a suggestion for improving democracy

[okblacke]

Originally posted by SporkPimp
Keeping wars short is an impossibility under Democracy, unless you suck up the huge military expenditures (and you will have to)...[snip]...the net gains (that is, gains - losses) generally don't make up for the cost of the optional techs and Anarchy.

Playing at Regent, I find that Democracy is where I pull ahead of the AI. If I'm religious or if I already have a lead, I'll switch right away, otherwise I'll wait until the late medieval Wonder-cascade is over.

But the main way Democracy helps me pull ahead is that the AI will pay through the nose for it, as it will for any government. One good tech like Demo can put you in the situation where you're at full research (or nearly) for the rest of the game (by continually whoring techs).

On top of that, I want the AI to have Democracy. It reduces its ability to sustain a war on my soil. (I'll sell Republic for the same reason, but there's never any money to be had from a civ that needs Rep so it usually goes to a backward Civ when I'm in Industrial.) And if they don't switch to Demo, they can't keep up with me in terms of RR building, research, etc.

I find Democracy pays for itself quickly. As for war, when I'm defending as a Democracy--i.e., when someone else started the war--I'll play by the wounded victim rules and not go on to the enemy's territory. When I'm attacking as a Democracy, it's Operation Iraqi Freedom: Conquer the entire empire in one turn. (Ideally. Minimally, never attack a city unless you can take it that turn--and hold it.)

[ok]

Edit: And with the cash you get from tech-whoring, you can support a huge military. It's easy to end up with 200-300 units being a minor cost.

[BulMaster]

I play on emp usualy and I do play on democracy all the time. I find the concept of war weariness in democracy inadequate. I mean you discover it in the end of middle ages. In the Ind era you discover nationalism. Now nationalism and war weariness do tend to oppose each other. Even though the loved ones were dying ppl were continuing to produce even more since the other solution is to be conquered. It's only in the late 20th century that war weariness actualy really appears as a social effect. Nothing of that before hand. In that matter I think Demo needs adjustments.
As for wars in demo you do have around 10 turns free of that. If you declare war and can't make progress in those first ten turns then you won't do it at all. As okblacke says if you can't conquer the city in one turn, I say two at max 3 then you are in troubles.

Aslo to come back to the war weariness issue, even today when we have anti war demostration the countries still continue to work at full trotle and are not affected. What should actualy have an impact is probably the relation of the pop to the army, but in civ they are not related. Instead of beeing able to pump huge armies, they might be linked with your pop I mean those men that fight don't come from shields only , so at one point you will run out of ppl that will cripple your economy a bit, then further and you will colapse. At least that's how the long wars were fough and won. which is the effect of ww on the long term if you look at from a different angle. Still I do believe that WW in demo should increase to its current stands like someway after nationalism, otherwise rename nationalism to something else!