Financial vs. Organized

[Gliese 581]

It is my experience that as the difficulty slider of the game is moved up, the victory date usually comes later, making financial a more valuable trait the harder the game. If you can win early, you can often do it on the back of financial as well as you would with organized.

 

[madscientist]

This is my view on this discussion.

Oragnaized allows a much larger and more managable empire later in the game. AT this point you should have alot more overall commerce than your surviving rivals, and thus you can tech yourself silly into space, wrodl domination, UN diplomatic win, or sit back and admire your culture. Having three tiems the number of cities versus a financial AI, yet win only a 10-20% lower slider rate will get you teching much faster.

Now there is a way that financial can have a massive empire but it requires State Property. It also eliminates an important late game item in BTS, corps! If you can have a very large empire and be financial without SP, your a better player than me because I cannot do it.

SO my view of organized regarding late game

1) You get an extra trade route via free market, worth 5-10 commerce per city.
2) Organized pretty much offsets SP.
3) Mining Inc will generally get you 10-15 hammers before modifiers, which is better than the 10% from SP.
4) Sid's and Cereal food. Generally this will get more food than watermills/workshops from SP although not always. I would consider this a push.
5) Under FM, you will have a corporate profit if the HQ is in wall street.

When I started playing CIV IV I always thought ORG was week. Until I realized everytime I had a large empire with limited economic problems it was with an organized leader.

Also ORG continued to get beefed up. In Warlords Patch, ORG got double production of factories. In BTS the corps opens up the game to Full use by ORG.

 

[Artichoker]

I haven't tried either trait in a serious game, but at first glance I would rather have Organized than Financial.

The courthouse is often the first build I do for new cities, and the payoff is high compared to other buildings. However, the resource cost is also high, and being able to make them at half cost seems to be a big plus.

Also, at the time I get Code of Laws, I'm usually in the middle of a war, or preparing for one. The last thing I want to do at that time is to delay my war by the high hammer cost of Courthouses. I'd rather build them right away and go on with the war.

 

[darrelljs]

Playing an aggressive game at Emperor+, I find Organized is better. Half cost Courthouses lowers the threshold of whipping them in out in freshly conquered cities, and the civic upkeep really is significant when you are running some of the war civics. Most importantly it is a passive trait. I can run an SE with Organized and not lose any benefit, which means more hammers, which means more troops. If you are going to play a builder game and stop at 8 or so cities you are much better off with Financial and building lots of cottages, even at the higher difficulty levels. Likewise, at the lower difficulty levels the upkeep costs are not enough to make Organized outshine Financial.

A good Organized leader is Napoleon, great trait combo for Domination. I think Pacal is a better leader than Hannibal. You get the happiness benefit from the UB, and you get a health benefit from your trait, so you can work more Financial boosted cottages earlier. Hannibal isn't bad, I just think Pacal is a bit better.

Darrell

 

[The Rook]

When I started playing CIV IV I always thought ORG was week. Until I realized everytime I had a large empire with limited economic problems it was with an organized leader.

Just out of interest, have you ever had a large empire in the late game, and failed to win? I'm not knocking Organized, but every time I have a large empire in the late game, it always seems that I am winning easily anyway, irrespective of my leader's traits.

 

[madscientist]

Just out of interest, have you ever had a large empire in the late game, and failed to win? I'm not knocking Organized, but every time I have a large empire in the late game, it always seems that I am winning easily anyway, irrespective of my leader's traits.

Good point, but how many of those games do you run without SP? Everytime I have a non-organized leader with a massive late game empire I am in SP, or I have a strongely shrined religion and several corps before the expansion.

 

[The Rook]

Good point, but how many of those games do you run without SP? Everytime I have a non-organized leader with a massive late game empire I am in SP, or I have a strongely shrined religion and several corps before the expansion.

Oh absolutely I will run SP, though my hunch is I could probably run any set of disastrous civics and still win... once I've dented enough AIs through conquest. When you have numerous cities, it is easy enough to dedicate a couple to building wealth to substitute the Organized trait. The main challenge I find at this stage is avoiding suicide through boredom, when I have about 50 cities to organize every turn, whilst knowing in the back of my mind that it probably doesn't matter whether I manage them at all.

 

[MrCynical]

Oragnaized allows a much larger and more managable empire later in the game. AT this point you should have alot more overall commerce than your surviving rivals, and thus you can tech yourself silly into space, wrodl domination, UN diplomatic win, or sit back and admire your culture. Having three tiems the number of cities versus a financial AI, yet win only a 10-20% lower slider rate will get you teching much faster.

