How do you play this commie govt?

Wow, what an unbalanced govt!!!. After hearing others talk about how strong communism was, I decided to give it a try.

Initial review: wheeeee gold is way up, corruption is way way down, techs are a bit slower with lost of commerical bonus, but huge boast in productivity in outlaying cities. That is expected, lack of drop in production in inner cities is not expected.

Ok, now I have this govt. It takes forever to revert to another govt, so how do I best play with it?
[It's about 1800 ad, Monarch difficulty, 6 continent world, 4 other civs: strong, medium, low medium, weak strength]

A- fill the planet with my cities ?
B- only build cities where key resources exist?
C- tightly pack outlaying cities to maximize value? [size 6 to borg styles]
D- loosely pack outlaying cities to maximize value? [OCP]

What are things not to do with communist govt?

thanks in advance for your advice.

PF

Fight a lot of wars and you'll be fine.
________
Cheap Airsoft Rifles

Outproduce them. Build up your economy, and then have dozens of cities that produce any military unit in 2 or perhaps even 1 turn.

Then use them - your money is well invested in all forms of espionage, and you have plenty money for that and better spies than the others, but note that facist spies are veterans, too.


Your question about the best build pattern is rather a question of style and your strategy than something affected by Communism - a tight build might suit better Feudalism. But this gov is way backward in your stage of the game.

Make sure you research Espionage immediately.

Build Courthouses and Police Stations in every city as fast as you can. When you get espionage, get the Secret Police Headquarters immediately. Try for WLTK in every city for even more corruption reduction.

Then build factories and military units using your improved production in every city. You get 6 units for any city, regardless of size, so you can have a large army.

That's all I can think of.

My question about build is NOT about build on initial continent. Sorry I was not clear on that. But with 4 continents to conquer, does any of the build options on the AI continents have any significant effect good/bad on empire strength?

I didn't see much efffect with SPHQ.

PF

I just recently gave Communism a shot and it owns. No WW, very low corruption (under 10%) 6 units supported per city. Very nice. My total income is a little bit lower but the other things make up for it.

I was almost always under Republic but probably not anymore.

Originally posted by Longasc
Outproduce them. Build up your economy, and then have dozens of cities that produce any military unit in 2 or perhaps even 1 turn.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the secret. Just go to Communism when you get it, then get Industrialization. Now all those useless outlying cities can build a recycling plant in decent time. Once you have some form of powerplant and with enough hills, you'll be pushing out 30-45 tanks every turn or two after you get the tech. This makes you unstoppable.

Meanwhile, if you keep enough wars going in the world everyone else will be in Fascism - equalizing the tech hit you'll be taking.

Welcome to communism, comrade! Workers of the world unite (to build tanks ...)!

I haven't played C3C Communist yet, so my thoughts are based on theory. I have been thinking about it a fair bit though because I'm considering going to Communism soon in my current game. Based on theory:

Don't build cities very densely if you do plan to take over the world. At a certain point (but a very high one) too many cities will have a significant negative effect. (See table below and compare having 200 small cities vs. 100 large ones for example.)

The SPHQ should greatly increase the effective number of cities. Assuming there's no bug in its implementation. So, the fact that SPHQ made little difference in your game suggests to me that you are currently very far from having too many cities.

The number of cities depends on map size and difficutly level. You need to check OCN for them in the editor. Theoretically it should also be influenced by the commercial trait which would give it a boost - unknown whether that works in combination with communism.

As an example, suppose your Monarch game (.85) is on a standard map (OCN=20) and you are not a commercial Civ, and you have both an FP and SPHQ. And suppose we're looking at cities which do not have a courthouse nor a police station.

Using Alexman's formulas
The progression is linear up to 272 cities in this case and begins to increase more rapidly after that.

The presence of a courthouse and/or police station in a city will further reduce its rank corruption, but only by a very small amount so I haven't included this factor here.

That accounts for rank corruption only. Distance corruption must be added. It is a constant in Communism:
So, for each city we must add 6, 12, or 24 percent to the rank corruption depending on whether it has a courthouse and/or police station.

From all that I conclude that:

1) It isn't necessary to worry about the total number of cities unless you are packing them tight. Very tight (ICS) packing will be counter-productive in Communism because the rank corruption of all cities will start to become significant, and because it is desirable to have a courthouse in most cities.

2) Most cities should have a courthouse. It will reduce corruption by about 1/8th.

