Free market vs mercantilism

Hi all!

Given the option between the two civics, I always wonder which one will yield the best results. How do you guys tell which one to pick?

This has been discussed before.

Mercantilism is good if you have a large number of small-ish cities, with a special bonus for warmongers (doesn't care about open borders, can often have immediate culture in new conquests from artists/Sistine specialists).
Free Market benefits you most if you have a small empire (a trade route everywhere for the smaller, not so for the larger partner) with individually big cities, and you don't intend to annoy your potential trade partners.

I usually prefer Mercantilism before corporations.

What Iranon said. Plus:

If you have vassals you can run Mercantilism and still get foreighn trade routes.

For a estimate... Look in the demografics or foreighn advisor screen to check your trade routes. If you only have fer income, while giving a lot of commerce to the others, go mercantlism. Also if your trade commerce is less than what a specialist in each city will give you...

Iranon said:

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I usually prefer Mercantilism before corporations.

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And Free Market after you have founded a corporation or two.

In many games I race to Economics after Liberalism to get the free GM. This often means I have access to Free Market long before the AI.

Since both civics affect trade route income, I usually base my decision on what the AI is doing. What I usually do it check the foreign advisor's "Info" and tech screens. If I have a lot of foreign trade route income, and the AI civs are running Decentralization, and most of them are a ways off from obtaining Banking, I'll change to FM. But if most of the AIs are already running Mercantilism (which is often the case), it makes no sense to run FM when there's little or no foreign trade route income available, so Mercantilism it is.

Even after the AI has Economics, it takes a long time for them to change to FM. Even if you bribe them or use a Spy to get them to change, they often don't stick with it.

Sidebar: I've started playing Marathon speed lately, and in those games I've noticed the AI's often skipping Mercantilism altogether, going pretty much straight from Decentralization to FM--unlike Epic speed, where I find the AIs love Mercantilism, adopt it early, and run it for centuries. I'm not sure why the game speed difference makes that change.

Sisiutil said:

I'm not sure why the game speed difference makes that change.

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Maybe the AI knows something that we don't?

Sisiutil said:

Sidebar: I've started playing Marathon speed lately, and in those games I've noticed the AI's often skipping Mercantilism altogether, going pretty much straight from Decentralization to FM--unlike Epic speed, where I find the AIs love Mercantilism, adopt it early, and run it for centuries. I'm not sure why the game speed difference makes that change.

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Perhaps because the anarchy time is often overwhelming on marathon , at least I'm very reluctant to change civics (without golden age or a spiritual leader ) without good reason

oranges said:

Perhaps because the anarchy time is often overwhelming on marathon

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It's possible that the AI has no concept of the length of the game, and so views the multiple turns of anarchy as highly negative.

@Sis
Have you noticed fewer civic swaps overall by the AI on marathon speed as opposed to normal/epic?

Have you noticed spiritual leaders swapping where other leaders don't?

My guess is anarchy time as well. Perhaps the AI does not take the fact that turns are "cheaper" on slower speed into account.

Nares said:

It's possible that the AI has no concept of the length of the game, and so views the multiple turns of anarchy as highly negative.

@Sis
Have you noticed fewer civic swaps overall by the AI on marathon speed as opposed to normal/epic?

Have you noticed spiritual leaders swapping where other leaders don't?

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I haven't really kept track; this is the only civics dichotomy between Epic/Normal and Marathon that I've noticed, probably because other civics that the AI runs don't affect me as directly. (Unless Monty or Shaka are next door and change to Vassalage/Theocracy, of course... )

Mercantilism creates powerful synergies with Philosophical trait as well as the Pyramids and Parthenon great wonders. If you can combine the free specialist with i.e. +3 bonus with Representation, as well as +50/100% bonuses, it changes into a powerful civic.

Sadly I rarely use Mercantilism. Just if I hit banking I normally grab economics shortly afterwards and if going to have to get hit by anarchy I'd rather that happen as little as possible and just wait till I get free markets since as long as I have a few nations I can trade with the extra gold from foreign trade routes is much better.

I can't say I've noticed any difference with AIs preferances with civics with which gamespeed I run in. To me it's more dependant on who the AIs are. If they have mercantilism as favourite civic they'll run it, if they do have free market they'll run it. If they don't favour any of them they will run what suits them best atm. Could be somewhat mapdependant as well. Archipelago maps tends to favour Free market, Pangea tends to lead to more mercantilism.

That's just my few cents on how I've noticed things to be in my games, but I can't say it's the thruth...

I never used to use Mercantilism, until I discovered the power of Specialists. Generally, if I'm running a lot of specialists I'll have Representation, Caste System, Mercantilism, Sistine Chapel and Statue of Liberty (not sure if I've missed anything there). The extra specialist is not only amazing, but fits in well with the overall strategy

I'll usually use Free Market the rest of the time (i.e. whenever I'm not using Mercantilism), unless I've got an especially large or unhealthy empire

I choose environmentalism even if I have corporations. There are benefits that make it as good or better than free market.

Merchanticism is a very situation dependent one. You can find yourself post switch worse off than the default civic.

To do the calculation without switching civics, pull up the info screen, and look at the foreign trade number. That is how much gold you'll lose if you switch to it. (Unless you have a vasal). Merchanism gives you a Free Great Specalist, so figure that worth about 3 gold per city and compare. Now if your not running Caste System and have some cities missing structures for any specalist, the value from Merchanticsm will be reduced.

Meester_henk said:

I choose environmentalism even if I have corporations. There are benefits that make it as good or better than free market.

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I disagree, enviromentalism is only good if you have serious health problems. If these healthproblems can't be solved any other way, enviromentalism could be the solution. For pure economical benefits, enviromentalism is only beneficial if you have plenty of forest perserves and/or windmills.

So as all civics, it's situation dependant. I could sit here and promote state property as the best civic in this tree, but then, that's just because it suits me towards the end in domination/conquest games which I end up in quite often. But if I play a game with a limited expansion that's diplo oriented, space or culture some other civics is likely better.

dubrown said:

I disagree, enviromentalism is only good if you have serious health problems. If these healthproblems can't be solved any other way, enviromentalism could be the solution. For pure economical benefits, enviromentalism is only beneficial if you have plenty of forest perserves and/or windmills.

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I have always lots of wind mills. I build mines only if there is serious lack of production. Also I have been using national park city with forest preserves.

Also if you are lucky and all religions are in same city and you build there wall street and 2 corporations, you have so much money you don't know what to do with it. Money usually is not problem later in game.

My play style is peace monger and I rarely attack other nations.

Most of the economy civics have their uses.

Environmentalism is usually prohibitively expensive with well-developed corporations, unless used as an interim solution that enables mass industrialisation now and lets one worry about health concerns later.
It is, however, reasonably attractive for small-ish empires: Corporations will have limited resources, State Property isn't too attractive either and boosting the good cities with the National Wonders seems good. Getting very balanced output from hills is nice in food-poor cities of small empires as well (poor locations aren't a problem if you have the land for plenty of resources... 1-tile cities can be highly productive thanks to corps).