How would you balance the civics?

[ArchGhost]

Anyway, the game isn't going to be updated any time soon, so we have the civics we have, and for the most part I think they are good. The only one that truly stands out negatively is Serfdom.

Could you as a more experienced player enlighten me about the benefits of Environmentalism? I never see any reason to consider switching to it; State Property is obviously very powerful immediately, Corps + Free Market stronger in the long run, and could you not just grow enough with Sushi spread + Free Market if you wanted to win UN? Or is it meant to be combined with Corps for maximum size? I don't play many UN games (seems kind of like a cop out ) but it seems like it would be very painful to run a domestically spread Corporation in anything other than Free Market, let alone a civic that goes the complete other direction and makes the more expensive.

I get Serfdom being bad, it's pretty much never in a position where it's better than one of the other civics depending on the stage of the game; you'd get more use out of the Hagia lol. Mercantilism is another I struggle to ever justify, but I don't think I've ever played a truly isolated game with the the built in map scripts. Sounds pretty sexy combined with Statue of Liberty and Representation?


Some of the others I don't freely use a whole lot but I understand their benefits in certain situations:
Police State I find useful for raising armies in Caste, especially in very large empires (I expand a lot) or for long, constant warfare where I'm not concerned about defending at home. You honestly don't need it with Slavery, though it boosts the whip power in wartime. It's just sadly kind of tied up in building/capturing the Mids to really get any good use out of it before Universal Suffrage + Caste + State Property overshadows it, because it comes so late otherwise.

Free Religion has the unadvertised benefit of neutralizing religious modifiers to diplomacy, which can be quite nice by itself. The small research bonus and potential happiness net gain (with 2 or more religions to give more happy than a state religion) make it a worthwhile consideration if there's not something specific you need your religion cities to do.

Though I never use it, I also understand the niche that Nationhood fits into. Drafting can be powerful with the right units, and can be combined with Slavery+ Police State/Universal Suffrage (if these are applicable) to raise armies insanely fast.

 

[Pangaea]

Admittedly I don't often use Environmentalism either, because as you mention, SP or Free Market is usually more alluring. But it has its place and can be good in the right context. You gain lots of extra health and commerce, which isn't a bad thing post-factories+coal plants. One type of game where it can shine more than usual is in One City Challenge, where you preserve the forests for a good National Park city (free specialists). That way you get good commerce out of the forest preserves as well as extra health, which is typically a problem in OCC games because you don't control enough resource to trade for happy+health. Of course, with National Park, health becomes a non-issue since it's your only city, but it's still a nice civic.

In 'normal' games, however, I tend to go for State Property or Free Market. Or in some cases Mercantilism, but that requires special context, where you are either isolated or have tons of land so get pretty lousy trade routes anyway because the AI don't have many cities (can easily happen on lower difficulties). In those cases it can be pretty good on the way to SP/FM. Also, it's a very nice civic in golden ages combined with Pacifism.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

State property do have the distinct disadvantage of banning corporations while environmentalism do not. And while it make them significant more expensive than free market enviromentalism health and windmill boost may still be better than free market those extra trade route may not be worth much. 6-8 health is potentially worth 3-4 extra population per city so that is something to keep in mind.

Mercantilism don't ban trade routes to vassals so in such case mercantilism is quite fine. It also ban other civs trade routes to you so they don't get any benefit either if you run mercantilism and if they run it you can as well run it because you are not going to trade with them anyway.

I think slavery is better used to build infrastructure than armies, generally the production poor cities may often be the ones that produce most science so being able to rush stuff such as universities is quite nice.

Serfdom is useful as it is the only low cost labor civic before emancipation and it is useful if you plan to change your improvements like going for cottages before emancipation or just capturing underdeveloped ai cities. Yes you can build more workers but they are not free and all workers are boosted by serfdom. It is most useful for religious civs who can switch between all labor civics thenever they need them.

Nationhood is very useful for the draft ability but don't get tricked by its espionage bonus as you will likely gain more espionage by running free speech.

Cottages are not particular good investment to let say before free speech/emancipation/universal sufferage so many players simply build them in their capital often called bureaucracy capital however after you get these and perhaps the kremlin they are probably the best improvement in every area with maybe some exception like building wonders and such, yes the 35 turn startup time is a pain but 70 turns is much worse and before free speech and printing press town is only 4 commerce.

Representation/caste system + bio farms is also quite interesting given they can use the culture slider to produce happiness and the startup time is quicker than cottages and in terms of science they may outdo cottages for a while due to cottages long startup time and potential extra great scientists but they do need large population and they are not as efficient as prime towns.

Free religion is quite a pain because the bonuses from all the other religious civics are nice. It may be best used if you go universal sufferage beacuse organized religion do not help rush buying, pacifism may not be of much use assuming you have already farmed quite a few great people and theocracy is something you can live without. Happiness is a problem for universal sufferage because cottages don't work well with culture slider and monarchy can't be used which mean every source of happiness become very valuable. The science bonus is also nice but not as nice as what the other religious civics give.

