GOTM 28 Spoiler 2 - End Of Middle Ages, All Contacts, Full World Map

[mad-bax]

I won't speak for Sir Pleb obviously... but..

At the start of the MA I had around 40 cities, and at the start of the IA around 100 (maybe). Let's say 2 MP's per city, all warriors for the sake of argument.. that's a shed load of shields.

At the end of the MA I had 4 elephants defending the Carthaginian/Roman continent and 9 warriors and 2 spears (don't know where they came from ) on the starting continent. I would imagine that Sir Pleb had even fewer defenders.

The shields I would have needed to spend to get the benefit from lowering the lux rate went elsewhere. 1000 shields is a lot of elephants. Where else could you construct a sentence like that?

IMVHO I think the difference between republic and monarchy makes the decision process a no brainer in most games. Sure, AW games and a few other variants may call for it, but they all tend to be situations where one would naturally have large numbers of units in cities.

 

[Txurce]

Originally posted by mad-bax
At the start of the MA I had around 40 cities, and at the start of the IA around 100 (maybe). Let's say 2 MP's per city, all warriors for the sake of argument.. that's a shed load of shields... The shields I would have needed to spend to get the benefit from lowering the lux rate went elsewhere. 1000 shields is a lot of elephants.

By the time you have 40 cities, you also should have enough luxuries that you don't need garrisons. You'll note that I was talking about the early stages of military expansion.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Txurce
But one additional factor to consider is that in monarchy, garrisons help to keep the peace, while in republic, they don't. I usually leave one warrior (occasionally two) in my monarchy cities, until I've captured enough luxuries that I don't need them anymore. These units basically have no cost. I wonder if their use would make enough of a difference that luxury costs in monarchy would indeed be 20% lower than in republic - making monarchy the better early choice?

Oops! I forgot entirely to allow for MPs. I guess because I seldom use them. I don't even use them a lot in Despotism to tell the truth. In most games I do use some near the start, to keep slightly oversize towns (e.g. a settler factory) a bit better balanced with smaller towns in how much luxury is needed. But after getting a good number of towns going I tend to pretty much stop using them. I guess this is because I always seem to have something else I want my military units to be doing, and I prefer not to use production to build MPs.

And still, having said that, I wonder how much MPs might change the balance when comparing Monarchy and Republic? It is difficult to quantify because there's some production cost too. In this game I disbanded 16 warriors when going to Republic. So that's 16 happy faces I could have had at no cost in Monarchy. OTOH, they weren't needed at that date. When MPs would have been useful later on, 16 warriors would be far from enough. And as mad-bax says, 1000 shields is a lot of elephants

It is a tough comparison and does depend a lot on style of play I think. For me I'd say Republic still wins by a fair margin most of the time - I don't think MPs can make up for the amount of difference in the numbers even with a fair bit of war weariness.

There'd be exception cases of course, e.g. always-war and games where the ratio of military units to cities is unavoidably high.

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by Txurce


By the time you have 40 cities, you also should have enough luxuries that you don't need garrisons. You'll note that I was talking about the early stages of military expansion.

It seems to me in the early phases you can aleays reach Monarchy faster than Republic, just because you have fewer pre-requisites, specially starting with CB as a given. So Monarchy seems to fall out as my preferred government choice, and as you say, it allows the relatively small number of core cities with large pops to be helped by a couple of warriors. The MPs are not free, as they represent an opportunity cost by not becoming swords or being disbanded. But they do look quite cheap at that stage.

At 40 cities it's questionable whether any investment decisions should be based on trying to keep them all big and happy. Half of them are likely to be totally corrupt, so size only matters for defensive purposes or for score. I'm usually only defending recently captured cities, and then for too little time to make any decisions other than setting them all to taxmen for starvation. For high Firaxis acore you need lots of happy faces, but the Jason score was supposed to avoid the need to take that into account.

My dilemma is whether or not to switch, and if so when. In this game it was no problem for the reasons I stated, but I'm not nearly as convinced by the argument for researching for, trading for, or switching to Republic under conventional Civ unit cost rules, and outside of the special case of getting the tech free from the Library or in an opportunistic "might as well take it" peace deal.

What are the compelling reasons why Republic makes more economic sense than Monarchy in the later game?

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by AlanH
It seems to me in the early phases you can aleays reach Monarchy faster than Republic, just because you have fewer pre-requisites, specially starting with CB as a given.

That's true, but:
1) Both Monarchy and Republic are optional techs. So I figure that the cost of learning each of them must be justified based on what it pays back, unlike all of the prerequisite techs for each which must be learned just to continue making progress.
2) Switching to Monarchy will not give much of a boost to research. Its cost is paid back by small increases in production, income, and food. None of them is a huge increase. It also gives the benefit of paid labor rushing instead of forced labor but that's usually a small benefit at the earliest dates.
3) Switching to Republic makes the same gains but also dramatically increases income. And this results in dramatically faster research. I suspect that by the time I've researched two more techs after Republic I'm probably around the break-even point on the investment I made in Republic.
4) Republic costs a bit more to research than Monarchy but in my experience it generally pays better in subsequent trade. The AIs seem more likely to go for Monarchy first, making it less likely to be useful for early MA trades.

