Organised - A mini-study

[mrjepson]

I decided last night to sit down and go through a pile of save games to analyse the difference between Financial and Organised. I did this because everyone is alway posting about how terrible Organised is for saving money and that Financial is strictly better. It wasn't that I didn't believe these people it is just that the extent to which their Financial trait was better than Organised seemed exagerated.

I generally found that Financial did make a bigger impact in that it would generate 10-80% more COMMERCE than Organised saved in GOLD. I highlight them as more commerce can be enhanced where as gold is gold and nothing else. So suprise suprise being financial makes you more money (hence the name). I feel that its comes down to the building discounts that make these two traits close to equal. I rarely build banks as I devote as little commerce to gold as possible most of the game and always have something better to build. On the other hand I build courthouses all of the time.

The interesting thing was that if Organised gave a 100% discount (I have heard references to this number previously) then it would have in all cases more GOLD than COMMERCE. This might make Organised a bit too powerful when combined with its building discounts.

For those who are intested I ran though games from all different eras and the biggest difference was in the modern era when peaceful. This is when financial really took off.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It also depends on empire size as testing has vaguely indicated that civics costs are roughly proportional to city maintenance (ie in greater thant direct proportion to # of cities) so a larger empire will probably benefit more....incidentally it will also benefit more from cheap courthouses.

 

[Ungar]

Financial is better for a well developed large empire, but organized allows you to get more cities and land early on.

Finance can get you 10% to 80% more gold per turn, but with Organized I bet you can get 10% to 80% more cities to start. More cities is more gold per turn later on. More land on your side also slows down the AIs more.

I think organized more than makes up for difference if you use it right early on when expanding.

 

[dh_epic]

Organized will pay off more with a bigger empire, and also starts working sooner if you do a late start game (e.g.: found your first city in the industrial era).

But financial goes to work right off the bat. And if there's one thing that's still true in Civilization, each turn is less important than the next turn. The early game is still king. Financial and organized can both be useful, but financial is sometimes uber powerful, and organized is often useless.

 

[petey]

I don't think there's any real comparison between Financial and Organized. They both do essentially the same thing (make it easier to pay for your empire), but Financial just does it much better and gives the advantage that this bonus can then be converted to research and/or culture as your play style demands.

Organized is just a waste.

 

[Gato Loco]

I'd like to point out that while financial has more raw power, it also has a nasty negative synergy with specialist-based strategies. If you're going for specialists, the financial trait becomes much less useful, since it requires you to work lots of cottages and water tiles to get the full benefit, while organized benefits you based on number of cities and population, regardless of what those cities are doing.

 

[petey]

I'd like to point out that while financial has more raw power, it also has a nasty negative synergy with specialist-based strategies. If you're going for specialists, the financial trait becomes much less useful, since it requires you to work lots of cottages and water tiles to get the full benefit, while organized benefits you based on number of cities and population, regardless of what those cities are doing.

But if those cities aren't generating money, then you won't be able to afford as large an empire, regardless of what traits you have. Specialist-based strategies also focus the specialists in one or two cities, leaving the rest of the cities to do whatever is needed.

When choosing traits, one of the options is to get a trait that allows you to afford a larger empire and there are two choices to do that. One of those traits just works a lot better than the other to do the same thing and the other doesn't provide an offsetting benefit to compensate for this.

 

[MrCynical]

While it may be down to my style of play I find Financial is leagues ahead of Organized. Financial gives a truly vast amount of extra commerce over the course of the game (even if you don't build cottages everywhere). Organized saves you a few gold on civic upkeep which has always been a trivial expense in my games, even with the most 'expensive' civics. Courthouses don't suit my style of building a few huge cities, and I can see that having them cheaper could help with large empires. However you still have to actually build them, and the gold you save simply doesn't compare to the amount created by financial. I would actually say the half priced lighthouses are the most useful feature of organized, especially on tiny island archipelago maps (though even there organized isn't nearly as good as financial).

 

[Gozert]

Just play George Washington and really bathe in moolah .

 

[Gufnork]

Specialist strategy is a very valid strategy and I wouldn't use Financial with it. But there's plenty of other traits more useful than Organized for that and Philosophical is a given.

Did you take into account that commerce gets modified by buildings giving them a 50-200% bonus to that value? The gold you save from Organized is the actual amount you save. That's what really makes the difference.

 

[mrjepson]

Specialist strategy is a very valid strategy and I wouldn't use Financial with it. But there's plenty of other traits more useful than Organized for that and Philosophical is a given.

Did you take into account that commerce gets modified by buildings giving them a 50-200% bonus to that value? The gold you save from Organized is the actual amount you save. That's what really makes the difference.

That is why I made the distinction between COMMERCE and GOLD.

