Government types

[morchuflex]

From my limited experiments (3 or 4 attempts), switching from rep to demo is pointless: with my typical mid-middle age empires (about 20 cities ranging from 6 to 12 citizens, moderate army), the gain in gold and shields is marginal: from 2 to 5% at best. At this time, the increased worker speed is nice, but most tiles are already fully worked. Overall, certainly not worth researching two optional techs, spending several turns in anarchy and suffering a huge increase in war weariness.

 

[budweiser]

Not worth it? How much did you sell those two optional techs for? The first one, Printing Press is worth tons. Any gov tech is worth tons too. Did you build courthouses and police stations to cut corruption even further? Democracy is just the best way to make money and keep corruption at its lowest. You can do much more this way than by fighting wars. If you want, you can even take that extra gold you save from less corruption and use it to pay for more units. My lands are never fully developed. In fact the last game I can remember finishing all the work was when I went to democracy.

 

[gunkulator]

In C3C Republic each city supports 3 units so the unit support issue almost never favors Democracy. If your empire is small, you are likely to be picked or bullied sooner or later. What's the use of extra commerce if you have to cough it up to the AI? Fighting a war in Democracy can be a nightmare.

Also, with a small empire, the odds on getting coal, rubber and oil are lower. You really really want all three. Sure the extra commerce can help you buy them but again, you only end up giving it to the AI. I almost always find myself at war in the early Industrial Age to get those resources.

Besides the turns lost in anarchy, Democracy requires two optional techs. That's a minimum of 8 turns for discovery. You can eventually get one of them in trade but why bother? Get more gpt or a lux instead. Late in the Industrial you can finally get Democracy out of the AI but by then it's too late to make much of a difference.

 

[Mei]

I usually use democracy, because old Civ habits die hard, but also because I usually save money from Republic- I usually have a decent road system and usually go over the unit support limit in a repubulic. Low corruption is nice too, and combining the worker effiecny bonus with replaceable parts is essential for me, as I usually have a low to mid- size worker force and a massive empire.
But, for most of the game I use republic. And during long wars, I switch to monarchy, as I usually have a massive economy and I like rush- building rather than killing citizens.

So yeah. My government choices are probably pretty odd.

 

[Madroc]

What effect does Anarchy have on worker rate? I had been pumping up my worker force while I researched Steam Power, and I revolted as soon as i got my coal hooked up... the idea being that while I'm in anarchy, I can still work on railroading my empire. Does that make any sense?

 

[Piecekeeper]

communism would rock if you didnt have to kill citizens in order to rush pruduction!! only downside...

 

[Mei]

What effect does Anarchy have on worker rate? I had been pumping up my worker force while I researched Steam Power, and I revolted as soon as i got my coal hooked up... the idea being that while I'm in anarchy, I can still work on railroading my empire. Does that make any sense?

iirc, worker rate is 50% of normal during anarchy.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

I used to stay in republic the entire game and just build tons of cathedrals for WW. But I think they have increased war weariness in C3C. So now I tend to play in monarchy. I have not had much experience in facism, but I see its usefulness. The plus from monarchy is no WW and you can still purchase rushes, but with facism, I could reduce the number of workers and save unit costs.

 

[rysingsun]

playing in 1.29f ive never liked communism. the idea of spreading out my production .. more at a distance and less in the core doesnt appeal to me since to make it work i have to build up the infrastructure in dozens of cities that i would otherwise ignore. also in 1.29f it appears that communism progressively deteriorates when the civ becomes too big. evidently much of that has changed in conquests.

democracy in my experience adds about 5 percent to my overall gold typically. i would never find that worthwhile if i were not playing religious. the 5 percent is lost when warring and if you war too much and your government collapses then you take another big hit. i dont like the poor research rate of monarchy and i really never have enough units to justify the switch over unit cost issues. if you have no marketplaces i think monarchy is better, but then again marketplaces are among my highest priorities from the time i discover currency until the end of the game.

