Communism the best govt choice in this situation hands down?

[Artifex]

In my current game I am coming up on industrial age and rifleman then communism..I wonder how useful communism is for a really Huge empire. I wonder if it is better than republic if say you have 40-60 city empire on a standard map. Thats over 24-44 cities from optimal.

My understanding is corruption penalties kick in for you after 16 cities on standard map (20 if commercial). As your empire grows huge you get only 1 shield in most of your cities. It would seem if you are REALLY large, say 50 cities on a standard map. Then Communism is the best Government.

Is this a reasonable assumption? What do those players do with real huge empires?

Also is an empire with 50 cities and communism better than a democracy with say 16 cities? Science wise and production wise? I question if it pays off to grow huge in this game? Instead of razing everything and staying at republic or democracy at around 16 cities all the time or choosing to grow to a huge communist empire at 50+.

[Edrix]

Supposedly, the corruption under Communism is communal, meaning that all cities have the same limited corruption/waste levels. I haven't checked on this too much, but when I've used communism before (for war purposes), I haven't had much of a problem with corruption. I'd say it would help in a large empire with widespread cities (also, it's great if you ever need to go to war).

[Edrix]

Also (sorry), if you're going for a domination or conquest victory, growing huge is definitely beneficial. The more cities you have, the more science/money you generate, no matter what government you're using. If you're following a military strategy that follows a large-scale capturing of cities, Communism is definitely the way to go.

[Aeson]

Communism is usually about as productive as Monarchy when dealing with a civ around optimal number of cities. The further past optimal the worse it becomes though. In a really big empire, Communism can be worse than despotism.

I think there was a change to it in 1.29f (FP doubles the optimal number of cities in Communism IIRC), so it may work out better for large empires now.

[dawidge]

That struck me as the real sleeper in the README. This will be *huge* for the AI, which seems to wallow in communism at the end of the game. Pre-1.29, communism was just about equal with Monarchy (decide if you want to kill civs for rushing, or spend money), now it would appear to be the clear favorite. With the improvements to commercial, imagine a communist Rome in the industrial/modern eras. There should be virtually no corruption at all and gobs of cash to pour into spying.

[Aeson]

I'm still not sure it will be a clear favorite. I usually have core cities and then the corrupt buffer type with no real improvements. Since Communism still isn't anywhere near as efficient as Democracy in peacetime, why would I want to build all those improvements in outlying areas just for when I switch to a wartime government? Monarchy will better fit with the concept of a productive core, even if overall it is less efficient on it's own.

Not to mention that rushing with gold is so much more powerful in the late game than rushing with pop.