Favored Goverment Type

[ducki]

Thanks Theseus. I figured it would be that straightforward, but wanted to make sure you didn't have some secret you were keeping, well, secret.

[Vince278]

Mostly Republic. Its a good all round gov. What this? A poll without a banana option? (Banana Republic? )

[Catt]

I'm going to disagree with you and try to make my case that Republic is, in the vast majority of circumstances, the better warmongering government in a head-to-headd grudge match with Democracy ( )

Originally posted by Theseus

Ultimately, warfare is about delivering military units to the right place at the right time, over a period of time, while not meaningfully detracting from economic and scientific efforts.

Fair enough?

So, what do we have there: land and sea transportation, shield production over time (both for units and buildings), maximized science/gold output, and minimized corruption, waste, and unhappiness.

Well, pretty clearly Demo delivers best on all of those requirements, with the exception of the last.

I don't think Demo clearly delivers best on the requirements. First land and sea transportation -- very small, hypothetical, advantage -- putting aside the build times issue (dealt with below), the only advantage is the increased workers' speed and the corresponding ability to build new roads more quickly. I would contend however that contextually, by the time Democracy becomes available, existing road networks will offer up almost all if not all the land transport needs you may face. Advantage: Democracy, though IMHO a very small advantage.

Second, shield production over time -- the corruption (and waste) improvement for Democracy compared to Republic is miniscule. The extra gold per turn for science or taxes is very small (though it is present); the extra shield production is also very small, is not fungible in that it applies only to specific cities, and, given the larger incremental costs of units and buildings in the age of Democracy, is also less likely to actually impact build times in many cases. Advantage: Democracy, though IMHO a small advantage.

Third, maximized science/gold output and minimized corruption and waste -- the sole differences between the two govs are the corruption issue (discussed above and later below) and unit upkeep costs. My view is that a well-managed empire, even for warmongering, is likely to require lower unit upkeep than a democracy given C3C's changed unit upkeep regime. I think it's a close call in many instances, but just looking at snapshots from older games (not relying solely on my limited C3C experience) it appears to me that Republic would require less upkeep than a Democracy even in heavy warmongering games. Of course, YMMV. Advantage: Republic, though certainly subject to vigorous debate.

Fourth - unhappiness. This is where a significant difference comes in. With a Democracy, just 31 war weariness points (WWPs -- quick discussion of WWPs below at the *) means an unhappiness hit; at 61 WWPs they'll suffer significant unhappiness. A Republic stays at the lower level of unhappiness all the way up to 120 WWPs. Net result is significantly greater reliance on the luxury slider under a Democracy than Republic. But then there is the real kicker -- in a Republic, your people will not overthrow your governement -- after accumulating 121 WWPs, they'll be awfully unhappy, but they will not revolt. By contrast, if a Democracy accumulates just 91 WWPs, it will revolt -- and it may do so with little or no warning -- a Democracy in which the entire empire is enjoying WLTKD will still revolt at 91 WWPs, meaning the degree of happiness you can secure is meaningless in terms of revolt or no revolt. Which means that this statement:

So, as long as I can deliver sufficient happiness, I'd ALWAYS want to be in Demo, including ESPECIALLY for warmongering (i.e., I have shield/gold requirements for both of my warring and building efforts... double trouble!).

not wholly accurate. Sufficient, even excessive (!) happiness, won't prevent a revolt. The probelem with war weariness is that it operates on a level somewhat differently than happiness, and despite all the hapiness in the world you can still accumulate lots of WWPs despite your best efforts. As your empire moves towards a 91 WWP revolt, you are effectively forced to negotiate a truce (whether wartime objectives have been met) or face an anrchy period. The truce, and the slow dissaption of WWPs, means if you fail to meet your objectives the first time around, you may have missed a window of opportunity for some time. Advantage: Republic, and IMHO, a very large advantage.

But turning back to the bigger picture -- placing the government question in context of the game. To get to Republic one needs only one anarchy period. To get to Democracy one needs two anarchy periods or one must stay in Despotism for an awful long time. The anarchy period is what really hurts Democracy (just like the possibility of anarchy from WWP significantly restricts Democratic warmongering) -- just looking at typical empire outputs at around the time of a democracy switch can highlight the cost -- any gold that isn't going to maintenance, corruption, or unit costs is the price one pays for the government switch. (Add to this the shields (production) lost for five turns as well which is a bit harder to quantify abstractly). In all the examples I've looked at (focusing on gold alone), the net improvement in per turn gold production under a democracy compared to a republic falls somewhere between the equivalent of 1/15th and 1/25th of one turn's total production -- i.e., for each turn of anarchy, the total gold lost during that turn would be recouped after 15 to 25 turns in a democracy compared to a republic. A 6-turn revolt means a "break-even" gold situation of between 90 and 150 turns -- that's not calculating the opportunity cost / time value of money. Very simplistically, if a game would be over (or effectively over) within those 90 - 150 turns from a prospective switch, the move didn't pay off.
This last contextual look at the proposed switch means, IMHO, that the smallish advantages ceded to Democracy above (principally reduced corr / waste) are more often offset by the costs of a switch to Democracy and further degraded by increased use of a luxury slider during wartime. End result, IMHO, is that Democracy almost never offers sufficient advantage to justify a switch from Republic, and in a game with expectations for significant ongoing warmongering, a switch from Despotism or Monarchy to a representative government will almost always favor a switch to Republic.