Originally posted by AlanH
What are the compelling reasons why Republic makes more economic sense than Monarchy in the later game?

Gold! More gross income means more research capacity. More net income means more rushing. More military units near the end of a conquest game. More settlers, temples, and/or military near the end of domination.

I just compared my 510AD state in this game as a Republic vs. as a Monarchy. If I maximize purchasing power in both (just 10% luxury to avoid needing entertainers) I get a net income of 620gpt in Republic, 403gpt in Monarchy. That's enough to buy an additional War Elephant in four out every five turns. If I were playing the old Civ/PTW with the original unit support cost for Republic, the difference would be reduced to 144gpt more in Republic. That's still an additional Elephant every two turns. Ten more Elephants at the front lines where they count in the final 20 turns of a domination game.

"More" by Madonna: "nothing's better than more, more, more"

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by SirPleb

Gold! More gross income means more research capacity. More net income means more rushing. More military units near the end of a conquest game. More settlers, temples, and/or military near the end of domination.

I just compared my 510AD state in this game as a Republic vs. as a Monarchy. If I maximize purchasing power in both (just 10% luxury to avoid needing entertainers) I get a net income of 620gpt in Republic, 403gpt in Monarchy. That's enough to buy an additional War Elephant in four out every five turns. If I were playing the old Civ/PTW with the original unit support cost for Republic, the difference would be reduced to 144gpt more in Republic. That's still an additional Elephant every two turns. Ten more Elephants at the front lines where they count in the final 20 turns of a domination game

Thanks SirPleb. It was the balance of unit costs vs. extra gold in the standard game that I wasn't convinced about, but your numbers demonstrate it well. When I stop a nd think about it it's obvious really. Monarchy supports two to four units per city, Republic would therefore cost about three gpt per city more than the free unit level for Monarchy. But Republic cities produce maybe 8 or 9 gpt per city extra, so you should be 5 or 6 gpt per city ahead. That benefit is multiplied by market places as well.

I'll try out Monarchy switches on a few saves in my game and see if I can confirm the maths.

And that last paragraph demonstrates another killer differentiator in your games - you had 20 turns of domination warfare? I took over 30! I have a lot to learn

 

[denyd]

Does anyone else besides me feel like SirPleib is a short little green guy sitting in a swamp somewhere using a satellite modem to upload these little pearls of wisdom

SirPleib: please keep them coming and if you ever feel like tutoring a emperor+ SG please add me to the list

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I don't think there has been a game write up that Sir Pleb has written that I haven't learned a ton of stuff from. Whether it was how to get GLs or researching, or these latest pearls of wisdom on governments.

If he ever holds a Training Day Game, most of the community will be trying to get in on it.

 

[mad-bax]

The fact that the changes in the way the governments work in C3C actually put even more daylight between Republic and Monarchy is a shame IMO. Instead of modding GOTM Republic to look like C3C republic we should mod C3C republic to vanilla when GOTM incorporates it, or at least mod the free unit support to 1T 2C 2M IMHO. I don't know what the game designers were ing at the time they made this decision. I just know that I whatever it was I couldn't afford it because I live in a Monarchy.

 

[Txurce]

Originally posted by AlanH
What are the compelling reasons why Republic makes more economic sense than Monarchy in the later game?

I assume we're weighing Republic in pursuit of a military victory, since it's the obvious government for high scores with all of the other victory conditions. To distill what SirPleb explained, it comes down to having having more gold with which to rush stuff in the later game. It doesn't mean much with regard to research in this game, as you don't need to go past chivalry to win, but it would if circumstances force you to research as far as military tradition.

While I suspect that the differences between monarchy and republic just after switching from despotism are pretty small at first, I am now convinced that republic is the way to go overall even when pursuing fast military victories. This is yet another example of SirPleb helping me to simplify my game. It doesn't quite rank with SirPleb and DaveMcW explaining that there's rarely any need for happiness buildings (unless going for a cultural victory), but it's close.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Txurce
It doesn't quite rank with SirPleb and DaveMcW explaining that there's rarely any need for happiness buildings (unless going for a cultural victory), but it's close.

I have been known to rush temples / libraries when religious / scientific, wait for the culture expansion then sell them to remove the support cost....

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by denyd
a short little green guy sitting in a swamp somewhere using a satellite modem

Truth known becomes. Secret remains the planet.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Truth known becomes. Secret remains the planet.

I've got a picture in my mind now. SirPleb is sitting down to his GOTM game, with a voice in the background saying "Use the force Yoda, I mean SirPleb".

