Reply With QuoteThis was supposed to be a poll, but for some reason the options didn't spawn when I checked the button. Sorry.
What is the most maligned/least useful civic?
The logic behind all the picks in my poll is:
Hereditary Rule: I view this civic as one that people select, much like slavery, as a stop-gap until something better is unlocked. Later in the game with numerous ways to combat unhappiness martial happiness isn't terribly effective.
Nationhood: Compared to the juicy commerce/hammer/culture/unit enhancing benefits of other legal civics this one seems sorely lacking, and arriving rather late on top of that. Drafting units for pop is a high price, like Slavery, and I'd only consider it in a dire emergency, facing invasion, though by the time one realizes this it may already be too late.
Caste System: In truth I find the Labor civics to be the least interesting, and they tend to be among the first unlocked to boot. Usually I just run Serfdom until Emancipation. For the poll I find Caste System to be a fairly useless civic; the buildings needed to assign Great People are available early and aren't terribly expensive to build. On top of this CS is the most expensive Labor civic. I can only fathom wanting to run this with a Super Science City or Super Shrine City that ballooned in population early in-game, with lots of spare workers. A rare scenario, in my opinion.
Environmentalism: A very late-game civic which, though employing some nice effects, I think somewhat pales in comparison to State Property and Free Market (or even Mercantilism run in tandem w/Representation). There are many ways to combat health problems without resorting to civics to do it for you, although if your empire-management style is total tree-hugger (read: there are a lot of tree tiles you've saved over the centuries) maybe this is feasible, or if your civ has a lot of flood plains in its terrain that are turning out to be liability late-game.
Theocracy: An anemic civic, in my opinion. +2 XP isn't much compared to +25% building construction bonus (like having a free forge in each city) and missionaries without monasteries, or a doubled Great Person production rate (who doesn't want more of these spawned?that comes with other civics. And the all-mighty Free Religion civic is very handy for appeasing rival civs and boosting one's own research come late game. Theocracy prevents non-state religious spread. To me, that's a negative effect! I want to know as many religions as possible in my cities so that Free Religion is that much better to run, or it's possible I can switch faiths and still cull its boons. I can only fathom running this if one was in dire need of the XP boost, though for my money running Vassalage and building barracks is better.
Ultimately, while all are "strong' candidates I went with Caste System. What about you?
"I wake. I work. I sleep. I die. The dark of space my only sky. My life is passed, and all I've been will never touch the earth again." --The Ballad of Sky Farm 3, Anonymous, Datalinks
This was supposed to be a poll, but for some reason the options didn't spawn when I checked the button. Sorry.
"I wake. I work. I sleep. I die. The dark of space my only sky. My life is passed, and all I've been will never touch the earth again." --The Ballad of Sky Farm 3, Anonymous, Datalinks
With the shift up to Medicine, this civic is in my top picks.Originally posted by Marid Audran
Environmentalism: A very late-game civic which, though employing some nice effects, I think somewhat pales in comparison to State Property and Free Market (or even Mercantilism run in tandem w/Representation). There are many ways to combat health problems without resorting to civics to do it for you, although if your empire-management style is total tree-hugger (read: there are a lot of tree tiles you've saved over the centuries) maybe this is feasible, or if your civ has a lot of flood plains in its terrain that are turning out to be liability late-game.
Early civic if you beeline for it, on an ideal path to get the growth you need, and by focusing your whole game on reaching enviro fast and using it to the max you can have about 50% more production/commerce when fully entering the modern era.
It now is the ideal civic to make the transition between an empire that uses nearly half of its tiles with cities somewhere between size 5 and 10, to an empire with all tiles worked, running specialists in each an every city, and sizes between 15 (the smallest, cramped cities) and 25-30.
Later on, you gain more health/happy, but in most games these significant gains come to late: You only gain the extra size after RRs, and only some cities will profit from it to the max when you can start on SS parts. With an enviro strategy, by the time hospitals, supermarkets, and Elvis come around, you can switch away from enviro to e.g. free market. But at least you do it with max size on all your cities.
DeepO
The only Civic I've NEVER run is Police State. That's definitely my vote. My main problem is it's on a fairly obscure and end game tech.
The main reason I've never used it is that I've never had it and been Spiritual and in a prolonged war at the same time. I've always just cranked up the culture allocation by that stage of the game. The added culture helps push borders, and I can continue to get the +hammer benefits from suffrage, and the ability to RUSHBUY. I know what I'd rather in 95% of wars.
As for the other civics - I've used them all and like them all.
