Social policies - selection order and strategy

[Calouste]

I have a question about the commerce tree. It usefullness seems to limited to a very narrow type of naval game. I adopted it a few times when I was a beginning player, thinking it would really give me a great gold boost, but it never did. It seems to be sort of like Honor, not terrible, but other SPs just give you considerably more, and that seems to be the bottom line. In a game where you may have scarce SPs, you need to get the most out of them. In what scenario would Commerce actually be a better choice than Piety, Rationalism, Freedom, or even Tradition?

Some have mentioned, and I agree, it would be nice to see the benefits of the individual SP trees be more evened out, so there would be more choices. As it stands, there is no arguement that to complete the Liberty tree right off the bat is the best play. Honor and Commerce just don't compare.

The value of the Commerce tree is mostly in the Mercantilism SP. I've been playing around recently with a strategy where I build my capital up using Tradition, and then in the Middle Ages start expanding and buying infrastructure in newly founded cities with all the gold that the capital generates (Commerce opener + National Treasury + Monarchy), discounted by Mecantilism. For an investment of about 500 gold (Granary + Aqueduct) combined with the Tradition finisher you get cities that grow one pop every 2-3 turns. It works well on King, so now I'm taking it up to Emperor.

 

[budweiser]

You don't really need honor unless you want to go large scale barb hunting or have raging barbs on. If you pick Oligarchy (you have opened Tradition anyway), your capital with a garison will do 6-7 points of damage on average to contemporary units, and that's enough to keep the barbs at bay. And you'll get one maintenance free unit per city during peace time.

But as you say, your starting location need to be suited for Tall/Tradition builds, which means it needs to be fairly juicy, some food resource in the first or second ring, 8 resources or so overall and preferably a river.

I kept trying to time Legalism with Philosophy, so I had policies to burn and I was intested in the garrison policy in the Honor tree that gives culture and happiness. One time I had Honor filled by 980 AD and thats when I would have run the table on my continent with medieval units. This sort of would have made my other plans for Rationalism RAs moot.

 

[Tiber4321]

@ Joshua Happiness boosters in other SP trees, boost your happiness FAR more than the meager +1 happiness per lux you get from Commerce.

If your empire covers half the Planet, other, better social policies will ensure that you have no gold issues to worry about from roads.

@ Calouste I think perhaps other SPs would benefit you even more either directly or indirectly, such as Free Speach, Landed Elite, Civil Society, or even Monarchy. I'm not saying Commerce has nothing to offer, I'm saying other SPs offer more.

 

[Calouste]

@ Joshua Happiness boosters in other SP trees, boost your happiness FAR more than the meager +1 happiness per lux you get from Commerce.

If your empire covers half the Planet, other, better social policies will ensure that you have no gold issues to worry about from roads.

@ Calouste I think perhaps other SPs would benefit you even more either directly or indirectly, such as Free Speach, Landed Elite, Civil Society, or even Monarchy. I'm not saying Commerce has nothing to offer, I'm saying other SPs offer more.

I complete the Tradition tree first, then start working on Commerce. I don't take Liberty at all. The idea is to build a large capital first, and only start expanding when most of the National Wonders are done. Then you build a second city, buy buildings in it to speed up growth and connect it with a trade route to bring in more cash.

 

[Tiber4321]

@calouste Liberty is the single most productive SP tree in the game, it gives you a free settler, a free worker, +1 hammers in every city, and +5% hammers when constructing a building in any city, a free golden age, all kinds of cultural bonuses, and to top it off, a free GP of your choice. All these things, come very early in the game, and really sling-shot your Civ. To play without Liberty as your first SP tree is to handicap yourself significantly from the start.

Its almost too good. If one wants to compete at the highest levels, its an obligatory start.

Also, I think that the SP tree finishers are pretty important in evaluating their quality. Freedom, Liberty, Tradition, Piety and Rationalism are all outstanding, while frankly, the Commerce and Honor finishers are very mediocre.\

@ Budweiser, why not time Legalism to when it can give you outrageous things like 4 free museums? The timing of Legalism is extremely important, if you use it very early, you will be wasting it's powers on monuments and temples.

