government strategy in civ iii

[Spoonwood]

you seem to forget the fact the a monarchy will have a bigger army than a republic, and ww will become a problem, because a pike behind a wall or in a city spells death to alot of attackers. the lux slide plus upkeep, a republic is not making more than a monarchy.

I don't agree that a Monarchy will have a bigger army. In fact a Republic might have a bigger army due to more cash-rushing/upgrading. A Republic will only have more unit support. War Weariness doesn't become too much of a problem once you know how to manage it well. A pike behind city walls doesn't spell death to cavalry all too much (I don't know the exact calculation, but cavs. vs. pikes makes a VERY good match up if you have the cavs and they have the pikes), or more advanced units, or knight armies, especially once you have the military buildings which make armies stronger. You can find a bunch of pics which help to analyze the potential of a Republic on a Huge map here.

 

[Aabraxan]

It's not just a question of bigger military, either. There's also a question of whether Monarchy or Republic can actually bring more units to bear on an enemy. Interestingly, I always feel like I'm shorter on units in Monarchy than I do when I'm a Republic. I think this results from a combination of (1) leaving some units behind for MP duty; and (2) the fact that almost all of my Monarchy games are AW games.

 

[GeneralMeng]

cavalry against pike is one sided match, what if you have knight and they have pike? odds are not very cost effective. republic will not have a bigger army, because cash rush plus support=no income. if you do the math, then in early to mid game, the trade bonus in republic is cancel due to unit support and slide, thus you are not making more than a monarchy. monarchy's mp is a bonus and you can always leave ungraded unit from AA in your key production cities. for every unit you have over the support limit under republic you need 2 more citizens to support it, when compare to monarchy, that means either you need more luxury or slide. lets analyze the army (early MA), under republic if you have 10 towns, and 30 military units (including workers) you are paying 40 gpt for support, where as in monarchy, you can have up to 60 units for the same amount of money spent, and if you been massing warriors and horsemen in AA, your militaristic expansion is gonna be pretty smooth, just wait a few more turn to upgrade them. if a monarch have just 40 units (10 more then republic), you can have some as mp (reduce slide), and you are making 20 more gpt. those extra gpt can be use anyway you want.

edit*, i ran a civassist2 analysis on government (the game you linked me to), your economy would of been much better for early to mid game if you ran under monarchy instead of republic, im talking about a net gain of 60+gpt, of republic will kick in around 1000AD
http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ3/game_info.php?entryID=2653
thats the game i analyzed

 

[Nergal]

I agree with Meng. My usual feeling is that support costs plus lux slider make Monarchy a more profitable option. I was playing a game last night where I took the Phil/Republic option and ended up financially crippled to the tune of 54gpt support costs. I normally play on Standard size maps and I'm wondering if Huge maps mean more time to develop the kind of infrastructure to support Republic. Regardless of that I still feel that too many players take the Phil/Republic route and make it work eventually and then stick with it as the only valid option in their opinion.

 

[Spoonwood]

cavalry against pike is one sided match, what if you have knight and they have pike? odds are not very cost effective.

Just make sure you have overwhelming force to take the city.

republic will not have a bigger army, because cash rush plus support=no income

Again, check the referenced link for screenshots. At one point, with more than 5 wars still to go I had ZERO unit support over the limit in a Republic (well before 1000 AD). Moonsinger's 88k game also used Republic, and she had a lot of upgrading there.

if you do the math, then in early to mid game, the trade bonus in republic is cancel due to unit support and slide, thus you are not making more than a monarchy.

Which math? Where do we have the numbers? Also, on what turn? Prior to any war Republic may only have more unit support to pay... it won't have increased use of the luxury slider. It won't necessarily have increased use of the luxury slider during every war.

monarchy's mp is a bonus and you can always leave ungraded unit from AA in your key production cities.

Perhaps, but due to increased commerce the luxury slider works out as more effective in a Republic than a Monarchy. In other words, an additional 10% points in a Republic turns more citizens from content to happy or unhappy to content in a Republic than a Monarchy.

for every unit you have over the support limit under republic you need 2 more citizens to support it, when compare to monarchy, that means either you need more luxury or slide. lets analyze the army (early MA), under republic if you have 10 towns, and 30 military units (including workers) you are paying 40 gpt for support, where as in monarchy, you can have up to 60 units for the same amount of money spent, and if you been massing warriors and horsemen in AA, your militaristic expansion is gonna be pretty smooth, just wait a few more turn to upgrade them.

Your numbers here ONLY work if all cities come at or below size 6. It's possible to have 10 cities and 30 units, and pay 0 in unit support in a Republic. In fact, only 7 cities need to stand at size 7 or above to pay nothing in unit support for 30 units.

if a monarch have just 40 units (10 more then republic), you can have some as mp (reduce slide), and you are making 20 more gpt.

