Going to Republic

[TimTheEnchanter]

Ok, here's probably a silly question. I've never used a Republic government before. I was going to switch to a Republic government to get this great trade boost and We Love... days that everyone keeps talking about, but when I look at the description, I can't help but think I won't be able to feed any settlers for roads and irrigation and the added support is going to kill my production.

What do you usually do to get ready to go Republican? How do you know if you're ready?

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[stormerne]

It's a good question Tim. In addition, you have to make sure your people are going to be happy - martial law doesn't work anymore. And suddenly units away from home are starting to cause unhappiness.

You may not be ready if you're still massively growing the number of cities you have. That's because you have lots of settlers getting to new city sites (support and food) and troops guarding them away from home (unhappiness), and probably the transports themselves doing the same thing since they're probably still multipurpose triremes. Your level of waste and corruption may be better than Monarchy for a fast expanding empire but it won't be good enough. This is where I would skip Republic and go either for Democracy or, if still expanding, would build the Statue and switch to Communism. This is likely to be mostly appropriate on large maps and on King level and below.

You may be ready to go to Republic if you're not expanding by numbers of cities any more but rather by city size. If you want border guards, they'd better be in fortresses. You'd better be ready to bring in luxuries and create entertainers to tide you over the transition. You'll need roads to boost trade round cities and marketplaces to bring luxuries. You'll also need roads to get troops around quickly as you can't have them marauding.

You have to ask yourself "Is it worth it?". Bear in mind that, if the land is available, it may be a better investment NOT to grow the cities with "We love" days until MUCH later. To my mind, there are more reasons why two cities are better than one of double the size than the reverse. They're easier to grow, they get more points quicker and they're much easier to keep happy.

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[GenghisK]

I think it depens on your way of playing. Personnally, as I'm a pacifist (at least at the beginning), so all my military units are defensive. Therefore, they're all kept in the cities. Conclusion: no military unit outside, no extra unhappy citizen.
Concerning your settlers support, I think it's a wise idea to have a maximum of 2 settlers per cities which size is inferior to 6. It's even better to have only 1 settler per city. Irrigation, road and other improvement would take a while but as your city will grow faster, you can quickly build another settler asap.
But if you're not familiar with "free" governments (democracy, republic) perhaps it'd be good not to use them too early in the game for they'll slow you down more than they help you boost.
As I said, it's up to you but the price to pay for Republic is not to go for war too often. The best is no war at all but that's difficult...

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Genghis K.
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[Captain Pugwash]

I normally go Republic from Monarchy somewhere around 1500AD. You can usually tell when your cities no longer have anything useful that they need to build ..so you dont need the shields.

It is worth it in my view because its the only way to get techs every 4 or 5 turns and get your money building up. Must have a slush fund to bribe everything in sight

 

[GenghisK]

1500AD??

It's a bit late. You could optimize that by skipping Monarchy, which is quite useless to my mind. Republic can be obtained as soon as ~2000 BC, depending on the level you're playing.

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Genghis K.
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[Eli]

I go to monarchy ASAP, and then, when I finish building my 6-10 cities I switch to republic.

With WLTxD I get all those cities to size 8 or 12(depends on whether I have aqueducts) and though I need to spend 20-40% on luxuries it still boosts the science and the taxes.

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[shadowdale]

Hmm depending on my advances (huts and stuff) I normally go ASAP to Monarchy and then linger there for some years and then change to Republic. And just as soon as I get Democracy I change again and then no more changing!!!!

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[weimar_republic]

here is a simple way to switsh to republic:

check happiness, make SURE that after martial law is gone, you can support everyone. switch to entertainers BEFORE switching governments. also, make sure that you have a pool of cash. matinance * 5 + cost of buying temples for 1/5 of your cities
huh?
here. lets say you use 10 in matinince. make sure you have alteast 50. then if you have 10 cities, and it would cost 60 to buy temples for each city. make sure you can afford it for 2, 120+50=170 so as soon as you have $170 and are ready with happiness. SWITCH!!! thats what I do anyways

 

[SlowwHand]

Build temples and court and adjust luxuries.
If you don't have far flung cities it helps too.


