Are some civics useless?

[sampsa]

This said one or two turns of anarchy isn't really that big a deal if you ask me.

It's a huge deal at least on normal speed. Loss of some ~100 /, around 100 ... Yikes. After the slavery switch, I try to have max one switch without golden age. Well, and religion switch of course.

 

[Pangaea]

The big problem is the anarchy though, because if those circumstances you do not want to run a GA.

Yep, this is the big one. If SPI had other benefits and we could change civics without anarchy, it would be much more common to change civics depending on the empire's needs. As it is (even with Spiritual), we tend to stick with the 'best' civics we have available, and not lose turns to anarchy to go into civics that can be useful there and then, but not for the mid-to-long term future.

Even so, Serfdom doesn't have all that much going for it. And if you happen to get Hagia or Steam Power, it's mostly made irrelevant anyway.

That said, it has a bigger impact on Marathon speed, so maybe it would be more worth it there. Otherwise, Slavery or Caste have more wideranging benefits that is easier to get a proper impact out of.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

It's a huge deal at least on normal speed. Loss of some ~100 /, around 100 ... Yikes. After the slavery switch, I try to have max one switch without golden age. Well, and religion switch of course.

I wouldn't think of it as a loss so much as an investment. And getting lots of railroads, watermills, plantations or similar in half the time can more than pay off that.

And anyway, numbers are meaningless in this context because what ever numbers you are producing per turn your opponents will be as well. So there is no reasonable way you can loose more than 1 turn worth of production unless you are really far behind the AI. And it's rarely if ever that one turn is seriously decisive.

I haven't ever had a game where I've said "Oh, if only I've done this one thing 1 turn sooner everything would have changed."

 

[sampsa]

I wouldn't think of it as a loss so much as an investment. And getting lots of railroads, watermills, plantations or similar in half the time can more than pay off that.

Yes, it can. I'm not saying that you shouldn't switch civics, I'm saying that you need to be sure your investment has the best payback available.

And anyway, numbers are meaningless in this context because what ever numbers you are producing per turn your opponents will be as well. So there is no reasonable way you can loose more than 1 turn worth of production unless you are really far behind the AI. And it's rarely if ever that one turn is seriously decisive.

I don't really understand what this means. 1 turn worth of production is 1 turn worth of production, nothing more, nothing less.

I haven't ever had a game where I've said "Oh, if only I've done this one thing 1 turn sooner everything would have changed."

If this is the case, perhaps we aren't playing the same game.

 

[krikav]

I haven't ever had a game where I've said "Oh, if only I've done this one thing 1 turn sooner everything would have changed."

If this is the case, perhaps we aren't playing the same game.

Yeah, in many of my games the AIs tend to do stuff like get lib/music or that shiny wonder I want just the turn before I do it.
Then there is also less obvious things like getting just one more city in a war before the longbows or rifles show up, or before you need to do a ceasefire before the looming AP vote.
A turn can make all the difference.

 

[Pangaea]

Certainly. Though I'd say it is less of an issue on Marathon speed, because the hooman has more time for our biggest strengths there: WARFARE!

On normal speed, which I play almost exclusively these days, I like to double up on civic switches to save a turn (sort of). Usually fine to do stuff like Monarchy+OR or Buro+OR. Then later Caste+Paci as you start a GAge.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I guess it's just a speed thing than. I newer ever play on anything but the slowest speed the game lets me. And I always play on large maps with lots of civs. So loosing a handful of turns every now and than isn't really a big deal for me because my games tend to last well into the 700+.

 

[SnipedSoul]

I don't find any civic to be truly worthless, more that anarchy is too expensive. I really dislike playing anything other than spiritual civs because I love to swap civics.