So with Corporations and all, State Property still has its place?

It just gets rid of all the oogly goodness that is Corporations >.<

Though the bonus is QUITE powerful...

Oh yeah. A) you don't always get corporations, B) sometimes when you do, you don't care about the bonus that much and most of the opponents are on state property/mercantilism, C) an opponent has spammed their corporation in your territory and is making a killing off it, D) your empire is massive and the distance fees are worth more than the corporate bonuses, E) you have a tremendous number of workshops and need production.

State Property is still a great civic and has a notable place - it's just not the only game in town any more.

And of course, with caste system, you can make a god awesome workshop powerhouse!!

For the conquest/domination game, State Property is the only way to go. Communism even provides a free Great <general> Spy (I meant Spy)! Plus, you can get State Property long before you can make any real money off of Corporations.

Thyrwyn-- I thought Communism provided a great spy, not a great general. Still, I agree. You can possibly get in a slightly better situation by running corporations and following the proper strategies, but all those hammers and turns go into that instead of building your war machine. If you're dominating or conquering, run SP and be done with it.

Sometimes, my research train is so cracked out, I have State Property available before any other economic civic. I'm thinking of starting to do that on purpose. I'm not sure when the right time to just outright beeline for it is.

State property eliminates the colony expenses!!! I'm playing a game right now, standard size continents map, 3 continents. On my home continent I have about 12 cities. I conquered another 10 on another continent. I was running free market at 2 gpt and about 600 beakers per turn. I had good allies on the other side of the world with astronomy for 8 commerce trade routes too. But I switched to state property and shot up to 160 gpt, down to about 550 bpt. Of course, by adjusting the slider I was easily able to pull in more gold and beakers under state property. so if you want to conquer another continent SP seems very powerful.

Shouldnt you like, try to make those cities into a colony?

Hm... Well in my current game I am fighting wars and stuff... Its on nobel level, and I have gotten Sushi... I probably shouldnt use State Property right? (boo I am playing China too, it'd be fitting...)

Illusion13 said:

Shouldnt you like, try to make those cities into a colony?

Hm... Well in my current game I am fighting wars and stuff... Its on nobel level, and I have gotten Sushi... I probably shouldnt use State Property right? (boo I am playing China too, it'd be fitting...)

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If you want the oftentimes idiotic AI controlling those cities, yep, make it a colony. I find there are a few reasons not to make AI colonies.

One, the AI now has control of those cities, not you - and there is a lot of truth to "If you want something done right, do it yourself" in Civ.

Two, AI colonies trade away all the tech you had like it was going out of style. I've lost tech supremacy more than a few times when I constructed a colony, and found him offering me mysteriously offering me military tradition while assembly line was all of the sudden out and about.

That's all that's coming to mind right now... This isn't to say it's never good to make them - sometimes you do need to cut costs from overseas and state property isn't the answer - but they come with potential problems attached.

Yeah, i love state property when I'm going for domination. Once I get cannons and and riflemen I go to state property, and turn a few of my river cities into production powerhouses with watermills, workshops, and levees. I might take a bit of a hit in science workshopping over a couple of towns, but it's worth it to pump out a unit every turn plus the reduced maintenance costs make up for it by usually letting you raise the science rate another 10%.

Communism provides a spy, Fascism provides a general.

I love corporations, but there have been games where it's been more useful to go into State Property. I was playing a game on a Terra map where the code forcing "old world" start for all civs had been removed. I started in "Eurasia" with several other civs, while Joao and two other civs had run of the "new world". Joao was rocketing ahead of everyone else in terms of technology -- I mean, he had Infantry while I was still playing around with Muskets and Knights. I was involved in a series of bloody wars, but ended up becoming the dominant power on the Eurasian landmass ala the old USSR. So while Joao was busy getting techs and corporations, I NEEDED State Property to stay competitive -- both to keep my city maintenance under control, and to keep my productivity from falling too far behind Joao with his Mining, Inc.-franchised cities.

It really depends what you're doing. Why would I make those cities colonies, I wasn't paying colonial expenses in the first place. If you conquer another continent and run state property you essentially own another continent. Under SP I never see city maintenance go much above about 7 gold per city. That's really low when you're cities can generate 40 or 50 or even 100 gpt. So if you're going for a huge empire then colonies have no place in your strategy. If, however, you're going for a space win or cultural win...or a different kind of domination win, they might be useful. Conquering another continent and being a warmonger like that doesn't lend itself to being a tech leader. So perhaps if you're going for a space win you might create a colony for the guaranteed good trade routes and spam targets for your corporations and perhaps even religion. It all equals more money. I can see this being worthwhile with conquered cities...but who actually builds cities on another continent with their own settlers and makes it a colony? I mean, I have, to test it out, but I don't find it very useful. Those cities are so small and don't provide very good trade routes. Seems like a waste of hammers.

