Transition to Democracy

[TimTheEnchanter]

In my current game I am in a fundamentalist government, but I am running out of civs to blast away, so I am starting to transistion to democracy.

What are some tips for making this transition smoothly and rapidly?

I figure after I capture 3 more cities (leaving only one) I will need to disband most of my troops except to defend against Barbie and Friends.

Most of my cities are building marketplaces, banks and colosseums to handle unhappiness. Meanwhile, I have my tax rate jacked up to 80% to rebuild my cash reserves in case I need to rush buy some things. (there's no one left to develop tech, so I'll wait until democracy to research again!)

Cities with food surpluses are building some engineers to improve terrain, settle the few remaining unclaimed areas and islands, and make farmland when it becomes available.

Does this sound about right? How long should this transition period take? What are some tips for making this transition smoothly and rapidly?

(BTW, this game is at King)

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There are some who call me...Tim

 

[stormerne]

Only bother doing this at all if you're after a really high score. The "endgame" part of Civ can be boring for some, especially if they've got 100+ cities to micromanage.

Disband your military in cities and do it from the city screen. That way you get half their shields adding in to your current build.

When you've no more to build in a city, set it to capitalization.

Make sure nothing generates pollution. Get solar power. Alternatively, sell off your factories etc.

Build engineers to improve terrain, yes, but make sure you've settled EVERYWHERE! When in democracy, don't forget to turn your last engineers into cities before you get your final score. And turn up luxuries to 100% to grow the cities.

Keep a veteran spy or two on hand to check out the pet city - just in case.

Ways to end are either to build a maxed out spaceship or to subvert (not incite) the final city. Max points usually from the spaceship.

The transition should be very quick if a little tedious but in some ways it never finishes! You can make the change in just a few turns - you'll have the statue so the change itself will take just one turn - but micromanaging growth for a high score can take 100 turns!

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"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" - Anais Nin

 

[shadowdale]

What I don't really get is why on earth you are using Fundamentalism in the first place??
I never use anything but Republic/Democracy - But maybe I should try it out, after all it seems like most people in here are using it all the time.

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Veni Vidi Vici.

 

[stormerne]

It's a good point, though not strictly on this thread's topic. The reason is that, IN SOME WAYS, Fundamentalism the best war-making government. It's fairly easy to see when and why.

First of all, it's pointless using Fundamentalism for a defensive war. You may as well stick to Democracy, and in fact Democracy IS better for a defensive war. So you should only use it for attacking.

Secondly, if you ARE attacking, then the best way to do so is the rapid application of overwhelming force, for which you need a lot of units. Lots of units means lots of support, and Fundamentalism will support your first ten from each city free (which is usually enough!). It also means lots of units away from home so Fundamentalism scores again with zero unhappiness.

Thirdly, all the happiness city improvements produce tithes instead of happiness, so you are rapidly swimmimg gold and can do lots of rush builds, either to get more attacking units or to fortify each city as you capture it.

However there's plently of cases where Fundamentalism is not the best choice. If you're way ahead in science, then its 50% science penalty is no problem. If however it's fairly even on science between you and other civs, then you have to decide whether you can wipe everybody out before they overtake you or, if not, use a different government form like the much underrated Communism.

My government strategy for a perfectionist spaceship win game is become Monarchy and then Democracy as soon as possible. My strategy for world takeover is become Monarchy quickly, and then research but don't become Republic and Democracy. As soon as soon as I have Democracy, I build the Statue of Liberty and switch from Monarchy to Communism straightaway. This gives me good science while still being excellent for world domination and the martial law quelling 6 people a city makes things very easy. Once I've started rolling over the other civs, I start capturing their wonders and I can usually pull away in science. If I get far enough away to safely launch an overwhelming final attack, then and only then do I switch to Fundamentalism. Finally, with one pet city left selected from the most scientifically backward civ, I change to Democracy with 100% luxuries and grow for a high score.

Other's mileage may vary

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"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" - Anais Nin

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Why was I using fundamentalism??

In the game in question, I was on 2 fairly small islands. The next island over was filled with Romans. The next Island over from that was Carthaginians. I was still plunking around with triremes (no lighthouse) and couldn't find any more unsetteled land to expand beyond about 10 cities. I was losing several wonders to other civs, then the Romans sneak attacked me so I did the knee-jerk thing - kill 'em all!!

Fundamentalism is EXTREMELY powerful if you want to just run over someone in an offensive war. The 10 free unsupported units per city means you can still defend your cities, plus build a massive army with no loss of shields. You build a force, then when you capture an enemy city, you re-support part of your attack force from that city so your home cities can build even more troops to send up to the front lines. A size 1 city making 1 shield can still support 10 units. There's no problem sending in 8 diplomats to make SURE the walls of the capital come down before you send in dozens of guys with guns to finish the job.

No unhappiness means not only do you not need to worry about troops in the field causing unhappiness, but you also aren't constantly attending to growth-related happiness issues at home - and no luxuries to siphon off trade.

Finally the tithes are the key. The money you get from those can be astounding. If you have mike's chapel you get 3 gold per city INSTANTLY (2 after communism). If you have a cheap little temple you get another 2 gold. I captured the Oracle, and suddenly my temples were giving me 4 gold per turn with no support cost. This is all IN ADDITION to your tax revenue. In the game above, if I set my tax rate to zero, i was getting over 750 gold per turn just on tithes alone. If I pegged my tax rate to 80% I was pulling in about another 1000 or more. You can then use all that gold to rush build even more troops, build walls in new or captured cities, buy cities instead of fighting those dirty wars (free defenders and improvements!), or whatever you want. Money is power!

