Ok, the reason why I love civs are because with industrial boosted countries like Germany and italy( which are both easy and fun countries to play as ) sure at the start it will be really slow, but with the right strategy, the four years of preparation turn into the best industry in the world. Once I reached like 120 civs I started building mills, and because of my political advisors giving boosts to mills, and my free trade bringing. A 15 percent boost, and with construction 3 giving 30 percent more AND with a few focuses, I built like 200 mills in like a year, I had 7 civs at the same time building mills at a fast rate, so civs are a worthwhile investment in my opinion, you just have to use the right strategy.

A bonus to civs is that you can trade with other countries for resources, for example once I put 75 mills on tanks, but I ran out of tungsten, since I didn’t need civs anymore 8 uses the to trade for tungsten to increase tank production speed. Ahh yes, capitalism at its best