Republic Help!

[mR_mOfo]

In my game of CIV, i'm playing on Chieftan as the Persians and am relatviley new to the game. Its around 600AD and i recently discovered Republic. I changed to Republic asap and then i started to lose ca$h. A butt load of ca$h.

Previously when my Govt was Despotism i had been getting +2 gold per turn, then when i changed to REP. i started to lose -36 gold per turn!

How come i started to lose so much money, and how do I combat it?

BTW, I'm relativley new to the game, palyed bout 4 games but i suck ...

[XOR]

Disband some troops, in republic you pay 1 gold to each unit.

After that, build marketplaces in all cities and connect them all by road or by harbors. Also build 1 road in every tile in the city radius, that gives money.

[Sean]

Yes troops will be the problem. Not to mention a lack of infrastructure. With the approbriate infrastructure (roads, markets etc) a switch to republic normally drastically increases income.

[Arrian]

My basic guildeline for switching over to republic:

-Have access to 3 or more luxuries.
-Have marketplaces and temples in my large cities.
-Have a small to medium size army and am not actively using it.

Switching to republic will do several things:

- you will now have to pay every one of your units 1 gold per turn (despotism and monarchy each allow a certain number of "free" units)
- you will no longer get the military police happiness bonus in your garrisoned cities (under despotism/monarchy, each unit in a city will make one unhappy person content, up to two units. Having more than two has no effect)
- you will experience war weariness if you are in a long war
- you will generate +1 commerce per tile that already produces at least 1.
- your corruption/waste rate will drop a bit.

Switching to republic too soon can cripple your empire, as you discovered. You need basic infrastructure, you need some luxuries (either your own or gained via trade with other civs) and you need to make sure your government choice lines up with your current gameplay strategy. A strategy premised upon bonking heads, for instance, points one toward Monarchy.

-Arrian

p.s. It is also possible, since you are playing Persia, that you may have had a golden age (triggered by fighting with your immortals?) that ran out. That will cause a huge shift in your civ's income.

[Theseus]

Also, how are you doing on trading?

Are you actively trading excess resources? Are you renegotiating every 20 turns?

Are you getting a research lead in any branch, and actively selling techs? Any possibility to act as a middleman, and buying techs from one civ and selling to others?

Lastly, given the power of Immortals, are you pruning any punching bag civs (sorry for the mixed metaphor), and extorting gold?

[Ekanata]

I ususally wait until my average city size reach 6 and all population are working on commerce tile, before deciding to use Republic. Therefore I can use the extra 6 commerce from each city (assuming little corruption) to support 4 unit which was free under Despotism, and convert the other 2 into luxury to compensate for reduction of police rating.

If I have enough marketpalce and/or library in my big cities, I will change into Republic even though my average city size is still 4 or 5. That's if i'm not at war, of course.