Communism and sci farms

Delphi456

Prince
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Since corruption is communal in Communism, wouldn't ICS sci farms be a bad idea? Or aren't there any sci farms under Communism?
 
If the curruption outdoes the commercial bonus that Repo gives you.
 
That's a further argument against Communism, ICS Science farms make the overall corruption pretty bad n that government. The other arguments are well known
 
There are a few reasons why Communism is to be avoided, both as a line of research and as a government, many of which are shared with Democracy.

1. It is an optional tech, which means it doesn't move you toward the next era, and it slows you down on researching critical techs that can not only help you survive, but also thrive. The AI detours into this area pretty much always, which is why the late middle ages and early industrial is where even a decent player will pull ahead. The AI loves Printing Press, Democracy, Free Artistry, Navigation and Economics in the MA. These are usually techs I ignore. I'm usually headed toward Magnetism and Theory of Gravity to move into the next era. Then in the IA, the computer players all research Nationalism, Communism, Espionage and Fascism. Meanwhile, I research Steam Power, Electricity, Scientific Method and Industrialization. Theory of Evolution gets 2 freebies and its a nice tech lead.

2. To use Communism, first you need the tech. The AI overvalues these techs immensely, making trades difficult. Then, you need a revolution. Better be Religious, or your cities will starve. At this point, your lands won't feed everyone during a long Anarchy. Besides, the riots may destroy your expensive buildings. When the revolution is over, welcome to socialist paradise. Suddenly, your income sucks. Your research sucks. Moscow is losing 4 shields to corruption. New Moscow has gained 2 shields but needs 100 turns of development to be useful. The corruption drags your good cities down and makes your useless cities almost useless. More tomorrow.
 
Communism does work well for a 100k game that goes into the industrial era. Not much else though.
 
Communism does work well for a 100k game that goes into the industrial era. Not much else though.
So feudalism until you get to communism? You would have to be religious though or you would suffer dearly in anarchy, but I guess religious goes without saying for a 100k game.
 
When the revolution is over, welcome to socialist paradise. Suddenly, your income sucks. Your research sucks. Moscow is losing 4 shields to corruption.
Yes, welcome! I never went Communism, but I once looked at a saved game of someone who had, and there are a couple of exceptions to the communal corruption in this government: your capital and FP are like in any other government; with zero and minimal corruption respectively. Also, if you're building the Secret Headquarters or whatever it's called, that city would have minimal corruption.

I couldn't answer the original question that well, but I wonder what kind of situation you had in mind, Delphi456, where you would be contemplating going Communism?
 
I couldn't answer the original question that well, but I wonder what kind of situation you had in mind, Delphi456, where you would be contemplating going Communism?

I had finished reading the "Magnificent 7" SG, where they used it on Sid w/ India. Figured that if it can work on Sid, it could work on lower levels.
 
In a warmongering game, I might consider Communism as a good move if: a)I was playing as a Religious tribe, b) I was in Monarchy and c) had 3-4 luxuries of my own. I was forced into it during a game where I had instant total war weariness from losing a large number of cities to a sneak attack. Most of the time, it isn't the best solution.
 
Communism is an amazing government for a large empire. Your optimal city number is boosted so high that every city can be useful. If you like micromanaging huge empires of cities, communism is the way to go. If your empire and army get big enough you may make even more money and research under Communism than Republic.

This is in conquests, i've heard its not as good in vanilla.
 
Delphi45 said:
I had finished reading the "Magnificent 7" SG, where they used it on Sid w/ India. Figured that if it can work on Sid, it could work on lower levels.

I'd advise against taking that as gospel. There's another Sid pangea game which just started back up, and in my opinion, it makes for a better SG than the "Manginificent 7". Additionally, Sid pangea games have gotten won before Communism even becomes available.

Elliot said:
If your empire and army get big enough you may make even more money and research under Communism than Republic.

Maybe, but you can't cash-rush in it. So what do you do with that money?
 
Maybe, but you can't cash-rush in it. So what do you do with that money?

That's a good point. You could run science at 100% and pay for all your maintenance. You could also buy techs if you're behind.

