Mercantilism Overpowered

[Mesix]

After playing several games of BTS, I am convinced that the Mercantilism civic is unbalancing. The primary ability of adding a free specialist in each city is powerful enough on its own right. When the additional benefit of making foreign corporations ineffective is added, there is really not much reason to ever switch to a different civic. With the additional flavor that corporations add to the late game, it is too bad that an early game civic pretty much breaks their mechanic completely. In almost every game that I play, all of the AI civs take Mercantilism early and never change.

If a civic is going to nullilfy foreign (or all) corporations, there should not be additional benefits to the civic. If anything, there should be a detremental effect that slows economic growth due to government trying to control the free market.

 

[thomson_2001]

i used to hate mercantilism..never using it as i thought the extra trade route was best...but extra specialist thank you very much. espec with pacifism and representation....specialist economy ahoy! lol

but i guess its how you play your game. in certain circumstances each civic can have its own pros and cons. one guy recently disscussed watermill vs specialists. if you run communism watermills are awesome. environmentalism is great with windmills...and mercantilism best with farms i guess. so depends on how you play!

 

[SPQR300]

Not having foreign trade routes can hurt you really heavy in certain situations. I mean, it all depends on the situation. In my current game I get like +300commerce=>(at least +500beakers/turn) just from those trade routes. That's not something I would sacrifice for one specialist/city. And with solver's patch foreign companies are harmless, they don't wreck your economy any more.

 

[Mesix]

It's not the specialist beneift that I think is broken. This is a nice effect that adds to the depth of the civic options.

What I think is broken is that it also disables the entire mechanic of corporations which were added in BTS. What use is it to add exciting new features to the late game if the most common early game civic just turns off the new feature? Why were corporation added at all, they are pretty much worthless when Mercantilism is in play?

 

[DemonMaster]

Strange, in another thread, they thought Mercantilism was "Underpowered".

That said, I must admit that I have always been the free market kind of guys, but with BtS I am sold to Mercantilism. It started out that I wanted to stop foreign corps. but then I started to "Micromanage" my cities and then sold. Now I can't live without it.

 

[snipafist]

It's not the specialist beneift that I think is broken. This is a nice effect that adds to the depth of the civic options.

What I think is broken is that it also disables the entire mechanic of corporations which were added in BTS. What use is it to add exciting new features to the late game if the most common early game civic just turns off the new feature? Why were corporation added at all, they are pretty much worthless when Mercantilism is in play?

State property disables ALL corporations, and I don't see people complaining about that too much. I'm glad that Mercantilism finally gets the respect it's deserved for some time. Running Representation, Pacifism, and Mercantilism is a great way to generate a lot of beakers, great people, and corporations (from those great people) that you can rest assured will find little competition within your borders.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Messix, so don't use it... Merc isn't that great anyway, as long as you have even one civ with which you have decent relations, hit up free market.

 

[Ghandi33]

It would be much less good if corporations actually provided a benefit instead of a huge cost. Hopefully after they address in the upcoming patch (probably the wrong choice of words) you might actually see free-markets used by the AI.

 

[mrt144]

merc would actually be better with the overhaul of corp costs. the inflationary pressures are what make free market so good for corps now, but that wont be so in the future.

 

[azzaman333]

If you have 2 or more intercontinental civs willing to open their borders with you, Free Market still wins.

 

[Merkinball]

State property disables ALL corporations, and I don't see people complaining about that too much. I'm glad that Mercantilism finally gets the respect it's deserved for some time. Running Representation, Pacifism, and Mercantilism is a great way to generate a lot of beakers, great people, and corporations (from those great people) that you can rest assured will find little competition within your borders.

Running Representation, Pacifism, and Mercantilism is a good way to get bulled over by the AI too...

 

[hoopsnerd]

Mercantilism Overpowered? Nothing could be further from correct. Mercantilism is currently underpowered severely -- except in very strange circumstances such as you haven't explored any of the map AT ALL, noone will open their borders, or if you have a ton of huge cities on another continent. Even if you have the Pyramids Merc is still underpowered.

