Least Used Civic

[King Flevance]

I agree, I tend to like serfdom to lessen my civic pocketbook. Plus it comes in around the time of CS so I have alot of farms to irrigate. Slavery is great but sometimes it isn't worth the hassle of slave revolts. There have been many games in BTS I just didn't have the spare time to gamble on if my cities would revolt or not over a civic.

 

[jkp1187]

Diamondeye,

You are probably right. jkp1187 explained it to me, and I replied to him that I can only play the game on small maps or smaller due to my computer's limitations. This means I can win a game via Dominations with about 30 cities, or 20-22 high culture cities (though I'd probably win a Cultural victory before Domination that way.) Thirty cities without state property isn't too tough to manage if you do it properly. However on a Huge map, I imagine you'd need two times as many cities, thus making state property much more viable.

Kesshi,

AFAIK, maintenance costs scale with map size, so the benefits of SP in the situation I described above would apply regardless of map size.

Again, you don't need to use SP to win consistently, but it can be very helpful when making a domination push, especially if you've missed out on the big name corporations.... I almost exclusively play on standard and (occasionally) small maps, for whatever that's worth.

 

[Diamondeye]

Kesshi,

AFAIK, maintenance costs scale with map size, so the benefits of SP in the situation I described above would apply regardless of map size.

Again, you don't need to use SP to win consistently, but it can be very helpful when making a domination push, especially if you've missed out on the big name corporations.... I almost exclusively play on standard and (occasionally) small maps, for whatever that's worth.

State Property > effects of any two corps.

 

[Kesshi]

Kesshi,

AFAIK, maintenance costs scale with map size, so the benefits of SP in the situation I described above would apply regardless of map size.

Again, you don't need to use SP to win consistently, but it can be very helpful when making a domination push, especially if you've missed out on the big name corporations.... I almost exclusively play on standard and (occasionally) small maps, for whatever that's worth.

jkp1187,

If the maintenance costs scale with map size, do they take into account the fewer cities one will build on a smaller map? I don't think so, but I could be wrong. Working under the assumption I am correct, if the distance cost were between 1 and 11 gold per city on the other side of the world, and I had 20 cities, that's 20 cities time 5 average, or 100 gold distance maintenance. Where as if you had the same distance cost but now you're on a larger map with 40 cities, that's now 200 gold distance maintenance. That is, assuming that maintenance costs scale for distance, but do not take into account the fact that fewer cities need to/can exists on a smaller map. Does anybody know if this is correct or not?

 

[lutzj]

caste system or pacifism. i voted pacifism because i NEVER have used it. i once used caste system, but i never have since then and never will because it gives very little back, costs a lot, and because i always end up missing slavery. with spiritual leaders, i often rune serfdom (yes, serfdom) for a few turns while i develop a newly available resource, such as coal, oil or aluminum, which gets me cranking out planes, trains, and automobiles (tanks) sooner rather than later

 

[Angst]

I tend ALWAYS to use Representation, Free Speech, Emancipation, Environmentalism, Pacifism

 

[Wolfshanze]

I'm not understanding why there's not more votes for Caste system.

I'm still trying to figure out why you'd want a caste system in place when almost any other civic in it's tree is a better option (IMHO).

For someone who really likes the Caste system (or at least sees it's worth), please explain why I would want a caste system... I have an open mind, but for the life of me, it doesn't sound like anything useful or something I want compared to other systems.

 

[Adam7Eight]

No.

Not in BtS. It's a medium upkeep civic with a really naster event that can ruin your game. It's worth it's cost, that's my analysis, but I'd rather stay on the lowupkeep civic without effect until Serfdom rolls around. And then Emancipation.

The pros of whipping completely outweigh the cons, IMO. I just can't see not using it often. The risk is worth the reward for me, at least until Free Speech rolls around. Besides, I have yet to have a revolt that ruins my game.

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

I'm not understanding why there's not more votes for Caste system.

I'm still trying to figure out why you'd want a caste system in place when almost any other civic in it's tree is a better option (IMHO).

For someone who really likes the Caste system (or at least sees it's worth), please explain why I would want a caste system... I have an open mind, but for the life of me, it doesn't sound like anything useful or something I want compared to other systems.

I use Caste System for when I'm not doing much whipping, which is the whole point of Slavery. Which almost always happens to me...

I also revolt to Bureaucracy the minute I gain Civil Service. Why wouldn't anybody want to use Bureaucracy?