 

[joncnunn]

Agreed; Liberty's finisher of a free Great Person makes that tree way over powered.
(Having the finisher be the Golden Age would bring it down to about as useful as Tradition)

Also a rearrangement of the Tradition tree to stop blocking Landed Elite & Monarchy by Legalism would really help that tree.
Another possible solution to Tradition is they nerf Liberty would be to downsize the bonus of Legalism down to only ever giving free monuments; in which case there would be no need to wait.

 

[The Pilgrim]

I seldom play on water maps, not sure if the rest of the tree is worth it or not.

On water maps definitely. Although it's rather bizarre decision to stick roads maintenance reducing SP there along with naval bonuses. If you play on water map, you don't have roads. Extra coin from harbors doesn't cut it.

I have a question about the commerce tree. It usefullness seems to limited to a very narrow type of naval game. I adopted it a few times when I was a beginning player, thinking it would really give me a great gold boost, but it never did. It seems to be sort of like Honor, not terrible, but other SPs just give you considerably more, and that seems to be the bottom line. In a game where you may have scarce SPs, you need to get the most out of them. In what scenario would Commerce actually be a better choice than Piety, Rationalism, Freedom, or even Tradition?

On continents or peninsula production boost for coastal cities is great but not so great to justify burning 3 SP's to get it. Mercantilism is the same. Very valuable, stacked with Militarism and Big Ben gives you infinite supply of ridiculously cheap units, but then again, where do you get so much culture from?
I don't think the whole tree is worth investment. The opener, however... With lean economy Tradition, Patronage and Commerce are at about the same level of uselessness.

 

[Securion]

For Germany, America and Japan, i always go standard Liberty opener + free settler + free worker.
After that I either go Tradition opener to get the border expansion OR start working on Honor (right side of the tree).
If im on a lot off grassland though i usually get the +1 production in every city as well from the Liberty tree. Especially if im pumping out settlers rapidly.

For England i always go standard Liberty opener + settler + worker and then Commercialism.

For other civs i use other strategies..

 

[Tiber4321]

Thanks Pilgrim I think the question I was really getting at is what victory condition would Commerce be most useful for? I think the answer is obvious-Domination. But, for me, I don't think I would complete that tree even in a domination game, take Rationalism instead for the high-tech weaponry.

I think the Social Policies are the most interesting thing about this game. I do hope G$K evens them out a bit.

 

[Muskie]

You can't have both. I will sometimes take piety after rationalism once I have finished signing RA's and have all the GS's I need to bulb out stealth. Leveraging RA's into a large tech lead, then taking piety in order to sweep the map works well, but usually only after Autocracy is opened. I seldom have that many extra SP's on a domination victory anyway.

It has been a long time since I tried taking both, I did take about six months off from playing... But I interpreted that if you were not actively pursuing piety as in you'd finished it, you were then able to pursue rationalism. Consider Arabia, perhaps my favourite Civilization to play in CiV, they are Muslim, hence religious/pious but they also were responsible for a lot of advances in mathematics, astronomy etc. Surely they were also rational?

I guess from a game design point of view they make you pick one or the other, I know this is being emphasized more in G&K in taking one of the last three and it affecting diplomacy...

Piety opens up first. I can usually come back a little from being behind in tech, I was even last in tech in my most recent game and still won on difficulty 6. I was Arabia, I traded extensively and I was even winning my one war that I agreed to enter into during the entire game (against the leader Korea), but I realized almost every City State was my ally so I just built United Nations, we voted and I won. I was well on my way to taking over Korea's continent and had captured Seoul.

I'm not sure I should start another game with a major exam only a few days away, but like I said it is tough to skip Piety even though I prefer Patronage. Finishing Liberty and/or Tradition is possible before Patronage opens up, surely...

I have no problem skipping Commercialism as the last three are very powerful. I used to always take Freedom but Order is a better choice given the size of your empire.

Freedom + Rationalism is the way to go to maximize science, but the scientific victory is not all about science, you also need production. I've won/lost space races with the lead in science because I was not as efficient at producing the spaceship parts. So a wider empire with multiple strong cities can build the ship parts quicker than a tiny empire with only one or two big cities.

When the expansion opens up, the Dutch are one Civ I'm looking forward to trying, they seem like a good fit for Commercialism.