 

[Archon_Wing]

You can use Environmentalism to bloat your population for a diplomatic win. It's an obscure situation but it can happen.

Mercantilism plus vassals sounds nice on paper, but it's really not that great because late game 1 specialist isn't worth that much. One exception is if your empire is extremely huge and the land is bad.

Free religion is quite a pain because the bonuses from all the other religious civics are nice.

What bonuses though? Organized Religion isn't that great after the early game because all the buildings are in place, and most wonders go by the time liberalism hits. Pacifism costs too much if you have an army, but I suppose it could be good for culture and sometimes space wins. So it comes down to Theocracy for Military, and FR for diplomacy, happiness, and research. Often times even when i do a religion strategy, I end up in FR so diplomacy is easier.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Mercantilism plus vassals sounds nice on paper, but it's really not that great because late game 1 specialist isn't worth that much. One exception is if your empire is extremely huge and the land is bad.

Mercantilism do however have the advantage of not effecting your own coorperation. It don't ban them like state property and they are cheaper to run under mercantilism than they are under environmentalism.

Organized Religion isn't that great after the early game because all the buildings are in place, and most wonders go by the time liberalism hits.

Organized religion is useful up to atleast universities if not longer. It work very nice with slavery due to the hammer multipliers. Its main problem is its high upkeep and inflexibility of bonus.

Pacifism costs too much if you have an army, but I suppose it could be good for culture and sometimes space wins.

Pacifism is very strong during the mid part of the game when great people are still relative cheap and I have not found pacifism unit cost too problematic, the civic itself have no upkeep. It do however get weaker the more great people you have generated as the cost of the next one get more expensive.

To some point specialist are pretty much the best type of employement just due to great people. I mean the first great person cost 100. A great scientist can generate 1500 science with its bulb so simple math tell us a great person point would be worth 1500/100 = 15 science and a scientist specialist generate 3 great people points per turn so a single scientist in such case would be worth 45 science per turn just from the great people points. Pretty much nothing can compete with that but it don't last all to long as the great people points quickly fall in value as great people increase in cost.

 

[Robo-Star]

Organized religion is useful up to atleast universities if not longer.

Free Religion isn't available, up to at least universities, if not longer.
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[ztrapon]

Pacifism should enable Missionaries to pass through rival territory.

Hereditary Rule should have a maximum happiness cap.

Serfdom gives +1 gold from Plantation and Farms in K-Mod, I like that addition.

Slavery should not be a civic, but instead a game mechanic that becomes obsolete with maybe Liberalism (to encourage players to not stick with it too long). I like Slavery but it overshadows all the other civics until late game Emancipation, it would be more interesting to have something else.

Maybe:

Hunter-Gatherer
+1 commerce from Plains.
Jungle yields production when chopped.
Double production of Scouts and Explorers. (lol)

 

[Windsor]

Free Religion isn't available, up to at least universities, if not longer.
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[Archon_Wing]

Slavery should not be a civic, but instead a game mechanic that becomes obsolete with maybe Liberalism (to encourage players to not stick with it too long). I like Slavery but it overshadows all the other civics until late game Emancipation, it would be more interesting to have something else.

Now that's an idea I could get along with.

It should become unavailable if you research emancipation.

 

[Lexicus]

Slavery should not be a civic, but instead a game mechanic that becomes obsolete with maybe Liberalism (to encourage players to not stick with it too long). I like Slavery but it overshadows all the other civics until late game Emancipation, it would be more interesting to have something else.

But slavery is way better than emancipation?

 

[Windsor]

Emancipation is an interesting civic. If it became available at Bronze Working like slavery it would be the best civic.

I wonder if moving it to constitution would make rushing it viable.

 

[Lexicus]

I dunno, maybe it's because I really only play war games but I literally never switch out of slavery even when emancipation is available.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Nationhood is very useful for the draft ability but don't get tricked by its espionage bonus as you will likely gain more espionage by running free speech.

You also shouldn't overlook that Nationhood is upkeep free, so for larger civs especially the money you save on upkeep can often make up for or even overshadow the extra commerce for Towns.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The reason to switch to emancipation is if you get overwhelmed by unhappiness from not adopting it. Depending on the game, this may never happen.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

You also shouldn't overlook that Nationhood is upkeep free, so for larger civs especially the money you save on upkeep can often make up for or even overshadow the extra commerce for Towns.

Yes that is true but it is generally still inferior to free speech for economy although it is not tied down to cottages like free speech so if you use bio farms (which are good for drafting due to fast growth), rep and caste system nationhood is far superior to free speech.

The reason to switch to emancipation is if you get overwhelmed by unhappiness from not adopting it. Depending on the game, this may never happen.