 

[Arturus]

When it comes right down it, while Republic might be more flexible, I've found that for me, Fascism is about the only government that I can use to consistently keep my economy, production, and military functionning at high levels. Generally by the time I have fascism, despite my mass production of workers and use of industrial civilizations, less than half of my land is truly transformed. This might be partly due to the fact that I am expanionist to the extreme early on, generally settling on about 100-150 cities on any and all terrain I can grab using city, tile, tile, tile, city building. In this regard, fascism generates a period of unprecedented transformation for my empire and generally marks the start of a significant growth in production (Smith's Trading Company being the starting point for commerical expansion).

At the end of the day, I find that even though i can't use my surplus capital to buy infrastructure and units, I rarely seem to have much in the way of spare capital. 90% of taxes going to science plus significant corruption due to number of cities and at some times extreme distance corruption eat up a significant amount of my capital. Also, paying for units upgrades (at least 4 defenders per city towards the end of the game and possibly 1 attack unit per city though I tend to avoid building all attack units since I am not a militaristic player. If I get stuck in a war I can make an army at reasonable speed to defend the core of my empire). Finally, I tend to be extremely unlucky in terms of resources and by the end of the game am forking out thousands of gold a turn for everything from Iron to Coal to Oil, not to mention to try to acquire all possible luxuries.

The one downside I find to fascism is that captured cities won't grow until their culture changes. In the end I found the best way to eliminate that was to resort back to razing every single enemy city I am forced to conquer (though I try to avoid wars at all costs!).

For me at least, I have found the Republic to slow my science production since so much money is going to unit costs meaning I can't maintain a 90% science production. For Democracy it is even worse as I have to pay for all my workers as well (which were paid for by the tiny military capacity of the Republic).

The population shrinkage hurts, especially for larger empires were you could lose a million people easily but at times that has benefits. If you are behind in building cultural improvements then having less people means having less unhappy people if happiness is a problem. Also, depending on when you get Fascism, if you haven't gotten sanitation yet, the population drop won't hurt too significantly as by the time you finally get sanitation and build hospitals, the populations would be back up to 12 anyhow.

At the end of the day I find the Republic and Democracy have led to my inevitable collapse. If anyone has any recommendations on what stratagies to use to make use of these two governments I'd really appreciate that as it seems whatever it is I am doing, it hasn't worked well with those governments. Perhaps I am focusing too much on defence or on scientific research or maybe the size of my empire is a significant detriment to my economic situation under such governments. Right now I have at least 6 units at the very minimum per city (4 defence 2 workers) with more important cities having 1-2 artillery and 1-2 attack units, 3-4 air units, 1-2 anti-air units. I have never done a ratio of my navy to cities but combined air, ship, and tactical nuclear weapon power for my navy probably stands at 1-2 per city. I maintain a strong navy both because of playing on archipelagos and also because I try to maintain larger airfields and fleet bases on as many strategic tiny islands as possible in order to sink any blatently obvious enemy offensive fleets.

Any help on my strategy would be appreciates, I apologize for the length of this post. I would like to see Republic and Democracy benefit my empire as reading the many threads on governments have certainly indicated they are both the most popular and seemingly the most effective.

Thanks everyone for your time.

 

[gunkulator]

Arturus, I think most of your problems can be summed up pretty simply: too many units. You don't need 4 units defending each city. In fact, with Rep or Dem I typically leave most cities empty. Only border cities get defenders. Learn to use the luxury slider to control happiness.

Also, while you have a lot of units, you have the wrong type. Too many defenders, not enough artillery and attackers. Concentrate on fast movers like cavalry that can move 8 times on a road and attack. Once you get Steam Power, connect all your cities with rails. Now you need even fewer units for defense.