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[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by weimar_republic:
here is a simple way to switsh to republic:

check happiness, make SURE that after martial law is gone, you can support everyone. switch to entertainers BEFORE switching governments. also, make sure that you have a pool of cash. matinance * 5 + cost of buying temples for 1/5 of your cities
huh?
here. lets say you use 10 in matinince. make sure you have alteast 50. then if you have 10 cities, and it would cost 60 to buy temples for each city. make sure you can afford it for 2, 120+50=170 so as soon as you have $170 and are ready with happiness. SWITCH!!! thats what I do anyways

Weimar, I am very curious what the basis is for your numbers. Is this based on some sort of scientifically designed principle, or just some rule of thumb you came up with. Why 5x support? Are you storing up enough to get through to the next Oedo year to revolt back if you screwed up your happiness calculations, or is that just a coincidence? Why two temples? Do you add the support cost of the two temples before calculating the 5x support? :?

By the way, I thought temples were more than 60 bucks: More like 160 if you didn't have shields in the box and 80 - 2x shileds if you have at least one in the box. Or do you factor in how many shields you have in production already?


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[Archbob]

Republic is a great government. Democracy is better. You'll find research easy under them.

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[Knigget]

Here is my checklist before switching to republic:

<UL>
[*] All cities must be size 3 or more
[*] All cities have enough food for celebrating to size 8
[*] All cities must have roads for almost all 8 workers
[*] Must have Hanging Gardens and Mich's (or Oracle + temples)
[/list]

Don`t worry about production, a size 8 city under republic will have way better production than a size 3 or 4 under monarchy.

 

[Kev]

It's very much dependent on what level that I am playing when I consider when to go from Monarchy to Republic. Obviously, the higher the level the more unhappiness can be a factor, and at deity level this can be downright frustrating. However, it is important to get to Republic pretty quickly at these higher levels as the AI does not seem to be as bothered by happiness issues and will switch to Republic ahead of you. This may give you a tech race problem.

On deity, I usually won't switch to Republic until the 1100's or 1200's (at times even later). I like to expand in my games and with triremes and caravels running around along with a decent amount of settlers I find that often times the switch is better to be delayed. I also agree that Mich's Chapel is necessary and the Hanging Gardens are very nice as well. Another factor is that often times in this early portion I find myself in a war with at least one and possibly 2 or 3 other civs that I need to fight to clear a continent or just to establish myself elsewhere. Once these wars have ended or the other civs are destroyed I can concentrate on diplomacy and peace.

I think that stormerne made a good point when he wrote that two cities are better than one that's twice the size. Consider this: would you rather have 4 size-1 cities or 1 size 4 city? The answer for me is the former because then you will actually have 8 workers bringing in food, production and trade (4 for the city squares and 4 working outside the cities) while in the latter example you will only have 5 (4 workers and 1 for the city square). Smaller cities grow more quickly as well, and in 15 turns or so you can have 4 size 3 cities (16 workers) compared to a size 6 city (7 workers) With this in mind, during expansion I prefer to be in Monarchy unless I am sure that I can handle Republic.

That being said, I won't hesitate to switch when the time is right. I find that even if I have to go as high as 30% in luxury that it is worth doing so as the money and techs will still do better. Then, I will also expect to get the first shot at wonders that will help out like Adam Smith's, Leo's Workshop, JS Bach's and the like. Then it's Democracy and off to the races (though if I'm in a war I will sometimes wait until I have Women's Suffrage until I make THAT switch - but that's another topic).



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[Archbob]

I switch for the science boost, I usually wait a while before going from republic to democracy because of the chance of overthrow.

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[HIEROPHANT]

republic and demoracy are useless and more so in mp games. it better to get monarchy then switch to communism then fundalmetalism.

 

[Andu Indorin]

Useless, you say ...

 

[Archbob]

Have you any idea how good democracy is MP games. Remember you can't be bribed in a democracy and with luxeries at 20%, taxes at 30% and sciences at 50%, you can easily match communism's science research, keep everyone happy and you'll be getting so much money, you don't have to fight your enemy, you bribe them!!

Democracy is very efficient in late stages of M.P. games!

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[Lefty Scaevola]

Depends on the number of cities and the level you are playing own. Most basicaly you are balacing better sheild, food and military in monarchy with better trade values (more income & less corruption) in republic. Choose commonly hinges on which of thoses is more important in the current situation.

 

[HIEROPHANT]

science not problem this is what steal tech is for why do all the research when i can let demoarcy civ research then i can steal it.

 

[Archbob]

Not being able to get bribed is the difference between victory and defeat in good MP games, which is why democracy is superior to both communism and fundy in the late games against good human opponents.

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