Will republic be viable in MP?

[DrFell]

The thought came to me while I was thinking of possible MP civ3 strats, as to weather republic would be a useful government in MP. I mean, it may be great for trade and all, but you only need to be at war and you end up suffering gradually increasing unhappiness. And of course a human player need not talk to you at all and certainly need not make peace. The ideal situation in a bigger MP game would be to wait for one player to go republic, then attack them. If they're not religious they'd have to go straight through anarchy again, with 0 production, and end up totally screwed. The only way you could safely remain in the government would be if you either had no contact with anyone (say in a team game where one player shields you from contact with the other side), or if you were in a diplo type game where you could guarantee peace.

Since tech advances will be much more important in MP, I can see monarchy being the government of choice for almost all games, after the initial despo building up period.

[punkbass2000]

Good point. I wonder how they'll fix this. Demo. would be even worse.

[Inverse Icarus]

it really depends on what kind of MP games you play.

if you play zone-esque fast paced "there is no continuing on a later date" games, yea rep / dem is going to suck.

in the games i play, with a tight group of 5 friends, the games go much longer.

and it's not just "one for all, best man wins", we actually play out the game and make alliances based on each individual game (sometimes old games create new alliances in other games, but this is rare).

it's actually fun to play a game out to the end, alliances changing the whole game.

the only problem is when someone is killed, they whine a lot and we end up not finishing a lot of games (unless we kill 2 or 3 of them and they can start their own minigame),

[DrFell]

True, it wouldn't be a problem in some types of games. And it might even be interesting in team islands games (one player builds up the navy and protects the research player from contact with any other civs, the research player goes republic and builds up). But still, all it takes is one tiny one city empire on the other side of the world (and possibly a player with a bad attitude) to screw you, and that's what bothers me, in civ2 all you needed to do was avoid sending too many units to them.

And punkbass, I didn't mention demo because it'd come much later, but yeah it would be far worse. Not that the current system is so bad, but as there is no way of forcing a treaty it could be exploited.

[notyoueither]

Hmmm. I've been able to sit idle at war as a republic for very lengthy periods of time. I'm not sure how much of a factor the loan city on the other side of the map would be.

[punkbass2000]

Personally, I've thought for awhile now that you should be able to offer a 'standing offer of peace' which can be accepted at any time, for times when they won't even talk to you, indicating your desire for peace and removing (or at least reducing) war weariness. Of course, you can remove the offer, should you choose to do so.

[notyoueither]

That's a good suggestion punkbass.

Just have to be careful they don't storm your positions, take a bunch of objectives, then accept the offer all on the same turn.

[punkbass2000]

Well, that would be part of the strategy

[civman2000]

I play on regent and I've gone through 100 turns 80 or so were at war in a democracy without having too much trouble

[Jethro83]

I never used republic in Single Player in the first place. So I guess that I still won't use it if I play MP, since most of the games I play will be fast paced "not playing again at later date" sorts of games that get resolved before medieval era ends. However, if I can find friends who are into civ, and play hotseat, or at a LAN party, and decide to go on through the ages, I might consider Republic if I'm using a religious civ and haven't yet got to the point where I can switch to Democracy. Especially since there'll probably be no AI to beat up for techs, and there'll be need to do my own research as a direct result.

[civman2000]

hmmm...i've never played a game when i havent gone republic asap! It's much better than in civ2 because you can still have a military and be in a war if you can set it up so you're not the aggressor.

[Spiffor]

I think a way to make Republic / Democracy viable is to make tech. more interesting, and more advanced units more powerful. This way, the Rep - Dem would have a significant military advantage to counterweight its flaws.

[Tom201]

Hm, if republic is viable depends on the other players. I mean if someone decides to go to war with you just for the purpose to screw your republic, he has the same problem and has to stay as well desportic/monarch. If it is one smal civ on the other end of the world you can bribe one or two of his neighbours and get rid of the problem. If all playing this style, oh well, noone has a advantage do they?

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Tom201
Hm, if republic is viable depends on the other players. I mean if someone decides to go to war with you just for the purpose to screw your republic, he has the same problem and has to stay as well desportic/monarch.

Yeah, but he might be all set up for a monarchy government. Anyway, if he planned it all so he switched to monarchy, then waited till the republic player switched to republic, he could then declare war and eventually force the republic player to switch back. That's 10 turns or so of anarchy, 0 production for that civ. That's enough to lose a wonder race, get behind in tech, or be screwed if you're being attacked.

If it is one smal civ on the other end of the world you can bribe one or two of his neighbours and get rid of the problem. If all playing this style, oh well, noone has a advantage do they?

Yeah, but say it's a 4-way and the republican guy is currenty in the lead, due to his government, then it's not really in anyone else's interest to attack the poor guy in despo who got screwed with land, etc. Or they can take the republic players money, and then proceed to do nothing. You just can't trust human players

[Random Passerby]

Er... I've never had any problems with insurmountable war weariness under a Republic. Going to war for 100 turns means you lose a few We Love the King Days as a Republic, and that's about it.

Now the problem, however, arises with luxuries. It's easy to keep your cities productive and out of revolt when you have 8 luxuries with a marketplace, adding up to, um, a metric crapload of happy faces (20?)... but I suspect luxury trading is going to be vastly more cutthroat in multiplayer. The "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" principle might be good for getting MOST luxuries, but inevitably someone is gonna withhold and say "Nuh-uh, no wines for you!" Especially if you have a lot of civs on the map.