Universal Suffrage - Is it worth?

[chipix]

Hi,

I have played several games, but I have never used Universal Suffrage as my civic. I usually stick to Representation and when in war at Police State.

I like the happiness bonus and the science bonus of the representation.

I am playing at Prince level most of the times.

Why to use Universal Suffrage?

 

[jerVL/kg]

One word: Hurry Production.

Ok, that's two words.

 

[cabert]

HURRY PRODUCTION!
two ways for this : buy what you need, towns do produce.
Think of it that way : you cottage spammed all your cities (except the few big production ones) but how many specialists do you run?
+1 production for every town you work is like +10 hammer/city

In fact, universal suffrage is what you need for space race and even more for domination/conquest.
Quite handy for cultural too (buying this cathedral at the second turn is worth so much you cannot even think of anything better).

 

[Carcosa]

Hurrying production with money is so much more efficient than using hammer tiles that it almost feels wrong to do so.

 

[StrideCollosus]

Universal Sufferage is good because it allows you to rush build with cash. The science and happiness bonus of Representation gets less useful as you move towards the end of the game (where you've often researched all you're going to and should have lots of happiness from other sources).

 

[acidsatyr]

i only run representation if i get pyraminds, otherwise no...

 

[chipix]

Ok, I should build more cottages early on.
However, how I can support early on the production needs?

Do I keep the forests or chop them for a wonder and put a cottage there?

I leave forests (unless I ned to chop hurry a wonder) for the health and then I build lumbermills. Is this wrong?

 

[mgdpublic]

Universal Sufferage is the best civic in the game. And like someone else already said, it does feel like cheating.

 

[Leifmk]

Ok, I should build more cottages early on.
However, how I can support early on the production needs?

Do I keep the forests or chop them for a wonder and put a cottage there?

I leave forests (unless I ned to chop hurry a wonder) for the health and then I build lumbermills. Is this wrong?

I find that, except for tundra tiles, I can improve any tile to something as good as or better than a forest + lumbermill + railroad.

Furthermore the railroad only comes along quite late in the game and the lumbermill isn't available until halfway through either. Meanwhile, I can get the benefit from other terrain improvements, and not to mention the hammers from chopping the forest, now. Hammers are worth more the earlier you get them (always assuming you have something useful to build) since you get the use of whatever you build for more turns.

Lastly, I hardly ever find myself significantly troubled by low health. I typically run into happiness limits and health limits around the same time and am able to provide bonuses for both at around the same pace. (I play mostly Monarch and a bit of Emperor).

So any forest goes chop chop as soon as feasible, unless it's on tundra or if a city has no hills or other sources of hammers (I try not to build cities with no hills).

 

[chipix]

So,

chop forests.
The hills are always mined or also use windmills?
I assume you never build watermill or workshop?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Cash rushing is very very powerfull. I've modded my game so that cash rushing is about three times as expensive as in the original game and I still think that universal suffrage is the best civic. That's how powerfull cash rushing is. The +1 hammer per town is worth the change to universal suffrage by itself, but the cash rushing is what makes it a must have.

 

[emills]

Cash rushing is way powerful. For example, you want to build the pentagon. Do you build your factories first and coal plants first? Do you start building it if you have the ironworks already?

The answer to both is no.

You swing your science rate down to zero and buy the pentagon in about 9 turns (without kremlin or being financial civ). If you have already bought the kremlin, then you need 4 to 5 turns.

Now with the pentagon, you never have to leave the universal suffrage civic to go to vassalage or theocracy for upgraded units.

 

[gunkulator]

Universal Suffrage is the most powerful civic in the game for the human player. The AI doesn't know how to stockpile gold for rushes but you do. Save up to buy the Kremlin and then just buy all those late game wonders at half price! Why wait 12 turns for a factory, laboratory or hospital to be built? Buy them!

 

[Roland Johansen]

The production bonus from buildings reduces the costs of rush buying, so you should rush buy the factory and coal plant first and you shouldn't cash rush something without having invested some hammers in it.

Example:
You want to rush buy a building something that costs 100 hammers. If you rush it without any hammers invested in it and without any production bonuses, then it will cost 100*3*1.5=450 gold.
If you have invested one hammer in the building and have a +100% production bonus, then it will cost 99*3 /2 = 149 gold.

So don't cash rush mindlessly.

 

[Leifmk]

So,

chop forests.
The hills are always mined or also use windmills?
I assume you never build watermill or workshop?

In the later parts of the game I do build some windmills and watermills, especially after getting technologies or civics that give them bonuses. But usually only if I'm colonizing new land or fixing up conquered territory (my original cities all get their hills mined).

I have never built a workshop since they seem useless.

 

[Crighton]

# of workshops built 0
# of watermills built 1 (give me a break the worker was on automatic and it was outside the fat cross)

 

[Spammurabi]

Watermills are very good if you're running state property- the extra food you get from the tile allows you to work extra cottages (in a food-poor city) and still provides okay production and commerce.

 

[Leifmk]

Yes, my usual civics progression (when running a builder-type strategy) is more or less like this:

- Slavery as soon as I get Bronze Working. Depending on the map I may or may not use a significant amount of population rushing but either way it's cheaper to run than the default.

- Try to grab the Pyramids to get Representation early (if that fails, I go for Hereditary Rule to at least get that happiness bonus).

- Also I try for Civil Service ASAP, preferably by pulling a slingshot maneuver.

I run this combination for a long while, along with Organized Religion for the building-up-infrastructure phase, then Pacifism to generate more GPs.

In the midgame I switch to Free Market economics, then Emancipation as soon as that becomes available. As more and more towns are fully grown, both Universal Suffrage and Free Speech become more attractive. If I have a large empire (as I often do) then the Free Market phase only lasts until I invent communism, so in that case it's watermills on all eligible tiles whenever I develop new (or pre-owned) lands.

 

[atreas]

I agree with Leifmk - this is also my usual choice for my civ (that is usually very big). Still, Universal Suffrage is not a panacea, especially if I happen to have conquered a big part of my empire somewhat late and found it without many cottages (note that I play only Large or Huge maps, so big is REALLY big, and you can't have it all as you would like).

For example, in my current game where I happened to conquer a big part of my land with cavalries and also another part of my early land was very unsuitable for cottages (mostly plains and hills), there was nothing else to do than keep the farms and pretend I am a fan of the "specialists" approach. In my case Universal Suffrage is 30% slower in research than Representation - too much. Fortunately, I was playing Indians and they are spiritual - so I am shifting between these two civics as more as I can.

 

[pub hero]

It's awesome because you can rush buy, like everyone said. Just run 0% science for three turns and you can buy three or four different wonders. :]