The Power of State Property

omglazers

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I've heard a LOT of discussion in small bits and pieces about the power of State Propety when combined with Watermills/Workshops/Windmills

I'd love to start discussing how everyone uses these mid to late game improvements rather than just farming and cottaging [or mining] everything.

For example; for a purely production city would you just put nothing but watermills on the rivers, and workshops everywhere else [save on resources?]

And what kind of civics go well with these buildings, do you think? Just want to hear about everyone's opinion. State Property looks like it can be a lot of fun pre-corporation and esp. if you're a warmonger or running something other than a CE.
 
State Property+Caste System+Workshop(+Right Techs)=Production Powerhouse.

This combination overruns basic mines pretty easily. More hammers AND more food. Then just mix in some watermills+farms so that you can work all the tiles in the BFC for maximum production.

This can be very powerful especially for non-CE. One example is obsolete's strategy, which is something totally different from others. Works well for FE production cities too. The only downside I see is corporations becoming useless, but for me it doesn't really matter because I rarely use any of them anyway.
 
State Property is a very, very powerful civic.

Riverside grassland becomes pre-biology farms PLUS a pile of production. The additional food allows you to work the rest of your tiles that are hammer-maxed, so at full size you're working 20 production maxed-tiles plus a small pile of engineers/priests for more production.

A riverside production city produces dramatically more hammers than a farms/hills city. Basically, think of a farms/hills city, but then add 3 base hammers each to the farms.

Is it the end-all be-all civic that should always be used? Of course not. I just finished a conquest game where I never used it - I happened to be supporting my entire empire with 0% slider-gold thanks to corporations (and Wall Street), so it would have been silly for me to make the switch.

But it's definately a good one!
 
It is great. Here's a small samples of how it's evolved:
1) Civilization 4, v1.00: No Cost. No maintenance costs from distance to palace, +1 food from workshop, watermill.

2) Civilization 4, v1.52 (?): Low Cost.No maintenance costs from distance to palace, +1 food from workshop, watermill.

3) Beyond the Sword, v3.00: Low Cost. No maintenance costs from distance to palace, +1 food from workshop, watermill. +10% production in all cities. Corporations have no effect.

To prevent overusage of the civic, Firaxis changed the civic to include a corporation nullifier. The +10% modifier makes up for the loss slightly, but if you have enough resources, Mining Inc or Aluminum Co can beat that in raw hammer output.
 
State Property is a very, very powerful civic.

Riverside grassland becomes pre-biology farms PLUS a pile of production. The additional food allows you to work the rest of your tiles that are hammer-maxed, so at full size you're working 20 production maxed-tiles plus a small pile of engineers/priests for more production.

A riverside production city produces dramatically more hammers than a farms/hills city. Basically, think of a farms/hills city, but then add 3 base hammers each to the farms.
I don't follow this description...

Fortunately, with all bonuses, things turn out to be relatively simple. No matter what terrain improvements you use1, the conversion rate is that one food equals two hammers. So the city with the highest possible food surplus is the city that can produce the most hammers, which is why the all-grassland terrain makes the best production cities.

(at least, assuming the terrain permits you to have a zero food surplus and ignoring hammer bonus resources)



1: among farms, watermills, workshops, windmills, and mines. And I've only really considered grassland and plains (flat and hills), and flood plain.
 
Okay. When the SP Civic states that it adds "one food to Workshops, Watermills", that is in addition to the food bonuses the improvement gives anyways. Thus, under St. Property, Workshops don't take away food, and Watermills add them.

Here's another analysis:
Assume that we are in the Modern Era; i.e, all the Workshop/Watermill techs have been researched, these being Chemistry (+1 production Workshop), Electricity (+2 commerce for Watermills), Guilds (+1 Production Workshop), Machinery (allows Watermills), Metal Casting (enables Workshops), and Replaceable Parts (+1 hammer for Watermills).

(Note: values are for the improvement, not improvement + terrain)
Before any techs or civics come online, Workshops are -1F, +1H. Watermills are +1H
Under State Property (+1 food per Watermill, Workshop):
Workshop-3H
Watermills- 2C, 2H, 1F

Under Caste System (BTS)
Workshop- 4H, -1F
Watermills - 2C, 2H

Under State Property + Caste System (BTS):
Workshop - 4H
Watermills- 2C, 2H, 1F.

This combo works even better if the river tiles are Plains. This gives an extra 1H to the watermills. Similarly, if the Workshops are on Plains, it makes it 5H!
 
State Property is one of the best civics in the game, and I always switch to it ASAP. No maintenence from distance!! Saves a bundle, and gives insane grasslands and plains (grassland: 3F, 3H, 3G).

All in all, great. Only bad thing is the loss of corporations, which can hurt in a cultural victory (Creative Constructions, Civilized Jewelers, and Sid's Sushi give a combined near 100 a turn.)
 
Personally, I think it needs a maintenance increase for accuracy and balance purposes. What country has ever run communism at a minimal cost?
 
Personally, I think it needs a maintenance increase for accuracy and balance purposes. What country has ever run communism at a minimal cost?

It's not communism, it's state property.
No country has ever run communism.
State property on the other hand is quite wide spread, but not at full scale.
 
State property is the same as communism. When the state owns every property in a country it's called communism. Especially when you look at the "no corp" trait. In a socialistic (communistic) country the state owns everything, which makes it impossible for any private corps t settle.

If you combine this with free religion, vassalage, police state you get CCCP and china under Mao. If that ain't communism, then nothing is communism!
 
State property is the same as communism. When the state owns every property in a country it's called communism. Especially when you look at the "no corp" trait. In a socialistic (communistic) country the state owns everything, which makes it impossible for any private corps t settle.

If you combine this with free religion, vassalage, police state you get CCCP and china under Mao. If that ain't communism, then nothing is communism!

if you think socialism and communism are the same, I see no point in discussing any further.
 
State Property is very powerful, and BTS offers you a great choice to be made between corps and SP.

SP:
Elimination of distance to palace is very big on large empires.
Extra 10% production is great
Extra food from watermill and workshops allows you to build alot more

On the other hand

Corps
Allows more commerce since you have the extra trade route from FM or specialist from Merc.
Sid's or Cereals allows more food and thus more specialists to be run, allowing more GPs later in the game.
More raw hammers from Mining Inc/Creative.
Lot's of GOLD from Jewelers

The larger the empire the better SP is, or is it? A large empire has more resources needed for corps and allows you to trade for even more resoruces.

I have found this decision to be map and vicilization size dependent. Also depends if you were lucky/smart enough to squirrel away a GE and GM.

In either case, both are excellent choices although it is very difficult to swap back and forth.
 
State Property looks like it can be a lot of fun pre-corporation and esp. if you're a warmonger or running something other than a CE.

Thing of it is by the time you can research State Property, corporations are popping up about the same time.

It used to be a no brainer in Vanilla to switch to State Property when it was available, with corporations on BTS they've definately made it a tough choice as to what to do. That no maintence cost is the biggie, if you have a large enough empire where maintence costs are killing you even with the Forbidden Palace up, then that might be what makes your decision.
 
It makes sense when you're heading towards mid-game to decide which you're going for. There will no doubt be many instances when corporations will give better results (in terms of commerce and hammers) than SP. What I like about SP is that its a lot less hassle to implement.
 
Levees on the river tiles will add even more production!
 
I think the inclusion of corporations has really added a strategic counterweight to SP. With State property being an economic powerhouse for large empires, Corporations can readily speed up your victories if you have a monopoly of certain resources giving massive amounts of either production for a quick military buildup or space programme, research to reach the stars quicker, and huge culture boost to win a cultural victory.
 
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