Pacifism: How much is this used by people?

[Navarre]

I'm a little puzzled by your saying that you "always use it with a Phi leader, if not Phi then rarely." From a relative standpoint, it's not giving you as much of a boost if you're PHI (versus if you're not): 50% more GPP than you would have had anyway (if PHI) vs. 100% more GPP (if not). I'm not saying it's not worth using with PHI, but to me it seems more desirable for non-PHI leaders, not less. Same thing for the Parthenon--more beneficial from a relative standpoint for the non-PHI leader. Also, Pacifism benefits all cities with the state religion, and Parthenon benefits ALL cities, so the "Phi + Parthenon + NE in GP Farm" you mention, while it could be a powerhouse for one city, does not make use of the potential benefits of having multiple cities farm GPs. Can you say more about your approach--for example, do you always focus on just one GP-producing city?

The thing is, you go more often for a SE when you play Phi, so you actually have a lot of GPP to double. If you're Financial and cottage everywhere, with just one specialist here and there, running Pacifism won't change much. Then, if you have a food-rich map and can afford a lot of specialists and pop working the cottages, why not.

If you're going for a single GP farm, building the National Epic here is enough, no need to run an empire-wide civic and frop the benefits of the others religious civics for a single city.

 

[Fabio GP addict]

Hi guys, very nice thread !

Nobody told about Mercantilism ... do you all consider the No Foreign Trade Route cost higher than the 1 free specialist in each city ?

Under Representation, with a Philo leader, the Parthenon, possibly the GL, and the NE in your GP-devoted city, you can produce tons of GPP, and all those extra specialists you can run with Mercantilism (hey, they don't eat food as they're free !) means also tons of extra beakers !

 

[Iranon]

Because GPP have rapidly decreasing returns to scale, the long-term effects of PHI has less to do with economy type than most people think. Whether we have 1 decent GP farm and cottages/production in the rest or whether we're using specialists everywhere, the expected difference between PHI and non-PHI is similar. We can expect to be 3 GP ahead quite early and roughly keep that advantage. If we don't want many specialists in the long term, it's still worth it to spawn the first few in multiple cities to benefit from the trait, then switch to something else. This is usually possible before Pacifism.

The diminishing returns of GPP also mean that often less is more. Stacking PHI and Pacifism has less than twice the benefits of one of them; an argument to run something else (usually Organised Religion). The main situation in which PHI is doing a lot more than usual is when we lack a dominant GP farm where the National Epic dilutes the benefits and split the generation over several cities. As such, if there is an approach that favours PHI it's splitting food resources to have several good cities instead of 1 great one and several mediocre ones, and NOT running Pacifism.

 

[mariogreymist]

Hi guys, very nice thread !

Nobody told about Mercantilism ... do you all consider the No Foreign Trade Route cost higher than the 1 free specialist in each city ?

Before or after Astronomy? That's the clincher here. Before astronomy, in pacifism, it's a no brainer imo. In such a setup, specialists are more important than the handful of you get from foreign trade on your own continent. Once overseas trade becomes possible, the benefits of foreign trade routes + the extra route from FM become too great to turn down without significant loss of . Even a good CE can generate up to one third of its from trade routes (once overseas foreign trade begins). creates s. s create victory.

 

[Fabio GP addict]

Before or after Astronomy? That's the clincher here. Before astronomy, in pacifism, it's a no brainer imo. In such a setup, specialists are more important than the handful of you get from foreign trade on your own continent. Once overseas trade becomes possible, the benefits of foreign trade routes + the extra route from FM become too great to turn down without significant loss of . Even a good CE can generate up to one third of its from trade routes (once overseas foreign trade begins). creates s. s create victory.

Yes, that's the point ! Surely in terms of raw commerce or beakers, after Astronomy you can't run Mercantilism without a significant loss. What I find extremely difficult is giving the right weight to the extra GPP: GP are extremely flexible, you can do so much different things, from GA's to Corporations, lightbulbing, wonders ... If you add the diminishing emerging rate, how can you ever do the math ?

I'm rather convinced that a pure Specialist Economy can be really effective only for a short period of time, with the right combo of traits/civics/wonders. Just crank out a bunch of GP's, have a couple of GA's /accelerated wonders/tech bulbing and then go for something different and more efficient.

