Favorite civics?

[petey]

Mine is State Property (no I am not a communist). I like to make money (NO I AM NOT A COMMUNIST) State Property helps with money (no I am not a communist). Therefore I like State Property (no I am not a communist). It cuts all the maintence in your cities near to none (NO I AM NOT A COMMUNIST!).

Bloody communist stinking up our forum


My favourite civic is Mercantalism because I like my free specialists. I never really pay attention to trade routes and I may be shooting myself in the foot by switching to this as soon as I get the chance, but I like my free specialists.

 

[Molon Labe]

I really need to work on using civics better. If I'm not spiritual I tend to loathe switching civics because of the anarchy. I like Representation a lot because of the happy and research boost it grants. State property is pretty powerful and great for cranking up the production.

I wouldn't say that I hate Vassalage, but I don't use it much if I'm not Spiritual. If I can use it for warmongering than I certainly do. The XP it grants, when combined with Theocracy, a barracks, and ideally a military instructor, make for some kick ass units to go kick ass with.

 

[Norbert]

Late game? Not at war= Representation/Free Speech/Caste System/Mercantilism/Organized Religion (Cultural victory,baby!)

At War: Police State/Nationhood (if not organized)/Emancipation/State Property/Theocracy.

 

[Mr.Pizza]

Poice State (Less War )
Vassalge (Good Army)
Slavery (Work!!!)
Mercantilsm (I Hate Other Corporations)
Free Religion (Good)
​

 

[kniteowl]

you generally use civics in combinations that work well together like Representation, caste system and Pacifism.

My individual favourite civics are, Representation, Nationhood, Slavery, Organized religion.

As for the Economic Civic, I'm undecided, I'm probably leaning towards State Property.

 

[elder abuser]

Hello
I am a semi amateur player. I am playing on tiny maps with 3 opponents on noble difficulty. I am playing peaceful until I get grenadiers and cannons, then I go for war.
Could you tell me which civics should I take early and later? (usually I have my own religion and 4 cities on these maps)

Well first I think you should shop around, and see what civics suit ya best...but if you're impatient (like me) then continue reading.
During your peaceful era (pre cannon and nades) I would go with Representation (if you get pyramids) and if you cant....dont sweat it just get hereditary rule. Also pick up Representation, Bureaucracy, serfdom, w/e economy civic you feel like, and finally Organized religion.
When war is approaching enact Police State (again if you get pyramids, if not same strat as before), vassalage, slavery, again w/e economy civic ya want, and lastly theocracy. Useing these civics will have your civ cranking out powerful cheap units in very little time.

Gl, HF!

 

[Maddin]

Since I'm trying to crank my game up a notch I'd be happy if some of could give me civics advice.

In "early" game I usually stick to:

Representation (It's just good to keep the big cities happy and I love research)
Vassallage (if my empire's quite large and I'm in a phase of unit building) otherwise Bureaucracy (in a small empire it's just really nice to push the capital's production for 1round Units or really quick wonders)
Serfdom (no this is where the dicussions here bewilder me, could someone please explain the upside of Slavery? I don't like sacrificing people for production, so I usually keep Barbarism until I'm able to switch to Serfdom directly because of the loss of a round otherwise)
Decentralisation (until I can switch to Free Market, because I've been thinking Mercantilism would cost me a lot of gold since I'd lose all outside trade routes. Is the effect really as big as I've been thinking, or do the extra specialists give me more benefits?)
Organized Religion (the 25% production in all my cities, since I tend to spread my religion throughout my empire, gives it apparent upsides in peace times)

and from these I usually skip directly to the endgame civics (Universal Suffrage-Free Speech-Emancipation-Environmentalism-Free Religion). I see that at war these Civics are really no good, because the grant you squat in terms of units, but do any of you have better suggestions in terms of peace civis? And please: tell me whats so great about Slavery?

 

[Seras]

what convinced me to try slavery:

the amount of stored food required to grow one population gets higher and higher as your population grows.(ie: it takes more food to go from 10 to 11 than it does to go from 5 to 6)

so say your city just turned 6, if you sacrifice one pop to bring you back down to 5, you would be back up to 6 before you'd have gotten up to 7 without the sacrifice.

also...you might not be able to build enough happiness/health buildings at one point.....so what's the point of keeping unhappy/sick population around?

of course you have to be wise about when/where to use it...but for high food cities...it's a must

 

[Lurking Liu]

Yeah, Slavery's great. I'll admit it, when I first played I had nothing to do with the civic because of my modern egalitarian snobbery (not that I'm easily offended, of course, I've got thick skin but that doesn't mean I want to actively enslave people). After a few games, I noticed that it had None for an upkeep cost, so I would switch to it since it'd actually reduce my city maintenance. Then I kept losing out on The Oracle by one turn (Ha! Now I barely even bother to built The Oracle... How things have changed ) so I finally bit the bullet and used it. Once the genie was out of the bottle, it never went back--A few turns later, I had angry citizens, saw that the whip cost would be exactly enough and they went off to build the Pyramids for me. Several turns later, I had fine happiness, but people were starving because they were sick, so off they went to build my granary! Now I love Slavery--the civic, the actual practice, still not so much.

I usually go with Representation/Bureaucracy/Slavery/ANYTHING/Theocracy for most of the game. All the economic civics are good, so I'll normally take the one that's a Favored Civic of another Civ. If there isn't a Civ with a Favored Economic Civic, then I'll usually ignore Mercantilism since Castles give a free Trade Route, which defeats the purpose of Mercantilism.

My endgame is Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, Emancipation, ANYTHING, Free Religion. Gotta love those Cottages...

 

[Norbert]

Post-BtS, State property is the "war" econ civic. Unless you have an enormous empire, it's mostly all about the and , whereas FM and Merc are all about the . With Rep, I run Mercantilism, other than that, its a tossup...I'm considering a game where I actively pursue a Environmentalism strategy and UN-screw everyone...I've been on the receiving end of that way too many times...