[C3C] (How) Would you nerf Republic?

[timerover51]

Chance of switching to Fascism every 4 years.

Pretty sure that was a joke about current US politics...

I do not think that I appreciate that comment. I do not view it as a joke.

 

[vorlon_mi]

In my experience, my empire grows during the Middle Ages so that a period of anarchy to switch to another form of government is painful. It means the new government must be signficantly better than (ancient) Republic to justify the costs (turns of lost production and science).

Yes, nerfing Republic might give me an incentive to switch, but switch to what? I usually develop a few core cities, so switching to Communism always "feels" like a step backwards for those cities. Fascism means pop-rushing, which I hate. Feudalism in its present form is not better for (say) 20+ cities, with 5-8 of them size 7 or above. Switch to Democracy, and just manage the WW?

Civ4 did a decent job of reducing the anarchy penalty so that the player would make frequent civics changes. Part of that was linked to their Golden Age mechanic; a civ could have multiple GA's during a game, and changing civics was free during a GA.

 

[Nathiri]

In my experience, my empire grows during the Middle Ages so that a period of anarchy to switch to another form of government is painful. It means the new government must be signficantly better than (ancient) Republic to justify the costs (turns of lost production and science).

Yes, nerfing Republic might give me an incentive to switch, but switch to what? I usually develop a few core cities, so switching to Communism always "feels" like a step backwards for those cities. Fascism means pop-rushing, which I hate. Feudalism in its present form is not better for (say) 20+ cities, with 5-8 of them size 7 or above. Switch to Democracy, and just manage the WW?

Civ4 did a decent job of reducing the anarchy penalty so that the player would make frequent civics changes. Part of that was linked to their Golden Age mechanic; a civ could have multiple GA's during a game, and changing civics was free during a GA.

At least now with C3X, you can reduce the anarchy time. Even just a little bit would make it more manageable at 5 turns rather than up to 8 turns.

 

[Spoonwood]

I want to keep most of the basic (C3C) gameplay and tech/unit progression in place, but at the same time help the AI to make 'better' decisions...

One of the obvious biggie here is the pretty-much-default 'Eternal Republic', pretty-much-regardless of map-size/-type, Civ chosen, intended VC, starting position, etc.

I don't see how the human player's choice of government has relevance as to what woks as optimal for AI decisions. AIs will lose cities in wars. They will get significant war weariness. The default "Eternal Republic" applies to players who have played for a sufficient amount of time to not lose cities in wars and/or experience significant war weariness, or have sufficient benefits after. It's never gotten proven that Republic is better for first, second, or third time players, and I'd doubt that holds.

In AI to AI wars, I'm not sure that there exists a better decision than "switch to Monarchy" pattern when losing wars.

Accordingly, perhaps if in Republic wars would start producing an increasing accumulation of war weariness points, then Monarchy could end more useful.

Perhaps also if during the industrial era in a Republic workers would start disappearing or turn into revolutionary units that will attack you. Or maybe workers would start to defect/emigrate to other civs, and those other civs would now have an immigrant class of workers. But, those immigrant workers require upkeep, but work as quickly as slaves. Perhaps if workers started to emigrate as soon as one learned Theology or Invention, or some time during the Middle Ages in a Republic, a Monarchical government could get it's rail network up faster than a "Republic" could.

 

[tjs282]

I don't see how the human player's choice of government has relevance as to what woks as optimal for AI decisions.

Those 2 things have little or nothing to do with each other. It's your deletion of the second half of my first paragraph (which referred specifically to human-default decisions) which has created this spurious connection -- one that I never made, and which wasn't what this thread is about.

 

[jarred!]

Republic could be renamed Early Democracy have pop rush (human slavery) and high war weariness (I thought about increasing corruption, too). Now it's maybe a precursor to Democracy and it could still have the standard trade bonus or maybe that's for later govts. Then Republic in its normal form comes in around education in the second age. It would be fitting to be its own, non-required tech.
I think, in this scenario, it makes sense to swap from Early Democracy to either Democracy, Republic or Communism, then.

Fascism with Xenophobia (not that bad), Forced Resettlement, Forced Labor and no Tile Bonus is a tough sell. Super workers are cool but this tech is too late for me, should come before the start of the third age. Wikipedia even suggests Sparta was a proto/quasi-fascism so you could move it wayyy back, but I don't think so.