A Commercial trait commercial

[Harovan]

Yes, with warriors 1/3 or even 1/2 of the huts contain barbarians, while with expansionist the chance to get something valuable is much higher. Actually, speed is the key. Have you ever tried to cross a huge pangea with a warrior? Even with a scout it lasts half an age. With scouts you can win races for huts against AI warriors. With scouts you can much better use the benefits of the terrain, basically "jumping" from mountain to mountain.

But this is off topic, as alex rightfully mentioned .

[Catt]

Good discussion

Originally posted by alexman
Catt, your test results may very well not show a huge difference in favor of Commercial, but you need to remember that the trait shines in cities with many other cities closer to the capital. This happens most often when you have a tight build pattern.

Yes, I understand that. What I did was set up a series of "editor-made" empires of varying sizes, and tracked the differences between the same empire operating under a commerical and non-commercial civ. As opposed to getting detailed data on production difficulties, I wanted to "get a better feel" for what commercial would do to a series of different empires -- all of which exceeded the OCN - some by a few cities (25% over OCN), and some by quite a few cities (100% over OCN). The editor-made empires were imagined in the industrial ages and represented a bit of a builder's paradise -- all core cities had most improvements, up to and including stock exchanges in a few cities (but banks and universities in all cities up to about the OCN limit). The fringe cities were given minimal improvements, and, in subsequent experiemnts, also enjoyed a courthouse. Again, since the test was more of a personal experiment, the pretend empires were modeled on what my empire might look like in a game where I restricted my war-mongering and/or settled on a largely peaceful, economic and scientific win gameplan.

. . . but you need to remember that the trait shines in cities with many other cities closer to the capital. This happens most often when you have a tight build pattern.

Paradoxically, at my snapshot moment in the Industrial corridor, the biggest benefit from the commercial trait was from the extra gold in the city center of cities and metropolises, primarily from the core. The three extra gold in the city center of a core metro, operated upon by the science or tax imprvements in the city, and subject to very little corruption (we're in the core) generated far more gold towards either the treasury or the science budget than did the slight reduction in corruption on the fringes of the empire. Consequently, I changed my play-style just a little bit to be more inclined to play a commercial civ with the conscious choice to count on having lots of metropolises in my core -- sometimes with a tight build pattern I'll have only a few metros, and in some games, depending on circumstance, I'll have virtually no metros (all cities at size 12). In my view, the trait really shined with larger-pop cities, but didn't shine all that much on the outskirts.

IIRC, the "get a feel" results for the empires of varying size were more or less the same across empire sizes -- a reduction in research time of approximately 10% - 15% (roughly one turn from a 8 or 9 turn base pace), at Industrial corridor tech prices -- with roughly the same surplus or deficit.

Now what my little experiments certainly did not try to quantify was the anti-corruption benefits during the ancient and middle ages -- particularly the ability of fringe cities to be more productive turn after turn -- not only in terms of gold but in shields (which obviously offers more opportunity for increased gold). That struck me as a little too hard to try and quantify .

So, again, what in the end surprised me most was that, with a mature and stable empire the power of the extra gold in the city center of metros and to a lesser extent cities was the real driver of the perceived beenfits of the commercial trait; it was not, in such a circumstance, the lowered corruption in fringe cities. I will try to find my test scenarios and get some screen shots to share.

Catt

[epics]

just silly question:
what does OCN means?

[alexman]

It's not a silly question.
It's the optimal number of cities for a given map size.

For more details, see the corruption FAQ.

[Brundlefly]

Challenge to Expansionist Fans

Expansionist Fans: I challenge you to a PBEM game. I will be the Civ that has the traits which I know are the best ones: Commercial and Industrial. France. The rest of you take the Expansionist Civ of your choice (about the only one I'd be a little concerned about are Americans). I will prove which are the best/worst traits!

[badman]

i can't tell... l just love all of them

well, if i have to choose, i'd probably choose militaristic
i'm not a warmonger by heart, emperor just makes me being one

and i'm still convinced that you can fight just as easily without being militaristic and you can build way better without it

commercial is great, especially the combination scientific/commercial
greece and korea are really awesome builder-civs

expansionstic is pretty nice, but i don't choose it an smaller than large maps
america is one of my favorite cis, though

[Dominae]

The Commercial trait is indeed very powerful in MP games, where a tight city-spacing is a must. The "extra" one or two Shields you get in most cities is critical in the early-game. The reason this is not so obvious in SP is that the AI keeps up in pretty much everything you do, especially production. In MP, you really notice the relative advantage Commercial provides (just like its big brother, Industrious).


