Here's a newbie like question, it is true that to change my government from Despotism to a Monarchy I have to do a revolution to throw my civ into anarchy for a few turns and THEN i'll be given the option to go to a monarchy? I'm reading the manual and it sounds like that is the method but it isn't 100% clear on it.

Also, is there a way to fix a "flood plain" terrain into just terrain that contains a river? I accidentally built my capitol on some flood plain tiles and now it suffers from disease every once in a while. I was wondering if I need a tech or somehow use a worker to change the terrain but not get rid of the river.

Jay

You might be able to forrest the terrain once you get engineering, I am not sure of that...though disease is kinda nasty on flood plains the amount of food that you recieve outweighs the penalties (I think...I've only lost 2 pop due to disease, and one worker throughout several starts in floodplain/jungle areas). I don't know that you can alter terrain at all once you put a city somewhere. (And I think for that matter, cities auto-clear forrests when you build them).

As to your first question, religious is the way to go if you are worried, it minimizes anarchy to one turn when you switch governments which is nice. I've had anarchy go for several (like 7~10 or something awful) when doing my first switch to Monarchy, something that would not have any anarchy associated with it in Civ II.

Edit>> to make it more clear Anarchy itself is a form of government in the game...so you actually encourage a revolution (ie. 'switch' to anarchy) and when your civ settles back down you then have the option of switching to Monarchy or Republic or whatnot.

Originally posted by Jay H
Here's a newbie like question, it is true that to change my government from Despotism to a Monarchy I have to do a revolution to throw my civ into anarchy for a few turns and THEN i'll be given the option to go to a monarchy? I'm reading the manual and it sounds like that is the method but it isn't 100% clear on it.

You got it right. (With the exception of religious civs which don't suffer from anarchy.)

Also, is there a way to fix a "flood plain" terrain into just terrain that contains a river? I accidentally built my capitol on some flood plain tiles and now it suffers from disease every once in a while. I was wondering if I need a tech or somehow use a worker to change the terrain but not get rid of the river.

There is no way to change flood plains. AFAIK, the disease effect stops when you discover sanitation.