It doesn't follow that a Republic needs to have a greater percentage going to the luxury slider, because the increased commerce of a Republic produces more happiness commerce per percentage point than in a Monarchy.

edit*, i ran a civassist2 analysis on government (the game you linked me to), your economy would of been much better for early to mid game if you ran under monarchy instead of republic, im talking about a net gain of 60+gpt, of republic will kick in around 1000AD

I didn't need to pay any unit support over the limit by 1000 AD there. Consequently, how could a net gain of about 60+ gpt kick in around there via Monarchy? Where do we have the numbers from CivAssist II? What years did it tell you that for? Did it factor in commerce which could have gone to taxes also? Commerce going to science might even come as relevant, because of selling techs for gpt, which I did a good bit of in that game.

 

[GeneralMeng]

and if you look at your army, you have 60 workers, the need upkeep as well, here is the screenshot for comparison at one point in time (10AD), yes the trade bonus of republic will kick in by 1000 AD (in your game), but in the similar analysis, republic only enjoy around 25+ gpt at 1000 AD

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

if you have 10 cities then, a monarchy will be able to have 40 free unit, thats still 10 more than a republic. your cash rush only works of you start to build your army ground up from when you start your republic, where as a monarchy can start from turn one and mass warriors and horsemen. upgrading is lot cheaper than rush, and im sure a monarchy will have more than enough gold to upgrade.

It doesn't follow that a Republic needs to have a greater percentage going to the luxury slider, because the increased commerce of a Republic produces more happiness commerce per percentage point than in a Monarchy.

yes it does, the 10% of 1 gold is 0,.... 10% of 4 gold is still 0, so you need to make 5 more gold than monarchy, per city to yield that one extra happy face.

regarding the mp argument, well you dont need to leave you unit just for mp, they are also for city defense, are you not going to leave 2 defender in your city for war time defense anyways?

my over all point is, if you plan for a republic, then your military building in early phase of the game is limited, because any unit carried over (from despo) to the new government will cost you extra upkeep, which hurts; however, if you plan to go to monarch, then you have the freedom to mass warrior and horsemen, (if you have cities, then your pay same amount of upkeep as before)

 

[CKS]

I rarely play a game with significant early war, so I'm going to stay out of the real discussion here, and just point out a few interesting things.

Some of the confusion between Spoonwood and GeneralMeng is that they care about different things. Looking at the 10 AD pictures, Monarchy runs a higher net gain at 100% science, and it has significantly less (53 g) unit support. However, Republic has almost 200 g extra going to science. The gold going to science is more than 50% higher in Republic than in Monarchy. For the same beaker output, you would put the science slider a lot lower in Republic. If you want fast research, you have to be a Republic.

The pictures above don't show what happens to entertainment, because the lux slider is at zero, but we know that the lux slider will be much more effective in a Republic than in Monarchy because we have 50% more commerce to work with. In Republic, we get an extra commerce per citizen (plus the city square), so at only size 4 each town will meet GeneralMeng's criterion of 5 extra commerce (assuming no corruption), and real cities will come out ahead unless they are corrupt enough that the lux slider doesn't help anyway.

I expect that Spoonwood does not leave defenders in many of his towns. Even when at war, I only garrison accessible border towns and my 20K city (assuming I'm playing 20K, which I usually am). I'll leave a few other units scattered around to catch invaders. Occasionally I run into short term problems because of this, but not often enough to cause me to build more units. If at war, I want to build offensive units, not defenders, and send them off to the front. I tend to disband obsolete units to rush other stuff - usually improvements in my 20K city, but sometimes newer units or libraries and markets in other cities.

 

[Aabraxan]

Monarchy certainly has its uses and Republic does take a bit longer to get it stabilized after the revolt. In General Meng's screenshots, though, Republic may only be getting ~+25 gpt as compared to Monarchy, but it's also getting almost +200 bpt over Monarchy.

As for MPs & the question of whether I keep defenders in my city, anyway . . . It depends. I'll typically keep defenders in any city that could be reached by horse. In an empire of 10 settlements, that may well be in every town. As my empire grows, though, those defenders in the interior get moved so that they stay near my borders.

 

[GeneralMeng]

thanks CKS for pointing out those points. anyways, i ignored the size of map in my evaluation, I play on standard size map with 7 ais, so i usally get 5-6 cities before have to fight for land, where as spoonwood play on huge, so he can get 15+cities. in spoonwood's case, I would agree, republic will be better off than monarchy.

 

[Daeron]

Yeah, you should really use total income minus corruption and income and expenses from other civs to compare economic strength. Which is 643 commerce for the Republic and 447 commerce for monarchy in this example. Republic means an increase in commerce of 44%. 53 commerce of this is lost to the extra unit support, which still translates to 32% improvement in that specific example. Without multiplier benefits like libraries or marketplaces, the benefit of republic is a lot smaller though, so I would say building them is a lot more crucial than if you were in monarchy. Your example has a library and marketplace in at least one city.

