Mercanlitism is so not cool

[xifeng]

After I got Banking, I switch to mercanlitism. I have 8 coastal cities and 8 inland cities at that time, with Great lighthouse, Colossus, running representation. After I set all free specialists to be scientists, I found out that my total research was smaller than before.I tried at 30%, 50%, 70%, 80% research and the mercanlitism always gave me less beakers. I guess the no foreign trade hurts commence badly. What a crappy civic!

I can only think of three situations that mercanlitism can be useful.
1. You have the sistine chapel and need some handy culture;
2. There are not much AI cities left to trade with.
3. You are running 0% research.

Otherwise, don't bother to switch and waste one turn. Free market will be available in a short time.

[Naastriil]

I think State Property Rulez.

With that you can maintain a huge empire and not wory about the maintainence.

[Salah al-Din]

Mercantilism is useful if your trade routes are blocked anyway. Like if you have enemies who are blocking your coastal trade on your continent. It also obviously is useful if you are on an isolated island and haven't discovered Astronomy. In these conditions, Free Market isn't going to do you much good because you're only going to be trading with yourself anyhow.

The best real world example of Mercantilism is probably the situation with Japan for many centuries, it is no wonder they made Mercantilism Tokugawa's favorite civic.

[MrCynical]

Mercantilism could really use a health warning: Do not use unless you not only have no open borders with anyone, but are for some reason incapable of getting them.

It's a good choice in always war games, and games where you end up extremely isolated, but other than that (even if you rely on specialists o run your economy) it does you more harm than good. Even decentralization is better if you have open borders with a couple of civs.

[UncleJJ]

I think some of you guys might be missing the point about Mecantilism. It is true that it does usually result in a lowering of trade revenues for your empire but it also affects any other empires... the trade embargo is 2 way regardless of open borders. That makes the game a slower teching game which some players prefer. Mercantilism means you can have open borders (for movement of missionaries and units) and neither side can have foriegn trade routes.

As well as the circumstances where you have trade routes disrupted by lack of open borders (diplomatic problems) or war when Mercantilism can increase your research rate there is the case where your empire is much bigger than the other civs. This gives a lop sided trade balance.

If you have a situation where your empire has say 30 cities and the 3 civs you have open borders with all have 10 cities you will be helping the AI research much more than your own running Free Markets or any civic other than Mercantilism. Your 30 cities will need at least 90 trade routes and yet the total AI cities is only 30... so most of your cities will have the same internal trade routes as they would under Mercantilsm. For each AI all the 10 cities they have will have the 30 foriegn trade routes provided by you plus any better cities from other open borders they have.

One of the key advantages of Mercantilism is the free specialist in newly founded cities or a newly conquered city that can add beakers, gold, culture or hammmers as soon as the necessary building is built. That enhances the smaller and weaker cities and gets them going faster.

Overall Mercatilism provides a package of benefits that fit well into a game where you have a Specilist Economy and you are going for a Domination win. Other types of economy and other ways to win get less from the civic. It is perhaps not the strongest civic, but it is has its uses, and it is not the weakest or worst civic by a long way.

[Krikkitone]

Well for Personal Benefit, Mercantilism measures out like this

1.The more cities you have the better
2 The more cities your Trading partners have the worse
3 The bigger your cities are the worse (bigger cities=better trade routes)

In short its really only worthwhile if you are very large, and/or are reasonably large and have representation.

[Betafor]

Merchantalism is good for a SE

[snipafist]

It's not the game's fault that you chose mercantilism when your whole empire and the wonders you had built would have been pointless under mercantilism. That's just you being dumb. Personally, I love Mercantilism when I'm playing a philosophical civ. The extra specialists pile up lots of extra GPP and beakers under representaiton. I often grab it right away and stay mercantilist until I reach state property. If, however, I was a primarily sea-trading empire with the collosus and the great lighthouse, it would be pretty foolish for me to run Mercantilism, as I'm taking great advantage of my coastal cities' number of trade routes and their harbors.

If you think mercantilism sucks, try running a philsophical civ with representation, mercantilism, and pacifism (throw in the Sistine Chapel for good measure while you're at it). Let us know how you feel about it then .

[suspendinlight]

Mercantilism is supposed to be used with Representation and a specialist economy. You shouldn't use it if your economy is commerece based.

[Asterothe]

Originally Posted by Salah al-Din

Mercantilism is useful if your trade routes are blocked anyway.

How can the trade routes be blocked?

