[NFP] Ancient Era Policy Elimination Thread

[bbbt]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (21)
Corvée (7)
Conscription (13)
Discipline (17)
God King (15)
Ilkum (7)
Land Surveyors (9)
Maneuver (7)
Maritime Industries (10)
Urban Planning (21)

Discipline (17) - I don't like that I have to use it so much - but it's a pretty critical early era card to fend off the hordes of barbs.

Ilkum (7) - Most of my worker building/buying happens post-Feudalism and Serfdom, and for early game workers I might be building, it's rare I'm doing it in enough cities to make this the best option.

 

[Qwan]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (21)
Corvée (7)
Conscription (13)
Discipline (17)
God King (15)
Ilkum (7)
Land Surveyors (10) (9+1) I employ this card until it becomes obsolete, i.e. across many eras. Normal cultural expansion simply does not get the tiles I want. It doesn't get poor-yield tiles that I use for districts. It doesn't get that precious resource 3-way until 2-away is complete. Or those 3-away tiles that are 2-away from someone else, that I need to grab early. Or those tiles that are actually much better due to a pantheon, like Lady of the Reeds and Marshes. So I have to buy tiles. While I won't necessarily wait until I can use this card, with some planning I can arrange to buy some tiles I know I'll want soonish, while employing this card for 1-2 turns. As such, it's much better than conscription. And when I'm in a Republic, and not using that 2nd economic slot for builders or settlers, this is usually the best remaining choice. Any card the AI doesn't use, or isn't savvy enough to use intelligently, is a good card for me.
Maneuver (7)
Maritime Industries (10)
Urban Planning (18) (21-3) At Deity, the AI benefits twice as much as I do with this card. Plus it's boring; the game would have more variety without it.

 

[greenOak]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (22) (21+1)
Corvée (7)
Conscription (13)
Discipline (17)
God King (15)
Ilkum (7)
Land Surveyors (10)
Maneuver (7)
Maritime Industries (7) (10-3)
Urban Planning (18)

Colonization (+1) - Settlers get very expensive, and cities are good. Not much else to say.

Maritime Industries (-3) - Useful when you actually need to be building ships, but most games don't require ships. Of the cards remaining, its definitely the one I use the least.

 

[Siddorm]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (23) (22+1)
Corvée (7)
Conscription (13)
Discipline (17)
God King (15)
Ilkum (4) (7-3)
Land Surveyors (10)
Maneuver (7)
Maritime Industries (7)
Urban Planning (18)

Colonization (23) (22+1) - This is the card I use the most. I am not an expert but I have noticed I get the best results when I settle as many cities as possible.

Ilkum (4) (7-3) - This is the card I use the least. I always feel I need to prioritize other things instead, such as not getting killed.

 

[Pirate Hamster]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (23)
Corvée (7)
Conscription (13)
Discipline (17)
God King (15)
Ilkum (1) (4-3)
Land Surveyors (10)
Maneuver (7)
Maritime Industries (8) (7+1)
Urban Planning (18)

Maritime Industries: I have to give this one some love, because while it is more situational than some others, and I generally only slot it in to pump out two galleys, it is a huge boost. The Eureka is great, it helps with early exploration, and getting a level on your galleys from barbs early on can be a nice boost in itself for when they get upgraded later. Not the best, but more powerful than some others here.

Ilkum: I always love the look of this policy on paper, but in reality I rarely end up plugging it in. Either I am purchasing an early builder with gold, hard building it because the early cost is quite low, or later I'm faith buying them the Monumentality. Could use a buff to 50% production bonus to put it on par with Colonization.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (23)
Corvée (7)
Conscription (13)
Discipline (17)
God King (12)
Ilkum (1)
Land Surveyors (10)
Maneuver (8)
Maritime Industries (8)
Urban Planning (18)

Maneuver (7+1=8) Surprised to see this one so low done the list, calvalry are the best rush unit (I guess if you are all playing levels where walls are up pretty quick that makes a difference)
God King (15-3=12) Definitely has it's uses if you are gunning for a specific pantheon but generally you are better with Urban Planning early on.

