Favorite set of civics?

[Scholastic]

What is your favorite set of civics?

For me, it's Police State/Nationhood/emancipation/state property/theocracy

 

[DigitalBoy]

Representation / Free Speech / Caste System / Free Market or State Property or Mercantilism (depends on if I have lots of open borders, whether I'm warmongering, etc.) / Theocracy (unless I get the Pentagon, then I switch to something else)

 

[Scholastic]

Representation / Free Speech / Caste System / Free Market or State Property or Mercantilism (depends on if I have lots of open borders, whether I'm warmongering, etc.) / Theocracy (unless I get the Pentagon, then I switch to something else)

I never found much use for the Caste system.

 

[braindrain]

Caste System is invaluable for running a specialist economy, where you want to have as many specialists running as soon as possible. In the earlier part of the game, when not many specialist-allowing buildings are avaliable, you need to run caste system so you can use some specialists.

 

[OceansEleven]

Depends for the Rep/Police State/Universal Suffrage. Usually depends where I'm at. It's usually Universal Suffrage because it helps the commerce come in a bit more.

Usually it's Universal/Free Speech/Emanc/State Property/Free Religion. But it usually depends where I'm at.

 

[OceansEleven]

For me it's usually:

Universal Suffrage/Free Speech/Emacipation/State Property/Free Religion.

But it always depends on the game. If I need Mil. I'll switch to Police State and stuff like that. And if my religion is the main religion among others, I'll stick with that for a while.

 

[SpikeSpy]

Strange question because it depends on the difficulty level of playand many other factors.
I play Huge Diety maps, then you need Police State/vassalage/theocracy.

On slightly lower difficulties you should consider Representation+Mercantilism.

If you play Noble you would probably want to go Universal/Free Speech/Emacipation/Free Market/Free Religion.

On high difficulty Nationhood may also be the key, say you just invented a powerfull infantry unit that Ai doesn't have yet, you draft all cities and you have an immediate army of say 15-20 units.

Guess all im saying is it all depends on your game settings, don't get stuck in favorites, keep your options open and react to what the game throws at you.

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

On high difficulty Nationhood may also be the key, say you just invented a powerfull infantry unit that Ai doesn't have yet, you draft all cities and you have an immediate army of say 15-20 units.

There's a limit to the number of units you can draft per turn throughout your civilisation, depending on speed or map size I think.
Normally I go for Universal Suffrage/Free Speech/Emancipation/State Property/Free Religion, but if I'm running a mixed specialist/commerce economy I go for Rep/Caste System instead of US/Emancipation.

 

[carl corey]

Preparing for (early) war:
Police State (if I have the Pyramids) / Vassalage / Slavery / - / Theocracy

I was just preparing to finish off Caesar (Rome looked like just the sweetest spot), when Bismarck declared war on me. He went from Cautious to war. I know because I was just switching civics (Representation -> Police Stage, and getting Theocracy) and wanted to know if I can afford to declare on Caesar without the other three Budhist ganging up on me. (somehow Budhism never spread to me and I went Christian)

Well, Bismarck decided to take matters into his own hand. I just whipped units like crazy (one turn build, next turn whip), upgraded everything I could upgrade and soon started the war on Rome while keeping Bismarck at bay. He had managed to pillage a couple of tiles, but in the end it was I who got two of his cities. Sweet revenge.

Anyway, at the end of my whipping campaign I was afraid to look how many angry faces I got from that... Sometimes ignorance is bliss...

 

[DigitalBoy]

I never found much use for the Caste system.

In my single-player games, I usually go for Pyramids and go straight into a specialist economy. And since it's usually easy to beat the AI to it, I have the luxury of picking a philosophical leader instead of an industrious one. Specialist economy at 1000 BC with philosophical leader = insane research/GPPs.

 

[OceansEleven]

Yeah, like Cookie Crumbs, I usually go for the Universal Suffrage/Free Speech/Emancipation/State Property/Free Religion.

