I wanna be a commie.

[chiefpaco]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy


Perhaps, communism would only work for people who never had any infrastructure in their 'core cities' to begin with. I don't understand where people think the military police are so great. If I'm making 3200+ gold under Democracy, and around 1400 under communism, which obviously is better? I can even increase luxury to 30% and still would have more money available for science than communism would. And I still would have money left over to hurry improvements in the corrupt cities (just wait one turn after starting construction and the price drops in half). You can even have your core cities producing units just for the sole purpose of disbanding them in the far cities to help hurry the improvements. Communism is better than a monarchy, though.

Well, I don't agree. Even with the Monarchy. I'll save that for later. First, Communism vs. Democracy. I don't really like your numbers. Democracy gets the trade bonus, meaning 1 extra gold for each square already with at least 1. Depending on how many citizens you have working those squares, your benefit will vary. However, I don't believe the 3200+ to 1400 ratio is good (229%?). If an average tile was worth 2 gold (say, a grass with a road), then the increase would make the tile's value 3. This would bring the total for democracy around 2100. Since marketplaces, banks, libraries, etc help the democracy, the final number could be something like 2300.

The Military Police is doubly good. It saves you money from spending on Luxuries. The MP is also paid for because of the unit support from your city. Should you choose to keep the luxury tax at 10% or 20%, you should be enjoying WLTK benefits nationwide.

You still come ahead $$ wise in a Democracy but you have to pay for your improvements. You also have to worry about War Weariness & can not start a war. Also, you probably have to do more work to make sure your cities don't go in & out of disorder with every pop gain.

I'm not saying Communism is better, but it does solve a lot of problems & I don't think the advantages of Democracy are that clear. If the player started building Courthouses & Police Stations instead of Cathedrals & Research Labs, I think Communism would be ok. Also, the player wouldn't want to be trying to hold a tech lead in Communism. But is is still quite possible to stay even techwise.

 

[Ironikinit]

I found Bams' numbers to be believable. I had one game where as a communist I had to put nearly all my budget into tax... like a 10% research rate. Don't forget that corruption is higher under communism... and much higher in your core cities. I can't estimate on communist corruption rates, as I haven't taken any notes on it. Usually by the time I go commie I'm more interested in world domination than taking notes.

I do believe that there are times when communism is superior to democracy, and that's when the entire game world is at war. Trade will be minimal, war weariness will eventually catch up with all nations. Possibly the biggest failure of communism (other than the terrible commerce) is the inability to rush improvements with cash, making monarchy a good alternative IMO. I really do like the improved production in fringe areas, tho.

 

[chiefpaco]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
I found Bams' numbers to be believable. I had one game where as a communist I had to put nearly all my budget into tax... like a 10% research rate. Don't forget that corruption is higher under communism... and much higher in your core cities. I can't estimate on communist corruption rates, as I haven't taken any notes on it. Usually by the time I go commie I'm more interested in world domination than taking notes.

C'mon, doesn't anyone use it for a winnable govt? Hey, I don't think it's superior, but think it's almost as good. Here's some of my assumptions for my preceding argument.

Under Communism, you're not trying to research, so naturally, you're buying your tech. You will probably have a 10% research rate maximum.

I was considering income before corruption in my numbers. They would be straight from the "from cities" part of the domestic advisor F1 screen. I think it would be the better way to compare, since corruption is subjective & city location dependent. In this way, I would consider my numbers ok. Though, if someone claims that you can >double your gold in a Democracy in either case, I'm sorry, I just haven't seen anything close to that myself.

Anyway, c/w under communism is not higher. Your core city numbers jump & it's scary, yes. In Bamspeedy's corruption test, c/w was 10% lower in communism with an equal number of cities an equal distance apart. The only 2 cities in Democracy that were more effecient were the capital & 1st closest city.

Since the structure of Communism in the game is different than all the other govts, it's hard to measure its worth. Players who switch for the convenience of war aren't set up for a productive communism. Courthouses & Police Stations often don't help in Republics & Democracies in terms of reducing w/c but are great for Communisms. As a result, they often aren't built & effects aren't seen. As a general rule, switching to any govt requires planning & Communism is the most extreme case.

My theory, & I'm sticking to it, is Communism, with Courthouses & Police Stations, is not vastly inferior. It just gets a bad reputation for seeming pointless to those who have a good Republic/Democracy game going (which is probably most of the time because of the similar c/w structure to Despotism & Monarchy).

