Financial vs. Organized

[futurehermit]

organized has gone down a notch in my mind in bts because you can't whip a courthouse for 2 pop the turn a city comes out of revolt like you used to in vanilla and warlords. the same thing applies for the first turn you assign a courthouse in one of your cities. you have to build it for a turn before you can whip it for 2 pop.

this may not seem like much, but in a heavy warmongering game over the course of many captured cities early on, this is a heavy blow to an already mediocre (mid-tier) trait.

organized is a nice trait, but imo is not as strong as financial. it's a mid-tier trait.

 

[xanadux]

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

A friendly slam at you mad. I agree that ORG has its uses, it is very nice on coast heavy maps and for conquest. It can be argued that ORG is a better companion to PHI than FIN. But if you average all games, and over all traits to accompany it, ORG is weaker than FIN. But I do concede that for some uber-warmongers ORG could possibly be better.

The half-price civics upkeep is never going to keep up with the advantage of FIN. The big question is whether the cheap lighthouses, courthouses, and factories help turn the tide. Lighthouses only help on water maps, or on maps where you have many coastal cities. Factories can almost be disregarded because it will be a rare game that cheap factories make a difference between winning and losing. Courthouses, IMO, are overrated. Without ORG, courthouses should usually be delayed a long time. With ORG, they become marginally better than alternative builds. The big advantage is being able to whip them cheaply in newly conquered cities. But of course, that requires slavery. So ORG is weaker in this respect combined with PHI. That's because Caste System is much better for a PHI leader. ORG is not a bad trait, but in general, I really think it is silly to suggest that over the spectrum of all possible games it is better than FIN.

 

[Artichoker]

Each city can build a building only once (except in the case that city gets captured).

Assuming that each city builds a building at most one time, the benefit gained from this trait, or traits that give bonuses to other buildings, is related to both the hammer cost of the building and the likelihood you will build that building early.

Barracks score high on the likelihood part, but their cheap hammer cost means that non-agressive civs can still easily build them. Courthouses are at least as likely as Barracks to be built early (assuming you have the technology). The difference is that the hammer cost makes the ORG trait more useful by applying the savings to a greater hammer amount.

Courthouses are not overpriced. Unlike other buildings, courthouses reduce inflation by reducing city maintenance. This affects play not only in the immediate future, but the long-term future as well. That's a dual benefit that has to be considered, and being able to make them cheaper makes them highly favorable to other buildings for an ORG civ.

 

[futurehermit]

If you're never going to build a cottage then organized is probably better.

 

[Hereditary Rule]

... but any financial Civ can be overcome by having more cities and you can do that with Organized.

You can also achieve those cities with Aggressive, Protective (gunpowder era), Charismatic, Imperialistic (faster land grab, GG's), or a good UU.

In all seriousness though, I agree with a lot of your points on ORG. It was one of the first traits I really liked because I always found myself warmongering around the time courthouses come online. Recently I've enjoyed the half priced factories to catch up and win a close space race.

Though if cities are the ultimate key to victory, it would seem, "land is power"

 

[oyzar]

organized has gone down a notch in my mind in bts because you can't whip a courthouse for 2 pop the turn a city comes out of revolt like you used to in vanilla and warlords. the same thing applies for the first turn you assign a courthouse in one of your cities. you have to build it for a turn before you can whip it for 2 pop.

this may not seem like much, but in a heavy warmongering game over the course of many captured cities early on, this is a heavy blow to an already mediocre (mid-tier) trait.

organized is a nice trait, but imo is not as strong as financial. it's a mid-tier trait.

You could not do this in vanilla... And it still works the same! You just get control over what happen the first turn after you get out of revolt instead of not! The same damn whipping rules apply in bts as in warlords.. If you could whip for 2 pop in warlords/vanilla you can in bts. If you starve down to 3 pop first in bts you would have done the same thing in warlords/vanilla...

 

[cabert]

You could not do this in vanilla... And it still works the same! You just get control over what happen the first turn after you get out of revolt instead of not! The same damn whipping rules apply in bts as in warlords.. If you could whip for 2 pop in warlords/vanilla you can in bts. If you starve down to 3 pop first in bts you would have done the same thing in warlords/vanilla...

wrong
in vanilla and warlords, if you assigned a building before the city came out of revolt, you got some production (and other things, like culture) done on the last turn of revolt (at the cost of 1 pop that starved, very often).
Thus you could whip a courthouse for 2 pop if you were size 4 after this starvation (and organized).

Even better, in vanilla you could chop a few hammers into different items while the city was revolting, and thus whip multiple items on the first turn after revolt without the "no hammer invested" penalty. My favourite was to chop for a partial courthouse, chop for a partial granary, then assign a theatre. On the first turn, you whip 2 pop away for the theatre, 2 or 3 (depending on organized or not) for a courthouse, whip 1 or 2 (depending on the value of the chop and expansive or not) for the granary. After turn 1, you get the granary, after turn 2 you get the courthouse, after turn 3 you get the theatre, all this at the cost of 5 to 7 pop points and 3 unhappiness for 30 turns.

