Best governments...

[Cort Haus]

As the banana option was saddled with anarchy, I couldn't vote. The answer is as always - it depends.

It's a sign of a good game where the answer is 'none of the above', and there are many GovX vs Gov Y debates. A number of posters have touched on the key decider in the Republic or Not debate ...

Republic sucks when you hit the Middle Ages with as many units as you could build in the previous era, and it rocks when you're going builder in the early game - either to stay builder or explode later on.

[Mace]

Originally posted by gunkulator
My personal opinion is that we all got spoiled with Civ2's infinite number of non corrupt cities. All you had to do was get to one of the zero corruption govs, take a couple AI cities so that you had the most, and then sit back and out-produce, out-research and out-tax everyone else. Any slight lead led to an unstoppable snowball effect.

No question C3C's corruption model is better that Civ2.

Well, not to digress the thread too much here, as it's been discussed ad nauseum, I will say that, in the real world, a far-flung city in a Democratic govt doesn't necessarily have high corruption. Honolulu isn't woefully corrupt whilst sitting in a Democracy. Or is it? Sen. Inouye, etc.

But at any rate, in Civ3, a city that far from its capital would have mega corruption. I don't want to debate it here, but the question is, is that a correct corruption model?

[GodKing]

I used to always go for demo. now, I usually skip over researching the tech completely, and go for getting into the industrial age asap. Often, I will stay in republic and go into a bunch of small wars. If it looks like a large long war, I will switch to Commie.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Mace


Ah, I see yer point there. 2nd core is of no signifigance since no other non-communal govt can do that either now.



Well, I think ALL Civ3 govts (except Communism) are "high" corruption govts...but that's just me.
(I think corruption is modelled incorrectly in Civ3.)

I agree with you more and more. You must understand that I have not played many Republic games in C3C, and my observations are in part based on what I've seen in the editor, and Civ2 knowledge. Back with Civ1 and Civ2 I had a lot more time to experiment with these things. Now, I don't.

In my latest game I have gone Despotism ---> Republic on an Arch80 map playing Carthage. I have done two things that I did not think Republic was capable of: I've been able to maintain a large army as the middle ages went on. I've been able to control WW.

***I have, when in the Editor, noticed that Republic has a different corruption rating than Demo (one level worse, if I remember correctly). And this led me to conclude that Repub is a high- (or at least high-er) corruption govt. Technically, it appears that Rep does have higher corruption as you alluded. But the end-result, which is tech and gold, is not much different.

That's all I'm saying.

On the corruption model itself, I think that's more of a gameplay than realism issue. To model the real world, they could tie corruption to movement between city A and the capital instead of distance, but once railroads are laid and airports are built, you're right back to the Civ2 scenario of infinite corruption-free, or low corruption, cities.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Not to mention that Dem is an optional tech you do not need to research. It comes to late to wait for (in depotism), so you will have to suffer an extra government switch.

All of that for a small gain, if any (depends on your military).

You're right, I forgot about the added costs of getting into Democracy. I should have stipulated that WW was the only advantage of being in Rep over being in Dem.

[joncnunn]

You can have a second core with non-communial govts, IF you place the FP properly. The second core will be smaller than the first.

For that matter, communial govts can really only ever have 3 core cities. (Palace, FP, and SPHQ.)

Democracy does involve 2 Optional Techs, but the Printing Press is extremely valuable to a human if they are the first to discover it for trading contacts. Somewhat less so on Pangena, but it's still not uncommon on Pangena for the civs on the extereme edges of it to not have contact with eachother when Printing Press comes around.

There's also an optional tech Free Artistry that Democracy is on the way to, that if you research this early enough to build Shakesphere's soon enough will allow one of your cities [usaually the captial] to reach size 16+ before the Industrial Age begins. This will allow that city to quickly build Industrial Age wonders [after a Factory].

[Mace]

Originally posted by joncnunn
You can have a second core with non-communial govts, IF you place the FP properly. The second core will be smaller than the first.

For that matter, communial govts can really only ever have 3 core cities. (Palace, FP, and SPHQ.)

Isn't a "core" an entire region of your empire? That's how I have always defined it.

[vmxa1]

A core is more a matter of the number of cities that are close enough to have good production, without significant losses due to corruption.

So this could be impacted with the RCP design in C3 or PTW. IOW how you laided out the empire would be a determination of the size of the core in those games.

[joncnunn]

To have a 2nd FP core of max size it must have at least a full ring of cities around it. And must be neither too close nor too far from the Palace.

It's a given that the FP area will need Court Houses and would also benifit from Police Stations.

The other thing that determines size of both cores is which cities have Court Houses and later Police Stations.

