coup d'etat
Chieftain
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

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

Thanks