Free Market vs. State property

[insaneweasel]

If you have a large empire, which is better? From an inexperienced perspective, free market just gives you about 1-4 extra gold per city, but the state property allows greater expansion due to food bonuses, and can provide more than 1-4 gold saved from distance.

How do you determine what to use?

 

[Higher Game]

Free market is almost always superior due to corporations.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Mid game, post-astronomy, with well-developed size 10+ cities, you're looking at foreign trade routes being worth over 7 gold, the equivalent of a developed town. That is an incredible amount of commerce, considering these kinds of cities are likely to have established science/gold multiplier buildings. However, state property sacrifices a single one of those for no distance upkeep, a bit more food for some production tiles, and alot more production in general. That makes state property much much better for large sprawling empires, perfect after you've just conquered the local landmass in a renaissance rifle/cannon war.

Another thing to consider is the quality of the trade routes you obtain using free market. Look at the foreign policy advisor on F4, and look under the 'info' tab. That tells you the amount of commerce you are obtaining from all the other empires. The actual number of 's you can have with each other empire is capped by their number of cities, after a certain point, the only trade routes you can have are domestic ones. These ones are of marginal use, being worth maybe 3-4 gold, and better of exchanged for state property's bonuses. Economically speaking, state property is better for larger empires with more maintenance costs, and free market is better for smaller empires that still have growth potential with regards to potential trade routes.

Where this falls short is when corporations come into play. Corporations are awesome. As long as you have courthouses in the corp'd cities, and build the HQ in your wall street city, corporations can turn every single one of them into incredibly large and productive powerhouses. Read it up

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Free market is almost always superior due to corporations.

That's assuming you have the great person to burn on the corporation, and that you're sufficiently ahead in tech to get the corporation in the first place, and that you can spare the hammers and gold to spread the corporation.

 

[MkLh]

Free market is almost always superior due to corporations.

You need two corporations (Mining and Sushi) to make it competitive.

 

[insaneweasel]

I'm currently on Warlords...I got the gold edition, and I haven't yet bought beyond the sword.

In warlords, is free market still worth it?

 

[Fleme]

I'm a free market man myself. You can always get atleast the merchant for sushi and even a weak sushi will be superior to sp in most of your cities. Also, the hammer bonus from Mining Inc. will fast outweight the +10% SP offers given that you have an engineer for it. Personally I make a point of saving one engineer just for that purpose.

Only reason to run SP is having your empire on 2 continents and even then you can negate some of that detriment with a forbidden palace.

 

[itg]

State Property is often the better choice because it's so much simpler to set up. Pre-corporations, switching from free market to SP usually lets you raise your slider 10% instantly, and potentially more, especially if you have a large empire and/or an empire spanning multiple landmasses. SP makes workshops and watermills very strong improvements (esp. with caste system), making pretty much any grassland city capable of spitting out an infantry in 1-2 turns. And you get all this from turn 0. The bonuses of corporations are stronger, but you have to a) wait until you research the techs to found them, b) generate the right kind of great people, and c) spread them, which will cost you a lot of gold. By the time corporations overtake what state property would have given you, the game may well be over.

In warlords, assuming the civics weren't changed for BTS, state property is probably almost always best.

 

[oranje willem]

I'm a State Property man, but I think Free Market is better with Mining Inc/Sushi. But then again you can always switch back to Free Market once you get that.

 

[Framesticker]

Depends, really. On maps like Archipelago (without Snaky Continents), while there are large amounts of seafood, maintenance costs are brutal and often by going for Communism you can get a few hundred more BPT. However, on typical Continents/Hemispheres/alike maps, when your empire typically consists of a block on a continent, sharing borders with 1-3 neighbours, maintenance costs are usually negated by the power of Sushi and Mining + the discounted corp. maintenance and the free trade route.

 

[coanda]

If the game's already under control I go State Property - it's simpler. If I really can't spare the hammers right now to properly spread corporations, I'll go state property. If I'm far enough behind in tech that I can't get corporations, I'll go state property... after I finish swearing. Otherwise, free market's the way to go.

 

[Fleme]

Depends, really. On maps like Archipelago (without Snaky Continents), while there are large amounts of seafood, maintenance costs are brutal and often by going for Communism you can get a few hundred more BPT. However, on typical Continents/Hemispheres/alike maps, when your empire typically consists of a block on a continent, sharing borders with 1-3 neighbours, maintenance costs are usually negated by the power of Sushi and Mining + the discounted corp. maintenance and the free trade route.

You're looking at it all wrong. Archipelagoes are where corporations shine. For kicks, do an overkill game with Willem on an Archipelago with a specific aim for corporations. Corporations alone will make 1 tile island cities viable and throw in Dikes and you have cities that will outproduce your opponents 20 to 1. Generally speaking, islands with 3 or less cities won't have a detrimental effect on your economy because the intercontinental trade routes will negate the incurred costs from distance. Honestly, if there's any map type you wanna be a sushi-capitalist, it's archipelago.

While corporations are good on maps like hemispheres and pangaea as well since you can pretty much always get enough seafood/rice to justify sushi and vast expanses of land often have enough minerals to get you a nice yield worth a mine or two, I honestly can't see how corporations would be inferior to SP on islands. Not by any stretch of imagination.

Looking at it from a logical point of view corporations should have more power than state property. Why? Because State Property is pressing a button and reaping the benefits while in order to make corporations reach their full potential you have to invest hammers in actively spreading it and in order to maximize your yields you will also have to play the trading game more. Heck, I've found myself being much like a corporate CEO when my corporations reach a certain point (I'm talking 10-20 food, 20+ hammers) and avoiding wars at any cost because they would hurt my business. As a result, wars are waged on those who refuse to part with their fish or then I'll just pursue a diplomatic win which suits my ceo-diplo play or simply go to space with the huge production potential I have.

