Why is Commerce OP

[Danny]

Alright its not ultra godlike op because if you arnt poland it may take some time to max that one out after your first tree. BUT, I managed to finish it around 600ad after putting some points into Honor because war and oligarchy is good with warrior caste one where having units inside a city increase happiness.

Anyway I get this last policy in commerce and BAM 39happiness. Literally could not grow fast enough to use it all up. As of now after expanding on all the last "good" spots on the map the only solution with such happy people is war.

So what have I learned from this? Commerce is good, better than most people think. Finishing this policy I literally already won the match so I cant push on its too strong. Also trading posts giving an extra gold piece. Stop this I got so much money and happiness I wanna conquer a civ and expand till were angry again.

Discuss why Commerce is good. I never knew how strong trading posts can be if you manage to finish rationalism too. Might just skip Honor policy tree entirely even with raging barbs on.

Honestly though this might just be a side effect of picking poland

[Matthew]

Commerce is a popular choice for warmongering for that very reason.

It doesn't get much talk outside of that though, because generally you have more happiness than you need when playing tall and peaceful, and you'll likely be building farms in a few core cities rather than spamming trading posts in smaller cities spread across the map.

My only complaint with Commerce is Landsknechts come rather late compared to regular pikes, and there is no later era option. It would be cool if you could hire additional mercenaries further down the tech tree, like rifle units and such, just so the policy isn't wasted.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Danny:

Honestly though this might just be a side effect of picking poland

It's really because of that though.
Commerce isn't a very good tree. Great Merchants are the worst of the great people other than Admirals so being able to buy them isn't very helpful, trading posts are the worst improvement that has a yield, even with +1 from Commerce, cargo ships are LEAGUES better than caravans even with the extra yield, and 6 policies for a bunch of extra happiness isn't a very good investment.
The only time it really shines is with Venice, because MoVs are twice as strong as normal GMs and Venice all but requires you to buy units constantly since they only have one city that can use production to make them (how to play Venice: whenever a problem arises, buy a Landsknecht or two)

[ForevaNoob Wonemorturn]

Because commerce is OP. On Earth...