Representation or Universal Sufferage

[One_more_turn]

U.S. is the ultimate warmongering government form:

1. It gives extra hammer (which fosters the use of cottages and Free Speech at same time).

2. It lets you buy stuffs (because you have plenty gold from cottages) and rush build your military very quickly.
For example: after you researched an important military technology, turn off research and accumulate gold. You can basically churn out the most advanced units every 2 turns in many of your cities. Imagine what force you are going to have after 10 turns.

[Arrian]

I've never been able to convince myself that switching from Bureacracy to Free Speech is worthwhile. Even with a large empire.

You find it so?

-Arrian

[Quillan]

I do that all the time, Arrian. The extra commerce empire-wide overpowers the capital boost, in my experience. But then, I usually have loads of cottages that have become towns by the time Free Speech becomes available.

As to the State Property/Free Market question, what I've found is that State Property seems to bring in more income, but lower commerce. The money I save in maintenance costs is usually more than I lose with the bonus trade routes going away, but the lost commerce costs me a bit in research rate. I run State Property if my empire has spread onto multiple land masses, otherwise I usually stick with Free Market.

Before patch 1.61, I usually skipped Her. Rule and went for Representation when it became available. Now, I'm usually just switching from H. Rule straight to US. Most games my economy is strong enough that rush buying makes a tremendous difference to me.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Arrian
I've never been able to convince myself that switching from Bureacracy to Free Speech is worthwhile. Even with a large empire.

You find it so?

-Arrian

It can be. I just count my towns and figure it out. If I've got a good sized, town-heavy empire, and I'm not for some reason relying on the hammer production of my capital, then sure, it can be.

[jdchambe]

yeah. there is no one that is better. which you should use depends completely on the circumstances.

shoot, if luxury resources are in short supply and you don't have the religions to build lots of temples, Hereditary Rule is supperior to both of them. :-)

it all depends.

[Fleme]

Personally I have a tendency of using Representation. I usually have it in conjunction with Caste System (That is, if I'm not too eager with the whip, which I usually am) and also like playing builder with a small-ish nation (5-8 cities) and it works wonders for me, literally and figuratively.

Yes, I like my specialists and playing Phi and then maxing my performance that way so my vote is clear.

Representation represent.

[Kataphraktoi]

Originally posted by Blake
Police State!

[DrSpike]

As always it depends. Rep can be better but you have to have a plan to leverage it throughout the game. Plus, you need a decent sized empire. Probably US gets more use in my games, as the rush buying is usually useful.

As for bureaucracy/free speech its again mainly down to empire size. With a decent amount of cities cottaged out it can be worthwhile. With 10 or so cities I usually stick with Bureaucracy.

[Martinus]

The answer really depends on the game stage, and even more importantly on a kind of economy you are running (specialist-based or commerce-based).

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

It may also depend on which civic you're in to begin with.

How many turns of anarchy do you go through with the civic change, and how many shields, beakers, coins and even food are lost? How quickly can the losses be made up through the increased yield of the better civic?

This issue seems magnified on Marathon mode...

[Generaldoktor]

I was going to comment similarly, after reading someways up (6000-Man.) Seems like you need Pyramids to best use these strategies that "shift" between Rep and U.S. and Kremlin to best use U.S. But if you've got Kremlin, you've got State Property too, (what a quandary. ) This last is not mutually exclusive to the other two, but doesn't seem imo to work with them well.

I don't like the idea of State Property, living in the United States, where we don't have much and spent a lot of trouble convincing the Soviets and others they should get rid of it. Civ used to penalize "Communism" and I'm not sure why they stopped, unless it;s pinkos on the design team. That's sort of a psychological thing (and rather Off-Topic, as is all this talk of State Property on this thread.) I guess I'm big on Universal Suffrage since I played a lot of Civ3, which always allowed buyouts if you had enough gold; and because I like to play Merchant Prince and Cottage King a lot. (I feel cottages do pay, if you plan ahead; and are chopping a lot anyway, but also, I like maps with lots of rivers.) I won't say one is better than the other. Until I have U.S. (or Pyramids and Spiritual; and can bounce,) I do use Rep for a time and benefit from it.

[fed1943]

As I see it, the question is not in US (always useful, but not great)

but in Rep (the happy help is always useful, while the specialists

boost can be decise or worthless).

Best regards,