Environmentalism: when to use it?

[kokomo]

I must say I have never ever ever used it, so I turn to you mates to ask you?

Has anyone ever used environmentalism? If so, which circumstance triggered the switch?

I have tried all civics of the game (including mercantilism) BUT this one. I can't seem to find a good game where to use it!!!

 

[Seraph91]

I use it in every game. Usually my citizens are unhappy and I leave some forests or jungle around for the health of the cities. Coupled with improvements and wonders it's usually enough to keep most of the population happy.

 

[Way_Traveler]

I'm surprised you've never used it. When the UN rolls around, the AI invariably votes yes, so if it's built and you're not in charge, you'll either be forced to adopt it or accept the unhappiness penalty.

Other than that, though, there's very little reason to go with environmentalism, particularly if it comes at the price of losing State Property.

 

[Arksa]

Enviromentalism to me seems to be the opposite of what it really means.
Your cities get more health so now you can start building tons of coal plants and industrial parks

 

[Quotey]

When your cities are unhealthy and you are a Spiritual leader.

Seraph's reason is pretty good too.

But if you're not spiritual, you'l have to have a lot of forests left to make 2 turns of anarchy worth it.

 

[Way_Traveler]

Seraph-- Seriously? How big are your empires? In my experience, the unhappy citizens can be mollified with buildings and the usual measures (e.g., building broadcast towers and either building or trading for hit singles). Representation is also helpful. Even if you have to take a bit of a happiness hit, though, state property is still worth it for any empire of a decent size. The productivity you lose from a few unhappy citizens in your largest cities is likely to be dwarfed by the amount of gold you save by reduced maintenance.

JMTC. Can you tell us more about your games? Difficulty, size of map, size of empire, etc.?

 

[Way_Traveler]

LOL Arksa, good point. But by the time you're ready to build industrial parks and have environmentalism, you're not too terribly far from recycling centers (if I recall the tech tree correctly; I'm away from my civving computer at the moment). So I generally just build them where I want them, then accept the unhealthiness until I can build a recycling center. Thankfully, the cities where I generally want them are at the point where they can push them out pretty quickly. If some of my citizens slowly starve to death until then, meh. The survivors can feast on their corpses until they learn to recycle.

 

[KaiserElectric]

I don't usually use environmentalism in my games. I almost always found a corporation, and environmentalism drives up maintenence costs on corporations, which eventually drops my percentage down by 50% after emptying my treasury.

My advice is to not use Environmentalism if you found a corporation, especially one that doesn't give , like Sid's Sushi.

 

[kokomo]

I'm surprised you've never used it. When the UN rolls around, the AI invariably votes yes, so if it's built and you're not in charge, you'll either be forced to adopt it or accept the unhappiness penalty

One of three:
1) build the UN myself
2) am elected leader nevertheless
3) have enough votes to block anything that doesn't suit me

I have not mentioned
4) the game is already over

I tend to agree with Way_traveler regarding measures to deal with unhappiness. I tend to build recycling centers if pollution is really a problem

 

[DMOC]

I never use environmentallism, so I don't think I can give you any advice. Lol.

 

[Way_Traveler]

Kokomo-- If you have enough votes to defeat any UN measure that you don't like, the game is generally effectively won. It's just a formality of gaining enough land to hit the domination cap. Usually, you can just pick on the weakest civ and take what you want in fairly short order.

If you're elected the leader, that's easy enough.

As for building the UN... I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it is nice to be guaranteed to be one of the two candidates. On the other hand, there's no way to raze it if it becomes more trouble than it's worth...

 

[Unthinking Pain]

I've used Environmentalism before and had it slightly boost my commerce (over Free Market). I was a bit shocked, but then I realized I had roughly 12-13 Forest Preserves (National Forest GP farm) and at least that many windmills. I was Financial, so that meant all the Forest Preserves started generating 3 Commerce, and the Windmills picked up 2 more, for roughly 60ish+ commerce. Add that into the increased Health, and it was actually ahead of Free Market, especially since I then spread Industrial Parks around. Lastly, I was not a strong coastal presence, so I didn't have a lot of cities with bonzo trade routes anyway.

So -
Landlocked
Financial
Love Forest Preserves and Windmills

= Environmentalism

 

[Echo of Celts]

In my last game I used enviromentalism as soon as it was available. I was using very focused cities and had 10 Cities 20+ Population. Because I lacked the resources to simply boost my health, the +8 Health (if you build Public Transportation) was very helpfull.

 

[jray]

Elizabeth can make the most out of Environmentalism. Spam windmills everywhere and run an SE with all the extra food to take advantage of the Phi trait. Then once you get Environmentalism, the Fin trait really kicks in, and those windmills give you 4C, or 5C with Electricity or riverside, or 6C with Electricity AND riverside.

 

[Emperor Giulio]

I use environmentalism as a UN resolution when the rest of the world switches to state property when they want to avoid me from crippling them finanically. It may not be as rewarding as Free Market, but its better then nothing, plus you get a health boost.

 

[Shirastro]

This is kinda funny cause i use environmentalism only if have a corporation. Why?
Well once i start spreading the corporation to other civs the money boost gets so huge that even the 25% more that i have to pay for the maintaines is nothing really. Also i try and push the UN resolution so everyone adopts it and i can spread the corporation everywhere......no more damn merc and SP for other civs /insert evil laugh here

 

[Scaramanga]

I wish environmentalism would prevent (or at least lessen) global warming. Isn't that mostly the point of environmentalism in real life (rhetorical)? If it did that I'd probably adopt it all the time.

 

[Seraph91]

Seraph-- Seriously? How big are your empires? In my experience, the unhappy citizens can be mollified with buildings and the usual measures (e.g., building broadcast towers and either building or trading for hit singles). Representation is also helpful. Even if you have to take a bit of a happiness hit, though, state property is still worth it for any empire of a decent size. The productivity you lose from a few unhappy citizens in your largest cities is likely to be dwarfed by the amount of gold you save by reduced maintenance.

They're usually pretty small but I'm pretty bad when it comes to researching.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

There's usually a period after you get assembly lines, and your cities really start getting big where it might be useful because around this time you almost always suffer from some a lot of unhealthiness. But once you get hospitals, super markets, public transportation, and recycling centers environmentalism isn't really needed. I used to switch to environmentalism during this period, but i just tough it out and stay in state property now/free market now.

 

[Coast]

I've used it before, and I thought it was pretty good.

Not often, but there have been occassions when I was really hurting for health and happy and this let me grow. The added corp cost isn't all that much.

Basically I'd say use it if you have a smallish empire and really need to maximize the hell out of your city size and productivity.