The cost of emancipation is too much for just the few unhappy faces. You must make heavy use of cottages or else you should stay in slavery/serfdom/caste. Emancipation do hower make cottages alot better as you will have gained something like 140 extra commerce per cottage during 70 turns over not using emancipation.

If it became available at Bronze Working like slavery it would be the best civic.

Neither slavery nor emancipation are best civics because each civilization run 5 civics at a time. Slavery is very useful as it give a way for production poor cities to produce things however it is not free to use. Serfdom and emancipation suffer from that their bonuses are not as visable as slavery and caste system but they do exist.

Serfdom is probably the most difficult one to use as it require you to take advantage of boosted workers. Its power is most noticed in open maps (large maps with few civs) as you have alot of development to do on such maps. Other than that it is really about either building more improvements or switiching improvements like between mines and windmills depending on what you currently need. Like with serfdom it is easier/cheaper to build alot of farms during a cities growth period and then replace them with stuff such as workshops or cottages as it is far easier to maintain a population level than growing a population.

But slavery is way better than emancipation?

Not always. Slavery is generally poor use if you have large cities with well developed tiles as the people you lose from slavery would have otherwise produced alot of stuff you now miss. Eventually you may be better of working mines and workshops than using slavery. Emancipation is at its best then you have large enough cities that slavery become unwanted and too expensive great people to exploit caste system in such situations cottages are really good as a good town is really good for both science and production (if you build the Kremlin but still decent without it).

In terms of science I think only specalist (with great people) can beat a good town and in terms of production a town is around as good as a workshop.

 

[ArchGhost]

Not always. Slavery is generally poor use if you have large cities with well developed tiles as the people you lose from slavery would have otherwise produced alot of stuff you now miss. Eventually you may be better of working mines and workshops than using slavery. Emancipation is at its best then you have large enough cities that slavery become unwanted and too expensive great people to exploit caste system in such situations cottages are really good as a good town is really good for both science and production (if you build the Kremlin but still decent without it).

Yes, but isnt that precisely why Slavery is available at Bronze Working i.e. very early? Simply working Workshops isn't comparable to Slavery until at least Guilds and then only in Caste for the 2nd boost; working mines before that point requires the kind of food surplus you could just whip into hammers anyway (though a mine is a lot more justifiable as you can't farm a hill/it doesn't compete for flatland/they are just as efficient without needing a civic/tech boost). This point of "eventually" moving to working tiles instead of whipping you allude to could be rather quick (pick up Guilds and bulb Chemistry early) or very late (State Property + Caste switch). If you're not going to bother with workshops until as late as SP I don't see any competition--at all-- with Slavery until the point you have Democracy and can actually start growing Emancipation cottages, which is another point that varies based on how aggressive you want to pursue war, tech rate, how focused on GP you are, etc.

I'm sure it's just a personal thing, and I am by no means very experienced with this game especially at higher levels, but I hate putting cottages down in place of any spot a farm can go AT LEAST until Emancipation comes unless my leader is FIN....Slavery is that powerful for expanding, creating infrastructure, raising armies, etc, Caste and the GP it can grant are, as you point out, better for teching through the early-middle part of the game by far. One can also only whip to get important infrastucture/expansion done and then use Caste+Philo to tech, it works very well if you can set it up quickly. Designated cottage cities or tricks like running Caste just for a bit to get some important bulbs done before swapping back to the whip (in this case you wouldn't bother with Guilds/Chemistry) can get me through up until the point I need to start thinking about pursuing a late game option like SP+Caste or Suffrage+Speech+Emancipation.

In terms of science I think only specialist (with great people) can beat a good town and in terms of production a town is around as good as a workshop.

Yeah, there's no doubting that (fully improved) riverside Towns are the eventual most powerful improvement overall in terms of final yield as a total.. In terms of production power though I'm not so sure they out-do full workshops, especially considering how much more quickly you can get them in place (bulb Chemistry, which can be done immediately after Printing Press; the AIs always tech Guilds and Engineering quickly so trading should be an option), you don't have to finish growing a workshop, and the fact you can only use a Town's full production power at 0% slider.

In a best case scenario, a FIN town in US is +9 gold at 0% + 1 hammer and either +2/3 food or +1/2 food with +1 hammer. We're not gonna whip, so that food can't be counted for production even if the surplus contributes to another pop, so we're looking at what, 3h + 1h + maybe 1 more hammer for +4/5 hammers under US without the Kremlin and/or gold boosters? And it has to be grown to reach that point? At least they are more sustainable than +4/+5 workshops without State Property. The part that always gets me is again, for the purposes of production, a Town is only practical at 0% slider, and nothing boosts the raw commerce yield except the one-ctiy-only Bureaucracy.. . Workshops will let you still run any slider level you want, and can be made 10% more effective with SP. The speed with which you can get Towns in place (such as if you grew them from very early on) is likewise meaningless if you can't convert their commerce yield into production without US, so for productive purposes they are kind of slaved to the speed with which you can get Democracy (obviously Mids would be a great boon instead).

