUCH worse than Tradition. Piety is MUCH worse than Tradition. But Liberty does okay. If you actually know how to play Liberty, it isn't that far behind Tradition. It goes like Tradition > Liberty >>>>>> Honor/Piety.

Liberty can be played a few different ways. The way I heavily prefer is 2 city quick NC into heavy expansion/conquer. After Liberty is finished you can do a couple different things. In any case, it is just filler until you unlock Rationalism.

If I have a lot of coastal cities, I will pick up the first 2 or 3 Exploration policies for the extra happiness and hammers.

If I'm going for Forbidden Palace, it will be a few into Patronage instead.

Failing that, I will pick up the opener and side policy in Tradition for the border growth and happiness.

And of course, culture games I will pick up a couple into Aesthetics and end up finishing it later.

Once Rationalism is unlocked, get Secularism right away. After that you don't need to finish Rationalism until later unless you plan on abusing Research Agreements. If you are playing a strong growth/science game, you should have access to Ideologies at this point. Liberty + a couple filler + Rationalism opener/Secularism, then into Ideologies for a while. Eventually you will want to finish Rationalism, but besides that it doesn't really matter. Game should be almost over, so do whatever makes sense at that point.

[Phryxo]

Originally posted by Matthew:

Originally posted by Phryxo:

Liberty is MUCH worse than Tradition.

is false.

Well, it isn't false in the context that I was putting it, which was "if you are going to limit yourself to having 4 cities". Maybe I over-emphasized "much" because OP is a beginner, but Lib is certainly not as good as Trad in that context.

Personally, I am mostly a Liberty player nowadays, just because I find it much more engaging than Tradition. Tradition you can almost go into auto-pilot and you won't screw it up. I do have to raise and eyebrow to doing 2 city NC Lib into expansion though... that seems odd to the extreme in my eyes, but that's besides the point. ;-)

EDIT: Come to think of it... I did play a game as Egypt on Immortal which was a T210 CV using Liberty 4 cities into Aristocracy, but that was an exception because I used Liberty finisher to engineer Petra in an expansion. Still, as a rule of thumb, Tradition is better for small empires.

[Matthew]

Yeah if you aren't going to expand much past 3-4 cities then there isn't much reason to go Liberty. I still wouldn't call it MUCH worse, though you do need to find a source of happiness to make up for lack of Monarchy. The free aqueducts and growth bonus is overrated, it is Monarchy's happiness which allows Tradition to snowball.

2 city NC isn't that extreme at all. It is meant to be an aggressive opening. ~T75 NC with ~6 comp bows ready to go and you gain massive map control. I sometimes mix in a couple catapults to upgrade to trebs before going Education, which aren't bad for breaking capitals if you get them early.

For example:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=935200671

In that particular game I worked in Mausoleum instead of getting extra comp bows, but regardless, such an opening allows you to steamroll your surrounding area with ease. It doesn't work quite as well on Deity games where your neighbors rush muskets (Ottomans for example), but anything outside of that cannot defend.

The reason I keep going back to the word "much" is due to various breakpoints. For example if I play a game as Tradition and get factories and schools by turn 200, if I play that same game as Liberty it will be factories and schools by turn 210-215 or so. But in addition to that, the Liberty game ends up with more map control and opposing Civs are broken or heavily slowed down, so it is more or less the same. Tradition will always be better for pure tech rate, but Liberty is better for aggressive play while also keeping competitive in tech.

As I've said before, if Civ was a foot race the Tradition would be best for running faster than your opponents, but Liberty is better for taking out a bat and bashing in your opponents kneecaps so they hobble towards the finish line.

Some players make Honor work on higher difficulties in a similar fashion by abusing the AI's heavy unit spam and gaining massive amounts of gold through kills and abusing promotions, but I never liked it. Liberty flows smoother for me. And of course on lower difficulties Honor is pure garbage. Too slow and the AI doesn't spam enough units to exploit the finisher.