 

[dh_epic]

The way I see it, financial and philosophical are almost mutually exclusive. Victoria may seem like the best leader with the best traits to some, but the two actually subtract from each other. Either you can go heavy on farms, or heavy on cottages -- one feeds the financial trait, the other feeds specialists and the philosophical trait.

In my opinion, financial, philosophical, and industrious are *sometimes* overpowered. Creative and expansive are *sometimes* underpowered. Organized is *usually* underpowered. Aggressive is consistently just right, and spiritual is consistent but just the slightest bit weak.

 

[Pragmatic]

One problem with Financial is it's dependent on cottages. As has been seen, cottages take 40 turns to get full value out of them. One band of enemies too powerful to attack, but too weak to attack your cities, can ruin a city. And a good opponent wouldn't send just one stack; they'd send a bunch of them.

 

[Lord Chambers]

The way I see it, financial and philosophical are almost mutually exclusive. Victoria may seem like the best leader with the best traits to some, but the two actually subtract from each other. Either you can go heavy on farms, or heavy on cottages -- one feeds the financial trait, the other feeds specialists and the philosophical trait.

Elizabeth*

Victoria is Expansive/Financial. And she is my queen.

 

[Vizzini]

Second the recommendation to play Organized+Financial (Washington) - you'll have so much money you'll be using gold plated disposable toothpicks.

 

[Chinese American]

Second the recommendation to play Organized+Financial (Washington) - you'll have so much money you'll be using gold plated disposable toothpicks.

that's the crux of balancing the traits. you have two traits that grant you extra money, that you when have both, it just becomes ridiculously powerful. if you want organized to be more useful, then you'd also have to tone down financial.

 

[andrewlt]

One problem with Financial is it's dependent on cottages. As has been seen, cottages take 40 turns to get full value out of them. One band of enemies too powerful to attack, but too weak to attack your cities, can ruin a city. And a good opponent wouldn't send just one stack; they'd send a bunch of them.

It's not. Financial works on any tile with 2 or more commerce. You only need to get to hamlet (10 turns) for the bonus to trigger. For tiles next to rivers, you only need a cottage. All water tiles have at least 2 commerce and everything next to a river only need an additional 1 commerce from something else for financial to trigger. Most of the special resources also give commerce. Given that you'll want to create cities either on the coast, close to a river or close to resources, you'll be getting a lot of tiles with the financial benefit.

 

[local]

ya financial seem better .. but

lets take organized.. It reduces civic up keep..
That allows you to use high upkeep civics at low cost more often rather then if ur not organized. Allows you to use herditary rule if u lack hapiness. Organized religion for fast building/wonder building, theocracy and vassalage during war time, etc.. So this war civics which usualy cost a lot can be now used more ,and combined with agreesive (tokagawa) might be a combo to try on Immortal i think.

even tho fin/agr might be better.. It depends on lot of things..

But what its a bit imbalanced is, that financial have BIG advantage in early game, when you get 3 commerce instead of 2 , making it 50% more commerce, researching early techs very fast. Late game, when tile produces 5 commerce, and with financial 6, is not so noticable (20%).

But advantage really comes from the thing, that commerce > gold. (someone said it.) IF you have 1 gold, you have 1 gold.. If u get 1 extra commerce, that cud mean lets say 1.5gold, or 2 beacons

So , I havent studied things yet, dunno how much average civics cost.. and you have to take a lot of things in account:cheaper corthouses and on the other hand cheap banks. Of course we dont build banks so much but with financial its cool to go for kremlin, and build banks anyway, and hurry lot of things including wonders.


well i wud say they need to nerf financial a bit and/or buff organised a bit.
That can be done in many ways, i hope they choose good one

actualy i was thinkging to change financial trait in a way: if Tile produce 3 commerce, it gets +1..
what do you think? If its too much of a nerf, there cud be exceptions on sime tiles, with resources lets say, that still get +1 commerce with 2 on it..

 

[MrCynical]

I've never had a game where the 'expense' of any particular civic was a factor in whether I selected it. The total cost has never been more than about 5% of my civ's budget even with the most expensive civics. Organized might allow me to run at 100% science rather than 90% for a few extra turns, but this bonus really is trivial.

 

[Phoenix_56721]

I have read how useless organized was so I have avoided it in my games, But I really wanted to try Japan (Tokagawa). I always love to play with the aggressive trait so Japan was appealing to me. After playing as Tokagawa I can say that Japan is by far my favorite Civ so far. Tokagawa really fits my style of play, early expansion at low cost, and a very good UU for attacking my neighbors for more expansion, setting me up with a nice size kingdom for mid-late game. All the while I can keep my research up in the 90%-100%, even while at war! (Tokagawa rules!!!!!)