SirPleb says "What do you think I'm doing? I haven't got any MPs and all my troops have been constantly on the war path for the last 20 turns! ... Oh, that force. Maybe I've been playing Civ too much!"

 

[test_specimen]

@SirPleb: awesome game.

 

[Drazek]

Originally posted by test_specimen
@SirPleb: awesome game.

I must echo this. Ok, well, DaveMcW and Qitai weren't playing but still awesome!

 

[Sir Bugsy]

We haven't heard from Dave in a loooonnnggg time. Qitai either. I miss their pearls of wisdom as well.

 

[mad-bax]

OPEN

I overwrote my turnlog for this game with one from an SG, so I can only describe in general terms what went on, and the dates may be a little off too.

Research.
Persia got Engineering as her free tech, which I bought for a lump sum payment about 12 turns into the MA. I then wiped out Persia on the same turn and got my money back.
I researched to Education first, then chivalry and then to banking at full speed.
Then I turned down science to 30 - 40% to maintain a 6 - 8 turn research rate.
I was making about 180gpt at this point.
From here I meandered to Military Tradition and finished off with Magnetism and finally Theory of Gravity.

Infrastructure.
I built temples, libraries, cathederals, markets, unis and banks pretty much in that order everywhere in my cores. Elswhere I built temples, workers, settlers and then cathederals. Towards the end of the MA I had also begun to rush libraries.

A minimum of military units were built along with 4 galleys.

Military.

Carthage built a single city on the southern edge of the starting continent. I reduced Persia to a single city around 10AD with archers, and also kicked the Carthags off my land at around the same time. This short melee produced a leader with which I moved my palace to Persepolis. After buying the free tech, I used an elephant to trigger the GA by killing X-man.

Played poorly for a while here, and it wasn't until around 500AD that I found the wherewithall to take on the Carthags and Rome. IIRC it was because I didn't do a good job of exploring the coastline and had to wait for astronomy to get across to Carthage.

I filled 4 galleys with 8 elephants and sent them over the water. 8 elephants agains the Carthags was taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They were gassed from a long and losing war against Rome. They fell over in a single turn - 3 cities, leaving a single city on an island to the south.

Rome was next and I declared immediately with the 5 elephants that were not on MP duty. The first unit I had to kill was an army. Fortunately it held one ligionary and two archers, but it took 2 elephants to kill it. I filled another two of the original 4 boats with elephants to continue that war, whilst the others sailed (the long way) round to get ready to take on the vikings who had declared war in the meantime.

The dozen elephants made short work of Rome who finally capitulated around 750.

8 elephants took off for Scandinavia around 800AD, and by 1000AD had taken the vikings and the Celts out without further reinforcement. The vikings were left with the wino island which I visited with a boat around 1100AD.

In around 1050AD I had sent a few Cavalry over to help with the invasion of Babylon. A couple of muskets, four cavalry and four elephants landed and Captured Ur the turn before Babylon got gunpowder. What happened next was less than ideal. A swarm of Azap, swords and Pikes decended on Ur. As soon as the muskets were down to 2HP the Elite elephants took the brunt of the attack and I lost all but one. So then I had to resort to ship chaining and rushing military to prevent myself being kicked off that continent altogether. But in the end at 1200AD I had conquered mainland Babylon and had my eight luxes connected.

Diplomacy and trade.
None once the MA was reached.
The only trade I have made in the whole of the MA was buying Xerses free tech. No maps, no luxes, no techs, no nothing. Previously I had only traded tech with Xerses in the AA.

All peace deals other than with Xerses were straight peace for peace. This was an attempt to keep the AI backward and without map knowledge. I don't know if it worked, but I am half an era in front of all the AI and have only been researching at 30-40% and 20% since MT.

Where I am at - Currently 114 tiles from the limit.

 

[forgedplayer]

Well I just submitted my end game file. For the first time I actually completed a GOTM, and to top it off I actually won. ( Yes I'm shocked!) Actually I have learned a lot from all of the great players here and all of that paid off.

Perhaps the biggest factor in my win was that I took on/out the Persians as quickly as I could rather than trying to wait for my war elephants and suffer under the persian boot for 2 long. The funny thing is that Persia coudl have taken me easily had they pressed their inital attack, since they didn't it gave me new life and I came back with my lowly spearmen & Archers to rid the planet of them.

 

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by forgedplayer
Well I just submitted my end game file. For the first time I actually completed a GOTM, and to top it off I actually won. ( Yes I'm shocked!) Actually I have learned a lot from all of the great players here and all of that paid off.

Congrats!

Originally posted by forgedplayer
The funny thing is that Persia coudl have taken me easily had they pressed their inital attack, ....

If only it had a brain.

 

[akots]

Mighty knight in shining gear,
Always cunning, quick and fair,
Conquered all of World Wide Web.
Who's he, children? - Be SirPleb!