a quick question on Democracy vs Monarchy

[MSGT John Drew]

Democracy rewards you with less corruption.

But you can also achieve the same with Monarchy through WLTKD (military police).

Also Monarchy allows you maintenance-free units. Before Democracy I had a support-cost of 6 gold per turn. That is with 110 units on the game. So if I go Democracy I'll be spending 104 more gold per turn. That's quite hefty for me since I'll be down to a net of 22 gold per turn with Science at 100%

I'll also lose around 4-6 turns to Anarchy (non-religious). My cities just built the coal plants so I'll be losing quite a lot of shield production during those turns.

(I'm trying to be specific here to give you a better picture.)

Also #2 and #3 (I'm #1 ) are producing techs very fast. I'm just a tech ahead. They produce techs in tandem most of the time so for every tech I get they get 2 (ai-ai trade). It's really boggling me since this game I'm playing is only Regent and I'm constantly on my heels either trying to catch up or trying to keep a thin lead. I also have almost all the wonders (it is regent so that was no sweat) and with copernicuss and newton's wonders you'd think I'd have a huge tech lead but that just isn't the case. still, it's making for a very interesting game.

so what I'm asking is...

What are the 'very' good effects of Democracy in Civ3?

ps: war weariness is no problem because I already have suffrage WoW and I also know how to handle it.

 

[SirJethro]

Worker efficiency is a huge bonus (50% boost). However, if you are playing a very militaristic game, I find the war weariness too unpredictable in Democracy.

 

[MSGT John Drew]

went ahead with Democracy anyway and I just found out how the 'experts' can conjure up 1000 gpts or more. It seems Democracy effectively doubles your income. During Monarchy i was getting around 600+ from cities and at democracy it jumped to 1200+. Damn that's huge!

 

[Vorlin]

Keep in mind that democracy and republic both add one commerce to any square that produces commerce. If your cities have the infrastructure to take advantage of this (science buildings, marketplace, bank) then this can actually result in a nice size net gain instead of a loss, even with supporting a large military. An easy way to check is to save your game, switch governments, and see what kind of numbers you end up with. Both democracy and republic also lower overall corruption (not in totally corrupted cities though), and this helps with production as well as science and income (democracy is better at this than republic). And as noted above, the +50% worker speed is nice, especially as you will probably start having pollution issues soon.

If I'm going for research and/or money, I go with republic/democracy. If I'm going for an extended military campaign I'll go with monarchy/communism. Short military campaigns are okay with rep/dem, but even with women's sufferage you'll have major problems in a democracy if the war drags on too long.

BTW, my experience on regent is that if the AI civs are neck-and-neck with you tech-wise then you haven't been militarily aggressive enough (especially early on). By taking a few cities and then suing for peace and demanding as much tech and other stuff as you can get, then re-attacking a few turns later after your forces have healed, you can really gain an edge while taking that edge away from your victim. Never let an AI develop in peace if you can help it, not if they have enough land area to build a strong infrastructure. If you aren't in a position to attack them, see if they have a strong neighbor (or a couple of weak ones) and form an alliance with them (this is especially effective if the neighbors are next to the target civ and you are across the ocean). Anything to keep the AI civs from sitting back and devoting all their energy to infrastructure and research.

 

[morkaphi]

I don't see the "very good effects" of Democracy either... I agree with John Drew, the price for switching is huuuuuuuuuge. If I'm in a war, switching to Democracy is not even an option.

Talking about worker efficiency, if you do well during the wars, those captured AI workers should supply more worker efficiency (though may not be as much as the 50% Democracy can give you). Well, as long as they're free, I don't complain...

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Originally posted by morkaphi
I don't see the "very good effects" of Democracy either... I agree with John Drew, the price for switching is huuuuuuuuuge. If I'm in a war, switching to Democracy is not even an option.

I think he did point out the good effects though, that being massive increase in income. I also see great effect on research.

If you can secure 5-7 luxuries, I find you can wage wars with objectives under a democracy without WW.

 

[sabo]

I think every governement (excluding depotism) has it's good points if you exploit those good points, I've found that if your not going to war republic or democracy, but if you are then monarchy or communism.

 

[Catt]

Originally posted by Vorlin
Keep in mind that democracy and republic both add one commerce to any square that produces commerce. If your cities have the infrastructure to take advantage of this (science buildings, marketplace, bank) then this can actually result in a nice size net gain instead of a loss, even with supporting a large military.

Just to echo Vorlin's excellent post: both Republic and Democracy provide tremendous additional income over the other forms of governemnt, provided that you've got the infrastructure in place. Roads on every worked city tile are important - the commerce bonus only applies to tiles already producing at least one commerce. Be wary of the happiness effects. A too early switch to a representative governement can put a serious crimp in your game if you haven't built happiness-improvements and you don't have access to several luxuries.

On the initial switch, you may find that you are suddenly running a deficit and need to throttle back you science slider - I often have to do this but still can research a tech more quickly than under Monarchy (i.e. 70% on Monarchy prodiuces discovery in 5 turns; 50% on Republic produces discovery in 4 turns). In a tight tech race, it will be difficult to keep up without (1) switching to Republic or Monarchy, or (2) expanding your territory and crippling your research opponents.