 

[Bamspeedy]

Well, I don't agree. Even with the Monarchy. I'll save that for later. First, Communism vs. Democracy. I don't really like your numbers. Democracy gets the trade bonus, meaning 1 extra gold for each square already with at least 1. Depending on how many citizens you have working those squares, your benefit will vary. However, I don't believe the 3200+ to 1400 ratio is good (229%?). If an average tile was worth 2 gold (say, a grass with a road), then the increase would make the tile's value 3. This would bring the total for democracy around 2100. Since marketplaces, banks, libraries, etc help the democracy, the final number could be something like 2300.

Take another look at my corruption study. In democracy the cities were producing 27 gold, communism 14 (before corruption). That was with science set at 100% (so the marketplaces and banks did no good with no money going into the treasury). That's about 200% improvement for democracy. So if I put everything into my treasury with having marketplaces and banks communism (before corruption) would be 14+100% = 28. Democracy 27+100% = 54. Maybe in my game it was 1600 instead of 1400, all I know is that it was alot.

If you have say 30 cities (my 'core' cities on a huge map) with every improvement. Then you take out 2 or 3 civs (have to switch to communism for this rampage) so those new cities have very few improvements. The core cities don't have much corruption at all in democracy. All the uncorrupted gold going to your treasury is multiplied with banks and marketplaces. Adam smith's pays for all the trading improvements. Libraries and universities multiply the uncorrupted gold going towards beakers.

Then consider communism, since I had just recently tripled my territory, all the corruption factors from those cities with few improvements adds so much more corruption to my core cities. Even if you got courthouses and police stations in all the cities, you don't have the multiplying factors of banks, libraries, etc. until you get those improvements in those cities. If every city was developed the same with several, if not all the improvements and like you said, poor FP location or flung out empire (an island map with little land for example) , then communism may be better.

You still come ahead $$ wise in a Democracy but you have to pay for your improvements. You also have to worry about War Weariness & can not start a war. Also, you probably have to do more work to make sure your cities don't go in & out of disorder with every pop gain.

Stay in republic if you want to wage some semi short wars or are worried about wars. Not much corruption difference between republic and democracy. I turn the governors on so I don't worry about disorders. I know if I micromanged I could squeeze out a little more production without the governors, but on a huge map it's not worth the time and takes away the fun from the game.

I'm not saying Communism is better, but it does solve a lot of problems & I don't think the advantages of Democracy are that clear. If the player started building Courthouses & Police Stations instead of Cathedrals & Research Labs, I think Communism would be ok. Also, the player wouldn't want to be trying to hold a tech lead in Communism. But is is still quite possible to stay even techwise.

Yep, especially with v1.17f, if there are several civs left you can pick up techs real cheap to stay even or just 1 tech behind. And communism might be able to outproduce (shields) a democracy. Then the only problem is building wonders, but the 'pre-build palace' trick or leaders gets around that one.

However, as far as waste/production communism would probably be far better. Unless you have factories and hospitals in your 'core cities' and have recently conquered a large amount of small cities with no factories. Then all those 'new cities' add more corruption factors into your other cities.

 

[brody]

I always thought that even in communism your FP and Palace decreased corruption. As in, it calculates corruption for every city based on usual rules (distance from FP/Palace, courthouse, PS, etc), but then averaged everything out. Is that not true? Do you not need a FP in communism? That would be pretty cool...

I also believe communism can be used effectively. I've yet to use it much, but it didn't seem all that bad for me, and even though your core suffers, it makes newly acquired cities much more useful. You can build improvements there instead of either waiting forever for them or spending tons of cash... now if only communism didn't have pop rushing...

Last, I don't know if I'm doing something unusual or what, but right now I've been at war in a democracy for probably 25 years, and while my cities aren't terribly happy about it, I'm keeping the peace. I have universal suffrage, which helps, and I didn't start the wars, but even so, it seems like I can continue for a while before I won't be able to stay at war. I only have lux at 20% right now, though that's probably about to change...

 

[chiefpaco]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy


Take another look at my corruption study. In democracy the cities were producing 27 gold, communism 14 (before corruption). That was with science set at 100% (so the marketplaces and banks did no good with no money going into the treasury). That's about 200% improvement for democracy. So if I put everything into my treasury with having marketplaces and banks communism (before corruption) would be 14+100% = 28. Democracy 27+100% = 54. Maybe in my game it was 1600 instead of 1400, all I know is that it was alot.

My calculation had a huge error in it. Land squares have 1 commerce with a road so most tiles will double. My bad. The only tiles that won't double & take away from the average will be coasts, river-sides, & bonus/luxury tiles. Therefore, with the extra bonus of better mrkplaces & etc, I believe you could have double commerce. 1600 to 3200 sounds ok for your example, but I guess I just reacted to the 1400-3200. We're on the same page now, I hope.

