State Property or Mercantilism???

[blitzkrieg1980]

SP is the way to go IMHO. I usually have colonies across the planet as well as many captured cities that are a good distance from my palace/forbidden palace/versailles(if i even got it). That plus the workshop bonus which is amazing for production is way more powerful than merc's free specialist. I run a hybrid economy, anyway, so I usually have enough specialists without the free one. That and I usually say screw Emancipation and stay with caste system. The 1 penalty you get for not switching isn't really a factor if you've done a good job of conquering to gain those luxuries.

 

[jimbob27]

I think people are very wrong with their judgment of mercantilism.

Sure, it cancels all foreign trade routes, but this is often actually a good thing. If you empire is larger that everybody elses with loads of well developed cities all over the map, then the chances are canceling all foreign trade routes will benefit you. A small lesser developed rival with crappy cities will benefit more from the deal than you will; essentially letting them play catch-up. Their trade route will have high yeilds, because chances are you'll have a very big city far away from their's.

You'll loose some benefit from canceling the trade routes, but the impact is going to be a lot larger towards the smaller civs you're trading with.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^^I see your point, however, I'd rather have a larger benefit for my civ than try to further cripple an already weak civ. The difference my trade routes will make in their economy won't be big enough to merit using Mercantilism, IMO.

 

[malekithe]

You'll loose some benefit from canceling the trade routes, but the impact is going to be a lot larger towards the smaller civs you're trading with.

The profit from a trade route is more often dependent upon your city size than the one you're trading with (unless there is a very large population disparity). If you happen to close borders with all other civs, they're still going to be trading with one another, and generating a similar level of trade wealth. It will be slightly lower, yes, but it will likely not fall as much as your income will (as long as you aren't absolutely dominating the game).

For a rough estimate of how much raw commerce you lose by adopting mercantilism, look at the export number on the Demographics screen (I'll call it X). Divide this number by 3 (call this new number T). That's about how much you can expect the new domestic trade routes to be worth. If the loss (X - T) is not offset by the additional specialist per city (~3 commerce per city), then it may not be worthwhile to switch to mercantilism. That method won't give you exact numbers, but it should be somewhere in the ballpark.

 

[cabert]

The profit from a trade route is more often dependent upon your city size than the one you're trading with (unless there is a very large population disparity). If you happen to close borders with all other civs, they're still going to be trading with one another, and generating a similar level of trade wealth. It will be slightly lower, yes, but it will likely not fall as much as your income will (as long as you aren't absolutely dominating the game).

For a rough estimate of how much raw commerce you lose by adopting mercantilism, look at the export number on the Demographics screen (I'll call it X). Divide this number by 3 (call this new number T). That's about how much you can expect the new domestic trade routes to be worth. If the loss (X - T) is not offset by the additional specialist per city (~3 commerce per city), then it may not be worthwhile to switch to mercantilism. That method won't give you exact numbers, but it should be somewhere in the ballpark.

that's a good approach, but the mercantilism free specialist can be worth more than the 3 commerce, if you have sistin chapel, or are under representation.
I'll take a free artist in a new city > foreign trade routes (not going to happen anyway) for granted. The key is not in pure numbers, but in the goals you have:
Do you need a land grab ? then culture is what you need, and you need it in the new cities NOW!
Do you want science? then you can compare costs/benefits between rep+merc+caste system and ?/?/ FM and ?/?/SP.
It's very much about how many cities you have vs how big they are.
bigger cities benefit less from SP than many small ones where maintenance from distance is the big part.

 

[malekithe]

bigger cities benefit less from SP than many small ones where maintenance from distance is the big part.

Actually, distance maintenance increases in bigger cities. The optimum case for State Property would be a relatively small number of very large cities a long distance from you capital without a forbidden palace or versailles.

I agree with the rest of what you said, though. You have to look at your current goals when choosing the appropriate economic civic. In a great deal of these cases, even though it may decrease your overall commercial output, Mercantilism is a very good choice. Of the three (SP, Merc, FM) I actually spend the least time in FM. I typically use it in the mid-game of a space-race before I need the production boost from SP. In domination and culture games, I always spend a great deal of time in mercantilism (if I bother switching away from Decentralization).

 

[aelf]

SP is the way to go IMHO. I usually have colonies across the planet as well as many captured cities that are a good distance from my palace/forbidden palace/versailles(if i even got it). That plus the workshop bonus which is amazing for production is way more powerful than merc's free specialist. I run a hybrid economy, anyway, so I usually have enough specialists without the free one. That and I usually say screw Emancipation and stay with caste system. The 1 penalty you get for not switching isn't really a factor if you've done a good job of conquering to gain those luxuries.

If you have many small (esp. newly-conquered cities) in your large empire, running Mercantilism + Representation might be worth considering. You shouldn't dismiss the idea. And not switching to Emancipation will give you more than just 1 face in each city.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^^ yeah, I just got this last night. I had to switch to emancipation as just about all of my core cities ended up having +5 faces! lol. oops... however, I end up with a huge loss in my cash flow with switching to Mercantilism. I simply won't allow my economy to crumble for about 15 free specialists. It just doesn't fit my strat. (i need that gold for my final military push which is hurried by UnSuf)

 

[DarkSchneider]

State Property is really useful in larger empires. By using it you can generally set your science slider one level higher than you would with free trade and still keep the same income. Just work out the extra commerce you might be losing from the extra trade routes and look at the city maintenance costs in the sub screen. If it's close or if State Property is better, go with it, it also boosts a few of the improvements as well.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^That boost in the improvements is massive. To be able to build a workshop in a fat cross that already has enough food producing to support 20 pop is so clutch. +3 hammers on a flood plain? Unstoppable (for a production city of course)

 

[tempuraki]

I run Mercantilism more often in my current game because I have a total of 1 watermill-able square in my territory, and I only have a few workshops, so the food bonus don't affect me that much.

However, I do intend to switch to State Property for the late game because it looks like I will be in a tight space race and I will need to convert all my towns to workshops.

 

[Rast]

I've found Mercantilsm actually can work very well in late game domination runs, after I get bombers.

At this point most new cities have no improvements in the fat cross (from bombing) and more importantly big population crashes, usually down to 2 or 3 pop, from starvation from having all their farms bombed and after the sack heavy cultural influence and from whipping fast culture buildings to push the borders out and whipping courthouses.

In a big, sprawling, warlike civ running Police State that has dozens of crappy 1-3 pop cities with no improvements Mercantilism can really help - running merchants is a fast way to help offset maint. costs, artists to push the borders out, or just an eng/priest/citizen, depending on what you can run.