Monarchy or Rebublic?

[Wildbulldog]

I'm playing on Monarch level (my 3rd game, I lost my first 2 since I was WAY behing in the Tech race). I expect a lot of war in my immediate future and was wondering which would be the better government.

The Details:
I'm playing China on a Standard map. I've got about 16 cities. I took out Germany to my North with Swordsmen (securing the Northern 1/3 of the continent) and have just started a war with Japan to my South.

I just built the Great Library and got 8 techs all at once including Monarchy and Republic (and Monotheism and Feudalism). I've been doing no research up to this point but will dump some into getting Chivalry before Japan does.

I'm about to build my Forbidden Palace and will soon start on the Heroic Epic. I'm building swordsmen pretty fast and have plenty of workers improving the land.

I plan on being in constant war until I've claimed my continent. Without being a Religious civ and my Golden Age coming up with my Riders, would it be best to go with Monarchy or Republic? Any other tips on helping me win my first Monarchy level game?

Wildbulldog

[Wildbulldog]

Also

I should have mentioned that England is to the South of Japan. After I take out Japan and England I'll own the continent.

Egypt and Greece are on another continent together (it's smaller than the one I'm on). I still haven't seen the landmass with the other 2 opponents yet. I'll have to worry about these guys later.

Wildbulldog

[Jawa Jocky]

Monarchy until you have the continent then switch to Republic.

I have been able to warmonger in a Republic before. I had all 8 luxuries, a few good wonders, the luxuries slider on 2 and some good cities. I also had small periods of peace ever once in a while. But Monarchy would work best for what your doing.

[Orcin]

I would choose Republic. You will be in a much better position to capitalize on your impending Golden Age. You can use the extra income to manage any war weariness with the luxury slider.

[BlackOut]

I have been quite sucessfull at warmongering while a repulblic, but you have to be able to move your luxury slider (meaning, have lots of cash, or be making lots of cash), and you have to have a lot (if not all) of the luxuries. If you dont, stay with monarchy... IMHO

BlackOut

[Wildbulldog]

I did have lots of cash, but only had 2 Luxuries so I went with Monarchy. I got my Riders just as I started attacking Japan and entered my GA. I've taken out the bulk of Japan's cities but it took longer than I had hoped.

As I was closing in on the last of the Japanese cities that I wanted, I turned my production to Marketplaces, Libraries (Education ruined my GL) and Barracks (for my expected war with England). I'm not sure that I should have wasted my time on the Libraries now. After the GA ended I had to cover my expenses so there isn't much left for Research. At least I'm getting Culture out of them.

Just as my first cities started producing Riders again I attacked England. Their first 2 cities fell in 2 turns. They counterattacked but I out numbered them and they only had a couple of knights. I've taken a third city and now I'm producing Riders fast. They haven't defended with pikemen yet so hopefully I'll be deep in their territory before they do.

England has a lot of cities and I expect a long war. It's around 900AD now. The Persians (I thought they were Greece yesterday) are attacking the Egyptians and consolidating their contenint. The Persians also have the tech lead but hopefully I won't be too far behind after taking out England.

Wildbulldog

[Jawa Jocky]

Barracks? Don't bother making units in cities without them.

Libraries? Keep tech rate at 10% and buy from the AI. You can build libraries and University after you control the continent.

Marketplaces? Should be in ever non-corrupt city.

Units? It always takes more than you think, build them until the war is actually over.

[vmxa1]

Jawa Jocky that is good advice.

[DaveMcW]

War weariness in Republic is based only on losing units and cities. If you can invade with minimal losses Republic works fine. Or if you wipe them out in 10 turns with heavy losses, the war ends and all is well again.

[alexman]

It is also based on ending your turn with units inside enemy territory.

That's why fast-movers (especially cavalry and modern armor) are so important for Democracies at war: you start your turn with your units inside your borders and capture cities without having to end your turn inside enemy territory (before it becomes your own).

[nbarclay]

My approach would have been:

(1) After the war with Germany, switch from swordsmen to horsemen for upgrade to riders (and make sure productive cities get marketplaces to help pay for the upgrade).

(2) Switch to Republic. Riders, built in sufficient quantity and handled properly, can keep wars short and relatively painless if the enemy doesn't have musketmen (and especially if he doesn't have pikemen). (And the horseman upgrades using Republic cash would help ensure sufficient quantity

(3) Keep building riders until there is no reasonable doubt that the force is sufficient to conquer the continent, and then switch to peacetime production.

Nathan

[ducki]

I'm curious about the decision to race Japan to Chivalry when you had the Great Library.

I'm new to Monarch, also, so maybe this is my inexperience showing, but if you have contact with all those AIs, why not turn research off and save a bundle of money to upgrade as many horsemen as you can produce from the time you ended war with Germany until the Library gave you Chivalry?

Does the AI skip Chivalry, making that an invalid strategy, or were you in a hurry to kill off Japan?

Just curious, trying to get my head around new and interesting strategies.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by ducki
I'm curious about the decision to race Japan to Chivalry when you had the Great Library.

Japan and China both have UUs that come with Chivalry, giving whichever of them gets Chivalry first an absolutely huge potential advantage over the other. Hit the opponent before they get their UU and you'll be in a GA while they won't, which can make the war a cakewalk. Wait until after they get Chivalry and a war would be golden age against golden age, powerful medieval UU against powerful medieval UU, and that would be downright painful. Worse, samurai have a defense value to match riders' attack value, and riders can't retreat against samurai (assuming I understand the rules correctly). I don't think I've ever attacked Japan when they had samurai and I didn't have cavalry, and it's not something I plan to start doing either.

Nathan

[vmxa1]

Ducki, you can out research the AI at monarch with a good empire. So you may not always wish to cut to zero and if you do you may want to get back up to pull ahead before Education. Things such as your UU and golden age come into play.

[Wildbulldog]

Thanks for all the advice. I'll be sure to try and use it in my next Monarch level game.

How things turned out:
The war with England got drawn out. I took a few more cities but they soon had musketmen which stopped my advance.

I asked for peace and then switched to Republic. I upgraded my cities, started producing Cavalry, and had several short wars with England and Japan. It wasn't until about the 1700's that I owned my continent.

I earned a lot of Great Leaders (more than most of my other games combined) and was able to rush a lot of Wonders and my Capitol in the South end of the continent. Persia eliminated Egypt and owned it's contenint (and the tech race). France and Germany (they must have re-poped) are on the other continent.

Currently were in the Modern age and I've been getting all the Wonders since the Industrial age. I'm not sure how the UN vote works so I've ignored that for now. I've taken 3 cities from Persia's continent and have a very small tech lead over France/Persia. According to the graphs I have 50% of the current score and power, and about 33% of the culture. I'm just about to get Modern Armor and may go for a Domination victory. I don't think I want to go for the Spaceship since the tech race is so close.

One more request for advice. I don't raze as I advance but I'm very fearful of a city flip and losing my units. I generally leave twice as many units as foreigners in the city (some times adding the number of foreign owned city squares to the population) to prevent a flip (often more than that just to be sure). However, this has a tendency to slow down my advance while I wait for starvation/workers being built to reduce the population to 1 and/or building a temple for getting rid of foreign owned city squares. Sometimes I'll spend an extra turn or 2 to bombard the city to a lower population but I must still wait for the bombarding and repositioning of units. Do you find it easier to just leave a few units in the city as defence only and sacrafice them in a flip to allow your advance to continue? Or is it easier just to raze and rebuild since I'm starving them down to a population of 1 anyway? I have had almost NO flips the way I've been running my wars but feel like I advance too slowly.

Thanks for all your help,
Wildbulldog