Svenslayer:
"Definitely Communism.
"Pros: No corruption or waste (therefore you get a high science output, a lot of money and a high production output);"
Corection: MINIMAL corruption and waste. Go over 50 trade, and you'll start to see a tiny bit. Whereas in democracy, you never have ANY corruption (or waste), even when trade is in the triple digits (common for very large cities in democracy, almost unheard of in communism because there's no per-square trade bonus).
"You get to fight a lot (unlike Democracy or Republic);"
With democracy, you can still fight a lot, but you just have to be a bit smarter about it.... With Mike's Chapel (don't even THINK of going to demo without it, unless you have a small civ), Bach's, Suffrage, and Shake's, you can have three or four units from EACH city in the field without unhappiness (and as many as you want out of the Shake's city). As for the senate, see below:
"No senate tells you what to do (unlike Democracy)"
Yes, the senate vexed me at first. But there are ways around them: The UN, which gives you about a 50/50 chance of the hawks prevailing in the senate (they will approve "continued peacekeeping actions (i.e. war) against" so-and-so about 50% of the time); and if you get sneak-attacked a lot by the same civ, the senate will, I've found, become more and more likely to deny that civ peace when they ask for it. And it's not that hard to lure the AI into a sneak attack--just treat them like sh*t diplomatically, then send something like a freight or engineer into their territory to dangle in front of their troops (make them disrupt their movement through ZOC too), and sooner or later they'll take the bait.... Or keep asking them to withdraw their troops, EVEN if they don't have any in your territory--their "patience" will soon run out.
Then, when they do declare war on you, be sure to take out all units in each city you want to take, so that they're ALL empty before you take one. That way (unless they have partisans), you don't get them talking to you after you take one city.... Take advantage of AI alliances too--sometimes you can go back and forth attacking two civs, with each one suing for peace, then declaring war again after you attack the other (due to their alliance).
And of course you can bribe cities and units (try to bribe enemy units closer to their territory than yours, so that they will be NONs and thus have no city to make unhappy!), something the AI CANNOT do to you (except with the rare non-dip bribe "cheat" the AI has)! And you'll find you can afford bribery more than in commie, too....
"Cons: Your cities and units can get bribed (unlike Democracy);"
(touched on that above)
"Maximum rating setting is 80% (100% in Democracy);"
Ain't nothing like paying for everything with 10% tax (or less, after a bunch of cities are capitalized), setting 30 or 40% luxuries (which make your cities celebrate and grow by one every turn), and leaving the rest for science.... I don't know if I've ever set anything at 90 or 100% (except luxuries at the VERY end), but 10/40/50 is something you COULD NOT (under most circumstances) do in communism....
"Settler eats two food (I don't know how much a Settler eats in a Democracy)"
Same in democracy, two food per settler.
you forgot to mention one of the most powerful benefits of democracy, that cities celebrating grow by one pop per turn (as long as more food is available). In communism, they just get the per-square trade bonus that we democracies take for granted.... It can be something to see a size-3 city you've just planted somewhere become a size 35 in 32 turns; and with a lot of cities doing that, trade will BOOM, which means money and science will come almost TOO easily.
In short, democracy is hands-down the absolute BEST system to have--even if you're a warmonger. It's the most well-rounded system for all aspects of the game.... I've kicked the asses of AI fundy civs LARGER THAN ME before in demo (i.e. large enough that their power was supreme even with my tech lead, and I took that supremacy away from them and reduced them to number seven or extinction...).
