Civilization 5 Liberty Social Policies
Strategy Guide for Gods and Kings & Brave New World
| Tradition | Liberty | Honor | Piety | Patronage | Aesthetics | Commerce | Exploration | Rationalism |
Opening with Liberty will give you faster expansion, which doesn't necessarily mean you will have to play wide to enjoy its benefits - but if you are not going for 5+ Cities by the mid-game, it's not going to be as useful as Tradition. This is particularly because without going very wide to make great use of the reduction in Social Policy costs, you could be enjoying all the benefits that Capitals receive from Tradition. You'll get more Happiness from a large Capital with Tradition and be more free to construct Buildings and Wonders there. Adopting Liberty will give +1 Culture in each City you found, which helps them to begin acquiring new tiles before a Monument is built. It also unlocks building The Pyramids which synergize great with Liberty's policies, particularly in that you will have a total of three free workers to build infrastructure and tile improvements in a wide empire, while doing it a total of 50% faster.
Finishing all Policies in Liberty will let you choose a free Great Person of your Choice, but doesn't let you purchase anything with Faith in the Industrial Era, unlike most other Social Policies. This free Great Person can be used very strategically - you may build a Wonder like the Parthenon with a Great Engineer to help you start off on a Cultural Win or grab a free Great Scientist to aid in Scientific Research by building an Academy tile improvement. Some players even choose a Great Admiral to let them explore the world before other Civs, which will let you meet City-States to get gold bonuses and get Quests from them, while also discovering Civilizations to trade with or Natural Wonders to boost Happiness in your Empire.
One thing of import to pass on to players Opening with Liberty is that you need to pace your expansion. For one, if you go really wide, all known Civs will dislike you for gobbling up too much land. Another problem is Happiness. You must scout for territory with new Luxuries that your population doesn't yet have access to, in order to justify the expansion - You get +3 Unhappiness per City, along with +1 per Citizen living there so +4 for planting a new City, which is exactly the amount that a Luxury will offset. Connecting those new Luxuries quickly is also important. Finding Civs to trade with can help you to offset this dillema, trading Luxury for Luxury, but making enemies by expanding too close to another Civ may make trade more difficult.
Successfully founding Cities on good lands that provide Happiness, Gold, and are capable of solid growth by having Food Resources will make your Civ competitive in any type of Victory, from taking all Capitals to being elected World Leader.
A question many will ask is whether or not to take the Free Worker or Settler first. The Worker comes earlier, but I find the Settler the better choice. You can make a Worker in your Capital after the usual Monument then Scount, and are free to develop the City and the lands around it, while you find the locations you'd like for your future Cities. This also gets the Capital larger so that it can better take advantage of the Settler production bonus. Either solution works, but on difficulties Emperor+, you'll want to settle your second City as quickly as possible to claim the land and begin building up that City. Your first Worker can begin moving toward this expansion when your Free one is about to come about from Citizenship.
Republic: +1 Production in every City and +5% Production in Cities when constructing Buildings.
Tips and Strategies for this Policy: The +1 might not seem like much, but early in the game it's a nice boost to construction in those Cities, particularly with the building bonus and the rate your Workers will improve tiles to help those Cities grow in both Food and Production output.
Citizenship: Tile improvement construction rate increased 25% and a Worker appears near the Capital.
Tips and Strategies for this Policy: This is a great bonus, even more so if you build the Pyramids, and this bonus does stack with that Wonder to give you +50% construction speed for your Workers, enabling you to repair a tile in one turn (this actually happens instantly, consuming the Worker's turn). This has led some players to build Pyramids to help them wage War, because you can improve tiles in lands that are not your own, allowing a bit of an exploit in pillage/repair to keep a unit's life up while being the City's target. The Free Worker will help immensely in developing your empire, particularly when they take 8-12 turns to make at that stage of the game. Use this guy to connect luxuries in your latest City or construct a road to create a City connection and boost income as those Cities grow.
Collective Rule: Speeds the training of Settlers by 50% in the Capital and a free Settler appears near the Capital. (Venice receives a Merchant of Venice instead.)
Tips and Strategies for this Policy: This is perhaps the best Policy here. Settlers stop growth in the City and cost 500 Gold to buy outright, so a free one is highly valuable. Future Settlers built in the Capital will also take less time to create (though cost the same). This is the foundation of Liberty and should be taken as soon as possible so that you can grab land on your Continent. It will even help later in the game so that you can quickly grab free land on other Continents then build Harbors to form a City Connection. Be sure to escort this pioneer with a Caravel after researching Astronomy, which is the tech that allows your units to cross Ocean tiles.
Representation: Each City you found will increase the Culture cost of Policies by 33% less than normal. Starts an instant Golden Age.
Tips and Strategies for this Policy: I typically take this Policy before Meritocracy unless City Connections are already established. We want the cost of Social Policies down so that adding new Cities doesn't make finishing Liberty and moving on to other Policies take longer, and the sooner the better when you have five or more Cities. This changes the 10% per City modifier, so each City would raise Culture cost of Social Policies by 10% - 33% or 6.6%, which helps immensely. With 7 Cities running a test, I found that it reduced the cost of my next policy by 17% - a very significant reduction, helping 20 turns to the next policy reach 17 - this will put your Culture in a much better position than it would be otherwise over the course of 200+ turns.
Meritocracy: +1 Happiness for each City you own connected to the Capital and -5% Unhappiness from Citizens in non-occupied Cities.
Tips and Strategies for this Policy: This Policy's description speaks for itself. It slightly offsets the penalty for playing Wide and all the unhappiness that generates. The -5% Unhappiness comes off the Population figure, so doesn't impact the 3 Unhappiness per city. That is where the bonus for City Connections comes in. Read the Guide to Cities to learn about City Connections, which can be made with both Roads and Harbors.
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2When starting the game you can select the option to be able to save policies. Then you can right-click to dismiss it and choose the policy later on. (Maybe when you reached a new era.)
