Poll

Do you prefer Liberty or Tradition when starting a game of Civ V?

Liberty
1 (10%)
Tradition
1 (10%)
It don't care, really; both are good
2 (20%)
It depends on what victory I'm going for
1 (10%)
I strategically plan which one I use based on other things like Leader traits, religion bonuses, etc.
1 (10%)
Other (Please specify)
4 (40%)

Total Members Voted: 10

Voting closed: June 20, 2017, 08:18:54 PM


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Civ V Poll: Liberty or Tradition?
Posts: 16 Views: 2057

Red Mones
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  • There is a lot of debate on the Interwebs about which is better, so I want to see what you guys think!

    Edit: I realize I should've added Honor to the mix, but oh well.
    « Last Edit: June 13, 2017, 08:21:07 PM by Red Mones »
    Red Mones
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    Wintermoot
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  • This is a good one...I almost always adopt tradition and all its policies first thing, just because they build on things I want to do, scale fairly well going through the game, and have a big impact at the start when you're trying to get your cities off and running.
    • Aristocracy (+15% wonder production) builds on Egypt's Monument Builder ability (I usually play Egypt).
    • Landed Elite (+2 food and +10% growth in Capital) is great for getting your first city growing a little faster, and adds onto the Hanging Gardens wonder which I build in the Capital if I build it, which becomes available when you adopt tradition.
    • Legalism (free monuments/culture buildings in first 4 cities) means you don't have to spend time building monuments in your first few cities, allowing you to build other things like wonders.
    • Monarchy (+1 gold and -1 unhappiness for every 2 Citizens in Capital) is a great gold and happiness boost, and scales as your capital grows.
    • Oligarchy (no cost for garrisoned units, +50% ranged combat strength for cities with garrisoned units) helps you support more military units by removing maintenance costs from garrisoned units. I think it also scales well with the Military Caste policy from the Honor tree (+1 happiness and +2 culture from garrisoned units). Between the two, units almost function like a free building.
    There's nothing wrong with liberty, but I don't usually build enough cities to make many of the polices worthwhile, and I don't usually have a problem with building enough settlers or workers. Sometimes I will adopt it just to snatch Republic (+1 production in every city, +5% production when building buildings), but to be honest by the time I'm done with tradition usually more appealing civic trees have opened up.
    « Last Edit: June 13, 2017, 08:39:43 PM by Wintermoot »


    I went all the way to Cassadega to commune with the dead
    They said "You'd better look alive"
    Wintermoot
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    Aegon
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  • !@#$
    I didn't want to vote other! I was just clicking around!
    Anyways, I usually go Tradition because it speeds things up a bit but I usually take Republic and maybe Citizenship and/or Representation depending on the victory I'm going for.

    I should also mention I play a heavily modded Civ game and usually go culture.
    Aegon
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    Red Mones
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  • This is a good one...I almost always adopt tradition and all its policies first thing, just because they build on things I want to do, scale fairly well going through the game, and have a big impact at the start when you're trying to get your cities off and running.
    • Aristocracy (+15% wonder production) builds on Egypt's Monument Builder ability (I usually play Egypt).
    • Landed Elite (+2 food and +10% growth in Capital) is great for getting your first city growing a little faster, and adds onto the Hanging Gardens wonder which I build in the Capital if I build it, which becomes available when you adopt tradition.
    • Legalism (free monuments/culture buildings in first 4 cities) means you don't have to spend time building monuments in your first few cities, allowing you to build other things like wonders.
    • Monarchy (+1 gold and -1 unhappiness for every 2 Citizens in Capital) is a great gold and happiness boost, and scales as your capital grows.
    • Oligarchy (no cost for garrisoned units, +50% ranged combat strength for cities with garrisoned units) helps you support more military units by removing maintenance costs from garrisoned units. I think it also scales well with the Military Caste policy from the Honor tree (+1 happiness and +2 culture from garrisoned units). Between the two, units almost function like a free building.
    There's nothing wrong with liberty, but I don't usually build enough cities to make many of the polices worthwhile, and I don't usually have a problem with building enough settlers or workers. Sometimes I will adopt it just to snatch Republic (+1 production in every city, +5% production when building buildings), but to be honest by the time I'm done with tradition usually more appealing civic trees have opened up.
    Haha, nice, you've got a complete strategy planned out. :) When I first played I always went with Liberty, because, "Hell yeah, free settler and worker!" But after playing for a long time I actually lean more towards Tradition, but still use Liberty quite often. I also haven't yet found that one civ that I play with often.


    !@#$
    I didn't want to vote other! I was just clicking around!
    Anyways, I usually go Tradition because it speeds things up a bit but I usually take Republic and maybe Citizenship and/or Representation depending on the victory I'm going for.

    I should also mention I play a heavily modded Civ game and usually go culture.
    Likewise. In a normal game I play with 17 mods, and have 4 more that I'm testing, although I must admit most are minor building and unit tweaks. Also, which culture victory do you speak of? Base game or BNW?
    Red Mones
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    DekuNut
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  • I actually open up with honor. Makes fighting the barbarians in early-game a little easier, and I tend to like to build up my army a little more pretty early on.
    DekuNut
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    Aegon
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  • @Red Mones
    BNW culture victory and it's usually with a modded Poland that gives, I forget what the exact buff is, a 5% or 15% added culture and a free social policy every other era instead of every era.
    Also, I really could go for a game of Civ right about now. Well, there goes my day.
    Aegon
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    BraveSirRobin
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  • Trad adopt initially for +3 culture/turn, then go for Aristocracy for the wonder help, then go for Liberty because Oligarchy is such a waste of a policy*.  (Liberty adopt, then the +2 prod/city +5% building prod, then the +1 settler/+50% cap settler prod.)

