Civics Discussion

[Dracosolon]

I noticed that we do not have a general thread for civics, so I thought I'd start one.

Are there civics you never use, or have trouble making use of?

Which civics do you find underrated/overrated?

Any unintuitive combo you like?

Which civilizations and playstyles do you think can bring a particular civic or combo to its full potential?

 

[Matara]

Here's an analysis of three civics: Merchant Trade, Regulated Trade and Free Enterprise. They multiply your commerce in different ways: MT +1 trade route in every city; RT +50% commerce in capital city; FE +50% trade commerce in every city (secondary effects like +1 plantation commerce and civic upkeep differences are ignored for simplicity). Which one is the best? Here are two principles:

Principle 1: Free Enterprise is better than Merchant Trade, if and only if your city has more than 2 trade routes on average.
Proof: Take an assumption that there are N homogeneous cities. Each city's trade income is denoted by t*y (t = num of trade routes; y = commerce of each trade route); other income is denoted by z. This yields your total commerce Y = N*(ty+z), the benefit of Merchant Trade Y(MT) = Ny; the benefit of Regulated Trade Y(RT) = 0.5*(ty+z), and the benefit of Free Enterprise Y(FE) = 0.5Nty. Thus, Y(FE) > Y(MT) if and only if t＞2.

Since 2 trade routes is very easy to reach (lighthouse +1, post office +1, geography +1), it implicates that FE is almost always better than MT.

Principle 2: Free Enterprise is better than Regulated Trade, if and only if your total trade commerce is larger than your capital's total commerce.
Proof: Since Y(RT) = 0.5*(ty+z), Y(FE) = 0.5Nty, Y(FE) > Y(RT) if and only if Nty＞ty+z. The LHS represents your total trade commerce, while the RHS represents your capital's total commerce, including trade commerce, tile commerce, specialist commerce, etc. Both are available in your game.

This implicates the intuition that RT is better with a strong, or potentially strong capital, while FE is better with a large-expanded empire whose capital is not that important. Since trade income could be multiplied a lot in late game, and you may want to expand your empire and get more and more cities in late game, it is suggested to switch from RT to FE in a certain time, which is accurately given by the principle 2.

 

[Lzz]

I don't know if this topic really fits in Gameplay Guides, maybe it could be moved into the general section. But it's a good idea to have such a topic I think.
So I'll share a few of my thoughts.

Civics that I don't often use or have trouble making use of:

- Totalitarianism comes so late and while it is very powerful in terms of giving huge stability when combined with other civics and its no maintenance aspect, I just feel like it's not very useful except if you are going for domination victory
- Theocracy is perfectly fine on its own, but is for me generally outclassed by Clergy or Monasticism. I would rather run Conquest than Theocracy in most cases and I don't feel much use for both at the same time
- Revolutionism feels tailored made for Russia and I always use it when playing it. But I don't feel compelled to play it with any other nation
- Public Welfare feels so underwhelming and is outclassed by Central Planning and Free Enterprise to such an extent that I would only use it for roleplaying reasons and even then I'd struggle to justify it
- Isolationism is cool but the fact that it gives a stability penalty after renaissance makes it feel strange for me to use except in rare cases like renaissance China or the Ottomans

Civilizations that I feel can bring a certain civics or combinations to great heights:

- America with Democracy, Constitution, Egalitarianism and Statue of Liberty provides incredible research capacity, production and great people growth
- Prussia with Egalitarianism and Central Planning can turn a city like Amsterdam into quite a production center even if all its land tiles are given away to other cities
- Netherlands utilizing Republic, Monasticism and Centralism and settling every great person in Amsterdam is quite frankly one of the most awesome things in this game
- Russia with Elective, Manorialism, Vassalage, Merchant Trade and Monasticism can easily beat everybody in tech even before 1500AD
- Russia can ironically make the most use of Individualism due to the insane amounts of grassland it has
- Khmer with a few of the right wonders and Monasticism can spawn so many great prophets that if you settle all of them in your capital city, you can easily end up with the most productive city in the world in the modern era
- England with Regulated Trade, Centralism and Trading Company can make London into the greatest renaissance - industrial city in the world
- England can also make the best use of Free Enterprise, even more so if you build Bell Rock Lighthouse

 

[Matara]