 

[TheLazyHase]

Yes, that's the point ! Surely in terms of raw commerce or beakers, after Astronomy you can't run Mercantilism without a significant loss.

You can. It's dependant on how many vassal you have and the relative size of your empire and oversea empire. The bigger your are, the less you loose (because oversea trade route are finite). Look at the mercantilislm-boosted world invasion by TMIT to see what I am talking about

But yes, after Astronomy you'd better know what you're doing if you take mercantilism.

 

[KeloGBites]

It requires more math. In some cases all those free merchants you can run will more then make-up for the loss of foreign trade routes+pacifism you can pop some nice Great Merchants. But yeah it's one of the civics I think need a slight boost at least.

 

[mariogreymist]

It requires more math. In some cases all those free merchants you can run will more then make-up for the loss of foreign trade routes+pacifism you can pop some nice Great Merchants. But yeah it's one of the civics I think need a slight boost at least.

Running merchants generates not . While enough merchants might let you bump the slider, that won't help you if you're already running at 100%. The real equalizer that can make mercantilism pay off is Representation. A large kingdom running Reps/beuraucracy/castes/mercantilism/pacifism can tech at rate to compete with or even exceed a free market economy with overseas trade. If tech is tight in the early industrial period, I will often adopt civics like this to gain a solid tech lead going into the modern era. (wherein I will eventually abandon merc for SP or FM)

 

[fed1943]

What Iranon said.
And with the several good GP farms, the goal probably is not as many GP as I can, instead each time the GP type I want now.

 

[Pikkis]

I use Pacifism quite a lot, because I tend to play my games with a peaceful strategy. I usually do everything I can to generate as many great people as possible and Pacifism is an important part of that strategy. I know there might be better options in many situations but I just like Pacifism (as well as Free Religion as an alternative).

 

[pi-r8]

Running merchants generates not . While enough merchants might let you bump the slider, that won't help you if you're already running at 100%. The real equalizer that can make mercantilism pay off is Representation. A large kingdom running Reps/beuraucracy/castes/mercantilism/pacifism can tech at rate to compete with or even exceed a free market economy with overseas trade. If tech is tight in the early industrial period, I will often adopt civics like this to gain a solid tech lead going into the modern era. (wherein I will eventually abandon merc for SP or FM)

How often are you ever at 100%? Not very often. If you want mercantilism to be worth it though, you really need to have overseas vassal states, because if you're giving up foreign trade routes, you're probably losing like 10-20 commerce per city. Not worth is just for one specialist, even with representation. Of course it can be good if you have very small cities, although in that case SP is probably better.

 

[TheLazyHase]

How often are you ever at 100%? Not very often. If you want mercantilism to be worth it though, you really need to have overseas vassal states, because if you're giving up foreign trade routes, you're probably losing like 10-20 commerce per city.

It depend mainly on your size. Oversea trade route are finite ; if they are 30 oversea city, mercantilism is far better if you have 30 city than 10, because you exchange those 30 trade route for 30 specialist instead of 10.

That's what power the mercantilism world invasion : you conquer a lot of city, have a lo of free specialist, and don't loose too much commerce trade because betwenn the war and the finite amount of trade route it would not be that much.

 

[mariogreymist]

How often are you ever at 100%? Not very often. If you want mercantilism to be worth it though, you really need to have overseas vassal states, because if you're giving up foreign trade routes, you're probably losing like 10-20 commerce per city. Not worth is just for one specialist, even with representation. Of course it can be good if you have very small cities, although in that case SP is probably better.

Sure, it's not all that often. But it is more frequently true at the times when is top priority. I should also point out that I generally go from Mercantilism (or sometimes decentralization) to FM pretty much the moment I discover Economics. There are situations where it's not the best move however. That's all I was saying.

 

[pi-r8]

It depend mainly on your size. Oversea trade route are finite ; if they are 30 oversea city, mercantilism is far better if you have 30 city than 10, because you exchange those 30 trade route for 30 specialist instead of 10.

That's what power the mercantilism world invasion : you conquer a lot of city, have a lo of free specialist, and don't loose too much commerce trade because betwenn the war and the finite amount of trade route it would not be that much.

If you control half the cities in the world, then you're almost about to win a domination victory

 

[btgwynn]

It's pretty good if you're going to take over the world with a Great Artist army.

 

[hunterai]

Pacifism + Philosophical + Golden Age + Parthenon = GPP Bonanza