 

[TheTemplar]

Organized is the way to go, definately. I rarely use financial, as it is a long term benefit. I always go Julius Caesar, as he is Organized and Expansive, which both give bonuses to expansion and conquest.

 

[oyzar]

wrong
in vanilla and warlords, if you assigned a building before the city came out of revolt, you got some production (and other things, like culture) done on the last turn of revolt (at the cost of 1 pop that starved, very often).
Thus you could whip a courthouse for 2 pop if you were size 4 after this starvation (and organized).

Even better, in vanilla you could chop a few hammers into different items while the city was revolting, and thus whip multiple items on the first turn after revolt without the "no hammer invested" penalty. My favourite was to chop for a partial courthouse, chop for a partial granary, then assign a theatre. On the first turn, you whip 2 pop away for the theatre, 2 or 3 (depending on organized or not) for a courthouse, whip 1 or 2 (depending on the value of the chop and expansive or not) for the granary. After turn 1, you get the granary, after turn 2 you get the courthouse, after turn 3 you get the theatre, all this at the cost of 5 to 7 pop points and 3 unhappiness for 30 turns.

Yes... This is the same mechanic as in bts cept you "come out of revolt" 1 turn earlier but nothing actually happens that turn so it works just as if it was the last turn of revolt from vanilla warlords. Abusing the whip/chopping in vanilla cause it is buggy is an entiery different thing and doesn't have anything to do with this. Futurehermit for some reason though he could whip courthouses from smaller cities before which is not the case...

About the main topic i find financial to be alot stronger than organized most of the time with my playstyle and settings(organized is largely useless in multilayer given that you almost never want courthouses).

 

[cabert]

Yes... This is the same mechanic as in bts cept you "come out of revolt" 1 turn earlier but nothing actually happens that turn so it works just as if it was the last turn of revolt from vanilla warlords. Abusing the whip/chopping in vanilla cause it is buggy is an entiery different thing and doesn't have anything to do with this. Futurehermit for some reason though he could whip courthouses from smaller cities before which is not the case...

About the main topic i find financial to be alot stronger than organized most of the time with my playstyle and settings(organized is largely useless in multilayer given that you almost never want courthouses).

agreed and agreed.

 

[futurehermit]

Hmm...I always thought that in vanilla and/or warlords that when i hit size 4 I could whip a courthouse for 2 pop. Maybe I'll have to go back to them and just re-experience it for myself. Regardless, even I am wrong, that wrong assumption is what I really valued organized for and now I value it less

 

[alex sword]

mechadamuramu:

When I started playing Civ IV, I tried to find out what the "best leader" and what "the best trait combination" is. Later I came to an idea that "best leader" choice depends on the strategy you chosen. So I started looking for the "best strategy". SE/CE/HE... I even created (tried to create) some mega-Excel sheet which would tell when switch from farms to cottages. But trying to create such a mega-excel, I understood that too many factors involved and some of them:
- which resources do you have?
- how many and which neighbors do you have?
- which continents do you have?
etc etc

And the "best strategy choice" should consider all these factors.

Now I am playing random huge maps and random leaders and I am not using any "best strategy". I am playing Emperor, win about 50% of games and have a lot of fun. The strategy choice should depend on what you've. Last game I played Kublay Khan. Traits - aggressive + creative, you may consider them looser traits but they are great if you use them right way. I did not build any single cottage before 1AD but had a lot of cottages. How? I just captured tens of them annihilating my "financial" neighbors and moving my capital to one of them (to reduce maintenance).

What is my point? Forget about best traits. Forget about best strategies. Just play random maps and randoms leaders instead and make a decision depending on the situation you've.

 

[Artichoker]

I'm still leaning toward the Organized camp.

With Financial, you get the commerce bonus but no production bonus. With Organized, you get the civics savings bonus AND the production bonus.

Now, I don't know about other people, but I find Vassalage to be a rather strong civic. Even Bureacracy, which I often prefer over Vassalage, also is a high-upkeep civic. You can get either of these at a lesser cost than a medium-upkeep civic, compared to a non-Organized civ.

The production bonus gives you half-cost Courthouses and Lighthouses.
With the Courthouses especially, it reduces the cost from 160 hammers to 80 hammers. That's a saving of 80 hammers, once you build the Courthouse! Even the Creative trait, with its discount towards Libraries, Colosseums, Theatres, and Universities will not give that high a discount so quickly, since it will be less likely to build so many buildings in a short time. Courthouses, however, are useful for all kinds of cities, regardless of their specialization (although their usefulness in the capital may be a bit lower). It's not like the situation where Universities are less useful in some cities because they have a much lower commerce. Maintenance costs, on the other hand, apply to cities on a more universal scale.

Imagine having an Organized, Agressive leader. Currently, there is none. But imagine what you could do with one. You could have all of the early attacking capability of an Agressive civ, in addition to the cheap infrastructure (from civics discounts and courthouse discounts), which you build in the wake of military production of a war.

Napoleon is often praised as a great leader to have for warmongering (even though I haven't tried him myself) because of Organized, Charismatic traits.

