Early game - when to switch govt?

[Robert]

Never switch governament in your golden age!
That's a truely waste of golden age benefits!

[Cookie Monster]

Well I've been reading everything you all have been saying and I thought that I'd at least give an update on my current situation.

I have concluded the war winning on ai city and 10 gold from my enemy. That is all he had to offer.

Upon conclusion of the war I immediately entered anarchy. It will take 9 turns to get out of anarchy and pick a new government. Still haven't gotten republic so monarchy it is. I plan on waging war on another nearby neighbor afterwards as he has no iron. Currently only 5 turns to go until the switch is made.

Meanwhile I haven't discovered the location of my one human opponent yet but it's safe to say I have contacted all of the ai players. I've switched many of my citizens to scientists and am now 3 turns away from discovering feudalism despite being in anarchy. It is currently 250B.C.

Time is getting tight as I need to continue my oscillating war ASAP to make sure I am stronger than my human opponent when I contact him.

My conclusion in this particular case is monarchy is the way to go since I plan on waging at least 2 more short wars in the near future. Also I only have 2 luxuries so republic would be challenging to manage in wartime.

[Shogun Gunner]

DESPOTISM to MONARCY to REPUBLIC as soon as each is available.

Unless you are playing religious trait, then perhaps a switch to Democracy.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
DESPOTISM to MONARCY to REPUBLIC as soon as each is available.

Unless you are playing religious trait, then perhaps a switch to Democracy.

This is a bit of a waste, IMO. Especially as you get to Regent and above, there are a sizeable number of turns of Anarchy, so you want to ideally have no more than about 2 changes per game. You should choose which of Rep or Mon (or Feud) you want early on and get that one. Ignore the other one(s) until you can pick the tech(s) up for cheap later on. My situation would have to be pretty odd for me to go Monarchy on the way to Rep. If you get Mon first, don;t change until you can really afford it, but you should really just go for Rep and stay in Despotism until you are secure enough early on to change to Rep. After that changing govs should only come during or immediately before wars, when the unit support or lack of ww is needed badly enough.

[Aqualung71]

9 turns of anarchy at monarchy difficulty?!

Now that is rotten luck!

[Dis]

how do you tell how many turns you have. but it does seem you have more anarchy as you go up in levels.

One reason I love religious civs. But you are taking away another useful trait by doing that. There are so many other good ones. Industrious, scientific, commercial. even agricultural.

[vmxa1]

Check with the advisor and he will tell you how long before you get control.

As a non-religious civ it is very hard to switch for me at any level above emporer.

I just did a Demi and could not justify a switch until around 500AD and then only to Monarchy. I stayed there until I launched.

The loss of 6 to 9 turns is just to painful. I waited until I had no wonder event and was too slow to be first to the next tech.

[Dis]

you launched as spaceship, and I assume won the game in a monarchy?

[vmxa1]

Yup, IIRC I won my last Sid game with that gov as well. It is fine if you want support and no WW.

[Dis]

how do you go about research and obtaining the techs necessary to finish the spaceship?

[vmxa1]

In this game I use CxxC and mined every tile that was not desert or had wheat. IOW I was very productive.

I could not keep up in research after a time as my land was not large enough, so I did two things.

One was to research things they did not and trade it. Two was to steal from time to time.

Later I got enough land, but stuck with the same plan, so I could make more troops.

BTW I had a lot of coastal towns, so harbors provided lots of food. After Ibuilt a few hospitals, I did have to irrigate a few more tiles, but I had Hydros and such to boost shields.

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Aqualung71
9 turns of anarchy at monarchy difficulty?!

Now that is rotten luck!

Rotten luck indeed. I'm playing on Monarch level and at the time of the switch I had 14 cities.

1 size 8
1 size 6
2 size 4
1 size 3
4 size 2
the rest size 1

I'm sure empire and city sizes had something to do with the amount of time for the switch. Maybe it takes time setting up a new government!

[vmxa1]

I doubt time is a factor. I have seen from as low as 4 turns to 9 with more or less the same empires on the top 4 levels.

I can't really speak to monarch level any more, but I doubt it makes any difference.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by vmxa1

One was to research things they did not and trade it. Two was to steal from time to time.

Do you mean like oscillating war and then suing for Peace + techs, or was this that far on that spies were around (and you decided they were worth the expense! )?

[vmxa1]

No techs for peace, once the Hittites declared they got eliminated. The English eventually I gave peace straight up or maybe they gave me a few buck, nothing major. The very early wars, I had the tech lead or the GL.

The English did not lose much, a few units they landed and two or three stacks of ships (one was a carrier). I never sent troops to their land.

Anyway I was never more than one or two techs behind. In fact behind is probably not even correct as I would get a tech that they did not have, such as Ecology or the ones leading to Cure for Cancer wonders. They stuck to techs that yield space parts.

I would go hard for another tech, then drop to zero to raise cash for a steal, if I could not trade. Most of those techs are easy to trade and I often got a lux as well. This is because I never had more than 3 of my own.

I started steal a bit before I built the IA. After it was built I planted spies and used them to steal.

The world wide war did not break out until very very late. I had even been gracious most fo the time, which is very unusal for me.
I normally ignore the AI for the last half of the game, but I just did not have the land.

One bonus from trading ecology to all way to get the environment in better shape than I normally see it and hence no global warming ever occurred.