What's the big fuss about Republic ?

I rarely ever turn my empire into a republic.
I usually go straight for Monarchy, and then to Democracy, skipping Republic.
I'm currently playing on Monarch level, and have no problems in keeping up with the AI with tech using this strategy. And by the time the modern ages rolls around, i'm usually well ahead of the AI in tech and power.

The few times I have switched to Republic, I hated it. Very difficult to make money, WW, and compared to Monarchy, IMO, is inferior.
I do tend to war monger early in the game as I expand my empire, at my neighbor's expense, so maybe this has something to do with it ?

Can anyone tell me what the advantages of Republic are, as compared to Monarchy ?
I have seen no advantage, but rather a bunch of disadvantages of being in Republic as opposed to Monarchy. The main thing that kills me with Republic is no unit support. Any increase in commerce is negated by that fact it seems.

marioh -
I have been discovering this myself. I play on Emporer and Demigod level, and always used to go straight into Republic and maybe switch to Communism later on when very big. However, I have found that Monarchy is awesome when you are small to medium size. I then switch to Fascism when I get bigger - usually after/during my "2nd expansion phase". Once in Fascism, I never look back. The unit support is HUGE in Fascism, the corruption is minimal, and there is ZERO war weariness. How can you beat that?
I have certainly lost my love for Republic. And Democracy? No thanks - I can never be that peaceful.

The real power of Republic comes in warmongering games. You can get the huge commerce increase of a Democracy, without the huge war-weariness.

To make Republic powerful when warmongering you must keep your military relatively small. When I'm warmongering and have about 50 cities I'll typically have between 50 and 100 units. If I have 100 units, that will cost 100gpt in maintenance in either PTW or C3C. That's just 2g per city, but the difference between Monarchy and Republic will be a gain of much more than that!

Using Republic when warmongering is a bit of a balancing act and takes some practice. But once you've seen how powerful it can be, you may never again want to use Monarchy or Democracy! Monarchy won't earn you enough money, and Democracy won't be worth the time to flip because it gains so little over Republic.

Some tips for using Republic while war-mongering:

1) As soon as you've captured enough enemy workers to handle a good part of your worker requirements, start joining your own workers to towns. Your workers require support, captured ones don't.

2) Disband unused obsolete military units. They just cost support in Republic and they don't help with happiness.

3) In C3C, fill any available empty space with a town or two or three. Even if the town is fully corrupt, it increases the number of free units you can support in Republic.

4) Use the luxury slider as necessary to compensate for war weariness. Don't be afraid to spend money this way, it is a good use for part of your increased income.

5) Minimize your losses of cities and troops. I know that this is almost stupidly obvious advice But there is a point in this context - each unit or city you lose (especially cities) increases your war-weariness level a bit. This makes it very difficult for beginning players to wage war in Republic - their war losses quickly cause expensive war weariness. As you become a better fighter, Republic will become more useable because you won't have as bad a case of war weariness in your wars!

6) Get the other guy to declare war on you if possible, instead of you declaring war. This will give you a bit of "negative war weariness." You'll lose it as regular war weariness sets in but it is nice to start a war with a happiness boost.

7) Don't go back to war with a rival within 20 turns of making peace. When you make peace, your war weariness associated with that rival is cancelled out. Twenty turns later it is entirely forgotten and you can start a new war with that rival without unhappiness. But if you start war again with that rival before twenty turns have passed, your previous war weariness returns.

8) Prioritize capturing (or trading for) luxuries. The more luxuries, the less war-weariness will cause problems, because you have more happiness to offset it.

9) Build Marketplaces in all core towns as an early priority. They increase income and they also increase happiness (assuming you've got at least 3 or 4 luxuries.) That combination makes them a bargain, hugely better to build than cathedrals or colosseums.

10) Don't over-build defenders. Each defensive unit you build costs maintenance. The more advanced you get in the game, the less defenders you'll need. I seldom build even one anymore. I.e. I seldom build spearmen, pikemen, musketmen, riflemen. They just cost support. My offensive units handle defense at my borders as enemies arrive.

Originally posted by SirPleb

7) Don't go back to war with a rival within 20 turns of making peace. When you make peace, your war weariness associated with that rival is cancelled out. Twenty turns later it is entirely forgotten and you can start a new war with that rival without unhappiness. But if you start war again with that rival before twenty turns have passed, your previous war weariness returns.

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There is nothing spesial about 20 turns when it comes to ww. If you go to war again after, say 10 turns, your ww will not be as bad as it was. If you have experienced ww, you need at least 25 turns to eliminate all effect of the war.

But to keep your reputation you should wait 20 turns.

10) Don't over-build defenders. Each defensive unit you build costs maintenance. The more advanced you get in the game, the less defenders you'll need. I seldom build even one anymore. I.e. I seldom build spearmen, pikemen, musketmen, riflemen. They just cost support. My offensive units handle defense at my borders as enemies arrive.

