*Least* Useful Civic?

[uberfish]

Police state is fantastic for post-industrialism tank wars, as my style doesn't rely on rushbuying.

[JackRudd]

Anarchy? What is this "anarchy" that people talk about?

*cuddles model of Hatshepsut*

[Strategist83]

I would like to see Nationhood yield a 10-15% boost to military production, maybe in combination with becoming a medium upkeep civic.

[joncnunn]

Least Useful Govt Civic: Hereditary Rule. It appears that even if your Spirital, you will generally be better off with Despotism.

Least Useful Legal Civic: Nationalism. It appears that the pop cost for drafting a unit is the same as slavery's pop rushing instead of a flat charge.

Least Useful Labor Civic: Tribalism.

Least Useful Economic Civic: Decentralization. Unfortunately, your stuck with it for a very long time.

Least Useful Religious Civic: There is none, all of them can be useful in the right circumstances, and also have drawbacks:

Paganism : When running a no state religion pre Liberalism, either by choice or otherwise.

Org Religion: Especally valuable early on for spreading religions & boosting construction of buildings & wonders before the high upkeep would eat you alive.

Theocracy: For war monglers and also those who don't want false religions spreading in their lands.

Pacifism: The No civic upkeep. Double your great person birth rate. But it appears that WW grows rapidally if you run this civic in the middle of a war. And if your army is too big, you pay for it in gold.

Free Religion. +10% research and +1 happy per religion. But no state religion and so you lose those plus points with those who shared your previous state religion.

[Beleg Strongbow]

I agree that Mercantilism can be useful in the right circumstances, but so can any of the civics, and at least in my games the other econ. civics have appeared to be more compelling.

Now that I think about it, I really don't like Nationhood either. I would rather have vassalage in a time of war (which really isn't more expensive if you use the extra unit support) and slavery could be implamented at a lower oppertunity cost, since the other labor civics are not all that great anyway.

[Aginor]

Hereditary Rule is quite good early on - free happiness for the cost of civic upkeep quite frequently pays for itself FAST in the form of worked cottages.

The utility of Nationalism is that it can be used *in combination* with Slavery in the same city. Also, free Happiness is always a good thing.

I generally find Free Market to be a much better deal than Mercantilism unless running Representation. You get more commerce in the mature, commerce oriented cities with heavy improvements and don't sacrifice the big trade routes, so I rarely make use of Mercantilism.

Have to admit that I almost never use Serfdom. Or Caste System for that matter (though Caste System can be amazing with Philo, I find that the governors tend to maximize output *this turn* rather than over the long haul (by running mad specialists rather than growing the city to the happiness limit, and that the micromanagement necessary to get the most efficient outcomes is utterly maddening.)

I also rarely use Pacificsm, but that's a matter of playstyle rather than the civic being poorly conceived.

[Blake]

I'm curious that people don't like Serfdom, sure it's not fantastic, but the only alternatives are Slavery and Caste which are somewhat situational.

Serfdom is one of those map-dependent civics, playing highlands, you REALLY want to run Serfdom - as on highlands there is much expansion to be done, and cities grow slowly (so you don't really want to whip them). Playing (many) Islands you really want to run Slavery, because most your workers are on ocean which doesn't need improvement, and you need the shields from whipping, cities grow like weeds anyway with the seafood.

It's only really on the crowded maps that you quickly run out of stuff for workers to do. Like on Terra you probably wont use Serfdom at all, especially if you want to use Caste for the artists in new colonies.

In any case all the civics in the category are almost neutral - they have costs that offset their usefulness, or just plain poor benefits, it is only in special cases where any of them truly shine.

[Arrian]

I use slavery for much of the game, since it's zero upkeep and because I'm typically not behind in terrain improvements anyway. Further, if I'm not spiritual, I don't want to incur anarchy. Plus, the ability to poprush if absolutely necessary is a nice fall back (kinda like having a weak version of nationhood around just in case).

I used to use Caste, but found I hardly ever actually used the specialists it allowed (I use specialists, but typically in only a few cities, and those cities tend to already have the requisit buildings). It's medium upkeep, so I no longer use it.

-Arrian

[swat-spas2]

Originally posted by Adagio
Doesn't it have low upkeep? I haven't tried it with the a.52 patch, that might explain why I don't like it... what changes has there been made?

1.52 changed slavery to NO upkeep and emancipation (the one you usually end up with anyway) to low upkeep.

Primarily this made slavery somewhat useful in the early game for rushing things and saving (but not making) money at the same time and perhaps in the mid game to continue saving.

I would generally disagree that these are the most useless civics. Virtually all civics in game have specific uses that according to the game state or the play style are going to be good. The only ones that are definitely not are the ones you start the game with.

Caste system, the one the OP did not like is VERY good with pacifism or a phi civ (or both) when you're 2x+ on the the GPs and can be good all game long. What it does suffer from is that only a couple of cities will be GP factories, so your entire empire is subsidizing that. However, used with representation, its extremely powerful since every extra merchie/artist in the empire is giving you 3 beakers too. And you'll have lots of them probably. Where the issue is is that you are paying for those strays throughout that you might be able to use anyway.


