Mid-Game Republic or Democracy?

I'm only an average player myself, but I generally go Despotism-Republic-Democracy when playing a religous tribe, sometimes with Moncarchy between Despotism and Republic. Otherwise I'll just go to Republic and usually hold off for a while (especially if I have a Wonder in progress) before going to Democracy, if at all. On the other hand, I do find Communism useful if at war.
 
I agree with RoboPig... I hate paying a bajillion dollars for units. Communism is awesome... I don't really mind despotism, I've played whole games with it before, but it does sometimes get annoying.
 
MarcoPolo said:
I've heard something about a 'Monarchy Slingshot' so I usually switch to it when it becomes available and go in War mode until I start to fall too far behind in the technology race. This is the point where I get confused. In order to catch up techs I switch to Democracy to get the fastest research speed and try to be more peaceful. This is usually the time when my top rivals decide they don't like me too much and initiate a war. Would Republic allow me to catch up and be at war at the same time? I've tried trades and diplomacy but some still declare war anyway. Because of the war wariness I’m forced to switch back to either Monarchy or Communism if it’s available. I tend to stay away from religious civilizations too so Anarchy can be a problem.
I think that you are a little confused about the term 'slingshot'. It refers to a technique where you are the first to get Philosophy and then choose a government tech as your freebie, thus cutting down the time spent getting out of Despotism. This means that you can have a Republic slingshot by researching Alpha>Writing>CoL>Phil and then take Republic. Unless you play an Always War game this is the route you should take IMO. Free units are less than in Monarchy by one per town or city but every commerce tile will give you an additional piece of gold and this will be more than enough to compensate for the costs of units and the use of the lux slider to address unhappiness as MPs are not available. In short Republic will give you more cash than Monarchy so you will be able to research faster and WW will only kick in if you fight long, drawn out wars. Hit the AI hard and fast and in less than ten turns it will be begging for peace. This will not be long enough to have any WW and as long as you've achieved your objective from starting the war, take the PT with whatever you can get and go back to them in 20 turns for another round.

On the switch to Demo, this is probably about the same time as the AI gets Communism/Facism if you are a little behind in the tech race and MPPs have been signed. If this is the case then they can afford to build more units and might regard you as weak. Also they will be in a different government and so their attitude to you will be less favourable. Also your wars may have resulted in you doing other things that have upset them and so they may really not like you at all. Read Bamspeedy's article on AI attitude in the War Acadamy for more details on what you can do to try and keep the AI sweet. If one AI still attacks, look at what MPPs have been signed and get a couple of alliances that will drag all the other AIs into the conflict but don't sign any MPPs yourself. After 20 turns, cancel any remaining alliances and then take peace whilst the rest of the world remains at war for ages due to the MPPs they have signed. If you fight smart (How does War Weariness work?) you can survive the lower threshholds for WW in Demo for this to work and then you can gain a massive tech lead whilst the AIs fight their way to a standstill.

My view on the original question? One switch is enough and researching two optional techs plus an additional period of anarchy is really not worth the slightly lower corruption. If I'm playing a Religious civ and have picked up the techs in trade, then I'd consider the switch but I'd look at what CivAssistII predicts for income and production as well as considering the chances of a long war in the near future before instigating a revolution.
 
unless you plan a very precise win in the AA get out of despotism as soon as you can.

monarchy only for always war, as others have said. this doesn't mean a game with alot of wars, republic can work fine for that, this means a game of always war - meet a civ, declare war, no peace until defeat.

republic is the gov't of choice for most of the top players. it is easily the most balanced. the greatest benefit is the one extra gold for each square already producing one. it is a bit difficult to adjust to with the unit cost and no military happiness, but learn to use it and it will absolutely be the best way to go. the trick is to build plenty of roads. have some workers assigned to this task exclusively. every citizen should be working a tile with a road as soon as you can complete one. roads, roads, roads!! this helps your tech rate, unit support, and happiness by providing the gold.

it has been shown that for 100k games feudalism is very effective.

personally i hate democracy. wasting research to get to it, and the costs for being a democracy are too great for the small benefit. i haven't noticed the increased production like it says in the civlopedia, (maybe one shield per city?). by that time you should have most of your productive cities improved, and roads to other civs completed the extra worker speed doesn't add much to your game. considering the extra anarchy don't even bother with democracy. going here straight from despotism is just a total waste.

i have tried communism a few times with very large empires. there is greater overall production, but i mainly dislike forced labor. whipping citizens late in the game doesn't seem benefitial. with other gov'ts i can cash rush and produce units as quickly, then after you have replaceable parts use the engineer specialist to help with improvements drastically off-setting waste and minimizing the benefit of communism. i don't think it is a useless gov't, but most victories can be had as easily by skipping it especially if you have only a modest empire.

i have never tried fascism, and see no use for it.