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I just want to add that it is better to attack than defend when it comes to ww. If your units are attacked you will get wwp even if you win.

Those are some interesting pieces of advice there SirPleb.
And not surprisingly, some of the things you mentioned, I don't even remotely come close to doing (hence, my problems with Republic).
I'm going to give Republic another shot in my next game using the advice you've given.
Regarding your advice and what I normally do :
1) Workers - I rarely build any workers, and I usually end most games with 20, at most. Slave workers all the way for me ! I also usually don't add workers to my cities until the Modern Age.
2) I usually don't disband anyone til the Industrial Age. I'll give this one a shot.
3) I tend to do that already.
4) I've had problems using the luxury slider, and doing research in Republic as I never seem to be able to make money per turn when I do this. But that's probably due to a lack of marketplaces (and the increase in commerce that they produce). See 9 for why I usually don't have marketplaces in the early game.
5) That's a given.
6) I rarely declare war outright. Re-negotiating peace, on the other hand...
7) I never go back to war with a civ until the 20 turns are up. I figured it'd ruin your rep if you did, so I don't.
8) Luxuries are usually my #2 priority after resources.
9) I think this may be the root of my problem with Republic. I tend to build either settlers or military units early on in the game. Once I'm established and expansion via settlers is no longer an option, I tend to make culture improvements in my cities (libraries or temples) in order to increase my culture, and hopefully decrease the chances of cities flipping back to my opponents. Marketplaces are usually a low priority, and I tend to avoid making them until my cities get to size 6. I'll have to change that basic part of my civ strategy.
10) I found this the most interesting piece of advice of them all. I'll keep this one in mind for my next game.

I'd like to think of myself as a fairly experienced Civ III player as I've played the game for quite some time now. I'll probably be moving up to Emperor next since I've been dominating the AI on monarch.
I definetly would like to know how to manage my empire in a republic better though. Every time I've tried to use it, it seems like I never have any money and unless both sliders are down to 0, it seems like I'm losing money every turn.

Don't get me wrong - I have won plenty of games Emporer+ using Republic. The key is luxuries and size - you have to be big enough (number & size of cities) in order to profit in a Republic. Marketplaces and Temples are also critical. SirPleb's advice is solid. If in Republic and I can't get AI to declare on me and I am forced to be the aggressor, I will position myself to take luxury city first/early. The added luxury is a huge boost to WW. I have easily carried out 50 - 60 turn wars in Republic. It also seems to help if you are warring against a civ that is ahead of you in score/size (at least it seems that way to me).
I think my problem is that I create too many defenders. But, I also can't remember when the last time was that I lost a city - just doesn't happen to me, not even for a turn.

<3) In C3C, fill any available empty space with a town or two or three. Even if the town is fully corrupt, it increases the number of free units you can support in Republic. >

I was not aware of this. Can you elaborate?

Marioh, I'd like to make another suggestion: You mentioned that you rarely build workers. I think that might be holding you back a bit. I generally figure that if I have citizens in my core cities which are on tiles that are not fully improved, then I don't have enough workers and should produce more. Most tiles citizens are working should be roaded (for an extra gold) and either mined or irrigated for an extra shield or food. Having all used tiles improved makes a huge difference - I'd guess it roughly doubles income and production vs. having most tiles not improved. And the effect from that compounds over time of course A solid road network also makes for faster expansion (settlers get to the fringes more quickly) and for a more effective military (less units are needed because you can reposition them faster.)

Some people use a rule of thumb of one worker per city to decide on the number of workers. That's not a bad rule on average. But in any specific game it might be wrong, I find that the need varies quite a bit from map to map, depending on terrain, expansion rate, availability of captured workers, industrious or not. I generally go more by gut feel, pumping out additional workers as I see that I'm falling behind, either in road networking or in citizens working on unimproved tiles.

Originally posted by bradbowen
<3) In C3C, fill any available empty space with a town or two or three. Even if the town is fully corrupt, it increases the number of free units you can support in Republic. >

I was not aware of this. Can you elaborate?

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In CivIII and PTW there was a flat 1 gold/turn unit support cost in Republic.

In Conquests, apparently in an effort to make Republic less useful as a warmongering government (I'm guessing that this was the reason for the change), Republic was changed so that:
1) Free unit support is 1/3/4 for each town/city/metropolis.
2) Extra units above the free ones cost 2 gold/turn to support.

In practice I've found that this change makes Republic trickier for warmongering but even more powerful when done carefully.

The tricky part is the initial switch to Republic. If you make that switch while small, say 20 towns, you'll often have a painful initial maintenance cost. At that date your number of workers/town will probably be higher than later in the game, and the same for your military. If you aren't careful you might find that you switch with 60 units and 20 towns, and end up paying 80gpt for unit support.

