How to really take advantage of spiritual no-anarchy?

[SecondGlance]

How do you take advantage of the no anarchy spiritual provides? To me, it seems totally useless because of the 5-turn-dont-switch-civics limit.

 

[Murky]

How do you take advantage of the no anarchy spiritual provides? To me, it seems totally useless because of the 5-turn-dont-switch-civics limit.

It's more useful on slower speeds where the anarchy takes longer. The cheap temples are a help on the higher levels where happiness can be a problem.

 

[SecondGlance]

It's too bad the spiritual civs get the limitation even though they weren't affected by the exploit - being able to switch civics for one turn only would have been very nice. Caste-slavery for one turn - caste, or something similar.

 

[Ammar]

Actually it can be very useful on quick speed, too. You often change only two civics at a time anyway and on both normal and quick the anarchy last one turn (almost always). In both cases you get a turn you wouldn't, but on Quick that turn is worth much more. Actually, I have the suspicion that it is least worth it on normal.

 

[DaveMcW]

Slavery unhappiness lasts 10 turns. It works out perfectly.

1 turn: Slavery pop-rush
4 turns: Slavery max-food
5 turns: Caste System

You also want Pacifism while you run Caste System, and a different religious civic to boost whatever you are pop rushing.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

You also want Pacifism while you run Caste System, and a different religious civic to boost whatever you are pop rushing.

And the XP boosters when you actually produce the thing you pop rushed (assuming the pop rush and change queue technique still works in Warlords).

 

[Conroe]

How do you take advantage of the no anarchy spiritual provides? To me, it seems totally useless because of the 5-turn-dont-switch-civics limit.

I find that I bounce around the civics a lot more when I am spiritual. I'll switch between Slavery and Serfdom a lot. Also going between OrgRel and Theocracy is a big plus as I tend to do infrastructure versus units in waves.

As for the 5 turn limit, you just have to plan ahead a bit. When switching out of Slavery, look around your empire to see what can be whipped now before you switch. After 5 or 10 turns, you may be ready for another round of whipping.

 

[carl corey]

I used to play mostly on Marathon and Epic, and just started playing on Normal. On Marathon you could get 5-6-7 turns of anarchy... That's a lot of time, if you ask me. Not sure, but I think even the "initial" change to slavery takes 2 turns. Because of this when I wasn't spiritual I planned on changing more than one civic at a time, because the extra turns added per civic aren't that much compared to a single change. That could mean twenty or even more turns without the new civic because I'm waiting for another one. If I'm spiritual I just don't care about those things and switch right away when I think I benefit from the new civic.

 

[moggydave]

When you play a game with a spiritual civ, and then one with a non-spiritual civ, you realise that the no anarchy is a huge help and convenice, but nothing more really.

 

[Pantastic]

Have you ever lost a spaceship race by a few turns? Or just had a close space race? How many total turns of anarchy did you have in that game? Each of those turns of anarchy is one more turn you could have been working towards your space ship.

Plus with spiritual you can swap civics and religions on a whim. Swap to slavery when your pop gets high, do a bunch of whips, then go back to caste system, serfdom, or emancipation without any penalty. Pop to war civics like police state, nationhood, slavery, vassalage, or theocracy when you need it, then back to your builder civics once you have enough army; you never have to decide 'is it worth losing X turns to get the bonus on these units'.

 

[Salah al-Din]

I find it very helpfull, I'm always switching between organized and theocracy, nationhood, bueracracy and free speech. For a player who wants to squeeze the civics for what they are worth it makes it worth it. Afterall, the benefits of a any change are mitigated by the lost production turns for most civs.

 

[jimbob27]

I find I always play specific "periods" with spiritual civs. I'll have 20 turns of producing building and researching as quicky as possible, then I'll have 20 turns of building units.... then have 20 turns of war, then 20 turns of producing buildings and culture i my new cities. It almost seems to contradict the city specialisation tactics. With a normal civ, i'm researching, building units, buildings and fighting wars all the time. With spiritual civs I always find me wanting all my cities to be good all-rounders, so they're good in every "period".

