Commercial/Scientific too strong?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Are commercial/scientific civs too strong? Lets take a look at it

Commercial
(1) Alphabet
(2) Extra Commerce in city center
(3) Lower Corruption

Scientific
(1) Bronze Working
(2) Cheaper Religious buildings
(3) Cheaper Scientific buildings

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Lets take as a case study the Greeks. They are commericial/scientific and have a UU of Hoplite

Extra commerce in the city center means that they will make more money at the start of the game. The lower corruption will also help keep more profits, especially during Tyranny. These both help tremendously at the start of the game especially since science requires money and armies require money.

Getting your borders expanded at the beginning is also important, and one of the first culture producing improvements is the temple (clearly a religious building) Scientific buildings, especially things like libraries, etc, are cheaper and boost an already high science rate (due to the more money your collection) Hoplite almost certainly comes with Bronze Working, so the Greeks get their UU right off the bat (although it takes a while to get a colony or expand the borders, reduced religious buildings cost will help that go quicker.)

To trigger a Golden Age, you need to build 1 or 2 wonders which satisfy "Commercial" and "Scientific" Already in the ancient age, there is the Colossus "+1 trade in squares which already have it" and "Great Library" (for any 1 tech which 2 civvs have...) So, that means that during the Golden Age, the city center will be producing +2 Trade, the surrounding terrain will have +1 trade, and less corruption

As you can clearly see, this gives huge advantages to the Greeks. Now, this may well be balanced out later in the game by other Civ's specialties, but I think that they may get a too big of a lead which will be insurmountable.

What do you think?

[ixnay]

Scientific gets a free random tech at the beginning of each new era, not cheaper religious buildings.

[easy]

I bet you are using Netscape, you should use IE to view it again.

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Scientific
(1) Bronze Working
(2) Cheaper Religious buildings
(3) Cheaper Scientific buildings

[Christantine The Great]

Let's take a look at the two Com/Sci civs:

Greeks: Start close to Romans, Egyptians, Persians, and northern Europe civs. Their special unit, hoplite, is purely a defence unit, having no equal until the Middle Ages. This civ will probably only be able to expand if they can get a hoplite in a new city quickly so the Roman and Persian UUs don't topple their empire. Otherwise they are effectively a titanium wall from maybe Anatolia to the Balkans for probably over 150 game turns.

Persians: Start close to Greeks, Egyptians, Bablyonians, and Indians. Strong infantry UU, maybe finding an equal in the Roman Legion. They will probably be able to strike out against the Egyptians and Babylonians (early UU) and the Indians (mid-late ancient UU) but be rebutted by the Greeks, forcing them to expand east instead of west. If Persians withstand withering extremely early Babylonian/Egyptian attacks they will probably be the force in the Middle East for centuries. Their territory will probably include the Fertile Crecent, Egypt, and northern India, bordering China quite farther than they actually did in real life. If the Greeks don't beat them to it they they might sneak up into Russia, creating a huge frontier that only the northern Europeans could attack.

This is all assuming that we are playing on Earth, which I always do.