Question about Democracy vs. Communism

[Bibor]

Lets take aside the happiness issue (police units and happiness slider) due to difficulty levels.

You have a huge country, (lets say 500 tiles, not counting "unused sea borders"). Since average city coverate is around 15-18 tiles it would be 25 cities, which is, on normal map, a normal situation.

Democracy gives +1 gold for every tile that produces at least one. Since communism comes at time when all your tiles are covered with roads, this means that you get EXTRA 500 gpt. 25 cities is not great in corruption, so you get around 400 extra gold (more or less).

This means that by entering democracy you can have 400 more units just by *entering democracy*. I think that Communism has 6 free units per city. So 6x25= 150 units are free.

Lets say you spend from those 400 around 100 on happiness and 100 on tech, you still get 50 units more than in communism *for free* (only by switching to democracy).

... not to mention library+temple+harbor/airport rushing in newly conquered cities and a really-really-low-corruption base at home that can pump out expensive units, wonders and improvements... plus the 50% increase in worker efficiency. etc.

What do you think?

-bibor

 

[dmanakho]

Communism for big civs is better due to extreme low corruption level..
Every single city in the civs is productive unlike when you have democracy...
And i think something is wrong with your calculations, but i can't see what is..
May be others can tell

 

[Bagatur]

This was exact problem for me last game. I had very distand 20 cities, very producting core in democracy, getiing tech each 4-5 turns. BUT: with overal 60-65 citiesin empires, luxury slider takes amount 300-400 gpt or so. which is equal to get techone tunr earlier and saving some good cache - 250 gpt average. With non-religios civ,I would switch govs liek crazy if needed, but my last game I suffered bad from WW(having 8 lux and US) and bcs my two closest neighboars were 2nd and third civs, my conquer upon them could brake my empire, so I did switch to communism(after I spent ALL saved money in rushes ).

But seems for 25 towns if well shaped empire, with capitol i nthe middle its good to be Demo. I'm Ragnar now and its polar model of empire(Tronheim near South pole), having huge ocean beneath it, led me to bolshevik gov Also, pop rush in new cities game opportunity ti cut them down to 2-3 size and having temples and granaries in all of them(of course, I had 60-70 slave workes, so I joined some of them if needed). Actually, I found drafting MI from each city(and adding a slave) and disbanding it more usefull than pop rush for temples and granaries(27 shields for MI, so, add some shileds and u have temple for two draftees, while u can have temple by cutting three heads down with joining workers)

 

[Yiannis]

I believe that communism is worse than democracy,even for the largest nations.The reason is that in communism you can hurry with citizens instead of gold,and therefore
you must a)avoid hurrying to prevent unhappiness and population loss and b)use stored money only in diplomacy.In adittion,the number of 25 cities is compared with the map size.The number of optimal cities in a standard size map is 20,so the rampant corruption trigger is activated.My opinion is that you should use communism only in times of continual war,to avoid war wearyness and army payment,and switch to democracy if war is over.(Honestly now,I don't follow this policy.I stick to democracy all the times since I discover it.If the goverment collapses from too much unhappiness,I may switch to monarchy-I always want to hurry with gold-).

 

[dmanakho]

Actually, pop rushing improvements sometimes better than using gold, but only during the war times.
When you take over the enemy city it's always a good idea to shred it's population to 1 citizen to minimize culture flips and the fastest way to do it by pop rushing. Frankly, If you could use gold with communism that would be a best government ever in Civ3 it just has to have some downsides otherwise it would be way too overpowered.
I don't do more than 2 (max3) goverment switches during the game unless I play religious civilization. So i switch from despotism to republic (most of the time) or monarchy (rarely) and then I either stay with republic until end of the game or switch to democracy (in rare peaceful games) or communism (when i become a begemoth civilization waging constant wars)

 

[ozo]

Another reason to switch to Communism from Democracy is war weariness. I had to do that in my last game, and I just smashed my opponents. Communism uses pop-rushing, but you can quell the unhappiness with martial law

 

[Longasc]

Democracies have a commerce bonus, and they can money rush.

But Communism has incredibly low corruption in C3C. As soon as you hit the OCN, you have definite advantages in terms of money and raw production power in communism. The drawback is forced labor, but you will have big cities by that time - and without this drawback, communism would be even stronger.