 

[pi-r8]

Have you ever lost a spaceship race by a few turns? Or just had a close space race? How many total turns of anarchy did you have in that game? Each of those turns of anarchy is one more turn you could have been working towards your space ship.

Plus with spiritual you can swap civics and religions on a whim. Swap to slavery when your pop gets high, do a bunch of whips, then go back to caste system, serfdom, or emancipation without any penalty. Pop to war civics like police state, nationhood, slavery, vassalage, or theocracy when you need it, then back to your builder civics once you have enough army; you never have to decide 'is it worth losing X turns to get the bonus on these units'.

Oh cmon, you can't just view spiritual as "a few extra turns that you would have lost", you have to consider the trade off. If you had a different trait instead of spiritual, it would have been effective every turn, not just when you're switching civics. That could easily add up to more than a few turns of productivity.

I completely agree with your second point though.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Here's an older thread on a similar topic
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169716

 

[Gnarfflinger]

Basically, you run the most useful civs at the time you need them then switch when you want to fire up the war machine, and switch right bgack whent eh war is over...

 

[methane]

I agree with many others here that you switch civs far more often when you're spiritual...go beauracracy/organized religion to race a wonder out in your capital...go serfdom when you first research railroads...go nationalism/theocracy when Monty launches a massive surprise attack naval landing in your territory...go vassalage/theocracy once you switch to the offensive...etc.

I don't think I've seen it mentioned that spiritual is the best diplomatic trait. You'll rarely aquiesce to the demand to switch to another civs religion/favorite civic if you're not spiritual. If you are spiritual, however, it can frequently be worth the +2 swing in relations (you don't get a -1 and do get a +1) to switch for 5 turns.

 

[aelf]

The higher the difficulty level, the more valuable Spiritual becomes because those few turns matter a lot more. And you can't see the benefit of Spiritual as just saving you a few turns. You are also benefitting from the civics that you can, without fear, switch to temporarily. If I am playing as a non-Spiritual civ, I would not, for example, be inclined to keep switching between Theocracy and OR depending on what my cities are building because that would cost me many (not just a few) turns of anarchy. As a Spiritual civ, however, I can always be benefiting from either Theocracy or OR.

However, I think Spiritual is not necessarily the best diplomatic trait. If you want to win by non-backdoor diplomacy, what makes the biggest difference would be your religion and your permanent civics at the end. While switching to Mercantilism might save you that -1 from Tokugawa in mid game, he probably still won't vote for you in the end when you are no longer using that civic and the entire world is running Free Religion. And shared civic bonus takes time to accumulate, that's why I said permanent civic at the end of the game. You need to be running US for some time before Freddy signs that Defensive Pact with you, netting you +6 diplomatic points in total, and switching to something else will lose you the shared civic bonus entirely and might prompt him to cancel the pact. So the ability to choose what civic to eventually stick to is important for diplomatic victory, and the ability to switch to any civic at any time much less so.

 

[uncarved block]

Pantastic, you don't even have to go all the way to the end game. Beating the AI to a key tech like Steel can make the difference between staying even in techs or falling behind-- Sisiutil traded Steel for five or six techs in one of his ALC games, IIRC.

As with everything else in Civ4, I guess it depends on the level. On Noble, Spiritual is more of a luxury, since you're often ahead of the AI in techs anyway. On Monarch, however, I'll take aelf's word for it that all those lost turns can really hurt you. And cheap Temples must be handy when your cities are cutting off at pop 5 or 6 because of unhappiness.

Think of Industrious as a counter-example. On lower levels, you can really use it to snag Wonders and buttress your armies and cities; on Monarch, I imagine, things get a lot dicier, and on Deity it's a wasted trait. Horses for courses, as an old saying goes . . .

 

[aelf]

Well, Industrious can get you a key wonder on Emperor and above. That could make some difference.