Civilization 5 - Filthy's Liberty Guide

[@moneyfolder1182]

The real question is; if you raze a city that was settled on incense, does it smell really good while everyone dies?

[@glass5710]

this is the kind of revolutionary thinking we need

[@mindlessambience524]

...You're all right Griffin.

[@-dennis3755]

Why are you not one of the Great Scientists

[@mariovega2924]

Loser

[@coprographia]

incense and perfumes were practically invented to cover the smell of burning or rotting flesh, so definitely

[@ribbonrides886]

3:26 Civilizations 16:10 Why take Liberty? 19:08 Happiness 23:40 Liberty build order 27:44 Early strategy 32:51 Settling liberty cities 42:50 Poor Cows :( 43:00 Buildings & tile priority 45:56 Early strategy II 54:10 Mid-game 1:05:13 Mid-late-game 1:07:54 Social policies 1:12:34 Techs mid to late game 1:18:22 Late game 1:24:45 TLDR

[@TahirNefjodov]

#poorcows

[@deoplo5988]

I know this is an old comment, but you're the mvp.

[@bsumru7]

Loved the TLDR

[@muradkzlay7854]

statue of liberty: impossible to build as a liberty player.

[@FilthyRobot]

+Murad Kızılay That's one of the down sides of Liberty without the NQ balance mod - no faith purchasing any great people despite awesome faith generation.

[@muradkzlay7854]

+FilthyRobot no faith purchasing except for great scientists that will be eventually SUPER expensive. instead of spending 3000 faith for a GS, i would love to buy a cheap great engineer and go statue, eventually help you with science through specialists (secularism)

[@johnnyandtheinsatiablevoid]

You can always go Piety and take the "Buy any GP with faith" belief for your reformation but if you're playing liberty and going wide you're leaving a stupid amount of Science on the table by not taking Rationalism

[@muradkzlay7854]

@@johnnyandtheinsatiablevoid wow this is some necromancy :) I stopped playing the game long ago but I guess piety was quite trash at the original game.

[@johnnyandtheinsatiablevoid]

@@muradkzlay7854 haha yeah sorry for the prehistoric bump man, I never got Civ 6 so I'm forced to live in the past.

[@stuartowen9638]

One possibility for your Liberty finisher if you want a Great Prophet is to select the free Great Engineer then build Hagia Sophia, if it's still available. You get an extra 3 faith, 1 culture and 2 more faith from the free temple on top of the Great Prophet.

[@JosephLachh]

genius

[@MineteInc]

I know this comment is old, but keep in mind doing this will increase the cost of your great scientists (great engineers, scientists, and merchants increase the cost of each other when they're born)

[@gregjenko2938]

@@MineteIncaccording to the vid the free great prophet also increases great eng sci and merch for some reason

[@colewarner4954]

@@MineteIncYes, except the Liberty finisher Prophet also increases the cost of the next Scientist, Engineer, Merchant for reasons unknown

[@patches363]

Hey just wanted to thank you for all of the time, effort, thought, and consideration you put into these videos. I'm a casual gamer that doesn't have a lot of time to put into learning the finer points of games like this, and your guides help a lot!

[@FilthyRobot]

+Patrick Burke Glad to hear it!

[@aqualo4425]

+FilthyRobot Indeed your guides are excellent.

[@Lbozo23691]

6 years late, but just wanted to thank you. I used to consider myself knowledgeable about civ, but you’re videos have definitely changed that.

[@JosephLachh]

lol

[@DaveHcontrarian]

@@JosephLachh lol

[@wongnigel1158]

15:00 "kills two bird with one stone". Think it's the chu ko nu firing twice :)

[@DankestPepe]

Tank is wonderhungry, and therefore bad at the game - Filthy 2k15

[@caiosantiago5599]

Amazing guide! I really like how passionate you are about this game! I'm really grateful for your videos! Cheers from Brazil!

[@FilthyRobot]

Thanks!

[@miridian2012]

Dude, I'm a hardcore Paradox nerd ...... Hearts of Iron 3, Vikky 2, Eu4 etc and have much to my shame always avoided Civ due to a a perceived lack of depth .... Thanks for showing me otherwise ...... Just bought Civ5 and subbed. Keep the vids coming :)

[@FilthyRobot]

miridian2012 Awesome!

[@KiezleMcBiezle]

*sheep goes baaa* "These cows are driving me nuts "...GG Also thanks for the tips I always used to play the crap liberty where I would have about 7 cities but the placement tips really do help.

[@BOOMbarash5000]

Hey mate, u should name your videos with "Civilization V" in ithe title so people can find them. I personally found u by a random's will. Great helpful videos.

[@Chrislimjiaan]

Agreed, great guides! Keep em coming

[@kitredKitredson]

BOOMbarash5000 I'll second (or rather, third) that! They're the best ones I've seen, but far from the first!

[@plasmascreen100]

It's in the tags bro

[@TahirNefjodov]

I never understood why building wide resulted in unhappiness. Realistically it should've been the other way around. More room = more happiness.