In reality, I don't know if communism has ever pushed me over into winning a game. However, from previous comments it sounds like communism isn't even worth considering. I wanted to say that it works really well for large empires. But if you have an empire that large, why haven't you won already?

btw, here is the corruption formula in Communism from this thread:

In Communism:

First, the distance formula when simplified into English says that distance corruption is always a flat 25% for Communism, and can be halved twice by improvements. alexman, you may want to note this.

Modified OCN = base OCN * (1 - 10% per difficulty over Regent + 25% if commercial + 200% + 300% per FP/SPHQ + 25% per courthouse/ police/WLKTD)

This means that with FP and SPHQ, OCN in Communism goes up to at least EIGHT TIMES the base OCN. 160 on a standard map! This might be a wee bit overpowered. Even with 60 cities which is a LOT (usually close to domination), rank corruption is only 8.5%. Add the distance corruption and you get 33.5% with no courthouse-type improvements, 21% with one, and 15% with both.

Basically, in Communism as compared to a palace-centric government, your second-ring of cities extends forever, and every city can be improved to first-ring status.

The base OCN based on map size is :

Tiny = 14
Small = 17
Std = 20
Lg = 28
Huge = 36
 
I didn't know about the raised OCN!

It was alluded to but to put it out plainly, communism uses population rushing rather than cash rushing which I consider a disadvantage.

Can anyone address Theryman's recommendation to use feudalism for a 100K victory? I've never used feudalism and thought of it more for warring with a food poor, low population empire.
 
Feudalism is great for 100K, as you don't have the despotism penalty and you can pop-rush. It works best if you have lots of food. For 100K, you want lots of cities, so corruption is an issue for building or cash-rushing. Food isn't corrupted, though, so pop-rushing is the way to go. I used to run into problems paying for the maintenance on my culture buildings before I realized that I should just build wealth while my population grew. Once you have enough citizens, switch to the culture build, wait a turn, and rush it. If I were more willing to micromanage, I'd watch the food chart on mapstat and switch the turn before my population grows so I'd have a shield in the bin and be ready to rush right away, but I'm too lazy for that.

Settlers are inconvenient to rush, but in really high food areas I'll spend two citizens on them. Temples are also inconvenient if you are religious, but since you want the ToA, you'll only build them in your core anyway.

I hadn't even considered it for anything else, but I was amused when I checked out my unit support in my current 100K game: I have 138 cities on a small map (I'm still filling in holes; I can probably fit in another dozen or so, though I've had to give away a few on the perimeter to keep under the domination limit) and my unit support is 652. My military consists of 36 gallic swordsmen & ancient cavalry. This was plenty to beat down my opponents.
 
Here is an example of a 100K Culture game with Feudalism: CBob03 Germans in Tu-tus.

I also used Feudalism in my 100K Culture HOF game, but I think you'll learn more from the SG.
 
I've only used Communism once, and that was for an unusual reason:

Money Maker thread

For a big OCP empire it is more productive than representative gonvernments. In other words, to answer the OP questions, ICS science farms are a bad idea once you've reached the OCN, but there's no reason not to turn excess population in metros into scientists.
 
Happy new year to everyone!

In a warmongering game, I might consider Communism as a good move if: a)I was playing as a Religious tribe, b) I was in Monarchy and c) had 3-4 luxuries of my own. I was forced into it during a game where I had instant total war weariness from losing a large number of cities to a sneak attack. Most of the time, it isn't the best solution.

I am currently playing my first communist game: standard map, 2 continents, 60% water, deity level with Mongols :devil:. The game became of course a story of raging mounted troops destroying everything on their way.

The only factor which made communism playable in that warmongering game was the glib: since it was built by an AI civ on my continent, I was sure to get it at right time and didnt research anything past chivalry. Since I didnt need science, I didnt build any infrastructure (market or lib) in my core, and I didnt spammed farms everywhere.

When communism became available, I already had an homogenous empire with no builded core and some farms but no ICS), and some conquered cities, already with useful improvements (markets, barracks, harbors...) :yeah:
 
This SG, GR13 - AWE on LK's world map, starts out in Monarchy but switches to Communism. It is a tough game, on a world map starting as Egypt.
 
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