Representation or Universal Sufferage

[greenday_234]

I'm just wondering what you guys and girls think is the better civic choice. I have a very hard time deciding between the two because they are both such great civic choices. Let the voters decide. Any comments on your vote are welcome.

[Yuufo]

There is no point as to choose between these civics. One isn't simply better than the other. Both should be used throughout the game.

Representation: + 2 in your 5 largest cities, + 3 beakers per specialist (the most important).
Universal Suffrage: may pay in cash, + 1 hammer per town (the most important).

=> It 's better to have Representation when you use specialists, and U.S. when most of your cottages have evolved into towns.
=> It's better to have U.S. when you are under a golden age
=> It's better to have Statue of Liberty quickly, if you use Representation
=> It's better to have U.S. if you have the Kremlin

Assemble these remarks, and you shall find the way to maximize the power of these civics!

1- Discover Constitution, switch into Representation
2- Discover Democracy, switch into Emancipation
3- Complete the taj mahal, switch into U.S., Bureaucracy, Organized Religion - your capital is a hammer factory now
4- Complete the Statue of Liberty during the Golden Age
5- Switch to Representation to benefit from all these specialists...
6- Later on, when Emancipation has brought you many towns, when you have Kremlin or when you're in dire hammer need, reswitch to U.S.

That's my civic choice (with Spiritual leader), it works very well but there may be others.

So, no better civic between these! But interesting poll

[fed1943]

Both, first Rep. later US (even with Pyramids).

So, I shall vote bananas.

Best regards,

[Feyd]

Since your question is which do you use MOST I have to go with Representation. I like running specialist heavy games for one, but in addition to that until the later parts of the game you don't have towns or the money to rush improvements. I would say that 70% of my games at least are spent underneath representation.

In my last game I HEAVILY focused on specialists to the point where I only built a cottage or two in many of my largest cities. Representation lowered my research times by up to FIVE turns I calculated. That was a HUGE bonus (it is especially nice with Mercantilism, the Statue of Liberty, and the Sistine Chapel ... specialists are almost as good as non-priest/engineer great people specialists in this scenario).

Don't get me wrong though. After I build the Kremlin I switch to U.S. and rarely go back (since my outer core cities where I did build cottages have a good production boost and I appreciate the ability to finally rush things since I drop slavery after CoL)

Remember everyone...which do you use MOST

Cheers...

[Blake]

Police State!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Representation until the late game, when all my older cities are surrounded by towns.

[Jaybe]

I use Representation, but from there I often beeline for Democracy and use U.S. for the rest of the game.

Blake, I am surprised.
I had the impression that you were so good at the game that you would consider Police State an exploit. I consider both it & State Property and exploit for the player, but I just play Noble (with some Monarch elements mixed in).

[Qwertqwert]

How many towns do you have? I so rarely rush (with people or money) that that element of Universal Sufferage is useless. However I also try to keep as many people working as possible, and I usaually plan it so that there's enough food to have everybody working, and no other food left for specialists. I'm not a big fan of eigher, I stay at Monarchy for a long while, and will only switch if it'll cause no unhappiness, and go for Universal sufferage, simply because I have a lot of towns, so the +1 shield helps a lot.

I'm voting for US BTW, but I don't quite like eigher much.

[Blake]

Since I haven’t given my serious answer yet.
I don't use rep much. Usually I just run h.rule, often I need to get more than 2 happiness anyway so in in some cases h.rule can be more useful than rep (although I'd only rarely run h.rule in favor of rep).

USuffrage is more useful for the rushbuy than the +1 hammers. Democracy "obsoletes" slavery with emancipation, so US becomes your only source of rushbuy.
It can be quite worthwhile rushbuying infrastructure (usually you can do a calculation to figure out how long it'll take to pay off). I often rushbuy wonders, especially Broadway & friends. Note after buying a wonder you can often find the AI's with stacks of cash - from the refund, and can trade to get that cash and rushbuy more stuff.

Rushbuying is also a good way to get units to fight with, just go to 0% science and rushbuy up a nice army.

Rushbuying can be more hammer efficient than hammers are (those poor mines, everything is better than mines). With rushbuy each production costs 3 gold. So if a city has +100% gold multipler and each cottage produces 7 gold, then you get 7*2/3 = 4.6 hammers/tile (then another hammer from the +1 hammer). With Kremlin it is a total of 8/h per cottage. A state Property Workshop with Coal Plant and Factory produces 6h/turn. People would probably always use rushbuy if not for the fact that the spaceship must be built from real hammers.
(also for cities that are built late, the workshop is instant while the town takes 50ish turns).

The Kremlin is obviously godly if you're planning to rushbuy a lot of stuff.

Overall... US is awesome. Rep is only better if you have heaps of settled GP's or plentiful free specialists.

Police State is of course better than either because it is the best civic for bashing in heads and you should always be bashing in heads (don't take me too seriously spaceraces are okay too). +2 happy is nothing, PS can free up 10+ happy.

[joncnunn]

This is pretty close:
If Pyraimds are built; then Represenation will be used many more turns than Universial Suffrage.

But if Pyraimds aren't built, then unlesss religious, Represenation doesn't get used at all.

Basically to use Universial Suffrage to best advantage you also need Free Speech and Emmancipation; and Emmancipation requires the Democracy tech.

[One_more_turn]

It's also map dependent. On Pangea maps where bashing heads is the best strategy, you stay with Hereditiary Rule until you get lots of villages and towns. More often than not, most rivals should be crushed at this point. However, if there are still tough opponents left standing, it will be necessary to switch to US and rush-build a big army. Then it's a final switch to Police State and end game.

[One_more_turn]

But I rarely bother to switch to Police State because modern warfare happens so quick. It usually takes less than 10 turns to finish off anyone if you have enough stealth bombers and modern armors.

[Will9]

I usally build the Prymids then switch to Representation. Then in the Industrial age after being in Emancipation awhile I switch to US.

[fani]

Voted US...representation is better if you have been building a super capital with nested specialists..

[Yosho]

I almost always use a representation/statue of liberty combo for most of the game. If I'm spiritual, sometimes I'll switch to US for a few turns, buy a bunch of buildings, and then switch back.