Best governments...

[Yosho]

Originally posted by gunkulator
Don't forget the two optional techs that must be obtained to even get to Democracy. The AI won't trade the Democracy tech at all until much later so you'll waste an additional 4 turns minimum to research it. Considering that your alternative research choices at the time are things like Magnetism, Economics, Navigation, and Military Tradition, I can never find a good reason to go after it.

Well, the AI usually researches it fairly early, so usually by the end of the middle ages every AI player will have it. If everyone else has a tech, there are often ways to get it that don't cost you very much; demanding it from an AI who you beat in a war, trading it for a few extra resources and a little gold to a civ who wouldn't have the money to pay you for the resources otherwise, or picking it up when you develop a new tech none of the AI's have and then trade it to all of the AI's; I take money from the rich AI's, and whatever I can get from the others. One way or the other, I usually seem to end up with democracy by the end of the middle ages, which is just about where I would want it anyway, because if I am going to go democracy, I want it before I build my railroad network, to speed up my workers and get the railroad network built much sooner then it otherwise would have been built.

[Ljube]

I tend to stay despot for quite a long time. There's usually not enough time for switching given that I'm almost constantly at war with someone else and always in the race for crucial wonders (Leo, Sun Tzu, Miche or Bach). Way in the middle ages I switch to one of monarchy, republic or feudalism (rarely) and stay there for the rest of the game.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Arrian
That's a lot of government switches for a non-religious civ.

-Arrian

Yes, this is probably no good for a nonreligous civ. That's why I mentioned playing Iroquois. Also, playing vanilla.

Every game is different, and depending on the civ characteristics and style of play, so the government choices are variable.

I would probably still go with Monarchy ==> Democracy and choose to fight oscillating war, if I was playing a nonreligous civ, to avoid that extra switch to Communism. Just means a shift in style of fighting to making larger armies to fight shorter battles, instead of a constant warfare. Probably there would be less of an effect on research that way too.