On Communism

coup d'etat

Chieftain
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Nov 1, 2002
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Washington State
This is the first time I've posted and I have just recently started researching Civ3 on the internet so please excuse me if I sound like a newbie :)

I generally play on prince (regent) with the intent of outteching my opponents and then attacking when I have enough of a military force to take 3-4 cities in 1 turn (this cycle often begins around military tradition -- i usually skip chivalry in order to get to MT and the industrial age asap). This usually works best for me using Republic 100% of the time. Although I have played quite a bit of civ3, I am still not as familiar with it as civ2...

It seemed to me, communism and republic in civ2 were 'balanced' governments; republic being much better for smaller empires, once your empire increases to a certain size, communism became a much more effective means of governing your citizens. I have tryed using communism in a few situations in civ3 where I'm interested in making the transition from teching to making war (I found this to be very easy in civ2 since communism retained the tech rate of republic). I really have not been impressed with communism thus far. It seems to me that Republic and Democracy are clearly the superior forms of government in civ3, especially by the time communism becomes available. So then, I ask, does anyone have any feelings on when communism is an appropriate form of government, or is my assessment of the situation inaccurate?

So I'm wondering if communism we 'depowered' in civ3 for any balance reasons (in civ2 it seemed to me communism was VERY powerful if you had a reasonable amount of cities, above 60 or so, especially since there was no senate overruling declaration of war)

Admittedly I have not had time to try communism since I patched my game (last night :), so any thoughts pertaining to communism in the newest patch are welcome too.

Thanks
 
Communism can be a very useful goverment type if you know how to use it. First, It has the same military cost thing ( 2 for towns, 4 for cities, 8 for metro's ) as monarchy, so this should be gotten once you have some metros for maximum efficiency. I have found that they are extremely good for war, 2nd only to despotism, if not better. The fact that spies are easier to get and better is invaluable for those of us who have their own ' CIA agenda's ' for the rest of the world. Communal corruption and waste has been extremely helpful for me, since i had most of my cities with none/few, while some were in the teens. with that, all of my cicites perform well and efficient. Forced labor is kind of irritating and is one of their few weak points. Although they have lost some of there old fire from civ 2, communisim is a good choice for wars or people who just like that CIA stuff. :ar15: :satan:
 
In civ3, monarchy is better than communism in almost every case. If you are a non-religious civ you can't switch governments every time you fight a war, so it's best to stick with monarchy for constant war, republic for frequent wars, or democracy for blitz wars.

If you are a religious civ here are some "benefits"...

Communal waste - This is nice for building infrastructure in cities farther out. Once you have the improvements you need, especially a courthouse and police station, you will have decent production in these cities when you switch governments again. The bad part about communal waste is it cripples your core city production. If you have more than 25 cities don't even bother with communism - the corruption is insane everywhere.

Pop rushing - You can pop rush in captured cities to reduce the risk of culture flip and get a quick temple or something. But you need an extra luxury for every pop point you rush in a city if you want to keep it out of disorder (the unhappiness lasts 20 turns and jumps to nearby cities if you abandon the one you rushed in). It's also annoying not being able to cash rush in your core cities during communism.

Espionage - Yes, communism has the best spy success rate. But it's very rare that you need espionage to win the game. If you are filthy rich and too weak to destroy a capital in the space race(how the heck does that happen in the modern age?) you could switch to communism and delay your opponent by sabatoging a 640-shield component.


Communism is definitely the weakest modern government in civ3. But it can be argued that this makes the game more realistic. ;)
 
Very true... Communism does suck compared to monarchy, but I would rather be communist fighting wars than monarchy.
:eek:
 
Communism is very weak. It will not see the light of day in a competitive multiplayer game or competitive single player games. It needs a major upgrade, especially considering it is the last government tech to come available. Communism is used primarily for prettying up games already won, using communal corruption to construct buildings in the far reaches of a bloated empire. There are virtually no cases where Communism helps a player win the game faster or more efficiently. Monarchy provides less corruption in the core where it counts, making for faster wonder construction. Monarchy usually has more gold than Communism.