[@MetaKaios]

Next you'll tell me that starving your population to kill off the useless citizens should increase unhappiness, rather than decreasing it! =P

[@dondonnysson4973]

i learned in this video that i will basicly never go liberty xD

[@Vuk11Media]

What I'd love to know is how the Trad/Lib choice changes on larger maps, different speeds, lots of players/bots. I know you've done these videos for competitive multiplayer settings but I'd love to know your quick thoughts on what to expect as those settings change.

[@juandeagmyfriend1519]

you are so damn good at explaining! thx for this nice guide mate

[@FilthyRobot]

Thanks!

[@juandeagmyfriend1519]

can i add you on steam?

[@kurik1439]

9 years late, but a point I wanted to make relative to your tier list about Rome is that their bonus to build buildings that are in your capital faster is useful in the case of warring liberty when the cities lose their buildings / are sold.

[@PATHNKOB]

Thanks for the excellent guide! A few areas i was wondering about: 1. Trade routes. These seem much more tricky, since in tradition you just feed your cities, capital mostly. In liberty, how do you balance growing your capital for more city connections gold vs caravans for gold ? When do you feed your other cities? Besides the emergency in war, at which point would you consider to start running production trade routes? 2. Capturing city states. Assuming it has a unique luxury and you won't be able to be its ally, what other factors do you consider? In the Sweden game 164 you only captured 1 city state despite being liberty on just 5 cities. It was a weird and awesome game, but still... 3. The liberty tradition mix: I was wondering about this in your previous guide, too. The capital (+civ choice) seems to define the tradition vs liberty opener. As you scout the land the decision could change. Ethiopia game 163, I've seen you switch from Liberty to tradition after collective rule due to few luxuries/close neighbors. 3a. What kind of land would make you consider switching into tradition? I assume you can only switch right after collective rule. How many luxuries/city sites would be the break even point? 3b. Is it ever worthwhile to switch from tradition to liberty? Left side of liberty provides a great early game boost, but by mid-game it becomes obsolete. Can the right side of liberty tree be worth it for a Tradition player with a bigger empire as filler policies? From another side: opening tradition due to early culture ruin and decent capital and then deciding to go liberty due to scouted land that has little food. In a quick test game: scout -> monument, no culture ruin. Liberty -> collective rule 25 turns; Tradition -> collective rule 29 turns. A culture ruin could speed it up to 20 vs 23 turns. I'm sure you know all this, yet I've never seen you consider that option. Would you just go tradition every time in that case? As i watch more of your games, i'll get more answers, for sure. First post by a new fan.

[@FilthyRobot]

PATHNKOB 1) Feed the capital when you can, trade with CS/player for gold when you must. 2) Warring multiple CS or 1 CS multiple time confers permanent influence loss per turn with all CS. It's sketchy to do this unless you're willing to give up having CS allies in the mid-late game. It's a decision you get to make based on your land -- Do you need the CS land to be competitive? 3) I don't like the mixed Lib/Trad build. It's best implemented by building monument after scout #1, opening tradition first, then Liberty through collective rule. I find it to be the worst of both openers, but SOMETIMES the lands don't support whatever decision I've made already. The downside of this build is how late you get legalism, monarchy, and free aqueducts. 4) Yes, sometimes 1 point into Liberty for Pyramids, or 2 points for Pyramids + Worker Policy can be Ok after tradition is finished. Faster workers does a lot to help tradition, especially if you have a lot of land or a lot of jungle and want trading posts. It's probably only worth it if no one else is Liberty (and therefore no competition for Pyramids)

[@PATHNKOB]

FilthyRobot Thanks a lot!

[@windsound2010]

Civilizations that fit liberty open in FilthyRobot mind: 1. Egypt - best 2. Maya - 2nd best 3. Ethiopia - 3rd best 4. Span & Persia - Monster Level 5. England, Songhai, Celts, and China - Very Strong 6. Poland, Carthage, Arabia, Inca, and Shoshone - Strong 7. Huns, Russia, Mogolia, Iroquois, Byzantium - Ok 8. rest civs - not fit

[@Sir_Pleasant]

One of my favorite vids so far. Its always fun to vary the play style up a bit. I feel like trying a liberty game now :D

[@jhooper2988]

Thanks a lot for the comprehensive guides, was a bit intimidating at first at the length of them, but rewatching them they've really helped my understanding, I now know what to look for in a map to go liberty / settling in general and what to think about!

[@dmitriysamusenko5910]

51:55 FilthyRobot.exe has stopped working

[@thegoodfightman]

Another enhancement belief to use might be the 30% spread because the pressure given to a city is flat and you have a lot of cities close together

[@kumiplus]

By the way, Collective Rule increases settler production only by 50% (not 100%). Also, any excess food that is added to production is unaffected. It's not quite as overpowered as Filthy advertised.

[@FilthyRobot]

kumiplus Oops, you're correct (at least for the first part). Everything still stands, it's just a little less efficient than advertised!

[@nikolayrayanov2895]

When I play Poland I get liberty as a filler policy tree, it's wonderful addition!

