Economy Civics, Which do you use?

Even without SP or caste system, a post-chemistry workshop on grassland is the same yield as a grassland hill (the best non-resource production tile in the game)) 13 on any grassland tile is boss.

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yeah but with biology, that same tile is 4 food if you can get it irrigated. I think food > hammers in most cases.

nate45 said:

hmm, to test this, i just opened up an old save with a conquest victory.

total number of cities: ~20

total distance to palace mainteance costs according to expenses screen: 61.

so state property saves 61/turn. mercantalism gives 20 specialists, which is way better.

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Maybe you should also check your trade route income and compare to how much it would be with foreign trade routes?

elitetroops said:

Maybe you should also check your trade route income and compare to how much it would be with foreign trade routes?

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presumably it would be the same because the only people i had open borders with that game were vassals, lol. This was a save from like 5 turns before conquest victory...

foreign trade routes aren't worth too much on pangagea, anyway... +2 instead of +1, generally.

although, yeah, you have to be running caste and representation too for mercantalism to be better than state property in most cases.

but the other problem with state property, besides that it comes so late, is that communism isn't a pre-requisite for anything. really expensive tech that doesn't help much besides state property. I guess the kremlin is nice?

Weird argument that communism is a bad tech, as banking is a worse tech to self-research At least if you beeline communism you get a GSPY and first dibs at kremlin if you go that route. (Although kremlin is oddly placed here as you probably wouldn't build it if you're going workshops).

In the normal domination scheme you lib, you go nationalism, and then military tradition (for cuirs). Workshops can do plenty well here, as they are already worthwhile and then immediately after MT you tech chemistry.
At no point does it make sense to self research banking, so you're only getting mercantilism once you can trade for banking (which will vary obviously). My point is it's not as much earlier than SP as it may appear, because despite its physical location on the tech tree there's more important things to beeline (namely liberalism and MT).

So when we assume that mercantilism is coming AFTER lib, it means GP have started to dramatically lose their effectiveness, as the trifecta of them being more expensive, Golden Ages taking more and more GP to work, and bulbing researches a smaller percentage of a tech.
And +3 research (or w.e) isn't that good by itself. If you have rep then it's obviously double that. But you get rep two ways, either mids or constitution. If you're in total war mode or about to be constitution is a bizarre detour and the mids can also unlock police state.

Is it better than decentralization? sure, but it may not always be worth the revolt turn, so you have to spiritual / grab it in a GA.

I do run mercantilism a decent amount, probably more than FM as I already claimed ^^

But does it compete with SP once SP is available? Absooooolutely not. At that point GP and research in general mean almost nothing, so the +10% hammer production should be more important than mercantilism by itself. And if you're on a high level and going for a dom victory the high maintenance from all the cities is usually cost prohibitive by itself to make it not a choice.
It's almost an after thought that it makes workshops OP at that point as well.


Also blitz did you seriously do a 360 flip just because elite said I was a deity player

FM may be better than SP in a space race. It's definitely closer, and probably situational. Although I'm not really an expert on space races, since domination is easier. The only time I space race now is with an internet gimmick, where usually workshops end up being more useful for me.

drewisfat said:

Also blitz did you seriously do a 360 flip just because elite said I was a deity player

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!! No my friend! I am not doing a 360 flip! I never said MERCANTILISM was teh superior for domination wins. In this case, I am debating with nate45 on his topic of Mercantilism being the best for large empire domination. I didn't think SP was good for small empires but I certainly knew it is boss on large empire domination wins! (I think I mentioned that in every post in our debate). I even said I would try this with a small empire b/c a deity player obviously knows optimal.

I also never argued that SP workshops weren't awesome. I argued that with a small empire, I'd rather be running FM. To debate nate45's point, Merc is rarely the best choice and in the situations he describes, SP & workshops are most certainly superior. I often implement this with domination wins and am probably going to go that route in my current game as Freddy

And if you're on a high level and going for a dom victory the high maintenance from all the cities is usually cost prohibitive by itself to make it not a choice. It's almost an after thought that it makes workshops OP at that point as well.

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And this is something I've been saying all along hence my argument for FM > SP with small empires in most situations. We agree on most of this stuff with the exception that on Deity, FM's extra trade routes may not be optimal. I don't know, I'm an Emperor player moving on to Immortal and on this level, it seemed a waste to go SP in peaceful or vassal-rolling games.

drewisfat said:

In the normal domination scheme you lib, you go nationalism, and then military tradition (for cuirs).

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Well, I'm only a lowly immortal player, but i notice that this forum seems to be stuck on this one tech path. Are cuirrs that much better than knights?

Maybe at one point i'll start copying what everyone else is doing, but not today

rah said:

Since I'm usually playing for dom or con and play with vassals off, SP is the only real option.

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That's how I roll, too

nate45 said:

Well, I'm only a lowly immortal player, but i notice that this forum seems to be stuck on this one tech path. Are cuirrs that much better than knights?

Maybe at one point i'll start copying what everyone else is doing, but not today

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They really are, yeah. The thing with Cuirs is that they count as gunpowder units when attacking cities, so walls/castles are ignored for defensive purposes. That alone gives them a big advantage.

Add the extra strength and withdrawal chance on top and you have a very solid unit considering its placement in the tech tree and availability through a beeline.

nate45 said:

hmm, to test this, i just opened up an old save with a conquest victory.

total number of cities: ~20

total distance to palace mainteance costs according to expenses screen: 61.

so state property saves 61/turn. mercantalism gives 20 specialists, which is way better.

also state property comes much later than mercantalism.

and what's so good about workshops, anyway?

