Which Government is the best?

[slightlymarxist]

"No. Look here - you get free unit support for the units AND the units remove unhappy faces AS WELL. I'm not counting the same thing twice. Effects stack. The units doing MP duty in away from the battlefront are horribly obsolete and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the battlefield anyway."

By using your free units for MP, you do not benefit from the free support for other purposes. So if you still count those free units then you DO count them twice.

Hmm, true... I didn't think of it like that... One argument might be AI fear ("Compared to them, our army is strong"), but that would involve proper upgrading I suppose. Oh well *shrug* It just seems whenever I try Republic or Democracy I get seriously weakened unless I'm spending most of the Ancient/Middle Age Building which, in my humble experience, is far inferior to Conquering. But you've had a different experience, I respect that.

It seems in order for Republic warfare to work, the Unit/City ratio needs to be rather low and Cities need to be rather large and well-developed. Now, that takes time and distracts you from building units. In theory Republic might work just as well as Monarchy, but in practice it doesn't. If you're contantly waging war there shouldn't be any time left for city improvements (save Barracks and the odd Aqueduct), so your cities will be smaller and not have Banks, Universities etc., in which case switching to Republic/Democracy is a disaster.

I even gave you a little example calculation, i don't think i can make it much clearer anymore. It is not THAT hard to understand is it ?

No need to get all edgy and rude.

 

[slightlymarxist]

Sure, but again my point is that Feudalism is a niche gov't whereas Republic is more flexible. You're not going to be building wonders, marketplaces, banks, libraries and universities with Feudalism. Neither can you expect large amounts of commerce or big productive cities to crank out knights and muskets. Yes, you can have quite a lot of units in Feudalism - cheap ones anyway. And yes, you can often win that way, but really it is your only path to victory.

Agreed, but there's nothing stopping you from letting your Core empire expand. Its the periphery that gets "stuck", and let's face it, they're stuck anyway because of corruption.

Thing about Feudalism is that you need a lot of land to settle and a couple settler factories. Each new town is +5 units supported, and these units are getting produced by your Core and Capital.

It depends how much time you're spending building Upwards versus Sideways, meaning: if you have a pretty well-rounded empire of rather well-developed Cities and also some Luxuries, Monarchy is preferred. If, however, you have a powerhouse 4-5 cities that have spend most of the Ancient Age razing enemy cities, and therefore plenty of land to settle and potentially many more towns than Cities, Feudalism is better IMO.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Hmm, true... I didn't think of it like that... One argument might be AI fear ("Compared to them, our army is strong"), but that would involve proper upgrading I suppose. Oh well *shrug* It just seems whenever I try Republic or Democracy I get seriously weakened unless I'm spending most of the Ancient/Middle Age Building which, in my humble experience, is far inferior to Conquering. But you've had a different experience, I respect that.

It seems in order for Republic warfare to work, the Unit/City ratio needs to be rather low and Cities need to be rather large and well-developed. Now, that takes time and distracts you from building units. In theory Republic might work just as well as Monarchy, but in practice it doesn't. If you're contantly waging war there shouldn't be any time left for city improvements (save Barracks and the odd Aqueduct), so your cities will be smaller and not have Banks, Universities etc., in which case switching to Republic/Democracy is a disaster.

No need to get all edgy and rude.

Sorry for getting agrivated a little
Nice to see you write about your warmongering like that. You could try reading some of my other posts, I think it is hard to find people on this site who have a stronger Units over buildings favor than i do . I often build no city improvents except for barracks, granaries, aqua's and an occasional harbor for sea trading. I 100% agree with you that units are much more important than any thing else, read the post that is called something like "buildings or units" where i replied. Still, i strongly favor republic over anything else.

I fight agressively in every game i play (except for the 1 cotm where i went for space) i use always republic and it works for me on every difficulty level. What disaster you talk about i do not know, i usually make 200-500 gpt in early middle ages while fighting fiercly (fiercly enough so that i don't need to see any late middle ages normally) Of course, all this money is used to rush build and upgrade units

Really i am sorry, i don't know what you do wrong, but i am sure you must be doing something wrong if rep doesn't work for you.