Corporations all the way.

Plus; Who doesn't like looking at a city and see it produce 1200 gold per turn?

 

[Framesticker]

You're looking at it all wrong. Archipelagoes are where corporations shine. For kicks, do an overkill game with Willem on an Archipelago with a specific aim for corporations. Corporations alone will make 1 tile island cities viable and throw in Dikes and you have cities that will outproduce your opponents 20 to 1. Generally speaking, islands with 3 or less cities won't have a detrimental effect on your economy because the intercontinental trade routes will negate the incurred costs from distance. Honestly, if there's any map type you wanna be a sushi-capitalist, it's archipelago.

While corporations are good on maps like hemispheres and pangaea as well since you can pretty much always get enough seafood/rice to justify sushi and vast expanses of land often have enough minerals to get you a nice yield worth a mine or two, I honestly can't see how corporations would be inferior to SP on islands. Not by any stretch of imagination.

Looking at it from a logical point of view corporations should have more power than state property. Why? Because State Property is pressing a button and reaping the benefits while in order to make corporations reach their full potential you have to invest hammers in actively spreading it and in order to maximize your yields you will also have to play the trading game more. Heck, I've found myself being much like a corporate CEO when my corporations reach a certain point (I'm talking 10-20 food, 20+ hammers) and avoiding wars at any cost because they would hurt my business. As a result, wars are waged on those who refuse to part with their fish or then I'll just pursue a diplomatic win which suits my ceo-diplo play or simply go to space with the huge production potential I have.

Corporations all the way.

You may be right - I haven't experimented much with Corps on Archipelago, or Corps at all from that matter. I'm just talking for a logical point of stand (which is, sometimes, wrong).

 

[revengeofmakno]

Generally, I like the Corporations, they can really send one over the top. However, if one is trying to maximize them by spreading them to other civs, the effort can be cut off by other people going to state property or not allowing the execs to cross the border. Sometimes, it is easier and certainly simpler to go state property especially if you are on the warpath and trying to knock of other cvs quickly.

 

[iggymnrr]

Free Market vs. State property

The short answer is ... Well, lately I've played every level from settler through immortal and used both. On a big-and-small I have used both in the same game, playing for score. Something like lib'ing in communism, to help set the stage and get the Kremlin built faster, before going nutso in a massive sushi free market whipping spree, before setting into rush buy.

 

[UncleJJ]

State Property is often the better choice because it's so much simpler to set up. Pre-corporations, switching from free market to SP usually lets you raise your slider 10% instantly, and potentially more, especially if you have a large empire and/or an empire spanning multiple landmasses. SP makes workshops and watermills very strong improvements (esp. with caste system), making pretty much any grassland city capable of spitting out an infantry in 1-2 turns. And you get all this from turn 0. The bonuses of corporations are stronger, but you have to a) wait until you research the techs to found them, b) generate the right kind of great people, and c) spread them, which will cost you a lot of gold. By the time corporations overtake what state property would have given you, the game may well be over.

Nicely put. Let me add to your list

d) Invest in a lot of extra infrastructure to add happiness and health for the 2 food corporations where extra food becomes extra pop. To run more specialists extra buildings are needed for specialist slots. In some situations this extra cost can be 1000's of hammers per city and exceed the cost of spreading the corporation by a large factor. This all delays a useful return and although corporations can eventually become more powerful for your existing cities than simply running SP that investment delays acquiring foreign assets.


Whenever you're going for a domination win or diplomatic win the advantage of SP is that you can start on it immediately. Build an army and navy and go adventuring. What the advocates of corporations don't factor in is the huge advantage gained by conquering several AI cities, some of which will be large with wonders, settled GPs and good buildings. Getting those valuable assets earlier can offset or exceed the gains from corporations by a large margin.

 

[The Almighty dF]

I go free market unless I'm going for domination, in which case I -need- state property.

 

[madscientist]

The larger the empire and more land, the more I want state property. Once your empire is that big, exploit the food aspects and watermill/workshop all those towns/farms and you will have an enormous production game. That many cities provide enough commerce from resources and trade routes to keep you fine in research and you can always build research or wealth in a few cities to make up for the lost commerce. Best thing on state property is thre is an immediate payoff.

Free Market is powerful with Corps, size does not matter much. The extra trade route can be big on coastal cities. There are two issues with Free Market and Corps, getting the Great Person (or saving them losing their help earlier) and spreading the corp (which takes time and costs gold). A larger empire means more resources and bette return but also costs alot more. HOWEVER, the return for well spread corps are quite high.

I have played both ways successfully, usually what decides matters is how desperate I am once Communism becomes available. Also the leaders with Gold producing UBs (England, Mali, America) tend to favor corps.

 

[Higher Game]

That's assuming you have the great person to burn on the corporation, and that you're sufficiently ahead in tech to get the corporation in the first place, and that you can spare the hammers and gold to spread the corporation.

If you're behind in tech, you don't want to go out of your way to research communism either. Free market sits on a much nicer, earlier tech path.

Only reason to run SP is having your empire on 2 continents and even then you can negate some of that detriment with a forbidden palace.

Yes, just make the forbidden palace on your home continent and it's easy to move the normal palace. You need 3+ big islands to worry enough about maintenance to consider state property, and if you're playing on a map like that you might get Versailles too.

 

[madscientist]

If you're behind in tech, you don't want to go out of your way to research communism either. Free market sits on a much nicer, earlier tech path.

No reason to not have both. Take free market first, then head towards, or better yet trade for communism.

Also you can get Communism first and delay economics as a castle provides that extra trade route also plus some espionage.