Monarchy vs. Communism in a war, the stats are finally in folks!!

[sabo]

I keep hearing on here how much better Monarchy is vs. Communism in a war so I decided to save my game on the last turn of Anarchy and load once with Monarchy and then again with Communism and I was a little surprised. I kept hearing people saying Monarchy in a war was so much better, well they were wrong. And I kept swearing Communism in a war was so much better, well I was wrong too.. this is on a large map with 27 cities generally spaced 5 tiles from city center to city center except diagonally which were 3 to 4 tiles apart..

Monarchy Communism Difference
INCOME 719 702 -17
EXPENSES 745 743 -2
SCIENCE 253 249 -4
ENTERTMT 0 0 0
CORRUPTN 88 90 +2
MAINTNCE 366 366 0
UNIT COST 38 38 0
TO OTHER 0 0 0

I might have counted wrong on this but sheild production was 662 for Monarchy and 659 for communism. As you can see and much to my amazement they are D**N near identical! So I guess either one will work in a war. I guess Monarchy would be better if you had a tight knit civ (compact and cities close) but Communism would be better with an expansive civ and if you liked using spies. I say that because the manual claims on in a large civ corruption in Communism is spread even among all cities. So I guess whatever your style of play is you can pick between the two and not have to worry so much about science, corruption, blah, blah, blah. SHWEEEWW!

[Klasanov]

Interesting. Now, try it out on a huge expansive empire, and a tight knit one and see the differences.

[Sullla]

The same? Well except that Communism has the ENORMOUS disadvantage of having to rush-build with population and not with money. That alone counts heavily against it. And you don't mention WHERE those shields occur; Monarchy will concentrate the shields in core cities where units can be built quickly while Communism will space it out over all your cities where many of them can contribute little to your civ. This isn't the greatest test though, because depending on the map either one of these governments may be much better than the other.

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

I guess the difference will only show with different emipre sizes, that is with extremely small and extremely large ones.

[sabo]

Who pop rushes things? I rarely do, about the only thing I pop rush is usually something with culture (temples) in newly conquered cities

[Richard III]

Sounds like one advantage to me: poprush with people, so you're building new temples at the expense of the conquered bastards who dared resist you, and not at the expense of hardworking (insert civ) taxpayers!

[sabo]

Ya know your right Richard cuz I usually starve the buttheads anyway and repopulate with my own people

[MuddyOne]

I wouldn't classify Pop-rushing as a disadvantage. It is a feature that has pros and cons. Many of the pros are enhanced via communism and many of the cons are minimized as well.

Of the cons, generally the unhappiness caused from poprushing is the first mentioned. This is generally my least concern. A metropolis can supress a hugh amount of unhappiness. Plus, because the cities aren't producing 1 shield out of 20, you can actually build things in them. Though in cases where I have gotten impatient I have poprushed a temple, followed by an aquaduct, followed by a marketplace, followed by a hospital, followed by a cathedral, followed by mass transit. Two turns later it was in WLTKD. The city is pretty much done popping for the rest of the game though- as the recovery time is extremely long after so much popping.

What I consider the more important con is that you are capped on what you can rush- half your pop worth. IN my above case, several turns were spent waiting for the shields remaining to become less than 1/2 pop worth of shields. While this can be relieved by ferrying units around and disbanding them, in a lot of cases isn't practical (non-pangea) So pay rushing is quicker in a lot of cases when rushing items in a city.

One of the pros of poprushing is that it gives you three renewable, spendable resources, In governments that don't have pop-rushing, population just stagnates once you have your workers built.

Another pro, that works into the first is that, by building workers and moving to other cities to add, you get the most efficient transfer of shields in the game. For the 10 shields building the worker, I receive 20 shields in the popping city. Shield to cash to shield is very inefficent, and even building units and disbanding in building city doesn't provide 1 to 1 shield conversion. This often makes rushing in multiple cities quicker than with cash rushing.

The luxury slider also helps to compensate for pop-rushing unhappiness. Unlike in centralized corruption, where 10% luxury adds 3 smilies to your core, and none to your fringes, under communism it generally will add 1 to all of you cities.

Unit build times aren't important to me individually. I build a lot of tanks to attack, not a tank. And given the same overall shield production I wind up with the same number of tanks to attack with at the end of a time period.

Research times and wonder building are communisms disadvantage. Prebuild can alievate some of the wonder building disadvantage- but if you don't calculate far out into the future you can miss out on a wonder you really wanted. Research times can be allived by building science improvements in every city- but this is cost prohibitive, and a core city with science wonders will win out.

[Zouave]

". . .but Communism would be better with an expansive civ. . ."

Let's get something historically straight here. Communism was the ultimate in CENTRALIZED BUREAUCRACY. If ever any form of government would be prone to inefficiency, waste, and corruption in the farthest most distant parts of its civ it would be COMMUNISM. Democracy would be the least so - witness Alaska and Hawaii. You can be damn sure in the Soviet Union there was more corruption and waste in Vladivostok than in Oahu.

[Trinity]

Communism would be a game killer for me in my current situation. I'm so spread out. I have 95% corruption in about 30 cities -- some 12 to 15 in size. I have practically zero in a core of 20. The rest are sort of middlin'.