But then there are also other benefits in that a faster tech pace offers more income from trading. It's hard to compare, but I disagree with the generic comparison of the two on whether you can be at war with them. It's a lot more complicated than that.

One isn't necessarily better than the other. It really depends on play style and the situation. Since most people are very picky about their starting location, republic usually beats monarchy. If you random everything and always play the first map that you get, republic won't always be the best choice. If you reload until you have that river, with two cows and what not, can do your REX phase with ease, republic easily beats monarchy. But the fact that someone just refused to play 10 other starting positions should tell the player something.

 

[GeneralMeng]

um... not to be picky about your numbers, republic have a 30% advantage, and 20ish after unit upkeep, but never the less you are right. all government is situational (ie communism suck in a tiny map)

 

[Spoonwood]

GeneralMeng,

How does the corruption from the cities displayed from CivAssist II MATCH each other in Republic and Monarchy? A Monarchy, has a greater level of corruption than a Monarchy. See all the shield numbers matching each other? Will the corruption percentages in cities like 018 actually match each other and produce the same number of shields? I don't see how. As another possible point of interest, the amount lost to corruption 93 out of 645 (from cities) in a Republic for 14.42% corruption, while 61 out of 417 in a Monarchy for 14.63% corruption. Do Monarchy and Republic actually end up that close in terms of corruption? I somehow doubt it.

your cash rush only works of you start to build your army ground up from when you start your republic, where as a monarchy can start from turn one and mass warriors and horsemen. upgrading is lot cheaper than rush, and im sure a monarchy will have more than enough gold to upgrade.

In that game I actually did use disconnect-reconnect and upgrade most of my units to knights and then cavalry for a while. Both governments can do such.

yes it does, the 10% of 1 gold is 0,.... 10% of 4 gold is still 0, so you need to make 5 more gold than monarchy, per city to yield that one extra happy face.

Going with what you wrote here you need 5 more uncorrupted roaded squares for an extra happy face. For most cities that's probably 6 or 7 actual tiles worked. But once a city gets to 7 tiles, a Republic has unit support of 3 for those cities.

regarding the mp argument, well you dont need to leave you unit just for mp, they are also for city defense, are you not going to leave 2 defender in your city for war time defense anyways?

Hardly. Only in the front towns POSSIBLY. Maybe like 3-5 front tows if that even, in some situations maybe that ends up as 10. Cavalry might also outpace capturing cities pre-rails than defenders can get to new front towns. Additionally, in that game I believe I fought two or three wars where I basically used ONLY armies both as attackers and possible defenders. In general, if I had iron and horses, but no saltpeter I would only build knights, or very few pikes which I planned to upgraded to muskets.

my over all point is, if you plan for a republic, then your military building in early phase of the game is limited, because any unit carried over (from despo) to the new government will cost you extra upkeep, which hurts; however, if you plan to go to monarch, then you have the freedom to mass warrior and horsemen, (if you have cities, then your pay same amount of upkeep as before)

There's plenty of freedom in really any form of government to mass whatever sorts of units you want as long as you have the cash.

 

[Spoonwood]

Looking at the 10 AD pictures, Monarchy runs a higher net gain at 100% science, and it has significantly less (53 g) unit support. However, Republic has almost 200 g extra going to science. The gold going to science is more than 50% higher in Republic than in Monarchy. For the same beaker output, you would put the science slider a lot lower in Republic.

I haven't run CivAssist 2 to check this, but allow me to reason from what you've said here.

Given 0% taxes in the same situation and as many markets as libraries (I didn't have any universities at this point), Republic will have almost 200 extra gold going to taxes. The gold going to taxes is almost 50% higher in Republic than Monarchy. For the same pre-unit support tax output, you would put the tax slider a lot lower in Republic. I only paid 64 gpt in unit support at that point. So, given the 200 extra gold (it's not as I have more libraries than markets), I would have had over 100 extra gold in a Republic at 0% science.

Also consider what Daeron excellently pointed out. In a Monarchy, would you get as many techs in time to get as much gpt from the AIs than in a Republic? How would have production changed towards multipler buildings and units?

Even when at war, I only garrison accessible border towns and my 20K city (assuming I'm playing 20K, which I usually am).

As an aside, if you don't, and you have your 20k city as your capital and someone goes to war with you, they'll send units to your capital. This can help with MGL fishing if you have units to kill any invaders immediately.

 

[GamezRule]

i find that when playing a warmonger game, i switch from monarchy to communism, and for culture/space race/diplomatic, republic possibly to democracy, depending on circumstances.