Republic

[Tone]

and dont tell me i need more citites, cause i had like 15.

You need more cities! (sorry but I couldn't resist it.)

Seriously though, you do! There can be a painful period with Republic, as others have already said, but you also need to play a little differently. For example, many people like to have spears in every town. You can't afford this and, more to the point, you don't need to do this. Anyway, who's afraid of spears? In republic you build an offensive army and go and take some more cities to increase your income and reduce your unit costs.

Another point is that roads are so important. You will not notice the commerce bonus in republic if you haven't got roads on the tiles that your citizens are working. How many workers have you got with your 15 cities?

How about you post a game here and someone can then tell you why republic is not working for you (and I can stop guessing what the problem is).

 

[RFHolloway]

With a good start (cow and another food bonus for example) I would be aiming for 15 cities by 1000BC (about the time I reach republic). Because I am going for a 100k culture win I am looking for 250 to 300 cities in total - you don't need to go that far, but 100 wouldn't be too far off the mark. at 1000BC I would need 15 to 20 workers, and have most of the tiles that I am working roaded. My military would be on the light side, but even then I would notice the maintainance.

I used to

Build military
switch to republic
improve the lands

That causes a massive cash crunch

I now

Improve the land
switch to republic
Build military

which helps smooth out the bump.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

The discussion keeps on going after all these years?

If you don't think Republic is the only government worth using, don't trust your own reasoning, trust all those people who have learned it in the past years.

Republic rocks in just about every possible way and you can just as well forget that the game offers any other governments. Just try it until it works for you, if it doesn't work for you when you try it, that is part of learning how to use it. There will be a day where you find out that you should have used nothing but republic all along.

*Exceptions are:
-100K culture games like feudalism or communism for pop rushing.
-SID level games may require massive numbers of longbows and trebuchets. To many to support in republic. Feudalism may be interesting here.
-Religious civ's could make an extra swich. They could consider going with Monarchy first in specific situations where it seems really hard to support an early republic (much more rare than many people think) or they could consider swiching to communism late in the game. This advantage is by no means big enough to choose a religious civ though. Many people would probably misuse a religious civ by abusing it as an argument to still use monarchy when a republic would me better.
-Multiplayer games. AI's are destroyed or you can buy peace when WW becomes a problem. In multiplayer games however, you can't end wars when you like it. WW can become a serious problem here and Republic may not be the right choise.

 

[Desertsnow]

I have been experimenting with the Republic Slingshot strategy of late, with moderate to excellent success. Typically I don't go to republic unless I have several marketplaces either operational or under construction, and still don't if the slingshot fails, but switching earlier seems to mitigate the frustration a little, probably because there is less to have to support, though getting roads built (I tend to train more workers early on nowadays) does certainly help.

 

[Siaphi94]

You need more cities! (sorry but I couldn't resist it.)

Seriously though, you do! There can be a painful period with Republic, as others have already said, but you also need to play a little differently. For example, many people like to have spears in every town. You can't afford this and, more to the point, you don't need to do this. Anyway, who's afraid of spears? In republic you build an offensive army and go and take some more cities to increase your income and reduce your unit costs.

Another point is that roads are so important. You will not notice the commerce bonus in republic if you haven't got roads on the tiles that your citizens are working. How many workers have you got with your 15 cities?

How about you post a game here and someone can then tell you why republic is not working for you (and I can stop guessing what the problem is).

i have tons of roads, and i seem to have more citites or equal citites to everyone else on regent so i thought that was good enough. i should tel you this was ancient age, well i was one tech away from middle age.Its not possible to afford a large army but i think i will post the game here

 

[Aabraxan]

I guess my next question is: what do you call a large military? And where are they? Are you leaving a spear in every city to guard?

I think posting a save would be very helpful.

 

[Siaphi94]

of course i put spears in my citites! i want them to defend cities. it seems like you have to be very agressive to get alot of citites

 

[Abegweit]

OK. We just discovered your problem. It's exactly what I suspected it would be. Stop wasting shields and unit support on useless units.

