Starvation causes anarchy?

[sprtchwzl]

So, is it true that too much starvation can lead a democracy to descend into anarchy?

Playing Vanilla 1.29f at Emperor level, I've been going in and out of war with Russia for a while. Everytime I make them declare war on me again (yes, I learned!), some of my cities start to starve down because I have to turn most citizens into specialists. Of course, I only do this in the cities where the lux slider doesn't provide enough happiness to prevent them from rioting. Always, after a turn or two, my civilisation descends into anarchy for 8 or 9 turns. This is quite annoying: it cuts away the provision of much needed fresh troops towards the frontline, forcing me to sigh peace again with Russia.

What should I do to avoid those frequent downfalls into anarchy?

 

[Othniel]

The issue is War Weariness, probably. Starvation never causes happiness issues.

Democracy stinks for any kind of a hot war, even where the AI declared on you. Either use a different government or use a hefty combo of luxuries and a high happy slider % to keep the people in line.

 

[sprtchwzl]

Well, I have all eight luxuries connected in my territory, and I have experimented with putting the happiness slider to 100%. About 20-25 cities would still suffer from war weariness, mostly cities without a marketplace and/or with inhabitants from Russia. In those, i changed all the unhappy citizens to specialists, leaving all my cities with only happy, content or specialist citizens. Okay maybe 4 or 5 unhappy citizens left in my total population, but I guess 5 out of a few hundred citizens won't be able to push a whole empire into anarchy. Since I have (nearly) no unhappy citizens left, I would not expect WW to lead to a revolt into anarchy, am I right?

But in the cities in with I turned most citizens into specialists, a lot of stavation happens during the next few turns, followed by the descend into anarchy. So with nearly no unhappy citizens because of WW but a lot of starvation in my cities, my conclusion would be that the anarchy is caused by starvation instead of WW. Or do I overlook something?

 

[Othniel]

I think what you're overlooking is that when a city starves, on the inter-turn the citizens that you made into specialists are reassigned to work tiles. That means for the following turn, you have a bunch of unhappy people again in that city, causing that city to revolt.

Now, I've never had this happen to me, but IIRC when you have enough cities in perpetual civil disorder, it can cause your whole empire to overthrow the government and descend into anarchy.

BTW, you are correct that the Russian citizens present in your cities, but not yet assimilated into your culture, will cause happiness problems when you are at war with Russia.

Regardless, I'm certain that starvation doesn't cause anarchy, but my guess is it is indirectly causing the tile reassignment, like I said above. I'd check that first...

 

[Tone]

Can I suggest that you read this? Knowing what causes WW is really important to waging war in representative governments but especially when playing in Democracy.

In short your people are not getting over the previous war before you start the next on with the same civ. Getting them to declare war on you is not enough to avoid the unhappiness unless you stop the war with Russia for a much longer period of time. In Republic you can wage war and use the lux slider to keep your cities working. In Democracy you'll reach a point where your citizens will revolt unless you stop the enemy from causing you damage, no matter how far the lux slider goes. Read the article for more details.

In the meantime either stay out of wars for a much longer period of time or find another civ to pick on for a while. WW is calculated seperately for each opponant so your people will not stand for another war against Russia but will love it if another civ declares war on you. If you do this though, you should consider getting Russia as an ally. If they ally against you, you'll be in deep trouble again!

 

[rysingsun]

although i don't remember the details of collapse of government for wartime democracies, i can give a few generallizations.
1) when i used to use democracy, long long ago, i could war for about 60 turns before collapse of government. it had nothing to do with happiness level. it had nothing to do with luxuries and marketplaces and specialists. it had nothing to do with whether my cities were rioting or not. rioting does not cause government collapse ever and neither does starvation, nor drafting. it had to do with the length of time i had been at war.

2) after the long anarchy period if you switch back to democracy again, the government will fall again almost immediately. unless you make and keep peace.

war weariness goes away when you make peace but comes back in full force if you do not stay at peace for 20 turns. likewise if you go to war in less than 20 turns your democracy will collapse yet again.

to answer your question about how do you get any productivity at all after the first collapse, may i suggest switching to republic?

 

[Othniel]

it had nothing to do with whether my cities were rioting or not. rioting does not cause government collapse ever and neither does starvation, nor drafting. it had to do with the length of time i had been at war.

Actually, length of time at war has no effect on WW. For instance, you can be democratic and have a 1,000 year phony war against a civ, and never experience any WW as long as you never cross that civ's path, so to speak.

What triggers WW are the factors described in the article that Tone linked to his post above.