basically, unless you have a unique reason not to, get to republic as fast as possible, and stay there. if the game is played properly WW is easily managed, the unit support, and happiness are soon not an issue once your empire grows. use the slingshot for emperor games or below almost every time. even higher levels under the right circumstances.

get less anarchy: this is an allowed exploit. after you discover your gov't tech a pop-up will suggest what to research next. you are given the option to change the tech with the pull down menu, to agree with the suggestion, or to get the big picture. select get the big picture. this will take you to the tech tree. now press f1. this takes you to the domestic advisor. a small box with gov't type will be located below the sliders. click on the box. it will ask if you really want to do this. say yes. now check the advisor by clicking the word more. do this until the advisor tells you how long your anarchy will be. (it is not essential that you check for anarchy, but i just do). exit this screen. a pop-up will now ask if you want to revolt. say yes. and when you check the domestic advisor again you will notice one less turn of anarchy. you will see this mentioned in some posts as the big picture method of changing gov'ts. i have heard that it gives a new random number for anarchy, but in my experience it always results in one less turn. it only works if you discover the tech yourself. no huts or trades will permit a look at the big picture.
 
MarcoPolo said:
Do most of you top players go Despotism->Monarcy->Republic->Demcracy or do you just skip Republic and go straight for Democracy? Do you use Communism?


Depends if I am religious or not.

If religious, I switch gov'ts to whatever is best suited at the time - so Despotism - Mon - Rep - Dem is not at all unusual. Nor is using Communism if the empire becomes quite large and there is frequent warfare.

If I don't have the religious trait, then I usually just make one switch, to Republic, and keep it for the rest of the game. If you do have it, then you are missing out if you don't take advantage of it.
 
Definitely democracy needs boosting, especially being on its own little generally worthless tech tree.

But assuming you get it from an AI or something.. Balancing out the fact that it has NO unit city support (which is major) you do only pay 1 per extra unit instead of two. Also, 150% faster workers is nice, does industerious give 150% or 200%? I think its 150. If your workers work faster, that means you need less of them. Which balances against the no unit support per city as well. So democracy does have its place.

That said, going to republic and just staying there works well for those who are occasionally but not always at war. Republic gives 1 extra commerce on any square that already produces 1? Civipedia speaks of boosted commerce and production in democracy. Does that mean in democracy you get 1 extra shield/commerce for every square that produces shield/commerce, like a golden age? I mean maybe thats how it was meant to work? I don't remember seeing that in democracy before.

About communism, I think it has the despot like cap on commerce.

Facism seems like a useful government, if you like wipping.
 
TruePurple said:
Also, 150% faster workers is nice, does industerious give 150% or 200%? I think its 150.
150% in C3C, 200% in vanilla/PtW IIRC

TruePurple said:
Civipedia speaks of boosted commerce and production in democracy. Does that mean in democracy you get 1 extra shield/commerce for every square that produces shield/commerce, like a golden age?
The increased production statement is a bit misleading IMO. It refers to lower amounts of waste and so the empire's total production is much greater. Increased commerce is down to both the additional gp per tile already producing commerce as well as lower corruption. There is certainly no additioonal shield as in GA and mobilization.

TruePurple said:
About communism, I think it has the despot like cap on commerce.
I didn't think that was the case but I don't use it that often so I don't know for sure. I thought that the only governments that had a cap on food/production/commerce were despotism and anarchy.
 
Well thats what civipedia said. Well sort of. That 'while better then despotism in production and food, due to... communism has a limit on commerce' (from memory, don't feel like looking it up exactly, anyways you guys could do that yourself :p) Some of civipedias stuff is downright cryptic.
 
i have tried communism a few times with very large empires. there is greater overall production, but i mainly dislike forced labor. whipping citizens late in the game doesn't seem benefitial. with other gov'ts i can cash rush and produce units as quickly, then after you have replaceable parts use the engineer specialist to help with improvements drastically off-setting waste and minimizing the benefit of communism. i don't think it is a useless gov't, but most victories can be had as easily by skipping it especially if you have only a modest empire.

With Communism, you don't cash-rush, you, uh, shield-rush. Use your new found excess production to build cavalry which you then disband in the target city for 20 shields. With other gov'ts, I typically find that if you need a lot of engineers to build an improvement in a city due to waste, then that city will likely not benefit much from the improvement anyway. Shield-rush is most useful in those distant size 12 cities that only produce 1 shield/1 commerce under othe gov'ts.

Having every be productive is a bit overwhelming at first. Combine with 6 units per city of support and 4 MPs available to you and your large empire can steamroll over anyone. Communism works, but like Republic, you have to set up for it. I typically cash rush a few factories first in large cities before I switch. You'll be so productive that after a few turns you won't miss cash rushing and you definitely will not miss those riots from WW.
 
gunkulator said:
With Communism, you don't cash-rush, you, uh, shield-rush. Use your new found excess production to build cavalry which you then disband in the target city for 20 shields. With other gov'ts, I typically find that if you need a lot of engineers to build an improvement in a city due to waste, then that city will likely not benefit much from the improvement anyway. Shield-rush is most useful in those distant size 12 cities that only produce 1 shield/1 commerce under othe gov'ts.

