Mercantilism vs Free market

Nares said:

Not at all.

GPP MM suggests that three cities make for the maximum GP generation. I can't search for the thread at the moment.

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Yeah, I did not know. All things are map dependant, and when i get to these numbers I tend to think of them in terms of large empires. Just my personal bias.

Also, isn't 2.5 commerce rounded down to 2? I know beakers and culture are now calculated to the second decimal place, but I'm unaware if that's true for commerce as well.

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Yeah, everything floors. Which sucks cause the multipiers are pretty well pointed at flooring when they start out. There's alot of baseline values that go to like, 2.75 , losing alot of value when flooring. It's only when you get over the hump that things come into their own; when things get to 12 and 13 pop break the 3 hump.

I just found out that trade route have an inheirant multiplying of a multiple effect, similar to what happens in bureaucracy. This kind of arithmatic gets alot of numbers over their flooring. The foreign pop value is used as the base number, where a foreign city of pop 20 has a base value of 2.0 , pop 21 would have 2.1 , which is multiplied by the rest of the multipliers which are all added up. Your domestic pop has a multiplier too but it's only +5% per pop over pop 10. So, a foreign city of 13 trading with your city of 13 would be: 1.3-foreignpop x (0.5-harbor + 1.5-foreign + 0.25-connectiontocapitol + 0.15-domesticpop) = 3.12 , or just over the hump. A world with many cities in their teens are profitable and when they get into their twenties things start really to ramp up.

Good point there about trading with Vassals under Merc. Situationally it might be a winning strategy to spin off a colony and switch to Merc (or vassalize some weak civs and switch to Merc).

Basically without Representation, Merc is only stronger if you are friendless or close to a Domination win. [or if you want hammers (from Engineers/priests) instead of commerce]

In warlike games, stay in Merc at least until SP. In more peaceful games, switch to FM at the first opportunity.

That's not always how it works, but it's the best I can suggest without looking at a specific situation.

I think it depends mostly on the size of your empire versus the sizes of those you trade with. If you have a small empire with several good trading partners then Free Market can be a clear winner.

If you have a large empire and just a few small trading partners left, due to either diplomacy or other empires adopting Mercantilism then Mercantilism is better on a strictly commerce basis. Also bear in mind that if you're much larger than your trading partner you'll get a few routes and they'll get most if not all foreign routes. So you'll be helping them a lot more than they help you. If they're small and insignificant it doesn't matter but if they're a major tech rival its is a bad idea to help them this way.

No one has yet mentioned the significant benefit to GPP production from the free specialists running in all the cities that can produce a GP before the game ends. In my SE or hybrid empires I'll often have 4 or 5 cities that will eventually produce a GP and Mercantilism helps all of those reach their target faster. If you're Philosophical, have the Parthenon or intend to run Pacifism remember the GPP contribution favours Mercantilism.

One trick to lessen the impact of running on internal trade routes is to found a couple of offshore cities and grow them as large as you can, hopefully over size 10. Also grow your capital and a couple of other cities as large as you can hopefully close to size 20 with the best infrastructure improvements. Nearly all of your cities will now either trade with the capital due to its size or with the offshore cities with the +100% overseas bonus. Many of these internal trade routes will be worth 3 or 4 commerce and not that much less than you'd get from a lot of mediocre foriegn cities. Only your capital and a couple of the best cities will get the best foreign routes under FM anyway.

I have found that Mercantilism is much more attractive to an SE or hybrid as they'll usually want to run Representation and will want to make use of the GPPs. They'll also tend to be more aggressive and conquest orientated and have more enemies and hence less diplomatic opportunities. They'll also tend to be bigger, with more cities and some bigger cities, than a CE of equivalent power. It's not hard and fast rule but CE favours Free Market while SE favours Mercantilism. Of course all this changes once Corporations come into consideration.

