Government Management

[Zamboni]

Good Day,

Still working on my first game and have reviewed the material about changing governements. Here is what I could use some support or advise.

Cuurently i am playing as the Vikings and they prefer a Monarchy. Unfortunately, I have moved to a Republic under the assumption that because it was listed further down in the rules that this was better for my nation. It this correct? Would it be better to move to a monarchy?

I am on the verge of the ability to chage to a democracy as well, maybe this would be better, what would your prespective be.

Again any assistance is appreciated (especially before I strike against the Mongols).

[Tall Stranger]

Don't worry about the "preferred" government type. It has no impact on how well your civ functions under a given government. The preferred (and shunned) government only affects how other civs view you. Thus, if you're in republic, any government which has republic as its preferred will be SLIGHTLY more friendly to you, while those with republic as shunned will be SLIGHTLY less friendly. (In the grand scheme of things, this feature does not play a very big role in your relationship to other civs. Much more important is your relative strength, any wars waged between you, alliances, and trade deals.)

As with so many other things in this game, the question of which government to choose depends on many factors. Republic provides much more commerce (thus more revenue and better tech research), but the unit support costs can be pretty rough and war weariness can become a problem. Monarchy has better unit support, but your economy is not as strong. Monarchy is (generally) a better government for warmongering, while republic is better for the peaceful player. (That said, I regularly wage war as a republic, and find that as long as you have clear objectives that can be rapidly achieved, fighting wars as a republic is not too hard.)

I very rarely switch from republic to democracy unless I am playing a religious civ, mainly because of the multiple turns of anarchy. Other than slightly better corruption and faster workers (which isn't really worth that much), there is no real difference between the two.

[mkqest]

Watch out for war weariness in the republics and democracies. Monarchies have no war weariness because the king is always right, right?

I am a fairly new player too and am experimenting with religious civs and switching gov'ts. For all but religious civs their is a period of anarchy between gov't changes. So what I am playing with now is that when its war time I switch to monarchy and in peace time switch back to democracy for the economic gain you get. But to avoid the anarchy in between, choose a religious civ.

[vmxa1]

Tall Stranger covered it well. I would only add that if you have enough lux and happy structures you can war all you want. Especially if you do not have hospitals.

[Catt]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Tall Stranger covered it well. I would only add that if you have enough lux and happy structures you can war all you want. Especially if you do not have hospitals.

There are exceptions to that good general rule.

In AU 502 a vastly inferior foe (technologically) made 150+ attacks (estimate - I wasn't counting) on my far superior units -- the AI did some damage (retaking one city with cavs, rifles, muskets, med infs, and even longbows against a mech inf army and a tank army) but most bounced off without harm to my units. Nonetheless, an AI attack, whether successful or not, adds to war weariness. My republic, with 5 luxuries, temples, cathedrals, colloseums, and markets, with my control of JS Bachs, and with luxury spending at 20% - 40%, would have fallen in just a couple of turns. At the time I elected to switch to Communism, cities of size 16 contained 3 - 4 content people and the rest unhappy -- no happies whatsoever -- even when I shut off research and dumped most everything into entertainment.

Catt

[vmxa1]

Yup both points are true. It is true that massive units of inferior units are still a danger. I have been on both ends of that action. You sit there in horror as wave after wave smashes into your armies and you see them grind down to a few HP's. This happened to me against Germany on Sid a while back. There were on a small island and backward (funny an AI behind at Sid).

In a recent emperor game I stayed at war for very long stretches as I had control of all 8 luxs and ran at 20% lux with no hospitals and only the capitol at size 22. I would not have done it with 5 luxs, it would probably get painful.

[Aqualung71]

And Catt, I seem to remember you pointing out on another thread once that in Democracy (unlike Republic), regardless of whether you can keep your citizens happy by supplying them with luxuries, entertainment and happiness buildings, at a certain point WW gets so bad that you will eventually suffer a spontaneous revolt and fall into anarchy anyway.

While WW affects happiness, it should be remembered that they are in fact separate and different concepts.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Thriller
And Catt, I seem to remember you pointing out on another thread once that in Democracy (unlike Republic), regardless of whether you can keep your citizens happy by supplying them with luxuries, entertainment and happiness buildings, at a certain point WW gets so bad that you will eventually suffer a spontaneous revolt and fall into anarchy anyway.

While WW affects happiness, it should be remembered that they are in fact separate and different concepts.

Yup. In Republic, any city outside of your cores can quickly get to mass starvation and/or civil disorder (the situation I was facing in AU 502) since corruption eats away at the effects of the entertainment slider effects. But as vmxa1 points out, with some experience under your belt, extensive warmongering under Republic is quite feasible (my situation was pretty rare).

I reloaded my turns from AU 502 to refresh my memory. The initial French counter-attack comprised 46 separate attacks from cavalry and a few knights. In addition, 112 slow movers had moved into position to attack (67 of which had moved outside Rheims before it fell, meaning it would take them another turn to threaten the other conquered French city). Since each AI attack, successful or not, adds 2 WWP, the initial counterattack added 92 WWPs (I enjoyed -30 WWP since the French started the war), plus 16 for losing Rheims that I had taken the previous turn. Under Democracy, 91 WWP causes a revolt. If I had been a Democracy, my government would certainly have been overthrown only 2 turns into the real combat of the war!