When they added the free settler and/or free worker it made Liberty hard to resist. You can get free workers and increased worker efficiency by building the Pyramids, but a free settler... I usually use that to found my second city.

 

[joshua43214]

It has been a long time since I tried taking both, I did take about six months off from playing... But I interpreted that if you were not actively pursuing piety as in you'd finished it, you were then able to pursue rationalism. Consider Arabia, perhaps my favourite Civilization to play in CiV, they are Muslim, hence religious/pious but they also were responsible for a lot of advances in mathematics, astronomy etc. Surely they were also rational?

They can't both be active at the same time, so if you take rationalism after taking piety, you lose all the piety benifits, in other words you wasted all those SP's in piety...

taking the left side of rationalism + PT can get you so far ahead science wise even on immortal, that you can open piety for the happiness bonus after your last RA completes. You lose all the benifits of rationalism, but at that point who cares. You end up with so much extra happiness that you can sweep the map without worrying about happiness. I seem to do this alot with Monty. I run liberty, left side of rationalism, open freedom. toss the extra SP's into tradition and honor. You get huge returns on RA's and a boatload of GS's. Once I've bulbed out stealth, I don't mind dumping freedom and/or rationalism for autocracy and piety. Monty gets more culture than any other civ when played as war monger. You can easily take a culture victory with him, and not be bored. Just get a nice perma-war going with a neighbor.

Also, spaceship parts are not hard to make with a tall empire. If you can't eke 70+ production each in a couple of cities in a tall science empire, then there is too much focus on raw science.

 

[Hambil]

Well, I never play against other humans so keep that in mind for my strategy, and I always build tall empires, but;

Tradition until complete (starting with the wonder improvement).
If playing a science Civ, Liberty next until complete otherwise Piety until complete. The reason for this is you can't pick Rationalism later if you choose Piety, and as a science civ you kind of want that

Depending on my Civ/Leader, and how them game is going (map type etc.) I will either then go for Commerce or Patronage.

I finish with any of the three final branches (Order, Autocracy, Freedom) depending on my civ, my mood, the way the game is going, the map type, etc.

Some specific order ideas:
As stated I am a wonder builder tall empire guy, so I go for the wonder boost in the tradition tree first.
I save the "free culture building in four oldest cities" as long as I can, try to squeeze at least temples out of it, but not at the expense of slowing down game progress.

For tall/science empires (lets face it, you need science even if you play domination if you play tall - but you don't always need the rationalism branch unless you want a science victory or are starting to fall behind in science) food is king. It's (almost) all about city growth as specialist will eventually pick up a lot of the slack from having fewer cities.

Pick and choose your wonders, don't wonder spam, as it will waste either time or money (building wonders that don't help your end game strategy or having to purchase buildings or units because you are busy building wonders). That said, the free social policy from The Oracle is usually worth it since it's available very early game and policies can be quite powerful.

Once I build up enough of a tech advantage I conquer whoever has the highest score. If they are close and haven't spammed useless cities I take them (leaving only one so an AI player eventually takes the diplomatic hit for eliminating them). If they are farther away I might grab an CS that close to them, and use it as a lunching point, or just chance a big sea crossing with troops, but in general I will just take their capital. I've seldom seen an AI recover fully from losing it's capital.

Anyway, not all of this is policy related but you can see how it effects my policy choices. I should also mention that I still haven't won above Prince level. However, I play most of the blame for that on a slow computer. Still, I doubt my strategies would translate that well to King, but who knows. It's how I enjoy playing

Lastly, not policy related (really) at all, but so many new players forget that chopping down forests, while a one shot deal, can make or break an early start. Lets say for example, you are on a tiny islands map fighting it out to get The Great Lighthouse first.

 

[Muskie]

I started another game, it was a strange one. I was Darius who I want to like, but just doesn't perform for me, kinda like Askia, just not as compatible with my play style or just plain not as good as the many other options out there. It was on difficulty six and once again I seem to have gotten a mostly water map.

I did not do well, even getting optics early I couldn't sail anywhere to really expand and of course I shared my starting island with the Scandinavians who eventually attacked me...

Long story short I opened with Liberty and took the free worker one next. I just about finished Liberty and skipped Piety to try for Patronage, but I just was not doing well by any measure. Besides blaming Darius or my start the biggest change I made in tactics was skipping Piety. Piety produces culture and happiness and makes Temples really good.