 

[Naeshar]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (23)
Corvée (7)
Conscription (13)
Discipline (17)
God King (13)
Ilkum (OUT)
Land Surveyors (10)
Maneuver (8)
Maritime Industries (8)
Urban Planning (18)

God King (12 + 1) a bit love for the god king. Not decisive for getting a specific pantheon, but getting one decently early, and the fact that its needed for an inspiration and religion. Urban Planning with one city is underwhelming.
Ilkum (1 - 3) the bonus is rather small (this early) and for a 3-charge builder not worth it. Can be a trap for new players or if you dont calculate it. Same as Survey, only in brown.

 

[AntSou]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24) (23 + 1)
Corvée (7)
Conscription (10) (13 - 3)
Discipline (17)
God King (13)
Land Surveyors (10)
Maneuver (8)
Maritime Industries (8)
Urban Planning (18)


Conscription - Usually if I have a big enough army, I'll be pillaging. I can get around this one better than the other cards.

 

[kaspergm]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (8) (7+1) - As a player who loves to build wonders, I'll upvote this card. Not the strongest on the list, but it deserves to stay a bit longer. Slotting it while also chopping some forests may help you get some of those tasty early wonders like Pyramids, Oracle or Colosseum.
Conscription (10)
Discipline (17)
God King (13)
Land Surveyors (10)
Maneuver (5) (8-3) - I can see situations where it's very useful, but frankly, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've ever used it. Admittedly I'm not much of a domination player, so for others obviously the picture might be completely different.
Maritime Industries (8)
Urban Planning (18)

 

[enKage]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (9)
Conscription (10)
Discipline (17)
God King (13)
Land Surveyors (10)
Maneuver (5)
Maritime Industries (5)
Urban Planning (18)

Maritime Ind -3
Ancient navals are weak. You may want produce one for exploration or era score, but in this case it is better just to buy a galley. Why would anybody put it for many turns instead of agoge?
Useful for Pheonicia or Norway with a short lifetime, useful for Gauls and Macedon for slightly longer. Useles for 30+ remaining leaders. Should have gone among first 3 cards

Corvee +1
Most of the most powerful wonders are ancient / classical. Autocracy + Corvee = quick chopping of them. We re rating ancient policy cards not cards that can be used only in ancient era, that is a difference/ As a player who doen't like building wonders, I alwayd use it to get ToA / Colloseum / Oracle / Mids as soon as Autocracy is unlocked or slightly earlier for Mids. These 4 wonders are just too powerfull

 

[lilnev!]

[Requiem] Whoa, I can't believe you all killed Ilkum before I even got to defend it. Builders are easily the most important unit in the game. Getting 3.9 charges instead of 3 for a Builder's worth of hammers, that's a big deal. Think of it as the Pyramids, in policy form. And it's effectively multiplicative with Liang or Pyramids, up to 5.2 charges, comparable to serfdom. R.I.P. Ilkum, you would've made my top 5.

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (9)
Conscription (10)
Discipline (14) (17-3) Of course I slot it at Code of Laws, and it's often useful for a bit. Like, until Agoge replaces it or Archery makes it pointless.
God King (13)
Land Surveyors (10)
Maneuver (5)
Maritime Industries (5)
Urban Planning (19) (18+1) Whereas I only slot Ilkum about 1/4 to 1/3 of the time it's available (switching most cities to work on their Builder while it's slotted), Urban Planning is closer to 2/3. Either war or peace, I usually go wide.

 

[Atlas627]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (9)
Conscription (10)
Discipline (14)
God King (13)
Land Surveyors (10+1=11) Not talking about an exploit where the game let's you change policies twice in the same turn. Just slot this for 1 turn by lining up your civic completions back-to-back like you're supposed to and you can save a lot of money in a burst. Effective without using up a lot of time that you want other policies in use for.
Maneuver (5)
Maritime Industries (5-3=2) I use it either to get 2 Galleys for Shipbuilding, to pump out a navy that doesn't get much use other than exploration (and city strength and era score I don't need), or never. And I certainly don't use it again afterward. Navies suck too much, especially early ones.
Urban Planning (19)

 

[MrRadar]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (9)
Conscription (10)
Discipline (14)
God King (13)
Land Surveyors (11)
Maneuver (6)(5+1)
Maritime Industries ELIMINATED (2-3)
Urban Planning (19)

Maneuver (6)(5+1) - Maybe not as frequently used as Agoge, but still very useful for churning out some chariots, which will become Knights, and if RNG blessed you with horses, this card will help you acquire some horsemen, which will help you acquire some pillaged yields and even cities.

