changing governments....or not

[David In Asia]

hi all

(btw, this is not a gripe!!! i love the game, just not too good at it )

into my second game now (warlord level)

in this game, and my last, i went from despotism to republic, and both times, oooer. yep, my income shot up, but boy, so did my expenses - and i only had a handful of units over neccessary one (ie. city defense units).

also, with despot, i could quite happily run at 0% lux and 70% science, but i had to change that severely - 20% lux and 40% science. i knew i would have to change these levels, but this seems a bit much just to keep a +1 income!!

so, i went to monarchy and that was much better, which leads me to my question. am i going to republic too quickly?? in civ2, i always went to monarchy first, then to republic/democracy, but the games natural gameplay pretty meant that you had to, whereas in CivIII you can reach republic just as quick, so i just went for it......

any comments??
many thanks in advance
david

ps before anyone asks who remembers my other posts, i abandoned my second game and started a new one after all the helpful posts you people gave me

pps for what its worth, i used to use apolyton forums, but jeez, so much complaining. i'm talking about people complaining day and day about a game they don't like, but continue to go back to the forums week in, week out. sad. sure, if you don't like the game, write a few posts, get it of your chest, then get over it.

 

[eyrei]

One major consideration when deciding to change to republic is whether the tiles your citizens are working have roads. Another is simply the population of your cities. I usually stop pop-rushing for about 10-20 turns before I switch to republic to allow my cities to grow, and to avoid some of the unhappines from pop-rushing.

I have checked out Apolyton a few times. Did you ever encounter Encomium. He goes by the name Troyens here, and he seemed to cut and paste his relentless complaints so he could post them on both forums.

 

[antame]

EyreI,

Get your ass back to work and quit yakking about this dopey game. SCI needs your Slipsheeting prowess!

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by antame
EyreI,

Get your ass back to work and quit yakking about this dopey game. SCI needs your Slipsheeting prowess!

Yeah. That was my boss if anybody was wondering. Fortunately, he doesn't actually care .....

 

[Ironikinit]

SCI can go slipsheet itself, we need eyrei's help with strategy.

A couple notes on changing to republic from despotism. Don't do it if you're at war esp. if you've been at war a long time. OK, no brainer.

If you're fresh out of a war, you may have a lot of military units hanging around. They cost upkeep, so you might send unupgradable units like swordsmen to newer cities to disband and help with production. Likewise, if you have too many workers (unlikely, but it could happen) those cost upkeep too, so you could add them to cities to boost population.

Before switching to republic, it's a good idea to have at least three luxuries (two in your territory and trading for one is typical in my experience) and marketplaces in at least a couple of your best and biggest cities. Currency is a high priority tech for republics... so is construction because the better food production means you'll need aquaducts. If you're religious and close to the medieval period, you might hold out for cathedrals over colliseums, but chances are you'll need at least a couple colli.

Planning ahead helps, too, of course. Shortly before the republican revolution, try to get some grasslands irrigated. I usually mine bonus grasslands, then irrigate plain grasslands shortly before the revolution. I try, anyway, with the aim of getting a few for each of my biggest cities done.

I post on Apolyton, too. It has more posters, and some real smarties. I prefer CivFanatics, though. Fanboys über alles.

 

[eyrei]

Marketplaces are definately a must for republics, as they make it possible to pay for the military you built under despotism. Aqueducts are expensive, so it is a good idea to place as many of your cities as possible next to fresh water.

 

[Anglophile]

Good advice so far. I will add one mod I use which makes Republic a lot more viable - go to the editor and add some free units for Republic (I use 1/2/3); after all Rome was a Republic right? Rome had those citizen legions right? I also give Republic 1 garrison contented citizen thingie - to use the technical term. The Romans also used a lot of martial law to keep order in the Republic. That's the rationale but basically I just like to go to Republic but find it difficult to balance on the default settings. As the AI gets all the same benefits, I don't think the changes are cheats. To complete this story, I have renamed Republic 'Ancient Republic' with the noted changes as well as a lower rate cap. There is a new government 'Modern Republic' that is more like the original Republic but still a bit more capable of waging war than Democracy, but slightly inferior in most other categories.

 

[Allemand]

I think the challenge of balancing your budget is one of the fun things about going to Republic, but then I'm an accountant.

