Dawn of Civilization General Discussion

[borhap88]

As said before, in case of big empire, maybe better if there's no rush to meet uhv (e.g. Russia).

 

[Matara]

With +1 commerce for each city, Elective may dominate over Despotism as Russia (which is productive but lack food) , and dominate over Monarchy as Arabia (which is rich of luxuries happiness). They usually holds more than 10 or 20 cities and that's a significant boost in their economy.

 

[1SDANi]

Under what circumstances do any of you use Elective? I never use it since Despotism is so strong and I find Monarchy is still pretty much always a better choice.

Never, elective is most useful if I have a lot of cities with population working unimproved tiles, or in other words, if I have a lot of cities with extraneous population. When I have a lot of cities with extraneous population, I use Despotism, which instead of paying 1 commerce for each extraneous population, gives enough production to whip out workers or specialist buildings to make my population more useful. Its second benefit is if I really need to lower my civic maintenance costs, but unless I'm playing some non-China 3000 BC civ into 1000 AD, it's better to just use Despotism to whip out a better economy than to put a bandaid over an already infected wound.

It really shines as an economy booster in an already established Civ with a lot of pastures and camps, but I can't really think of one that wouldn't benefit more from the higher core population made available by Monarchy. I guess if you had excess luxury resources, but by the time you had those, Democracy and State Party would be available and better.

Elective has use cases, but from my experience, those use cases are never really encountered in most games.

EDIT: For reference, in Gameplay Guides, elective is mentioned 10 times, monarchy 72, despotism 99, republic 47, and democracy and state party 18 and 7 respectively because so few UHVs even reach the techs that unlock them. Elective is a very niche civic even historically, but only 2 guides ever suggest switching to it, whilst the other 3 mentions are people replying to the guide to give an alternate strategies, and 5 are a part of a series of tips replying to a thread asking for help.

 

[Matara]

For reference, in Gameplay Guides, elective is mentioned 10 times, monarchy 72, despotism 99, republic 47, and democracy and state party 18 and 7 respectively because so few UHVs even reach the techs that unlock them. Elective is a very niche civic even historically, but only 2 guides ever suggest switching to it, whilst the other 3 mentions are people replying to the guide to give an alternate strategies, and 5 are a part of a series of tips replying to a thread asking for help.

How pretty statistics.

 

[Zaddy]

Under what circumstances do any of you use Elective? I never use it since Despotism is so strong and I find Monarchy is still pretty much always a better choice.

Yep, certainly don't feel like Elective needs to be made worse... granted this is a bugfix I suppose but it's certainly not helping civic balance imo. I think I've used it maybe one time in hundreds or thousands of hours playing this mod.

The commerce bonus from pastures is nice but it's competing against Despotism, which I've already made my position clear on previously. (It's overly centralizing for all the same reasons Slavery dominates the other civics in it's category in the vanilla game, notwithstanding the nerfs it's received in the mod.)

The commerce from unimproved tiles is cute but really what you should be doing is whipping workers and just improving tiles. Manorialism makes this trivial (and basically any civ that could possibly want to run Elective will also run Manorialism and Vassalage and do blanket farm spam).

 

[troubleshooting]

It’s very very good for the Seljuks, also for Mongolia & Russia up to a point.

 

[troubleshooting]

Btw, in the current update, the Aztecs start with 4 spearmen, not jaguars, I assume that’s not intended?

 

[happysheep]

Never, elective is most useful if I have a lot of cities with population working unimproved tiles, or in other words, if I have a lot of cities with extraneous population. When I have a lot of cities with extraneous population, I use Despotism, which instead of paying 1 commerce for each extraneous population, gives enough production to whip out workers or specialist buildings to make my population more useful. Its second benefit is if I really need to lower my civic maintenance costs, but unless I'm playing some non-China 3000 BC civ into 1000 AD, it's better to just use Despotism to whip out a better economy than to put a bandaid over an already infected wound.

It really shines as an economy booster in an already established Civ with a lot of pastures and camps, but I can't really think of one that wouldn't benefit more from the higher core population made available by Monarchy. I guess if you had excess luxury resources, but by the time you had those, Democracy and State Party would be available and better.

Elective has use cases, but from my experience, those use cases are never really encountered in most games.