Impressive as being able to sustain three times the number of cities sounds, it doesn't really bear much resemblance to the effect in game. You save 50% civic maintenance - what's that going to be? 200gpt on a REALLY big empire in the late game? My game isn't going to hinge on that. City maintenance is the major component (or colonial, which can be the real killer) and isn't affected by Organized.

Now there is a way that financial can have a massive empire but it requires State Property. It also eliminates an important late game item in BTS, corps! If you can have a very large empire and be financial without SP, your a better player than me because I cannot do it.

Sorry to be blunt, but this plain wrong. The saving from Organized is not going to be enough to influence civics. I rarely see it breach 3 figures, and frankly even if you take it up to 200 or 300gpt somehow, that's pocket change in the corporation era. In any case you've ignored the additional commerce from financial, and a larger empire will have more tiles boosted by it. Now add in the modifiers. Even in the largest empires, that's going to be more than Organized saves.

Now I'm always ready to advocate the strength of corporations, but they really don't vary that much between the traits. Phi makes them a bit easier to found, and Spi makes a few civics tricks with them more effective, but Org (or indeed Fin) have no real impact.

Now don't get me wrong, Organized is a solid trait. I'd be dubious about it being worth more than Financial on anything bar an early domination, but the cheap buildings put it well up there with most of the rest.

Organized is at it's best in the early phases of the game, when courthouses and lighthouses are under construction. It's handy for supporting an early rush, though it tends to be a little overrated even there. Cheap factories were a good addition to give it some value later on, but doesn't bring it up to Financial class. Courthouses and lighthouses should be in place long before the corporation era. Also the modifiers applied to commerce increase throughout the game, and there's no corresponding boost to savings. Add on gold becoming more abundant and the (relatively stagnant) savings of Organized decline sharply in value in the later stages of the game.

 

[madscientist]

Yes 200gp may not matter at the end of the game, and that's usually when you have all your markets/grocers/banks built. But the ORG civic reduction takes place the entire game, so it's more of a relative thing than an actual number. How easy is it to overexpand with financial before the factory era and faster production of those money buildings?? ORG let's you keep going giving you time to get them up.

Now I have never been one for number crunching in this game, so I cannot spit out too much there. But playing the game for 2 years, Organized is a damned strong trait.

As far as corps I agree with you pretty much, especially rearding PHIL. But my point is with late game empire size it is very hard to maintain it without SP, which eliminates the power of corps.

There are exceptions. I am playing a Shaka game on emperor where I can maintain a fairly large empire while using FM and corps but that has more to do with teh UB than anything else.

I said in my first post of this thread, I know I am in the minority but I still think ORG is the best trait. Just an opinion.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I may have missed it, but don't think anyone has mentioned inflation, and that the net savings from Organised are greater than it would seem from looking at uninflated Civic Upkeep costs.

I still prefer Financial btw, but I'd guess that one reason many players underrate Organised is that, because they only look at the raw Civic Upkeep, they don't realise just how much it saves when inflation really starts to bite.

For example:

Raw Civic Upkeep = -100gpt from treasury (-50gpt with Organised)

With 50% Inflation = -150gpt from treasury (-75gpt with Organised)

So the total saving in gpt (and thus the value of the civic at this moment) is 50% higher than you'd think if you didn't account for inflation. At 70% inflation, the saving would be 70% higher, etc.

I'd also add, with regards to MrCynical's last post, that I checked three of my recent games, and in each case my mid/late-game Civic Upkeep costs actually outweighed my City Maintenance costs (excluding corporate costs) by a significant margin.

 

[MrCynical]

For example:

Raw Civic Upkeep = -100gpt from treasury (-50gpt with Organised)

With 50% Inflation = -150gpt from treasury (-75gpt with Organised)

So the total saving in gpt (and thus the value of the civic at this moment) is 50% higher than you'd think if you didn't account for inflation. At 70% inflation, the saving would be 70% higher, etc.

Good point. Inflation can never get above 100% since the most recent patch (and generally won't get that high before the game is won), but it doe provide a somewhat hidden bonus to Organised. Still doesn't get the savings anywhere near the relevant bracket in the late game I find.

I'd also add, with regards to MrCynical's last post, that I checked three of my recent games, and in each case my mid/late-game Civic Upkeep costs actually outweighed my City Maintenance costs (excluding corporate costs) by a significant margin.

What civics are you generally running? I admit I rarely use the high upkeep civics in the later stages (though mainly because I find their effects to be weak rather than due to cost).