 

[autopsy-turvey]

caste system is terrible, i dont know why so many people like it. probably because they're bad at civ

priests and engineers are the important early specialists, you only really need one or maybe two merchant specalist cities to keep you making a profit at 100 percent research and you can get them from marketplaces and grocery or whatever. all the scientists you'll ever need early game you can get from libraries, and if you're playing single player great library. artists are worthless, slave rush a temple instead

 

[FoolFromHell]

State Property for me.

The only civics I don't use much are State Property, Serfdom and Nationalism. I use Police State and Environmentalism alot.

State Property RULED in Vanilla and Warlords. But, no corporations at all with State Property in BtS.

In Vanilla and Warlords, you often got atleast +40 gold/turn with State Property.

I never use Vassalage though, and I like Free Religion because I dont get into wars based on religion then.

 

[Kesshi]

I'm not understanding why there's not more votes for Caste system.

I'm still trying to figure out why you'd want a caste system in place when almost any other civic in it's tree is a better option (IMHO).

For someone who really likes the Caste system (or at least sees it's worth), please explain why I would want a caste system... I have an open mind, but for the life of me, it doesn't sound like anything useful or something I want compared to other systems.

Wolfshanze,

One thing that I like to do every now and again is this combination: Representation + Caste System + Mercantism + Pacifism. This combination makes for wonderful Great Person farming. It works especially well on a Pangea or Inland Sea map in conjunction with the Statue of Liberty (+1 free specialist) for a grand total of 2 free specialists per city, and an unlimited amount of merchants, easily funding a mighty empire with just the free specialists alone without neglecting your science needs.

Each turn your specialist is producing great person points makes it more likely that you will get a specific great person. Often times I'll end up with far too many great prophets, and far too many wonders produce great prophet points. To offset this, I'll take another city and literally starve a great person out of it by forcing all of their workers to work as whichever great person I want. This can be useful if you need a specific great person (Great Merchant for Sid's Sushi, or a Great Artist to win the game, etc.) Remember that each time you build a great person in that city, the points needed to get to another great person are greatly increased, and some cities have their great person points saturated with far too many great prophet points to be worth trying to force anything else out of there.

It is also fun to play a game with OCC variant, but build only one production city (your main city) and build every other city as a GP city, and focus on Great Merchants. Put all of your great merchants into your capital, and see how high of a population you can get! I've ended up with a population 40 capital that had very few flood plains, and I'm sure others could get higher under more ideal conditions.

The game doesn't always have to be about winning, sometimes it's fun to just sit back and do something goofy while having a good time.

 

[autopsy-turvey]

Wolfshanze,

One thing that I like to do every now and again is this combination: Representation + Caste System + Mercantism + Pacifism. This combination makes for wonderful Great Person farming. It works especially well on a Pangea or Inland Sea map in conjunction with the Statue of Liberty (+1 free specialist) for a grand total of 2 free specialists per city, and an unlimited amount of merchants, easily funding a mighty empire with just the free specialists alone without neglecting your science needs.

Each turn your specialist is producing great person points makes it more likely that you will get a specific great person. Often times I'll end up with far too many great prophets, and far too many wonders produce great prophet points. To offset this, I'll take another city and literally starve a great person out of it by forcing all of their workers to work as whichever great person I want. This can be useful if you need a specific great person (Great Merchant for Sid's Sushi, or a Great Artist to win the game, etc.) Remember that each time you build a great person in that city, the points needed to get to another great person are greatly increased, and some cities have their great person points saturated with far too many great prophet points to be worth trying to force anything else out of there.

It is also fun to play a game with OCC variant, but build only one production city (your main city) and build every other city as a GP city, and focus on Great Merchants. Put all of your great merchants into your capital, and see how high of a population you can get! I've ended up with a population 40 capital that had very few flood plains, and I'm sure others could get higher under more ideal conditions.

The game doesn't always have to be about winning, sometimes it's fun to just sit back and do something goofy while having a good time.

lol i called it

caste system is terrible, i dont know why so many people like it. probably because they're bad at civ

you can only effectivly great person farm in two or three cities tops, after that your most productive great person cities will be pumping out great people and sequentally raising the great person cost faster than less productive cities can catch up. your less productive "farm" cities will never be able to fill the ever-increasing gp bar in these conditions and never turn out great people. beside great person farm cities should be maximized for food production and if all your cities are all farm tile and none are cottages you'll advance too slow.