[@MySabber]

I watch your Vids and just imagine someone asking you about the meaning of life and you just shoot out the most accurate answer Haha. Long story short, really good explanations, great videos overall!

[@Antagonises21]

Great guide as always. However in this video and I believe in the Tradition vs Liberty video you say that Collective Rule doubles settler production, but it only gives +50% production towards them, a pretty big difference.

[@ClickCrisis]

+Antagonise It says it reduces the time settlers are made by 50%, i.e. if a settler was normally going to take 10 turns, it would take 5 instead. If it were to just half the amount of production it takes to build a settler, then a new city which would likely only have 1-3 production would spend a lot more time building a settler since the cost is just reduced by half. However, the game actually doubles production towards settler, so a city with 3 production is going to spend 6 production per turn on a settler. This is amazing because if you have a very strong capital with 50 production (granted, this'll probably only happen late-game, and probably not on a Liberty game) you have 100 production per turn on a settler. It's an exponential thing rather than a flat thing but it's still pretty amazing regardless.

[@1Maklak]

Multiplicative, not exponential. And it's only good for 5 or so settlers. When settling additional lands much later, it is probably better to build a settler at an expansion over slowing growth of the capital anyway. So you might even think of it a a flat amount of extra hammers in the capital over the course of the entire game. It pretty much lets you build some buildings and grow, then spam settlers quickly to try to catch up.

[@galacticreggie]

TL:DW version: Liberty peaks at Medieval and plummets by the Industrial Age. In competitive multiplayer with human players, Liberty requires a lot of skill and a powerful religion just to survive. Liberty may be more effective against A.I. however (assuming playing on Prince or higher. Any strategy works at Warlord and below).

[@wbruning1]

On the road/city connection part, you could also use Babayetu's strategy. Just build roads EVERYWHERE :D

[@FilthyRobot]

Trundle TheTrollKing That's a short term war strat, it results in 0 science very quickly.

[@wbruning1]

FilthyRobot Yes I know, But I've seen Baba's vids a couple of times. It was pretty funny though :D

[@aug3600]

Trundle TheTrollKing might work as Inca with commerce policy

[@Landrisslg]

Hey Filthy, I recently picked Civ back up and play it very casually but still wanted to get a better understanding of the game. Found your content and it's amazing ! I just want to suggest for these guides you make, you might want to include a short description with timestamps of the different parts of the guide, that would make them easier to come back to after the first viewing. Just a thought, and again, thanks for all the amazing content, it's both helpful and really entertaining.

[@FilthyRobot]

+Landrisslg It's in the description for all the tier guides!

[@Dushku]

What about using the great person for finishing Liberty as an engineer to rush National College? I've done this in single player and it's an amazing way to coordinate NC without hardly any downtime on expands.

[@FilthyRobot]

Dushku IMO, it's fairly weak to do that. The timing on your finisher rarely corresponds to your NC timing and no one can "steal" your NC, so it isn't as big a deal if it takes longer to hard build.

[@Dushku]

Well, I certainly defer to your better judgement. I've found the timing works out nicely. I get like 6 expands up, the last one doesn't have enough time to build a library before Liberty is finished. So I buy one there and I'm good to go. As Liberty, how soon would you recommend going Writing/building Libraries?

[@FilthyRobot]

Dushku I've seen other players engineer NC in SP too, it sounds like it's working for you there :) Libraries when you can afford them.

[@Trenacetate43]

No use uses engineer to build NC lol. It is a national wonder. Unless youre playing on emperor and below. Using engineers for national wonders where no AI cannot snipe them is just stupid

[@jackmcnally3979]

Looking forward to that 24 hour stream filthy :)

[@kingkomodo24]

What about opening with the tradition opener, then moving to liberty. All your cities can then expand their borders faster, you do not necessarily need to get a monument right away, and your capital is bound to get to the other good tiles faster.

[@Anergyne]

Richard Olsen The problem with that is that every policy you pick will increase the culture cost of all future policies. This is also exacerbated by the increased culture cost of having a ton of cities. The +3 culture you get at the start is not going to make up for the increase in cost and you're going to lag behind on your rationalism and ideology policies. It also delays collective rule, which if you're going Liberty is something you really want to not do.

[@bertones667]

Been watching your guides with a lot of interest. although i'm strictly playing AI (not able to invest time in mutliplayer) listening to you reasoning out the decisions you take makes me understand the game more deeply (even for someone who's playing since civ1). I've always been playing liberty, with a high focus on getting my culture motor running, so I can get to the interesting science policies and tenets. And I'm addicted to the Shoshone special abilities and units. The ability of the shoshone to pick goodie hut rewards (+1 pop, +20culture, Upgrade Comp Bow) and border xpand allow me to kickstart the culture game. I'd like to ask your take on this policy hybrid lib-trad strategy, which i've been playing a lot with success against AI on immortal: - I start of tradition for the +3culture then switch to liberty the rapid expand to get the best land available. - fillers: aesthetics a for culture boost and patronage for control of the world congres with FP. - then rationalism and That said i've been more experimenting with the strategies you suggested focusing also on tradition or better minding the pitfalls of liberty. Now just a question; - finishing liberty: great scientist (academy) or engineer (strategic wonder picking for science wonders)? i've experimented with both. If you decide to answer, that would be great, but if not just consider this a thank you for giving us the opportunity to pick your brain a bit.