Now, if we're talking a religious civ . . .

EDIT: I hit submit reply without writing my "simplified" summary of the above -- a switch to Democracy imposes a cost in terms of loss of flexibility -- flexibility to wage longer wars, to be an aggressor, to absolutely avoid anarchy under all circumstances, etc. -- the value of this lost flexibility is difficult to determine abstractly, but IMHO and intuitively, it is significant enough to more than offset the small per-turn advantages that Democracy might otherwise offer. END EDIT

Catt

* War weariness is dissected at length in Oystein's thread over at CFC found HERE. For purposes of this post, I'd highlight only that WWPs are accumulated without any affirmative actions on the part of the player -- significantly, AI attacks on human units produce 2 WWPs, even when the human unit wins; add 1 WWP when an improvement is pillaged bombed. If wanting to be a flexible warmonger -- i.e., being free to go on the attack in brief wars to secure certain objectives, add 2 WWPs anytime a human attacker is defeated and 1 WWP anytime a human unit ends its turn in enemy territory. It is quite easy, IMHO, to reach 31, 61, and 91 WWPs, even in short engagements (without any offense, just 10 AI attacks and 5 pillages / bombards per turn will push a Democracy to anarchy in 4 - 5 turns.

[eris]

I voted Republic, although it used to Monarchy.

Monarchy is good for protracted war mongering. I expecially love going into a protracted war against a non-Religious Democracy and having War Weariness force them into a government change and the corresponding Anarchy. (Even more cruel is to track that government change, usually to Communism, and when it is done, make peace. You get whatever extortion you can and then leave them with the need to go back to a viable peace-time government. This is evil and emotionally satisfying.) The problem was maintaining a cah flow and a tech lead seemed to be a challenge.

With Republic and more careful attention to War Weariness triggers, I can war monger a lot, just not protracted wars against any one Civ. This feeds into the beat-on-them-then-extort-stuff mode rather well. Meantime, it still supports a decent economy and infrastructure. The only drawback is getting too early a Republic, which tends to hit cash flow due to unit support. I'm still working on that timing issue.

I do switch to Democracy if I am going for Space Race or Culture victories and have achieved a peaceful relationship with other Civs in the later ages. It gets a little tricky if you have suddenly uppity neighbors that want to drag you into a war, and it gets very tricky if you have a web of MPPs going.

I have never used the other governments and so far, have no temptation to do so.

My mind is now filled with the sarcastic little ditty from Garrison Kiellor, "We're all Republicans now!" I'm a very sick person. (USA politics and culture reference)

[ducki]

Wow.
Just when you least expect it, someone shows up with charts.

Very nice, Catt. Sad, but nice. I really want the other governments to be ... I don't know... more. More attractive, more usefull, more whatever. There's no good reason that an Ancient era government should be the one we stick with for an entire game. maybe they should Expire. That would be cool.

Except that, contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, either. So I guess republic and monarchy being the de facto standard isn't out of line with the real world. Just disappointing.


Great analysis, though. Thanks for taking the time.

[Theseus]

Awesome Catt!!

I'm not as good at taking the time to do multiple quotes in reply, so I'll just free form my response.

You are correct in pointing out that the real negatives to warmongering in Demo are WW-induced revolt and the changeover itself.

Re WW: I've had a revolt once. Once. I don't know what it is about how I play, if I've got a WW computer running in the back of my head or what, but it just doesn't happen to me.

Re Demo itself: Be aware, I am talking C3C here. In vanilla and PTW, I would agree with your analysis wholeheartedly... I was more than happen to beeline for Republic and stay there forever. But, as you know, I have recently been building up to a full blown rant about how much Republic sucks in the early C3C game, and, also in conjunction with some of the thinking in the AU Mod discussions, have been playing with two gov't changes, namely Mon/Feud to Rep/Demo. In that context, well, both Rep and Demo suffer the same disadvantage.

Some other random stuff:

* Whilst warmongering, assuming expansion and not just eradication, I typically starve captured towns/cities/metros (do we have an all encompassing name? pop centers?) down to 1 pop... and there are typically quite a few of these in progress. Demo gains an advantage during this period in terms of unit costs.

