Benefits of Communism?

[FNBrown]

Is there any peacetime benefit to having a Communist government as opposed to a Republic or Democracy?

[MonsterMan]

Yeah. Corruption doesn't depend on distance from capital. Four units can act as military police. I always stick with Communism once I discover it. One fun thing is to declare war on distant democratic civs and stir them up with war weariness while they probably won't bother even sending ships your way (haven't tested that extensively).

[Psycho_Mantis]

I dont really like communism. I can see how it would be good for small, war-like nations, but for a sprawling empire like mine, it just creates too much corruption.

[MonsterMan]

Originally posted by Psycho_Mantis
I dont really like communism. I can see how it would be good for small, war-like nations, but for a sprawling empire like mine, it just creates too much corruption.

Actually it's the other way around... communism is essential for huge sprawling empires. Courthouses and police stations still works, too.

[notyoueither]

Well, if Sid were the head of a Communist government, he could have certain people shot.

Oh, you mean within the Civ3 game system? Hmmm. Not much.

Salve

[Psycho_Mantis]

I disagree.

I had a very large empire, all on one continent. I was doing fine as a Monarchy, and I thought switching to Communism would help me out some.

All the distant cities caused production to be halved at all my best cities. It, in effect, nearly crippled me.

[General Ludd]

Communist goverments also have better spies, if you care about that sort of thing.

[MonsterMan]

Originally posted by Psycho_Mantis
I disagree.

I had a very large empire, all on one continent. I was doing fine as a Monarchy, and I thought switching to Communism would help me out some.

All the distant cities caused production to be halved at all my best cities. It, in effect, nearly crippled me.

I don't know if my strat is the best, but I go Despotism-Republic-Communism. I never research Monarchy; only sometimes do I research Democracy, when I've got too much of a lead on the rest of the world.

I have no idea what happened in your game. It's not supposed to act that way. Did you build lots of cities after switching to communism? Perhaps you were nearing the max number of cities, and you thought it was because of your government switch?

[Kilroy_Alpha]

One thing to keep in mind is that, with communism, corruption is worse across your entire civ, worse even than with despotism. The switch may reduce it in a few cities, but in most situations you're going to be worse off.

You'll get the massive production bonus of course, but if you want that you can always switch to fascism and start cranking out fascist units anyway - oh wait, which game are we talking about again?

[Ironikinit]

I don't know about y'all, but I for one am glad there isn't a fascist option. Communism is bad enough, I really don't know if I could face happy little discussions of how great fascism works.

"And then we had a book burning and I ordered a pogrom and I WON THE GAME!!!!"

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
I don't know about y'all, but I for one am glad there isn't a fascist option.

I was quite disapointed that there wasn't - so I added it myself.

[The Andy-Man]

civ (all of them) is unfair to govt.s

Communist Govt.s aint always gonna be like in Russia or China (if implemented properly, socialism/communism is an ideal govt), and what Karl Marx's teachings elude to (that the turn to decentralised socialism is an inevitable progression of the human race, al a social darwinism) is true enough.

same for Dictatorships, i am sure you can have a nice dictator.

Also, not every democracy is as peachy as the US says it is (how many senetors are on some guys payroll?) and isnt democracy an elected dictatorship?


so imo, Civ never really takes govt.s correctly, they are based on the ideals put forth by western govt.s

[PapaLenin]

My dear comrades. LETS REVOLT!!! and create a new perfect empire... I promise it will work this time!!!
POWER TO PEOPLE!!! CRUSH THE ARISTOCRACY (or however u spell that word)

[copcartman]

I play on king-level and I feel I can't keep up in research with communism. Still, I can't switch to anything better because I've been at war for plenty of years (extensive war-weariness) and those bastards I'm at war with wont even talk to me anymore. So I'm sort of stuck with it. Another annoying thing is that one of their remaining cities lies on a single tile island and thus I can't take it (and end the war that way) until I get marines (right?).

[Willem]

Originally posted by copcartman
I play on king-level and I feel I can't keep up in research with communism. Still, I can't switch to anything better because I've been at war for plenty of years (extensive war-weariness) and those bastards I'm at war with wont even talk to me anymore. So I'm sort of stuck with it. Another annoying thing is that one of their remaining cities lies on a single tile island and thus I can't take it (and end the war that way) until I get marines (right?).

I think that aspect kind of sucks really. You should at least be able to go through some third party, like another civ that's at peace with both combatants. It makes things to difficult for a Democracy when you don't even have the option of ending the war to reduce war weariness.

And realistically, switching directly to Communist shouldn't be possible. A player should have to go to another form, like Republic, before he can switch. I doubt very, very much if the people of the US would suddenly embrace a new Communist form of government.