late game civics balance

[Fidel]

haven't yet played the game, but i have a question for those who had. it appears that some of the most powerful and advanced civics have zero maintenance (univ suffrage, free speech, emancipation etc.). does this make them too attractive? is there any tradeoff in choosing them (you get the benefits AND you pay nothing)? does everyone at the late stage of the game basically stick with them, boost treasury and ride hapilly into the sunset?
and as far as design went - question to those who participated in testing/designing - why was there a choice to make good stuff absolutely free? not from standpoint of realism (because while you need no police to enforce free speech, good judiciary is needed to support it), but from the point of gameplay.

[Martinus]

They are hardly the most powerful and require you to have a specific type of infrastructure.

Here's some examples:

Government

Universal Suffrage: +1 hammer from towns, can buy buildings. This can be useful when you have many town improvements and a lot of cash, but otherwise, especially when you are heavily industrialised or have lots of farms, it's rather useless.

Representation (which gives +3 happy faces in 4 biggest cities and +3 beakers per specialist) is much more useful when you have a smaller empire, for example, or when you go the specialist-heavy strategy (see more about it below).

If you are running a war, the +25% unit production from Police State and -50% war weariness also comes handy. Even Hereditary monarchy (+1 happy face for each unit in city) can be useful if you have problems with unhappy populace.

Legal

Freedom of Speech (+100% culture, +2 gold per town) is my favourite, I admit, as I like culture victories, but outside of that it is not that useful. When you are at war, the draft ability and +2 happy faces from barracks of Nationhood is much more useful, and even at peace I sometimes consider the choice between Freedom of Speech and Bureaucracy, which gives +50% gold and hammers in capital (which is especially useful for smaller empires, not to mention OCC). Finally, the often-overlooked vassalage, which gives you a number of no-upkeep units and +2 xp per unit created can be great for a warmonger.

Labour

Emancipation is probably the least useful of all high-level civics. All it gives is +100% cottage->hamlet->village-> town growth speed (which is useful if you want to do it quickly, but useless if you already have them grown into towns) and makes other civs without Emancipation unhappy - so rather you are forced to adopt it when others do, instead of doing it on your own. Compare that to slavery (can pop-rush buildings), serfdom (workers build improvements +50% faster) and caste system (can have as many artists, merchants and scientists in city as you can feed - which is a tremendous boon for a specialist-heavy strategy and has a great synergy with representation giving +3 beakers per specialist).

Economy

Again, Environmentalism is a rather situational civics. Sure, you get less pollution from cities, but by the time you can adopt it you are very near to building a recycling centre which removes pollution from buildings (and pollution from pop can be countered with resources, hospitals and aqueducts). The happy faces from forests and jungles can also be handy... but it requires you to keep these around the city for the whole game, since you can't plant forests or jungles in Civ 4 - and by the time I reach this game stage, I usually have cut down all trees for extra production. (Plus you can't build towns in forests or jungles, so this has an anti-synergy with Universal Suffrage, Emancipation and Freedom of Speech, which rely heavily on towns).

Compared to that are very strong other economy civics - Mercantilism, which gives 1 free (non-populace, so you don't need to feed him) specialist per city; Free Market which gives 1 extra trade route per city; and State Property (extra food from watermills and workshops - which means you can go very production heavy, since these buildings give more of it in the first place).

Religion

Freedom of Religion is quite nice with its +10% science boost and +1 happy face per religion in each city, but to fully utilise the second bonus you need many religions in those cities in the first place.

And it is tempting to choose other civics too (they work for cities with your state religion, but your goal should be to have your state religion in all cities, so assume this applies to all your cities). Organized Religion: +25% building construction; Theocracy: +2 xp bonus for units, no foreign religion can spread (extra bonus in a way, to prevent foreigners from gaining a LoS and tithe from your cities); and finally my favourite: Pacifism +100% great people generation at the cost of higher unit upkeep.

Personally, my favourite "culture builder" combo as Frederick of the Germans is to go Representation, Freedom of Speech, Caste System (temporarily switched to Serfdom when I need some heavy construction works, like after railroads are developed), Mercantilism and Pacifism, and change to Police State, Nationhood and Theocracy for wars. As you see, only one end civic there, and depending on circumstances I may go for Bureaucracy instead.