Catt

[vmxa1]

I could have added in the Rep game, after after few turns they would send only a few units out each turn and I would take down another city or two, so it was nothing like what happened to Catt.

The Sid game I was in Despotism, so no sweat.

[bongo]

Originally posted by Catt
Since each AI attack, successful or not, adds 2 WWP, the initial counterattack added 92 WWPs (I enjoyed -30 WWP since the French started the war), plus 16 for losing Rheims that I had taken the previous turn. Under Democracy, 91 WWP causes a revolt. If I had been a Democracy, my government would certainly have been overthrown only 2 turns into the real combat of the war!

Catt

I've been looking for that kind of info on WW for some time now, where did you find this?

[vmxa1]

Bamspeedy from CFC

Length of war did not seem to be a factor (only the # of turns you end your turn with units in their territory).

War weariness kicks in at various thresholds.
First threshold: 25% of your people become unhappy (Republic)
50% unhappy (democracy)
Second threshold: 50% unhappy (Republic)
100% unhappy (Democracy)
Third threshold: 100% unhappy (Republic)
Government overthrown (Democracy)
*Republic can never be overthrown

Units you lose, cities you lose, ending your turn in enemy territory contribute to WW.

Universal Suffrage makes 1 person content in all cities (1 person that would have become unhappy because of war weariness).

Police Stations allow 25% of your people to not become unhappy from WW. (so, in republic at the first threshold, you would see no unhappiness).

I guess I should add:

+1 for each turn you end your turn with a unit in their territory
+2 for each unit you lose
+15 if you have a city of yours razed (or captured?)

*possible ones, that haven't fully been checked:
pillaging, starvation of your citizens due to enemies having control of your former cities

First threshold: 30 war weariness points (WW)
Second threshold: 60 WW
Third threshold: 90WW (Democracy)
120WW (Republic)
*********************************

How does war weariness work?
The study of war weariness goes on. I will thank Bamspeedy and DaveMcW (any other?) for their research, it really helped.

General:
War weariness is tracked for each civ indepentently.
We measure war weariness with wwp (war weariness point).

The different levels of war weariness:

code:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Level wwp
-1: - 0 wh (war happiness)
0: 0 - 30 normal, no effect
1: 31 - 60
2: 61 - 90
3: 91 - 120
4: 121 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Effect of ww in war:

All government:
Level -1: 25% happy people

Republic:
Level 1: 25% unhappy people
Level 2: 50% unhappy people
Level 3: 50% unhappy people
Level 4: 100% unhappy people

Democracy:
Level 1: 50% unhappy people
Level 2: 100% unhappy people
Level 3: Revolt

Number of unhappy people is round down. The number from each civ is added together and subtract 25% for police station and 1 for US (Universal Sufferage). The total number of unhappy citizen from ww can not exceed number of citizen.

War happiness is calculated independent in the same way. (No effect of improvments)
War happiness from several enemies could really help

Calculations of wwp:
All starts at 0.
Subtract 30 wwp if the AI attacks you, except when AI is provoked by:
- use of nuclear weapons
- failed spy mission
Anything else? Please tell me if you find something.

Add 1 wwp if you have units in enemys territory when in war. (In beginning of the turn)

The following describes the effect for a human:
Add 1 wwp for each
- lost unit without defence value
- improvment pillage/bombed
- unit that are bombard down to 1 hp
Add 2 wwp when a human attacker is defeated
Add 2 wwp when a unit with defence value is attacked. (Even if you win)
Add 16 wwp when a size 1 city is captured 17 wwp for bigger cities.
What if your cities get bombed?
There is a bug for these penalties. For a human-AI battle, the AI gets the same penalty as the human (he gets penalty for taking human cities, but not for losing his own). For an AI-AI war both gets the penalty the first AI should have. There seems to be no problem with human-human battles.

Subtract 1 wwp if level >= 1, no enemy inside your territory and no units in enemys territory.
Subtract 1/20 of current wwp each turn in peace (round up)

Assume you sign peace when you just have gotten 100% ww in republic (121wwp) and keep out of his territory. Then you will lose 8 wwp the first turn, 7wwp the next. It will take 19 turns to get down to level 0, and 43 turn until the war is totally forgotten.

EDIT: Added info of how the AI gets wwp. Corrected some of the number of wwp given and the descriptions of when you get 1 wwp subtracted.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Catt
If I had been a Democracy, my government would certainly have been overthrown only 2 turns into the real combat of the war!
Catt

Yes exactly. I don't have a problem with the WW concept, but 2WWP for every unit attacked is a bit harsh (plus more if you lose the battle), especially when under Democracy you get to 100% WW with only 61 WWP and revolt at 91 WWP. It's not that difficult to envision revolt after only one turn if the AI is strong enough and determined enough to counter-attack early. And this could be a catastrophe for a non-religious civ.

It hasn't happened to me yet since I've been a Republic player until recently.....but in my AU502 game I'm in Democracy and I'm sure the people will revolt any turn now.....just as well we're religious!

[bongo]

vmxa1 thanks for the info

WW should be modded to take into account map size and empire size. On a tiny map you could have very long wars in democracy without problems but on a huge map you could have a revolt on your hands the first turn of the war, even if you are doing good.

[Paddy]

yes thanks for this...

great information

[bongo]

vmxa1 , almost forgot to ask, what version is this civ3, ptw or c3c?