Aiming at maximizing economy, the civic set in late game, assuming that all techs, buildings and wonders are accessible, may be: State Party + Constitution + Egalitarianism + Free Enterprise + Secularism + Multilateralism.
There are alternatives in certain cases:
1. If your size is small (thus city maintenance is small), substitute State Party with Democracy for great people and stability bonus.
2. If specialist bonus from wonders i.e. Golden Gate, Internet, Skytree are unavailable, it's possible to try Individualism rather than Egalitarianism. In other cases Egalitarianism is usually more efficient, as specialists are flexible to adjust to maximize your city's optimization object.
3. Secularism could obsolete any state religion benefits from wonders, which should be paid attention to.
4. Nationhood is dominated by Multilateralism. Production from trade route is very significant. Unless there's a war to fight - stability penalty from war under Multilateralism is that serious to push you to the edge of collapse.

 

[Dracosolon]

Civics I have trouble with:

1) Revolutionism - Synergizes with drafting and war, to a lesser extent with whipping and Central Planning over workshops. Problem is if I'm doing Central Planning I usually already have a decent territory (and the Russia UHV that emphasizes it doesn't even require you to conquer anyone) and the Constitution specialists look more appealing. Workshops also seem like middling improvements until the very late game, unless you're very hungry for more and can't count on watermills and mines. Maybe it's a civic for a Domination/Conquest victory?

2) The trio Conquest/Tributaries/Isolationism - I'm mostly worried over when to switch between them. Conquest is best for early expansion when the XP and pillaging bonus actually matter, while Tributaries seems middling at that stage given that you don't have vassals yet and can't make your unit-producing cities grow (but maybe I'm wrong and having low pop cities with just a few high tiles to build your units with is worth it?). When to transition though? And is Tributaries enough to make getting Vassals worth the effort? Meanwhile Isolationism has an interesting Specialist bonus but the "no foreign trade routes" part is killer, unless you have the Porcelain Tower. Should you even bother, or just wait for Colonialism/Nationhood?

3) Social Services look mediocre but that seems to be the consensus around these part anyway, not much to do about it.

 

[LukeAtmey]

I agree Public Welfare is kinda meh, but how would you go on about deciding whether to use Central Planning or Free Enterprise?

 

[Lzz]

For me it would depend on what I want to achieve and on the civilization I play. The more coastal cities there are the more powerful Free Enterprise becomes. And the more specialists there are the more powerful Central Planning becomes. So it depends on whether I need more production or more commerce. I also enjoy playing civilizations according to how I feel they would make sense even if it is less impressive mechanically. So Prussia, Russia and China always get Central Planning even though they don't need more production in most cases and could benefit more from Free Enterprise. Same way I always play Netherlands with Individualism even though Egalitarianism would be miles ahead in performance.

 

[Dracosolon]

Free Enterprise Towns are better if you have the time to grow them, so an old, stable civ like China would make sense for Free Enterprise, while a young and/or expanding one in need of like the post-columbian New World civs could do with Central Planning Watermills and Workshops.

 

[LukeAtmey]

Aiming at maximizing economy, the civic set in late game, assuming that all techs, buildings and wonders are accessible, may be: State Party + Constitution + Egalitarianism + Free Enterprise + Secularism + Multilateralism.
There are alternatives in certain cases:
1. If your size is small (thus city maintenance is small), substitute State Party with Democracy for great people and stability bonus.
2. If specialist bonus from wonders i.e. Golden Gate, Internet, Skytree are unavailable, it's possible to try Individualism rather than Egalitarianism. In other cases Egalitarianism is usually more efficient, as specialists are flexible to adjust to maximize your city's optimization object.
3. Secularism could obsolete any state religion benefits from wonders, which should be paid attention to.
4. Nationhood is dominated by Multilateralism. Production from trade route is very significant. Unless there's a war to fight - stability penalty from war under Multilateralism is that serious to push you to the edge of collapse.

I have played this mod for quite a long time but only after your post did I realize how good State Party is for a large empire. For some reason I just assumed the last tier civics (Public Welfare excluded) to be the best. I have no idea how I didn't realize that the flat espionage bonus of State Party is so much better than the Democracy bonus: Most of your smaller cities will never produce a Great Person so that bonus is wasted in that sense while the flat espionage bonus is much better for all the smaller cities. A large empire running State Party even at 0% espionage slider can amass pretty heavy amounts of espionage to make tech stealing and other antics viable.