Your study, Bamspeedy, would show a best case scenario where every tile doubles.

Pop rushing isn't bad, but it means there's little advantage to having money. You can't do much with it. In games under communism, I had high luxury rates just cause I had so much money just sitting around.

Communism can be effective, but it also takes time. Courthouses & police stations take a long time to build - maybe if they were cheaper? It looks like, from the study, Palaces reduce the corruption only in their city. Would the FP do the same?

Wonders are different too. Obviously, the Universal Sufferage is pointless, but Shakespeare would be good for a city for a massive pop rush or draft...

 

[Goat_Guy]

May seem kinda silly, but i made my own government- twisting republic and monarchy. i cant stand paying lives for cost( i LOVE size 13 cities), unless i have a city w\ 22 citizens, but then what would be the point to rush build? U should already have everything built in that city I made my republicary(hehe ) have these stats:

Military Police: 1
Corruption: Nuisance
Normal workers and commerce
Paid Labor
Free Units: 2 per town, 4 per city + met.
NO war weariness

I like having a government that has lower corruption and paid workers, since i always have at least 10k after the year 1250AD. I made it available with the advance of Military Tradition, usually the time when i start to take over the world :soldier: :tank: hehe

Have i ever said that i LOVE all of these smilies??lm@o

 

[Bamspeedy]

Communism can be effective, but it also takes time. Courthouses & police stations take a long time to build - maybe if they were cheaper? It looks like, from the study, Palaces reduce the corruption only in their city. Would the FP do the same?

The capital had most of the wonders in it, so some or one of those wonders was helping to produce more uncorrupted gold. So I guess I should have taken that into account when doing the study. Otherwise it had the same results as all the other cities.

Pop rushing isn't bad, but it means there's little advantage to having money. You can't do much with it. In games under communism, I had high luxury rates just cause I had so much money just sitting around.

This is another reason I hate communism. Yeah, you can pop rush, but after you rush 2-3 improvements you really have to pay attention to how often you poprushed in that city so that you don't get more unhappy people than you have MP for. In democracy you usually make so much more money you can rush buy the improvements and not worry about unhappiness from the whip. And the more expensive improvements like factories take so long to build, otherwise they just cost way too many lives.

 

[chiefpaco]

I'm really surprised that no one claims to use Communism as a form of permanent govt. It's far from horrible. Actually, I guess I've never thoroughly tried it before either. I've just finished my 1st game as a pure Communist empire & it went well until a funny finish, where I lost the UN Vote but the voting options seemed odd...

Anyway, in the game, on Emperor, as the Babs, I generated no GLs, so I never got to build a FP. The city improvement build order for most of my cities, once in Communism, was something like this:
Temple / Library (I was Babs, so real cheap!) / Courthouse / MarketPlace / Aqueduct /
and then it depended, but eventually, all
Cathedral, Police Station, Factory, Hospital

Obviously, some Barracks & Harbours, where necessary. The odd university & Airport when I was bored. I captured the Pyramids, so I didn't build any granaries.

I found building to be quite slow until courthouses were in place because of the waste. However, I built many of them under Monarchy after conquering a sizeable empire of maybe 2 dozen cities before switching. After getting Police Stations in as well, the cities were pretty productive.

After switching, I didn't need gold except for upgrades & trades. I kept science at 10% to buy or 50% to mop up discovered techs & found this strategy worked well to the end of my game. Never got a tech lead, but never considered myself at a disadvantage & kept pace. I often had a 20%-30% luxury tax just cause so much money was rolling in I had nothing else to do with it. Once the cities hit mega-city size, I had so many free units, I had a big free military.

Pop rushing was not very useful for building advanced structures since they cost so many shields & your big cities generate many sheilds/turn. However, it is really good for starting new cities quickly.

Wonder building wasn't that terrific. I couldn't compete with the AI bonuses plus their near-corrupt-free central cities. Wars were easy to manage, since no changes to my empire were needed to make people happy & I could start & stop them when I was happy, not my people!

It's an interesting type of game, & I'd recommend trying it, if only for a different experience. It's kind of cool to capture a new city & that one becoming your best city, or at least just as good as any of your other ones! I think you can play a peaceful game under Communism. It takes some patience & careful planning though.

 

[Toasty]

Yes, I've done that. Worked quite well.

Playing as the Egyptians...I had made a large empire, controlling 3/4ths of a supercontinent, without any high-corruption faraway colony cities (note: NEVER MAKE COLONY CITIES IN COMMUNISM!).

The thing about Communism's corruption is that if you have a couthouse in more than 40% of your cities, it makes all of your cities decent production. A lot of the complaining in Communism goes towards the 'ruining of core cities'. While for the most part true, if your empire has a relatively large number of corruption-free cities, then it makes most cities decent production. In my latest war, just after annexing America, most of America's cities were pumping out infantry in 6 or 7 turns max.