In Vanilla, it was also determined by how many cities you could succeed in getting into WTLPD, but in Conquests, getting large sections of your empire under WLTPD to act as a free second Court House [for shields only] in the Middle Ages is much, much more difficult. (Unless moded to increase luxaries.)

I supose war-monglers have an easier time getting the luxaries, but on the other hand, they are less likely to build Court Houses.

[theDragon]

I know that I may be commiting Civ-blasphomy because I STILL have yet to get Conquests (which keeps sounding better and better ) But I have to ask a few questions that i feel have to be addressed:

What happened to Fascism? And Monarchy? I mean, I play a normal game by beeling to Monarchy then making my way out to Democracy or Republic later. Communism if war is going to be a long deal. But the unspoken of (certainly not without justification ) has been Fascism. Is there any good reason why you/the AI would ever choose such a government? I mean, do you all find any AI using it, and does anyone use it at all? Or is it once again just between two standard governmental systems?

[UnOrthOdOx]

AI uses it over communism...to their detriment.

It's not that bad a government, really, if you can get by it's 2 major drawbacks of pop loss on changing to it, and the racial majority needed to begin earning culture points.

It's the second one that is more detrimental IMO, as a warmonger that late in the game often needs to rush a temple to get some quick culture going and help that flip formula.

[Mace]

Originally posted by joncnunn
To have a 2nd FP core of max size it must have at least a full ring of cities around it. And must be neither too close nor too far from the Palace.

That's the thing though...I have always thought that the C3C FP only did 2 things:
1) increase the OCN, and
2) greatly reduce corruption in the city where it's built.

I did not think the C3C FP directly affected cities AROUND it--the Vanilla FP did that, but not the C3C FP. IOW, I didn't think the C3c FP gave a 2nd core. Outside the increased OCN benefits, where's the "ring of cities" benefit given by a 2nd core? I thought C3C did away with that. Please confirm this...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by theDragon
I know that I may be commiting Civ-blasphomy because I STILL have yet to get Conquests...

Yes, get out of here before we cut your head off!

What happened to Fascism? And Monarchy? I mean, I play a normal game by beeling to Monarchy then making my way out to Democracy or Republic later.

The problem with the Monarchy beeline is that the Republic beeline has something extra going for it: the free tech from Philosophy. You would have to be building a lot of troops (at the expense of your REX) for Monarchy to make more sense economically. Might as well just REX better, build up faster, and strike stronger but later.

Is there any good reason why you/the AI would ever choose such a government? I mean, do you all find any AI using it, and does anyone use it at all? Or is it once again just between two standard governmental systems?

Fascism is a poor government choice for the human player; Republic/Democracy or Communism are better, if you are using them right (i.e. in AU505 it never made sense for me to switch to Fascism until the very end, because I used the AI's gpt to pay upkeep for my exploding army). The AI is hard-coded to switch out of representative governments when war carries on, but most of the time it is better off in Communism than Fascism.

If you are Religious, your choices after Republic are between Democracy and Communism. If not, you should stay in Republic or switch to Communism.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Mace
I didn't think the C3c FP gave a 2nd core. I thought C3C did away with that. Please confirm this...

well ... ... it depends

in theory fp still gives a second core, it's just that the second core ain't worth - blip

corruption by distance is still reset according to fp location. ie corruption due to distance is calculated based on the nearest corruption reducing wonder. There are three of these - palace, fp and sphq.

corruption due to city rank is not reset by proximity to fp. ie - city rank is calculated purely according to distance from the palace. this is the major difference with c3c.

corruption is capped anyway. so reducing distance corruption in a city with high rank has no real effect. the cities surrounding fp get no benefit unless they are in the unusual situation of having high distance but low rank.

otherwise, like you said, it basically just increases the ocn and cuts corruption in the actual fp city

how jon manages to get two cores out of that lot is a mystery hidden from we mortals

Originally posted by joncnunn For that matter, communial govts can really only ever have 3 core cities. (Palace, FP, and SPHQ.)

Of course things are different under communism, but to discuss that i'd be getting dangerously close to on-topic

[Theseus]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
...and the racial majority needed to begin earning culture points.

It's the second one that is more detrimental IMO, as a warmonger that late in the game often needs to rush a temple to get some quick culture going and help that flip formula.

Yes, this well and truly sucks. You're gonna be in Fascism to BE a warmonger... The lack of cultural expansion was a major PITA in AU 505.

My answer in that game was mediocre: In an effort to benefit from the many captured improvements, I was building cultural improvements via poprush (they still fend off CFing, I believe), and making up for the lack of cultural expansion by laying down late-game camps all over the place, at 2- and 3-tile CP from captured cities. Ugly.

The best approach that I can think of (post-playing 505, unfortunately), would be to poprush units while selling off improvements, get a captured city down to a very low pop and no buildings of note, and just abandon the dang thing, replacing it with your own de novo town. Laborious, at best.