My proposal to upgrade Communism: ten free unit support plus doubled unit support 4/8/16 (vs. 2/4/8). This makes Communism useful for small empires with military ambitions and lets human players role play the huge conscript armies favored by Communist regimes.
- Bill
 
I think that communism should be corruption-free, like civ2. Like, you have the production penalties and such, but you don't have corruption...
 
It seems to me that for Civ3, the designers wanted to go with balancing all the government types so as to make them all viable governments, even late in the game.

This of course differs from Civ2, in that you have 3 ancient governments(Despotism, Monarchy, Republic) and then 3 modern governments(Fundamentalism, Communism, Democracy). They range from good military with weak economic/scientific growth up to weak military with strong economic/scientific growth.
Despotism might be good for a large military in the ancient era, but its clearly outdone by Fundamentalism. Monarchy is the moderation of Military strength and economic/scientific growth in the ancient era, but its clearly inferior to Communism. Because Democracy has no corruption, it too is superior to its ancient counterpart, the Republic(although it suffers much more from war unhappines).

Civ3 on the other hand, wants to keep the governments balanced in a way as to make them all viable to the end, and this is probably why Fundamentalism was done away with(other than the fact its a rediculously abused government). Now you have 5 governments with their strengths and weaknesses.

And Communism is definitely weaker in Civ3 than before. However, it is in my mind the most ideal government for conquest, because of its communal corruption. In one game I played, where I was conquering with Democracy, I had to stop going to war because war weariness in all of my English cities(I was the Germans) were causing them to all riot. Normally I'd combat war weariness by raising the entertainment percentage, but this had no effect on these formerly english cities because corruption was so high, I could get nothing out of those cities. In a Communism though, I would not be dealing with war weariness, and those cities would actually be productive. In short, Communism is definitely meant to be a militaristic government and a government for rediculously large empires. Monarchy is more suited to early military campaigns where the losses to corruption are marginal.
 
I crack up every time I read threads about 'communism' reducing corruption!:lol:

Communism (as practiced in the Soviet Union) is (was) one of the most corrupt governments ever devised by man!

Luckily this is just a game.:egypt:
 
There is corruption in every form of government. The US gets more attention then most. How about Argentina?
 
The estimated cost of corruption in Brazil is $1 trillion per year or 68% of Brazil's gross Domestic product.
 
Hey lets not turn this into a political debate please :)
We're talking about a game here... :)

Anyway thanks to you guys who put up your thoughts on communism it helped me put a little perspective on how to use it (or why not to :))...
 
.....

ok, so I'm playing a game right now on regent, continents, standard sized map as China... I've conquered my entire continent and have 66 cities in my possession (~25 are unproductive)... with a forbidden palace (badly placed however :)) In monarchy I'm averaging about 10-15 turns per advance, with a profit of ~45 gold per turn... I switch to communism and with the same tax rate It takes me 25 turns to research an advance that takes me 15 in monarchy and I'm *losing* 50 gold per turn!
I didn't compare closely the production rates between the 2 government types, but I imagine monarchy was still more productive (or the same), although my unproductive cities were producing more... so to anyone who reads this, my question is...

How many cities do you need to control before you can actually profit from communal corruption in terms of commerce, or is it possible?
 
Communism is only there if u r in danger or wish to remove say Babylon from your borders. Its not that good as u fall behind in tech and economy flounders with the high corruption rates
 
If you built longevity great wonder, your city will grow up with 2 citizen each time.

So in modern day you can sacrifice geneticaly modified citizen to rush built anything, if you have lots of irrigation + railroad + granerry, i tell you your city will grow very quick and then get the whip to rush built.

Or for a spread out empire, like on archipelago, communism is far bettter then monarchy. A city on the other side of the world is as productive a core one.
 
