Quick Questions: State Property, Scientific Method

[Zombie Hero]

A couple of quick questions:

1. I love State Property, love it to pieces. However, this means i always have to go without corporations. Does this civic choice depend on victory conditions or just a personal preference? Also, any particular leader bonuses lend themselves better to Corps (financial would be my guess)?

2. Scientific Property Obsoletes a bunch of cool stuff, so i always hesitate to get it. The advantages i see are: revealing oil and opening up two techs that yield great persons. What priority should i put this tech? Again, is it better for warmongering or peace?

FYI, I play on noble right now, but i plan on moving up once i can secure a domination win on a continents map(usually i just get lazy and space race after im big enough). A lot of the finer details don't matter so much, but might be helpful on higher levels.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

SP is for sprawling warmonger empires. SM is a necessary evil because of all 3 techs it unlocks - they're strong. Depending on what you're doing it can be delayed slightly but not forever.

 

[colony]

1 - If you have a lot of cities on a separate continent to your capital SP becomes incredibly useful, colonial expenses can quickly become very high, even with courthouses. If you have a lot of developed coastal cities and a medium sized empire Free Market can sometimes be better though.

2 - SM seems to come along at a similar point in the game to a lot of other useful techs (Rifling, Chemistry, Steel, Democracy etc.) so I tend to delay it a while. It shouldn't be delayed too long though, even if you're not the first to Physics or Communism, Biology is still a great tech to have. Knowing if you have Oil is also vital, so while you can put off researching it for a while, you shouldn't leave it too long.

 

[Scoottr]

Could grab those wonders and buildings that provide the same benefit as a palace, but does nothing for those bennies you get by being on the same continent as a bonus giving wonder.

There should be some exceptions that allow bonuses to travel over water from wonders.

 

[Plinko16]

2. I have been using a rule of thumb that I am not sure is all that wise.
If I have a significant tech and GNP lead, I delay SciMeth in favor of production/warmonger techs like steel, steam power, chemistry and rifling. Sometimes even Constitution and/or Democracy. Then I can focus on building units and acquiring more land while I research SM/Bio/Physics/etc and still be comfortable of my tech lead.

If I am struggling tech-wise, I go into those techs first hoping to use them to jump-start my empire through that side of the tree and trade like mad if I get there first.
Does that make sense?

 

[semirami]

1. State property is the best choice in 80% of the games.

2. I never delay Scientific Method. It's so powerful tech. It obsoletes The Great Library, so what? Without Representation that's 10 beakers, assuming you have library and university and 8gpp, but great persons aren't that critical at this stage, not to mention, that you can gain your great persons back, if you are first to Communism and/or Physics.

 

[Joshua368]

State property is strong but corps are much, much stronger if you use them correctly. I definitely wouldn't say State Property is best 80% of the time. It's personal preference really as we can usually win easily with either SP or corps... here is an essay I wrote on how free market is extremely good even for domination wins.

 

[Zombie Hero]

Awesome, thanks for all the info. I'll definitely take SM a little bit earlier now. Come to think of it, i usually don't build too many monasteries due to OR.

[Edit: Nice example of corps, Joshua368. I now have something to try out in my next game]

 

[semirami]

State property is strong but corps are much, much stronger if you use them correctly. I definitely wouldn't say State Property is best 80% of the time. It's personal preference really as we can usually win easily with either SP or corps... here is an essay I wrote on how free market is extremely good even for domination wins.

You're right of course. It's a personal preference, I am talking about my games.

 

[Joshua368]

You're right of course. It's a personal preference, I am talking about my games.

Personal preference for sure. A lot of it is just effert versus reward. You're probably going to win the game regardless, so it's just depends on whether you want to spend time founding, spreading and charging corps or not.

I consider State Property the easy way out. Though I do use it if I'm not in the mood to supercharge my empire, or don't pop a Great Engineer.

Still recommend playing around with supercharged corporations at least once. (if you haven't already) One thing's for sure, they are fun! Good way to lighten up a dull space race at least.


Edit: In your initial post Zombie Hero you asked what traits would be best with corps. You suggested financial, and while that is a great trait, it doesn't really effect corps at all.

The best trait I'd say would be Organized. While the decreased civic cost won't save you any money when it comes to corporations, the courthouse is the most important building for any corp-fueled city to have, so cheap ones are perfect. Cheap factories are also nice as well, with the production boost of a hammer corp a newborn city can afford to build it quickly to save time off the rest of infrastructure.

