Anarchy - Is it ever more than 1 turn?

Pendle Witch

Chieftain
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Nov 13, 2005
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Sabden, England
Hi,

I am as sure as I can be that when I first purchased Civ IV in November, I experienced more than 1 turn of anarchy when changing civics

(It may have been 2 turns) :crazyeye:

Ever since, I have only ever experienced 1 turn of anarchy when changing civics, even when changing several at one go.

a) Was I dreaming the 2 turns of anarchy?
b) Does anyone else think that always 1 turn is not punitive enough in some cases?

regards
Pendle Witch
 
it depends on with civics you select and how much you change

changing one civic will almost always give 1 turn of anarchy.
changing five civics at the same time can give you 5 turns or even more on epic and marathon speed.
 
The frequency you change Civics, unless you're Spiritual, also has an effect. Later in the game changing Civics can easily cause multi-turn revolutions, if you've been switching them a lot.
 
Changing civics causes cumulative anarchy. If you swap civis too much, then you can say goodbye to the 1 turn anarchy. Typically on Marathon speed, by the time I reach Democracy and the like, swapping a single civic is guaranteed to cause 3 turns of anarchy, no matter what.
 
Thanks for those quick replies - I now have a further question ....

Would you then say that perhaps I do not change civics enough if I never get more than 1 turn of anarchy? Am I missing a trick?

I am playing on Noble difficulty

cheers,
Pendle Witch
:goodjob:
 
Pendle Witch said:
Would you then say that perhaps I do not change civics enough if I never get more than 1 turn of anarchy? Am I missing a trick?
I am playing on Noble difficulty

Absolutely not. If you're changing civics with enough frequency on Noble to trigger multi-turn anarchy, then you're probably doing something wrong, in my opinion. Think of civics as the macro-strategy of your game, the driving force behind your empire. You don't want to keep changing direction every turn. Decide on a course of action first, and find the civics that will enable you to reach your goals. Only change those civics when newer civics arise that help gain those goals faster, or when you're forced by circumstances (most likely, war) to temporarily alter those goals.
 
It doesn't mean anything. It largely depends on the situation you're in.
The most frequent civic switch is vassalage/theocracy before going to war and switch back afterwards (because it's REALLY expensive)
Otherwise it's just switching when the civic comes along (if it's beneficial of course).
 
Well the two (three, 4?) things that matter are
1. Map speed
2. Number of cities (each city increases the base time by X % where X depends on map size 10 for duel, 5 for huge)
3. Number of Civic Changes
4. Difficulty level? not sure

I had a marathon huge game going where my large Mongolian Empire took 3 turns of Anarchy for a SINGLE Civics change... to state property of course.

In general on the Faster levels the only advice with Civic changes is try to do multiple ones at once... because if changing 1 civic gives you 1 turn anarchy (the minimum) and changing 2 civics gives you 1 turn Anarchy, then you want to change 2 at once if reasonable.

However, once changing 2 civics will give you 2 or more turns anarchy... then changing them one at a time is reasonable.
 
@Krikkitone:

Don't forget the fact that you cannot change civics for a period of turns after a switch is made, regardless of the anarchy length. Waiting a turn or two for a second civic to become available can minimize the time that you are not at peak performance.
 
If you want to see more then one turn anarchy play a marathon game.
 
Does anybody know if anarchy for a religious conversion is treated identically as for a civic change?

My recent game, I changed religions a few times, with the last one generating 3 turns of anarchy. I only changed civics a couple of times. But that game is one of the few that I've seen anarchy for more than one turn, while changing only one thing.
 
Rarely i get more then one turn of anarchy but once it happened when i discovered liberalism, used the free tech to discover constitution

So then i changed three civics at once

This was on epic speed and i got 5 turnsd of anarchy

Ouch
 
Changing Civics a lot increases anarchy time alongside how many civic you change, and this cumulative effect seems to compound the later in the game it is.

I was bored once (No!) late game so changed everything to see what would happen, took about 3 turns of anarchy - but when I tried to change back I think it was about 6 or 7 turns, I remember it because it really suprised me!
 
AFAIK a religion change is the same as a civic change.
 
Danghis Khan said:
AFAIK a religion change is the same as a civic change.

It, however, does not require you to wait 5 turns before changing civics afterwards.

Tom
 
I'm sure I flipped religion and civics in the same turn in one game. But it has to be the same turn or the wait period applies. I might be nuts, but I'll get back to you with an answer quick, 'cause I'm about to do it in my current game. Buddhism - Taoism, Theocracy, Vassalage. Should annoy everyone and start a war (entire continent of Buddhists will hate me after that switch and a few more annoying ploys.
 
I'm playing Noble on a huge Terra map.

I've expanded considerably, and been stuck in wars almost constantly throughout the game - my neighbours are Togu and Monty. As soon as I get peace with one of them, the other attacks.

At the time, I was at war with Togu and driving him back, but war weariness was really beginning to bite, so I researched Fascism and went to switch to Police State. Whilst there, I decided that a few other overdue changes were needed - such as free religion and at least one other change.

I didn't bother to check the number of turns, just hit the button.

It put me in 9 turns of anarchy!

As soon as I did that, Monty declares war, and along comes 2 SODs, with me unable to build anything.

Anyway I managed to survive the anarchy (lost one city that I'd captured a while back). Now the tanks are rolling off the production line, and I'm making them suffer. I've decided that, if they want constant war, then I'm taking them out!
 
I finally got my first 2 turn anarchy. Over the course of a war I discovered and traded for techs that revealed all the civics, so after I made peace I revamped my civics from a warrior government to a peace and science government. Hit a 2 turn anarchy.

Even though I'd changed all civics, it was only my second civics change of the game (I tend to make very few civics changes and generally ignore civics granting techs).
 
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