Caste System is a bit weak most of the time - cheaper to just build a library. But it has it's uses. Pacifism - I really like the bonus, but the cost can be steep. You really can't just go with a smaller army, you get stomped. I'm also inclined to use Organized leaders, which are much better suited to run Organized Religion.
I consider that "Stopgap" and "Emergency" civics are okay, that IS their role and reason for existing.
heh.. it seems I disagree with many of your choices
On higher levels, the best civic in many situations for happiness (representation is the other one), and quite late too.Originally posted by Marid Audran
Hereditary Rule: I view this civic as one that people select, much like slavery, as a stop-gap until something better is unlocked. Later in the game with numerous ways to combat unhappiness martial happiness isn't terribly effective.
Nationhood: Compared to the juicy commerce/hammer/culture/unit enhancing benefits of other legal civics this one seems sorely lacking, and arriving rather late on top of that. Drafting units for pop is a high price, like Slavery, and I'd only consider it in a dire emergency, facing invasion, though by the time one realizes this it may already be too late.
Very nice, but indeed a special-case civic. If used well it can be very powerful: before going for war, rush 1 or 2 units in every single city you've got. Then, switch back to something else... now use the masses of units to invade someone, and by the time war ends your cities have grown again.
Caste System: In truth I find the Labor civics to be the least interesting, and they tend to be among the first unlocked to boot. Usually I just run Serfdom until Emancipation. For the poll I find Caste System to be a fairly useless civic; the buildings needed to assign Great People are available early and aren't terribly expensive to build. On top of this CS is the most expensive Labor civic. I can only fathom wanting to run this with a Super Science City or Super Shrine City that ballooned in population early in-game, with lots of spare workers. A rare scenario, in my opinion.
Caste is extremely powerful early on, if used well. You can build GMs, you can build all the GAs and GSs you want without any of those buildings (theatre is the first GA producer). By running an artist in a freshly conquered city, your borders will expand in 1-4 turns.
Other choices are very interesting as well, I'm surprised you think labor is not worthy. Slavery, empancipation...
Theocracy: An anemic civic, in my opinion. +2 XP isn't much compared to +25% building construction bonus
Erh... that is an extra promotion, right out the gate. Instead of 4XP units, you get 6XP units... unlocking e.g. accuracy on siege, or cover on horses.
Theocracy prevents non-state religious spread. To me, that's a negative effect! I want to know as many religions as possible in my cities so that Free Religion is that much better to run, or it's possible I can switch faiths and still cull its boons. I can only fathom running this if one was in dire need of the XP boost, though for my money running Vassalage and building barracks is better.
It is meant to be a disadvantage in some cases, an advantage in others. If you don't want to give other civs a money benefit, you don't want the spread.
Oh, and vassalage costs more, and let's you lose other benefits as well.
Ultimately, while all are "strong' candidates I went with Caste System. What about you?
My least powerful choice? I don't know... free religion, perhaps, but then again it doesn't cost either.
Slavery as I'm not a pop-rusher, but I couldn't envision CIV without it. It's one of the interesting choices, I just decide not to use it.
DeepO
Oh yeah I'd love some defense of Police State. I just think the bonuses are too weak. +25% for units is nice, except by then your cities are on +100% from Forge+Factory+Coal Plant, so it's only +11% in total.
War weariness never seems to be quite bad enough to force my hand. If I am seriously at war, I'm taking new happy resources all the time, and am probably getting Broadway & friends too. Even like +8 war weariness is quite tolerable. Jail, Rushmore and it's down to +4. Then 20-30% culture and it's sorted.
Do you think? I think it's pretty balanced: either you go the radio route (so all the late happy resources and Eiffel/broadcasts), or you go for Communism. Together with Rushmore, that's a 75% reduction on ww if I'm not mistaken... you don't need the slider at all. Otherwise, in too many games I end up running 30-70% culture.Originally posted by Blake
The only Civic I've NEVER run is Police State. That's definitely my vote. My main problem is it's on a fairly obscure and end game tech.
It's certainly an early choice to make, though, just like enviro is: if you plan on using it, you can build the rest of your tech path around it. Police state is not something that you stumble upon by accident.
DeepO
Blake, I agree that once you've got jails, broadway etc, police state is not that useful anymore (except perhaps in emergencies). I use it before that time, though... or I'm simply not the first to Broadway etc, or too busy defending myself
DeepO
Errr... it's Communism and State Property that comes with the Radio route.