Dominae

[epics]

Originally posted by alexman
It's not a silly question.
It's the optimal number of cities for a given map size.

For more details, see the corruption FAQ.

thanks for the link and OCN

[Dominae]

Re: Challenge to Expansionist Fans

Argh, I'm double-posting everywhere today...

[Dominae]

Re: Challenge to Expansionist Fans

Originally posted by Feephi
Expansionist Fans: I challenge you to a PBEM game. I will be the Civ that has the traits which I know are the best ones: Commercial and Industrial. France. The rest of you take the Expansionist Civ of your choice (about the only one I'd be a little concerned about are Americans). I will prove which are the best/worst traits!

If it's just you and I on a Tiny map, I'll take the Zulus and probably prove you wrong. The larger the map, the better Expansionist will be. The Americans always have a strong start, which often trumps the French. The Iroquois can run down almost any civ in the Ancient age, regardless of traits.

The point here is that there are strong arguments against the claim you're trying to make with your challenge. Any one game will not prove you right. But here's a counter-example: in a PBEM game I'm playing now, the two Expansionist players are the strongest. I'm quite sure this is not due to their greater play experience, so what's the explanation?

About winning on Emperor or Deity with an Expansionist civ, excluding Aeson's Iroquois which was hand-crafted to benefit maximally from Expansionist, there's plenty of examples here on 'Poly. In fact, there was a whole AU scenario based around expansionism, and many players won it.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Re: Challenge to Expansionist Fans

Yay, my first triple-post.

[Panag]

Re: Re: Challenge to Expansionist Fans

Originally posted by Dominae


If it's just you and I on a Tiny map, I'll take the Zulus and probably prove you wrong. The larger the map, the better Expansionist will be. The Americans always have a strong start, which often trumps the French. The Iroquois can run down almost any civ in the Ancient age, regardless of traits.

The point here is that there are strong arguments against the claim you're trying to make with your challenge. Any one game will not prove you right. But here's a counter-example: in a PBEM game I'm playing now, the two Expansionist players are the strongest. I'm quite sure this is not due to their greater play experience, so what's the explanation?

About winning on Emperor or Deity with an Expansionist civ, excluding Aeson's Iroquois which was hand-crafted to benefit maximally from Expansionist, there's plenty of examples here on 'Poly. In fact, there was a whole AU scenario based around expansionism, and many players beat it.


Dominae

hi ,

indeed the americans are very strong because they are expansionist and industrious

have a nice day

[Panag]

Re: Re: Challenge to Expansionist Fans

double post

[Arrian]

Freakin' server.

Commercial is perhaps overly maligned. For me, it isn't that I dislike the trait. It's that given the choice, I most often want one of the others (religious, industrious, militaristic).

That said, one of my favorite empires I've ever created is my recent Roman game. The sheer economic power of my empire is incredible. I usually end up with excess cash towards the end of the game, but this has gotten silly ($13K+ and growing faster than I can spend it... and that's with 300+ military units and 4 turns/tech in the modern age).

France/Carthage definitely have good trait synergy. The ability to expand/develop land quickly coupled with reduced corruption is definitely nice, and does a lot to overcome the full-price buildings (as does industrious forest chopping. 5 turs = 10 shields).

Alexman brought up city spacing. Perhaps one of the reasons I still rank commercial relatively low is that I still refuse to play borg. At MOST, I will use 4 tile (city - tile - tile - tile - city) spacing. Any closer is just beyond my ability to accept (specific special circumstances notwithstanding). Therefore, I have never experienced the power boost of borg spacing + commercial.

Still, since I typically play the warmonger, my opinion of commercial has improved somewhat. I like large, efficient empires.

My ranking (for single player, PTW, Monarch level, standard, continents, 70%, roaming, temperate, normal, 4 billion):

Religious/Industrious - 1st tier
Militaristic/Commercial - 2nd tier
Scientific/Expansionist - 3rd tier

Scientific used to rank higher with me, and Commercial lower. I've flip-flopped them due to the fact that Commercial provides a more direct power boost (more raw shields/commerce) which I tend to use to beat on the AI.

I do, however, have some respect for scientific: if I have my choice between to AI civs - all other things being fairly equal - I will hit the scientific one. NO FREE NATIONALISM FOR YOU! YOU COME BACK, NEXT GAME!

-Arrian

[Brizey]

Arrian, the Nationalism Nazi.