Which is Better?

[Darkwind3.0]

I've started my first game in which I'm Ashen Veil. I converted to Sacrifice the Weak, but it got me thinking. Which is better, use Sacrifice the Weak to whip people for production, or not to?

If you whip every city for production, you have an easy and quite quick method of gaining production. However, this isn't easy to do with wonders, it adds unhappiness, and none of your cities will ever see a Great Person.

If you don't whip, your cities can grow quite large quickly, don't need to rely on farms for large cities, and could easily get cities full of specialists(Great with Caste System). However, you won't gain armies or buildings as quickly as with whipping, and you'll have to worry more about unhappies.

Or you could take a middle route, whipping a few cities with lots of farms, and not whipping the rest.

Which do you think is best?

 

[Sureshot]

usually only 1 specialist city is ideal i find

 

[jwin]

I usually let a city grow to 2-4 unhappy people before whipping. You get more production from doing to bigger cities, so that is a benefit. You also never let your cities get too small, because lossing several population will still leave them big.

If you need GP, I'd leave one city to grow and use the rest for production

 

[Vatras]

The main benefit of Sacrifice is not the whipping (which has of course many uses), but that people need only half the food as usual, which allows for faster and bigger growth.

For various reasons it is not a bad idea to use half your cities for fast production, and leave one half alone (and you can switch which are what every 30 turns, too). I myself like to have 70-90% of my cities able to produce military units, mostly to have a large number of defenders at my fingertips. Since I like to operate with the Nexus (or single gates if I couldnt get to it first), it is to my advantage to have many producers instead of one or two big ones.

I am one of the people who conquer in the late game and wage no war in the early stages. Therefore I often whip seldom except when I have to rush a whole army or culture buildings.
More aggressive people who go for war from start will probably whip more often to have the necessary forces. I have tried it a couple of times, but it felt to me its a win-or-die approach, because if you fail to conquer you are left with little troops and ravaged cities afterwards.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Another reason why Sacrifice the Weak is better than Slavery is that it lets you rush by whipping and still be able to rush by spending gold as well. The economic religious civics aren't as good because those civics are better in general.

(Since I like having both options but don't always want to send the world to hell I made the cultural value civic Consumption also allow rushing with gold. It seems appropriate for these gluttonous citizens to be willing to work for more money to waste)