[@Trenacetate43]

I think he mentioned that it is not really a good strategy because of the increased policy cost. I'm a deity player as well and I never consider trad/liberty mix as a good strategy. Granted on immortal, you can still win with any policy you pick.

[@splitsecond26]

how about getting the tradition opener for the culture boost?

[@equilintogo5378]

If the aim is collective rule, no, trad opener first will slow down your policies from 4th ones (including CR) onward

[@dopplereffeckt675]

Hi Filthy. I find your videos very helpful, as a single player, I actually translate what you talk about in multiplayer into my single player campaign's and are very effective. Just two quick points. Does the No Quitter's group have a noob/tutorial set up. I'v never considered playing multiplayer Civ (and this would apply to BE as well which I am looking forward to) and I really don't want to be 'pressured' in a competitive game, and would like to learn from other players? The second would be a video on tech tree priority. Both in single and multiplayer game there seems to be a paradox between a 'broad' strategy v a 'targeted' strategy which you gun for the most powerful tech. What is the best approach? Really great channel and thanks for your time!

[@FilthyRobot]

+Keith Thomas (1) my FAQ guide video walks you through joining the NQ group. (2) Targeted strategies for sure, you just need to be aware of the gameflow enough to be making decisions that aren't disastrous long term

[@scrubadumb]

Do you think you could make a playlist of all your liberty games?

[@tiford184]

I’m surprised Indonesia weren’t included as a strong liberty civ, considering the faith output of Candi, and the free luxuries in up to 3 cities

[@MetaKaios]

Well I guess if you always play on Pangaea, you won't see the free luxuries much.

[@Deemerowy]

Hey Filthy, great guide as always, i really appreciate what you're doing. You said that you delay building libraries because of upkeep cost. The thing is that if your city is 2 population you're break even on on your upkeep, because you get one science and lose one because of gold loss. And more often than not, library lets u transform some gold into science, which is always good. And if you have city with 4 pop you're always getting at least one additional science in city with library compared to city without it. Of course if you have something more important to build, go for it, but you often don't, because of lack of gold. So in general, library with 2 or more pop costs no maintenence, its just its effect is reduced.

[@alecmueller3299]

One thing with engineer is you can save him for leaning tower or porcelin tower (if you're lucky enough)

[@Owlr4ider]

I know this guide is old but it's still 1 of the best ones out there for civ 5. With that said, what do you think about treating tradition, or more specifically the tradition opener as a 'filler' policy for liberty? As in opening tradition first for the border growth and early culture(2 massive liberty weaknesses) than do liberty as usual. Of course this will delay collective rule but as you said there are plenty of things to build in your capital early on so delaying the settler boom by a bit(and it's really a bit as the tradition opener's 3 culture per turn really speeds up the early culture policies) shouldn't hurt as much. This is especially good for aggressive ancient/classical liberty civs like Huns, Egypt, Persia, etc, who generally benefit from an early war thanks to their superior UU. Thus minimizing the risk of another player taking advantage of your settler delay to steal good city slots from you, as if that does happen you just war them early, raze the 'blocking city' and build the cities you wanted, while also taking care of a pesky neighbor in the process. Another note in liberty is that I don't fully understand your insistence that a good liberty game should still fall behind tradition when it comes to late game science. I think it should actually be the other way around. Not that I have much experience in multiplayer myself but at least in single player, even on deity difficulty, a good 8 city liberty game tends to be superior to a classic 4-5 city tradition game when it comes to achieving science victories. In this case I think that single player, especially on deity, actually puts more hurdles on you than multiplayer as other players are much less likely to gobble up all the wonders like deity AI does, so you actually have a shot at getting a whole bunch of wonders early on that you can never dream of realistically getting on deity. This is especially true if you pick up Jesuit Education for instant schools/labs but even without it once liberty gets going in the mid game gold should no longer be an issue and you really should be able to outgrow tradition thanks to the fact(that you mentioned in the video) that getting new civilians in smaller cities is much faster than in larger ones. Thus growing say 8 cities to 10 pop each with liberty is still significantly faster than growing 4 cities to 20 pop each with tradition, and of course with liberty you can get more than 8 cities, especially in multiplayer where you compete with other players rather than immortal/deity AI with their ridiculous cheating bonuses like limitless happiness that allow them to city spam like mad. So if you do manage to get all 3 science buildings in all your liberty cities(which you should be able to do) than liberty should actually gain more late game science than tradition.

[@milat9287]

Can we just talk about how the Tradition background is an Egyptian, and the Wonders production boost in it has a Pyramid logo.. But you don't get Pyramids from it, but rather from Liberty. What the buttstuff?

[@ctna211]

Hey filthy, what is the optimal number of cities in a liberty game? Supposed we have fairly much land/lux resources as we need. I understand that more cities means more science, but the draw up is the the cost of social policies. At the early/mid stage of the game social policies are powerful I think. And the cost of National College is also proportional to the number of cities. So I am pretty reluctant to settle more than 3 cities before building NC.