One thing to take into consideration is the number of harbors and trade houses you have build. If you have invested a lot of hammers in these things then mercantalism might be a bit of a waste. Especially with Hannibal and Jaoa with their UB.

Overall I do think that in cultural victories Merc always is superior to free market. You want as many artists as you can get .

Normally, in warmongering games, when I research banking, I would already be the largest civ and either warring with or on the verge of declaring war on the 2nd largest civ. So, mercantilism is better coz:

1. There will not be a lot of foreign trade routes when I normally have around 30-40% of the map at that point and the AI I am warring with usually has around 15-20% of the map. Also, a few AIs will probably be running merc as well.
2. I can use the extra hammers in each city with free engineer specialist for faster military production.
3. Free specialist helps spawn GP faster, so I can have another GA quicker to further increase my military production.
4. I will not have to open borders, which makes it more expensive for other AIs to spy (steal tech, poison water etc). Also, without open borders and no trade routes with other AIs, their research is slowed down. I want to retain my military tech superiority.

So, with or without representation, mercantilism rocks if the aim is to get a domination win.

For space wins, I will normally go for the representation + mercantilism + SoL combo, which is probably better than FM anyway, I think.

UncleJJ:

I didn't think that there even was that kind of a tendency. Of course you tend to go after effects that maximize the use of Specialists in an SE economy, and vice versa in a Cottage Economy, but wouldn't 1 Specialist per city kind of benefit a Cottage Economy in that it gives it more precious GPP in its GPP centers? Conversely, an SE usually has bigger cities. Wouldn't the extra size make up for the lack of raw commerce and marginalize any effect the Specialist might have? SEs already have plenty of specialists in their cities. Would one more matter as much as Commerce/Gold for maintenance which can be harder to come by in a SE?

I confess that I've found it hard to draw even a soft rule regarding the use of such Civics.

Roxlimn said:

UncleJJ:

... , but wouldn't 1 Specialist per city kind of benefit a Cottage Economy in that it gives it more precious GPP in its GPP centers?

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Not usually. The CE will be less inclined to run Representation since it can make good use of US which is nearly useless to a SE. So all the widespread free specialists will likely get that bonus of 3 beakers.

Also the CE will likely have its GPP production based in one or at most two GPP farms. So only two of the free specialists will help with GPPs say 3 GPP in one city and 6 GPP in the NE city. The SE in contrast will likely be Philosophical or have Parthenon or if Spiritual will run Pacifism for part of the time. Furthermore it will have 4 or 5 cities that can produce a GP before the end of the game. So it could gain 6, 6, 6, 6 GPPs in ordinary cities and 9 GPPs in its NE city.

Given those estimates the total gain from Mercantilism might be 9 GPPs per turn in a typical CE and 33 GPPs in a SE. It is true that the % gain might be closer than the absolute numbers seem to indicate, since the SE will produce a lot more GPs and hence have to pay much more for the extra ones given the rapidly escalating costs. Nevertheless the GPs are usually an essential part of the SE gameplan while the CE can make do without them. Consequently Mercantilism is more valuable to a SE style of play and more likely to be a better choice than Free Market.

Another benefit of Free Market is the lower Corporation cost (and access to foreign corporations if you don't get your own)

pangu said:

For space wins, I will normally go for the representation + mercantilism + SoL combo, which is probably better than FM anyway, I think.

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I think you might be thinking wrong but that's just what I'm thinking. Also I didn't know you could only use rep & sol when you're in merc.

On higher levels "fair" trade routes can help the AI more than the player. One strategy that I've started to use when running middle-late FM or SP is to selectively close borders to certain leaders to deny them access to my trade. This makes seems to work as long as you have a handful of weaker leaders to still trade with. Diplomatic penalties need to be taken into consideration, naturally.

Krikkitone said:

Another benefit of Free Market is the lower Corporation cost (and access to foreign corporations if you don't get your own)

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Another one, the 10% or 25% inflation reduction from an event.