 

[denyd]

Rather than view it as what's best, I prefer to look at what's worst and aside from Anarchy, it has to be despotism. So I strive to get out of despotism as soon as possible. That generally makes either monarchy or republic your first choice. Since (under C3C) you get a bonus tech with philosophy (if you're first to it), I generally research to Code of Laws & then Philosophy to get Republic as my free tech. At that time I will revolt from despotism (unless waiting for a nearly complete wonder to finish). Since I rarely play religious tribes any future revolts would provide 6-9 turns of anarchy, so I generally stay in Republic the remainder of the game. The differences between Republic, Democracy, Monarchy & Communism are usually not great enough to make me want to switch.

I agree with several of the prior posters that under certain circumstances, communism or democracy would be preferable, it's that I just can't justify the anarchy periods. If I happened to be playing as religious, then I would probably switch around based on the situation (early war=monarchy, late war=communism, builder/research=democracy).

 

[Breunor]

Sorry for getting agrivated a little
Nice to see you write about your warmongering like that. You could try reading some of my other posts, I think it is hard to find people on this site who have a stronger Units over buildings favor than i do . I often build no city improvents except for barracks, granaries, aqua's and an occasional harbor for sea trading. I 100% agree with you that units are much more important than any thing else, read the post that is called something like "buildings or units" where i replied. Still, i strongly favor republic over anything else.


Wacken,

I know a lot of people try this strategy, and I guess it works -- but I always find that culture flips are just devastating! Do you raze cities with this strategy, or do you stop at some point to build libraries and temples? I'm doing something worng because this isn't working for me (I'm demigod usually, sometime deity).

Breunor

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Sorry for getting agrivated a little
Nice to see you write about your warmongering like that. You could try reading some of my other posts, I think it is hard to find people on this site who have a stronger Units over buildings favor than i do . I often build no city improvents except for barracks, granaries, aqua's and an occasional harbor for sea trading. I 100% agree with you that units are much more important than any thing else, read the post that is called something like "buildings or units" where i replied. Still, i strongly favor republic over anything else.


Wacken,

I know a lot of people try this strategy, and I guess it works -- but I always find that culture flips are just devastating! Do you raze cities with this strategy, or do you stop at some point to build libraries and temples? I'm doing something worng because this isn't working for me (I'm demigod usually, sometime deity).

Breunor

I rarely raze. i just capture the cities. Key is to completely take out the civ you are taking cities from as fast as possible. between the first and the last city should be like 10-15 turns, not more. That makes only that much turns for cities to flip.

When i conquered cities, i do not put a single unit inside it. However, i leave behind units that have to heal in the area's between the cities. If a city flips, the AI usually gets outdated defender(s) in it, i will use one of the healing units to retake it immeadiately. If not healing units, then it could also be done by newly produced units if the pass the area on their way to the battle field. If none of those are present for an area, i will leave 2 units behind for every 4-5 cities. Fast moving units that can reach multiple cities in 1 or 2 turns when needed in case of a flip.

It is important to realise that when you sign peace and your cities flip, you can only retake them by ruining your reputation. Therefore, be reluctant about signing peace.

Works on deity level consistently.
On the few Sid games i tried this far, i did do it pretty much like this as well, but i was unable to conquer fast enough to my liking and the flips were a lot more anoying indeed.

 

[Cobus van Wyk]

My mistake. Thanks for answering the question earlier...

 

[Oryctolagus]

So... Communism, Feudalism/Monarchy for me!

But it really depends on how you play. I play VERY aggressively,

I agree, though I try to be peaceful, but my neighbours usually do not, so it's better to be prepared for a sneak attack

 

[Cobus van Wyk]

Your so right. Even though I like to befriend the other factions, they always seem to attack me! Even if we are on very good terms with each other.

The fact that you have to be prepared for an attack gives me no alternative than to have a government in place more focused on war.

 

[Own]

this is a little off topic, but if you are in communism, build the secret police HQ then switch out of communism, does it stay and still work?

since this question is so short, i didn't find it necessary to start a whole new thread

 

[TimBentley]

this is a little off topic, but if you are in communism, build the secret police HQ then switch out of communism, does it stay and still work?

since this question is so short, i didn't find it necessary to start a whole new thread

No. I think that may be a bug in an earlier patch that has been fixed, actually.