[Martinus]

Oh, and one more thing, especially for Government and Economy civics - there will be many rulers who will dislike you for adopting Universal Suffrage or Environmentalism, since they may prefer other civics. So sticking with representation, to maintain that alliance with Napoleon and Victoria going, may be a good idea too, even if Universal Suffrage is equally tempting.

The way I see it, the Universal Suffrage, Freedom of Speech, Emancipation and Freedom of Religion provide the most useful benefits when you have a large empire with many towns - but then you will have lower production (as towns will take place for mines and workshops) and more expenses (as large empire = a lot of expenses) so that extra cash will be used on buying buildings and maintaining your empire.

[Fidel]

thank you very much, this was a really useful post.

[Cort Haus]

Great post, Martinus.

This is the kind of info we need filed in the AU Great Library. Hmmm, I should post a link to this thread over there ....

[Cort Haus]

OK, I posted a link to this thread here on the AU forum. We don't want to lose stuff like this in the fast-flowing river of the General Forum.

[Adam Altmann]

Freedom of Religion is extremely handy for diplomacy. You no longer recieve the -4 reaction for having a religion that differs from other civs. I've often adopted it simply to get better relations going, and prevent possible wars.

[Martinus]

Thanks guys.

I have developed somewhat on my thoughts and posted a thread here http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...89#post4110066 discussing various civics and improvements strategies, as I see them, in the hope of generating some interesting debate.

[kolpo]

Originally posted by Adam Altmann
Freedom of Religion is extremely handy for diplomacy. You no longer recieve the -4 reaction for having a religion that differs from other civs. I've often adopted it simply to get better relations going, and prevent possible wars.

Yes but you also lose the +4 bonus for nations with similar religions. From the religious category is organized religion my big favorite, +25% building(and WONDER) production really help a lot in all stages of the game. It is not unlikely for me to use organized religion the entire game.

Pacifism works great with caste system(because specialists increase great people points) or when you have a lot of "great people point" giving wonders in a city. I also use pacifism situational when I need a great artist quickly(when the enemy is winning a culture war or when I see a great opening for a culture bomb) or to get a great engineer quickly(to be certain to get a very important wonder like the space elevator )

Freedom of religion can help when you need a little edge before the space race and it can also help with happiness trouble.

I prefere vassalage over theocracy because theocracy prevends the spread of other religions as secondary effect(often a negative effect) while vassalage gives more free units(always a possitive effect). Running both is a little extreme, but can be usefull in situational cases.

[Arrian]

I've been using Representation, Bureacracy, Caste System, Free Market and Pacifism as a mostly peaceful builder type.

In my last game I built the pyramids (and knew I would, b/c I had stone), so I figured I'd try to use a lot of cottages along with Universal Suffrage for the +1 hammer per town thing (money AND production, yum!). Only it takes a long freakin' time for those cottages to reach town status. It still might be useful as part of a peaceful strategy (I was attemping early war, doh), though...

-Arrian

[Volstag]

Re: late game civics balance

Originally posted by LaRusso [/SIZE]
haven't yet played the game, but i have a question for those who had. it appears that some of the most powerful and advanced civics have zero maintenance (univ suffrage, free speech, emancipation etc.). does this make them too attractive?

I don't think so. So much of it depends on the current state of the game. Everything else being equal, I tend to favor the "lower tier" civics. I haven't noticed any that are superior in every situation.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Arrian
I've been using Representation, Bureacracy, Caste System, Free Market and Pacifism as a mostly peaceful builder type.

In my last game I built the pyramids (and knew I would, b/c I had stone), so I figured I'd try to use a lot of cottages along with Universal Suffrage for the +1 hammer per town thing (money AND production, yum!). Only it takes a long freakin' time for those cottages to reach town status. It still might be useful as part of a peaceful strategy (I was attemping early war, doh), though...

-Arrian

It's the same as I use, except that I prefer Mercantilism to Free Market. Both are viable options, I think, though.