Choosing economic civic by the empire size?

[mangamancer]

State Property is more suitable for large empire,
while Free Market(with corp?) is more suitable for small empire.
I know almost everything in this game depends on situations and sittings,just generally is fine.
Are these two statement generally true?(in case you have the great people and case you do not)

If true, where is the cut of line(12 cities? 20 cities? this is the most important question)
also where does Mercantilism and fits in?(maybe medium size empire)
or will it always lose to SP and FM.
I have heard that Environmentalist is totally bad, so I won't ask about it.

I normally play on noble/normal size map/continents.

 

[ikotomi]

State Property is a very solid civic in most situations. The maintenance reduction is significant, as well as the improved workshops and watermills.

Economically speaking, being able to run the slider higher compensates for the 1 less trade route to a certain extent, as well as the additional hammers you get for building wealth.

The exception is if you're using Corporations, which is of course often a good option.

Mercantilism is quite strong while running Representation or Caste. I probably wouldn't run it if I had GLH, but before you have access to State Property or Free Market, it is something to consider. A free scientist specialist or merchant in every city is quite a boost (with caste you can use them without building libraries/markets, and with Representation you get the extra 3 beakers).

In particular, the extra specialist has great synergy when you're in a Golden Age, and pacifism if you have it, for pumping out more Great People.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Mercantilism is extremely situational. I guess it works when you have Representation and at least one vassal and/or some cities on other landmasses. Once State Property comes around it's almost always better to switch to that if you are big enough.

Pretty much, the more cities you have the better State Property becomes versus Free Market. To be precise one by one any given FM city with corporation(s) is better than any given State Property city, so theoretically Free Market is always better than State Property if, and there's the rub, you have corporations in most of your cities. Since you need to make an initial investment of gold and hammers to spread a corporation to a new city State Property initially outperforms FM and is only overtaken in the long term. This means in addition to empire size you also need to take into account how far you are away from victory. The longer the game still is going to take in the future, the more attractive Free Market becomes, provided you don't continually expand in the lategame. The only exception to this is culture victory, which if you don't cut off research after Liberalism or Printing Press is just screaming for corporations.

As a rule of thumb for Conquest and Domination you are always better off going State Property as their very nature requires you to expand and spreading corporations probably won't keep up with your expansion, culture always wants corporations if it isn't over way before this becomes an issue, and with the other victories it depends on if you can spread your corporations to most of your cities before the game is over.

 

[6K Man]

State Property is better for large empires because you don't have to spend endless hours building and moving Executives and then rushbuying Courthouses everywhere. The latter is particularly important if you are playing with multiple (large) landmasses.

It's arguable whether SP is better than FM in game terms, but SP is much less boring micromanagement. IMO, of course.

 

[rah]

Yeah, too much management to beat SP and by then you're in wrap up mode so it's always my choice.

 

[Izuul]

Switching to SP optimally does require a good bit of micro, but you only have to do it once. Ideally you want a pretty large number of workers to pre-watermill and forge tiles.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I often find myself with too many workers lying around doing nothing anyway before Railroad, that's usually the time I bulldoze farms and replace them with Workshops and Watermills.

 

[rah]

Usually, by then, I'm whipping cites down so far, to create troops, that there are so few citizens to work newly created workshops that I don't even bother. Unless I'm shooting for a record date and need to shave those few last turns.

 

[bhavv]

Ive actually never ran state property. I like Sushi Co + Mining Inc too much

I do often use caste workshops though, but along with FM.

 

[pob]

Probably the most important aspects when choosing the economic civic are the map type and game options.
State property gets rid of the colony expenses, but if these don't apply because everyone is on one land mass or if vassal states are off then the cut to maintenance costs may not be as significant.
Mercantilism is boosted by having vassals, particularly on other landmasses. Similarly, if there is only one landmass, then the loss of foreign trade routes is probably not as damaging.
Running corporations + free market needs the necessary resources. The last map I played had very few sushi resources and not many mining resources either so choosing state property for the end game was a no-brainer.
Environmentalism can even be best on some unusual maps.

 

[Htadus]

In general yes. But if you going for a score game then you would use FM with a large empire too.

 

[iggymnrr]

Curious. I like playing large and huge highlands. (Usually low level space games.) So environmentalism. Sometimes with Cereal Mills corps. Totally awesome with 300 - 400 - 500 windmills.

 

[bhavv]

Environmentalism could work well on highland maps with lots of windmills. I convert all my non resource mines to windmills once I unlock the booster techs for them anyway.

But I've never used that either. I usually only swap to mercantalism if I get banking early during the phase when all the AIs are also running it, otherwise I go straight into FM for the rest of the game.

 

[iggymnrr]

Oh yeah FM. I forget about that. When I run it it takes the form of the GLH. Actually, low levels suck for trade routes. Especially land maps. I think I've run CM under both mercantilism and environmentalism but not FM. Never crosses my mind. Mining Inc? I have to try that again sometime. It's been so long ago.

The idea for CM with environmentalism came after a lot of state property windmills games. I got tired of factories and coal plants negating all that extra state property food so fast. +6 heath from environmentalism sure is nice. CM is also the better corp on land maps and has more food per resource thus cheaper.