 

[Own]

Yes, but don't forget the MP duty. Four garrisoned military units = four less unhappy faces, so that's effectively 10+4 = 14 gold, to be precise

You're right about metros though, which is why I think Fascism is probably the least valuable Government. You'd have to be REALLY underdeveloped to benefit from it. Playing catch-up warmongering it might be good with those 200% Workers and extreme unit support I guess, but if you're that far behind you'd be crushed by your neighbors anyway...

Of course, I never let my cities grow to Metro size so for me it's all moot

(Except the core and Capital, obviously.)

did you read the rest of my post? i said that 13 gold turns into 38 if you have a mrkpl, bnk, and stk xch, which all productive cities should have. plus, if you bother to build a hospital, you probably want the city to be bigger than 13. a maximum sized city radius can have twenty squares, so just from the bonus a size twenty metro will give you 50 gold w/ m, b, sx.

why don't you let your cities grow to metros? are you afraid of pollution, if yes, believe me, it's well worth it to grow to a metro, even though pollution is reeeeeeaally annoying. the only other reasons you might not like growing to metros is because the matience of the hospital or if you'd rather spend the shields somewhere else, but these two reasons would be ridiculous, 2 matienence by the time you get hospitals is junk change, and by growing more, you'll start making way more shields.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

edit: ah whatever..

 

[Breunor]

I rarely raze. i just capture the cities. Key is to completely take out the civ you are taking cities from as fast as possible. between the first and the last city should be like 10-15 turns, not more. That makes only that much turns for cities to flip.

When i conquered cities, i do not put a single unit inside it. However, i leave behind units that have to heal in the area's between the cities. If a city flips, the AI usually gets outdated defender(s) in it, i will use one of the healing units to retake it immeadiately. If not healing units, then it could also be done by newly produced units if the pass the area on their way to the battle field. If none of those are present for an area, i will leave 2 units behind for every 4-5 cities. Fast moving units that can reach multiple cities in 1 or 2 turns when needed in case of a flip.

It is important to realise that when you sign peace and your cities flip, you can only retake them by ruining your reputation. Therefore, be reluctant about signing peace.

Works on deity level consistently.
On the few Sid games i tried this far, i did do it pretty much like this as well, but i was unable to conquer fast enough to my liking and the flips were a lot more anoying indeed.

Wacken,

Can I ask for your wisdom some more?

I guess, then, you don't worry about the rebels until after you have completely wiped out the opposition? Without moving into the cities, you get rebels coming out the wazoo! So you just let them do their thing until the entire civ is whacked?

Breunor

 

[citizen001]

Tsk tsk. What are you people talking about?

The best government is clearly Anarchy.

 

[HAND]

Democracy! I'm the typical builder, commercial, cultural type.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Wacken,

Can I ask for your wisdom some more?

I guess, then, you don't worry about the rebels until after you have completely wiped out the opposition? Without moving into the cities, you get rebels coming out the wazoo! So you just let them do their thing until the entire civ is whacked?

Breunor

Yes that is what i do. The resisters are no problem, the unhappies are being made into taxmen or scientists. If it's more than 1, this makes the city starve. Starving the city is good, it will reduce the flip chances.

 

[Breunor]

Yes that is what i do. The resisters are no problem, the unhappies are being made into taxmen or scientists. If it's more than 1, this makes the city starve. Starving the city is good, it will reduce the flip chances.

Thanks for the help, Wacken!

Breunor

 

[Titan2018]

I ussually play a relatively peaceful game (I take out a civ or two for more territory or if they piss me off by starting something), so I ussually like democracy since it has a big production bounus. The downside is having to keep the Lux at 20 - 30 %.

 

[Roxlimn]

The best government type to choose is entirely dependent on the situation. Republic is, of course, perhaps the most versailte mid size government type, which is why many people profess to love it. Once you move into the Continental or Cross Continental civ sizes featuring large world dominating super empire wars, Democracy and Communism each have their advantages over Republic. You should probably choose one of those.

Feudalism and Monarchy are great for civs with small to mid city sizes and very large militaries (and planning on using them very soon). Facism is great for a special case - rapid build up civs with population razing wars. It's actually a decent type civ for eliminating multiple small enemy civs in the early Industrial era but probably not very good for anything long term.