I can usually catch up some in Science and it is hard to lead in Science on the hardest levels without making it your all consuming focus and even then...

Liberty + Piety + Patronage with some cherry picking among the three works best for me. Patronage doesn't work if you can't ally with City States which requires gold or jumping through hoops.

Patronage gives you Food from seagoing City States, Troops from Military City States, and Culture from Cultural City States. It gives you some Science and plenty of resources you can then trade plus it even helps generate Great People.

Patronage combined with a peaceful builder strategy and few carefully chosen allied City States just seems full of win.

Any Science deficit can be made up with Freedom or just a larger more optimized empire.

 

[regeneration64]

Some very interesting discussions above.

I've just finished my last game (head to head with Germany on Emperor, small continents map, mainly using the policies in my OP). They didn't declare war on me once which was very odd and I won a science victory in the 1990s.

I'm going to start a new game (as England) on a standard continants map on King with 5 random opponents and try not to pick Commerce. Any advice on other ways to make money? I also have a nasty habit of buying units instead of building them. I guess I will have to build markets etc earlier and have a few more trading posts.

 

[Hambil]

Any advice on other ways to make money?

If you can stomach it, trading with the AI can be very profitable. First, every open border, alliance, and defensive pack makes you money - second, research agreements (while sucking up money) can be very useful. Last, if the AI player has cash they will buy your extra luxury or strategic goods.

Using CivUp if you computer can handle it with simplify the trading work a lot.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Thanks Pilgrim I think the question I was really getting at is what victory condition would Commerce be most useful for? I think the answer is obvious-Domination. But, for me, I don't think I would complete that tree even in a domination game, take Rationalism instead for the high-tech weaponry.

Or Piety to start a conquest much earlier and be able to handle the unhappiness. In domination cash is rarely a problem, so other than water maps - none.

Tradition until complete (starting with the wonder improvement).
If playing a science Civ, Liberty next until complete otherwise Piety until complete. The reason for this is you can't pick Rationalism later if you choose Piety, and as a science civ you kind of want that

If you complete two whole trees before you can unlock Rationalism, you don't beeline your techs properly. Your goal is to enter the Renaissances asap.

That said, the free social policy from The Oracle is usually worth it since it's available very early game and policies can be quite powerful.

Lower than immortal/emperor when you do aim for Rationalism, it's usefull to burn the Oracle on unlocking it instantly, to time it with completing the PT and resolving of first RA's.

Any Science deficit can be made up with Freedom or just a larger more optimized empire.

Science deficit is made up by RA's. That's how you go on higher levels. The only other alternative is constant expansion through war while trimming down opponent after opponent. Without RA's peaceful play is not an option.

I'm going to start a new game (as England) on a standard continants map on King with 5 random opponents and try not to pick Commerce. Any advice on other ways to make money? I also have a nasty habit of buying units instead of building them. I guess I will have to build markets etc earlier and have a few more trading posts.

Beeline Machinery, build a lot ob LB's and puppet every city on your continent.

 

[joshua43214]

Any Science deficit can be made up with Freedom or just a larger more optimized empire.

Gardens are better. Freedom comes too late to really make up a science deficit, it just gives you that last bit of edge to bulb out nanotech or stealth. Gardens won't make up for a real deficit, but they give you a bit more flexibility. RA's are the only thing that will get you caught up, gardens give you a bit of wiggle room and allow you to take 1 or 2 less RA's.

 

[regeneration64]

I've taken the plunge into unknown territory (for me) and chosen to go with this order so far:

1. Liberty
2. Piety
3. Patronage

I'm playing as England on a continents plus map with standard speed and size, King difficulty. I'm even attempting a purely tall empire (I usually start tall then go wide) and currently in the late industrial era with 5 cities ranging from 15-30. Two of which are the AIs capitals who were on my continent.

I'm aiming for a Diplomatic victory as I've yet to achieve one. Russia is the runaway civ in this game - twice as many troops as me and a slight tech lead. Catherine is a concern but I'm hoping I can win before she does.

Right, back to those social policies...

Liberty is a no-brainer for me as the first SP to complete whatever the strategy/victory condition. I'm just not content with anything else.

