When to use each government

[Digz]

I see numerous threads saying how Monarchy is the best for warmongerers and Republic for, well, anything else. I was wondering why these two governments seem to be consistant picks and not Feudalism, Communism, Facism, and Democracy (am i forgetting any here?).

Also, I was wondering when those four governments would be ideal (or at least appropriate) to use.

Which do you think offers the least benefits in comparison to its pros and cons?

 

[Spoonwood]

All those governments require another revolution, which usually comes with more disadvantages than advantages.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Republic and Monarchy are both good governments available in the Ancient Age; Feudalism is available at the beginning of the Middle Ages, but as Spoonwood said, unless you've been in Despotism the entire time to that point, you're going to get another period of Anarchy. Democracy is a late MA tech, at the top of a nearly pointless set of techs; Communism and Fascism are both early IA techs, but again require a second Revolution.

If you're playing a Huge map of some kind, and the late game is still competitive, switching to Communism can be effective, as you will probably be lowering corruption, and in the mid-IA and later, especially if you're going to be at war for the rest of the game, the lack of WW will probably be better than Republic; unit support might be lower than Monarchy, depending on your playstyle.

Fascism, I can't really see a use for, unless you're a small Civ with a few large cities and are at war; Feudalism I can only see really being useful in a Rapid Expansion mindset, or if you never plan on building on Fresh Water or building Aqueducts. Democracy seems to be the peaceful alternative to Communism, but I can't see it working any better than Republic.

 

[Spoonwood]

Feudalism gets used a lot by 100k players. AutomatedTeller used Communism in his Huge Deity 100k game.

 

[del62]

If you have a large amount of cash, monarchy has to be better in a war than communism, I guess if your cash is low then communism might be better

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Although it does depend on how large your empire is (and possibly terrain - if you need a lot of ships, for example, vs a pangaea map), as unless you have a truly ridiculous amount of money, you're going to run out eventually.

 

[Own]

I was playing a sid standard 7 opponent 60% pangaea game and actually switched to Fascism on purpose. I needed to fight heavy wars to combat a runaway AI in order to disconnect necessary SS resources. I was paying a nuts amount of unit support as well, being in a republic. At one point during a war with Sumeria (the runaway), they got pissed off enough to unload their nuclear arsenal, and 8 of my 12 actually productive cities got nuked. My gpt dropped from 500 to 100, and my reputation was ruined because trade routes were broken. Given this situation, I decided to convert to Fascism as a non-religious civ and accept 8-10 turns of anarchy (it turned out to be 9) for these reasons:

1) With almost all of my core's productivity destroyed, I might as well have been in anarchy. I think I actually made more gpt in anarchy than in a republic. I had enough tanks in the field to still be making progress in the war against Sumeria.
2) Unit support was killing me. Fascism would handle that, although it probably wouldn't completely make up for the lack of the commerce bonus.
3) WW was killing me. Combined with being able to lower lux and freeing me of unit support, I did make more commerce under Fascism.
4) With my reputation tarnished, I had to steal. Veteran spies would be nice.
5) With a crap load of nuclear fallout to clean up and improvements to be rebuilt, 200% worker productivity was a really nice boost. Slaves in Fascism were more effective than my normal workers in a republic, and I just had to raze a couple metros to get a crap load of them. Then I could join slaves of dead nationalities and my own workers to my cities to help get population back.
6) Communism would solve problems 1-4, but not problem 5, and having communal corruption would be very detrimental. About 90% of my cities were crap cities just for creating settlers, and my core's productivity would go way down. My empire was too big for communal corruption.
7) The resettlement wouldn't be a problem, because my core had been hurt so badly that one more dead citizen per city didn't seem that big a price.

The only detriment to Fascism was forced labor, but by irrigating everything, my crap cities were able to grow to size four with 10 shields in, so I could pop rush settlers. It wasn't as effective as in a Republic, but it was satisfactory.

 

[Optional]

I see numerous threads saying how Monarchy is the best for warmongerers and Republic for, well, anything else. I was wondering why these two governments seem to be consistant picks and not Feudalism, Communism, Facism, and Democracy (am i forgetting any here?).

Picking one goverment and staying there is an ideal situation, but as Own's post shows, specific situations require specific solutions, and each game is different.
Always assess the situation, do not rule any government out beforehand, and maybe switch more than once if you have to. It's important to let yourself guide by the situation at hand. Do the maths, and don't pick a government just because it's getting a lot of publicity in these forums.

 

[Theov]

I see numerous threads saying how Monarchy is the best for warmongerers and Republic for, well, anything else. I was wondering why these two governments seem to be consistant picks and not Feudalism, Communism, Facism, and Democracy (am i forgetting any here?).

Also, I was wondering when those four governments would be ideal (or at least appropriate) to use.

Which do you think offers the least benefits in comparison to its pros and cons?

See my sig for info about governments.

Despotism (no WW, and you can whip corrupted people) is a great early game all out war gov. It's underrated.

I don't really see a use for Feudalism, because cities will grow beyond 6 eventually, crippling your money due to unit support.

As said, Fascism is nice when you're at war, behind and expanding. Whenever that happens.

Demo is for people who are not at war. At all. Then it's good.

I pick republic very soon, and maybe later in the game switch to Commie, because the empire needs another city core (achieved by building the Secret Palace). Reduce corruption and eliminating WW. It can be good.

 

[Optional]

I don't really see a use for Feudalism, because cities will grow beyond 6 eventually, crippling your money due to unit support.