Originally posted by coup d'etat
.....

ok, so I'm playing a game right now on regent, continents, standard sized map as China... I've conquered my entire continent and have 66 cities in my possession (~25 are unproductive)... with a forbidden palace (badly placed however :)) In monarchy I'm averaging about 10-15 turns per advance, with a profit of ~45 gold per turn... I switch to communism and with the same tax rate It takes me 25 turns to research an advance that takes me 15 in monarchy and I'm *losing* 50 gold per turn!
I didn't compare closely the production rates between the 2 government types, but I imagine monarchy was still more productive (or the same), although my unproductive cities were producing more... so to anyone who reads this, my question is...

How many cities do you need to control before you can actually profit from communal corruption in terms of commerce, or is it possible?

There are very few real world games where a player has more gold in Communism than Monarchy. Communism may provide more gold in a hypothetical empire with a very few far flung cities. Think of a two city empire with the cities far apart as the extreme case. There will be virtually no corruption because there are only two cities. The corruption calculation for Communism is entirely on the number of cities in the empire vs. the optimal city number (see the editor) and distance is ignored.

Communism's best use is for prettying up an already won game by building some improvements in outlying cities. In maybe 5% of games will a switch to Communism provide a more efficient path to victory. In multiplayer, I believe only about 5% of players will ever switch to Communism in a competitive game. And most of those players will be Religious civs that want to pop rush a few improvements and then switch out.

The latest AU (Apolyton University) mod has faster workers and free building maintenance for Communism. It still seems weaker than the other forms of goverment. So imagine how weak the stock version is. Maybe the playtesters use the spies to some effect (though there is no gold for missions), otherwise, I think they missed the boat as far as play balance.
- Bill
 
Ah ok I think i have a better understanding of communism now...
I was under the impression that communism was best for when you had a lot of cities, I didnt realize how corruption was calculated... I thought that when you got to a certain number of cities, the amount of commerce gained in the outer cities became greater than the commerce lost in the core cities (so lets say you had X number of cities at maximum corruption and Y number productive cities in your core, i was under the impression that once X became a certain number greater than Y, communism would become more profitable than monarchy and possibly even better than democracy or republic, even without the extra trade squares... it seemed like this was the way it worked in civ2? I could be wrong)

So now I get the impression communism is optimal in situations where you have a small number of cities spread far apart...
 
Personally, if i am a religious civ and i am ahead in tech of everyone else, i will switch to communism just to try and get some spies. Then i'll go back into anarchy and back to Democracy.
 
Communism actually isn't a bad form of government. It gives as much free units as Monarchy, and lets you draft more units than any other government. Forced labor is great for whipping out temples or libraries in captured cities (especially if you're religious or scientific.) Communal corruption is actually an advantage, especially if you have a large, spread out empire. Your cities on different continents will have just as much corruption as your cities at home. The corruption isn't bad if you have a courthouse and police station in every city. The corruption is all spread out, and each city's courthouse and police station reduces it. You won't have super-productive cities, but EVERY city you have will be productive and will be producing a good amount of shields (you might have to whip a courthouse first). You won't be able to win Wonder Races, but every decent-sized city you have will be churning out units. With the other government types, you basically have a ring of productive cities around your Palace/Forbidden palace and everything else is hopelessly corrupt. I say it's better for every city to have some corruption than have a couple of good cities and everything else be hopeless.

I read a post above about how someone switched from Republic to Communism and immediately started losing money and researching slower. That's not the point of Communism. Communism makes less money than Republic/Democracy, so if you're playing as a communist, you should build only the improvements you need (temple/library, barracks, courthouse, police station, possibly marketplace). Smith's trading company is a great wonder if you want to build Marketplaces, Banks, and Harbors, which can help out with money. With communism, you don't want every city to be having libraries, universities, and research labs. You have veteran spies, use those to steal techs.

Communism is NOT weak!
 
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