When to use Environmentalism?

[Culture Bomb]

This civic comes so late in the game that I wonder if it's ever a good idea to use it...

If the game goes on that long, I'm either going for a Space Race or possibly late war/domination - in either case I probably want to maximise and it seems like the best way to do this is either through Mining Inc (possibly augmented by a food corp,) or through State Property with a lot of workshops and water mills.

If I'm using corporations it seems like Free Market would be a than Environmentalism, though I guess if I only spread the corp to a few cities with the highest then the upkeep costs wouldn't be so bad. Generally though, if I get useful corps early enough then I want to spread them to as many cities as possible as the bonus is proportionally higher in cities that did not have much production to start with.

I guess another reason would be to make someone whose favourite civic is Environmentalism (Sitting Bull?) like me more to try to get his vote in the UN election.

 

[lymond]

The rare case of a Diplo game with Sitting Bull in there would be the only case except maybe an OCC game in which I kept lots of forest for National Park. Environmentalism is nice in that case to boost those reserves, especially since Free Market and State Property have far less value in OCC. Otherwise, I never run Environmentalism. Either Free Market or SP are far more powerful in most cases.

 

[rfcfanatic]

What Free Speech does to towns, Environmentalism does to windmills. It seems that these two have a lot of synergy in cottage spam strategies. More towns mean less farms (= less food) for city growth. So it will become less favorable to build mines and more favorable to build windmills. Just as farms pair up with mines, towns pair up with windmills.

Let's add Universal Suffrage to the equation. US turns towns into production centers. In Industrial era, there are Factories and Coal Plants to boost the production. But there's a problem - industrialized production makes cities very . The solution - run Environmentalism to get rid of the heavy

So the conclusion is that Environmentalism has a strong synergy with Cottage Economy civics: Universal Suffrage and Free Speech. But that's just my noobish theory

 

[Gwynnja]

I use it when I don't defy the UN resolution. I suppose it could have it's uses late game if you've got a monster AI that won't trade health resources and you need factories and plants, but I can't remember ever thinking that it would be better than SP or FR.

 

[UnholyMudcrab]

So the conclusion is that Environmentalism has a strong synergy with Cottage Economy civics: Universal Suffrage and Free Speech. But that's just my noobish theory

You could say that, but generally speaking, switching to SP is always going to boost your economy more than the extra commerce from Environmentalism. It's especially evident in that the commerce-boosted windmills will only affect cities with hills in their radius, while SP affects every city because it provides a universal boost to production and because all cities (aside from the capital, of course) will incur distance-to-palace maintenance.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Going for the late game diplo win by switching to environmentalism ( for the health bonus ) and trying to grow your cities as high as possible is the only reason I can think of to voluntarily use environmentalism.

 

[Manco Capac]

There is a niche use of environmentalism: global highland or highland mapscripts. If you got an unusually high level of hills, environmentalism permits to boost the value of all those windmills you're gonna build to get decent-sized cities.

 

[Kupi007]

I m still waiting for a mod where State property will be WORST( or at least very circumstential) economic civic, as it should be. No commerce penelties when in SP is very unrealistic and imo in game terms unbalanced. This would make enviromentalism more competetive.

 

[Kallikrates]

The developers are commies...
State property does get commerce penalties of a sort, because you lose a trade route (from free market) and the use of corporations. But I tend to agree that the miraculous windmills and workshops are maybe overpowered. So I'd rather vote for losing the workshop and 10% production bonus than any commerce penalty

 

[gunslinger6792]

I use it to combat pollution if its gotten out of hand though I rarely keep using it for long.

 

[ben-jammin]

The developers are commies...
State property does get commerce penalties of a sort, because you lose a trade route (from free market) and the use of corporations. But I tend to agree that the miraculous windmills and workshops are maybe overpowered. So I'd rather vote for losing the workshop and 10% production bonus than any commerce penalty

It doesnt help that the free great spy from communism is already really good, with all the prereqs being easily bulb-able...

 

[Tall German Joe]

I m still waiting for a mod where State property will be WORST( or at least very circumstential) economic civic, as it should be. No commerce penelties when in SP is very unrealistic and imo in game terms unbalanced. This would make enviromentalism more competetive.

why is that? the USSR achieved very high % GDP growth during the 20s, 30s, 50s, and 60s. and, despite following the stagflation era of the 80s, russia's economy did not do so well with the switch to free market!