 

[Polycrates]

caste system is terrible, i dont know why so many people like it. probably because they're bad at civ

priests and engineers are the important early specialists, you only really need one or maybe two merchant specalist cities to keep you making a profit at 100 percent research and you can get them from marketplaces and grocery or whatever. all the scientists you'll ever need early game you can get from libraries, and if you're playing single player great library. artists are worthless, slave rush a temple instead

Do a search for "specialist economy". Caste System is massive, and not just for Philosophical and Spiritual leaders (for whom its use is pretty much mandatory).

My least-used is Serfdom, though it's fantastic with Spiritual after a big conquest, or when a new worker tech has come along (like Civil Service or Railroad). Generally, I'd rather just whip in a whole load more workers, though.
The other is Mercantilism. Good in bursts with Spiritual (with CS/pacifism etc), but once you get Astronomy those juicy intercontinental trade routes are just too good to pass up, and can often account for ~1/4 to 1/3 of my economy. Even with an SE, I'd rather have Free Market.

The other big-scorers in this poll are ones I use all the time (although I use Spiritual a lot ). Police State is good when a big war is dragging on, and the anarchy for the switch barely matters when your commerce and production are all tied up by the massive unhappiness.
Nationhood is good for when you're attacked and need defenders in a hurry, but it's best when you combine it with Slavery and abuse the hell out of them both to whip/draft an entire massive offensive army in the blink of an eye. Sure, your people won't be returning your calls for a fair while, but that's okay because you'll have a lovely new empire's worth of people in the blink of an eye. Also, the no-upkeep is very nice and the barracks happiness is great.
Pacifism for the obvious reasons, and because the cost is nowhere near as high as everyone makes out.
And Environmentalism lets you spam factories and power everywhere during the industrial period where you don't yet have the health buildings to deal with it. Good for having factory buildings in those riverside cottagespam cities that have turned into production powerhouses with levees and Sufferage. Mining Inc still pretty much pays for itself, and it's overall cheaper than the Free Market+Sushi approach to the health problem (and you can still add sushi sparingly over the top where appropriate).

 

[Kadasbrass]

Not sure what you mean here. I thought that Bureaucracy increased Commerce and Hammers in the capitol. The sliders turn commerce into gold and beakers, but something that produces beakers or gold directly, like shrines, HQ, specialists, Sankore, etc, aren't affected by Bureaucracy, as far as I remember.

I assumed it was, but been awhile, and not something I really paid attention to.

 

[Navarre]

Mercantilism for me. I'm a commerce whore, and no foreign trade route is the way to hell. It's good enough for autists like Toku, but come on, we're civilized persons. I just try to get the Democracy soon enough, build the Statue of Liberty and that's it, I have my free specialist in each town without losing all these juicy trade routes. If I don't get the Statue, well, I'll survive.

I don't use Caste system often. I don't need all these lazy guys doing nothing but singing all day, I need productive cities. I just try to grab the Great Library, and put excedent people as scientists, and that's it. Who needs artists and merchants ?

Environmentalism rocks. When like me you go to industrialisation soon enough, your cities start to smoke green, people die and get all smelly, and an enlightened ruler as I am can't accept that. I can take the +25% upkeep for the corporations if my people are healthy and happy, and celebrate their leader in one or two cities each turn (no upkeep cost).

 

[Scaramanga]

I agree, I tend to like serfdom to lessen my civic pocketbook. Plus it comes in around the time of CS so I have alot of farms to irrigate. Slavery is great but sometimes it isn't worth the hassle of slave revolts. There have been many games in BTS I just didn't have the spare time to gamble on if my cities would revolt or not over a civic.

Running Bureaucracy at the same time as Slavery can also be bad for revolts since they seem to mostly happen in your capital. Maybe Firaxis was trying to curb the power on both civics.

 

[DigitalBoy]

I'm not sure I've ever seen or experienced a slave revolt occur anywhere other than a capital.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

lol , I can't believe how much stink caste system got , frankly I'm shocked .

Obviously these are people who probably DO NOT run a SE and therefore do not realize the awesome power of the SE .

If your running your SE right , caste system is almost CHEATING , no I'm serious . Hey when you can run your beaker research down to 0% and still produce over 300 bpt in the classical/medieval era all the while taking in all the extra income , then you'd be singing a different tune .

Generating much faster than other civs has many advantages . I'm not going to list them but I think we all know .

 

[sooooo]

Well if you discount the first 30 turns of the game, my least used civic is Tribalism.