Ironikinit covered all the basics. One thing I do is reduce all the city garrisons to just one unit. If your border security is good then that's all you need to guard against surprises (defined as forgetting to check for units moving through your territory). The border cities should get more units but the extra ones should be offensive units, with just one or two defensive units in each border city. My feeling is I can defeat almost any AI invasion if I see it coming, and the AI does not do well at surprise attacks. I keep a force of offensive units near the borders of my stronger opponents so I can counterattack quickly. Of course, the size depends on how many are available.

 

[chiefpaco]

Yea - govt debates! Maybe ppl are getting tired of my posts, spreading all this "educated govt switches" propoganda all over again.

David, unfortunately, there's no "one govt for every situation". I never played Civ2, but to be honest, I sort of cringed when you said "I always chose Monarchy". The beauty of Civ3 is the balanced govts, IMHO, & the variety they give. There's lots of reasons you may or may not want a Republic, depending on your civ, location, development, environment, strategy... So every piece of advice may or may not be useful, but there's many good points raised so far.

As pointed out by Ironikinit, prepare your transition as early as possible. This will include buildings as well as terrain. Might as well start those libraries, mktplaces, etc, so you really benefit from the republic's strengths.

From what I've seen, yes, typically, you have to raise luxuries by 10-20% when switching to republic to get your workers out of the clown suits. Also, I'd recommend:
- Marketplace for any size 7+ city
- Cathedral for any size 12+ city
- Colosseum for any really really big city

You asked whether you switched too soon. When going from Despotism, a good strategy might be to pop rush a key improvement or 2 and then switch. That is, if you can handle the extra unhappiness, which you should be able to if you haven't done much pop rushing yet.

One more point. Try not to get too discouraged by one govt looking bad right away. Often, I find new govts do not provide an immediate benefit. It takes time for the ruler to settle into the new throne. Re-organize your workers, build some new structures, and you will benefit more with the new govt in time.

BTW, agreed on Apolyton. I never go there. Kudos to those who try to defend anything there. And Kudos to David who didn't say "Republic Su***!!!!! It's useless!!!"

BTW2, stay on these boards. You can go from Beginner to Veteran real quick.

BTW3 Anglophile. Making Republic more powerful? You'll have to check out this thread in the General discussions. I don't agree that it's underpowered. However, I can't argue about the history stuff and don't think it's cheating.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16269

 

[Anglophile]

Thanks for the point to the Republic vs Democracy debate, chiefpaco - very interesting, may join in later. As for my mod to 'Ancient Republic', I did try to balance the positives of better military capability by making everything else worse (diplomacy and resistance modifiers, rate caps, corruption, etc). My intent was to provide an older era government that more reflected my view of that era - which is why I split it into Ancient and Modern Republic. Maybe I'm just rationalizing modding the game to my style - which is peaceful builder by the way - and Republic fits that but when you have the Zulus as neighbours I always seem to end up as a peaceful builder with a huge army always at war along the Zulu frontier.

 

[Bamspeedy]

One more point. Try not to get too discouraged by one govt looking bad right away. Often, I find new govts do not provide an immediate benefit. It takes time for the ruler to settle into the new throne. Re-organize your workers, build some new structures, and you will benefit more with the new govt in time.

Yes, I have definitely noticed this. Immediately changing from Despot to Republic I will see a drop in income, but after 5-10 turns it overcomes that and starts to become way more powerful than Despot, in terms of commerce/science. As a general rule, I count how many people I have in all my cities, then see how many units I have. The number of units you have will be the added expense you must take on, but the number of citizens you have will be the number of extra income you have (if all citizens are working on roaded tiles). Because under Republic it will add one more gold to each tile that already produces at least one. Also, under Republic you don't have the tile penalties that Despot has, so you may be able to produce more shields/commerce/ food for more growth, etc.

Then the only problem would be how to keep citizens happy. Temples are a must in all cities, along with having as many luxuries as possible. I usually put marketplaces even in cities smaller than size 7, you will have to look at that city and see if the 50% increase in income from the marketplace will make you more money after subtracting the cost of the maintainance cost of it. Even if I have to increase the entertainment expense to 10 or 20%, I find the Republic more powerful than Despotism.

If you don't have many luxuries, than cathedrals and colluseums may be needed well before you get to a size 12 city. You will have to see how many of your citizens you are having to use up as entertainers. Often I find that by building a cathedral or Colleseum, it allows for another citizen to work a tile, that will produce enough gold to pay for the building and then some (plus you get more shields).