EDIT: For reference, in Gameplay Guides, elective is mentioned 10 times, monarchy 72, despotism 99, republic 47, and democracy and state party 18 and 7 respectively because so few UHVs even reach the techs that unlock them. Elective is a very niche civic even historically, but only 2 guides ever suggest switching to it, whilst the other 3 mentions are people replying to the guide to give an alternate strategies, and 5 are a part of a series of tips replying to a thread asking for help.

I honestly dont get whats with despotism. Personally as a china player, once u get taixues everywhere, u cant just whip out an army to go attack other people else ur econ will die and there isnt much infrastructure available to whip for a long time anyways

 

[Zaddy]

I honestly dont get whats with despotism. Personally as a china player, once u get taixues everywhere, u cant just whip out an army to go attack other people else ur econ will die and there isnt much infrastructure available to whip for a long time anyways

I generally find there's almost always something useful to build. Honestly for a few ancient and classical civs (like Greece, Rome, China etc), eventually Despotism loses some of it's usefulness, but you've also expanded to the point where Monarchy has as well, so it's not worth switching.

Might try China to see if my recollection is correct.

 

[Lzz]

Even without the extra commerce per city tile, Elective is godlike for Russia. It is low upkeep, you have lots of pastures and camps and even with plenty of workers you will always have some tiles that are unimproved. I find Despotism totally pointless as your modifiers are good enough and your production capacity so ridiculous that there is never any need to whip anything in my opinion. Monarchy is useful but not needed since you can just build Cathedrals in your high population cities and with silk, furs, some traded luxury resources for your extra furs and later gold and gems you have no need at all for extra happiness.
In all my Russia games I kept Elective until I was able to switch to State Party.

It is also great for Holy Rome at the beginning, Kongo all the way through their UHV and handy for some other civilizations like Seljuks, Mongols and a few others like Vikings and Poland if you are not playing for the UHV. It is somewhat niche but still I use it often enough to really enjoy it. It's certainly less niche than something like Public Welfare which I only used as Canada for roleplaying reasons, I'd never use it for any civilization for mechanical reasons alone.

 

[Zaddy]

I can't really agree, it doesn't seem like it would be possible to build the necessary 3-4 Knights + Barracks per city to destroy the Mongols while running Elective without excessively hampering your early infrastructure and tile improvement (ie minimizing working unimproved tiles). While Despotism doesn't directly help your economy, it helps you whip nice-to-have infrastructure many, many turns earlier, letting you accrue benefits of those buildings over a longer timespan and also lets you get to a state of building wealth faster (because you've built everything else you could want).

Even once you've gotten your core cities to the point where whipping makes little sense, for Russia you'll have colonies in Siberia that will then need the same infrastructure so Despotism remains useful. It's only with the advent of factories and coal plants (which you whip into place with Despotism of course!) that Despotism becomes obsoleted for Democracy (usually) or State Party (sometimes). For Russia that means a transition to a Democracy/Meritocracy/Egalitarianism/Central Planning/Secularism/Multilateralism civic setup to farm for golden ages and rushing good wonders with Great Engineers.

 

[Matara]

I honestly dont get whats with despotism. Personally as a china player, once u get taixues everywhere, u cant just whip out an army to go attack other people else ur econ will die and there isnt much infrastructure available to whip for a long time anyways

You may need temples for UHV. Harbors for sea food. Markets, forges and post offices for specialists or economy. Whip is a quick and harmless strategy in my way.

 

[Lzz]

I can't really agree, it doesn't seem like it would be possible to build the necessary 3-4 Knights + Barracks per city to destroy the Mongols while running Elective without excessively hampering your early infrastructure and tile improvement (ie minimizing working unimproved tiles). While Despotism doesn't directly help your economy, it helps you whip nice-to-have infrastructure many, many turns earlier, letting you accrue benefits of those buildings over a longer timespan and also lets you get to a state of building wealth faster (because you've built everything else you could want).

Even once you've gotten your core cities to the point where whipping makes little sense, for Russia you'll have colonies in Siberia that will then need the same infrastructure so Despotism remains useful. It's only with the advent of factories and coal plants (which you whip into place with Despotism of course!) that Despotism becomes obsoleted for Democracy (usually) or State Party (sometimes). For Russia that means a transition to a Democracy/Meritocracy/Egalitarianism/Central Planning/Secularism/Multilateralism civic setup to farm for golden ages and rushing good wonders with Great Engineers.