Police State comes with Facism which requires Industrialism. That's some expensive tech to chew through to get to it.
edit: prehaps you meant it comes with the Railroad route like when you defer researching sci-method for a while. That would make more sense.
there are two very distinctive paths in the tech tree at that point when it comes to how you're dealing with larger cities, especially during war. One option is to go the scientific method/electricty/radio/mass media path, the other option is to railroad / industrialism / facism.
It's all a matter of play style and opportunities, really. the Facism path is certainly a good option, but it might not be the best... but the advantages are chosen so that they reinforce each other: early industrialism means early factories. Add the 25% on units from Police state, and no happiness concerns because of police state and rushmore, and you've got a very potent war machine. Incidentally, tanks became available too, or are very close.
DeepO
Totally disagree. I run Theocracy all the time when at war or building units up for war.Originally posted by Marid Audran
Theocracy: An anemic civic, in my opinion. +2 XP isn't much compared to +25% building construction bonus (like having a free forge in each city) and missionaries without monasteries, or a doubled Great Person production rate (who doesn't want more of these spawned?
Barracks + Vassalage + Theocracy = +8 XP = 2 free promotions to start = only 1 (maybe 2) unit victories from a 3rd promotion.
Add in the Pentagon for another +2 XP and now you have +10 XP and 3 free promotions to start out. And if you are an Agressive civ nothing beats an Infantry out of the gate with Combat 1 with 3 more promotions to take. You can easily have an army of Infantry with Combat 4, couple Combat 2/Heal 2, specialist vs. armored units, etc. Awesome I tell you, awesome.
Any of the first 5 you start with, I would say...
Out of the remaining 20, I would say...
...Actually, now that I look, i think I can see myslef using any of them, depending on how I wanted to play the game. Only problem I would see is Mercantilism, but even then Merc and Caste System means I get 4 free culture in every city if I want it, and that over powers Cre trait...
You just wasted six ... no, seven ... seconds of your life reading this sentence.
The thing is, slavery is still pretty good even if you don't pop-rush very much, just because it has no maintence cost. That can save you a nice chunk of money per turn over any other civics in that group.Originally posted by DeepO
Slavery as I'm not a pop-rusher, but I couldn't envision CIV without it. It's one of the interesting choices, I just decide not to use it.
DeepO
When you first get it, if you have large cities, the bonus to happiness is a HUGE economic bonus. I think this is one of the key civics in the game, and one that is almost always worth a turn of anarchy to switch to when you first get it.Originally posted by Marid Audran
Hereditary Rule: I view this civic as one that people select, much like slavery, as a stop-gap until something better is unlocked. Later in the game with numerous ways to combat unhappiness martial happiness isn't terribly effective.
Theocracy can be very useful - in wartime, I switch to it if there are no strong diplomatic considerations speaking against a swich (such as having a different state religion from a strong neighbouring state you are interested in remaining friends with, and currently running Free Religion; switching to theocracy in this case would give you diplomatic penalites with your neighbour.) +2 XP isn't something to be frowned upon!
As to Environmentalism, it can be very useful under special circumstances. In one city challenges I've found it CRUCIAL; in OCC you typically don't have too many health-giving resources, but still want to have a large city. Environmentalism is worth a little beelining in OCC.
And of course, if you have a fairly small empire, and your main competitor's empire spans the globe, then forcing him to switch to Environmentalism through a UN vote can really run his expenses up (if he's running state property, which is an excellent choise for large states), and may be worth switching yourself.
The most useless civic.... I use Hereditary rule very, very rarely at all, and if I do, only very temporarily. Though it CAN be useful in OCC for a while, to solve early unhappiness problems.
Police state is another one that I think I've only used once, temporarily, in a war where I was running out of steam.
Don't use Caste system at all, though I suspect that if I bothered to look into it, I might find a use for it.
i started out NOT using caste system ever, I liked serfdom, making those workers faster. But ever since my first Civil Service slingshot, I realized how GREAT caste system really is.
The usual CSss works by getting writing, to put in a library while you research up to code of laws, then building oracle to complete same turn (or real close) for instant Buerocracy. however There have been times when, due to building pyramids, i couldnt build a library for the academy generation, But once code of laws came around, I could make an academy without building a library, and i could do it any city...
Also a good time for caste system, is during a large land grab. Montezuma declared war just 1 too many times, so i gear up for total war, mass my troops, and destroy his meager little band of cricket players. take a city, set it to POP its fat cross the very next turn by setting 4 artists before any buildings are even in place.
then once you have all that land, you find you cant afford to research at 90% anymore... well set up a couple merchants in those expensive cities while you build the courthouses. problem solved.