 

[Aabraxan]

of course i put spears in my citites! i want them to defend cities.

Once your empire passes a certain size, spears in "interior" cities are doing nothing more than MP duty under Monarchy (or other government with MPs). Under Republic, you have no MPs, so you don't need spears in those interior cities.

 

[MAS]

of course i put spears in my citites! i want them to defend cities.

But only in your border cities right? I mean, the ones that the AI can reach in one move, the ones 1 tile away from the border, and of course, 2 tiles away from the border with China in the Mid. Age, and the other civ in the Ind. Age.

Or are you allowing hostile units to actually get anywhere near you core?

 

[wntrmute]

Be careful with the leaving cities undefended thing, though. I've had more than one occasion where a gracious AI with an ROP ROP raped me due to an undefended city.

Then again, nukes are fun.

 

[Siaphi94]

i assume i should defend them all cause im afraid to lose these large citites but i guess that is the problem

 

[Aabraxan]

Defend the ones on the border. If nobody gets inside, all your other cities are safe. But yeah, be careful with undefended cities near the border, particularly post-rails. Cavs are 3-move units, and I've miscounted more than once . . . set off a chain reaction of lost cities & it was not pretty.

 

[Turner]

You don't even need to defend the ones on the border until you've got an aggressive neighbor. Sink that money you're spending on unit upkeep into research or infrastructure. In Rep you should be able to field an army pretty quickly. And if/when you need to build up your army because of an aggressive neighbor, build attack units, instead of defensive units. Make them defend against you, instead of vice versa.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Just dont defend any cities with spears. Rather have horses to bring the fight to them. And this is much more safe than using spears to defend yourself.

 

[darski]

I am playing a game now with Rome (vanilla) and for the first time with a republic, I cannot keep my population happy.

most of my cities head into disorder on any given turn. I had luxuries in the mix and was not at war at the time this was happening.

What am i missing? (OK no cheap temples with Rome - is that why this is going south so quickly?)

I am just getting back into CIV so I have forgotten anything I used to know.

 

[Delphi456]

So how would you handle this scenerio:

Emp/Huge/Pangea/Mayan

First 4 civs I meet are 4 techs ahead of me and already have my starting techs, so I can't trade . It took me 50 turns to get alpha which I traded to get to parity, but couldn't get WC, but I did get BW. How am I suppose to defend myself if I can't make archers? I eventually had to make a few spears until I could trade writing for WC, but that was a long time coming.

 

[Abegweit]

What am i missing?

The lux slider is your friend.

 

[Abegweit]

So how would you handle this scenerio:

Emp/Huge/Pangea/Mayan

First 4 civs I meet are 4 techs ahead of me and already have my starting techs, so I can't trade . It took me 50 turns to get alpha which I traded to get to parity, but couldn't get WC, but I did get BW. How am I suppose to defend myself if I can't make archers? I eventually had to make a few spears until I could trade writing for WC, but that was a long time coming.

What do you need defence for on a huge map?

 

[Tone]

So how would you handle this scenerio:

Emp/Huge/Pangea/Mayan

First 4 civs I meet are 4 techs ahead of me and already have my starting techs, so I can't trade . It took me 50 turns to get alpha which I traded to get to parity, but couldn't get WC, but I did get BW. How am I suppose to defend myself if I can't make archers? I eventually had to make a few spears until I could trade writing for WC, but that was a long time coming.

Well I would switch research off, save my cash, get as many contacts as possible be exploring in all directions (making any tech purchases as cheap as possible) and in the meantime build only warriors, settlers, workers and the odd barracks. Buy a key military tech, such as IW or WC, and then go and batter a few other civs to get more cities and a few more techs.

I've just played a couple of Deity games (one standard, one large) where initial research was 50 turns for any tech so I didn't bother. I only researched one or two techs (whilst in my GA); apart from this I traded and extorted my way up the tech tree. Pointy stick should never be underestimated.