Government civics: when to toss God King?

[Emptiness]

Running God King, the optimal choice would be to build the Great Library in another city than your capitol, then focusing on sages in all cities (councils, libraries, alchemy labs) while focusing on merchants (with apropriate buildings) and perhaps priests in the capitol. Is this correct?

Unless I'm agnostic I usually make my capitol my science center, and then set up a gold center in the city in which my religion is founded. While in God King this is slightly inefficient, but I know I'll be switching out of God King eventually and so the capitol gold bonus will go away. Unless I were to found a religion in my capitol (which never happens) the long-term advantage of having a holy city as a gold production center outweighs the short-term bonus of a God King capitol as gold production center.

If you stay in God King for the whole game, then your way would work out okay.

 

[loffenx]

Ok, thank you. Since i prefer smaller empires I will try and leverage GK a bit more.

 

[slowcar]

i play quite aggressive and GK is not manageable when you hit more than a few cities early.
city states all the way. in the endgame i sometimes use golden ages to test a switch to republic, forces me to turn the research about 10-20% down, but sometimes it is sufficient.
city states + markets allow a very large empire without the need for developed cities, due to RoK and courthouses you can continously expand.

on immortal or deity you need to support a lot of troops, paying for maintanance, let alone the heightened of GK, is very hard then.

as for elfes running agrarnism: forests tend to give +1H, if you switch to agrarnism this hammer is lost.

GK seems more viable for a full specialist economy as the research slider can stay down and the +50% gold in the capital has a bigger impact.

 

[popejubal]

Unless I'm agnostic I usually make my capitol my science center, and then set up a gold center in the city in which my religion is founded. While in God King this is slightly inefficient, but I know I'll be switching out of God King eventually and so the capitol gold bonus will go away. Unless I were to found a religion in my capitol (which never happens) the long-term advantage of having a holy city as a gold production center outweighs the short-term bonus of a God King capitol as gold production center.

If you stay in God King for the whole game, then your way would work out okay.

You can also do exactly what you described and move the capital to the shrine city to get the best of both worlds.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Regardless of when and if to depose the God King, remember what Kael once told me, "When you strike at a king you must kill him."

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what he meant exactly, as we were both pretty wasted at the time, the waitress was demanding we settle the bill and Lovely Rachel was just about to take the stage.

 

[loffenx]

She demanded that you settle the bill right before the lady were to sing?? How rude.

 

[Kranden]

God king is pretty good, but if you are expanding and conquering fast you might want to switch to city states so you can support your newly conquered territory without losing all your tech cash.

 

[Capello_Moderno]

'ello

I am surprised to see that there is so much support for God King and Aristocracy in this thread. I'd suggest the major factor is what kind of victory, you are going for?

If you're going for cultural (whichever way you do that in FfH - haven't tried it yet), religious or 'master of magic'-style tower victory, God King or Aristocracy might be a good choice.

If you're going for domination or conquest however, I find myself to be switching from God King to City States almost as early as possible, as this seems to me to be the only way I can keep a reasonable tech level going.

City conquest yields a lot of gold, so you can research at an economic deficit but still I find I need City States if I'm expanding.

Am I missing something? I'm pretty new to FfH, so I probably am.
I Haven't tried to systematically run a GP economy while doing conquest or domination yet. Is it viable in FfH if you're not running a philosophical leader?

Best..

 

[BvBPL]

What you’re missing is that aristocracy gives +2 commerce for every farm you work. This instant commerce is frequently, but not always, superior to the reduced upkeep costs of city states.

City states do have a great deal of appeal over aristocracy when you go a’conquering in part because the AI likes to convert many plots over to cottages by the mid-game. If these are mature by the time you roll over any given kingdom, then you can use those as your commercial backbone which allows you to switch to city states and convert farms around your core cities into cottages.

Specialist economies in FFH2 are viable, but tricky and not necessarily superior to other economic systems. Consider that merchants and sages give you three gold or beakers a turn w/o other modifiers (is that right?, please correct me if I am wrong) for two food whereas aristocracy lets you convert one food into two commerce. At the most basic level, aristocracy provides 75% more commerce per food than a specialist economy. Plus, there are fewer ways to enable specialists in FFH2 than BTS and guilds comes along later than BTS’s caste system. There are ways to modify this, of course, with things like scholarship or the Great Library, but those modifiers are either world wonders, or come around relatively late in the game. Obviously the above equation does not take into account generation of Great Persons, and there are certainly civs that can make good use of a specialist economy.

I’ve been playing on a few low cohesion Erebus Continent maps lately (w/ Tholal More Naval AI mod) which has given me a better appreciation for the trade economy. More than once, I’ve started on islands w/ little freshwater, limiting my ability to create farms, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much commerce was generated from trade routes. That said, trade is probably better as an adjunct to a more typical economy than a key strategy by itself because it matures late, requires a lot of hammers to optimize, and can be run concurrently w/ other economic models. Plus, it only really works on a map w/ more than one landmass, which can be an issue w/ the FFH2 AI, although Tholal’s mod helps to make multi-landmass games more playable.

Except for some very limited circumstances, God King is a rube’s choice. The increased upkeep costs easily outpace the hammer and gold bonuses.

 

[Heathcliff]

On a plains heavy start I think citystates is a good option. Combined with an early literacy so you can build research when you need an important tech fast. But on grasslandstarts aristograrian is better.
I use to stay in Godking until I build my 5th city then I change to aristocracy or citystates.

 

[Breunor]

I often stay with god-king in the early expansion phase when getting stuff (workers, settlers, etc.) out fast was important. Then my economy crashes and I switch to city-states.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Capello_Moderno]

Sounds like what I'm doing. My shift from God King to City States would be at around 5 cities.

To be fair, I have been playing Svartalfar with FoL , so instead of huge tracts of land tilled by my peons, I've had my people live in the trees. Ancient trees.

My next game will be something different, and things will surely look more interesting Aristograrianism-wise when you're not running FoL.
I'll have to give it a try.

Best

 

[Jarrema]

Sounds like what I'm doing. My shift from God King to City States would be at around 5 cities.

To be fair, I have been playing Svartalfar with FoL , so instead of huge tracts of land tilled by my peons, I've had my people live in the trees. Ancient trees.

My next game will be something different, and things will surely look more interesting Aristograrianism-wise when you're not running FoL.
I'll have to give it a try.

Best

Try it with financial leader

 

[FreeTacos]

I need to try other stuff!

I have been playing Falamar on large Mediterranean maps at Emperor. Expansive and Charismatic, God King/Heron Throne/OO Capital. I switch civics twice, once to GK/Religion, second to Conquest/Military State after that it's all about the Stygi-spam.

It makes me building dependant for growth, usually end up with markets, gambling houses, courthouses, scientist buildings, growth buildings, temples... damn I build too much.

Oh the point ... 900 turns into marathon games with 40+ cities I might sometimes switch to republic til i can rush buy all my gambling houses, silly 's Otherwise I wonder spam with my GK-capital all game long. ( til i get a mutating mage and 4-5 levels of the tower built, then its spam zealot's, mutate, good mutates are Stygian's/Druids, bad ones are temple fodder.

Wait, what was this post about?

/edit
Yeah, so I am running a trade route economy! So sue me!
/edit2
Tectonics map/Mediterranean/Wet