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That is... very low maintenance for 20 cities. Very low. You must have had Forbidden palace and Versailles and a bunch of courthouses, all of which are unnecessary for SP.

I think Merc can be useful (we used it in our last sgotm).
Without corps (yet) it's usually stronger than FM, unless we are taking Astro trade routes of course.

But if you ask which are strongest, why would anybody say Merc with SP also being an option

AIs really like banking, so in games where you are not ahead in tech at that time you can often trade. Also it's needed for Rifling, so sometimes..
the real "problem" with that line for me would be pre-techs like guilds, knights do not get much love usually and neither do Grocers.

traius said:

That is... very low maintenance for 20 cities. Very low. You must have had Forbidden palace and Versailles and a bunch of courthouses, all of which are unnecessary for SP.

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He's talking specifically about distance-based maintenance but it seemed pretty low to me as well (for such a high level). I've seen a 125+ swing when moving into SP from FM with just a few more than 20 cities on Emperor level. I do think I had 3 or 4 conquered cities overseas, though, which also incur colonial maintenance which is pretty big. To be fair, I think he's made it fairly apparent that he only plays on Pangaea (so no colonial maintenance involved in his 20 cities).

But I think this is part of my point. One can easily talk about their 'favorite' econ civic especially if they play a specific map script with a specific strategy (domination). But if we're discussing best, then I think versatility would be important. FM and SP are very versatile in that they can be used to benefit most games, many different map scripts, and a plethora of victory conditions.

I noticed a few people calling Cuirassiers a "canned strategy" or "something that others thought up". There might be a misunderstanding. Cuirassiers is pretty much the most consistent breakout unit ON DEITY. There are other units to use (Elephants, Catapults, Trebs, Cavalry, Rifles, nukes) but Cuirassiers, if you play a large number of games, will give you the most wins. They are not used because "everybody says to do so" but because they are so strong. As such, using them as a yardstick for measuring how economic civics hold up for DEITY games makes some sense.

It doesn't of course mean that Curs are the best for every difficulty. On Monarch or Emperor, it would probably often be wise to attack much sooner. And State Property is weaker when there is less maintenance to reduce than on Deity level.

I'd still consider it a "canned" strategy because it takes specific tech path decisions, specific timing, and a specific map (not so great on islands/archip/3+ continents). There's nothing wrong with it, I just try not to use canned strats. If people win on Deity with it, then it is a great strategy. That doesn't mean it isn't canned. If I end up playing deity, I'll probably have to start using the Cuir rush canned strategy if I intend to win. But for now, I don't like canned strats.

I'm not sure I follow your thinking here. What strategy doesn't vary in effectiveness based on Map Type, or doesn't require a specific tech path and timing? That sounds pretty much like the definition of strategy to me, a plan to achieve a goal. Is a cottaged Bureaucracy capital canned? I guess it just feels restrictive to you, though it seems to me there is enough freedom in how you tech to Cuirs, how you produce them and how you use them. You still have to respond to the environment and act creatively. Certainly it is true that the higher the level the less successful strategies there are.

Fair enough. I guess the word "canned" has a negative connotation to it. I mean, if I really think about it, self-teching Aesthetics because it is great AI trade bait is another "canned" strategy which I use all the time. I will try the Cuir rush. I guess it seemed a bit "canned" because it was presented as a basic "how to" win on Pangaea. But I guess GLH cheese is similar on islands/archip map.

I play very various maps on BtS, buffy.

Mercantilism <-- About half of the rest games, more when dependant on specialists.
Free Market <-- About half of the rest games, more when cottages better developed.
State Property <-- On most large empires where I aim to enjoy game and have no date to beat.
Environmentalism <-- On some small empire situations, where I have 5-6 very strong cities and decide to go for Space.

SP by a huge margin
Free marked is alright if you have lots of seafood -> sushi corp

I usually go with SP since I play huge maps and tend to win with conquest/domination.

I just played a game where I actually used mercantilism; and unlike TMIT's assertion (mercantilism is only better than free market when the game is over), it wasn't (QUITE!) over, as Zara Yaqob had vassalized 2 opponents, and I had completely conquered (no vassal) 2 opponents.

Eh, never mind. While mercantilism produced more beakers at break even point than free market, the game really was over. Shouldn't have been, but was. Zara had a larger army than I (not including vassals), my cities were tiny and pissed from whipping, my borders to defend GINORMOUSLY long but Zara ignored rifling and I cleaned out the globe no problem. So it was over. BUT! Mercantilism did get me to rifling about 10 turns earlier, and maybe with 10 more turns he would've got to rifling... but he would've already have lost a large chunk of his empire by then.

This was in a golden age, and I had the mids for representation before constitution (gotten by conquest post-cuirs), and I had the second largest civ on the globe with a number of small cities (the small cities part is kind of neutral though, as small cities get the same bonus vs large for both FM and Merc)

A sidelight to economic civics being different in different situations is in an OCC. When I play an OCC I virtually always use Environmentalism. Your one city will be your National Park city often with several forests having preserves. In that situation environmentalism turns out to be a very good civic.

I wouldn't use Environmentalism in a normal game, however. I prefer SP for simplicity of use if nothing else and I usually have a pretty decent sized empire by that time.

SP always. The Revolution will crush the capitalist pigs under the treads of our tanks!