Weakest Govt: police (never had to use it, even as I am a warmonger), heritary is just as bad but at least is decent early on
Weakest Labor: serfdom (unless you have a huge empire or few workers)
Weakest Legal: nationhood (good only for a quick military buildup prior to invasion)
Weakest Eco: enviro if you deforested, but otherwise decentralization, all are good
Weakest Religion: Theocracy if you want free religion later on.. but its good otherwise, paganism is weakest

[couerdelion]

This is my next area of investigation.

think I will add to the discussion here with a few choice words

1) Hereditary rule is a poor civic!! What are you talking about? It is the best way of controlling a population explosion and maintain significant specialist investment at an early stage. I find that having three or four happy trades quite rare in the early stages with 3 often the maximum. Since you can’t spend forever sitting on cities of size 4 all the time you bring in the troops and see those people smile. Troop upkeep I hear? Well if all you are going to do is work another plains tile then I recommend sticking at “noble” level. If possible those troops will be keeping many scientists or merchants in jobs.
2) I think mercantilism is very powerful in the middle game. Each specialist is equivalent to at least 3 gold per city and in those generating GPs it will be significantly more. Can be very useful in combination with philosophic civs or with Pacifism. If you know many civilisations and have good trade routes, then mercantilism is going to be a bad idea but I guess that would be a case of stating the obvious. As stated before, if you’re stuck on an island with nations that hate you then the loss from trade routes is no great worry.
3) If Caste System is underrated, then I think this may be because people are not going seriously enough into generating Great People or have not fully considered the arbitrage possibilities of trading gold, science, production and culture within a population. Even in the earlier part of the game where you may have three specialists in one city (which is the only one to have an academy), having three scientist will generate around 1 gold more than 2 scientists and one merchant.
4) Allowing for anarchy in the cost assumes that you are making a single decision to move one civic to another. These civics have to be considered as a group and in tandem with civilisation traits/geopolitical landscape etc. Of course, to move to another civic has a cost which might make this unprofitable although the benefit of switching 2-4 civics at the same time might cover this over the long term. Having said that, the +50% work rate for serfdom works out to be +25% for farms and +50% for roads and cutting forests.
And Slavery is a must have option at the more difficult levels where the only option to keeping population down is to keep churning out workers and settlers. People make good building material too

[Tokyo Sexwale]

First of all, I think the whole civics thing is a huge step up from Civ3 and adds a lot of depth to the game. I spend a lot of time swapping and as such almost always choose a Rel civ to play as.

As yet, I've never used Police State so that would get my vote for least useful. I also think Her Rule should have an extra bonus... maybe a production bonus (20%?) in your top 3 cities, where your aristocracy will be stongest.

Since I tend to get stuck on Her Rule until Uni Suf (unless I go for Merc + Rep), maybe a bonus which rewards older monarchies would be good. Maybe a cultural bonus - the longer you can trace your rolyalty's line back, the more culturally influencial you're likely to be IRL. (Just spitballing here, tho'.)

The fun part is, of course, picking the right combnations. I also felt Theocracy was useless until I went for a Domination win and coupled it with Vass, barracks, Nation and Pentagon. Then I rolled over everyone in double quick time.

[Dominae]

Police State is a great Civic for when you have decided to End the Game. What do the other, empire-building Civics do for you if you are about to go on a warmongering rampage?

As a Spiritual civ, Police State is a very nice way to mount a flash defense. For other civs, the major problem with this Civic is that it's buried in an awkward location in the tech tree. But if you have Fascism (through a tech trade or something) I see no reason not to use it if the opportunity arises.

+25% military producation is like a free extra Forge in all of your cities. So late in the game, most of your cities should have graduated from specialists to generalists, meaning they can produce military units just fine. Everyone loves Organized Religion, and this is just the warmongering side of the coin; it's every bit as powerful.

If you get Pyramids, Police State is well worth your while if you have the necessary techs to conquer with. The AI cannot really compete with the player having a production advantage such as this. Napoleon is the leader of choice here: cheap Pyramids, cheap Forges, strong melee units - all you have to worry about is Maintenance for conquered cities!

[Shaka II]

Re: Re: *Least* Useful Civic?

Originally posted by Yosho
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.

I agree. Large cities in the beginning require all the happiness they can get. I'll have a garrison of 6 in my biggest three or four cities to allow size 12 cities early on. Those large cities early on powers your empire, and it makes for a safer empire, one that can be protected.

It's a long, long time before representation come along. By then, many new luxuries and temples will replace the need to have the large garrison for happy faces.

[Arrian]

If you get Pyramids, Police State is well worth your while if you have the necessary techs to conquer with. The AI cannot really compete with the player having a production advantage such as this. Napoleon is the leader of choice here: cheap Pyramids, cheap Forges, strong melee units - all you have to worry about is Maintenance for conquered cities!

The sleeper would be Roosevelt. Cheap pyramids, cheap forges, cheap courthouses and lower civic cost. You lose out on the cheap barracks & bonus to melee, but hey, you can't have everything

-Arrian

[DrSpike]

I can't?