Unless you face a significant technological disadvantage, you should be able to overwhelm other civs with sheer numbers. Once I had a strong base to work from I targeted the strongest TECH civ rather than the strongest military civ and then the game was over. No one could match my army, so my only real threat was technology advance. Also, if you start capturing enough cities, the volume of additional trade from the new cities can nearly overcome the reduced science rate.

I'm still learning the game, so I did not have high score in mind when I started. I just had such a large city base by the end that I was wondering how to make the transition. I ended up just sacking the last city and rejoicing. (But the game is saved right before the end so I can come back later and try to run up the score if I want to!)


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There are some who call me...Tim

 

[stormerne]

(Apologies for the long post)

A more interesting question is: "Assuming you're going for a high score, what do you do when you've taken the last but one enemy city?" This question applies whether you've waged war in Democracy or whether you've done it with Communism or Fundamentalism and have just switched to Democracy.

I think it first pays to study what factors go towards your score.
1) When you've reached this point, it's too late to do anything about the barbarian penalty/bonus. You're stuck with whatever you requested at the start of the game.
2) Likewise you're stuck with the playing level multiplier you selected, Deity 12%, King 8% etc.
3) You've got all the wonders that have been built, but have they all been built yet? At 20 points each it's worth getting them all, even Manhattan, for a maximum of 560 points.
4) You should finish the game by landing a maximum 4 habitation module spaceship to give you 400 points. Save the game the turn before landing! Launch it in time to ensure landing before 2020 CE!
5) Happy/content citizens 2/1 point each.
6) Future technologies at 5 points each.

1 and 2 above you can't change at this stage.
3 and 4 above are straightforward common sense: get the lot!
5 and 6 are where there is scope for discussion.

Future tech is time limited. You can't get more than one new tech per turn and you can't go past date 2020, so that means you need to be pumping them out as soon as possible. On the other hand you may be subject to the 255 maximum future tech bug.

You can grow your cities by setting lux high, but that will screw your future tech. On the other hand you need a big city base to create lots of future tech.

From these two requirements you can work out a strategy. Here's mine. I'd really like to hear other people's strategies (especially from people like Shadowdale who have games in the HOF).

I suggest a multiphase strategy...
Phase 1a: set tax to 80%, science to 0%, luxury to 20%. Build lots and lots of engineers and a few transports. Go and settle every part of the map with some of them (assuming you have Apollo - if not build it!) and improve the terrain with the rest. Consider sending them to the ice-caps to build on the tundra, having a food convoy ready and rush building a harbour and offshore platform.
Phase 1b: While they're doing that, build everything you need in cities for (a) high population, (b) high trade, and (c) high science. This means every city needs an aquaduct, sewerage system, and also supermarkets and harbours where advantageous, plus stuff like superhighways to increase the trade arrows and universities to use those arrows. You fund all this with the high tax doing rush builds. Don't bother building anything that increases shield output like factories (unless of course it's built already).
Phase 2a: Set the lux high to grow your cities by one point per turn until they stop celebrating.
Phase 2b: Consider building as many freight as you need for your newest cities.
Phase 2c: Ensure that cities have happiness makers: temples, colusseums and market places, banks, stock exchanges where appropriate.
Phase 3a: Set the science rate high to get 1 new tech per turn. Tinker with the rest: low tax and just enough lux to keep them from rebelling. Set many of your cities to capitalization. Allow a slow build of a cash reserve.
Phase 3b: Always check the tax rate every year to see if you can get more growth through luxuries while still getting 1 tech per turn. Beware that with lots of capitalization, the numbers can be misleading depedning which part of a turn you look!
Phase 4: Build and launch your spaceship in good time to arrive by 2020. After launch and just before landing, switch to 100% luxuries and use your cash reserve to tide you over.

Who has a different strategy that I can learn from?

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"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" - Anais Nin

 

[RedWolf]

Is your amount of on hand gold taken into consideration when calculating your score?

 

[stormerne]

No. The amount of gold you have doesn't matter at the end. It has no effect on your final score.

The cash reserve only helps you rush-build and, right at the end, it also helps pay maintenance costs just in case they're not met by capitalization when you turn the tax off to get 100% luxuries.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by stormerne:
...You can't get more than one new tech per turn...

FYI: Maybe it only can happen at the lowest levels, but I have seen more than one tech per turn.

I had a cheiftain game with about 100 or so cities. I had most cities capitalizing for cash so I turned up the science to see what I could get. I had a Super Science city cranking around 800 beakers a turn and had Universities in most cities (with SETI) and was getting TWO future techs per turn.

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There are some who call me...Tim

 

[shadowdale]

And if you have max money and make about 15.000-20.000 gold per round then you can easily get 10-15 techs per turn - I know I have tried it, and I was very surprised.

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Veni Vidi Vici.

 

[stormerne]

Hey thanks guys! I didn't know you could get more than 1 tech a turn. That's a big help as in my current game (where I've just conquered the world and just switched to Democracy myself) I have about 180 turns left in which to get the 255 future techs. I didn't think I'd get them all, but now it seems I can.

I'm gunning for your King record Shadowdale. Wish me luck!

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"Wyrd oft nereð unfægne eorl þonne his ellen deah"
"Wyrd often saves an undoomed hero as long as his courage is good"
- Beowulf 572-3