Maritime Industries ELIMINATED (2-3) Unless it is water heavy map, the use is limited. Yes, it can help with era score and an eureka, but quite often I just buy a galley for the era score, if necessary. It's the weakest of what remains.

 

[tedhebert]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (9)
Conscription (10)
Discipline (15) (14+1) This card is slotted every game I play. Barbs are a nuisance at immortal. A needed nuisance gamewise, but a nuisance still ;-)
God King (13)
Land Surveyors (11)
Maneuver (3) (6-3) I barely ever use cavalry, and really almost never in classical. So this card is a never for me.
Urban Planning (19)

 

[bengalryan9]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (9)
Conscription (10)
Discipline (15)
God King (14) (13+1) I'll definitely slot this until I get my pantheon (unless I'm playing as someone with built in faith generation)... at this point I've probably only got one city anyways so I don't mind waiting a bit before switching to Urban Planning. Maybe 1 production is better than 1 faith and 1 gold... but if you get a pantheon that all the sudden allows you to earn extra faith or culture that you might not have gotten otherwise I think that's more than worth it.
Land Surveyors (11)
Maneuver (eliminated) (3-3) I'm more likely to train/buy a couple of chariots before ever using this card. Sometimes you even outright get them for free if you find meteor impact sites. Once I've got them they'll probably last me the whole game as I'll just upgrade them from there. Not a bad card, but not as good as the others left.
Urban Planning (19)

 

[Leucarum]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (9)
Conscription (10)
Discipline (15)
God King (11)
Land Surveyors (11)
Urban Planning (20)

Urban Planning (19+1) No matter what you are doing extra production helps. This gets outshined quickly but early on it's rarely a poor choice.
God King (14-3) You do want to slot this if there is a specific pantheon you need - especially if you are a civ without faith generation. But it is more situational than a lot of the cards here. Sometimes you need it, often you don't, and even when you slot it, if a civ like Russia or Mali is in the game it might not even get you what you want from it as it is very slow. That I'm downvoting it is more a reflection of how good a lot of the ancient era cards are than the card's value itself though...

 

[Saint Joan]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (6) (9-1) If you're engaged in a wonder race, this is useful certainly. However, I'd rather use my early hammers building things I'm guaranteed to get rather than risk wasting them.
Conscription (10)
Discipline (15)
God King (11)
Land Surveyors (12) (11+1) I like to engage in extensive district planning and buying tiles lets me place my districts asap. This discount really helps with that.
Urban Planning (20)

 

[Amrunril]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (6)
Conscription (10)
Discipline (12)
God King (12)
Land Surveyors (12)
Urban Planning (20)

God King (11+1=12) Obviously I'd rather get faith from a city state or resource but, you don't always get lucky with map generation, and founding a pantheon is well worth a policy slot.
Discipline (15-3=12) This is nice to have, but if you're in a position where you actually need it to defeat barbarians, it's likely a sign that you're leaving yourself at the mercy of your actual rivals.

 

[furyn]

I think difficulty level will greatly impact how we view policy cards. For that reason, disclosing our preferred difficulty is probably useful. I tend to play on deity.

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Corvée (3) / 6-3 Easily the least used card for me. While God King and Discipline have a relatively small window of usefulness, during that time they feel rather essential. Wonders are nice, but rarely essential and always precarious to start on deity difficulty.
Conscription (10)
Discipline (12)
God King (12)
Land Surveyors (12)
Urban Planning (21) 20+1. The default policy card, useful until it becomes obsolete.

 

[Baigan]

Agoge (21)
Colonization (24)
Conscription (10)
Discipline (13)
God King (12)
Land Surveyors (12)
Urban Planning (21)

Discipline (12+1): More valuable with the recent changes to Anti-cav. Your starting Warrior needs this to clear a barb camp in a timely manner.
Corvée (3-3) ELIMINATED: Agreed with @furyn. On high difficulties, the early game is about stabilizing. There are some wonderful wonders early game but getting your districts, military, Settlers, and Builders squared away is more essential. Wonders are nice perks to enjoy when the stars align. For that reason I usually don't build any before the Medieval era, and now that Monarchy is better I'll be more inclined to research Divine Right and unlock Gothic Architecture.