I'm not arguing that the whole late game Towns everywhere thing isn't better than "hammer economy" with workshops in SP+Caste-- I KNOW cottaging is stronger, economically, overall. But in terms of production for building space parts or raising armies to go stomp, I just don't see it at least without abusing corps which said SP workshops can't utilize. And there is the factor of reliability; you can get workshops in place for decent yields(+3/+4 hammers, CoL and Guilds) quicker than you can get Democracy to grow up Towns, and work them for all those turns until you get US. I've done both and the speed with which you can get to this point (bulbing helps) allowing me to end the game faster is always a major boon. Not much can stand up to the macroproductiion of a fully upgraded workshop infrastructure, whether you're using Cuirs, Rifles or even Cannons (overkill much) at that point.

Feel free to set me straight, BTW, these are just my own observations and experiences with the game and like so many new-ish players here (about 1 year under my belt now) I'm always learning and I want to! It's pretty clear you've got a bit of experience on me.

 

[rah]

Since I"m usually running to a dom or conquest victory, slavery is the easiest way to deal with conquered cities down the stretch. It's good to whip out those extra reinforcements closer to the front while also dealing with the unhappiness.

 

[Lexicus]

Since I"m usually running to a dom or conquest victory, slavery is the easiest way to deal with conquered cities down the stretch. It's good to whip out those extra reinforcements closer to the front while also dealing with the unhappiness.

The other thing is that while slavery may not get as many raw hammers as fully-developed modern age cities whipping still gets you them units instantly.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Yes, but isnt that precisely why Slavery is available at Bronze Working i.e. very early?

Yes slavery is very useful just because it comes so early. It is of particular value to build infrastructure in food rich production poor cities. These cities tend to be the best onces for commerce/specialist so they have alot to gain from infrastructure but without slavery they can't build it and workshops at the time are quite poor.

If you want to exploit slavery in the late game you should build alot of small cities (slave camps) which have very small population (like 6 or 8). With the Kremlin each whiped pop give 45 hammers and that is then multiplied so with all normal production buildings you get +100% production which mean a 3 pop whip give 270 hammers and a 4 pop whip give 360 hammers. However even in such case they are inferior to workshops

However you are generally going to want to use caste system/pacifism to farm great people as they have such good yields, far better than cottages and that is at the time then towns are 70 turns for 4 commerce. Two grassland farms can support one specialist and with pacifism you get atleast 6 great people points (gpp). A great scientist bulb give 1500 base science (can be less depending on tech cost). However even if you pay 1500 gpp for 1500 science, a one to one ratio a scientist will give you 6 science from gpp and 3 science from being a scientist so a total of 9 science per turn or 4.5 science per grassland farm or slightly more if you count in the multiplier buildings such as library. A town around that time can give 5 science but the 70 turn wait time greatly reduce their values and early great people are alot cheaper than 1500 gpp and even if you don't get the full 1500 science you can still often get atleast 500 science for a cheap 100-200 gpp which is still a ridiculous good ratio.

In my opinion cottages seldom make sense before democracy, specialists offers better values for a long time and growing cottages take away resources you could have otherwise spent on building up your empire which is very important in the early game. A few cottages may be needed for the gold per turn as they are even early on one of the better ways to get gold per turn and they work nice with bureaucracy but scientist seems to be superior way to generate science during the first half of the game or so.

If you plan the game well you could have milked out both slavery and caste system before you can use emancipation and then it may just become the next step in your economy development.

A non fin town is 7 commerce and 1 production at its best so with the kremlin you get 1 hammer for every two gold so such town could produce about 4.5 hammers a turn vs a workshop 4 hammers per turn however it is far more complicated because both town and workshop lock your civics which effect alot of stuff. Workshop don't have any growth time and hammer purchase have poorer ratio for certain things such as wonders. On the other hand towns beat workshops in all resources you use commerce for such as science by a huge margine in the long run.

 

[Archon_Wing]

he cost of emancipation is too much for just the few unhappy faces. You must make heavy use of cottages or else you should stay in slavery/serfdom/caste. Emancipation do hower make cottages alot better as you will have gained something like 140 extra commerce per cottage during 70 turns over not using emancipation.

Well, by that time the majority of my cities are fully grown (making slavery inefficient) and can churn anything out in a few turns so I care more about happiness limiting what I can do. I just don't want any negative effects. Granted this is a civic that I never switch to on my own, but usually in tandem with something else; typically state property or something.

Ironically, emancipation isn't actually that great for cottages since they should be long set up before you manage to get that though I guess it's nice if you capture the AIs cities as they love random cottages.