Staying in Despotism

[gunkulator]

as for commerce under republic - commerce in the ancient age is not very important. it is more important to sacrifice commerce in the short term for more rapid commerce growth. if this were not true i would say "why stop with despotism? increase your commerce even more with large numbers of specialists". but no, it's all about population growth to me early in the game and for that i require a change of government. and do we grow our cities to size 7 so we can switch to republic or do we switch to republic so that we can grow our cities to size 7? the latter is easier for me.

That's fine, however when you do switch how many irrigated grass tiles do you really have? Maybe if I had a lot of floodplains it would be worth an early switch but if what I mostly have is irrigated-brown and mined-green then Republic does very little as far as growth is concerned. That is one reason why I hesitate. The other, as I mentioned above, is the offensive war oppurtunity of the AA. For that I need units, and plenty of them. Can't really do that in Republic. Finally, the other factor is vulnerability. After I switch to Republic, I find myself needing to disband a bunch of units. The few times I have tried an early switch, the AI takes advantage of my weakness and declares war.

 

[rysingsun]

after switching to republic i do indeed usually disarm somewhat. so i will have to amend my post to say something like "if i can afford to be a total pacifist then i revolt to republic as soon as possible." i can see now why that does not appeal to some.

 

[incubuspawn]

I'm currently playing at C3C at Monarch (doing well), with one moderately successful Emperor game set aside for the time being. In my current game as the Russians, I kept myself in Despotism until sometime early in the Middle Ages. I had picked up Republic a while back, and was at tech parity with the leading AI civs. I know that the common wisdom is to get out of Despotism as soon as you have your core cities at 6 pop or above, but I was having way too much fun pop rushing my infrastructure. Paying for libraries (so I didn't get totally culture-whacked and so I could keep pumping out the beakers) and harbors and aquaducts with shields or gold seems like such a waste when you can just pay for them with blood.

Is this something that folks do often at Monarch and above -- stay in Despotism to keep pop-rushing? I haven't played a religious civ in a while, so I stick with the strategy of switching govs once to Republic and staying put. Thus I'm not planning on switching to Commie just to start pop-rushing again. Pretty much once I'm done with Despotism then I'm paying with gold ever after.

What do you all do?

I have allways strongly disagreed with leaving despot as soon as possible. Its a one way ticket to financial ruin as either republic or monarchy. This is because of the unit maitenance cost. Pre Middle ages, the republic in this game simply cannot afford an army, or even a decent amount of workers. Monarchy only supports 2 units untill it hits a size 7. So what I do is once the majority of my cities hit size 7, I then go monarchy... not a momment sooner. But then this strategy assumes garrison in each city with 2 workers per city.

 

[jb1964]

Paying for libraries (so I didn't get totally culture-whacked and so I could keep pumping out the beakers) and harbors and aquaducts with shields or gold seems like such a waste when you can just pay for them with blood.

I mostly play Monarch games. After SGoTM6 I stay in Despotism for a good long time. Non-religeous government changes are soooo damn painful. But, I don't do much in the way of pop-rushing. Despotism affords me the unit support to wage some early wars and build up the infrastructure.

I can just about always pull off the Republic slingshot and then I wait for the completion of the GL or some other long term investment before switching.

Typing this make we realize my play has gotten a bit "cook book" and I should consider going to Emperor.

Anyway, I totally agree that there is no need to rush out of despotism.

 

[Yondaime]

I stay in Despotism until I get Democracy and then switch. Usually I'm in some major war by the Industrial war and switch to Facism...yea.

 

[SimpleMonkey]

It would seem advisable to switch out of Despot sometime before the end of the Middle Ages. I can't even imagine the loss of production and food under the Despot penalty if you wait until Democracy. :suicide: If you want to wage unending war, at least switch to Monarchy. Then Commie if you're doing a good job of turning the map all one color.

 

[Abegweit]

It's true that an immediate switch to Republic is not always right. It is also true that the only switch you should ever make is to Republic. The question is the exact timing of the move. Masters like Wacken have an intuition about such things.

We humans need tools and CivAssist II does the job for you. Check out the relative productivity of the two forms of government. Switch when Republic gives you more production than Despotism, or even when it is slightly less. Remember to consider the effect of disbanding old military such as reg warriors.