3) Very high output cities (those with scientific wonders, or lots of shields and factories) should also have a Police Station to gain another 1/16th.

4) Communism can be VERY powerful now. An empire of 200 cities each at 50% corruption can be built on a standard map in Monarchy.

One more thought about Communism: A downside to this government is the forced-labor rushing. After being in Communism for a while and growing I'd expect to be running a high gold surplus. But with nothing to spend it on! One possible use for it: each turn, pillage a critical resource for building a particular unit, keep all cities building an earlier unit in the upgrade path, next turn start by reconnecting, use the gold to upgrade units, then disconnect again.

I was hoping you or Alexman would respond.

The progression is linear up to 272 cities in this case and begins to increase more rapidly after that.

One more thought about Communism: A downside to this government is the forced-labor rushing. After being in Communism for a while and growing I'd expect to be running a high gold surplus. But with nothing to spend it on! [/B][/QUOTE]

Ok, so at my density levels, this is not an issue. Interesting, there is still a cash benefit in building and building, up to a point, it just is a trade off between a little more cash or finishing the game quicker as less cities to manage. I only have about 150 cities.

Based on your numbers, we get:

Assumptions
Average shields/city 40
courthouse and police station in all cities

City_Cnt Waste% Available Sh/city Empire Shields
50 15% 34 1,700
100 24% 30 3,040
200 43% 23 4,560
272 56% 18 4,787
400 103% -1 (480)


Now about the "nothing to spend it on". I thought I would have that problem under Fascism and dreaded going fascist because of that very issue. I found out it did not change very much. Oh, don't get it wrong, it is annoying not to be able to cash rush an improvement/unit. But at this stage of the game it does not matter much. With increased income, naturally you get:
-- ability to turn down turns to research. The modern era techs are very expensive.
-- the ability to buy friends and luxuries
-- the ability to run more spy missions
-- the ability to buy trade embargos

My games never last until the end of the modern era, so there is always some tech I can use cash for.

Thank you for the confirmation. Give communism/fascism a try. You might like it as a game government separate from your evaluation of these extreme governments in real life.

PF

Originally posted by planetfall
With increased income, naturally you get:
-- ability to turn down turns to research. The modern era techs are very expensive.
-- the ability to buy friends and luxuries
-- the ability to run more spy missions
-- the ability to buy trade embargos

Click to expand...

That is a pretty good list If I get more cash than I want I think I'll try some spy missions I normally wouldn't go for!

Commie definately rocks. I can easily outproduce, out research, and out military any democracy out there. At first you lose a few turns on research. Say 5 turns under demo is now 7 or 8 under commie. Solution? Put a few cities on whealth and any extra citizens not working squares to scientists. And you are back to 5 turns. Beeline to the Internet and you are golden in the modern era.

One mistake people make is thinking Commie is only good for warmongers. On the contrary. Commie is *perfect* for space race victory. You have such massive production capabilities with the low corruption and Hoover with factories everywhere that you can build spaceship parts in 5 turns or less. And you can build a large military at no per turn cost that you could easily have 120 modern armor laying around and no one will dare attack you. If they do you can lay waste to them.

Commie is also good for diplomatic victories because if you do it right you'll have a ton of cash to keep on good relations with enough civs to get their vote.

And don't underate spy missions and buying everything you need if you get that huge surplus that you can get. You don't always have a ton of cash but you will if you do it right. And don't foget upgrades! It sure is nice to be able to plop down 3000 to upgrade all your infranty with no problem.

There are downsides to Commie like the economy really crashing once you go over that OCN too much. Pop rush is a downer if you're not at war. But during wars pop rush is an awesome way to rush in a temple and library in a newly taken city while lowering the native population at the same time. And if you *don't* get key wonders like Hoover or the Internet you will lag behind the AI in Demo most likely. But then that's when you pull out the whipping stick and take the Internet from them.

You gotta be willing to warmonger as a Commie because sometimes you need to, but it certainly isn't required.

Here is my experience from a recently completed regent game (v.1.00, won by domination, large map, FP and SPHQ built). Communism was great as I was conquering the world but near the end-game I found that many of newly added cities and those far away from my capital were not productive.

At last turn, Civ-wide I had 124 cities and an income of 2521 with corruption of 1751 (stats from the f1 screen). It eventually got to the point that I could no longer research new techs at a reasonable rate (conquered cities invariably cost more than they generated in income - even with courthouses) - so I had to lower my research rate considerably to keep the budget in balance.