    *If I played with Honor at all my opinion of Oligarchy would be VASTLY different :P
    Sir Robin of Camelot

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    (I stole this format from tau, but who am I not to copy a great system? :-) )

    Ne Crustumini quidem atque Antemnates pro ardore iraque Caeninensium satis se impigre movent; ita per se ipsum nomen Caeninum in agrum Romanum impetum facit. Sed effuse vastantibus fit obvius cum exercitu Romulus levique certamine docet vanam sine viribus iram esse.
    BraveSirRobin
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    BraveSirRobin
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  • Oh exception:  When I'm playing tall as India for Bollywood achievement or as Venice, in the former case because 2 settlers isn't enough to justify going Liberty, and the latter because the benefits of completely adopting Trad early are IMMENSE when you only have a single city.  (Also fun fact: if Venice can't build Petra and Great Lighthouse, you lose the game.  Maybe not really, but 20 trade routes is AWESOME late game.)

    And ALWAYS go Aesthetics.  Some people say it doesn't have an effect, because once you've adopted it totally you get roughly the same number policies from the culture boost, but I figure, if you can and there's no drawback, why not?  :P
    Sir Robin of Camelot

    "Whilst the men of Caenia were scattered far and wide, pillaging and destroying, Romulus came upon them with an army, and after a brief encounter taught them that anger is futile without strength."  -Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita

    (Ravenclaw is the best!)

    Résumé/A History of Robin on NationStates
    Wintreath:
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    (I stole this format from tau, but who am I not to copy a great system? :-) )

    Ne Crustumini quidem atque Antemnates pro ardore iraque Caeninensium satis se impigre movent; ita per se ipsum nomen Caeninum in agrum Romanum impetum facit. Sed effuse vastantibus fit obvius cum exercitu Romulus levique certamine docet vanam sine viribus iram esse.
    BraveSirRobin
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    Wintermoot
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  • Haha, nice, you've got a complete strategy planned out. :) When I first played I always went with Liberty, because, "Hell yeah, free settler and worker!" But after playing for a long time I actually lean more towards Tradition, but still use Liberty quite often. I also haven't yet found that one civ that I play with often.
    I've given it a lot of thought over the years, especially once we started doing multiplayer, because what you do in the first 75 turns is probably most important to how the game goes for you. At least for me, I want to get my Capital up and running as soon as possible, because it's going to count for most of my science output and production for most of the early game...then once you get into the mid game and your set up you're building things so fast and you're so advance in the tech tree that you have some flexibility on what you want to focus on depending on how the game is going.

    But it's also why liberty doesn't do much for me...when you can build settlers in under five turns, and workers in even less. :P


    I went all the way to Cassadega to commune with the dead
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    Wintermoot
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    BraveSirRobin
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  • *only plans out a path of wonders and then how to rush them most effectively*

    GL, Hanging Gardens, Pyramids, Petra.  Also Stonehenge if you're in a good enough starting location (aka one with salt).

    Oh and I always went Tradition until they nerfed it and put the Garrison maintenance as a prereq for all the cool growth stuff.
    Sir Robin of Camelot

    "Whilst the men of Caenia were scattered far and wide, pillaging and destroying, Romulus came upon them with an army, and after a brief encounter taught them that anger is futile without strength."  -Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita

    (Ravenclaw is the best!)

    Résumé/A History of Robin on NationStates
    Wintreath:
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    Member of the Hvitt Riddaral: 21 August 2015 - present
    Strifa of the 12th Underhusen: 8 October 2015 - 13 December 2015
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    New Hyperion:
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    (I stole this format from tau, but who am I not to copy a great system? :-) )

    Ne Crustumini quidem atque Antemnates pro ardore iraque Caeninensium satis se impigre movent; ita per se ipsum nomen Caeninum in agrum Romanum impetum facit. Sed effuse vastantibus fit obvius cum exercitu Romulus levique certamine docet vanam sine viribus iram esse.
    BraveSirRobin
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    Red Mones
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  • I actually open up with honor. Makes fighting the barbarians in early-game a little easier, and I tend to like to build up my army a little more pretty early on.
    I find I neglect my military pretty early on. I pretty much keep a scout, about one unit per city, and maybe one or two extra if I'm near a lot of barbarians.
    Red Mones
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    Wintermoot
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  • Honour is fan-fucking-tastic if you have raging barbarians on...in that case I'll make it a point to at least adopt it early on for the barbarian combat and culture bonus.


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    Wintermoot
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    Red Mones
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  • For some reason whenever I play with raging barbarians, I don't ever notice a change.
    Red Mones
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    Gerrick
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  • I usually play wide, so I do what Robin said, except without the wonder boost from Aristocracy (at least not until later). I adopt tradition for the +3 culture boost but then move to Liberty for the production boost, settlers, and workers.

    Maybe I should try tradition, though, especially for multiplayer games where we don't have the time to settle a bunch of cities.

    EDIT: Plus, muh freedoms!

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    Gerrick
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    Alkasia
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  • I tend to start with Tradition more often, but I think the generally accepted tactic is liberty for wide and tradition for tall. If I REALLY want to, I'll go tradition, but go liberty just until the free settler.

    I use Honor very rarely and completely ignore Piety. :P
    Alkasia
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