Governments: Republic vs. Democracy

[ThreeMiler]

A question about governments and their affect on game play.

Right now I am running a Republic in Civ III Conquests, in an epic game, not in one of the scenarios. I was thinking of switching to a Democracy, but before I spend time researching Democracy, I was wondering if the switch would be beneficial. I know from reading through the Civlopedia that Republic increases commerce and that Democracy increases worker output, production and commerce. Also, corruption is maybe problematic in one and it is low in the other. That all sounds good, but in order to analyze whether or not the switch would be beneficial, I need to have some numbers to figure it out.

So, does anybody have any information about the numbers behind all the text for the government descriptions, like Republic increases commerce by xx% or that problematic corruption is yy% vs low corruption of zz%. This sort of information for all of the governments in Civ III Conquests would be very helpful.

Thanks.

[CerberusIV]

The short answer is it depends on your civ. If it is religious then democracy is the way to go in peace as you have better workers and lower corruption and you can switch to something else in wartime.

If not religious then it is a closer call. The deciding factora are risk of WW and unit support costs. They changed republic for support costs. I can't remember the details but it is in the editor if you care to check.

Changing governments more than once or twice is too painful for non-religious civs.

[ThreeMiler]

I am the Egyptians, so I am Religious and Industrious.

My main concern is when I go from Republic to Democracy, is that none of the cities will provide any unit support, like say in Despotism where each city supports 4 units. If the commerce bonus is the same between Republic and Democracy then the only offset I would have for loosing the unit support of Republican cities would be the extra income I would get from a lowering of corruption. That is why having the numbers would be good so I could calculate ahead of time. Granted, I could save the game, research Democracy and switch and see if it is better, but I would rather just figure it out ahead of time.

Thanks.

[CerberusIV]

I don't have figures as I have said but if you check the F1 and F3 advisor screens you will be able to see how much military you are having to pay for and how much it is costing.

In republic any military above the allowed number costs 2 gold per unit. In democracy all military costs 1 gold per unit. So which is better depends on how many military you have.

As a rough estimate, if you are paying support for half or more of your total number of units then democracy is better. If you are getting more than half your units supported free then republic costs less.

[steven8r]

ThreeMiler,

If you have the tech lead (or at least a 'branch lead'), go ahead and research Democracy. You don't have to switch to it, but the AI's generally pay great sums for even dead-end governmental techs (actually I think the only non-dead-end government tech is Feudalism, the rest are all optional). They sure don't trade them lightly!!

If you are religious (and as Egypt, you are) you can switch governments in short order. You might save the game under Republic then switch to Demo. Compare your income/outgo and if it's worse, reload the saved game.

As a general rule, If you are Religious AND you are NOT at war, it's worth the 1-2 turns of Anarchy to switch to Demo. If not, then don't.

Sorry that's not specific numbers, but it's the best I can do for right now.

[dexters]

Demo is much more appealing to me now with the new Republic unit support cost alteration.