 

[David In Asia]

okey dokey - i switched from repub to monarchy for awhile, seemed to work better at that stage of the game. anyhows, i've just changed to republic (from monarchy) and things seem much better than when i went repub earlier in the game. i was much more prepared this time (thanks to you guys )

however, the change was still not too significant - if you'll humour me a second here's the details:
before: 5.5.0
+4 income (150-146)
discovery 14 turns
-54 science/-0 ent/-46 corrupt/-39 maint/-7 unit

after (980 ad)
5.4.1
+12 income (257-245)
discovery 12 turns
-67/-14/-85/-39/-7

so there you have it. interesting point from chiefpaco about the new government "settling in" - i like the thought of that. going to have my forbidden palace soon, so that should lower the corruption.

i'm winning the game by 17 points so far, and i just hope i can try out a victory before 2050!! in my first game i was hardly anywhere near the required advances for pretty much most of the victory choices - but neither were my rivals - made me feel a bit better (although i still only came third).

jeez, i'm getting anal. sure sign of a good game

i'll come back in a few "years" and let you know how i'm fairing up. incidentally, i'm researching 'invention' and the year is 980AD - think i've got any chance of diplomatic/space race etc. victory before 2050?!

thanks again
d

 

[Windwalker]

Whenever I have even semi-agressive neighbors, I always go for monarchy instead of republic. The main benefit of republic (no penalty on high food/production squares) is also shared by monarchy. Monarchy does lose out on some gold, but if you have a large army, it almost breaks even. I really want to be able to counterattack when I get attacked, and republic sometimes makes this a pain in the arse. In my current game, England, Rome, Zululand, and the Iroquois have all declared war at me at some point, and it's only the beginning of the middle ages (right now the zulus and iroquois are together waging war, though the greeks are between me and the zulus, which has drastically reduced zulu incursions, which is fine by me )... Anyway, early wars are so very common with some neighbors that monarchy just makes sense. I can see if you're a builder on an isolated island that republic may be the way to go... Or if you're religious and can switch easily to monarchy, then republic is probably a nice peace-time option...

- Windwalker

 

[David In Asia]

now things are rocking. built me forbidden wonder, plenty of gold coming in, etc etc. it seem it does take awhile for a govertment to settle in. also, good point, windwalker - nobodies attacked me yet, but if they did, i'd be f@@@ed.

 

[Windwalker]

Originally posted by Ironikinit

Before switching to republic, it's a good idea to have at least three luxuries (two in your territory and trading for one is typical in my experience) and marketplaces in at least a couple of your best and biggest cities. Currency is a high priority tech for republics... so is construction because the better food production means you'll need aquaducts. If you're religious and close to the medieval period, you might hold out for cathedrals over colliseums, but chances are you'll need at least a couple colli.

This is why a transition to monarchy first is often a good idea (or just go despot --> monarchy --> democracy). You can get the increased production while still having the ability to garrison 2 happy faces and having some unit upkeep free.

- Windwalker

 

[Windwalker]

Originally posted by David In Asia
now things are rocking. built me forbidden wonder, plenty of gold coming in, etc etc. it seem it does take awhile for a govertment to settle in. also, good point, windwalker - nobodies attacked me yet, but if they did, i'd be f@@@ed.

Yeah, it's nice to be republic early and not be involved in warfare... You can get some serious production and commerce and get ahead... In my current game, I switched to republic but have been under constant attack from the Zulus... I thought I could make do just defending, but when I took back a city that got captured, war weariness took 1-2 citizens in each of my cities, which totally messed up any benefit I got from republic (over monarchy).

- Windwalker

 

[Anglophile]

Bamspeedy, nice rule of thumb for the economics of Republic vs Despot and Monarchy. I will use it from now on. I suspect that the reason that Republic takes awhile for the benefits to kick in is explained by the accelerated growth rate, at least compared to Despotism. As each citizen is considerably more productive in food, shields and gold, the extra growth rate rapidly generates bunches of extra income by making that citizen to unit ratio steadily more favourable.

 

[abla]

A major pain is the time taken to change governments.
I finally won my first game last week (yea-ha, monarch, standard map, 8 civ, culture victory about 2020). I was playing the Babylonians and the religious attribute let me swich back and forth from Democracy to Communism at will depending if I was at war or not.
I had a series of wars and the quick switch is a big, big advantage in this.
Eventually I had police stations all round, Universal Sufferage, 50% luxuries rate, and luxury resources piling up so fast I couldn't trade them away but still eventually Democracy just cannot cope with continous war.
By 2000 it wasn't so bad as I had lots of units already, but earlier in the game I have found that the 8 turn transition between Govt types can really hurt you - especially if you are doing it during a war.