Noble: Shifting out of Representation

[Jtownsend]

In my games thus far I have tended to use the pyramids and Rep even though I'm running a CE. (Sometimes I kind of accidentally end up a hybrid since the bulbs are so nice, but regardless, overwhelmingly CE.)

What I'm wondering about is leaving Rep - I have a hard time convincing myself to do it. I know it'd be a fair number of hammers from developed towns, and that culture'd be... spiffy I suppose. But some of that, at least, is offset by specialists here and there being used to tweak pop growth and by the fact that my top 5 cities have grown up to 3 points beyond their happiness thresholds.

Running culture is up there with budget deficits, credit card debt and land war in Asia on my list of things I'd just as soon not do - so those 2-3 citizens in key cities revolting is just seriously unappetizing when the advantage is a pile of hammers, some culture I only use for borders, or the police state benefits. (Oh yay, less war weariness - in exchange for -3 happy in my top 5.)

EDIT: Forgot my question.

So I guess the point is - the best options are simply to "plan ahead" when you're getting close to leaving Rep, building happiness above your current needs using buildings (if unbuilt), religions (if applicable) and luxury trades (if available)?

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Rep is my favourite civc and I usually stay in it for the majority of the game, barring the need for Police State (and the rare US). It usually get's me through the whole game if I can snag the 'mids. If you do like Rep, why not consider doing a SE? You can drop the science slider to 0% and use the Culture slider to deal with WW. I'm not sure why you're so opposed, it helps borders pop faster, steal important tiles, and I consider it more of a propaganda slider when I'm war mongering.

I guess I didn't answer your question, but I think Rep is one of the best civics in the game, and I don't usually find myself needing to switch out of it.

 

[Jtownsend]

1. I kind of have the feeling SE is an accidental economy. After having Catherine pillage 10 of my towns and given my Rep affinity I can certainly see the positive sides, but I still don't get the feeling that the game was meant to be set with a 0 science slider.

2. I actually pretty much have stayed in Rep. I guess I again have an irrational need to progress through whig history on the civics screen and give my people the most sophisticated democracy available, even if it pisses 3 of them off in 5 cities.

On that note, I forgot to add "whip away the unhappies +1" on my list of known solutions. Nothing makes more sense than moving from Rep to US via the enlightened expedient of slaughtering large parts of the populace.

 

[Ibian]

If you get your research and monies from hammers instead of cottages you are free to adjust the slider whichever way you want without impacting anything other than happy faces and spy points. More happy faces equals more people equals more hammers equals more beakers and gold.

A hammer economy doesnt have quite the raw research value of a bunch of cottages when happiness is not an issue, but getting infrastructure up faster more or less makes up for it (sometimes more, sometimes less). And when happiness is an issue hammers probably come out ahead.

It also makes it very easy to go to war since you have more happy faces than you could possibly need as well as a ridiculous military production. Build infrastructure, tech to whatever will get you the other guys land, go take his cities and repeat with the next guy, all without a single unhappy citizen.

All that said, i still use rep most of the game. Because why the hell not? Its just plain good compared to the rest.