Mercantilism: working properly ?

[Arrian]

So you have to manually "add" the free specialist in each city?

I was using mercantalism last night and it didn't seem right to me either... maybe that's the reason.

-Arrian

[xxFlukexx]

Nah, mecantilism works fine in my games.

What it does do is a little tricky, say you have added in 5 artist specialists, and then switch to mercantilism. What you will see is still 5 artists but what the AI did was put in the free specialist as an artist and then take one out and put it to work in the city radius.

At least that's what it does sometimes, in cities without any specialists it will be obviously noticeable that mercantilism is working after anarchy.

[gakkun]

If you're running Mercantilism then there's always going to be a specialist who is highlighted and you can't take him off by pressing the minus button.
If it's a fresh city with no improvements then the only free specialist possible is the labour one.

Now if you wanna add more then just press the plus button (provided you built the improvements) and the specialist will be highlighted and have a yellow border around their portrait which simply means you manually chose him to be a specialist rather than working on the field.

[Snotty]

by mercantile free specialists auto select merchants of all things. Ilove the culture pushing of new cities with mercantilism + artist specialist.

I think I saw a bug where I moved from mercantilism to free market, but some of the cities still had merchant free specialists. I dont think the added anything to the city though. Also so far I have always run mercanilism with caste system. Mabe the bug came when I changed out of one or the other, Im not sure

[Shr3dZ]

Well, Ive kept playing the game so I cant go back and post a save game, Ill just try it again later and see if its still the same.

For the record, I was able to remove all specialists to the point that there were none - shouldnt at least one be left behind for free even if it was just a citizen?

Ill test it again and see if the same thing happens...

[Shr3dZ]

Ok I started a new game, finally got Mercantilism and once again it doesnt work 'properly', assuming I know how its suppose to work. This time I have only around 8 cities and only the capital doesnt get the free specialist! Grrrr!!!

[joncnunn]

Civ IV's Mercantilism is apprently the opposite of historic Mercantilism.

The real life Mercantilism govts supported their bussiness in seeking out trades routes in which the balance of trade was in their favor, while heavilly restricting and banning foreign imports.

While in Civ IV Mercantilism bans your traders from making profitable trade routes while allowing unprofitable ones.

[Aeson]

Can you post the save game Shr3dZ?

[Shr3dZ]

-game removed-

Well its too bad that I dont have the save game from my last game, it was much more irritating to have so many cities not receiving the free specialist~

PS: sure hope I dont look like a jack@$$ when it turns out it IS working properly or something...

PPS: while yer looking at my game, would you say its more advantagous to use Mercantilism or the one below it on the civic list? I guess free specialists = a lot more science + great leaders...

[Blake]

Generally speaking Free Market gives more commerce. Merchantilism must be used with Rep and Caste for best effect. With this combination a new city can immediately have an artist producing 1 coin 4 culture and 3 science a turn, borders expand in no time and it's helping to pay for itself.

If you have big coastal cities and harbors then free market will completely blow merchantilism out the water. Make sure to check your commerce income in large cities before commiting to merc.

[Aeson]

That save is from very early in the game (3200BC).

[Shr3dZ]

Aww crap, I forgot I gave up on that last game earlier today (maybe b/c mercantilism was screwing me over?), Ill continue this one Im on now and post save game once Im up to Banking.

[Huck the Dog]

Shr3dZ did you ever figure this out?

[Son of David]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Civ IV's Mercantilism is apprently the opposite of historic Mercantilism.

The real life Mercantilism govts supported their bussiness in seeking out trades routes in which the balance of trade was in their favor, while heavilly restricting and banning foreign imports.

While in Civ IV Mercantilism bans your traders from making profitable trade routes while allowing unprofitable ones.

Blooper! It says in the manual/civilopedia that mercantilism bans imports - I thought this would mean foreign civs' cities would not get trade income for trading with one's cities.

But maybe if it gave free specialists and didn't affect trade income in one's own cities it would be deemed too powerful?

[Shr3dZ]

Yea, I tried it again with my latest game and it was working prefectly :P I dunno what to say.... hopefully it stays this way, then again Ive since installed 1.09 too, maybe that did something, who knows.