Just for the record, I'm pretty sure that the civopedia describes how prolonged civil disorder can lead to an overthrow of the government. Of course, the manual could be wrong--like that's not a possibility --and anyway who lets their cities experience enough civil disorder to get to that point??

 

[sprtchwzl]

I think what you're overlooking is that when a city starves, on the inter-turn the citizens that you made into specialists are reassigned to work tiles. That means for the following turn, you have a bunch of unhappy people again in that city, causing that city to revolt.

[...]

Regardless, I'm certain that starvation doesn't cause anarchy, but my guess is it is indirectly causing the tile reassignment, like I said above. I'd check that first...

Dammit, I didn't know that. I guess there's nothing I can do to prevent this tile reassignment during the inter-turn?

 

[rysingsun]

But is government collapse purely due to war weariness? I've seen articles on the subject of war weariness. But government collapse seems to be one of those rarely discussed topics.

 

[Bartleby]

Democracy does collapse purely due to war weariness. I have only one experience of this, in a 3cc culture game I had changed to Democracy becuse unit support was lower than Republic. I didn't even have any unhappy citizens when I was overthrown*. The Anarchy was long enough that I wasn't able to win by culture. I decided to go for the Spaceship, but I was one turn short of Robotics in 2050, so I lost by Histograph.


* edit to add: I'm not 100% sure there were *no* unhappy citizens but I definitely wasn't seeing "chronic" unhappiness.

 

[rysingsun]

It follows then that I was mistaken about those 60 turns having anything to do with collapse of my government. Within those 60 turns I no doubt defeated 2 or 3 foes. But each time I defeated one the ww from that war disappeared. The eventual collapse must then have come because I saved the biggest foe for last, and because that particular foe caused too much ww.

This has some interesting strategic ramifications. Consider for example a game against 31 civs. Each individual civ is too small to produce the amount of ww necessary for collapse. Hence, all 31 civs could be defeated without collapse of democracy. But if there are only 7 enemy civs on a huge map the democracy will probably collapse before the first enemy is defeated.

 

[anaxagoras]

But if there are only 7 enemy civs on a huge map the democracy will probably collapse before the first enemy is defeated.

And thus the concept of an "oscillating war" was born. Democracy goes to war with Civ A. When WW gets too burdensome, Demo sues for peace with Civ A, goes to war with Civ B. When WW gets too burdensome again, Demo sues for peace with Civ B. Check clock. If 20 turns have elapsed since peace with Civ A was declared, Demo can go to war with Civ A again. If not, war with Civ C. When done there, check clock again.

And so on, until you run out of opponents. Of course, it is also important that you WIN at each step. WW is much less of a problem if you are winning than if you are losing. Ordinary citizens are like Captain Kirk: they don't like to lose.

 

[sprtchwzl]

to answer your question about how do you get any productivity at all after the first collapse, may i suggest switching to republic?

How about Communism? I've never played Communism before, and I wonder if this is the right moment to give it a try (since I still want to fight the Russians). Or does it has too many disadvantages compared to republic?

 

[MAS]

How about Communism? I've never played Communism before, and I wonder if this is the right moment to give it a try (since I still want to fight the Russians). Or does it has too many disadvantages compared to republic?

If you are just testing out all governments, then by all means, switch to communism and see what it does.

But the best advise I can give you is to not switch governments all the time to begin with!
I usually advice to switch from despotism to republic in the ancient age, and then stay in republic for the rest of the game, and build your empire in sucha way to accommodate the republic government optimally.

Communism works best if you have a large empire of metropolises. But in republic, you probably build a compact empire of specialist farms with a strong core.
On a pure 1 on 1 comparison, assuming both empires are build optimally for their respective governments, communism is the best government in the game. But communism comes late in the game and the early turns are more important than the later turns, thus building your empire from the start to optimize communism isn't a good idea. And obviously, changing your empire layout at later turns to accommodate communism is also very wasteful.

 

[rysingsun]

although i would never use communism in vanilla i do like it in conquests. i just don't like paying the anarchy time, so i hardly ever use it. However i suppose that if my democracy (which i never ever use) collapsed in conquests i probably would switch to communism if only because i use communism so rarely that i would use that event as an excuse to switch.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Dammit, I didn't know that. I guess there's nothing I can do to prevent this tile reassignment during the inter-turn?

If you set the city governor to manage citizen moods, it should catch the city before it riots, and switch all the citizens to clowns, if that is what it takes to prevent the riot.
But of course if the governor is set to manage, you relinquish all control over tile assignment. Frankly I would suggest a switch to Monarchy (or some modern government with no war weariness), and then no more switching. One period of anarchy is bad enough. Only a religious civ should ever contemplate more than one revolt (except possibly in the special case of going for 100k in PtW).