But major things could change what I want. If my state religion is widely spread to other civs, I'll keep that for a longer while. Emac I go straight for, along with State Property. I don't go to Free Speech right away when I can get it. I go maybe 50 turns after, give or take some. Universal Suffrage is the one I use for the end. Usually it's Rep. for the long run.

In all my Noble games, I would build Wonders like crazy, but wasn't too much of a genius with micromanagement. Anyways, it would mostly depend if I got to the Pyramids first or not. They cost a lot, unless you get stone right away, then it's much easier to build.

Anyways, should I go for the Pyramids, and leave out Stonehenge + The Oracle (I could maybe get one of those two, too)? This is for my Prince games. I always like having a free obelisk in new cities, since they help with the culture, and the free technology (Usually Metal Casting). But I think having Representation would help a lot in the beginning with techs.

Any thoughts? I'll play a game getting Pyramids first, along with Stonehenge.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Anyways, should I go for the Pyramids, and leave out Stonehenge + The Oracle (I could maybe get one of those two, too)? This is for my Prince games. I always like having a free obelisk in new cities, since they help with the culture, and the free technology (Usually Metal Casting). But I think having Representation would help a lot in the beginning with techs.

Any thoughts? I'll play a game getting Pyramids first, along with Stonehenge.

Prince is my preferred difficulty level, and it's fairly easy to get both Stonehenge and the Pyramids, as long as you don't put them off long enough. Usually, I start building Stonehenge after my second city is founded and the Pyramids after my third or fourth city is founded. The Pyramids may be a stretch if you don't have stone, so if there's a stone resource somewhere near your capital, I'd make it a priority to settle a city near it so you can hook it up to your trade network.

I never for The Oracle since I neglect the religion branch completely, but that wonder seems to be the AI's favorite, so nabbing Stonehenge, The Oracle, and the Pyramids is probably out of the question.

 

[DarkSchneider]

Why does this question keep coming up?

In general, the best Civic set, once all become available to you is:

Universal Sufferage, Free Speech, Emancipation, State-Property and Organized Religion.

 

[Paeanblack]

My favorites:
Hereditary Rule, Vassalage, Slavery, State Property, Free Religion

Representation's window of usefulness is just too short to bother with. Without the Pyramids, Democracy is right around the corner, and with the Pyramids, the early unlimited happiness from Hereditary Rule is worth more beakers.

 

[Tonifranz]

My Favorites are:

Universal Suffrage, State Property, Slavery, Organized Religion and Free Speech. Though I usually switch to Emancipation late game to avoid the unhappiness penalty of not having Emancipation.

 

[SkippyT]

As Aztecs, my fav civ at the moment (peacetime):
Hereditary rule / Free speech / Slavery / State property / Organized religion

(wartime
Police state / Nationhood / Slavery / State property / Theocracy

The overpowered State property is very lovely, because when you get it you´re probably spamming cities in Oceania and the New world (when playing on terra) and I find it very useful, even on Pangaea map.
I never liked Slavery in the original version of Civ IV, but I tried Monty and I love Slavery now. It´s extremely useful

 

[Chazumi]

As a warmonger I go with:

Police State, Vassalage, Caste System (slavery if lots of unhappiness and huge cities), state property, and Theocracy.

These civics tied together with west point/pentagon/barracks is awesome, i end up cranking out unit 1-3 turns on epic, use watermills on every river space possible (even flood plains), mines on mountains, and workshops everywhere (thus state property), this gives ALL my cities huge production, i just crank out my army and kamikaze them. Makes the game too easy on anything lower than monarch though...

 

[flamingzaroc121]

i like great people so

Representation/Free speech/caste system/state property/pacifism

 

[Proteus]

Mid game:
Representation/Bureaucracy/Serfdom/Free Market/Organized Religion

Late game:
Universal Suffrage/Free Speech/Emancipation/Free Market/Freedom of religion

If my territory is too large so that even building Forbidden Palace, Eremitage and perhaps Versailles are no efective counter to some of my cities having a large distance from the nearest capital, I use state property instead of free market.