Monarchy VS Despotism. Which one?

[Logoncal]

I'm getting torn between both of them? Which should i go?

 

[Caesar Augustus]

It really depends on your situation. Monarchy lets you trade gold and production (in the form of unit maintenance and construction, respectively) for happiness (i.e. working more tiles). In a sense the value of monarchy is a little easier to calculate because you can see the expense of the units, and you can see the yield of the extra tiles you can work, so it's a matter of comparing those values, though some of the monarchy happiness is kind of free (as you'd probably have at least one or two city defenders regardless). Despotism is going to swing a lot more depending on the circumstances; it's AMAZING (maybe even mandatory) when you have low production, lots of food, and few specialists. It's useless when you have high production, not a lot of food, and/or plenty of specialist slots. I'd say that Monarchy is more GENERALLY useful but despotism is stronger for those situations it's intended for.

 

[dragof2]

I entirely agree with what Caesar has said. I will add on that A: Despotism has a more immediate pay off. Some UHV's need you to move very quickly, and even when Monarchy averages out to higher output, sometimes getting some knights or buildings two turns early makes all the difference. B: Despotism doesn't just burn through food, but if used a lot it also burns through happiness (temporarily). If you have a higher happy cap than you know what to do with (either because it is so big, or because your city(s) don't have many tiles worth working so they don't need much pop, then despotism gets much better. C: Some buildings are important to get asap. For instance getting a forge, library, or market up early in a city can make up for lost output from whipped pop. Often when playing a european civ where you settle several cities at once that need similar buildings (usually forges) then a short period of despotism to get crucial infrastructure can be handy. D: In addition to Caesar's other listed examples, despotism isn't friendly to cottage economies. E: Finally, Monarchy is much more stability friendly overall. It has synergy with far more civics than despotism, including being apart of the powerful medieval vassalage synergies. The unhappiness from despotism is also one of the best ways to get instability from unhappiness (since the unhappiness has to come from a source other than population), while Monarchy oftentimes helps with generating the excess happiness that triggers "we love the king days" and giving stability from happiness.