Industrious Republic vs Industrious Democracy

[albiedamned]

Sorry if this issue has been discussed - I've just recently returned to Apolyton after a while. I'm playing a game as the Persians. I'm currently a Republic, and I'm wondering if there is any point to switching to Democracy. As far as I can tell, the pros are faster workers, less corruption, and immunity to propaganda, while the cons are more war weariness, and of course, having to go through a period of anarchy to get to Democracy.

Examining the pros, I don't see much real benefit. Since I'm Industrious, my workers are already faster than most. And I've already mined and irrigated everywhere, and built a complete rail network including just about every mined and irrigated square. So the only tasks left for my workers the rest of the game will be cleaning pollution, building roads/rails towards my next conquest, and improving the terrain around cities that I conquer. None of these tasks are too demanding, so having even faster workers won't be that big a benefit.

As for the reduced corruption, I'm not seeing much corruption anywhere given the overall lessening of corruption in 1.21. I losing 77 commerce out of 829 total right now, which is really not very much. Lost production is similarly low. Granted the corruption will get worse as I conquer more cities further from my Palace and FP, but it's still not likely to become a major problem.

The propaganda immunity is a benefit, but AI propaganda is not a real serious threat.

So overall, I don't see the benefits outweighing the costs of increased war weariness and an anarchy period during the switch.

Does anyone see anything else I should be taking into account in this analysis? I think my analysis holds true for any Industrious civ under version 1.21, since the worker benefits and the corruption benefits just aren't that important under those conditions. Comments?

[Solver]

A short point really, but might be useless. Under Democracy, your Workers will be doing everything in one turn - if you have many workers, they'll terraform everything there is soon.

I only see War Weariness as a problem seldom, because I'm a builder, but then again, if you intend to pick fights, stay Republic. For more building, go to Democracy. Democracy has no other cons rather than weariness.

[Lucilla]

I would stick to republic in your case. The Persians are not a religious civ, so changing government will cost you time, money and shields.
As you already said, your workers are already pretty fast and the only benefit of democracy would be then, that you could get rid of some of your workers to reduce costs.
But if you stay republic and can capture some workers during a war, those slaves will be slow but free of cost.

[nbarclay]

One thought is whether or not you'll need to do much improving in territory you plan to conquer. If the AI's territory is already pretty throoughly improved, I doubt that the gains from Democracy would be worth the time lost in the transition. Otherwise, if you don't have a lot of workers, it might be worth considering for being able to improve conquered territory more quickly.

Another question is whether your prospective victim(s) will have infantry by the time you're ready to attack. If not, and if you have enough cavalry, a cavalry blitz capturing one city, building rails to it, and using the rails to bring up more cavalry to attack the next city (and so on) can be very effective. But if the AI hasn't built your rails for you, the strategy only holds out as long as you have enough workers to keep extending your rail network, and Democracy helps the same number of workers go farther for that. (Note that shorter wars mean less time for war weariness to set in; that's how I fight effectively as a Democracy.)

But from what you've written, I get the impression that you're late enough in the game and have enough workers that these issues probably won't be all that relevant. (I usually switch to Democracy a good bit earlier, giving me more time to reap its benefits.)

Nathan

[albiedamned]

I'm at war with the Babs. They have Replaceable Parts, but they didn't get Infantry for a while due to a lack of rubber. But they've got it now. Their land is extremely well developed, including rails, so pretty much all I have to improve is what I blow up with bombardment. I've advanced to Tanks now, but everyone else is two or three techs behind so I have a tremedous advantage and I'm rolling over them right now. I haven't switched to Democracy, because I still don't see the point.

I really don't like the reduced corruption in the patches. I liked the corruption the way it was originally. Then it would have made more sense to switch to Democracy.

My conclusion is still that if you play an Industrious civ, then unless you're behind in irrigating/mining/roading/railing, there's no good reason to choose Democracy over Republic.

[Solver]

New patches include corruption slider, so you can set it real high if you prefer to play that way.

Sure, if you want to fight the Babs, you don't need Democracy. Just fight them, and, as you gain territory, get the Workers there (or their slaves) to clean the bombardment mess you will make.

[albiedamned]

I've never been into messing with the default settings. I always prefer to play the official game. If I modify the corruption, would the AI handle it correctly?

[Solver]

Yes it would.