State Property: Convince Me

[monkspider]

I have seen some people rave about how powerful (even to the point of being considered an exploit) State Property is. I have to admit, I have rarely used it. I typically run either Mercantilism/Representation if I am low on friends or Free Market if I am in the popular crowd. I have even found Environmentalism to be useful for it's huge health/happiness bonuses. For me at least, State Property just has never really caught on.

So what are the situations that make State Property really powerful. Is it when you are running a really huge empire to reduce your maintenence costs? Is there an exploit with workshops that can make it broken? Fill me in here, I feel like I am missing out on something big.

[Cort Haus]

I'd have thought that low maint on large empires spoke for itself. The other thing is getting 2/3/0 off a grassland tile (non river) and something very juicy (can't remember) from a watermill. I've never used it myself, as I tend to run small empires and don't want to trash my villages & towns.

Other than conquering, I think jungle areas on large, sparse maps that don't get settled are good for state property workshop spamming.

[MasterDave]

For me it is all about the numbers. The workshop thing is a nice bonus, but is not usually a big factor (I dont usually build many workshops, preferring cottages on flat tiles). Generally I will be running in Free Market (or Mercantilism if nobody will trade) when I leard communism. Then, if my empire is large, I will save the game and have my revolution to go to state property. When my empire is large enough, I will usually see a huge increase of gold per turn, generally enough to turn my science 10 or 20% and still be turning a profit similar to the one I had before the anarchy.

If the number of lightbulbs is higher (after the adjustment) and there is still a reasonable gold gold income, then State Property is the way to go. It seems that when my empire consists of 10 cities or more spread out over a large area, then it becomes a no-brainer between State Property or Free Market/ Mercantilism. For smaller empires, I probably will not recommend state property (unless you have built a zillion workshops, I guess).

[Quillan]

Depending on the exact arrangement of your cities and your financial status, running State Property can increase your gold/turn generation while cutting into your research ability, since you lose the raw commerce generation from the trade routes that Free Market provides. However, usually you can increase the science rate in compensation. Unless I've been trapped in a small area, I find State Property to be of great benefit, and the bigger your empire the better it is.

The workshop benefit is situationally dependant. As a general rule, I like cottages on flatland also, but the combination of workshops and State Property make clearing jungle areas incredibly viable for building large and effective cities. Cleared jungle is generally flat grassland; the city will grow but won't generate hammers. Building a workshop on the grassland will generate between 1 and 3 hammers depending on your technologies, but cuts the food down from 2 to 1, which impacts city size. Add in state property, and all those squares generate 2 food. Watermills also get the +1 food, so you can run watermills on plains/river squares and get 2 food from them, as well as the bonus production and commerce.

[Snotty]

Going on a kill crazy frenzy so you can win like a man? Then state property is for you

[Blake]

If you have a large empire you probably always want to run SP simply because the upkeep savings will dwarf any possible benefits from Free Market or Merchantalism. Free Market is very weak for large empires - if you have any domestic trade routes then free market will just create new domestic trade routes, which is basically a piddly +1c per city - and FM is medium upkeep.

SP watermills are the best tile improvement in the game. SP workshops allow high production from a city built on a football field.

There is also economy of research. It is possible to get Communism before Banking, so SP can be your first economic civic. It's possible to get Communism before Replacable Parts, you can get +3h workshops long before lumbermills, let alone railroad.

If you priortize Chemistry and Liberalism then you're already most of the way to State Property, researching Scientific Method immediately makes Communism researchable, you can ALSO research Biology, this massive influx of food from SP + Biology can dwarf the yield from other possible research paths.

Basically everything about large empires favors State Property. This isn't so for small empires, especially very small empires. Free market and enviromentalism are likely to be more competitive. Also if there are no rivers State Property isn't as attractive.

If there is one argument against SP, it is that it helps most when you're already winning. But I think it does definitely make it easier to win and/or moves the timeline forward. State Property will help dramatically if you spend all the early-mid game conquering and then decide to launch, the reduced upkeep allows really high science allocation and chances are you'll have a really sweet site for 60+ base hammers/turn.

[sjm]

To me, SP is definitely the way to go if you want a domination win. All those cities you need to capture in order to occupy the required surface area take A LOT of maintenance. Sure, you could rush courthouses, but don't you have better things to do with your resources (like build a barracks and churn out more units)?

Furthermore, the production benefits should not be discounted (especially combined with factories and power) - which means you'll be churning out military units at an alarming rate. When it comes to wars in civ, they're wars of attrition. If your production is higher, you are generally going to win.

[Velociryx]

Attrition.



-=Vel=-

[monkspider]

You guys make some excellent arguements, I will definitely have to try to use state property more in my next few games.

[Older than Dirt]

For a warmonger (esp. in Warlords) once one gets State Property it is all over but the shouting unless you have foolishly let some other civ develop enough to get a space victory. You can pretty much chop all the wood you want and replace with workshops.

[uberfish]

The trouble with SP is it's usually a 'win more' civic. A well positioned palace, FP and courthouses mitigate a lot of the distance maintenance. Once you have conquered a large enough empire that SP does pay off, you're generally close to domination and don't need the extra help. I've used SP in one game in months.

I can see it being useful on island maps though.

[Blake]

In at least one game of mine I won by space with a few turns to go - it was emperor difficutly and I had a polar start, I was stuck in a long drawn out brawl with Monty for territory then had to attack a very large and much more advanced Capac - this war for territory and to stop him winning. After destroying Inca my continent had been subdued. The other continent descended into war so I decided to launch. I'm pretty sure that without state property I'd have been stuck with a time victory, either from slower research or building the final part(s) slower.

I'm not really convinced that SP is "win more" moreso than other late game stuff. Like take a modernish start, is SP going to be something you definitely want to run? I say hell yeah! You want it for more food (watermills), more production (chop+workshop > lumbermill+rail), lower upkeep etc.

It is late game and will help you win more, but usually only because you were already winning anyway.

And also in certain circles winning faster is often respected.

[Smellycowsquid]

Gotta love SP! usually I just use it for the Mat. bonus, but in my last game, I had no, and I mean no good production, cities, until I removed the Jungle and forest and replaced 'em with Workshops, Not to mention those new found copper and Iron resources made it into an uber production city, an uber MILITARY production city.

[uberfish]

Playstyle differences I guess.

I find that on a single continent, distance maintenance is rarely a serious problem. It depends on when the game is going to end I guess. I generally win before 1900 so there's not much time for the invested Communism research (and anarchy turns) to pay off. I know you can research communism really early - but I find I need to be at 20+ cities before SP would be worth it anyway. Usually when I research communism, it's just to get spies.

Also I also generally leave some forests, especially Plains forests since a regular plains tile is not very useful before biology, up for health reasons. A city founded on flatland really appreciates having the plains forests up to get production when it's near the cap. I then lumbermill these forests at RP for more production. SP watermills are indeed powerful, but regular watermills are good enough since biology gives you a large food surplus anyway. It's possible to make very powerful production cities without touching SP at all.

[Brael]

I take SP pretty much every game. Sometimes I'll go for Free Trade but even in games where I can't make excellent use of the distance benefits I find I'm still able to use the civic well because of the food boosts. Watermills are attractive without it, but with it they're just excellent and it adds a whole different perspective to a flatland area, suddenly you can turn a flat place into a fairly productive hammer factory instead of only really being able to leverage it as a commerce or food city.