Is Democracy a viable form of government?

[RO]

I'm not too experienced with this version of the game, so I may overlook something.

I played England and went for Democracy. I shared the continent with the Japs, who decided that I had to go and delcared war. After a lengthy defense my cities started to fall into disorder because of war weariness, and I had to abandon Democracy in favour of Communism <G>.

This leads me to the conclusion that Democracy will - in the long run - not be a viable goverment in the game, as it seems to be next to impossible to avoid war given the (stupid) performance of the AI civs. The same ought to apply to the Republic.

Am I wrong?

[ledj]

Republic is better form of government for a civ fighting a lengthy war. Often I play a religious civ, and I can change from Demo to republic easily. I had a game where I fought a war (in republic) until the year before launching the space ship, negotiated a peace treaty. Next turn, many city were celebrating and I got a better score because more people were happy. I built Universal Suffrage and police stations so that my lux tax was only 10%.

[Jaybe]

Democracy usually works quite well, and war weariness may vary depending on the circumstances. Switch to another government if necessary, of course, but do NOT consider this one experience to be the way it usually works.

Yes, having a religious civ does work wonders for government switching!