Idea about balancing Monarchy vs Democracy

[player1]

As we all know, government without trade bonus are never good in peacetime, and are good in war only if you strt getting lots of war warriness.

So what about making unit upkeep cots in Republic and Democracy to be 2 (instead of 1).

That way if your army is too much large, monarchy (and comm.) could be usefull peace option too.

Anybody tried that.

Does it work.
Is it maybe too much.

How could AI handle that?

[Barchan]

Well, one of the ways Civ used to balance it out was that when democratic units (republic and democracy) left their cities, they generated unhappy citizens (1 for republic, 2 for democracy). However, if they were garrisoned in the city, everyone was happy.

That seemed to be a fairly reasonable arrangement, since democratic governments are usually less likely to send troops abroad than autocratic ones are. I think it'd be a useful balancing tool in CivIII if democratic governments could only have X number of military units outside their borders at any time or suffer 1 unhappy citizen in each city. The penalty could become increasingly severe with more units (i.e. 2X = 2 citizens, 3X = 3 citizens and so on). Also, X could be modified based on the difficulty level.

This would allow democracies to build a large standing army to deter aggression and to defend their borders, but would impose a penalty for wars of conquest and aggression. Personally, I think this would be a good thing, as I think there are not enough penalties to waging offensive war with democratic governments. It’s just not that easy for a democracy to send a huge army across the world to conquer or raze someone else’s country. Just ask president Bush. You know, if he was King (or commissar) and didn’t have to answer to congress or country, I’d imagine that Iraq would be just another colonial possession by now....

[vmxa1]

I did not mind the troops being in another area causing unhappiness, but unhappiness was triggered when they were out of the city tile sitting on the next one. It was also tripped by the engineer out working on a tile?? If it was just outside of the 21 tiles, maybe. I thought i should have been outside of the country and engneers should not have counted. I was very happy that they dropped it in civ3. Also glad they dropped the each city pays the support for it units. That forced me to set the home city on troops that moved.
Actually the country is not all that unhappy with troops outside of the USA, if they are only deterents such as those in Germany. The families are not happy, by the citizens are not all that worked up. I think it depends are what they are suppose to be doing.

[player1]

Of course the new problem is that you can have HUGE army without any consequences.

And if your wars are relativly short (or you have many luxuries), there is no need for Communism or Monarchy at all.

But if you make upkeep cost of 2gp per unit in rep. and dem. then it could be balanced in the right way.


Republic and Democracy would still be superior if you don't have HUGE army.
But if your army is realy huge, then those other govenment would be better choice.

[alexman]

It's a good idea because Communism is still too weak, but I'm afraid that it would unbalance the Religious trait, which is already one of the best.

For most typical games, I think it would also delay the use of Republic until more than 2-3 luxuries are available, effectively removing the choice between Monarchy and Republic in the ancient age.

If I were to change something, I would rather boost Communism than weaken Republic/Democracy.

[player1]

Hmm...
I never go to Republic unit I get 2-3 luxuries.

Otherwise I would waste too much on luxurty tax (10-30%).

Unfortunately I don't see other way of boosting Communism.

Exept by making Rep. & Dem. less good for lagre military nations.

At least if somebody would test this.
Since I don't have time to make it myself.



P.S.
The core of problem:
Rep. & Demo: huge trade boost
Mon. & Com: less units to upkeep

Now probelm is that unit upkeep becomes less and less problem as time passes since cities start getting more population, merketplaces and banks.

At the end, several free untis bonus becomes minor.

[vmxa1]

One way to improve commie is to have a structure that was unique and could only be used if you were in that form of government. So if you switched it did nothing. I suspect that the game engine would need a tweak. The structure could grant less corruption or some other useful thing as long as you stayed in that form of government. The police station would have been my choice for that, but it could be call something else.

[Harovan]

What about a mixed approach?

Give Republic and Democracy 1 unit per town, 2 units per city and 3 units per metropolis for free. That's for defenders. Then increase upkeep to 2 gold per unit. May be for Democracy even 3 per unit, because soon after it the cities start to grow over size 12.

[player1]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
What about a mixed approach?