[Sisiutil]

Originally Posted by Betafor

Merchantalism is good for a SE

I can vouch for this after playing my most recent ALC game with it. Mercantilism and Caste System can be very powerful together: unlimited specialists (well, scientists, merchants, and artists, at least), and one of them for free. Even in a commerce economy that can be very powerful under the right circumstances, as others have noted above.

However, there is a bigger point to be made here, and it's even one of the opening game tips, but it bears repeating: just because a new civic becomes available, it doesn't mean you should switch to it. It has to be worthwhile within the context of that particular game.

[Murky]

Depends on when and how you use it. Works great with Representation, Pacifism or Philisophical leaders. Free Great People points are nice to get. You could benefit by setting some of them as great merchants or great engineers.

[Salah al-Din]

Originally Posted by Asterothe

How can the trade routes be blocked?

Your trade routes are blocked if you have an unfriendly neighbour who has closed borders to you. Your coastal trade will not proceed past his border and if you are trying to trade with those on the same continent as you it won't help if you have astronomy either, that only trades with overseas empires.

[Krikkitone]

Actually Trade routes are blocked only by enemies culture (war)

Open Borders means that you can trade with that civ's cities, it doesn't have anything to do with trade routes that go Through them to another civ.

[Gnarfflinger]

If the AI are all jerks, take the free specialists. If they don't like you or are enemies, they won't sign the OB treaties that let you have foreign trade routes, so then Mercantilism is better.

[Martinus]

I think people here work under an assumption of running a commerce based economy.

There are (at least) two types of economy you can run in Civ 4:

- the commerce type economy, with cottages, universal suffrage, free speech, emancipation and free market, or

- the specialist type economy, with specialists (and farms), representation, bureaucracy, caste system, mercantilism (and possibly pacifism if you are not a warmonger).

The first economy type is more popular and many people do not even know you can run a valid specialist economy in the game - Mercantilism sucks with commerce economy - hence this thread.

[yavoon]

Originally Posted by Martinus

I think people here work under an assumption of running a commerce based economy.

There are (at least) two types of economy you can run in Civ 4:

- the commerce type economy, with cottages, universal suffrage, free speech, emancipation and free market, or

- the specialist type economy, with specialists (and farms), representation, bureaucracy, caste system, mercantilism (and possibly pacifism if you are not a warmonger).

The first economy type is more popular and many people do not even know you can run a valid specialist economy in the game - Mercantilism sucks with commerce economy - hence this thread.

yah well the latter requires a wonder(pyramids) and its still iffy on how long it remainds stronger than cottages.

[Beamup]

Originally Posted by Martinus

The first economy type is more popular and many people do not even know you can run a valid specialist economy in the game - Mercantilism sucks with commerce economy - hence this thread.

Actually Mercantilism is often counterproductive even when running an SE. It's got a better shot at being useful, certainly, but it's very far from as simple as you imply.

[Stolen Rutters]

I successfully played a Mercantilism only game.

After an early axe rush on a Terra map, I discovered I was in the center of a long east-west oriented continent and my culture was closing off east from west, even along the coast (three civs to the west and four civs to the east).

So I mimmicked the "Ottoman Empire", closed off trade between "Europe" and "Asia", beelined for Mercantilism for the extra specialist in my cities, and quickly pulled ahead in tech. I refused to trade tech with anybody to keep my lead since some of the civs wouldn't trade with me and I didn't want them trading with our common neighbors to start catching up. They would all have traded with each other and had an easier time keeping up. Of course, it was only on Prince, so it wasn't too hard to pull ahead with Mercantilism when I wasn't even the largest civ.

I was the largest civ by the time I got Free Market, so I tried opening up my markets and signed free trade with everybody but my commerce actually went down, since none of my trade routes were very far (I was in the center of the continent so my distance bonus was smaller than everyone else's bonus). I moved back to Mercantilism.

Mercantilism has its uses. Which civic is best really depends on what you are doing with that game. Building wonders with extra trade routes and being friendly with some neighbors would lean you away from Mercantilism. Playing aggressively trying to carve out some breathing room from the center of a map, where you become everybody's worst neighbor, Free Market will get you nowhere.

[gdgrimm]

I use Mercantilism in a lot of games, even if I'm running a cottage economy.

I play with randomized world size, so about half of my games start with 5 or fewer total civs. That means island starts (or small continent starts where I eradicate my only neighbor, making it an isolated start) are pretty frequent. And even after Astronomy, you'll often have only 1 other civ that will trade with you (1 civ destroyed, 1 civ angry with you, and 1 civ that's happy with you is obsessed about running Merc. themselves).

On standard or larger maps, Free Market tends to make a much better showing, since it's pretty easy to have 2 very good trade partners, and another 1 or 2 decent trade partners.