Newcomer to Apolyton, current game log

[-Jrabbit]

Many here are huge fans of Fundamentalism due to its huge advantages over other govts in military support. If you're trying to win by conquest, there's nothing better!

"Soft" fundy refers to the common practice of rushing to Democracy and immediately building the Statue of Liberty. This allows you to get into Fundy without having researched the tech yet. The only downside is that you don't get to build Fanatics. Thus, Soft Fundy. (Once you've actually researched Fundy, the Fanatics will appear in your build options.)

One very typical Fundy technique is to set science research to zero and go to a regime of massive celebration, with the remainder going to taxes. Income will be great, especially with the bonus bucks from tithes (cities with happiness infrastructure). Use the money to build camels and trade like crazy! Celebrating fundy cities get payoffs = to a non-celebrating representative govt. This provides enough beakers to overcome the 50% fundy research penalty (in fact usually allowing you to maintain your tech lead), and keeps the cash flow going strong. Find a couple cities with demanded "repeater" commodities (typically Hides) and you can really rock!

Thus, a celebrating fundy govt enjoys the advantages of great cash flow, happy citizens, a huge military, and huge science.

Learn to do this and you'll be winning at Deity level in short order, Lykaon!

[debeest]

In fact, celebrating fundy cities get caravan payoffs equal to ANY representative government, celebrating or not.

And while fundy costs you half your city-generated science, it has no effect on caravan-generated science, so in fundy you should get most of your science by buying caravans that pay for themselves on delivery and get you lots of science too.

[Bloody Monk]

@ JR

Excellent report on celebrating soft fundy.

I would add that it is helpful to have one Einstein to trigger on-going science, especially after one gets an advance. Otherwise, you won't get the screen to choose the next research. The "fundamental" key concept of a celebrating Fundy gov't is that it generates the trade arrows of Republic or Democracy, but without the complications of the Senate.

Monk

[Bloody Monk]

@ RJM

Are you sure Monk? I thought white on your screen simply meant you discovered it first. And therefore it is possible that another civ lacks a tech that you have, even if it is not white on your screen.

I said what I meant but what I said isn't ALL of what I meant. It was late and I didn't take the time to write clearly. Sorry for the imprecision. Especially early in the game, another civ can lack many more techs on your list than the "white" ones.

I was thinking about a quick and dirty method of checking the other civs w/o going through each on a tech by tech basis. This can be virtually impossible when everyone has a large number of techs, so, I have used the shortcut method of just checking the "white" techs along with doing a comparison count of total techs.

The main reason for checking before one contacts an AI is to avoid unecessary contacts that could end up with an angered AI. This is even more important playing MGE, but also applies to classic, especially an AI that is very aggressive, like the Russ. Eventually, they will demand cash and declare war when you decline; and that may not be convenient for you.

Monk

[Bloody Monk]

Quick and Dirty Republic Timing

This is not meant to be complete but is offered to stimulate thinking. The operative principle is "Luck and Success follows Preparation."

Timing the switch should be based on when the costs of being in Republic are finally outweighed by its benifits. This is rarely co-incident with discovering the scroll.

Disregarding the meddlesome Senate, the three most important negatives about being in Republic are the extra food charged to each settler (which can strangle growth of city size), the extra shield cost of most all units (the first three are no longer shield free), and the happiness problems that comes without the martial law effect and the "too many units afield" effect (which requires temples, colosseums and HG). Each of these points could fund a separate report, but the point is that preparation must be accomplished before switching to Republic.

Roads must be properly laid in, irrigation or harbors finished, defensive and exploration units properly "homed", temples and markets built, Mike's Chapel built, and the bulk of the cities at size three or more. Doing this preparation is much, MUCH, easier under Monarchy. Solving the corruption and disorder problems before the changeover will allow you to reset Luxuries so that your size three+ cities can grow by WeLove. With your bulked up, bigger cities and the extra trade arrows from being a Republic, trade becomes very profitable. This is the begining of great success.

Switching too soon has a crippling effect on your efforts...which is a good reason (along with the better trade effect) to give Republic away as soon as you get it.

Hope this is helpful. Once you have mastered this "program" you will find places where some of this can be scaled back or tweaked. For example, rushing thru Philosophy to get Monotheism may allow you to build Mike's before temples and/or colosseums, allowing you to get in some early trade or build more WOW's with those shields.

Monk

[Elephant]

Good list of the negatives of switching to Republic. Here are the positives:

- Less corruption and waste than Monarchy, and more cities before extra unhappiness;

- Extra trade arrow for each worked tile with at least one (which can effectively double your trade arrows, making bigger trade routes and caravan delivery bonuses);

- Celebrating cities in Republic ("We Love The Consul Day") grow one citizen each turn there are no red workers, at least half the workers are "happy" and at least one surplus food, up to the limit of available food and necessary Aquaducts/Sewers. A city can go from size 3 to size 8 in 5 turns, more than doubling your civ size and production/funding/research potential.

The "power" behind the WLTCD growth is trade, as Luxuries are the primary means of making happy citizens when the city grows. Rearranging your workers onto terrain tiles that have at least one or more trade arrows is a vital part of keeping WLTCD growth going, and RushBuilding infrastructure like Temples, Marketplaces, Banks, Colosseums and Harbors will also supress unhappy red faces. Hanging Gardens, Oracle, Mikes Chapel, Shakespeares Theatre and Bachs Cathedral are key happiness wonders that increase in importance as you play higher difficulty levels.