Give Republic and Democracy 1 unit per town, 2 units per city and 3 units per metropolis for free. That's for defenders. Then increase upkeep to 2 gold per unit. May be for Democracy even 3 per unit, because soon after it the cities start to grow over size 12.

This could be good aproach.

[Barchan]

Well, FWIW, I still think that unhappiness is the key, not cost. True, you could argue that a volunteer army is more expensive to pay than a conscript one, but many democracies today still have compulsive military service anyway. Besides, there's still the cost of developing and building the machines and munitions, and they're relatively fixed for similar types of weapons. Let's face it, modern armor costs a bundle to build, regardless of whether you're elected or not.

But unhappiness would be the key. I know, vmxa1, that in previous games the unhappiness could be extraordinarily harsh. I think in CivI if you were simply outside the city you suffered the penalty, whereas in CivII at least they let you roam the 21-tile city limits. I think that if they extended that to your Civ's borders in CivIII, they'd strike the right balance between flexible defense and deterring imperialism.

And yes, the old "home city" system of support was a flaming pain, I'm glad it's gone and am *not* suggesting it be brought back. Still, I think democratic governments should only be allowed to send a limited number of units (say 10-20?) outside their borders before additional units cause unhappiness. Want to wage a huge war of conquest? Fine, switch to monarchy or communism. Want to engage in peaceful trade and growth? Go republic or democracy. But, frankly, if you can't have both in monarchy or communism, why should you be able to do so in republic or democracy?

[vmxa1]

Civ2 when in demo the citizens did not like it if even your engineer was out working a square in the next town, now that is harsh. I can't send help to another town, ouch.

[Harovan]

Good suggestions, Barchan. But I think, this thread is not about what would be nice to have, but rather what really can be done, given the power the editor offers us. Unfortunately, we have no possibilities to cause selective unhappiness, based on unit location. So even though it would be more realistic to get the Civ2 system back (without the home city concept), we probably have to stick to upkeep cost to cause changes in gameplay.

Here's my second, refined proposal. The mentioned one (2 upkeep in republic, 3 in democracy in return for free units per city) would probably in an unfair manner favor republic. This is why I would like to refine it.

Republic: 0 units per town, 1 unit per city and metropolis for free, 2 gold upkeep otherwise.
Democracy: 1 unit per town, 2 units per city and metropolis for free, 3 gold upkeep otherwise.

For example, let's assume:

• an empire of 20 core or near core cities (FP built) and 10 marginal, more corrupt cities. Let the core cities till hospitals have 7-12 pop ("city"), and the marginal cities 1-6 ("town"). After hospitals, let the core have 13+ ("metropolis") and the marginals finally have built aqueducts ("cities").
• we have 4 units per settlement. That is 1 worker, 1 defender and 2 extra units. These contain extra defenders for border cities, defenders for resources, bombardement units and a quick response team. This is what I'd call a small, adequate army without being able to warmonger a lot. Peace time.
• we increase our units by 50% (+60 units, all military), to wage an offensive war.

Current system, Republic and Democracy:

Total units	120
- 10 x 0	-0
- 20 x 0	-0
- 0 x 0	-0
Units to upkeep	120
Peace time upkeep	120 gpt
50% more units	60 gpt
War time upkeep	180 gpt

Case 1: Republic, pre hospitals:

Total units	120
- 10 x 0	-0
- 20 x 1	-20
- 0 x 1	-0
Units to upkeep	100
Peace time upkeep	200 gpt
50% more units	120 gpt
War time upkeep	320 gpt

Case 2: Republic, post hospitals:

Total units	120
- 0 x 0	-0
- 10 x 1	-10
- 20 x 1	-20
Units to upkeep	90
Peace time upkeep	180 gpt
50% more units	120 gpt
War time upkeep	300 gpt

Case 3: Democracy, pre hospitals:

Total units	120
- 10 x 1	-10
- 20 x 2	-40
- 0 x 2	-0
Units to upkeep	70
Peace time upkeep	210 gpt
50% more units	180 gpt
War time upkeep	390 gpt

Case 4: Democracy, post hospitals:

Total units	120
- 0 x 1	-0
- 10 x 2	-20
- 20 x 2	-40
Units to upkeep	60
Peace time upkeep	180 gpt
50% more units	180 gpt
War time upkeep	360 gpt

Analysis:

Upkeep in peace time has been increased by about 50-60%, but is almost even in all cases. That is affordable, but hurts the trade ability and makes one think about every extra unit he builds.