I'm in a democracy at war. Yes the entertainers are killing my unit building and wonder building (I missed out on the UN and Manhattan Project due to WW), but it would be far worse if I had to spread those 15 to 35 wasted shields per city and corruption to my central core. Yikes. I'd rather go with Monarchy and keep that core productive.

But I'm sticking with democracy and it's problems for the time being, unless Caesar decides never to get his head out his butt and talk peace. He's been in anarchy for 6 turns. He had a democracy. Right now I get to try out my modern armor.

BTW -- isn't starving your own people for shield production about the same as pop-rushing?

I wish you could pop rush in newly conquored cities though, but I guess you'd be impeached. Of course you could do the conscript thing for mech infantry in conquored cities, which is every bit as evil.

[MuddyOne]

Zouave, he wasn't posting about history- nor even a comparision to Democracy, but rather Monarchy.

[warpstorm]

Originally posted by Trinity
Communism would be a game killer for me in my current situation. I'm so spread out. I have 95% corruption in about 30 cities -- some 12 to 15 in size. I have practically zero in a core of 20. The rest are sort of middlin'.

I'm in a democracy at war. Yes the entertainers are killing my unit building and wonder building (I missed out on the UN and Manhattan Project due to WW), but it would be far worse if I had to spread those 15 to 35 wasted shields per city and corruption to my central core. Yikes. I'd rather go with Monarchy and keep that core productive.

Have you tried it? You might be pleasantly surprised. The big thing that people who haven't used communism much don't seem to get is that the concept of "core cities" disappears and no long applies. In my current game, I have about 70 cities on 2 continents that are producing 50+ shields each (and a third continent coming after the radiation clears ). There is no core. If you are planning to go the commy route, you build up all cities. They can all be reasonably productive, not just the 20 center cities.

The big hit you will take is the lack of commerce bonus that you are getting in democracy.

[bobgote]

I switched from democracy to communism where I had my central core of my empire, then two 5-city blocks on the other side of the world, in different places.
In the previous big producing core cities, my production dropped from 70 to about 50, but the far flung places went from 1 to like 20-30. This is the huge benefit of communism. It really works, but only when you have the right conditions
Give it a go!

Rightly, communism has advantages and can be better than democracy! Also the espionage prices are now cheaper, i believe, must've been done in one of the patches. I'm happy now.

[LKendter]

Well another question on this test.

Was the FP built?
Monarchy can have **two** core building areas, of if fp / palace overlap one LARGE building area.

[Masquerouge]

Funny. The first post claimed "So I guess whatever your style of play is you can pick between the two and not have to worry so much about science, corruption, blah, blah, blah. SHWEEEWW!".

Loking at the direction this thread is heading to, i'd say : "Guess again, sabo10"

(plus, it rhymes )

[Gregski]

Originally posted by Sullla
The same? Well except that Communism has the ENORMOUS disadvantage of having to rush-build with population and not with money. That alone counts heavily against it. And you don't mention WHERE those shields occur; Monarchy will concentrate the shields in core cities where units can be built quickly while Communism will space it out over all your cities where many of them can contribute little to your civ. This isn't the greatest test though, because depending on the map either one of these governments may be much better than the other.

Sorry, have to disagree with rush-building. I prefer to rush-build using citizens in a war. I always want a library or temple in the city in order to get culture to expand the city's borders and I am happy to sacrafice foreign nationals from a city that cannot support that size anyway (no temple/cathedral etc). When the city grows, my citizens will outnumber the locals sooner.

[God]

I think I'll try communism in my next game. 100 shield producing cities are nice, but more 40 producing ones would be better.

[Trinity]

Originally posted by God
I think I'll try communism in my next game. 100 shield producing cities are nice, but more 40 producing ones would be better.

Unless you're getting close to finishing your spaceship, and one of your competitors has started one. It explains the 10 mech infantry stationed in Paris (me) and London. A domination victory is impossible on this map. I like huge maps and archipeligos with 60% water.

I've played commie before. It allowed unrestrained war. I built up my central core first under Monarchy, then switched to commie and built up the rest. BTW, corruption is non-existant in your capital and FP cities -- even under communism.

[MuddyOne]

If giving Communism a try, make sure you build courthouses in your productive cities before you switch.

LKendter, despite the FPs description, it helps waste a lot in communism as well. From the game I was testing with it helped communism more than Monarchy. It does depend on the map and size of empire though. Monarchy produces more before a certain point, and after a certain point. FP moves these points further out(empire size). Monarchy will generally always outperform when an empire is densely built- you reach the after point very early with dense builds.

Trinity, I do get corruption in both Palace and FP cities. It does seem to be slightly less than elsewhere, but is definately present- about 30% in my game I was testing with. I do not generally build Police stations though.

[alexander dumas]

Zouave:
In real life Communism may be inefficient on the periphary of states, but Commies sure can build infrastructure! I've been to a couple of formerly Communist countries and the thing I've noticed, and I think others will agree, is that there are big, drab, goverment buildings everywhere. I also remember from a class a long time ago on developing nations that Communism was credited with speeding up initial developement and hampering later development. Then again, countries I've looked at have been small geographically.