It can be an excellent war government. You just need to make sure you continue to expand; your new towns will provide the unit support.

I've only one experience with it, though, in the first succession game I played: SGFN05; India stomps the World. This was a conquest game, non oscillating war, to be exact. We had already researched Republic, but didn't switch, because the unit support in Republic would have crippled us. Then we researched Feudalism, I suppose because it's a high value tech, or perhaps for military reasons; it wasn't my decision.
We were still in Despotism, though, and then I suggested we went for Feudalism as our government. Both Republic and Monarchy didn't look good, but Feudalism would pay for all our troops, and I figured if we would continue to expand and put in or conquer new towns, those new towns would support our units, while allowing our core towns to grow to size 12, the way you want them to.
The team wasn't averse to trying something new, and we were Religious, so we could easily switch back if needed, so we switched. Feudalism worked out better for us than I had expected. We ended up a staggering amount of units under our unit support, war weariness didn't prove to be a problem, and we never switched again in that game. Feudalism simply was the best option in this game, and we should never even have researched Republic.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

I don't really see a use for Feudalism, because cities will grow beyond 6 eventually, crippling your money due to unit support.

*Purely Theoretical*:

You don't need to build Aqueducts, and you can build away from fresh water (Size 6 Max).

Feudalism uses Pop-Rush, not paying. You can therefore manually keep the population under 7 by Whips and Specialists.

Will it be pretty? Probably not (though, as noted above, Feudalism works perfectly well), and I'll admit it's probably not much more useful than Monarchy or another govt. outside of a relatively small set of circumstances.

 

[da3dalus]

I see numerous threads saying how Monarchy is the best for warmongerers and Republic for, well, anything else. I was wondering why these two governments seem to be consistant picks and not Feudalism, Communism, Facism, and Democracy (am i forgetting any here?).

As Spoonwood indicated previously, I think the reason that these two governments are the most popular choice is because they're the first decent governments to come along in the tech tree, and unless your civ is a religious one going through a second period of anarchy is a serious and difficult choice to make.

I have yet to experiment with Feudalism, I'll have to give it a try sometime just based on Optional's testimonial.

 

[Optional]

What I remember from our game India stomps the World, is that Feudalism really started to work out well for us once our war elephants started rolling. They continued to capture new towns for us, and that provided our unit support.

We never whipped. Our military supported itself: more units > more towns > more units > more towns > more units etc.
I think if you have to start whipping in your towns to keep them at size 6, just to be able to afford your units, you're on the wrong route and in the wrong government.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

It all depends on the terrain, really - is it terribly difficult to keep towns below 6, or can you conquer them? I have a German game with an *awful* amount of Plains, but I had to expand quite a bit to get to a source of fresh water to start irrigation. Except that I was already in a Republic, and got catapulted halfway through the Middle Ages by the Great Library, I probably would have switched to Feudalism once I got it.

 

[Optional]

With a scientific civ like Germany you might actually get lucky; once you've grabbed all the required AA techs you could hope for getting Feudalism as your free tech, or being in the position to trade for it. Then you wouldn't be out of Despotism much later then you normally would.

The start you're describing - all plains/no fresh water - sounds terrible, ChaosArbiter. But I believe Firaxis designed Feudalism specifically to cope with that type of foodpoor start.

 

[Daeron]

Such a shame about the war weariness though. I'm planning to give feudalism a try though. Thinking of a dry archipelago map with a civ that isn't agricultural and go for fastest domination. Vikings sounds like the perfect candidate.

 

[Optional]

Such a shame about the war weariness though.

Aye, Feudalism has the same war weariness as Republic. But it allows you a more poweful army, so it should be easier to avoid war weariness in Feudalism.

I still never choose Feudalism in my games. It still comes a bit later than Monarchy or Republic. You must also be sure that you can expand outwardly. Just expanding inwardly (letting towns grow) is not an option. You'll need successful wars, otherwise you'll fold in Feudalism. It's a tricky government.

 

[T-mun]

I've chosen feudalism quite often for war purposes (the small cities you conquer help paying the troops), but I've always been out of the scientific race after some turns because of the "malus" in science research. Don't know how you call it in english but your research isn't as fast in feudalism as it is with other governments. It can be good if you're planning to get rid of your biggest opponent and no one else can beat you... but any gov would do in this case

 

[Digz]

Wow, thank you for all the replies. I guess I never really thought about a second revolution before (and what that all entails). I have been using Republic a lot lately, but everytime I make the switch my treasury drops noticably (in my current game I went from +1 or +2 gpt to -21 gpt). Is there a recurring reason why this is happens?

I would post a save, but I don't know how to If anybody could explain this, that would be great! I am looking in my Conquests folder, but I am not seeing anything in my Saves folder (all I have is an Auto folder within that leads to nothing).

 

[Theov]

Wow, thank you for all the replies. I guess I never really thought about a second revolution before (and what that all entails). I have been using Republic a lot lately, but everytime I make the switch my treasury drops noticably (in my current game I went from +1 or +2 gpt to -21 gpt). Is there a recurring reason why this is happens?

I would post a save, but I don't know how to If anybody could explain this, that would be great! I am looking in my Conquests folder, but I am not seeing anything in my Saves folder (all I have is an Auto folder within that leads to nothing).

I went to communism quite some times, but only when my tribe went so big, and I conquered some potent cities, so I could build the Police HQ there.