Governments

[dmanakho]

I usually play large maps and I've been known to have some long drawn out wars, once I discover Republic I stay in it (unless I"m religeous) and I have no problems with WW. The trick is to get as many lux's as you can, build all your happiness buildings (some times I neglect colluseum with no problems) a police station in every major city and/or uni sufferage and you should be fine, on especially long wars you might have to knock your luxury slider up an notch or two but you'll hardly notice in Rep. because of the $$ coming in

I do agree for the most of the part, but monarchy is still better for some long ancient-early medieval age when you don't have many resources, much territory and enough money coming in. Again, WW is not everything Monarchy has better free unit support.
and just to prove I do agree with you, I usually switch to republic myself and stay on it, but depending on situation monarchy sometimes is better.

 

[dmanakho]

Or any SCI Civ when you happen to advance before Mon/Rep is known, and get Feudalsim as free tech - but the later is not an argument for Feud, but against Despotism.

Yep, that happened to me before when you get Feudalism known before you research Monarchy or republic. Although, i still always waited for republic before switching. I heard WW is very high on feudalism and it might not be as good government for waging wars.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

WW in Feudalism is the same as in Republic (midlevel).

 

[starrider]

WW in Feudalism is the same as in Republic (midlevel).

Yes, but easier to control. You get military police, and all but a few of your cities are size 6 or less. War weariness under feudalism isn't an issue except in your few large cities, where you can build some happiness improvements.

I played feudalism as a test one time, and got gigantic numbers of free units and stayed at war constantly. I went depo->monarchy->feudalism and stayed in feudalism for a long time before finally switching to democracy or repbulic (can't remember.)

It means your unit support skyrockets and can be a lot of fun if you plan for it at the onset (city placement etc)

 

[kb2tvl]

Depending on what level your playing at can determine what gov type you want to go after.

Monarchy: 3 MP built from a city with no iron can produce 3 - 10 shield warriors in 30 turns. This saves on luxaries when your cities have few buildings but can get above size 7. The key with monarchy is to have size 7+ cities. I have pulled monarchy as the free tech from philosophy and revolted as a religious civ on that turn. This gave a ton of food production, early.

Republic: Rep is great for nonreligious civs in civ3/ptw. Industrious civs benefit from this trait more than other civs since roads = gold. For civ3/ptw, I have ran 30 ~ 50% lux during war and had a ton of gold during times of peace.

Democarcy: This gov is great going from Monarchy(early war) -> demo(peaceful builder leading up to indy/commy). Like rep, fighting a war is a longer process where you bleed the enemy and then take their cities. Using seige cities help a bunch as well. The added worker rate helps indy or non indy civs.

Communist: Probably the best gov type for c3c. You can have a productive city anywhere and on any map type. However, you won't build anything fast unless you disband mil units to help.

Fascist works a lot like demo but you get unit support and workers with an "S" sewn on their chest and a cape!

I have not played Feudalism yet. I would guess chineese would make a good Feudal civ.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Fedualism is best in cases, like my last Deity game.

Arhipelago, no fresh water, 1 luxury total.

Getting cities with size greater then 6 alsmost impossibile.
It's not only aquaduct that's expensive, thereis no way too keep such city happy too (without colosseums or luxury rate).

Well, in this case, Feudalism was best option.

If I got to Monachy I would just lose a money on upkeep (2gp/town vs 5gp/town), even worse for Republic (with pop<6 towns is suicidal).

Needless to say I kept being in Feudalism until I aquired enough luxures and built infarstructure to support 7+ pop cities and be able to get into Republic. Until then, I just played warmonger tactics, since every extra town takes means free support for extra 5 units.

 

[WS78]

I usually keep away from communism & fascism, though they have great bonusses.

My most used path is monarchy-republic-democracy, according to city sizes and empire size. Wars are waged early on while in despotism. Expand up to the point it can be defended properly. Then switch and develop.