[@FilthyRobot]

+Canh Toan 8 to compete with 4 city trad, more if they expand more.

[@shinx2873]

How do you settle 8 cities? Every game ive had so far I can fit in 3 , sometimes 4 and almost never 5 . I fall behind in early game because i cant afford war or my enemies just settle 6 cities within the first 50 turns.

[@sindreherstad8739]

I am thinking of an liberty start strat as the shoshone. you start by setteling on your firts luxury (if possible). then you build 3 more pathfinder (then to finnish with writing) and go ruinhunting. you choose ruin: 1. culture 2. uppgrade. 3. pop (and later pantheon). By turn 30 you should have about 3 comp bowmen and a pathfinder +collective rule. so the idea is that you kill your closest naighbour and settle your city. and build some more settlers. I havnt realy tried it yet, but is there anny major flaws?

[@sindreherstad8739]

you should have time to steal a worker, but I wonder: when does the workers start to "pop out"?

[@libertyprime9307]

On normal speed, most city-states have a worker ~T30.

[@sindreherstad8739]

Liberty Prime thx

[@LeonHoogland]

That's my standard game :) I'm going through the difficulty levels with the Shoshone on Liberty. Use the pathfinder to get a pantheon, try to settle a Natural Wonder and then choose "One with Nature" pantheon. This often makes sure you get the first religion choice and if you have a Natural wonder like Uluru with +6 faith already, you might even enhance religion before others get to choose their religion. Choose tithe for money, and then pagoda's and mosques if possible. The Shoshone on Liberty with a strong religion are very strong.

[@Agent_Chieftain]

I actually agree that Rome isn't as great at liberty as it first seems. I've actually taken to tradition with it more. You want a really tall capital city to make the most out of the bonus. Plus the free buildings in the first 4 reduces the amount you have to build manually, allowing you to focus on producing other things sooner.

[@bpt1783]

Hey, quick question. How do you get X-Coms do be able to get blitz upon spawning? I was Aztec With autocracy +15 xp, military academies and Brandenburg and still couldn't manage it.

[@FilthyRobot]

Alhambra

[@HungryDan1994]

PancakesTheDemoman you have to go 3 times into the same on, either shock or drill, then the next promotion you can get blitz

[@codegeek98]

25:12 are the overflow apples included in the doubling? Or is it only “normal” hammers?

[@jim01q]

TY, bro. You are informative and articulate

[@TahirNefjodov]

*Filthy I know it's been a long while but please answer this =* Isn't it possible to get the Tradition opener after you get the fast-settler-policy?

[@FilthyRobot]

Sure, massively delayed and at the expense of your filler policies or your rationalism opener.

[@NateRowand-jo2rf]

Multiplying hammers on settlers by two is better than halving production cost on settlers due to overflow, right?

[@Jak3am]

Have you thought as the Netherlands as a good liberty civ.. knowing that everything outside of hammers and faith is decently hard to pull to par. Is the possible extra gold a good early/mid game trade off or does is 50% happiness to much of a detriment?

[@FilthyRobot]

Jakob Millhouse Any civ can be a a liberty civ, it's just their bonuses aren't particularly good for it.

[@Jak3am]

From a multilayer point of view when you can't really abuse the gold from AI.. yeah that makes perfect sense

[@SirAntoniousBlock]

I grabbed Honor as a filler policy after Liberty and barb farmed, helped a lot with culture, I get what you said- gold is a bigger problem than happiness lol.

[@joshuabarker5703]

civs i love for liberty include: Arabia and Spain; love that im able to beeline their unique buildings/units. Then combined with religious bonuses i can rush expansion while managing gold and happiness, esp Spain on a continents map, their UU being able to settle cities is one of my favourite strategies; in Civ6 these two are even more powerful with religion and the social policy cards

[@notjim]

Hmm could Morocco at least somewhat work for Liberty with its unique ability for trade routes, helping out with early to mid game gold and culture? This is under the assumption that problems with pillaging with trade routes is strictly a late game issue, and you're sending external trade routes a fair bit of the time anyway

[@dennissteubing909]

Filthy have u considert maybe picking up as the 1-3 "filler" polecies after finishing liberty the Honor tree down to warriorcaste? i think it has a great symbiotic, because as liberty player u have many cities. the more cities, the more culture and happieness u get from the warriorcaste.

[@thomasclark405]

Filthy, could you make a comprehensive chart detailing what civs are good for liberty and which are good for tradition? For multiplayer of course. -tomclarkbuddy

[@shinx2873]

There are actually some really , really useful guides. Ive got almost a 1000 hours and been playing emperor for a while , but after i quit for about half year it really is hard winning on emperor again. These guides really help me!

[@FilthyRobot]

Great!

[@yaboiigenghis6400]

half way in: “oh shit im only half way in this takes forever”

[@Martics44]

Dude Perfect, just what i was looking for. What mods are u usin? Ty bro

[@sanjeevpillai2105]

Dude Perfect...

