Skip Economics to keep castles?

[Halt]

I have been playing the game for a while....

Almost always "strive" to get the free GP for being first to reach a tech.

In my current game I was quite far behind and was about to research economics when Ragnar surprised me with it in a trade!

I have a few castles.... plan to use State Property in this game "Water" map.

For the first time I am pondering "skipping" economics forever....

It appears I would be able to keep the castles trade routes forever, and economics is not needed for a further tech.

What am I missing other than the cost of building Castles if I wish to gather more trade routes.

 

[Phrederick]

Without Economics you can't get Corporation. Corporation gives an extra trade route in every city, and also leads to Assembly Line and Infantry and Factories. So getting corporation will cancel out losing those castle trade routes, and will provide access to Infantry. I wouldn't recommend skipping it.

 

[Spammurabi]

If I remember correctly, Economics gives +1 trade routes in all your cities, and allows Wall Street. So, it's probably worth at least something.

 

[Halt]

Oh..

Forgot to mention I have Great Lighthouse and every city is coastal....

I will ponder this more ...

Thanks for input

 

[Eddie81]

I've done this with Isabella, but not for trade routes. Her Citadel replaces the castle and gives a lot of XP to seige units. I sometimes hold off on economics and go for steel. Super charged trebs and cannons anyone?

This only really works in certain situations though. Its really helpful, especially if your opponents (or you) are running mercantilism, since you wouldnt really be missing out on trade routes anyway.

 

[Immaculate]

Halt,
It doesn't prevent you from getting the UN. There are some nice UN resolutions to increase trade even further. And you keep the great ligthouse.

 

[itsnotmeee]

Castles are useless against gunpowder units. i dont see no point in keeping them inobsolete(is that a word?). i dont even bother building walls.

Edit: you mentioned Castles in relations to trade routes. so maybe i misunderstood wat u meant.

 

[GoodGame]

He's talking about Warlords where castles give +1 culture AND +1 trade route.

Castles are useless against gunpowder units. i dont see no point in keeping them inobsolete(is that a word?). i dont even bother building walls.

Edit: you mentioned Castles in relations to trade routes. so maybe i misunderstood wat u meant.

 

[oyzar]

on water map with GL and castles everywhere the realy is no reason to give your cities -2 traderoutes before you need assembly line(as allready noted you can just win with UN, as i did in my most recent achipello map game).