* I think I use more units than you do...

* Worker advantage: Think rails.

Acknowledging that I am in fact advocating a two go'vt change style, I guess I'd say that those small, incremental advantages to Demo actually do add up to a greater benefit than the flexibility afforded by Republic.

And finally, yes, paradoxically (or perhaps not ), REL is one of the warmonger's greatest friends. REL/MIL... yes Yes YES!! (and OH, how handy, Samurai! )

[Catt]

Others can have their say on Repub versus Demo -- I'll limit myself to my above post and:

Originally posted by Theseus
Acknowledging that I am in fact advocating a two go'vt change style, I guess I'd say that those small, incremental advantages to Demo actually do add up to a greater benefit than the flexibility afforded by Republic.

I still don't agree with that, if the goal is effective warmongering after the second switch, for my reasons above. And:

And finally, yes, paradoxically (or perhaps not ), REL is one of the warmonger's greatest friends. REL/MIL... yes Yes YES!! (and OH, how handy, Samurai! )

I agree with that wholeheartedly -- Religious is a great warmonger trait! And I haven't played Japan in a while and maybe it is time . . .

Cheers!

Catt

[Kuciwalker]

Democracy with Babylon, Republic with all the other civs I play

[Catt]

Sorry - neglected to reply earlier.

Originally posted by ducki
I really want the other governments to be ... I don't know... more. More attractive, more usefull, more whatever. There's no good reason that an Ancient era government should be the one we stick with for an entire game. maybe they should Expire. That would be cool.

I wish they were . . . more, too. Firaxis' tweaking with the unit costs was, I suspect, an attempt to make them something more, but I don't think they hit the right key. My view is that the whole government discussion is hampered by two overwhelmingly important, and hardcoded, variables: (1) trade bonus (for repub and demo); and (2) war weariness. If the trade bonus feature were less "all or nothing" and the war weariness options were less "choppy," I think it would be easier to introduce greater balance to the govs. Sliders, akin to the the corruption slider, affecting the degree of increased trade and the degree of war weariness among governments, would provide a much better opportunity for governmental balance (and might introduce some interesting uses for Feudalism, too!) than worker speed, gold- or pop-rushing, espionage success, etc.

Thanks for taking the time.

I would say the same to you, and hundreds of others on the forums. As long as everyone keeps taking the time to express and explain opinions, 'Poly will be interesting and entertaining, and will strengthen the Civ franchise, IMHO.

Catt

[Capt Dizle]

I'd give the edge to Republic. IMHO, the benefits of Demo are not sufficient to overcome the fact that you can get in Republic much earlier and with one fewer anarchy period.

I just can't see a game in which I would have to switch out of Republic to Demo in order to win. And I can't see why it would be more fun to be democratic.

[Cerbykins]

I used to be a Monarchy guy (and a late switcher to it, as well ). Then I found out how to get the same near-constant wars in Republic/Demo too :P

While I've picked Democracy, it's on the assumption that I get Universal Suffrage. Which I normally do - just someday I might not, then it'll be Republic

[Catt]

Originally posted by Cerbykins
While I've picked Democracy, it's on the assumption that I get Universal Suffrage. Which I normally do - just someday I might not, then it'll be Republic

BTW - since I don't recall it ever being posted here at 'Poly but was posted by DaveMcW at CFC, Universal Suffrage basically puts "half a police station" in each city for purposes of war unhappiness. US makes 1 unhappy person (unhappiness due to WW) become content; a police station makes 2 WW-unhappy citizens content. Neither improvement actually slows the accumulation of WW, they just add WW-specific contented-ness boosters.

Catt

[Risa]

What? Universal Suffrage is only a conditional happyness wonder and only offers 1 conditional happy face?
No longer "must have", then.

[Catt]

Yup - IMHO, a "sure, I'll take it" wonder versus an "I want it wonder."

Catt

[steven8r]

Thanks everyone for all of the analysis/opinions on this.

It's been VERY helpful.

Catt, Yes, Japan ROCKS at the during-war gov't switch. Perhaps I wouldn't have had to use it if I'd stayed in Rep, but I went to Demo then the Aztecs attacked. I suffered a Revolution (probably due mostly to Drafting--pretty powerful BTW), but I lost only 1-2 turns. If I'd read this thread previous, I'd have then switched to Rep instead of Mon. Might have saved me some Research and $$.


It seems that I generally persue the bottom of the Tech Tree during the Industrial Age and I generally only get Industrialization in trade. Therefore I almost NEVER build Universal Sufferage. I haven't seemed to miss it. I would classify it as a 'nice but in no way necesary' build. Your opinion may vary.

Thanks again for all the analysis,

Steven