The forbidden Monarchy.

[Kramsib]

In the Ancient Times I never use Monarchy if Republic is available. IMHO, Monarchy is useless, the 3 free units in Monarchy are substituted by the less corruption and commercial bonus of the Republic, enough to maintain my units.

The only difference are the war weariness and the "hurry production".

In Civ II was different, it was impossible to be in Republic until the discovery of industrialization because all your units needed shields to be maintained, that made sense, like in real History, first Monarchy and then Republic. ( Of course, except for Greeks, Romans, and .... Iroquois Ribannah? ).

Do you think Monarchy is discriminated against Republic?.

[Cruddy]

One factor is how big your cities are, and how many luxuries are available. Don't get me wrong, I hate being in monarchy rather than republic. But sometimes I have to delay the switch a few turns, and if an important wonder is in production I may delay it longer. This isn't an example of good play, rather the oppposite.

[Kramsib]

That is what I mean, nobody wants Monarchy because Republic is better even in the Ancient Times.

I was thinking about a simmilar restriction like the one there was in Civ II, I am keen on CTP's solution, maintaining units with a percentage from the shield production in cities, in addition, in order to prevent small cities from getting colapsed, the percentage should be applied on cities which are bigger than 3.

[MoonWolf]

I would say it's more beneficial with monarchy in the early stages of the game where you think more of expanding your empire and securing good locations rather than keeping the people happy with temples and luxuries. BUT it's too expensive to research! I try to get monarchy as it's more natural and beneficial for me. You get the techs mysticism and polytheism on the way, but what are they really good for? In civ2 mysticism at least gave you more happiness...

So as it is today, monarchy is unfortunately quite useless unless you get it in a goody hut or from an other civ

Maybe I'll do something about this in my mod...

[Kramsib]

In fact, it is not worthwhile wasting 4 turns of production because of monarchy and then another 4 turns because of Republic, I prefer waiting a bit more with Despotism and then switch to Republic.

[MoonWolf]

You got a point there; if republic is not far away, it's a waste to bother switching to monarchy first, but if it was available earlier, I would.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I disagree with all y'all, but you're most likely better players than me.

I skip Republic entirely. What's the point? Don't you have some wars you want to wage?

By the time I switch gov'ts my empire is not well-developed enough that Republic will generate enough gold to pay for the units I want... and often my people will be miserable as I won't have enough marketplaces up and running.

Monarchy can last me a good long time, until Democracy, when I switch. By then, my empire will be so huge that I'll have the money to keep my people happy...

[gunkulator]

I too bypass Republic. Despotism-Monarchy-Democracy. Unit support and war weariness just kill it for me. Even if I try hard, I always seem to be at war with somebody. Oh, and three content citizens from martial law ain't bad either.

[Arrian]

I use Monarchy a lot.

I tend to fight a lot, and cannot afford the war weariness. That, coupled with the free unit upkeep and MP happiness effect, often makes Monarchy the choice for my civ.

Once my major wars wind down, and I get markets + cathedrals in my cities, plus hopefully Sistine and/or Bachs, I can then switch to republic or straight to demo. If I'm non-religious, I will probably go straight to demo.

As a religious civ, I've gone Despot -> Republic -> Monarchy -> Democracy before.

Monarchy is an excellent government for the warmonger. Long, sustained wars in which I'm fishing for Great Leaders as much as I'm trying to actually destroy the enemy civ would cripple a republic or demo (at least until Univ Suffrage + Police Stations).

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Besides, if you put marketplaces off in the building cue (at least until after temples and libraries), then the military police aspect of monarchy can be very helpful even if you're NOT at war. I sometimes build cathedrals before marketplaces, if the price is right, though this is rare.

OT: Arrian, are you going to contribute to the Persian strategy thread?

[Arrian]

I typically prioritize marketplaces, because they bring two seperate but important bonuses to the table: more money and more happiness.

"More money and more chicks and more money and more chicks and AAAAAH!" [/Beavis]

Plus, when warmongering, I am typically not doing my own research. I'm beating it out of the AI and/or getting it from the Great Library (built or captured). Therefore, libraries are a bit of a waste during that stage of my games. If I'm running 80-90% taxes, markets are the better option.

OT: I thought about it, but in all honesty, I'm not a big fan of Persia, and haven't played them in a long time. My first ever Monarch win was with Persia, but that was a long time ago, and since I never play them, I can't really comment from experience.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I guess I can see this style of play, but I would seriously flip if someone build Sistine's, Sun Tzu's, Leo's or Bach's whom I wasn't able to conquer... Hence all the libraries... to get to those wonders first.

[Murtin]

I don't think monarchy is that useless either. Although I usually try to reach for republic, I've noticed quite a few times when it just turned out to be a very poor decision, and I really should have gone for monarchy instead.

The last time felt like kicking myself for such a horrid outcome of a revolution I had still done some (sloppy and inaccurate) math before choosing the form of government. I figured that I had a relatively small empire, so the money saved by not having to pay upkeep for 2/4 units per town/city (the sum ending up somewhere at 40 gold) shouldn't be an argument for monarchy. Lower corruption and higher incomes would surely pay off better than that.

I was wrong. The newly instated republic had to cut back dramatically on science spending in order to pay for unit upkeep and luxuries and as a result the research times didn't change much compared to the earlier despotism. To make matters worse, soon enough I got dragged into a war...

But as I said, I too have been under the impression that republic is a much better government than monarchy under almost every possible set of circumstances. I guess I get taken in by the promise of all those extra trade revenues and tend to dismiss the advantages of monarchy as insignificant in comparison. I suspect others are vulnerable to that misjudgment too.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
I guess I can see this style of play, but I would seriously flip if someone build Sistine's, Sun Tzu's, Leo's or Bach's whom I wasn't able to conquer... Hence all the libraries... to get to those wonders first.

Come to think of it, I should have added something to my last post:

"When warmongering, I typically don't do my own research... UNTIL I hit the early medieval age, unless I have the GL, in which case I will probably turn science off until education unless I do so much damage to my neighbors that I feel I must research myself to avoid falling behind civs I don't know yet."

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

ah, i SEE. So, are you typically the first to research feudalism, theology and invention? Or do you "pick those up" as well?