State Property also eliminates colonial expenses, which is huge.

As always, the choice between economic civics varies game-to-game and depends on your play style.

jkp1187 said:

I was playing a game on a Terra map where the code forcing "old world" start for all civs had been removed. I started in "Eurasia" with several other civs, while Joao and two other civs had run of the "new world".

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Whoa whoa whoa, can you tell me how to do this? I really like the Terra maps, but I don't like the "old world" start feature at all.

noto said:

It really depends what you're doing. Why would I make those cities colonies, I wasn't paying colonial expenses in the first place. If you conquer another continent and run state property you essentially own another continent. Under SP I never see city maintenance go much above about 7 gold per city. That's really low when you're cities can generate 40 or 50 or even 100 gpt. So if you're going for a huge empire then colonies have no place in your strategy. If, however, you're going for a space win or cultural win...or a different kind of domination win, they might be useful. Conquering another continent and being a warmonger like that doesn't lend itself to being a tech leader. So perhaps if you're going for a space win you might create a colony for the guaranteed good trade routes and spam targets for your corporations and perhaps even religion. It all equals more money. I can see this being worthwhile with conquered cities...but who actually builds cities on another continent with their own settlers and makes it a colony? I mean, I have, to test it out, but I don't find it very useful. Those cities are so small and don't provide very good trade routes. Seems like a waste of hammers.

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I've built cities on a large island in a peaceful game to prevent the AIs colonising it then I turned it into a colony. Its easy to keep your colonies friendly and get good trades from them for resources (besides the 1 you can just demand)

I love state property. once i played as Mansa Musa in a Pangea map, and i had a huge landmass, so i had a sad -22 GPT. My units went on strike, and all the banks and mints in the world couldnt save me. So i discovered communism and got my skin saved, with the power of SP giving me upwards of +40 GPT

I don't think State Property really competes with Free Market plus Mining Inc. and Sid's Sushi, in terms of maximizing production. Pre-BtS, SP's biggest city-based advantage was the increased food for workshops and watermills. After BtS, you can still build the workshops and make up the difference, and then some, with a food-producing corp.

But while SP can't compete for city productivity, it may still be the best option to crank out research, given the financial bonuses, especially before you have the tech necessary to allow cities to grow to their full size with Sid's Sushi, to get the extra specialists (and their research).

I suppose to best way to find out is pick snapshot times in a game, and switch the civic, to see what happens.

Thanny said:

I don't think State Property really competes with Free Market plus Mining Inc. and Sid's Sushi, in terms of maximizing production. Pre-BtS, SP's biggest city-based advantage was the increased food for workshops and watermills. After BtS, you can still build the workshops and make up the difference, and then some, with a food-producing corp.

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Perhaps on an individual city basis, SP can't compete with an FM city with Sid's Sushi and Mining Inc growing to colossal size and production.

However, on an empire-wide basis, imagine a continent-spanning empire, with every major city having Sushi and Mining and lots of resources for each, even with the corp HQs and Wall Street etc the cost would quickly become prohibitive...

SP gives you less advantage in each city, but in ALL cities (if you plan it out properly) thus giving you an overall advantage in a huge empire compared to a smaller one.

Kinda sounds like SP to me!!!

PS: not based on any actual in-game research, just general feel while playing either type of strategy.

I suppose to best way to find out is pick snapshot times in a game, and switch the civic, to see what happens.

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IMO, just switching civic and see what happens is the worst way to research this.

These civis and corps are part of a whole strategy that are widely different between SP and FM+corps.

To take fully advantage of SP you need workshops or watermills and whatnot, while for FM+corps you need open borders, good trade routes, corps and HQs, cottages or workshops or whichever suits the city's specialization, etc etc etc...

Very different strategies here, more than can be evaluated with a simple civic switch and "see if it's better or not".

what I know is that when I prepare my empire for SP, with appropriate terrain improvements and city improvements etc, it works really well!

When I prepare it for SP and go to FM+corps, I'm in trouble lol.. I can still recover (thanks to Emancipation) but it's more difficult.

etc.

Narmox