Mercantilism is underrated

[mboettcher]

I've been using this forgotten civic a lot lately. Most people seem to write it off as a "your isolated don't see anyone yet so might as well get specialists whiel alone" civic.

A few notes about its mechanics. First off, obviously it gets stronger with representation.

The way it works with vassals, however, is its strength. You can still maintain trade routes with vassals as those routes count as domestic. Plus you still get your own domestic trade routes, so you max out the number of routes. So you loose like 50-67% gold on trade routes at most.

This actually helps in several ways though. It keeps those pesky foreign corps from founding in your cities but you can still found in theirs. You can run your own corps with impunity in both your own and your vassals cities. And you can force your vassals to run merc which, very importantly, drains all those trade routes (and corps) from your enemies. If you control your own continent, or most of it, And there is only one other continent, then your enemies profit from trade routes only about as much as you do, but you have a significant advantage in corporation spreading and lots of specialists.

Its obviously not a whitewash civic like free market or even enviromentalism, but it certainly isn't useless. For a medium to strong civ its an excellent way to gain momentum towards a dom victory especially on maps with fewer landmasses. It boosts the system of acquireing vassals significantly, which allows for even cheaper and easier domination victory on higher difficulty settings because you only have to demonstrate "significant force" to the computer to force a cap. Give back those expensive 2-3 conquered cities, rinse wash and repeat.

 

[nbcman]

It also is almost required as the other AI civs have reached Banking and switch to Mercantilism civic or if you you don't have any foreign trade routes anyhow. Rather than waiting for the other civs to change out of Mercantilism-join them. Then when the AI's change to non-Mercantilism civics, change back for the trade routes.

 

[MrPopov]

It makes a nice way to spread your corporations without opening your economy to rival corporations.

 

[mboettcher]

Disclaimer: There is unfortunate bug that is fixed in Bhuiric's patch:
You currently cannot found corps while under merc. Obviously not intended to the civic but its there. You can switch found and switch back though.

 

[Tlalynet]

Also, in older versions you cannot trade with your vassles. I didnt know that was fixed, I want to try a mercantilism game now. Thanks.

 

[mboettcher]

Huh,didn't know that you couldn't b4

 

[Tlalynet]

In warlord days people used that as a big compalint vs mercantilism.

 

[Morgrad]

Another point in favor; if your cities are considerably bigger than your biggest competitors, then trade-routes benefit him more than they do you. So even if you do lose X commerce from going Mercantilism, if your opponents lose more than X commerce as well, then you're ahead of the curve *before* you get all the free specialists.

I love Mercantilism + Caste System when I'm settler-spamming a new island. Run an artist for a few turns to pop the border, a priest to offset some of the cost and add some production while you get your infrastructure built/whipped, and then a scientist for beakers (or a mechant for dollars). What's not to love?

 

[pi-r8]

it's also great if you have a bunch of small cities, because 1 extra specialist makes a huge difference in a size 4 or 5 city. For that reason, I use it a lot when I'm playing advanced starts.

 

[Tlalynet]

I think earlier people might not have liked it because it was kind of broken in the older versions (still is without Bh). Its a competitive civic all around.