Well, maybe the way we play it differs. I tried a few runs as Russia with despotism and it underperformed massively compared to my elective runs. I whip Walls in Kiev as soon as I can (I settle Kiev myself) and then switch to elective right away. Kiev builds Monument, Moskva and Kiev build Forges, Barracks and Stables and you can have 6-8 Lancers by the time the Mongols spawn which is enough to take out their stacks. Not to mention you can build more every 3-4 turns from that point onwards. Running Elective allowed me to be the tech leader in all my runs before 1600 or so. And there's not that much infrastructure needed when playing the Russian UHV I find. I only ever have Moskva build a Library before the renaissance and only Moskva and Kiev a Forge. Other cities just build workers, settlers, missionaries and an occasional Crossbowman. A couple of Churches and Arenas and that's it. Then after renaissance just rebuild all cities.

Also building wealth? That sounds strange for a civ like Russia.

 

[freethink]

I don't play Russia very much but considering the Eurasian plains Russia sits upon there is a greater likelihood that an elective monarchy could be useful. Despotism of course has universal advantages.

I often play Mongolia as an elective monarchy and it certainly keeps the economy afloat in the early stages (even while sacking is the primary source of income)
It stands to reason that with Russia it could be of help but it depends on the strategy being pursued. Lzz also made an interesting point about the new rebuilding feature. As European Russia produces so much grain (or at least Ukraine) this might be a faster development path than any hammer-based program.

So I think its possible that both paths are possible for Russia even though I suspect the default player's choice of despotism was originally intended by Leoreth

 

[Matara]

Could anyone post a picture on Colombia/Mexico's stability map? In my game they don't change core on respawn. I'd like to modify it on my own.
(Well, it's ridiculous to see Colombia holding Maya core and instantly collapse 20 turns later.)

 

[BigSchwartzzz]

I just played two games as America, settling Rochester both times (honestly should be called Buffalo). First game it didn't flip to Canada but the second game it did. What gives?

 

[Leoreth]

This is probably related to a bug that I have just fixed.

 

[BaneFire]

Never, elective is most useful if I have a lot of cities with population working unimproved tiles, or in other words, if I have a lot of cities with extraneous population. When I have a lot of cities with extraneous population, I use Despotism, which instead of paying 1 commerce for each extraneous population, gives enough production to whip out workers or specialist buildings to make my population more useful. Its second benefit is if I really need to lower my civic maintenance costs, but unless I'm playing some non-China 3000 BC civ into 1000 AD, it's better to just use Despotism to whip out a better economy than to put a bandaid over an already infected wound.

It really shines as an economy booster in an already established Civ with a lot of pastures and camps, but I can't really think of one that wouldn't benefit more from the higher core population made available by Monarchy. I guess if you had excess luxury resources, but by the time you had those, Democracy and State Party would be available and better.

Elective has use cases, but from my experience, those use cases are never really encountered in most games.

EDIT: For reference, in Gameplay Guides, elective is mentioned 10 times, monarchy 72, despotism 99, republic 47, and democracy and state party 18 and 7 respectively because so few UHVs even reach the techs that unlock them. Elective is a very niche civic even historically, but only 2 guides ever suggest switching to it, whilst the other 3 mentions are people replying to the guide to give an alternate strategies, and 5 are a part of a series of tips replying to a thread asking for help.

It's weird because historically Elective sounds like it should just be Republic. What it means to represent, large, decentralised autonomous systems, could also just be described as the No Authority (barbarism?) civic. Perhaps Elective should instead serve more of a purpose relating to stability penalties in non-core areas, making it a favourable choice for expansive empires. Of course this would be very strong then, and monarchy/depostism civs would end up massively preferring it.

 

[urbestfriend]

Is there a way to stop making cities love those horrible 2F2C water tiles? It feels like half my time is making cities outside my core stop trying to grow outrageously big working those horrible tiles.

 

[Cosmos1985]

Is there a way to stop making cities love those horrible 2F2C water tiles? It feels like half my time is making cities outside my core stop trying to grow outrageously big working those horrible tiles.

Open the city, then click this, if you don't want it to grow