But later on as your empire grows you can flip that relationship and can often end up paying NO unit support at all under Republic, much better again for warmongering than CivIII and PTW!

Bottom line: filling in unused land with useless extra towns helps Republic, in Conquests, by increasing the number of free units supported.

Originally posted by bradbowen
<3) In C3C, fill any available empty space with a town or two or three. Even if the town is fully corrupt, it increases the number of free units you can support in Republic. >

I was not aware of this. Can you elaborate?

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In C3C, Republic got free unit support. No much, but some (1 maybe?). If you have a group of cites that can not be attacked, you do not need units there. You can then have more units at the front line.

Make sense?

So here's my question -- at what point do you generally switch to Republi? ASAP, after expansion, industrial age? Do you have a general rule or is this another gut thing? I find that if I switch early I have the support problems and if I wait for a while, the turns of anarchy just seem to kill me. Any advice?

Good tips by SirPleb, one of the best players in the forum. Maybe it would be posted in the strategy articles.

Go either early or late. Early before cities are any real size so you don't need marketplaces yet and can grow city and marketplaces at same time. Or go late after you have build marketplaces in major cities.

NB: republic is very hard if you don't have at least 3 luxuries. 5 is best, but that is hard to do. Often can find good trades so can alternate between 3 and 4 luxuries.

PF

Originally posted by SesnOfWthr
at what point do you generally switch to Republi?

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That is definitely the key question!

Nowadays I usually research to Republic ASAP and switch right away when I learn it. But I can't really advise this. It takes a while to work up to doing it with confidence. If it goes wrong it can really hurt. My suggestion is to work up to it by playing as a religious Civ for a while. I used to consider religious to be one of the strongest traits because of the quick government change. As a religious Civ you can research to Monarchy ASAP, flip to it, go warmongering, and eventually flip to Republic. (Or Democracy if planning on a long peaceful phase.) And if your flip to Republic ends up going wrong (too much war weariness, too many units and you feel you're losing it) you can flip back to Monarchy without much pain till you get it under control again. Playing that way I eventually found that I could switch to Republic in the first place, and stay there. And after reaching that point I no longer found religious to be as strong a trait since I only needed one government switch per game

I certainly concur with SP on this. I prefer Republic as my govt of choice and warmonger in it. I like to have armies in play to keep the wolves at bay and away from my cities. I try to keep my wars focused on capturing resources, luxuries and wonders.

But I've never thought to keep "safe" cities unguarded. I will try it. I usually play with "enemy moves not shown", so I'm sure it will be dicey spotting back door invasions. Thanks SP.

Once in Fascism, I never look back.

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Me neither. It's the perfect thing for war mongering. No WW, a unit limit you'll never go past and although you don't accumulate culture until you have an ethnic majority, it's ethnic cleansing attributes make that easy to acheive.

I just wanted to add something to SirPleb's evaluation of the religious trait:

Not only can you switch to other governments faster but also build temples much cheaper. For me that's a key factor to keep up with culture on higher levels. You can, especially in fast-growing cities, rush a temple with 1 or (if really desperate) 2 citizens and get a good culture-push early on. Also, building the temple pretty much cancels the negative effect of the forced labor (which disappears after 20 turns anyways).

I definitly love the religious trait and can't believe they took it away from my dear Iroquois!!!

Another post to confirm SirPleb's words of wisdom. Switching to republic early usally pays off handsomely if you can manage the war weariness. When the map is right, I am able to use the WW for positive purposes, by having a backward AI on another continent declare war on me. As long as we don't fight, the positive WW effect can be milked for dozens of turns.

Originally posted by SesnOfWthr
-- at what point do you generally switch to Republic?

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I have a few criteria:

1) At least half of your settlements should be cities (as opposed to towns) so you can support more units. In fact, an alternate criteria to this is that at least half of your units should be supported once you become a Republic. Of course this 2nd criteria requires a bit of calculation before you switch gov'ts.

2) Your cities (not necessarily towns) should have either a library or a marketplace in them in order to take advantage of the extra commerce you will be getting.

3) You need 3 luxuries for 2 reasons.
a) So your cities (not towns) can still grow during the anarchy phase.
b) So you won't have to raise your luxury slider too high (ie. over 20%)

Once you have switched to Republic, you will want build a marketplace and library in each of your cities (not necessarily towns) to take advantage of the extra commerce.

Cheers

Originally posted by Seanirl


Me neither. It's (edit: Fascism - Aggie) the perfect thing for war mongering. No WW, a unit limit you'll never go past and although you don't accumulate culture until you have an ethnic majority, it's ethnic cleansing attributes make that easy to acheive.

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Communism is far superior for warmongering. It is even far superior to Republic for a big empire while warmongering.

EDIT: In all other cases I choose Republic.