The primary additional benefits to Democracy over Republic are:

- Elimination of all corruption and waste, of great benefit as your civ grows larger than a dozen cities on one island;

- Freedom from loss of units or cities to other civs bribery.

- The first citizen of the capital and every city with a Courthouse is automatically happy.

The primary additional negative is that a Democracy can fall into Anarchy if only one city is is in disorder at the beginning of a second turn.

As the Monk mentioned, timing is everything. If you are not ready for massive city growth, or are engaged in long-distance warfare or exploration with military units far from home, or have not discovered Trade and started delivering caravans, you will stagnate after the switch due to unhappiness, extra shield support, lack of food, and lack of gold to RushBuy improvements. Compensating by reducing research rates will just give the other civs time to catch up and pass you in techs, forcing you to fight at increasing disadvantage. But if you are on top of things, ready for the switch with rehoming, irrigation and roads, happiness wonders and improvements, and trade, you will begin to leave the other civs in the dust of your massive city and tech growth.

A couple final words about Fundy. It often sounds good to beginning Civ players, particularly the part about ignoring citizen unhappiness and free supported military units. But it cannot hold a candle to a well-prepared Power Democracy. City research is halved, so the SSC is of little value, and some players further turn science down to 0% and set a Scientist so that caravan/freight delivery beakers eventually bring a tech. But this can lead to at most one tech per turn, where Power Democracy can achieve two or more per turn. Payoffs of deliveries and trade routes are also lower unless you divert significant taxes to luxuries to achieve celebrating cities. And the sine qua non of Rep/Dem government, WLTC/PD growth, is absent. Fundy and Commy are best reserved for difficult wartime situations, while your focus should be on learning the ropes of Rep/Dem governments and how to wage a one-turn war.

[lykaon]

Um... wow. I'm going to have to read these posts over and over before all the information seeps into my brain.

Monk, I think you are correct about switching to Republic too soon, and I think I may well have done so in the current game. When I get a chance to fire up Civ II later this week, I'll probably drop back to Monarchy on the next Oedo year and build up the infrastructure some more before moving back to Republic or going on to Democracy.

Elephant, on lower difficulty levels I used to play the late-mid to endgame almost entirely in Democracy, leaving my veteran spies to subvert pretty much any non-capital city they can find. I did not really work the trade aspect of the game much back then, since every other civ usually hated me and would kill my caravans before they made it anywhere... trade was limited to cities internal to my empire, and after a while I would tire of finding where to send caravans and just stop building them. Clearly this doesn't work at King level.

You mention a "one turn war". By this I assume you mean "coerce someone into going to war with you, snag some cities from them, and then watch as they sue for peace"? I used to frequently incite wars with my neighbors so that my spies would not have to pay double to subvert their cities. Since I was usually playing as a Democracy at the time, spies were about the only unit I would use to take opposing cities.

Well, back to work for now. I'll re-read this thread later this evening and see how well things have sunk in.

Lykaon

[debeest]

lykaon, the costs of switching governments are quite large. Now that you've switched to republic, don't be in too much of a hurry to switch back -- first get the benefits of republic. Crank up your luxuries to see whether you can get some rapid growth through WLTCD celebration. If so, stick with republic for a few more turns until you sort of max out growth; THEN switch back.

[Bloody Monk]

Excellent piece, Elle!!

@ Lykaon

It costs you the gold and arrows that your cities would accumulate when you revolt. If it were me, I would fiddle with the Luxury rates and worker placement to get your six size 3 cities celebrating. You can do this with 60% Lux (+ a few worker moves to sea tiles). Check again after the first turn of WeLove growth. You may be able to move the Lux rate down a notch or two and still maintain the celebrations...and make sure to look at each city each turn to make sure the new workers are placed to keep the celebrations going. Some cities will drop out of celebration as after a few turns.

The point here is to get some advantage from being in Republic, since you are already there.

Good luck!!

Monk

[Bloody Monk]

debeest

Great minds thinking alike!!

Monk

[debeest]

[lykaon]

Thanks for the advice. If I get some time this evening I will play a few turns as a Republic and see how long I can reasonbly grow, then I'll drop back to Monarchy on the next Oedo year.

I might get a chance to play a little more later this week, and then I will be gone for a week on vacation, so don't be surprised if there's no updates this weekend or all next week; I will be back after that, though.

Lykaon

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I try to wait until I am confident that my key cities can celebrate, before moving to Republic. Otherwise... the added trade arrow is usually offset by the drop in production and/or taking workers off the land to act as Elvises...

Thus, I try to have Mike's Chapel in place, and I want to have some cash 'cushion' to run a deficit for a few turns. Celebrate for 5 turns or so, and most of your cities will be close to size 8... the added workers will offset the loss of shields due to support requirements.

Another key, particularly when you have a SSC, is to know the Construction tech and beeline for Sanitation. Ideally in Republic you want to grow and grow and grow that SSC until it's size 16-20. That'll necessitate a sustained high luxury rate for 10+ turns, and you'll want the cash to rush aqueduct/bank/harbour/sewer in that SSC.

[Bloody Monk]

Very good points, Six!!

And nice to see you. Are you back??

Monk