I would never change out of caste system if it werent for all those unhappy "we wanna be emancipated" hippies. usually i can trade for a couple more luxuries, and keep them working in squaller.
Hereditary Rule is very useful on higher diffuclties, on the lower difficulties it seems like it's weak, but trust me, it ain't. Hereditary rule is also a great war civic, newly conquered cities are pretty empty so you can have a size 10 ity with 7 unhappy's in it, Hereditary rule can save that city instead of letting it starve or be slave-rushed.
Theocracy is the bomb. I mean it's the cheapest way to get +6exp on your units for 2 promos and that's very important. Sure you have to spread a relgion but that isn't too hard to do by the time Theocracy comes around. It's a no brainer to swtich from OR to Theocracy when you build a lot of military. No non-state religion spread, bah who cares unless you are some sort of perfectionist who wants a lot of religions, just get the 1-3 religions that you need and be done with it.
Environmentalism, yeah I think this civic is weak, very weak. I mean I guess you can theorectically save 4 forests in every city and get +4 (+6 total) health and +4 happy when you finally switch to Environmentalism. But no way do I see you getting +50% production and commerce like DeepO says. I mean that late into the game you should have your max pop set up for your factories and powerplants and have high pops and be working almost all tiles possible already. Usually by the time I can get Environmentalism my good cities are around 15-20 pop and working almost all tiles, converting more tiles to farms for more pop is just a waste imo, I need more hammers and more commerce, working new cottages or farms is just not good. The only time I have ever used Environmentalism is when I had a small empire that late in the game and didn't have many resources so I just desparately needed +healthy anyway possible. Oh and lastly, I've found that Free Market usually nets me about 6-7% to my total commerce so I do not like losing that and paying a slightly higher civic upkeep for Environmentalism. Oh and sometimes it is funny when the U.N. passes Environmentalism and my State Propery fueled empire starts to starve, hehe.
Problem with Police state is that it comes so late in the game. Right when the Renaissance hits war weariness really starts to be a bigger factor. But by the time I get Police State I already have Jails up and once I get Fascism some city starts Mt. Rushmore asap and that's already -50% war weariness right there. Also the +25% production bonus is almost the same as Universal suffrages bonus to cities with lots of cottages, my total hammer output doesn't seem to change much. Although, if I am able to snag the Pyramids, mmm mm Police State is sweet.
Hereditary rule is awesome, and I don't think it should be on the short list.
I now believe all civics have their uses.
Police State is simply for the domination win. Switching to it (and getting it early) kind of forfiets buildery bonuses, but since games CAN be ended by domination in that era easily enough, that's no problem. After all, Raider3 Tanks can handle mechinf provided defenses are bombarded down.
Agreed. Which you deem the most useless will depend on the level and victory type you are most familiar with.Originally posted by Blake
I now believe all civics have their uses.
I was perhaps too harsh on Herediatary Rule; case in point is my current Prince game as the Greeks. I'm using some modified rules that I tweaked with that Gamespeed mod in the Creation Forum. I tweaked the settings on Epic where unit production is 100 instead of 150, and Wonder/Building production is down to 130 instead of 150, however tech remains untouched. It's created a much more enjoyable game where I'm not as gun-shy about building up multiple military units instead of previously where I always felt that each horse archer or phalanx that I build took away from my precious infrastructure. Buildings are relatively much more pricy than units which balances things a tad. It makes early warmongering more feasible and more fun.
Anyway in this game tech is a much more dilitory process, naturally, and whilst in antiquity I was running into a serious unhappiness wall in my cities, where happiness/culture spawning buildings were few and far between, and a religion had yet to spread to my lands. Running Hereditary Rule really helped out once it was finally unlocked. I also used slave-rush for the first documented time in my personal games; in the early game I was still connecting cities with roads and harvesting all my health/happiness resources in the field. One city in particular had a measely five population and was already unhappy and dirty. Ingrates. Lo, I was irked. I slave-rushed a library for two pop. Best bargain this side of Sparta.
Of course, once construction/masonry came 'round (and some resource trading), things improved. Still.
I don't believe Theocracy is such a bad civic per se, only that for those two promotions right outside the gate I prefer barracks/Vassalage whilst running some other religious civic, Organized Religion or Pacifism most likely. Of course, there are exceptions during late game.
I stand by my comment that Caste System sucks though.
"I wake. I work. I sleep. I die. The dark of space my only sky. My life is passed, and all I've been will never touch the earth again." --The Ballad of Sky Farm 3, Anonymous, Datalinks
Theocracy is best used *with* Vassalage. If you don't use it with Vassalage, you're going to under-rate it.