[@lornsumm3249]

Playing china wide is super fun, ended up having a world war against a slightly tech ahead portugal and england, with a tiny carthage helping me.

[@DOCTORKpuffy]

This video needs to be updated for the mod. It seems to work a lot differently now.

[@fijode]

I have a hard time pulling a liberty snowball off on Standard pace as me and my friends always play on this I'd like to incoperate some liberty as well in there. Anyone has some tips / similar experiences?

[@notLukeWilliams]

Why would tradition players not enter the renaissance era with Acoustics? After researching Education it gets you straight into the renaissance quickly, where you have access to rationalism before the other routes. Is that not a good idea?

[@ashraftayfour7306]

great work as usual, very informative

[@talusrobinson1490]

What do you think of the 12 settled city 2500 science by information era

[@michelvanderlinden8363]

I really dont think Liberty is underpowered. I think it's on par with all of the "filler" picks. I just think tradition is OVERLY OP. The other picks didnt need a buff to be balanced, the Tradition tree just needed a hefty nerf. Rationalism is fine because, well if by THAT time you fell behind, it's your fault, not the balance of the game. But since population > science > progression, and No unhappiness > normal growth/production, and Gold income > regular science... tradition is flat out broken. It literally does EVERYTHING you need to grow fast

[@exterminasation]

Wouldn't the Zulu also be a good liberty civ? you skipped them in the early list even though they have a very strong early (early/mid) military unit and a slight gold boost due to lower military upkeep.

[@TeddyKirkegaard]

Thank you for making this guide, I have recently been trying to use liberty rather than tradition and I have found it quite hard, but this should help :D

[@Mark.remarking]

Amazing breakdown. Thank you

[@IvanVasheka]

Playing Ethiopia with Liberty means you most likely lose its combat bonus which depends on number of cities...

[@JacobDxD]

Can't you Just adopt tradition and after get Liberty if u need the border expansion

[@shinx2873]

Ive just installed a liberty buff mod which is just really helpful and switches the settler and production policy around, allowing you to adpot Liberty > Settler > Tradition and than just finishing your liberty tree.

[@drunkbarboy]

I have a question (I'm assuming it has already been asked), would it be worth skipping the free worker in liberty to grab the border expansion that tradition offers? Or would that put you too far back in the liberty tree to compete?

[@DankestPepe]

Another guide from Filthy :O Hype!

[@MajSolo]

is it possible to cherry pick a little from everything? I usually take the first tradition then some liberty then piety then honor or is there not enough time to do that against good players ?

[@FilthyRobot]

Too slow

[@corvusmacgovern9930]

Question Filthy; if you are playing a Civ such as Germany or the Zulu that are clearly geared towards straight Domination, how would approach your Social Policies? Are Trad builds options you would consider for either of these Civs? Would you consider dipping into Honor after you open up with either Lib or Trad?

[@FilthyRobot]

Corvus MacGovern Honor should really never be opened until Liberty or Trad are entirely filled out.

[@corvusmacgovern9930]

Fair enough. Is Trad a viable option for either of these Civs? And is Honor a tree that is worth investing in, or are there better options than Honor?

[@ChrisStoneinator]

I actually think Rome is good if you're going to be aggressive. 25% production doesn't help you start a city from 1 pop, but it helps you restart a 6-pop city that you just invaded.

[@tcunero]

Thanks for this overview. I love playing expansive and its sad that the game is balanced so that your kind of forced into one way to play. I wish there was a reworked balance patch to fix some of that.

[@davidcollins1]

Hey love your videos man! Finally got around to sub. I know you mentioned it in one video but couldn't find it again so I thought I'd ask. What are the mods you use?

[@FilthyRobot]

David Collins EUI, it's linked on my twitch page

[@kianbani7960]

Are there any games that you would have traditional and liberty?

[@MultiMS97]

how can you kill the world with camel archers but not with keshiks?! didnt quiete understand that one...

[@xxZitroxx]

+schootsta I guess it is because camel archers have a lot higher combat strength (melee and ranged). So they take more hits and do more damage even in later eras. 21 ranged vs 16 and 20 melee vs 15 is an eras difference in damage output and tankiness, which means faster killing in the early eras and a little more damage output in later eras, when the combat strength has gotten higher than that. shooting muskets or even rifles (if they ever show up) or especially cities is way more viable with 21 strength compared to 16. Yea Keshiks level faster and have an extra movement, but that doesn't help you much if they are too squishy as you can't always completely keep them out of firing or melee knight range anyways. The better general bonus also doesn't help them much as apparently you only use generals for citadels in multiplayer.

[@Varandil]

Another quick question... Liberty Spain. The starting build order conflicts quite heavily, no? You want the extra scouts to seek out the Natural Wonders, but do you build them straight away or fit them in after the monument?

[@FilthyRobot]

Varandil Probably worth building 2 scouts at least regardless

[@cellardoor70]

How exactly is city connection gold calculated?