Having every be productive is a bit overwhelming at first. Combine with 6 units per city of support and 4 MPs available to you and your large empire can steamroll over anyone. Communism works, but like Republic, you have to set up for it. I typically cash rush a few factories first in large cities before I switch. You'll be so productive that after a few turns you won't miss cash rushing and you definitely will not miss those riots from WW.

Not sure if it's considered an exploit or not but you can also draft rush with Communism. Draft a Rifleman then disband it for shields. You do this when you city has reached it's growth limit. It involves some micromanagement but can lead to quick 100k cultural victories or Universities and Research labs for SS victory.
 
I've done Draft rushing too. I don't consider it an exploit though because of the unhappiness generated. Anything you do for a 100K win is fair game in my book. I find that to be the most tedious of victory conditions.
 
Milking is tedious. If I'm about to win in another way, I just win.
 
I've grown use to playing with Monarchy, and haven't tried Republic yet. The idea of paying 2 gold per unit, units not giving any military police bonus, and the low number of free units per cities keeps me away from it, though from what I've read, I should give Republic a shot.

By playing with a Monarchy, you are able to employ lots of free units that not only defend your cities, but also keep up to 3 people content as military police. I generally build all possible buildings to keep people happy including the Hanging Gardens, so I don't have trouble with rioting. Adam Smith's Trading Co. supports commerce producing buildings, and that fattens up my treasury and allows me to give lots of luxuries and research too. Corruption is just a little worse than with Republic, but the Courthouse and Police Station take out most corruption. Monarchy eliminates war weariness, which is useful if wars get prolonged or if someone from across the continent declares war on you, and you don't have the means to immediately reach him and finish the war quickly (happens to me almost every game). The draft limit for Monarchy is 2 units, so if you're really desperate, you have those extra 2 units when you need them, along with the regular 3 or more that keep people content as well.

I suggest playing as Monarchy during peace (or Republic, though I haven't tried it), and then switching to Fascism to prepare for invasions and carry them out, and after you finish and your workers clean up, switch back to whatever government you were before. Each time I do that, my invasions are incredibly successful, and going back to Monarchy lets the conquered cities expand their boundaries.
 
Republic is the way to go, except in variants such as Always-War, where you want Monarchy. There are also times where Communism is useful, but only when you have a sprawling empire spanning over 40% of the world. Republic is a pretty good war government too. WW can usually be countered by lux slider. The commerce bonus in Republic allows you to war longer than you would expect.
 
I have been in long wars fighting on multiple fronts and still managed to keep my empire relatively stable even under Democracy. Of course this was back in my Warlord days. :f
 
I've had good luck with little or no WW during long wars in Republic, provided you aren't losing too many units over a long period of time or losing towns. In C3C the unit support is 1/town, 3/city, 4/metro and the commerce bonus easily pays for any additional unit support when needed.

I'd only use Monarchy for an AW game.
 
I've never played AW myself, though I really should give it a try. I seem to have a Small Talent for War. (/TwilightZone) :D
 
I've only done 2 AW's, one at Warlord and one at Regent. I got LOTS of advice from people here on the board and had fun doing it. I tried AW because I was so afraid of doing ANY fighting at all, and it helped me get used to the idea.

Maybe it's time for me to try an AW at Monarch. ;)
 
Macezek said:
I've grown use to playing with Monarchy, and haven't tried Republic yet. The idea of paying 2 gold per unit, units not giving any military police bonus, and the low number of free units per cities keeps me away from it, though from what I've read, I should give Republic a shot.

By playing with a Monarchy, you are able to employ lots of free units that not only defend your cities, but also keep up to 3 people content as military police.
I think that you should try it. Many people like the idea of MPs to help out with happiness but the trouble is that those units are then fixed in position. In Republic, you can place the units where you need them and so you don't require so many. This means that those sheilds can be used for something else.

When switching from primarily using Monarchy to Republic, many people find themselves playing with units defending every town, which can be both expensive and uneccessary. I suggest that you defend your border towns and then have pockets of units that can react to any landings behind your lines. It is true that unit support can be costly with a small empire so it can be a little expensive when you first switch but if you are still expanding the pain will ease. I don't tend to exceed my unit support with a large empire and the additional gp per commerce tile easily pays for it if I do.

Just make sure that you build plenty of roads, be prepared to use the lux slider to maintain happiness in your core and also consider the use of specialists as required.

I'm interested to hear that some people use Facism. I must admit that I've never used it but as soon as the AI gets it, their tech progress slows considerably.
 
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