 

[DrJambo]

Financial is much more restrictive. You have to be working those 2+ commerce tiles to reap the benefit. That means coastal cities or cities with cottages or commerce resources, neither of which generally provides any production. Plus, if you're running 100% research then financial doesn't help one iota with maintenance and other REX limiting things.

In contrast, Organised just exists. You don't have to play in any particular way to reap the benefits. In that respect it allows much greater flexibility. Organised targets straight at gold expenses and therefore is completely independent from the sliders. Again more flexibility, particularly in the early stages.

 

[Artichoker]

Financial is much more restrictive. You have to be working those 2+ commerce tiles to reap the benefit. That means coastal cities or cities with cottages or commerce resources, neither of which generally provides any production. Plus, if you're running 100% research then financial doesn't help one iota with maintenance and other REX limiting things.

In contrast, Organised just exists. You don't have to play in any particular way to reap the benefits. In that respect it allows much greater flexibility. Organised targets straight at gold expenses and therefore is completely independent from the sliders. Again more flexibility, particularly in the early stages.

To set things straight for both sides, you could have 100% research for a non-financial civ, and 90% research for a financial civ. The 90% financial civ will probably give you more beakers, even though you're running at a lower science rate. And you'd still come away with extra gold in your pocket from the 10% gold rate.

As far as flexibility goes, your argument is valid regarding what kind of tiles are worked by your cities. But regarding the money/research/culture sliders, financial provides its benefit regardless of your slider rates, so you still have the flexibility to move them up and down.


To correct my earlier comment about the Creative trait, they don't get a bonus for Universities--that belongs to Philosophical. But that makes my argument even stronger. With Creative, all you get is a +2 culture bonus, in addition to a production bonus for Libraries, Theatres, and Colosseums.

Now, let's do the math here. The standard cost for these buildings is pretty high (I don't have the exact numbers with me). However, the Colosseum's true value is often very marginal, since you can often replace the happiness with extra resources combined with a Market. The Theatre, while very valuable for culture, is less significant when taken in context with the Creative trait's +2 culture bonus.

With courthouses, the gold saved from having them is completely additive with the civics discount, since you can always divert the extra gold toward a higher research rate, thus netting you faster technology. The hammer cost saved for the Courthouse is high compared to many other traits' building discounts--with the sole exception, of course, of the Industrious trait, if you build a lot of wonders.

 

[xanadux]

If you're never going to build a cottage then organized is probably better.

This is a key point. If you are working a lot of cottages, coast squares, or calendar resources, then FIN is king. If you aren't then ORG will be better.

 

[xanadux]

Organized is the way to go, definately. I rarely use financial, as it is a long term benefit. I always go Julius Caesar, as he is Organized and Expansive, which both give bonuses to expansion and conquest.

I must disagree. FIN is more a short term benefit than a long term benefit. It has the best % benefit early game when you have 2 or 3 commerce tiles that become 3 or 4 commerce tiles. ORG is the long term benefit, and FIN is more the short term benefit.

 

[Gliese 581]

For the people claiming that financial only gives you value late game, consider this:

You have just built your capital, your first two builds are work boats.. you work the seafood tiles. Voila.. 15 commerce instead of 13, shaving a couple of turns of your early techs. These techs are utilized as soon as you get them and allows you to get some new techs earlier or another benefit.. it can have a snowball effect.
It's also pretty good if you want to go for an early religion, esp. on higher levels.

Edit: Especially compared to organized this has to be a strong benefit early, what benefit does organized give you EARLY? I dare say absolutely none. Organized is at its best in the midgame from my experience.

 

[madscientist]

As a fan of ORG, I must say that financial is a very stronge trait that is overpowering early on and levels out later in the game. It is still powerful late, but not as overpowering as it is early in the game.

In all the fun of this thread, I will say I very much value to power of the financial trait. I like all of the trait, even the less useful protective and Imperialistic as they have their uses.

I will say this, each trait has it's uses based on the map.:

Pangea with agressive AIs, I think org is best because your gonna need land and stay ahead in techy.

On a water heavy board, financial is king. For any who followed my Willem RPC game, you saw why. On the other hand, if lanlocked with few useful rivers financial offers little.

Agressive and protective are dead ends techs pretty much if you are isolated to one land mass (even if you have communication with other AIs). You'll still war but the need of those traits are a lot less, as your wars will be defensive naval, or very agressive short amphibious ones.

Philosophical is rather poor if you cannot get enough specialists early because of limited food.

Industrious is week if you cannot build early due to low production or alot of jungles.

I could go on and on, but my point is there are times where a trait has very limited uses and other times where you can exploit all it's benefits.

 

[The Rook]

I must disagree. FIN is more a short term benefit than a long term benefit. It has the best % benefit early game when you have 2 or 3 commerce tiles that become 3 or 4 commerce tiles. ORG is the long term benefit, and FIN is more the short term benefit.

I prefer the term "early benefit" to "short term" benefit. Short term implies the benefit will run out. However, if Financial helps you get off to a good start, the advantage will stay with you the rest of the game.