As far as I know, most civilizations in the real world at one point had a despot, and then a king or queen, and eventually made it to a representative form of government. There are, of course, many exceptions to this, but that is not the point of this post. In CIV3, I have been experimenting with this same style of progression. I switch to monarchy much earlier than I would normally go from despotism to republic. The main advantage of this is the speed at which cities grow, because of the three military police. Only a couple of luxuries are needed, plus a temple and marketplace, and the city can easily get to size 12. You do not have to halt growth to make room for entertainers while you build a colloseum, as you normally have to do under republic. While republic produces more commerce, monarchy produces exactly the same amount of shields, and sometimes more, because more people can work. Therefore, the happiness improvements necessary in republic can be built more quickly. As soon as these improvements are done, the transition to republic will go very smoothly. I believe the benefits of this outweigh the additional period of anarchy from switching goverments more than once.
Some would argue that using monarchy will cause you to fall behind in the tech race, and that it is really only good for war, but every time I have tried this, my civ is so well developed when I do switch to republic, that I can research all the techs I am lacking(that other civs have) in four turns, with my science only at 20-30%. I quickly catch up, because this expands my treasury rapidly, allowing me to purchase many of the techs, as well. Then I start to pull ahead by putting my science at 70-80%, while still making a profit. Has anybody else tried this?
Some would argue that using monarchy will cause you to fall behind in the tech race, and that it is really only good for war, but every time I have tried this, my civ is so well developed when I do switch to republic, that I can research all the techs I am lacking(that other civs have) in four turns, with my science only at 20-30%. I quickly catch up, because this expands my treasury rapidly, allowing me to purchase many of the techs, as well. Then I start to pull ahead by putting my science at 70-80%, while still making a profit. Has anybody else tried this?
