Communism or democracy?

[Remulak]

I am involved in a game at Emperor level. I am relatively new at playing at this level. I just researched Communism and inititiated anarchy in order to move off Monarchy. I am involved in a war with the powerful Chinese who are on Monarchy, but are several techs ahead of me. They already have replaceable parts and my Cossacks are having a hard time against the infantry.

My question is whether to go for democracy and try to catch up in the tech race, but have to deal with WW or go for Communism and stay a warmonger, but probably well behind in the tech race?

[Modo44]

It's hard to tell without knowing more details, but I'd refrain from going Democracy, while at war. It would give you War Weariness, and plenty of it, if the war lasted long.

If you have a small empire, consider going Fascist, as it allows your core cities to retain high productivity. If you have Fascism, that is. If you have a big empire, Communism is probably ok, although staying in Moanrchy would be an option as well. Anarchy during a war is very, very suicidal.

If you could post a save from the game, that would help understand your situation better.

[punkbass2000]

If you're seriously considering Demo, you may want to go with Rep.

[GePap]

Re: Communism or democracy?

Originally posted by Remulak
I am involved in a game at Emperor level. I am relatively new at playing at this level. I just researched Communism and inititiated anarchy in order to move off Monarchy. I am involved in a war with the powerful Chinese who are on Monarchy, but are several techs ahead of me. They already have replaceable parts and my Cossacks are having a hard time against the infantry.

My question is whether to go for democracy and try to catch up in the tech race, but have to deal with WW or go for Communism and stay a warmonger, but probably well behind in the tech race?

Well, I would advise in that situation becoming a communist state to stop war weariness and keep the military rolling-high war weariness will make it difficult to catch up in techs as you need to move resources to happyness.

Of course, you could seek to make peace with the Chinese and become a democracy to catch up - also, how many other civs are in the game? Are the Chinese singly ahead? Maybe if you become communist and pump everything into taxes, doing 0 of your own research, you can build up enough cash to buy your way upwards?

[joncnunn]

If your already at war, if you switch to a WW governement, for the purposes of WW calucations it will be as if you were in that WW governement when the war started.

If you were going to switch to Democracy, you are either way too late [back when Democracy was discovered] or else too early unless the war ends before the anarchy ends.

Agreed with the Communism vs Fascism with the additional note that for Communism, you really want every single city to have a Court House and later a Police Station, even the capital. And also pick a city with a lot of shield potiential as the secret police hq if your not planning on switching out of communism. (Anywhere will include corruption overall, but the site of it gets extremely low corruption)

[Donegeal]

I've never understood why people get into protracted wars in the industrial age and beyond. They hardly ever last more than five turns for me and then I agree to peace. I never leave Demo.

And I'm a warmonger.

[Remulak]

I am leaning towards going to Communism, which was my original intent. I have a large empire, about the same size as the Chinese. There are several other civs, all at war. The Indians, Celts, Greeks and Americans are fighting along with me against the Chinese and the Persians. I think that only the Chinese have RP, although the Celts are close. The Americans are caught between me, the Indians and the Chinese, so are taking much of the brunt of the Chinese attack. I have been able to fend off the Chinese cavalry with my cossack armies, but the are bringing stacks of infantry as well.

I have courthouses in most of my outlying cities and would build police stations if I were not at war. Why would I want to build a courthouse and police station in the capitol or my other core cities? I usually don't.

[Barinthus]

I never ran Communism (I plan to explore Communism in my current epic game although) but IIRC under Communism, corruption are distributed equally throughout your civ so your captial will have some corruption.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Remulak
I am leaning towards going to Communism, which was my original intent. I have a large empire, about the same size as the Chinese. There are several other civs, all at war. The Indians, Celts, Greeks and Americans are fighting along with me against the Chinese and the Persians.

You definately don't want Democracy then. If you stay at war too long, your government will fall, and twice as much anarchy sucks, especially during war.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Barinthus
I never ran Communism (I plan to explore Communism in my current epic game although) but IIRC under Communism, corruption are distributed equally throughout your civ so your captial will have some corruption.

Actually, no, the capital, forbidden palace city and SPHQ cities have just about zero corruption, even under Communism. All other cities are equally corrupt.

Firaxis boosted Communism a few patches ago, greatly increasing the OCN for communal corruption governments. It now pretty much rocks - especially if you're in a meatgrinder war.

I like using Communism at the end of games I've already won because I hate corruption and a Commie empire with the FP, SPHQ, courthouses & police stations = hardly any corruption. You can be teetering on the brink of domination and have almost no corruption.

-Arrian

[Barinthus]

Thanks, Arrian. Your posting now have steered back to Remulak's question ...

Why would I want to build a courthouse and police station in the capitol or my other core cities?

Or those are not neccessary?

[Arrian]

Core cities, absolutely... since under communism there are no "core" cities (other than the palace, FP, and SPHQ sites) anymore.

Palace, FP, SPHQ - no. Well, now I'm wondering if my memory is right. Definitely not the palace city. I dunno if the FP & SPHQ are as effective as the palace. I know that under a central government, I will use a courthouse in the FP city...

-Arrian

[Barinthus]

Pretty much there is no need for a courthouse at the palace city, right? Corruption there is zero.

[Solomwi]

Remember the maximum corruption formula, Arrian:

Cmax = max(0.9 – (0.1 * Ni + 0.7 * Nwc), 0) ($1 to alexman)

Meaning that if a city houses a corruption reducing wonder (FP, SPHQ), its maximum corruption, under any government, is 20%. That drops by 10% for each corruption reducing improvement, i.e. courthouse and police station.

[Arrian]

Ah, I'm glad I added my caveat at the end, then! It's just the palace that needs no CH or PS. The FP & SPHQ will want both.

-Arrian