Best non-top-tier Civic during peacetime

Not including the bottom row of civics (US, FS, Emanc, Envir, and FR) or State Property, what is the best remaining Civic during peacetime?

 

??????

Totally situational.

Is the map food heavy? Am I a PHI or FIN leader? Am i running HerRule? What victory condition am I working towards?

These all affect the answer to your question

 

theres still tons of good ones. Representation, bureaucracy, caste system, free market, organized religion.

 

I selected all of them. They are all great in their niches and unnecessary outside of their niches

 

If i'm on a large multi-continent empire (which is like 90% of the time), i love State Property, but its still completely situational.

EDIT: I didn't notice you excluded SP.

 

Hereditary rule. Available pretty early, and more happiness means more population and more pop means, well, more of whatever you want.

Dunno why you've left out SP. It's good, sure, but FM is better than it in many situations, due to the awesome power of corps.

 

Corps are really situational. Most of the corps contribute nothing useful to me, so i definately prefer SP. No maintenance!!

 

Mining Inc has given me 16 per city. That's captain insano. Including modifier buildings, that's an EXTRA 32 in regular cities, an EXTRA 48 in Ironworks city, and EXTRA 64 in Heroic Epic/Mil Acad city (for units of course).

 

True, but the corp maintenance, although reduced in patches, still hurts me (and don't get me started on Distance maintenance.)

So its a matter of preference and the situation. No use running Police state if your'e not building units or warring.

 

Completely true. I almost never use free market if I'm going for a domination win (too much land and on different landmasses). But if I've chosen to conquer overseas to stop a potential game winning rival, I'll grant it independence (as long as it wouldn't free too many cities ). State property is what i usually end up in. But if I'm going cultural/diplo/or space race, Free Market and corporations are a huge advantage.

All you need to do to make up for the maintenance is spread the corp into your vassal's cities. Also, if there is a vassal to another civ that is pretty weak, he's a good candidate for receiving your corps. Any civ that is basically counted out of the win is okay for corp spread IMO. Often, the larger masters of the vassals will either be in Mercantilism or State prop (neither which allow foreign corporations).

the 4 per corp city turns into 12 per corp city as long as you founded the corp in your Wall Street city.

Also, Sid's Sushi is awesome for to allow more merchants and therefore, nullify the maintenance costs.

 

I disagree with the OP's definition of "top tier peacetime civics". Bottom row does not mean best.

For mine, top tier peacetime often means Rep + Bur + Caste + Merc + OR

Plus my games are almost always over before the modern age, so US and Emancip almost never get a run.

 

^ The OP clearly implies that the bottom row (plus SP) are the best, by stating -

"Not including the bottom row of civics (US, FS, Emanc, Envir, and FR) or State Property, what is the best remaining Civic during peacetime?"

 

I believe Free Market is an overall good candidate. It's rather important to have a flow of fund regardless of any other civic

 

state property = way too buff. sometimes i think Firaxis must have strong Marxist tendencies.

 

I voted for Rep, just because I tend to get the 'Mids quite a bit, so I spend a good amount of the game in it. However, if I'm not getting the "Mids, HR becomes very important.

 

Personally I like mercantilism most, it seems underrated as a warmonger civic at least pre-SP.
I think most people will agree the flexibility of specialists is very powerful to a warmonger.

Merchants can help fund your army and empire, artists can pop captured cities borders and obviously scientists can give you science + the fact you can still get foreign trade routes under mercantilism with your vassals which in warmongering you will likely take (and likely annoy everyone else into closed borders ). If the infrastructure is still intact in your new cities you may even get access to free engineers to help rebuild!
Obvious synergy with Representation and caste for this.

I tend to use this often if I'm warmongering heavily unless I have a few significant trade partners on another continent.

I'll vote for everything but serfdom as a result.

Although every civic has a time and a place where it's the best you can have, well except serfdom

 

I'll say Representation, because when I get it early (Pyramids), I'll sometimes stay in it the entire game. I can't say that for any other civic.