Need help with a monarch level game

[vmxa1]

Two things to consider for war in Republic. One is to keep it short, at least not longer than 20 turns. The other is to get lux to keep the people pacified.

Short wars require doing damage, best if you can grab a couple of cities. This brings them to the table for peace.

Knowing and doing are not always that easy, but avoid wars with overseas civs as you will have a hard time getting things done quickly.

[StoryTellerSJEM]

Okay, kewl. Aztecs are religious so I think I can hop back and forth from republic to monarchy as I wage war w/o a long wait.

[inca911]

If you have a good luxury/market infrastructure, you will be able to wage a long war in Republic. Use the luxury slider to combat unhappiness as needed.

Please LMK what the switch brings in terms of quantitative improvement. With 35 cities of an average size of 5 (guessing), that means you are working 210 tiles [(5+1)*35], with a larger percentage of worked tiles located in the low corruption part of your empire. An extra trade for each of these tiles should give you a 30-50% improvement across the board and halve your development rate. Of course, the level of this improvement also depends on your library infrastructure. I don't play as large of maps as you do, so I'm curious to see the results of your switch.

[inca911]

I just loaded an end-stage game and got some numbers(Deity, tiny map) based on setting gold to within 10gpt of 0 per turn. Happiness was similar in Monarchy and Republic:

Monarchy:
Total income 354
141 Science
181 Corruption
33 Maintenence

Republic:
Total income 553
186 Science
296 Corruption
33 Maintenence
54 Unit Costs

So the overall difference after paying for the 54 unit costs was +44 science out of a 141 Monarchy total, or a 32% increase in research rate.

The corruption values for both Republic and Monarchy were roughly 50% in the empire. That was/is suprising. I though it would be a lot less. My game has no Forbidden Palace build. It was a pangaea game with a lot of war.

Switching to Republic gave a 156% increase in commerce, or in my example roughly 200 more. Half was waste leaving 100 extra to work with, and 50 of that went to unit support, resulting in an improvement of 50 beakers. I'm interested to see any numbers you can post from your game.

BTW, I haven't drafted in ages, but can't you draft in Republic as well as in Monarchy, just a bit less? Just wondering....

[StoryTellerSJEM]

I have 61 cities now as I've been more and taken several from the Chinese. Yes, I got cavalry and now they're hurtin'!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's only the 5th turn of war and I've had to use 40% luxuries and that includes 4-5 luxury resources flowing into the cities. I could drop my luxury scale to go from 11 turns to 7 turns but then I'm going to starve my cities out.

This time around I don't have temples or libraries. In the last game as a monarch it didn't seem like a huge issue but maybe the temples are a good idea even if they cost a lot over time. Keep in mind I probably had over 120 cities in the game against the Germans so things were getting costly. That's another reason I didn't use communism b/c corruption, according to an e-book manual on this game, still hits you hard when you have a large Empire.

I'll look at my numbers and get back to you, Inca.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by StoryTellerSJEM

This time around I don't have temples or libraries. In the last game as a monarch it didn't seem like a huge issue but maybe the temples are a good idea even if they cost a lot over time. Keep in mind I probably had over 120 cities in the game against the Germans so things were getting costly.

If you mean you were in monarchy as oppossed to republic, then it makes sense. You do not get any MP happiness in Republic.

In monarchy, you can park a couple of units in the larger cities.

[StoryTellerSJEM]

Yes, I meant monarchy.

I think Republic will work well while I'm claiming my continent, but, after that I need to do overseas conquests. Monarchy then seems best.

Monarchy works very well when an Empire gets larger and you are conscripting like mad. When I was slugging it out with the Germans in the previous game I was conscripting as much as possible that all my cities were six or less. Of course, every turn I had 15-35 conscripting units so I had something like 400-500 units on the board. City unhappiness was pretty minimal even though I'd been at war for a long time.

And, mind you, these were infantry units so all I needed to do was use them against wounded enemy units and they almost always got promoted to regular status. They're not so good fighting as conscripts unless used against less advanced units. Their defense in cities was better although using them to pillage got mixed results b/c the Germans had veteran Panzers. OUCH!

Of course, the big problem with monarchy is that they take 30 plus turns to get one tech advance so it made me fall behind drastically. Still figuring out how to win that game. Seems like I might be better off making peace, changing to Democracy and just advancing. Once I get tanks and build up I can overrun the weaker civs and then the Germans. I have triple the cities of the Germans, even if much smaller, and, the other two civs are at my level of advancement and smaller (i.e. the Zulu have four small cities left and the Persians have about 15 closely packed cities, having lost 6 to me with my slow advancement of artiller and infantry and cavalry). Man, when you don't have tanks you need to get creative at siege warfare.

StoryTeller

[vmxa1]

Monarchy is a double edged sword. The good news is no WW and lots of MP and unit support.

The bad news is MP's, because you have to make more units to provide them and they can't go out and attack, they have to stay in the city to provide the pacification function.

I only use it for AW games and I get to a point where I hate the fact that it cost me happiness to use my MP's. Republics can send all they have out to engage as they provide zero MP function.

[StoryTellerSJEM]

For monarchy, I usually can get by with only one unit in the city. When they get unruly I use entertainers and sometimes at the expense of losing food and people. Temples and the like as well.

This new game is the first where I use almost no temples, just for the bigger cities.

I also try to skip aqueducts as much as possible by putting as many cities by rivers and lakes as possible. Building such things takes a lot of time.

StoryTeller

[inca911]

Anyone have additional thoughts on the corruption similarities between Republic and Monarchy? I expected a lot less corruption in Republic but the numbers don't support my expectations. It's 50% corruption in each gov't type!

[StoryTellerSJEM]

Regarding my game w/ the germans: communism didn't give me as much cash as monarchy. When I switched to communism there was about a 25% drop.

In this game my tech time advancement has been cut in half but I need more time making my people happy.

BTW, regarding MPs, this isn't as much of an issue for me b/c I raze most enemy cities . . . unless I'm going for the whole Empire and have lots of units or the city has a wonder I want.

Just wiped about 80% of the Chinese Empire and have 6 more cities to take and then they turn into Taiwan with one city on an island. Beijin flipped three times and I got tired of that, as well as fighting their elite units and Americans . .. so, I razed it b/c I didn't really care for Copernicus Observatory.

Here's what I have for my current Republic:

269 science
170 entertainment
265 corruption
8 maintenance
142 units

684 cities
413 other civs

Actually, my gain in money is only about 5% with Republic compared to monarchy. The big advantage is tech advancing and probably faster growth of cities.

Thoughts?

StoryTeller

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by inca911
Anyone have additional thoughts on the corruption similarities between Republic and Monarchy? I expected a lot less corruption in Republic but the numbers don't support my expectations. It's 50% corruption in each gov't type!

I never really paid all that much attention to it, but Monarchy should be "problematic" and Republic "nusiance".

That is not definitive, but suggest Monarchy should be worse. Rank is a function of numbers of towns and distance should not be a factor on a tiny map, but I don't know.

[StoryTellerSJEM]

How about Democracy and Monarchy corruption comparisons?

I read Communism works well against corruption until the Empire gets large. Than the outer cities get about 95% corruption.