Participating in my threads is mandatory. Those who do not do so will be forced, in their next game, to play a power directly between Catherine and Montezuma.
You ever tried nationhood? Cause if ya did, ya would know that it only lets you draft 3 units civ wide, and not per city.Originally posted by DeepO
Nationhood: Compared to the juicy commerce/hammer/culture/unit enhancing benefits of other legal civics this one seems sorely lacking, and arriving rather late on top of that. Drafting units for pop is a high price, like Slavery, and I'd only consider it in a dire emergency, facing invasion, though by the time one realizes this it may already be too late.
Very nice, but indeed a special-case civic. If used well it can be very powerful: before going for war, rush 1 or 2 units in every single city you've got. Then, switch back to something else... now use the masses of units to invade someone, and by the time war ends your cities have grown again.
Not very good IMO. Of course, if you got a nice low-pop, high food city, it can be used to create free units.
Originally posted by Marid Audran
Caste System: In truth I find the Labor civics to be the least interesting, and they tend to be among the first unlocked to boot. Usually I just run Serfdom until Emancipation. For the poll I find Caste System to be a fairly useless civic; the buildings needed to assign Great People are available early and aren't terribly expensive to build. On top of this CS is the most expensive Labor civic. I can only fathom wanting to run this with a Super Science City or Super Shrine City that ballooned in population early in-game, with lots of spare workers. A rare scenario, in my opinion.
If I'm playing a more cultural strategy, Caste System is indispensible. I pick a city that can support a lot of specialists, build the National Epic there, switch to Pacifism, try and get the Parthenon, and then pump that city full of artists. Then I'll be getting a Great Artist every couple of turns mid-game, which I can use to "culture bomb" my border towns, where I can also use artists, coupled with cathedrals, the Hermitage, the Sistine Chapel, and later on Broadway/Rock&Roll/Hollywood, broadcast towers, and free speech, to pump out even more culture.
Since there aren't a lot of buildings that let you make artists, the Caste System is indispensible with a culture-heavy strategy.
Least useful? Serfdom. Everything else has an associated benefit you can't get otherwise, serfdom's effects are easily duplicated by just building a few more workers. Most of the really hard work- building plantations in the jungle - is done before I get feudalism anyway.
Erh, yes I did try Nationhood before. If I don't know something I don't go around posting about it...Originally posted by MattPilot
You ever tried nationhood? Cause if ya did, ya would know that it only lets you draft 3 units civ wide, and not per city.
Not very good IMO. Of course, if you got a nice low-pop, high food city, it can be used to create free units.
Of course you can only draft 3 units per turn in your empire, but in a standard empire, how many of your cities will be size 7 or up (below you can't draft), and have barracks in place? At a time where you can use Nationhood best (whenever new units come available, most often with infs), normally you have less than 10 cities to draft from.
Minimum time needed for a drafting round: 5 turns (after which you can switch out of Nationhood again, to e.g. Bureaucracy). Drafting once will give you 3 unhappies for 15 turns, which balances with losing 2 pop, and the 2 happy you'll receive from barracks. In many cases, you're drafting specialists here. Draft a second time, and you get another 3 unhappy, for 19 turns this time. Further, if the previous draft unhappiness is not gone this will get added, so for the next 19 turns you have 6 unhappy. Drafting 3 times is not possible in most games, or you'll have to be willing to run the slider for very long.
So, summarize all this, and my rule is: draft once or twice per city under nationhood, then switch out of it. Now tell me where this is wrong... but please assume I've played CIV before.
DeepO
Your original statement came of, at least ot me, as saying you could draft 1-2 soldier a city per turn.So, summarize all this, and my rule is: draft once or twice per city under nationhood, then switch out of it. Now tell me where this is wrong... but please assume I've played CIV before.
I was just clarifying that its a 3 soldier limit civ wide.
sorry to not have been more clear...
DeepO
(shrug) I've got to say I don't agree. The difference between starting with 4 experence and 6 experence is huge; starting with an extra level is like getting at least +10% millitary production, and often more. The difference between starting with 6 experence and 8 exp is much smaller. So I would usually get one of them, and use the other civic for a different bonus (like org. religion's bonus to buildings).Originally posted by JackRudd
Theocracy is best used *with* Vassalage. If you don't use it with Vassalage, you're going to under-rate it.
Almost all civics (With the exception of the original 5) have their uses, and can be used efficently in certain situations. I will say some are lacking (Specifically Environmentalism, I just find that by that point in the game the only sick cities are the huuuuge ones), but you'll always find a time to use one. (<3 State Property though)
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