Republic versus Democracy

[Dis]

yeah it's worth it, but I rarely have ivory. But really, I don't try too hard to get it. But I would like to prevent my closes neighbors from getting it. I don't care if it is made on some distant continent.

Although that does have an effect near the end of the game. At the higher difficulties I'm playing, I am discovering that one civ seems to utterly dominate the "other" continent. There is nothing I can do about this. They are often bigger than I am. If they had any decent manufacturing capability and research they may actually pose a shot at beating me.

[Ljube]

The best thing you can do in such a case is the following: Make that civ declare war on you (it shouldn't be too difficult), ally with everyone else on that continent against the civ (supplying them with needed resources even if it is your last resource, even for free), sit back and watch.

It works like charm.

[spy14]

Thats my favorite... a couple of times i've seen the huge civ stomp over everybody else, but ive found myself being left alone, meaning I can research and build while the huge civ is bogged down in a huge war. By the time im taking it on directly, I can usually boast a healthy tech/infrastructure lead.

[Winston]

This post concerns Vanilla Civ III.

For a long time, I thought Democracy gave you extra commerce compared to Republic. The Civilopedia text could be interpreted that way. But on any significant scale, it doesn't.

There's also what I would call a misleading entry in the Civilopedia concerning corruption and waste in Rep. and Dem. It says that corruption and waste is a "nuisance" in Rep and "minimal" in Dem, while in reality they are almost exactly the same.

I tested it out in a game with 162 cities spread out over an entire standard size map (AI had only 1 small city left) playing as a religious civ so I could switch in one turn, and there was hardly any noticeable difference in income, production or corruption from Dem to Rep.

On one turn I had the following after holding a revolt and choosing Dem:

commerce 5952
corruption 3787 (63.63%)
mfg. goods 813
productivity 3865

On the same turn (after reloading the previous turn, holding the revolt and choosing Rep) I had:

commerce 5934, down 0.30%
corruption 3839, up 1.37% (64.69%)
mfg. goods 797, down 1.97%
productivity 3779, down 2.23%

Very little difference there, certainly not enough to warrant a switch in a game that has the AI still being a somewhat serious rival.

So the only difference between the two types of government of any importance is that in Dem, your workers are faster and you experience more war weariness. A bit poor when you think about it, that the developers didn't make the choice between the two modern peacetime governments more interesting.

[Dis]

162 cities is quite a lot. The difference may be more pronounced on a regular map (because a majority of the cities are closer to the capitol/FP than on a map with 162 cities). I never have more than 25 or 30 cities myself.

[Solomwi]

Winston, I had similar results in C3C with a similar sized empire. I wasn't religious, but just skipped through the revolt in a "time machine" save. That helped sell me on Republic. Two things on your post:

1. Dem has more WW than Republic, and I believe that's been true from day one, so really the only benefit, besides marginal corruption reduction, is the worker speed.

2. In C3C, the unit support added to Republic, as I've said before, more than outweighs the corruption reduction. I may gain 100-200 more uncorrupted commerce, but I'll be paying 300+ in unit support, meaning I'll actually have less commerce to divide between science, luxuries and the treasury. With the unit support, I can build 50% more workers and not spend a penny more.

[Winston]

Solomwi, good to see you have similar results in C3C. And yes, I meant to say more WW in Dem, not less. I will edit the post so as not to confuse anyone.

And I agree, with the added unit support for Rep in C3C, in any "normal" game situation there is no reason at all to go into Dem, even if you're religious and can change almost instantly. Doesn't make much sense to me that Democracy isn't a more sophisticated choice of government, but there we are.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Dissident
162 cities is quite a lot. The difference may be more pronounced on a regular map (because a majority of the cities are closer to the capitol/FP than on a map with 162 cities). I never have more than 25 or 30 cities myself.

On a percentage basis, yes, but even the absolute difference, which will be made up in the core, of course, wasn't great. 52 extra raw commerce comes out to 130 overall commerce (+50% lib/mark, +50% uni/bank, +50% research lab/stock market). That goes away with the 131st unit built. I could see it being worthwhile, maybe, in small builder games, but I typically have 130+ workers, much less military units.

I would be interested in seeing the results on smaller maps, though.

[Winston]

Just one thing, the 52+18 difference in the commerce/corruption figures above is actually the overall difference, not extra "raw" commerce.

The thing I call commerce in the results was taken from the "income from cities" on the F1 screen which, as you know, is the same as the GNP figure on the F11 screen. So it's a total of 70 extra commerce in Dem vs. Rep. Not much to write home about.

And perhaps I ought to say that none of my cities were on Wealth, they were all producing something at the time. And I was running 4.4.2 for the treasury/research/luxury allocation.

[Solomwi]

I got the 52 number from the drop in corruption. Since corrupted gold isn't multiplied by improvements, it's a good measure of the difference, as long as your citizens are working the same tiles. IOW, Rep and Dem give the same raw commerce before corruption. Therefore, the single most important number in the comparison is the corruption drop.

If you'll notice, the top left corner of the F1 screen balances, which means "Income from Cities" does include multiplicative effects. The corrupted gold, though, eliminates that variable, along with wealth-building and specialists.

The extra 18 is just a function of your city improvements multiplying the extra gold, and not 18 more raw gold to be multiplied. So, while your empire got 70 more gold from those 52 raw gold, another may get anywhere between 52 and 130, depending on what improvements are in what cities.

[Dauphin]

Communism in C3C. It kills off corruption.

[Ljube]

Originally posted by Solomwi
2. In C3C, the unit support added to Republic, as I've said before, more than outweighs the corruption reduction. I may gain 100-200 more uncorrupted commerce, but I'll be paying 300+ in unit support, meaning I'll actually have less commerce to divide between science, luxuries and the treasury. With the unit support, I can build 50% more workers and not spend a penny more.

Usually I have gpt agreements that pay maintenance for my armies, so I can dedicate my entire commerce to science. In this case democracy has a slight advantage compared to republic, so I usually pick democracy when I end my warmongering.

[Solomwi]

I disagree that the gpt deals change anything, since they're independent of government type. If you're in a situation where your military upkeep would be larger than the commerce boost, you're still going to pocket less money in democracy than you would in republic, all other things being equal.

[Ljube]

True, but I would generate more commerce in democracy and hence more science if I slide it to 100%, which I usually do late in the game.
Money is of no consequence then.

[Solomwi]

I see what you're saying in that outside revenue streams aren't available for science, but in my experience (granted, it's huge map specific), 100% science is more than enough for 4-turn research, even in republic. Thus, the unit support vs. corruption problem boils down to money in the pocket.