Civics @ 1740 AD

Our current civics are:

• Representation +3[science] per specialist, +2 in 5 largest cities, medium upkeep
• Vassalage +2xp per new unit, +27 free units, high upkeep
• Serfdom workers +50% faster, low upkeep
• Mercantilism +1 free specialist per city, no foreign trade routes, medium upkeep
• Organized Religion build missionaries without monastery, cities with state religion buildings 25% faster, high upkeep

For government, all civics are available. Changing civics loses +3[science] per specialist and the happy citizens in large cities.

If we choose police state upkeep would go up by 8gpt, War anger down 50%, and military unit production up 25%. We don't need it now, but if we wanted to handle Rome in one shot this would let us sustain the war and get it over with quickly.

If we choose universal suffrage, we can spend gold to rush production and towns produce 1 [hammers]

For legal and labor we can pick anything. For religion we have anything but theocracy. OK, I've got it started but have something to do right now, can't fill in the costs and benefits of the remaining options. I'm not necessarily advocating a change, just recording all our choices for a nice, new, clean discussion on the current options. Feel free to post proposed changes, but please include both the benefit of changing and the cost. If you want to post a set of changes as a unit, that's ok too.

 

Civics info

I support Representation, Free Speech, Emancipation, Mercantilism, Free Religion.

 

Thanks for the link. Care to help us out by summarizing the net differences due to this proposed change, so that everyone doesn't have to calculate it themselves?

 

Representation and Mercantilism are good for specialists, Free Speech is good for towns, emancipation gives other civs unhappiness and accelerates cottage growth and free religion gives additional happiness and a 10% science bonus.

Giving a net figure is very difficult because it's hard to value things like cottage growth and unhappiness for other civs properly.

 

IMHO, the first question is when a change will be.

If said change is delayed until total war on Romans end, then I agree with
Dutch proposal:

Representation and Mercantilism for SE; Free Speech and Emancipation for
CE (as our economy is an hybrid); and Free Religion for science and happy.

But to change right now seems problematic, as we can need Vassalage and
do not need Police State, so a change just for the Labor, may be not.

Best regards,

 

I would say by the closure of the Roman War is the best time, as Dutchfire said, since war weariness will be nulled out by anarchy, and at that time, we do not need more expert forces. I would say by the conquest of Ravenna, we should change.

I agree that we need to leave vassalage and serfdom behind, and modernize.

 

Mostly I vote for bureau against free speech, but in this game we have in NotA
only 22 commerce and 32 hamer,
so bureau gives only 11 commerce and 16 hamer.

So i vote then for free speech.

 

I'm not sure why war anger being nulled by anarchy is important, given that anarchy also stops production. The next turn the people will be happy again anyway, whether there is anarchy that turn or not.

We had a good discussion either at the beginning of this game or the last one on the timing of anarchy, and the commonly accepted view is that timing matters only when you're trying to finish something urgent (move anarchy later), to avoid anarchy during a GA, and with worker actions that affect worked tiles (move anarchy earlier, before the tile is improved).

 

I think there is some consensus to make the change after having taken the bulk of Roman cities.

 

That discussion was at the start of this demogame, mostly between me and Conroe (it was one of the better discussions we've had in this demogame IMO).

That discussion still applies here. Let me give a theoretical example:

The output of the civ in question is 100 + 5 * t, with t being the number of non-anarchy turns until then. However, on a turn with war weariness (marked in red), the output will only be 80% of the normal output because there are less happy citizens. There will only be heavy war weariness on turn 10. In case 1, we revolt after the war weariness has hit, in case two we revolt on turn 10, during the war weariness. The revolt will only last 1 turn.



As can be seen, it's better to revolt during anarchy.

 

This example assumes that WW will only persist for one turn, or that we'll be ready to end the war at that point whether objectives have been met or not, which is not a realistic assumption. If the WW persists then the effect is reduced.

The model also doesn't factor in net production changes due to the civics change. Intuitively it should be better to change earlier any time the change involves a higher compounding rate.

 

I don't understand the formel for WW, so i can't make a vote for the best time for anarchy.
If i have is right, then the best moment will be 1 turn befor we make peace, because we have the most anarchy.

 

Do it again with more turns of WW if you want, and you'll get the same result. I also think that we'll be able to tell when the war is going to end a couple of turns in advance, enough to make the switch.

The net production changes due to the civics change are indeed a good call. However, as long as we're playing significant amounts of troops, vassalage (our current civic) will probably be worth it.

 

The principle of the table dutchfire showed is entirely sound.

Essentially: It is better to lose a turn of progress when your progress would be slow anyway than when you're doing well. Progress being science and hammers, mostly.

Turns where we're affected by a lot of war weariness are going to be relatively unhelpful so we don't lose as much if theyre completely useless. Turns where we have no WW, we don't want to lose all our production.

To all citizens: these forums contain an article (see the strategy section's "strategy articles" subsection) that explains war weariness. A couple of important points from that are: war weariness is on a points system. Unit combat is the main way to get WW points and in enemy territory you get twice as much by having a unit fight and lose as you get if it fights and wins. Being at war without combat=no addition to war weariness. Twice as many unit-fights makes twice as much WW, other things being equal.

 

Here's an article on WW, not sure if it's the same one but it probably is.

 

Another point to remember is war weariness and anarchy hurt cities,
but not units.

So, it hurts less when we have the units we want, performing the
tasks we want.

Best regards,

 

I'd also like to point out our civic upkeep costs is 163 gold. That is not only killing us now, but it's going to hurt us in the long run since it will cause an increase in inflation. And theres no way to decrease inflation, only keep it under control.

 

Shall we revolt now?

 

We should do that when the monasteries are up.

 

Change now to increase our commerce, as the basic gain is much superior to
the cost from the delay of monasteries (10% science and +1 gold to shrines).

Best regards,