 

[Winston Hughes]

A couple of screenshots from one of the games I looked at:

Inflation was running at 88%. So, if my extremely hasty calculations are correct, the total saving from Organised would've been roughly 250gpt - enough to raise the science slider a notch and thus generate an extra 400 beakers per turn.

 

[madscientist]

OK, which leader and how many cities did you have in that game?

 

[Winston Hughes]

HC and 24 cities on a large map. Organised would actually have been much more helpful than Industrious here - I hardly built any wonders.

I don't know why my '# of cities' maintenance is so low, though. The value in my cities reads 6 per turn, but I can't see what that relates to in real terms. I have seen the same thing in some of my other games, but I've never looked into how the final cost is worked out.

Could it be something to do with the high levels of happiness in my cities, causing "We love the President" day? I vaguely remember someone mentioning that this reduces maintenance costs (or did I dream that?).

The game was played on Prince, btw. I fancied a break from the higher levels for some festive sandbox fun.

 

[madscientist]

OK, HC is financial explaining the high overall commerce. 24 cities is reasonable, but my point throughout the thread would be 40+ cities, then organized shines.

 

[Winston Hughes]

OK, HC is financial explaining the high overall commerce. 24 cities is reasonable, but my point throughout the thread would be 40+ cities, then organized shines.

I agree that Org is an awesome trait for warmongering victories, and I think this snapshot shows that it's still pretty damned good for any game where you build a fairly large empire (even on Prince).

But in a comparison of the two, Financial will almost always come out tops for me.

This is not to say that Fin is my favourite trait - that is, and always will be, Spiritual.

 

[xanadux]

If, in a CE game you reach a point where ORG is better than FIN, you have already won. ORG can only really surpass FIN with a large empire. You don't start with large empires. ORG must be much, much better than FIN late game to overcome the earlier game benefits of FIN because an early game edge is far more valuable than a late game edge. Time and again, someone (usually madscientist) preaches the great worth of ORG over FIN, but math>rhetoric. Although in certain very specific cases it may be true, in the majority of games, FIN is stronger.

 

[The Rook]

IMHO, Organized is less important in the late game when you have a large empire and the win is a formality anyway (there are so many ways of generating gold). I can say that I have been thankful for Organized when playing Caesar in the BC years, and have expanded beyond my means. The economy is in free fall, and I literally need to conquer cities in order to prevent my armies going on strike. When you don't have Markets (or even Currency), those cheap Courthouses can be a lifesaver.

In general I tend to favour traits (UUs and UBs too) that function well in the early game. If I consolidate a good position early on, I always seem to win. I can't ever recollect a good position slipping away because I chose weak late game traits.

If you are running a CE, I would rate Financial higher, as it is powerful all through the game, irrespective of strategy, or the size of your empire. For a SE, Financial can become almost redundant, and limited commerce has the effect of freeing the culture slider, so in this scenario I would rate Organized higher.

 

[Winston Hughes]

@xanadux

Org does come with the cheap Courthouses to speed expansion in the earlier part of the game. In a hardcore warmongering game on a single-landmass map, where maintenance costs are the main block on sweeping to early domination, this is a serious advantage. And if you consider an SE to be far superior for this kind of game (as I do), then Financial is actually pretty weak here.

But, otherwise, I'd agree with your general analysis.

 

[madscientist]

Time and again, someone (usually madscientist) preaches the great worth of ORG over FIN, but math>rhetoric.

Like I said, I am in the minority

But math only goes so far and you know it. We can talk ourselves silly with late game math, the civic upkeep at the end of the game not helping that much.

But this game is much more fluid and dynamic and cannot be tallied in a simple math equation. You have to look at the entire game as it's played out.

1)Cheap early lighthouses for food
2)Cheap classical courthouses at a time where expansion is usually stifled.
3)Ability to run expensive civics like OR, Bur, Fued, Slavery, Caste in mid-game at a time where markets/grocers/banks are real hard to build fast.
4)Ability to build fast courthouses in conquered lands to rebuild the economy.
5)Ability to industrialize faster with cheap factories.
6)Ability to stay out of SP and stay in FM for corps for large empires.


These add to your flexibility throughout the entire game. It helps not only in saved commerce for science or gald for the treasury, but gives you added options for production.

Financial offers a very big advantage that is limited to the slider. It is most powerful early on, but any financial Civ can be overcome by having more cities and you can do that with Organized.

Finally, I told the OP that there would be a slew of confusing and contradictory posts regarding FIN vs ORG