Should I switch governments?

[Rosicrucian]

I need your advice! Heres the situation.

** Regent.
** Chinese.
** About 15 cities.
** Competitive in tech and production with my neighbor, India, (though he has many more cities).
** 50% railroaded, discovering Sanitation
** Monarchy

Overall, I'm fairly happy with my corruption levels. I placed my Forbidden Palace quite well, and I haven't had terrible corruption. I am still a Monarchy though, and I think I need to modernize my government. I'm not sure if Republic would be a good idea because I am in almost constant war. What about communism?

I never know when to switch governments. Can you discuss a little about that?

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Redbled]

If in constant war, I'd switch to communism. Then when you take over cities away from your capital, you can rush build by killing your people. Best way to expand territory away from your center. Start with a temple, and in just 5 turns after you quell the resisters, your city territory will expand, making it harder to be attacked, and allowing you resource use of that area. Plus, its more area for quick mobilization for you. Although I've never done any government but communism after monarch, so others may have other ideas.

 

[Tassadar]

In railroad time i like to be democraty to speed up worker and to climb uo the industrial tech tree quicker, but if you are at war, you can expect problem. Maybe try to make peace and switch democraty.

Anyway this is either cavalry time or reaserch time ( to have tanks and bomber). So if a war dont bring you realy something good( lux or ressource) , make peace.

Sometimes mornarchy is better then communism( if all you city are close to palace or FP).

 

[Matt_G]

Since you're not having corruption problems, and you are at war, I wouldn't switch. Stay a Monarchy. If you do make peace (and intend to be at peace for a while) then go to Democracy. Since you're not religous though I wouldn't go to Democracy if you don't intend to stay at peace.

 

[kb2tvl]

Unless your going for a conquest victory, I would not bother with communism. Assuming you have played in a way that you dont break treaties and make those captured workers into citizens after the war, you should be fine in monarchy. If you going to conquest victory, wait till you have about 20 to 30 cities and many are corrupted quite a bit then change to commy. Wait for a time where the civs are distracted with war and then change govs to communist.

 

[Mr Adeoye]

if you want peace and scientific advancement switch to republic and increase the entertainment output corruption will be less and your science rate shud increase.

 

[Tassadar]

The best way to make peace with an a.i with some adventage is capture or raze a few a.i. city( 2-3 is enough), then contact him and ask what you want for peace treaty( world map, gold per turn, tech). This way you can wage short war while in republic or democraty. Those pesky a.i. city near your territory are very good target.

 

[Catt]

My knee-jerk reaction is to advise that y stay as a monarchy until your wars start to die down. If you're looking at constant warfare, don't ever bother to switch.

Assuming you see peace ahead at some time: How many luxuries do you control? Have you built happiness-makers like temples, cathedrals and marketplaces? Are you a religious civ?

Switching to either Republic or Democracy will usually generate significant extra gold -- each tile producing at least one commerce will produce an extra commerce. However, troops garrisoned in cities will no longer make citizens content (military police), and you will need to pay support costs for all your military forces. A common experince in moving from Monarchy to Republic, especially after much warfare, is to have to dial back your science slider, because you are suddenly in deficit mode due to military support costs - nonetheless, even with dialed back science spending you may very well find your research paths are faster due to the extra trade being generated.

The real killer with a switch to a representative government is the happiness factor - under Monarchy, up to 3 citizens per city that would otherwise be unhappy are content due to military garrisons within the city. This contentedness factor goes away under Republic or Democracy, and unless you have secured several local luxuries, can trade for others, and/or have built happiness-making city improvements, a switch to a representative governement can bring your civ to its knees pretty quickly.

If you're a religious civ, go ahead and switch, regardless of all the other factors. It will be a good learning experience and it realy won't cost you much of anything. A huge advantage of religious civs is the 1-turn anarchy between governements - use it to its full advantage.

 

[Tassadar]

Catt ,IMHO republic or democraty with their extra commerce + bonus from marketplace+bonus from bank is unbeatable( size 12 city), you can support a much bigger army than monarchy because of those multiplicative effect on commerce, you dont need military police, a few luxuries + 10% on lux slider than every thing is under control.Your army can concentrate on hot spot unsted of staying into city to keep poeple happy. Most of the time i have only 1 defender in my core city+ a small army ready to counter attack if necesary.

 

[Catt]

Originally posted by Tassadar
Catt ,IMHO republic or democraty with their extra commerce + bonus from marketplace+bonus from bank is unbeatable( size 12 city), you can support a much bigger army than monarchy because of those multiplicative effect on commerce, you dont need military police, a few luxuries + 10% on lux slider than every thing is under control.Your army can concentrate on hot spot unsted of staying into city to keep poeple happy. Most of the time i have only 1 defender in my core city+ a small army ready to counter attack if necesary.

I agree. Rep or Demo is the way to go - huge benefits and the downsides are manageable.

But before I became familiar with the game mechanics, I sometimes experienced a pretty dramatic "happiness" problem or "military cost" problem on a switch to these fine governements. (I sense Rosicrucian is somewhat new to the game, or wouldn't be asking the question ). It depends greatly, BTW, on your difficulty level and specific game parameters. On Regent (Rosicrucian's game) I believe that you have 2 citizens born content. This means that, assuming you have 2 luxuries available (a reasonable assumption IMHO with about 15 cities), you can pretty comfortably grow to about size 6 with only 10% on the luxury slider. Extra luxuries = extra growth.

Even though Rosicrucian stated his civ was Chinese (non-religious), I might switch to Republic right away and try to make peace in the next 5 - 10 turns - I'd like to better understand the situation, but its fairly rare (IMHO) that a representative government can't improve your situation in Civ 3.

 

[Hades]

You should change and stay as Republic for the entire game. War wariness is a minor problem under republic. Have your governors take care of the cities' mood, and you won't have civil disorder ever again (you might have some of your people starved to death but dead people are always better than unhappy people). You should be able to maintain an acceptable level of income and research under a constant war using republic, even higher than Communism! Yes Communism is useless!!

If you are playing a religious civ, you can switch between democracy and republic for max advantage.... unfortunatly, the Chinese are not known to be religious.