My top commerce generating city produced 20 commerce and had 42 lost to corruption. My top shield producing city had 18 shields and 34 lost to corruption.

cheers

bill

Originally posted by bill dot
Here is my experience from a recently completed regent game (v.1.00, won by domination, large map, FP and SPHQ built)

Click to expand...

Bill, the corruption levels you were getting sound way too high. There was a severe problem with the way FP worked in the 1.00 release. I don't know how it affected communism but it sounds like it hit it pretty bad I think that if you update to the 1.15b release you'll get dramatically better numbers in the same situation.

Originally posted by bonscott
Commie definately rocks. I can easily outproduce, out research, and out military any democracy out there.

Click to expand...

Odd, why haven't I seen Communism used for One City Challenge in that case?

You should qualify your statement. Communism is better for big civs.

I agree with everyone that Communism does rock in C3C.

One thing to remember:

Forced Labor is the obvious flaw of Communism. You have a lot of money, but you cannot spend it.

What about Espionage? You have Veteran Spies. Steal Military Plans or even Techs. Initiate Propaganda. You can easily have 2500 GPT at 80-100% research - with a really large, 80-100 cities empire.

I bet you will do more espionage than the infamous KGB...


I have an IDEA for Facism:

Why not let Fascist States hurry Production by EITHER Forced Labor OR Money?

I think Ision pointed already out where Facism might do better than Communism, but IMO:

Communism is usually much better than Facism. Indeed it is so good and I love it perhaps because it deals so well with corruption in large Empires.

Is it perhaps too good?


Anyway, just my idea: Let Fascists hurry Production by either pop-rushing or money!

I try to go monarchy -> demo -> commy. I switch from demo to commy after I have 5 cities with factories.

Commy and Fascism both work best with size 13+ cities and commy works best at size 20 with every citizen working a tile. This is due to the way corruption works for Commy.

For conquering, I would suggest to sparsely space cities on other continents. Spacing would be a distance of 5 or 6 and pop rush a temple/catherdral. This cuts down on those pesky rebellious citizens!

Again, wow, commies are too strong. 70+ spt in main cities and still able to build marines/Mechs in 3..4 turns on 2nd continent that was settled not too long ago.

Also again, I hate pop rushing. I just put cities on governor or starve for a few turns until reset to normal builds. Rarely have any cities flip as I push back the previous sphere of influence as fast as I can.

Since build pattern does not seem to matter much, I am using standard builds. Just covering the land, if influence has not yet expanded and there is room for a city, I will most often put in a new one. Not because I am anxious for the territory, but if there is an invasion, my area of influence will slow down movements.

Interestingly with commies, it does not seem to require new conquest builds of temple/library to start culture. Just one or the other is good enough.

After learning to play with Fascism's xenophobic traits, the immediate culture is awesome.

All I have done before espanionage is place diplomat and spy in each civ. Now I am starting to run over with over 5000 cash and have enough units to micro manage and now immediate wars. I am thinking of trying some of the other spy actions just to see again how they work.

PF

Stealing Military Plans is nice - gives a good overview.

Initiate Propaganda is hardly worth it, but I won my Celts game this way - needed 1% land for domination and initiated propaganda in 5-6 very small and ´really ****ty cities, had success in 2 or was it three... -> victory

Agreed, Progaganda is a waste. Military plans is occasionally good for a snapshot.

I'll probably start with that as there is a nice 5 city island with Hitties only 2 oils that is screeming for liberation.

I like sabatoge. There aren't any good techs to steal, but making builds restart in best AI cities would be fun. I use the F11 screen to discover best cities to sabatoge.

PF

I don't agree that commie is too powerful. It is a balance. In my most recent game I went demo because I was relatively small, only about 40-50 cities. Corruption wasn't killing me that much and demo will be much better then commie in that situation. Commie would probably hurt more then help. Then I was dragged into a war. I went for a quick strike but that didn't work and it drug on. WW finnally killed me so I switched to commie. I still hadn't taken enough cities for commie to really help me but I used it to combat WW. By the time I was finished with the war I was more then double the size I was before and then commie really started to kick in so I stayed in commie rather then switch back.

Others will say Demo is all powerfull as well. Really depends on your strats, game conditions and so on. Each can be "super" governments depending on the situation at hand. It's finding that right balance and mix that will help you win the game.