The Statue of Liberty

[Yuufo]

Hi,

This topic is about Renaissance strategy, at Monarch difficulty level. It's an era I seem to be handling pretty well, since I begin a tech lead and my score increases quicker than the AI's. My usual tech path is: banking (switch mercantilism), nationalism (begin taj mahal), paper, education, liberalism with Constitution as freebie, eco sciences, corporation. At the end of the golden age I switch to Representation - Pacifism and play a specialists strategy. I focus on Great Merchants or Great Prophets and store them in my shrine city as superspecialists, then building Wall Street provides me with +150 gold per turn for 0% tax rate. Having previously built Sistine Chapel gives also a cultural boost, which you can amplify by running Free Speech.

Not so far on the tech tree, there is a Great Wonder fitting very well in this strat: the Statue of Liberty. (Adds one free specialist per city, and gives Merchant GPP). However, it is enabled by an (expensive) tech that is on an end of the tech tree (Democracy), and that is not needed for the strat since it gives access to other civics. Moreover this wonder is very expensive: 1500 hammers (double production with Copper).

That's where I would seek advice Would you research democracy and build the Statue anyway? It will take time - perhaps the civic combo must be changed by then! One correlated question is: when do you revert to Universal Suffrage - Emancipation? I was thinking to ruling them only after building the Kremlin, since it empowers the gold-rushbuild option. What are your usual strats during this era? I'd be also keen on hearing whatever you think about mine!

Thanks

Yuufo

[LDiCesare]

I'm not sure your civics combo is any good. Mercantilism is bad imo. You'll get 3 beakers + 3 from representation for each free specialist. Compare to Free market (1 extra trade route): You usually have around 4 trade routes by this time. With foreign nations, they will provie about 4 or 5 more trade than a national trade route, so you get +6trade from free specialist (as an average - engineers/priests give less, artists more) and lose about 20 from the trade routes. If you have the sistine chapel, it's a bit better, but not much. You get free GPP, but that's useful in only one city most of the time. So unless you want to use all your free specialists as engineers for the production, mercantilism is not worthwhile imo. For me, the GPP boost given is not big enough to be worth the los of trade.
Democracy provides emancipation, which is not a bad civics because it causes discontent in every other civ. It can also boost your villages and income very fast if your cities are still growing at that stage. The statue of liberty is very worthwhile in my opinion, since it has the same effects as mercantilism without the drawbacks.
As for universal suffrage, I go for it when I have enough towns or when I need to rushbuy stuff (which means I must have money).

[Yuufo]

I agree that Mercantilism is bad, but... what else to do when all your trade partners rule this civic too and close their trade routes?

[Arrian]

Mercantalism can be a good choice, I think, under certain circumstances.

In my current game (prince level), I have my own continent. I built the Colossus, so while I'm not going to avoid it much longer, Astronomy is lower on my priority list than some others. So I'm running Mercantalism for the time being. Currently researching Education (just finished Nationalism - Taj Mahal under construction). I'm currently running: Representation (Pyramids), Bureacruacy, Slavery, Mercantalism, Pacifism.

Without Astronomy, I cannot have foreign trade routes anyway. Thus far only two civs have refused to open their borders (leaving 4 w/open borders), but in my past games my experience has been that prior to free religion, my heathen ways typically resulted in a very limited set of trading partners (1-2 civs). One or two of the civs I know are getting annoyed with me and will likely soon close their borders anyway.

My current plan is to get to Economics, then go for Liberalism and grab either Astronomy or Constitution, and to a massive civic switch:

Universal Suffrage, Emancipation, Free Trade, Free Religion. Free Religion will dramatically improve my diplomatic relations and help ensure that borders will stay open for those trade routes. Univ Suffrage will reduce the power of my specialists, which dovetails nicely with the loss of 1 specialist per city b/c of the switch from Merc to Free Trade.

Building the SoL is something I've always done, and probably still will in this game (since it's on Prince and thus I think I can w/o too much trouble), but on a higher level it might be a poor choice, because I lack copper. I have 3 sources of iron, though, so maybe I'll be able to trade for it...

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong:

If you are using free trade and the civs you know have open borders with you (and you can trade w/them: you share a land connection or you have Astronomy), you can get the benifits of free trade (foreign trade routes) even if those other civs are all running Mercantalism.

edit: in the thread about harbors, originally posted by Blake:

quote:
Also Merchantalism does NOT reduce the trade FROM you in way at all. In other words, it only hurts you and can't be used to deny your opponents lucrative trade income.

-Arrian

[Diadem]

That is correct Arrian.

Trade routes are not paired. City A can trade with city B while city B is not trading with city A. That explains why every city you have can trade with your capital.

If you run merchantalism your cities will not have foreign traderoutes, but foreign cities can still have traderoutes with you. So you need to close your borders as well, then.

[Arrian]

Or, in the case of my example above, you're ok pre-Astronomy (nobody has discovered it yet). Post-astronomy with open borders... you're giving trade to others but not getting any in return. Bad combo.

-Arrian

[Yuufo]

Yes, I just discovered this strange trade route thing...
Very curious to be able to trade only in one way if one of the partners is mercantilist!

[Cort Haus]

Arrian, I think you've made a case there for maybe heading for banking after optics on an isolated start instead of astronomy. Assuming there are libraries all round, as there should be when isolated, 1 free scientist in each city plus a bank in the shrine city, if there is one, is a nice economic ramp-up, and perhaps a viable alternative to the long, dark research tunnel of astronomy.