Early republic is a b*tch and everybody is right: if you don't have luxuries, it's not worth it.
Democracy has always been an ultimate gov, when your empire is big enough (20+ cities, all with 6 or 6+)
Then cities are developed enough to support a large army and suppress WW. Keep wars short and always keep a good reserve of military units.

 

[dmanakho]

I usually keep away from communism & fascism, though they have great bonusses.

I reckon you do it for pure ideological reasons?

 

[ongwin]

This is my personal experience for the different civs.

1. Monarchy is usually used if i am involved in a constant war with another civ, either because I or the enemy delcared war first. (Expansion phase) No war weariness and has some unit support compared to republic.

2. Republic is for the "peace" time building up. The main problem with repbublic is that it does not have any unit support, but the commerce bonus is definitely a big plus. What the other people have posted in this thread is quite true, you do need some luxuries, temples and a big enough empire before you switch to republic, if not its no use.

3. I've never used feudalism before, maybe in my next game i will try.

4. On games where I aim for a spacerace or UN victory, I go for democracy. This is usually a "peace" govt, but some people have been able to fully utilise it and wage effective wars, i'm still learning how to do that though.

5. I've used communism a few times when I tried to obtain domination victory. My empire was so huge that the border cities, even though fully developed with a 16 size population, was only producing 1 shield and 2 commerce.

6. Facism is good if you do not have that many cities, but require more unit support for fighting. This what I like to call a late expansion phase, meaning to say that you only start fighting other civs for cities and territory in the industrial age, that is when you learn fascism.

I'm just confused about one thing though, why would you want to stay in a republic all the way till the end of the game compared to changing to democracy right away? 1. Both governments do not have unit support
2. Therefore democracy's lower corruption rate would lead to more gold right?
3. Faster workers also means that more terrain improvements can be made, which is also more commerce right?

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I'm just confused about one thing though, why would you want to stay in a republic all the way till the end of the game compared to changing to democracy right away?

9 turns of Anarchy....?

And btw, Republic does have some free unit support.

 

[player1 fanatic]

I'm just confused about one thing though, why would you want to stay in a republic all the way till the end of the game compared to changing to democracy right away? 1. Both governments do not have unit support

Republic has free upkeep for 1/3/4 units per town/city/metro and anythying over that 2gp/per unit.
That means that in most cases, when having mostly cities over 6 pop, that you'll have lower upkeep for Republic then for Democracy. Lower enough to earn more money in Republic.

 

[ongwin]

Republic has free upkeep for 1/3/4 units per town/city/metro and anythying over that 2gp/per unit.
That means that in most cases, when having mostly cities over 6 pop, that you'll have lower upkeep for Republic then for Democracy. Lower enough to earn more money in Republic.

Okay my bad, I checked it out and sorry for that, Republic does have some unit support, very little might I add. But one thing, can you imagine having to pay 2gpt for unit support? Thats killer... compared to 1gpt for democracy. Anyway if you were to have 10 cities, that means 30 unit support, but have 100 units, that would mean a Republic would pay 70X2=140gpt for support while a democracy would pay 100gpt, with lesser corruption, faster workers and same commerce bonus... now why not democracy?

 

[ummmm........]

I only play Republic/Democracy (unless things are going REALLY badly for me) and I can assure you, it takes a very long time before your army would cost less in Democracy than it would in Republic. It's usually sometime in the late industrial age, when the game is already won anyway. Your army needs to be twice the size of the "allowed units" under Republic before you will break even in a switch. That ignores corruption, but I've never seen a big difference between "minimal" and "nuisance," whatever they mean. Worker speed is irrelevant, since everything is pretty much built by then and slave workers are just hanging around to clean up pollution. Even once my army becomes too big, I still don't usually switch, just to avoid the hassle of putting everyone on food tiles while I'm in anarchy and switching back to production tiles once I come out of it. Yet I can't keep myself from doing this. It's all very sad, really.

 

[player1 fanatic]

exactly


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[Doc Tsiolkovski]

100% agree


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