I was under the impression that in communism that it first did your corruption-by-distance and then made a ratio of corrupted shields/commerce to non-corrupted shields/commerce. Thus, the farther away your FP, the better.

At any rate...with Communism, the way to make it work is having a few cities close to your capital only for the use of having very little or no corruption, if it were corruption-by-distance. Then the smaller, far-away cities can make the military units, but in cycles; i.e., I was huge, so I got near twenty infantry ever 5-7 turns. This works especially well in the high-population Modern Area, as I was able to support a unit number of 300-something.

I was making about 150 gold a turn, which is pretty normal for me. My Science was about equal to a late middle-ages republic, as in discoveries every 10-20 turns.

I was able to dominate and actually won by a space ship victory in 2037. This was on Regent level.

So I'm actually a pretty big fan of full time Communism. Not one of the far-away cities revolted because I was able to afford putting four unit defenders in each of them, saving me money on improvements like temples and cathedrals.

It takes a little bit of finesse, but if you plan for Communism right, it works beautifully.

 

[jstreed]

I'm thinking that the new patch will give a much needed production boost to any communist empire. Now that the corruption bonuses for courthouses and police stations have been modified, it seems that a communist empire could produce MUCH more each turn. What do you guys think?

 

[infanta]

i cant believe the way some people try and play communism as if its a democray or republic, sheesh

as a commie everything relies on food

irrigate everything, max out on population and turn surplus into taxmen (for example at 12 pop 6 railroaded irrigated grasslands allows 6 taxmen which with market+bank means 12 gold regardless of corruption)

use spies to steal tech/hinder production/spy on enemy forces

use culture (aim for at least 5 per city which is generally temple/cathedral minimum) to control land mass and gain territory

use drafts and then disband to produce shields/supply emergency troops and use pop rushing if you can't draft

communism is all about disrupting your enemy civs, land grabbing and momentum which means constant warfare

pile on the pressure with continous expansion and military units and there is practically nothing that can stop you

communism is geared towards domination and conquest wins, if you want other victory types choose a different government

because food is basically your production method of choice you are free to set up cities anywhere which means you can relocate whenever borders expand to make a continous unbroken mass of territory

even on huge maps you can have cities up to 9 squares away and with 5+ culture fill up the territory with yer borders pretty fast

as you are limited to number of possible cities your aim is to get maximum territory with fewest cities and commies ability to ignore distance from capital makes this ideal for domination victorys whilst unit support and abiltity to outproduce facilitate conquest

communism is for expanders and warmongers, builders and techies need not apply- thats what you got republic/dem for

 

[Bamspeedy]

use drafts and then disband to produce shields/supply emergency troops and use pop rushing if you can't draft

What patch do you play with? With v1.17, if you whip or draft too much, your city is nothing but entertainers. The AI frantically drafts when attacked and all it's cities are reduced to a pop 1 entertainer city. All it's cities are effectively useless the rest of the game.

 

[infanta]

the recent version where pop rushing means unhappy for 40 turns etc...

sure you got a problem with excessive rushing but the key is to grab luxaries as soon as possible (colonies till you get a border extended to cover it), max out on military police and have all the happyiness improvements

after that its a case of checking how many unhappy citizens the city can tolerate and timing pop increases with pop rush unhappiness durations to figure out how many shields you effectively have to play with

course its better with drafting as the unhappines for that only lasts 10 turns

for example if yer city can tolerate an extra 5 unhappy you can safely draft and disband every 2 turns (use a worker farm nearby to keep city topped up)

4 miltary police, a temple and regeant lvl (2 content) would be enough if you keep it at pop 7 to allow the drafting

so for that city you would go draft,wait and refill from worker farm,draft,wait and refill,draft,... and so on

and all these drafts can be used to rush new buildings in cities you establish as you roll forward

for example in earlier ancient periods as long as i got one luxary and 2 military units in a city and keep population at 3 (2 forests for example) i can safely pop rush a temple (pop rush a settler then switch to temple) in new cities then build a barracks and a unit whilst the unhappiness wears of (usually just in time to rush upgrade)

the net result of something like that in a distant one shield city is i get a veteran unit and a border increasing temple in 40 turns whereas normally it would take 60 just to build the temple

as conquest favours momentum this shield efficiency is what can make communism so attractive, you just have to sacrifice tech to do it as you rely on others for yer tech and thus is you don't move fast enough risk losing the game if someone wins by culture or space launch

as i said though this amount of tracking and micro management a bit much for some