The early build order for a new corp-fueled city, in my own opinion, is Granary --> Courthouse --> Forge --> Factory and then the rest of the infrastructure at your own convenience. So obviously the traits with these buildings cheap (expansive, industrious) help too. Expansive is also good because the health will help offset the massive city sizes from Sid's Sushi, while Industrious will give you a cheaper Wall Street which is vital in your corp HQ city.

Personally I'd say Mehmed (exp/org) is probably the best leader for corp spam... and the one I used in that example there.

 

[Artichoker]

Don't forget Chalemagne and Shaka, the ultimate leaders for spreading corps...even better than Organized because the discount from their UB applies directly to corps maintenance, unlike Organized.

 

[vicawoo]

Great library should go from 8 to 2 GPP

 

[Artichoker]

One scenario I can think of is when you need to research a key military tech like Combustion or Industrialization, in order to conquer some new land. In this case, you would go for both Combustion and Industrialization, and then build the military units enabled by these techs, building Infantry before you get them.

After you have an army of Infantry, Transports, Destroyers, and Marines ready, deploy them to attack your enemy while teching toward Communism. Once the new lands are taken, only then do you need State Property to reduce your maintenance costs.

Edit: Industrialism requires Electricity, which requires Physics. So the key military tech would be Combustion, not Industrialism. But that still allows you to build Infantry, Destroyers, and Transports.

 

[semirami]

What is really anoying with corporations is, that you must have the right great person. For me only Sushi and Mining are worth. They come early and are the most powerful. At this stage is very hard to produce an engineer, I abuse great people pool early in the game too much and they are very expensive, and I don't like the idea to fortify an engeneer at 1000BC. I still remember the game, where I desperately wanted a merchant for Sushi, revolted to caste, accepting +5 "we demand Emancipation", hired 10 merchants in the GP farm, burned 2 scientists and a priest for golden ages, only to pop an artist from National Epic. The next day I went for new keyboard

 

[6K Man]

I usually try to hang on to my Merchant from Economics, if I get there first, for Sushi. For some reason I can generally have an Engineer floating around... maybe I'm just lucky.

Anyway, if I get into the neighbourhood first, I'll delay SciMeth as long as I can and tech up the other branches. But if an AI is close, I'll grab it... I want the goodies that go with the succeeding techs before an AI gets them.

 

[Stewie0416]

I usually get a engineer when i get industrialism and start building factories and industrial parks in my GP farm

 

[Capellan]

For me only Sushi and Mining are worth.

Personally, I love Creative Constructions. Hammers + Culture is great, especially in cities you just conquered.

 

[lynxcat]

When I'm teching Scientific Method I generally focus on minimizing the amount of time that I have SM (and thus aren't benefiting from monasteries, GL, etc) but don't have Bio or Communism. Usually that means either saving a GP to bulb part of the next tech, being in a golden age or running deficit research. SM is necessary but it's definitely a pain when you have all the wonders and 3 monasteries in your Oxford city.

 

[Iranon]

Personally, I never understood the 'sprawling empires -> state property' assumption. If I can scarcely afford one without it, I'm mismanaging something... since respectable players stated such I assume I'm missing something though.

As for the gains... Corporations are the most powerful per-city bonus there is, far outclassing any saved maintenance. The more cities you have (and the smaller they are individually, because corporation maintenance scales with size as well) the more you benefit; you are also likely to have more resources in a large empire.
For me, the main reason for State Property is always having something crucial to push for, to the extent that I never have the breathing room to muck about with corporations. Given their power, this is quite rare.


As to traits... hard to answer. Essentially, you have to decide whether to optimise your game for tile yields or 'free' stuff. Little city overlap means you can work your good tiles and save on infrastructure, tight spacing maximises per-city-bonuses like trade routes, free specialists, religious buildings and corporation.
Since Per-city-bonuses making each and every city profitable often rely on wonders (Great Lighthouse, Apostolic Palace and friends), I usually have the desired empire setup with Industrious leaders by the time corps become available. Organised and Imperialistic encourage a many-city-approach as well.
However, wide spacing when new cities are a drag and plopping down filler cities only after corporations isn't a problem either when Mining.Inc makes your production shoot through the roof.

***

Scientific Method depends a little on my economy setup and difficulty level. I love most things that it obsoletes so in many games I postpone it quite a bit in low-level games where I can nab the free GPs anyway and built all the cool stuff... if I have no immediate need for a corporation.

In the Renaissance, cottages run away from other flatland improvements big time. If I don't want to rely on them, I will probably want to beeline Scientific Method rather than avoiding it because I need either Biology or State Property to get some decent use out of my land.

 

[cabert]

the only times when SP isn't worth it is when you go for a time victory IMHO (or if you play pangea and don't care about colonial expenses)