I don't remember much games where I played fundy...so I chose communism because I know more about it (don't really know what the big difference (IIRC science is 50% at fundy and stays 100% at communism) is between fundy and communism.....perhaps someone would explain them to me).
I can probably explain Fundy, at least. There is no unhappiness or corruption, and rarely any support problems. Temples, HG, etc add gold instead of happiness, so your economy will probably skyrocket, even without much trade. The bad news is an [approx?] 50% science penalty on cities (but not on science from vans). It is the usually the best choice for conquest players in a long game like this one. But if you need science, you will need to trade a lot.
If you want more info, I think Nethog has posted a chart of all the govts, and their main features. But no strategy tips there IIRC.
I had the feeling because of the huge corruption (I was suprised how high it was in the west part - there were hardly any beakers for science left) the science went very slow.
I'm getting the feeling that most players have a very different view on science from mine. IMO science comes mainly from 3 sources:
a) Initial bonuses from vans, including ones from an STC.
b) Beakers from normal cities [including from ongoing trade routes]
c) Normal beakers from an STC.
At least in my games, I have more control over a) and c) than b), so I tend to ignore b), even though it might give 20% or more of my beakers. I don't worry much about corruption unless it is clearly affecting a) or c). After approx 1ad, I usually get approx 2/3 of my beakers from a), so I tend to equate science with trade at that point. So, I am mainly planning around good bonuses [eg 200g or more, on average]. In this game, that meant a dozen or more decent cities in the West [size 7 or so, without huge corruption] delivering demanded vans overseas to AIs [mostly]. Also, speed matters, so it meant roads, bridges, ports, pets, etc.
It seems that several of us got similar results in this gotm [similar speeds thru the tech tree], so I'm not saying I have the best possible strategy, but it seems OK. Are there any other, very different views ?
I had no other options at that time but should have delivered more vans earlier to own cities instead of foreign cities (which I couldn't reach at that time).
Really don't know if fundy would help much more....but after changing to communism science went up pretty good in combination with van delivery.....which made it a lot easier to defeat the Vikings.
Why couldn't you reach foreign cities ? Is this before you crossed the first sea ?
I don't know Comm well, but I suspect you'd have enjoyed Fundy more.
It sounds like several of us had a similar problem, of not getting enough science quickly, to get to the advanced govts [comm, fundy, demo]. I am still wondering what went wrong with Republic, but in my game, I think it was mainly the cost in shields to support so many military units and settlers, which made it harder to rush buy vans quickly. Or maybe it just took a long time to build up a swarm of vans and deliver them. Maybe corruption too ? [will have to check some saves].
Another odd feature of this map is how thin it was, and how little good land was available. This probably affected me more than most [non-ICS] players ... my civ seemed much less powerful than usual. It probably also hurt players who like very very big cities.