 

[Tall German Joe]

The developers are commies...
State property does get commerce penalties of a sort, because you lose a trade route (from free market) and the use of corporations. But I tend to agree that the miraculous windmills and workshops are maybe overpowered. So I'd rather vote for losing the workshop and 10% production bonus than any commerce penalty

SP gives a bonus to watermills, not windmills. environmentalism is what gives the super windmills.

 

[Ormur]

A bit off topic of course but it's true that the economic achievements of the Soviet Union in transitioning from an agrarian to a industrial economy were very impressive. Other communist countries had more trouble emulating that success and of course the Soviet Union had trouble maintaining it. Central planning in other newly industrialized countries in East-Asia has also yielded some impressive results but that's not exactly state property as per the civic.

Of course any way of replicating the real world in Civ is going to be difficult. Considering even the successes of central planning food bonuses to watermills and workshops seem a bit strange though. But in game balance terms state property vs free market doesn't seem so bad since both civics seem to be used successfully in different strategies at high levels. I've seen experienced players use environmentalism but that still seems like the civic that's most in need of a fix if it's supposed to be the end-game one.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

I m still waiting for a mod where State property will be WORST( or at least very circumstential) economic civic, as it should be. No commerce penelties when in SP is very unrealistic and imo in game terms unbalanced. This would make enviromentalism more competetive.

Herpa derp, China has the second highest GNP, and is growing at a much higher rate than the USA. So yea bout capitalism actually being the strongest economic model, it's more like government supported capitalism is the strongest for the corporations. But GNP doesn't matter at all, the average standard of living matters a lot more.

As for Environmentalism, it basically sucks 99.999% of the time in Civ don't use it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Herpa derp, China has the second highest GNP, and is growing at a much higher rate than the USA. So yea bout capitalism actually being the strongest economic model, it's more like government supported capitalism is the strongest for the corporations. But GNP doesn't matter at all, the average standard of living matters a lot more.

As for Environmentalism, it basically sucks 99.999% of the time in Civ don't use it.

It's been a while since China practiced "pure" communism from an economic standpoint.

USA hasn't "pure" capitalism in any of our lifetimes, so it's not like we can claim it doesn't work. We don't use it or even close to it.

As for treehugging in civ IV, it's a fun civic to use when it harms everybody else more than you via UN, or as pointed out already gouging population to win UN since you can put up some amazing city sizes with culture slider, bio farms, and environmentalism . You'd be surprised how often this can make you "#1 in pop other than guy who builds UN" and take a low-effort W...especially if you can get to #1 in pop this way and "gift" techs that let the AI of your choosing build you the W.

 

[jihe]

Herpa derp, China has the second highest GNP, and is growing at a much higher rate than the USA. So yea bout capitalism actually being the strongest economic model, it's more like government supported capitalism is the strongest for the corporations. But GNP doesn't matter at all, the average standard of living matters a lot more.

As for Environmentalism, it basically sucks 99.999% of the time in Civ don't use it.

You need to realize China is more capitalist than USA.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Hmmm, seems kind of wrong to use environmentalism to to super-size population. But I sure want to try it now.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hmmm, seems kind of wrong to use environmentalism to to super-size population. But I sure want to try it now.

Environmentalism in civ IV correlates strongly to more and faster global warming/desert fairy magic (DFM). This is because the game is going off of (among other factors) and doesn't care whether cities have enough to overcome it. Ultimately, environmentalism allows either more pop or more polluting buildings (more either way) and since it does nothing to offset this it is actually the civic that leads to the most pollution in the game .

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Well, most people put the savings of energy efficient lighting to good use by never turning off the lights because they use so little electricity anyway (and take so long to start up). Or, in a local example, the conservative political party in charge in these parts raises the speed limit because new cars pollute less thus making previous reductions in speed, that were intended to reduce air pollution, unnecessary. In RL environmental gains often serve to expand environmentally unfriendly practices instead of bettering the environment. What could be better than living the lifestyle of choice without the guilt? I guess Civ implemented Greenwashing even before it really took off.

Thanks for the explanation of DFM, I wondered how that worked. Can't wait until Civ VI incorporates SeLeFM (sea level FM) and coastal lands flood. If it strikes the AI enough it just might push you over the Domination limit.