In Defense of Organized

[eumaies]

Hello,

Conventional wisdom seems to be that organized is the weakest civ trait -- and the arguments comparing it as having less impact than financial are clear.

But I'm beginning to find that it really isn't that bad -- in fact it's become one of my favourites. Consider,

1) The money bonus is the smallest part of organized. at 10-25 saved per turn in the mid-late game this seems to pale in comparison to the overall boost of financial. But because this is all pure cash, it is actually worth more than it appears. you can keep your tech up by about +10% with this, because the relatively small amount of reduced upkeep is a big part of the low 10-30% of your economy one usually allocates to paying maintenance.

2) Lighthouses are perhaps the best building in the game (sans pangeaia). They are the basis to let you build in any location and to actually generate income in any city that is lacking food and/or natural resources like gold or silk, etc... The ability to let small distant, poorly resourced cities quickly build lighthouses and start contributing to your empire is huge.

Compare this to the financial bonus of cheap banks. First, you won't build many. Second, the big cities you want to build banks in will already have enough production to make the bonus relatively less necessary. Lighthouses are built by the small supporting cities that pop up just as soon as your economy can afford it, and they need lots of help starting out.

3) Courthouses are extremely expensive for most civs. But at 50% off you can build them in all the new cities that you can only afford to create as organized -- because you have cheap lighthouses, and because you'll be getting the cheaper maintenance with courthouses. It's exponential, in a way. Also remember that the 3-5 cash saved by each courthouse goes a longer way than it appears, letting you put less % income on cash and more on research, which is utilizing your many libraries and universities.

Organized civs are also, as a result, the only civs where i manage to get out a forbidden palace (building 6 courthouses is usually a pain) -- so being able to actually build this cheap, money saving building is icing on the cake.

--

Organized civs seem to play to an aggressive, constant growth style, where you maximize your bonus as you make your empire bigger. This also takes you in the direction of straightforward conquest-type victories, which are always a lot more in-the-bag than trying out the funky diplomacy and other race-against-the-pc victories.

 

[AmnesiaA]

I actually love the lighthouse and courthouse bonus since I can both give an easy chance for my coastal cities to rapidly grow while using the commerce rich coast--another obvious commerce boom--and also make my cities cheap to run. The benefits of organized and financial seem to even out, with organized leading in the early/mid game if you use it right. It also allows me to use the more expensive civics, such as the wonderful caste system--adding a merchants in your larger cities or slave cities can really raise up your commerce; and also being able to spawn an artist early in new cities allows for a quick fattening of your borders--and even the expensive war time civics while not having to lower my research/culture at all.

So yeah I agree, organized stands up very well to financial, and is a much more 'free' trait since you can do more with it.

 

[Napo981]

Organized civs seem to play to an aggressive, constant growth style, where you maximize your bonus as you make your empire bigger. This also takes you in the direction of straightforward conquest-type victories, which are always a lot more in-the-bag than trying out the funky diplomacy and other race-against-the-pc victories.

You got the point!,

Really well written!

As you said, I think organized get more value as the expansion is fast. Whether by war or huge map size. It makes it more dependable of you styleplay than the financial trait.

 

[MrCynical]

Organized does have some use on an archipelago map with tiny islands, since the combination of cheap lighthouses and courthouses make building several fishing villages more practical.

On other maps I am still somewhat unconvinced, and find financial vastly better.

1)I certainly agree the bonus on civic upkeep is the least important bit, since I've never seen this get into three figures even with the most expensive civics. The few gold per turn saved is nothing compared to the financial bonus, which gives commerce rather than cash (and more of it) and so is far more powerful. In the late game 25gpt is not going to be 10% of my economy, it'll be nearer 1%. Organized might work better if it gave some bonus on city maintenance, because this makes up the vast majority of this part of my economy.

2)I admit lighthouses are useful, but at 60 hammers they're cheap to begin with. This bonus is as I've stated handy for fishing villages. Most cities however will have at least one or two decent land tiles though, and so can build it themselves quite easily.

3)Courthouses aren't all that expensive at 160(?) hammers and I don't build them until a city is up and running. This may be due to my style of building a few very big cities rather than many small ones, but again when a city get's round to this they can usually build it quite fast anyway. There is again the problem that courthouses save gold, not commerce. Given all the modifiers commerce is usually at least twice as valuable as gold.

I think my main objection is that anything Organized can do, Financial does better. The commerce bonus easily outweighs the civic upkeep bonus, the cash saved from early courthouses and even buying lighthouses outright. The addition of cheap banks is a very minor icing on the cake. I'm not saying organized is useless, or even the weakest trait, but except maybe on a tiny islands map I won't use it, simply because it feels like a weak version of financial.

 

[Artanis]

3)Courthouses aren't all that expensive at 160(?) hammers and I don't build them until a city is up and running. This may be due to my style of building a few very big cities rather than many small ones, but again when a city get's round to this they can usually build it quite fast anyway.

You're right, it is due to your style.