This is particularly relevant for when it's hard to find trading partners and dealing with a pariah may be needed to try and claw back from the tech deficit. Tech trading with a pariah + active religion is a recipe for declining relations and the possible slamming of trade doors.

[Velociryx]

One other way that Mercantilism can be very powerful is if you find yourself in control of two continents (your own, and then, you overrun a rival who has his own island/continent/whatever. By closing your borders and running Merc, you benefit two ways. 1) essentially a free point of pop (in the form of the free specialist in each city--made all the more powerful by representation), and 2) you get good "internal" trade routes, since they're at least partially based on distance and your two continents can trade with each other. In fact, depending on how large you are (compared to the rest of the world) at that point, running anything but merc can be a waste of resources....at least, that's been my experience thus far.

-=Vel=-

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Velociryx
In fact, depending on how large you are (compared to the rest of the world) at that point, running anything but merc can be a waste of resources....at least, that's been my experience thus far.

-=Vel=-

I expect that State Property would be useful too at in those circumstances, Vel. Communism can't be far away by the time a second continent has been conquered.

[Velociryx]

Absolutely true....state property in the mix, given a far flung empire like that, will see you reap some amazing benefits (as you recoup the coin that would otherwise be spent on maint due to distance from the capitol).

And to tie it in with the original post, statue of liberty would add awesomely to the basic setup, as it would provide an additional "free point of pop" in the form of another specialist in each city.

It should also be noted that Merc IS NOT for small empires. The more cities you have (and the more far-flung they are), the more powerful this civic becomes.

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Arrian, I think you've made a case there for maybe heading for banking after optics on an isolated start instead of astronomy. Assuming there are libraries all round, as there should be when isolated, 1 free scientist in each city plus a bank in the shrine city, if there is one, is a nice economic ramp-up, and perhaps a viable alternative to the long, dark research tunnel of astronomy.

In my current game, I do have a fair number of libraries (though less than you might think - I also built a bunch of lighthouses, forges, harbors and granaries first - I'm Roosevelt [ORG/IND] and I needed the health/growth bonuses). In retrospect, I should probably have laid off some of those granaries. I have no wheat, no corn, and no rice. Silly me. The harbors were necessary, though (fish & clams).

I also have Ankor Wat (I built a TON of wonders - Stonehenge, Pyramids, Oracle for CS slingshot, Colossus, Hanging Gardens, Great Library, Ankor Wat), so right now I have priests who are worth, IIRC: 2 hammers, 1 gold, 3 beakers. What scientists I am running are worth 6 beakers/turn.

I decided Mercantalism was worth using for a while because:

-I've got Representation (pyramids)
-I'm ORG (merc has some upkeep cost)
-I'm isolated, and no one has astronomy yet
-I won't have free trade for another few techs anyway.

Once astro is out there and I've got free trade/free religion, though, I'll drop MERC like a 9am college class.

-Arrian

p.s. The downside to the above-mentioned wonderbuilding, by the way, was that Stonehenge probably screwed me. I built it thinking "well, it's only 5 turns to build and I can get a nice early GP for the shrine in New York." But given it and the many other wonders in Washington and the fact that the Great Library came rather late... I've yet to generate a single great scientist No Academy for me. I've gotten perhaps 5 GPs, 2 GEs and 1 or 2 GMs. I'm now running 2 scientists in Washington (plus the two "free" ones from the GL) to try and get a GS. We'll see, but I blundered here. I *did* run scientists from a very early library, but Stonehenge intevened and made my first great person a Prophet. In retrospect, building that wonder was a big mistake. At least New York is funding my entire empire (90% science/10% culture and breaking even). I settled all excess great prophets and the GMs there. The GEs were settled in Washington.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Absolutely true....state property in the mix, given a far flung empire like that, will see you reap some amazing benefits (as you recoup the coin that would otherwise be spent on maint due to distance from the capitol).

And to tie it in with the original post, statue of liberty would add awesomely to the basic setup, as it would provide an additional "free point of pop" in the form of another specialist in each city.

It should also be noted that Merc IS NOT for small empires. The more cities you have (and the more far-flung they are), the more powerful this civic becomes.

-=Vel=-

I have in the past run MERC with the Statue and two free specialists (with representation to boot) is certainly quite powerful. And yeah, I had a largish empire.

My current empire is medium-sized. I have, IIRC, 11 cities. I intend to build 1 more at some point to use some more coastal tiles, but I've been meaning to do that for centuries of game time.

In short, I think MERC works best for a large, isolated (geographically and/or politically) empire with an Organized civ (cheaper upkeep).

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

The downside to the above-mentioned wonderbuilding, by the way, was that Stonehenge probably screwed me.

Yep, promiscuous wonder-building can lose you control over the GPs. That's one of the advantages of not building lots of wonders. That first Gt Scientist and first Prophet are vital. Lose them, and you can spend forever fiddling and hoping. I once build Ank Wat just for the Prophet Points from running 4 priests so I could build my shrine.

The early wonders I'm most likely to build are the Oracle and Great Library. Ideally in seperate cities for pure GP points, but if I have to build the GLib in the Oracle city, I'd better have the Academy and Shrine sorted out before hand.