[@antoinesauze3319]

Hey Filthy! What do you think of the Tradition - Liberty combo? Many players posted it as a viable strategy for them (I never tried it)... it is mostly for single player games from what I´ve seen... well, tell me what you think

[@antoinesauze3319]

PS: I think it doesn´t work that well because mixing them tends to lessen the impact of each tree to me... and it´s tough to have many cities that are relatively high on pop as well... anyway, tell me :)

[@FilthyRobot]

+Antoine Sauze Anytime you mix policies you lose out on timing on one policy. So it's a comparison of what you lose on timing and what you lose on secondary policies vs what you gain from picking that second tree. I don't like trrad/lib mixes very much as the trad timing tends to be very important for growth.

[@KrutoyPostowoy]

Is it possible that in duel or 3 player games liberty becomes A LOT more effective? If its a huge underdog in 6 players FFA how does it compare in less crowded matches?

[@wholcikedme]

KrutoyPostowoy yes in duel liberty is better because it is all out early war, and the loss of gold adn eventual science isnt a problem. Tradition excels in growth and therefore mid-late game science, which wont come into play for duel.

[@KrutoyPostowoy]

Wholickedme so is liberty the preferable route in a 3 players FFA? We play with additional AI too.

[@wholcikedme]

KrutoyPostowoy yes. military rush your neighbours.

[@SMSgtBrown]

Can you counteract local unhappiness with global happiness, such as Notre Dame?

[@FilthyRobot]

Yes, just not the opposite.

[@adambarber1090]

Have you ever played with the communitas mods? They are suppose to balance the game a bit while changing it to be very unique. I played with it once but am skeptical because liberty is actually good and I dont know how well its actually balanced. Liberty could be better than tradition. I'm also curious to know what mods you do use because I love seeing the details when you curse over tiles and things like that. (Included in communitas as well).

[@adambarber1090]

Edit: found mods anyway

[@kai89tracid]

+ u pick liberty if u know land is ok for it

[@Mcjon23]

Nice guide! Definetely helped my ignorance. TL;DR part cracked me up :P

[@waynedevine2479]

I would like to make the argument that if you go liberty the best way to make up for its short comings is to take Messenger of the gods for your pantheon and exploration as your filler policies. Messenger of the Gods with its +2 science in cities with a city connection allows you to compensate for the extra science cost wide empires have making it much easier to keep your tech rate up to compete with tradition. Exploration on the other hand makes happiness, culture, gold and production with only three social policies. Those being Maritime infrastructure which gives +3 production in coastal cities , naval tradition which gives +1 happiness for each harbor, seaport or lighthouse , and merchant navy through its upgrade of the East India Company giving it +4 production and +4 culture on top of its gold bonuses and +1 gold for every harbor, seaport, or lighthouse. If you pick up autocracy as an ideology and get the prora wonder your free social policy can be treasure fleets which gives you +4 gold from all your sea trade routes further increasing your gold per turn. This can all be done without slowing your progression into rationalism for all of its benefits which improves its late gameplay substantially allowing you to choose between a domination, scientific, and diplomatic victory plan as you prefer for the game state.

[@awkwardcultism]

The two major downsides I see to this strategy are: 1. Messenger of the Gods gives no Faith, so to use it late game you need an outside source of Faith to get a religion. 2. Exploration only works if your empire is entirely coastal. Even then, the benefits are pretty slim. +2 Science per city late game is worth, like, half a population in each city? You may as well take a happiness pantheon.

[@waynedevine2479]

@@awkwardcultism1. The point of doing messenger of the gods as a pantheon is to ease early and mid-game science issues when the small bonuses are more impactful since you need to spam cities early since you need at least twice as many cities as tradition assuming you plan for the standard 4-5 city tradition build it means as liberty you need about 10 cities to even break even with their growth curve which equals 18-20 extra science per turn which eases your early tech rate substantially you do need an outside source of faith to ensure you keep it but the advantages out way the price not choosing a faith pantheon. 2. You actually only need 2-4 coastal cities to make exploration useful even if you only take the opener and Maritime infrastructure since those cities will get to start with +4 extra production since republic from liberty and Maritime infrastructure stack making those cities faster to get going and making them easier to make higher production buildings and units since the pluses give you some inherent central production which is a pretty big weakness for liberty normally everything else is just extra. The bonuses to East India company from merchant navy for example allow for you to make a quasi- second capital if you use a non-capital coastal city for its construction improving the already stacking extra centralization bonuses you already had improving your flexibility since you now have two genuine central production cities to build science and growth buildings with.

[@chrisstickels5547]

I like the poppy plant too my friend.

[@Demoncy0]

Dear anyone, Why are the Iroquis bad? I'ma newer civ 5 player and I hear everybody saying the Iroquis are bad. Why is this exactly?

[@noahcollins1913]

Their UA is useless, first of all they have to be inside your territory to make the connection, and if you have to build roads to complete a city connection, you pay the full movement point to move into the forest, meaning you have to build roads anyway, useless, and the caravan ability doesn't matter at all. The Mohawk Warrior is very meh, pretty useless also. The longhouse might be the worst of all. In exchange for the +3 hammers and +15% production, the longhouse gives +1 hammer per forest tile. So unless you have a ton of forest (that would normally be chopped) it is worse than the normal workshop. I'll quote Filthy on this: "Though Venice is probably the worst multiplayer civ, I'd rather roll them than the Iroquois, because at least then I can ask for a rerool."