Piety. This was a hit and miss one for me. The happiness bonus is arguably the best out of all of the SPs and the 10% cash boost is nice but otherwise Piety seems like a waste because it focuses on culture. Why did I choose it then? (1) I wanted to give it a go; (2) choosing this would offset the economic deficit from not choosing Commerce; (3) although going for a diplomatic victory more culture is good. On reflection, although Piety gives you a culture boost and a free policy I believe that unless you want that happiness boost (Domination victory?) or are going for a Cultural victory it's not worth it. Thoughts?

Patronage. This was the first time I've used it. Conclusion: I don't like it. I've always worked with city states (mainly cultural) and usually have enough money to keep 3-5 of them allies until the end. Clearly with Patronage I can be pally with a lot more than that and it is the perfect choice for a Diplomatic victory but I don't see how it can benefit the other victory conditions?

A final word on social policies and money. In my current game I am solvent (~$100 per turn) but I would have hoped to be at least double this by now (and believe that with Commerce I would be). I can live with having a mediocre income but I am struggling with the reality that everything is so expensive to buy without Commerce - even after building Big Ben. I'm finding that I am needing to puppet cities to get cash but I don't like the increase in unhappiness. Also, my military strength and abilty to purchase units/buildings at will is severly hindered. The AI is not in the trading mood. So I seemingly have one choice in this game: Build buildings and units and don't buy them...

 

[The Pilgrim]

Piety. This was a hit and miss one for me. The happiness bonus is arguably the best out of all of the SPs and the 10% cash boost is nice but otherwise Piety seems like a waste because it focuses on culture. Why did I choose it then? (1) I wanted to give it a go; (2) choosing this would offset the economic deficit from not choosing Commerce; (3) although going for a diplomatic victory more culture is good. On reflection, although Piety gives you a culture boost and a free policy I believe that unless you want that happiness boost (Domination victory?) or are going for a Cultural victory it's not worth it. Thoughts?

I can see how Piety works here combined with Freedom. If you spread wonders between as many cities as possible you probably can finish Freedom rather fast. With tall cities running mad scientists and generating more GS than usual to bulb expensive late techs. But it's still marginal at best. Diplomacy/Spaceship = Rationalism. Science boost is incomparable with anything else even if you don't know how to fully capitalize on research agreements.

A final word on social policies and money. In my current game I am solvent (~$100 per turn) but I would have hoped to be at least double this by now (and believe that with Commerce I would be). I can live with having a mediocre income but I am struggling with the reality that everything is so expensive to buy without Commerce - even after building Big Ben. I'm finding that I am needing to puppet cities to get cash but I don't like the increase in unhappiness. Also, my military strength and abilty to purchase units/buildings at will is severly hindered. The AI is not in the trading mood. So I seemingly have one choice in this game: Build buildings and units and don't buy them...

You answered yourself. For 'real' money - play wide. BTW, if you have such big cities hard building stuff shouldn't be a problem.

 

[regeneration64]

I can see how Piety works here combined with Freedom. If you spread wonders between as many cities as possible you probably can finish Freedom rather fast. With tall cities running mad scientists and generating more GS than usual to bulb expensive late techs. But it's still marginal at best. Diplomacy/Spaceship = Rationalism. Science boost is incomparable with anything else even if you don't know how to fully capitalize on research agreements.

That's interesting because I have a bad habit of concentrating wonders in my capital although on this game I haven't done this and the conquered capitals should help (3 wonders in each of the two cities). I'm thinking of choosing Freedom next too to benefit the high population cities and GPs. It's a shame Russia beat me to Statue of Liberty... In hindsight i wish I had chosen Rationalism instead of Piety as you're right; Science is key for any victory - especially Science (really?! ) and Diplomatic as the UN is so late in the tree and you can't beeline to it.

You answered yourself. For 'real' money - play wide. BTW, if you have such big cities hard building stuff shouldn't be a problem.

That is my conclusion. It's tough having a tall empire making lots of money. It's not a major issue but it will still take 4 turns to build an artillery unit to defend city no.3 when Japan has decided to launch an all-out invasion on my no.3 city. Answering myself again, more strategy and preparation seems to be involved when not simply buying units for the next turn. Games just seem to be tougher without earning hundreds of $ every turn.