If you currently think Merc is overpowered, do me a favor. Play a Spiritual Civ, and switch to Merc as soon as you discover Banking pay close attention to the commerce value of each trade route. Then, switch to Free Market and watch your economy soar, but mind the value of each trade route. You'll notice that the value of your trade routes will at least double, so provided you have 4 trade routes you would gain at the very least 4 commerce per city from being in Free Market, and much much more in your bigger cities. On average, you'll probably gain 2.5 commerce per trade route being in free market -- and more as your cities get larger. So, you do the math... what do you prefer, 10 commerce/city (on average) or +6 Science, +3 GPP. I think it's pretty obvious that:

10 per turn per city > +6 and +3 (assuming scientist + pyramids)

AND

10 per turn per city > +3 +2 and +3 (assuming engineer + pyramids)

Especially considering this effects all your cities. Getting all your cities 1 extra specialist does little for creating more because it's only in effect 1 extra specialist for your GP farm which you should be producing all of your GPs from at this stage in the game.

In conclusion, Mercantilism is very underpowered unless the exact right circumstances are met, in which case it will soon be obsoleted by Free Market and State Property.

 

[jagdtigerciv]

I've never really even gotten into Corperations really, they're not really worth the effort, and I can do fine without them.

 

[hoopsnerd]

^^^ what is this the uber-newb thread? No offense to anyone...

 

[Gigaz]

The problem in MP with mercantilism is: Anyone who wants to spread corporations in your land can easily change your civics by spy, and when this one has the Christo Redentor he will definitely make you adopt environmentalism and then ruin you. And if you play Carthage and gain tons of money by trade routes, someone will be smart enough to make you adopt mercantilism .

 

[BYC]

Well this is a first. Never heard anybody complain that Merchantilism is overpowered.

I think it needs a minor upgrade actually.

 

[MrCynical]

Mercantilism is a far from stunning civic. It only has real appeal for an isolated civ, or a game where all the corporations are in the hands of the AI (and I've rarely seen them found more than two, even on the highest levels, let alone them making any use of them). Free market is more appealing for any civ with a reasonable number of open borders agreements and/or extensive domestic corporate spread. State Property has a role in a very large civ, i.e. one well on the way to domination. Even enviromentalism has a role in a corporate strategy if you have enough foreign branches to offset the extra costs. Crucially you can also force the enviromentalism civic with the UN - no more blocking your corporations with mercantilism then, and you get a nice health benefit to go with it. If a reasonable number of civs are running the corporate blocking civics, this can be a profitable approach (though most AIs run Enviromentalism anyway once all are available. I've never seen an AI run mercantilism when it wasn't their favourite civic, and they had an alternative. State property is usually the problem by the corporate phase).

 

[TheWilltoAct]

perhaps it should give you 2 specialists per city... or perhaps something entirely different like increase commerce gains from your inter-empire trade routes?

 

[DilithiumDad]

As someone recently pointed out (the person with the Hello Kitty avatar), the real power of Mercantilism is denying trade route benefits to the AI, whco profit mightily from your well developed cities with cottage spam.

That said, the Carthaginians needs to run Free Market to get the benefit of their Cothons.

Financial civs will benefit more from Free Market because their trade routes are worth much more. Same is true if you are TRADING with overseas Financial civs.

Another factor is city size. If you have a lot of small struggling coastal or island cities or recently captured cities, the benfit of a free Artist or Engineer is considerable for establishing boundaries, ownership of territory and production.

A few turns later when your new cities are up and running, a switch to Free Market may be in order.

 

[MrCynical]

Financial civs will benefit more from Free Market because their trade routes are worth much more. Same is true if you are TRADING with overseas Financial civs.

Financial civs get no additional benefits from trade routes - the +1 commerce does not apply here. Neither does it making the remotest difference to civic choice whether you're trading with an AI or not.

As someone recently pointed out (the person with the Hello Kitty avatar), the real power of Mercantilism is denying trade route benefits to the AI, whco profit mightily from your well developed cities with cottage spam.

I think you may be a little confused about how trade routes work - the amount they generate (at either end) has nothing to do with either city's ordinary commerce output. It's down to city size, distance, and whether they're foreign or not. A specialist based city, inevitably larger than a cottage spammed one, will actually generate commerce more from trade routes.