[@Demoncy0]

Noah Collins Okay, I think I understand, but what if you went Liberty? Filthy said they made a good Liberty civ because they get those flat production bonuses over meager percentages in small cities. Does going Liberty make them viable? Or is the likelihood of being able to successfully go Liberty based on your start just mean that they're bad most of the time?

[@kubu9394]

Zabara Zoen As filthy said in his trad vs liberty guide, 90% of the time you should go tradition. So it's 90% of the time that Iroquois are worse than generic civ. Their UU and UA might aswell not be there, coz these are totally inconsenquential. So it's longhouse that actually defines if Iroquois have any advantage. And to be advantegues, longhouse requires that you a) are liberty, b) have a lot of forest. And combination of these 2 things doesn't tend to happen often even with a forest bias.

[@Demoncy0]

kuba2898 Noah Collins I see. Thank you for taking the time respond with detailed explanations. : )

[@zhahoo797]

It says "speeds up production by 50%" so doesn't that mean you get 0.5 extra hammer for every hammer?

[@FilthyRobot]

+Ludkuss Yes. It's not double.

[@zhahoo797]

+FilthyRobot so you wouldn't get settlers out in half the time, but rather in 67% of the time?

[@donthaveone6496]

Does ICS still work?? and if it does can you do a guide on it with Rome or Mayan

[@demninja]

Don't have one did you even watch the video....

[@ghostlightx9005]

If you are down on Culture just as you complete Liberty, would taking 1 point in Tradition for +3 Culture help enough?

[@wholcikedme]

I think th problem is cultural policies get exponentially more expensive, so taking that would in the long run equal less policies.

[@ghostlightx9005]

Wholickedme That is exactly what I am asking. Is that +3 enough to make up for the extra Policy you took? I think it might be, because it comes pretty early in the game.

[@wholcikedme]

Gary Bradley I doubt it, in the late game policies get so damn expensive. Maybe if you also built the Hanging Gardens to justify opening it... but then im not sure how that fits into liberty play..

[@kumiplus]

I've been wondering about this as well, although from a slightly different angle. I know the culture doesn't pay itself back, and taking the tradition opener pushes your free settler back by roughly 5 (correction: 6) turns (standard speed). But the opener also makes border expansion faster, and that might make it worthwile. In tradition games, my capital often grows to 5-tile radius and my other cities have no problem growing to 3-tile radius eventually. But liberty cities, even with pagodas, just don't expand their borders that well. It is a big problem if you want to have competitive 20-pop cities in the late game. My liberty cities always run out of usable tiles, regardless of whether I settle them 3 or 5 tiles apart. Either the cities suffocate each other, or don't grow their borders fast enough. The tiles are too expensive to buy compared to the money you're making. The Shoshone are a nice liberty civ since they overcome this problem, but they have no bonuses to religion, which is the main perk of going liberty in the first place. I'll have to try tradition opener with liberty some day.

[@ghostlightx9005]

What do you mean by "taking the tradition opener pushes your free settler back by roughly 5 turns"?

[@goldenmairon2371]

I like to watch these even tho civ 6 is out

[@ch0c0b0fr34k]

you mentioned liberty is underpowered in this video - is this still true today?

[@lolyganster]

+Ozzie Chung Why not? To my knowledge there was no new expansion, and none are planned.

[@SadLittleTurkey]

+Ozzie Chung Yes but there are a lot of mods that exist to try and balance themselves.

[@Anolaana]

18:20; was that a verbal typo? I think you meant "not retroactive," Filthy? Excellent guide though, I might have to scrounge up some timestamps for future reference.

[@Anolaana]

The discussion at 35:45 about tile picking leading into bit about around 37m about counting tiles to know the population wanted was just what I needed, thanks! I'm way too used to spamming pop for science, improving everything in my borders, and not being selective with tiles. Around 50:40, I also never considered how Workshops could be more useful than Public Schools. So anyway, I'll have to try this stuff out. :) Pairing that with the stuff said in the Tradition/Liberty policy guide about local unhappiness, the things are starting to click into place...!

[@epistax4]

Hey dude, you do a great job explaining all this. I'm curious what your outline / notes look like. Every once in a great while you do a pronunciation slip up. I think I only notice because of how rarely it happens. You're talking so fast and the video is so long, you did a great job.

[@FilthyRobot]

+epistax4 Thanks, the notes are often bullet points of stuff I want to make sure to cover. They're long gone now.

[@Varandil]

So it's never worth planting Great Engineers? That's a lot of extra hammers per turn?

[@FilthyRobot]

Varandil Situational, certainly not the Liberty finisher engineer, since if you're going to plant it, it should have been the scientist instead.

[@dodgytapir8004]

Filthy, I downloaded the mod you use but why is your mod so different from the version I have?