Democracy and Military, a great combination

[RichardX]

It is possible to have a great military and democracy at the same time without having any major trouble with civil disorder and your government collapsing. Here are a few tips:

1. Build "Shakespeares theatre" in the city with the most shields, (because of the large amount of support), to make all people content.

2. Build railroads to easily transport your units to the Shakespeare-City. Support all your military units from that city.

3. Build "United Nations" wonder to be able to declare war and sign peace treaty's easier.

That's it! Time to Fight!

[RichardX]

Great suggestion, I've never thought of it. But you can still have that Shakespeare-City supporting units...

I always build JSB so I'll try it out..

Thanks!

[Black Bart]

seems like a lot of trouble to me. I really don't see any advantage to this. Unless you are talking about multiplayer games. Then it may be more useful, so you can keep up in tech.

But in single player the ai slows research when I slow research. So for any major war I prefer fundamentalism (or fascism with the fascist patch). The most I'll ever do in democracy is hold someone off until I get the good techs (flight, robotics). Then I'll switch and kick their ass. I find that my shakespeare cities don't have enought production anyway to support a large army. I prefer huge armies of more than 50 offensive units.

[Civ-wrecked]

I never have any problems with Democrary. With trade routes and 20% luxury, most of my cities are in the perpetual WLTP mood and so having a few redheads would be O.K. at wartime. With Women Suffrage then each city can easily support over half a dozen units without going into civil disorder. A dozen cities can then support over 50 units which can't be bribed, and neither can the cities they take.

Refrigeration is also great. With plenty of foods for entertainers, it helps in wartime too. It's true that entertainers can't reduce the redheads caused by unit unhappiness but, with sufficient luxury, it can increase the happyheads to counter the redheads.

[rah]

I'm with civ-w here. With big cities that have been improved, you can support quite a large sized army in the field. Don't forget cure for cancer.

I used to build those small military cities but after a while, you realize you don't realy need them.

RAH

[Sieve Too]

Another suggetion:

Build JSB. Next, build a city on mountains, peat, or oil. Mine and railroad a hill in the city radius, preferably coal. Or build on hills or buffalo and mine+railroad a mountain square or a couple hills. Rush build Factory, some power kind of power plant and optionally a Manufacturing Plant. Finally and most importantly, make sure your city never exceeds size 2. The best way to insure this is no food surplus.

What you'll have is a city that can support about 20 units due to the high number of shields it produces. It will never go into disorder no matter where its units are or what kind of units it supports. Why? JSB gaurentees two content workers per city so in a size 2 city, that's both of them. The effects of luxuries and city improvement can be undone by unit unhappiness, but not JSB.

Don't have JSB? Build on buffalo and make your one citizen an entertainer. They can't be made unhappy either. You'll have a 10 shield city. Or build on iron, peat or oil and set up a food route to your city to keep it from starving once you've turned your one citizen into an entertainer.

Best of all, unlike Shakespeare's Theater, you can build more than one city like this.
[This message has been edited by Sieve Too (edited May 24, 2000).]

[Venger]

What I find appealing about a Dem/Rep in war is that the large, superproductive cities can support a fair army but can REPLACE units very quickly. To me, supporting a large army isn't as important as sustaining military pressure by replacing lost units very quickly.

Venger

[Winston Churchill]

Hi, this is my first post here. But I've been reading and learning from this forum for several months.

I agree with the Shake's strategy for military units. But I prefer to base most of my navy from that city. To me, a large navy is ESSENTIAL for dominating the AI. The biggest drawback is the huge unhappiness factor an impressive fleet creates. This way you can keep your military units in fortresses for the AI to uselessly attack, and mercilessly pound his coastal cities and any of his units on the coastline.

I have yet to try basing cruises or nukes from my Shake's town, but I bet it would keep the rest of your people happy.

[Civ-wrecked]

The problem with Shake's strategy in MP game is that a nuke and a single unit can wipe out your whole military. The AI is not that smart but there's still a chance that it may hit the jackpot by attacking a city at random.

[Smash]

that would be a nasty problem indeed.The population would immediately be halved so that would take out quite few units with no support.Then if the city was captured......

guess its not good to put all eggs in one basket for MP.

Course SDI or surrounding the city with airbases would help.

could still sneak that spy in though

[shamrock]

quote: Originally posted by Winston Churchill on 05-26-2000 11:00 AM To me, a large navy is ESSENTIAL for dominating the AI.

Essential! Definitely not essential. I can dominate the AI without every building a seagoing vessel (though ordinarily, I will build several transports).

[jpk]

If you have a good selection of happiness wonders and Women's Sufferage and you set luxuries to 20% or 30% you can field a substatial army while in Democracy. Have every city support two or three units. If you have enough money you can send diplomats or spies to areas near AI cities and bribe units that become NONE units.

If you concentrate your forces on one city at a time you don't really need a giant military.

Other than transports I have little use for a navy. Sometimes a civilization like the Mongols will be on a neighboring continent and insist on landing units on my irrigated squares. In such a case I will build a figate or iron clad to clear the waters.

[geofelt]

The big problem with democracy and war is that you can't count on sustaining an offensive without the senate stopping it. Once you start the military conquest, fundamentalism is hard to beat. I first go communist for a few turns building nothing but vet spies.

[Aurelius]

I'm sure it's an old civer trick, but one problem with doing a war with a democracy or republic is shield support.

I'm currently playing a game that involves fighting against democracies and what I do is surround democratic cities that are defended by 5 or 6 strong defensive units behind city walls. I call it shield starving the city. It's especially effective when one has a lot of alpine troops to plop down on mines as in the following graphic....the poor city of Kiev is going to have 5 units shield starved at the commencement of the next turn:
http://www.farmhand.com/ShieldFoodStarved.gif

Of course, AI rarely uses this shield starving tactic against our democracies. However, in an MP game, I can easily see a good human civer surrounding the Shakespeare city supporting a large democratic military campaign and at the onset of the next turn, all those shakespeare units perishing...


Oh well, shield starving is just one of the drawbacks to having democratic military...I suppose it is another argument for using a fundamentalistal government. Still, I'd say a democracy is a great military machine and I rarely use any other government.

[SCG]

i'm one to use spy corps as the biggest faction of my military. Spies don't require any resourses to support, so can be based from any safe city.

However, when push comes to shove and that small coastal town that I purchased as a beach-head comes under seige, having a democracy combined with an offshore platform, and a harbor makes it virtually invunerable to seige tactics. Under democracy, it will celebrate once reaching 3 with any decent luxury setting and keep growing until as long as there are sea spaces available.