I can almost never justify Fascism. You need a minimum of 4 turns to get it as it is an optional tech (although typically it's more like 6-8) and then you blow 7 turns in anarchy to get there and then you lose a whole bunch of citizens. Comparatively, Republic offers around 30%-40% more commerce which can be multiplied by improvements to 60%-80%. Some is lost to the military but it shouldn't be that much if you don't have an insane number of units. Extra commerce also means that the lux slider is more effective.

 

[shadow2k]

Perhaps I am focusing too much on defence or on scientific research or maybe the size of my empire is a significant detriment to my economic situation under such governments. Right now I have at least 6 units at the very minimum per city (4 defence 2 workers) with more important cities having 1-2 artillery and 1-2 attack units, 3-4 air units, 1-2 anti-air units. I have never done a ratio of my navy to cities but combined air, ship, and tactical nuclear weapon power for my navy probably stands at 1-2 per city.

Your working against yourself here.

In Republic, a city gets 3 unit support, 4 for metro. Corrupt cities aren't making you enough to pay for their own defense after Corruption, and become a liability to your economic status if you have 6 units per city. There is no MP.

The only cities you need to worry about are border cities that the enemy can reach within their max moves after you can see them out of the FoW, based on their most advanced, fastest troops. Coastal cities only if marines or vikings + invention are in play.

The AI absolutley sucks at naval invasions. They won't drop off more than one ship's capacity at a time. That means that when only galleys are around, you need worry about at most, two Knights being offloaded. You could very well be defending a large portion of your empire with just a small stack of Knights. As long as they can reach every city in 5-6 moves (I prefer 5 so they can attack as well), that city will be safe.

If an AI uses ROP to attack you (yes, the AI does ROP rape, poorly as well), he sends his troops individually. This is important, because the first troop will break the agreement, assuring you that no city can be taken if you have two defenders in each, even if they are conscript warriors from long ago.

One of the biggests boosts you can give your economy under Republic is growing all your towns to cities. A city gives three unit support, where a town only gives one, at the cost of, at most, an aqueduct that you built by disbanding obsolete units in it. On top of that, the specialists you can put in this corrupt city will give you another two gpt each, which is another free unit for your invasion force. Irrigate every square and get it to size twelve before Sanitation, and that's a lot of taxmen you can hire. Or scientists too, they do make a difference now at 3 beakers per turn.

Just remember to make your cities work for you. There is no point in having a size 4 city off in the boonies producing 2 uncorrupted gold/shields respectively, with 4 defenders in it. You get one free unit support, the city commerce pays for one, that city won't produce anything of value with 2spt, and you are having to pay an extra 4gpt for the two extra defenders. Even worse, you may have built improvements there like a courthouse or something, making it an even worse drain.

What do you gain?

Unless their is a valuable resource, or you need that extra land for domination, there is no point in having it operate like that. Build an aqueduct there. Don't build anything else. Irrigate everything in sight. Get the pop as high as possible, and make every worker you can a taxman.

Size 7 city with no defenders (not on border/coastal). Say its still making the same uncorrupted 2gpt, and we don't care about the shields really, and since you irrigated everything, you'll probably only be getting 1spt, which is fine. Have it built workers/settlers/wealth, or whatever fits you best.

You pay no unit support to defend it, but now get 3 free units for your invasion force. Your city's commerce (1-2gpt after corruption) will pay for the aqueduct itself. But on top of that, you have extra food in this city, but no shields. Create taxmen! If you have 4 workers on 4 irrigated grassland tiles, you'll have six extra food (before rails, one from each worker, 2 from center of city). That's three taxmen you hire.

The city is stuck at size seven until rails now, but who cares? If you have more + food tiles to work, keep going, but for this example, you now have six extra food. That's three taxmen, which helps the happiness problem in your marketless, templeless, and unimproved city (except for the aqueduct). So now your former drain on the economy is giving you three free military units, 6gpt from the taxmen (or 12 beakers of science...make 10 cities like this, andn it DOES make a difference). Not to mention whatever you have it producing, like wealth for instance.

Make your cities work for you, not against you.