He's saying that Organized helps you expand. You don't like to expand. Thus, you won't get a whole lot of use out of Organized.

However, somebody running a Vassalage Police State while sitting on half a continent's worth of starving conquests with mostly-pillaged improvements, zilch culture radius, and 14 GPT apiece in maintainance costs will find it much easier to keep his momentum going without going bankrupt or tanking his science rate.

I think my main objection is that anything Organized can do, Financial does better. The commerce bonus easily outweighs the civic upkeep bonus, the cash saved from early courthouses and even buying lighthouses outright. The addition of cheap banks is a very minor icing on the cake. I'm not saying organized is useless, or even the weakest trait, but except maybe on a tiny islands map I won't use it, simply because it feels like a weak version of financial.

What he's saying is that that isn't true because Organized expands better than Financial. What do you need to get a new city up and running to where it's actually useful (as opposed to a money pit)? A Lighthouse (if applicable) to feed it, and a Courthouse to cut its maintainance cost...both of which Organized gets half-off.

If you're sitting on a smallish empire with well-developed cities and every last tile hosting a road and SOME sort of improvment underneath, then no, you're not going to get a whole lot out of Organized, especially compared to Financial. If you're going out founding and/or conquering new cities to add to a thinly-settled but ever-growing empire, then you're going to have a bunch of tiny cities that don't have enough citizens to get much out of Financial, but a BIG boost out of Organized. Yes, Financial catches up once Organized stops expanding...which is why somebody with Organized simply keeps expanding



For the record, I like Financial, and usually use Catherine (free cash + amazing early land-grab ability = ). However, despite all the extra Commerce coming in, I've had several wars simply grind to a halt because I couldn't afford to sustain it until Lighthouses and Courthouses went up in the old ones. By the time I recover to the point that I can go back on the offensive, I'll have newly-discovered buildings to build, upgrades to dole out, etc., which can very easily cause the new war to stalemate even faster than the first one.

 

[eumaies]

1)I certainly agree the bonus on civic upkeep is the least important bit, since I've never seen this get into three figures even with the most expensive civ. The few gold per turn saved is nothing compared to the financial bonus, which gives commerce rather than cash (and more of it) and so is far more powerful. In the late game 25gpt is not going to be 10% of my economy, it'll be nearer 1%. Organized might work better if it gave some bonus on city maintenance, because this makes up the vast majority of this part of my economy.

On this point, i think the cash bonus, even as small as 25gpt, has a hidden benefit:

Let's' say i make a max of 1000 turn. this 1000 is actually only my max value, and it is in 100% research only, because in that case my many libraries and universities are multiplying my base commerce bonus to the maximum extent.

If i was in 100% cash in the same scenario, I would generate maybe 500. So at a typical 80/20 research/cash split, I might be making 750 research and 100 cash a turn. Increasing my tax rate MAKES me 120 more research at the cost only 50 cash per turn -- 90/10 would be 870 research, 50 cash.

(The higher % I can afford to switch to research the more benefit i get from libraries, etc... that may not be clear from this simple example.)

I would need to calculate average research boost from library-university-observatory to do a perfect example, but you get the idea.

If every city in your land has both research buildings and banks/marketplaces/grocers, things like courthouses and cheaper maintenance aren't a big deal. But if your empire is split into the money-maker core and the vast sprawl of minor cities that don't have infrastructure but provide the happy/health resources and military to keep cities growing with ease & safety, it's very cost effective to have each little city cost 3-6 less in upkeep thx to the cheap courthouses.

 

[picus]

I like organized a lot, but I also like to expand quickly - I think that's the key to utilizing organized's power. In the late game it's pretty obvious that financial has a huge advantage over organized, but before say 1400ad that 20-40gp a turn organized is saving you is pretty huge, nevermind the lighthouse/courthouse benefits.

 

[Draetor24]

Organized is one of the best traits fora warmonger...

You can expand and capture cities without a financial hindrance, and also the civics best for warmongers are high upkeep, which get -50% cost from organized.

 

[Silver Marmot]

I can't say I'm a huge fan of organized, but you do have a point. Several games I've played I've had to lower my research to 50-60% briefly because of capturing cities with high maintenence costs.

 

[Cicer0]

I think that's the key point: expansion vs growing cities.

Financial really needs well-developed cities with a lot of towns to shine. Obviously border cities and cities you've just conquered are likely not to have that kind of well-developed infratsructure. In the ideal situation and clicking on all cylinders, Financial will outshine Organized by a long shot. But if you are a warmonger/expansionist, you don't have ideal situations very often. Organized is really not so much about generating income as it is about maintaining momentum. If all you want to do is sit back on your empire and generate money, yeah Financial is better. But if you are rapidly conquering pillaged cities, or just building a lot of small cities far from your capital, then Organized actually plays better because it doesn't require all that additional improvement to make it work.

My two personal styles of play are to go for Culture wins with Catherine (Fin/Cre) and if I'm warmongering, I use Tokugawa (Org/Agg). Both work very very well at those particular styles of play.