[Phryxo]

Yeah... I mean, I hear you. Liberty has some flexibility with building many cities or building a few and going for some AI cities, but I want to point out that you have 3 cities in that game. XD 3 city NC + aggression seems a lot more reasonable to me! Is that Immortal btw? Looks like a very tight map, with Nappy forward settling you... as he would.

Going for comp bow rush while also building more cities and NC is also very doable so that is why I thought 2 city NC was kinda odd... Here's an Immortal game were I was going for peaceful CV but was forced to defend myself against Songhai and Shoshone, and then Arabia later on (this is the turn I made peace with Harun):

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=893951364

This perfectly showcases that Liberty is not really suited for beginners because your aggressive expansion is sure to angry your neighbors.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=920708912

For those who say you need a religion to use Liberty. When I got a religion, everything good was gone, but that is Deity for you. Here I was debating whether to enhance or plant the Prophet because I am already getting missionaries and Prophets from Sweden and Arabia, likely only ever keeping my own religion in my cap.

And yeah, Honor can be quite good if you are going for domination on higher difficulties (mostly Deity). This is why I asked rresuggah how long it took him to finish up his games. A few barbs and a discount on upgrading military hardly warrants spending all that culture on that many policies, imo.

[Matthew]

Yeah it all depends. There are a lot of variables.

The basic summary is that to make Liberty worth it, you want 6-8 core cities. Horizontal growth across 6-8 cities will make up the difference of lacking Tradition's Monarchy. But to do that you need a lot of luxuries and space, which you won't get every game. Of course if you force space through aggression, you can make it work almost every game. Especially considering enemy capitals generally have luxuries you don't already have access to.

The purpose of 2 city NC is to hit an early timing. Monument ~> Granary ~> Caravan food to second city ~> Library ~> archer spam while waiting for Philosophy to finish. While NC is building, upgrade bows and attack enemy. Depending on the map, this takes place as early as turn 70.

Alternatively, 3 city NC into comp bows works just as well of course, but it tends to be 10-15 turns later. Which is fine. It is just that 15 turns can be the difference between an AI getting pikes or longswords (or muskets ugh) which is going to significantly slow down progress.

Adding the additional cities after NC (either by settling more or conquering) doesn't slow you down that much, because food routes allow you to build universities and work GS slots as quickly as your first two cities. Yeah, it will take some time to catch up on other buildings like markets, but it doesn't affect the overall pacing of the game. NC at 70-75 and uni's in all your cities by ~120-125 and you will flow into mid-game as fast as a normal Tradition game.

The SS I added isn't a good example. That game did start out as 2 city NC with the 3rd settled later. I will check my library and see if I have better examples of 2 city NC

[General Malaise]

Tradition is best. There's reasons why I'd like Honour to work, but it doesn't. Tradition is best.

I'd like Honour to work, because of advanced promotion. I only start for Dom wins, and Dom wins are much easier with promoted units. Logistics giving 2 shots per turn, and in the case of Battleships - movement after your second shot.

Dom wins obviously involve lots of War, so Honour gives cash for kills. Tried many times, it doesn't hold out to Tradition.

Some know the game better than me. Only reason I can think of to go Liberty, would be if you think Petra(for example) would be a game winner, and you want an early Engineer. Even then, Liberty wouldn't be for me. .

Oh, and after Tradition, Rationalism. If you have a pick before Rationalism opens(for me that means finding a culture ruin), that depends. 1 pick in Piety is helpful, one in Exploration is very helpful.

[Hundur]

Alright so tradition is far by the best. Quality over quantity is overall more useful then a bunch of small cities. So the strategy is try to get 4 decently placed cities. After you finished Tradition you should either try to go for commerce (if you are in medieval era) or Rationalism if you are in renaissance, As soon as you hit the renaissance era you should be trying to finish up Rationalism. Do as much of Rationalism as you can and then in the Modern-Future era you should finish up your ideology (Freedom,Order, or Autocracy) id recommend going order as it will ramp up your production. Hope this helps, also this is from a 1.4k player so i know what im saying :)

[momentum]

i almost always start with tradition