Communism and Monarchy

[Fistleaf]

For Civ3 vanilla, is it more profitable to switch to Communism or remain a Monarchy until I am ready to switch to Democracy?

For Democracy war weariness, do the woman's suffrage and police stations reduce unhappiness or reduce war weariness duration?

[alexman]

In short, for vanilla Civ3, forget Communism. Also, unless you have a shortage of luxuries or many many units, Monarchy is usually worse than the Republic. Democracy is generally not worth the turns of Anarchy to switch from the Republic.

C3C is another story.

The Woman's Sufrage and police stations both reduce the unhappiness caused by war weariness. The Universal Sufrage reduces the number of unhappy people by 1 in each city, and police stations reduce them by 25% in each city where the improvement is built.

[vmxa1]

For non-religious civs in vanilla, just go from despot to republic.

[Fistleaf]

Actually, I don't think highly of Republic because it is neither here nor there, a pseudo-Democracy without the worker 150% benefit and with more corruption.

I agree that for builder strategy, Republic may be better than Monarchy. But there will always be wars at higher levels and with police stations and Suffrage coming so late in the game, how do you cope with the war-weariness?

[Aqualung71]

As long as you plan your wars properly, with superior strength and defined objectives, you can limit their length and accept peace before WW kicks in too badly. Until then, trade for luxuries as much as you can and use the luxury slider to keep 'em happy.

Republic is significantly better than Monarchy in terms of commerce, which translates into a higher research rate. Once you're in Republic, the value of a switch to Democracy for anything but a religious civ is highly debatable due to the turns of anarchy you will experience. Apart from the faster worker rate (and I forget the comparable unit support rates for vanilla civ), the only economic benefit over Republic is that Democracy has slightly lower corruption, but often it's not even noticeable (and on that, take note of Alexman's comments - he wrote the book on corruption!)

[gunkulator]

Even with C3C, I generally go despotism to republic and just stay there (non-religious) the rest of the game.

Kinda a shame since they've added all these other cool gov'ts however with the cost of switching so severe, I never bother with them.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Fistleaf
Actually, I don't think highly of Republic because it is neither here nor there, a pseudo-Democracy without the worker 150% benefit and with more corruption.

Demo is too far away and is a not required to get to the next age.
If you are not religious you really should only change once. You can't wait for Dem.

WW is not a big problem, just don't start wars.

[Solomwi]

As much as I hate the extra anarchy, in an epic game the switch is worth it for me, especially now that Republic requires 2 gold/unit support. Obviously that last part will affect different players differently, but aside from that, has anybody done the math as to what the actual corruption difference between the two governments is? That would at least give people an idea of a breakeven point for a switch. IOW, I suspect that with 200 turns in front of me, a switch would be worthwhile, even in vanilla, but if I think I may win in the next 20-50 turns, it's not going to be.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Solomwi
has anybody done the math as to what the actual corruption difference between the two governments is?

Corruption calculations have changed significantly from vanilla Civ to C3C, so it depends which version you're playing.

Under C3C, if I read Alexman's calculations properly, it seems that Democracy reduces the adjusted distance by 25% over Republic for the distance corruption calculation, but is the same as Republic for the rank corruption calculation.

Go visit Alexman's C3C corruption thread here

[Fistleaf]

Let's assume I play a warmonger. Is communism in the long run better than Monarchy, assuming I have the Forbidden Palace built?