War time upkeep has been about doubled, less in republic, more in democracy. Especially rampant it is now in democracy, pre hospitals. Could make it impossible to make a cavalry rush under democracy.

Massive wars are almost unaffordable pre hospitals in republic and democracy, because the economy isn't yet so strong to pay the upkeep for long. After hospitals, war gets slightly cheaper, but other factors gain importance, like MPPs, draft unhappiness and metropolis defense bonuses.

Conclusion:

It's harder to build military, especially a large one, at least in Republic and Democracy. The AI will handle this well, because it always listens the moronic military advisor ("Until we get more gold, we can't afford...").

What do you think? And who would help to test this?

[nbarclay]

I think people who want Monarchy and Communism to be more competitve in general are missing a key strategic factor that exists in the current design. The fact that Democracy and Republic are clearly superior during peacetime makes it valuable to stay in them as much as possible. But you can't stay in them and fight long, protracted wars (unless you do so on a purely defensive basis). Thus, the very fact that the governments aren't equally good forces some interesting strategic choices onto the player.

I also have no problem with the idea of Republics and Democracies adopting a philosophy of "manifest destiny" on a global scale if they have the firepower to back it up. (Ask any Native American how inherently peaceful democracies are.) But with the war weariness mechanism, you do have to have the firepower to back it up, or you'll have to call off the war halfway through or change governments due to war weariness. That adds a dimension to war planning that would not exist if one of the goals were not to stay in Republic/Democracy.

As for the idea of increasing military upkeep costs, I think it's a horrible idea until around the industrial era. As far as I'm concerned, in a republic's early years, even one gpt per unit is enough to discourage large standing armies and doing a lot of pre-building for a war thirty or forty turns in the future. But I do think that from the industrial era on, increasing the cost to two would make sense to offset the compounding effect of marketplaces and banks on representative governments' extra gold. (Unfortunately, I'm guessing the editor doesn't support something that selective.)

I'll grant that, the fact that I like a style of play that's mostly peaceful with occasional quick, decisive wars gives me a certain amount of bias. That's the style of play that fits the current rules best. (Of course the fact that it works so well probably has a lot to do with why I like it so much.) But I also think it's realistic that that style of play should be what works best; purely peaceful nations don't get big enough to be world powers, while too much fighting can drain a nation pretty seriously.

A couple last thoughts:

(1) The idea of having to change governments out of Republic/Democracy to fight effectively gets a bit ridiculous given the length of anarchy for non-religious civs. A lot of my wars last ten turns or less, so the anarchy on the two ends of a war could add up to as long as the war itself! (Of course I'll grant that when I'm in attack mode, I'll often fight multiple wars back to back, but that's not always the case.)

(2) Democracy simply doesn't offer enough advantages over Republic to justify higher unit upkeep costs. My impression is that war weariness alone provides enough reason for more than a few players to regard Republic as preferable. And that's in spite of the fact that as a significantly more modern development which requires not one but two optional techs to get to, Democracy certainly ought to be clearly superior overall (albeit not in every nuance).

Nathan

[nbarclay]

If the editor supports it, one idea worth trying might be to drop the war weariness thresholds about 20% for Republic and Democracy on standard maps, and maybe even more on smaller maps. On big maps, it's a lot harder to swallow a major power whole before war weariness kicks in, so war weariness plays a much bigger role in strategic planning. Adjusting the war weariness threshold on standard and smaller maps could provide a similar effect on them if Firaxis by some chance provided sufficient granularity.

Nathan

[player1]

The point is that if you want large military and world conquest you should stay in Monarchy & Communism.

Even in peace time (since you'll have too much big military to support it in Republic).

And if you want peace gold and science that you should be in Republic and wage defensive war (since you big military won't be an option).


To Sir Ralph:
Maybe it's better to have both Rep. & Den. with upkeep cost of 2 per unit, since many people already prefer Republic becasue of lower war wariness.

And give them also free 1/2/3 units (town/city/metro).
That's needed in oreder to make early Repbulic a possbility.