I also believe Republic to be better all in all compared to Democracy. (Unit Support, War Weariness issues, earlier available)

 

[Yiannis]

Dmanakho,you're right for what you said about culture flipping prevention with communism,but still you could do the same prevention for this trouble in democracy with hunger,more slowly of course,while "forced labor" hurry makes gold nearly useless.Also,"forced labor" limits your hurry range.I mean,you can't hurry big projects because the population will exhaust.If e.x. you need re-enforcements to continue the invasion in a country,far away from your capital,you would need either an airport to make airlifts or make a unit there,but both airports and industrial/modern age units are extremely costly,so you will have difficulties unless you have captured a big metropolis.

 

[Longasc]

Communist governments can spend the money on espionage or diplomacy.

 

[dmanakho]

Yep, all you can do with money in communism is espionage, diplomacy, trade and unit upgrades...
And i think it's a good idea.. if you could use money to rush buildings it would be a super government and all other governments in Civ3 would not make any sense to use once Commy is researched.

Personally, I think that it is overpowered as it is in C3C.

 

[Longasc]

The ability of having enough money for unit upgrades, you will have a large army in communism I assume, is not bad at all - you will swim in money, the ability not to spend it on rushing projects suits the "espionage and upgrade your units" style of communism quite well.

I also agree with dmanakho - the AI should use it more often, too, it is really a killer government, especially for the player. Especially in C3C.

 

[MachDelta]

One other note about Communism: You can go easy on the Lux slider. Right now i've got a Communist Japan game where I own about 35% of the world, including 4 luxuries. Lux slider is at zero. How? Well for one, ALL my cities are productive, so all of them have a minimum of temples/cathedrals/etc to keep people happy. But the other reason is that, combined with railroads, I have units stationed in every city I own that act as military police. You can get upto 4 happy faces in communism with MPs (IIRC), which means you have even MORE spare change to invest wherever you want.


The other thing I love about communism is the production. It may not be so great for wonder building (except in your 3 palace/fp/sp cities), but guaranteed you can outproduce any other nation when it comes to sheer bulk. A mobilized communist nation is an amazing military machine IMO

 

[Megabyte]

Hi folks !

I absolutely agree that communism is the best gov if your empire is >30-40 cities.Especially in C3C with the SPHQ & Patch 1.22 its THE corruption-killer !
And with all those money not spend on rushing and the 0 % science-strat you should be able to steal each tech and do lots of propaganda on the AI pop1-cities. Its a shame that the AI does not use it, but rather prefers fascism and then cripples itself.

have fun !

 

[Longasc]

I do not even need MP to keep my people happy with zero lux slider, Demigod... if you have unhappy people, you have the excess money to trade for luxes...

 

[Longasc]

Megabyte, you are right, the AI hardly uses communism even if it would fit better and goes a self-destructive path with facism - they whip and eliminate their own citizens, switching to facism also kills a lot of people... the AI goes down the drain when it choses facism...

 

[t3h_m013]

i think the worst thing about communisism is that when you get it nothing is worth pop rushing (20 shields per person iirc) so its like 10 citizens to rush anything...
however less cities need things being rushed...
i think that as the game goes on money and citizens should rush more shields.. e.g. with the discovery of certain techs...

 

[Longasc]

t3h m013 (your name is a real hardship btw), I would love that, but... communism is already superior...

I would love that have facism optional money OR pop rushing. Because it is inherently weaker compared to communism imo!

 

[Yiannis]

Communist governments can spend the money on espionage or diplomacy.

I must admit I hadn't thought of that. However,the basical problem is the nature of goverments. I believe that communism is for superior military while democracy is for prosperity.

 

[dmanakho]

I believe that communism is for superior military while
democracy is for prosperity.

And your believe would work for smaller nations, but as it's been stated so many times before, huge civilizations are prospering with communism not with democracy.
It's just a game implementation and I reckon it may change in the next version. After all, it might be a bad example when people start thinking that communism can be as good in real life as it is in Civ game . We certainly don't want that to happen.

 

[Durkz]

And your believe would work for smaller nations, but as it's been stated so many times before, huge civilizations are prospering with communism not with democracy.
It's just a game implementation and I reckon it may change in the next version. After all, it might be a bad example when people start thinking that communism can be as good in real life as it is in Civ game . We certainly don't want that to happen.

I lived under communism in ex-yugoslavia and it was better then democracy now (there is a lot more real life coruption now) but it was NOT a Staljin type communissm it was lets say more "democratic" communism you hadd hippies here and you could watch American movies listen to rock...
MHO
Staljin's communism=BAD
Tito's communism=GOOD