favorite government

[Fuzzball]

A converted city loses half it's gold to the clerics nation, which can be handy at times. It also costs $1000 to remove the religious conversion from a city and causes much unhappiness. It can seriously slow someone down sometimes. Using clerics in theo can be a wise move depending on your enemy. Nowhere near as much much as infecting your enemies major trade caps with the Nanovirus and watching all their richest cities revolt as every improvement disappears.

[Dictatress]

Theocracy's advantage in early game is that it increases your production and science. For me, it's cruicial to get certain wonders built, so I must research and construct faster than anyone else. I don't use clerics so much anymore. They just cost a whole lot of gold, and then you get 3 gold per turn from that pathetic little city. It's worth making the AI spend 1000 gold to get rid of the conversion, though.

I've seen an AI ecotopia once. That was during a unique game where I was involved in a war of destruction with Israel (those people made me furious ). I saw ecotopia in my eternally faithful ally Nigeria. For a short time.

[jpww]

I just finished a game in which I switched to Ecotopia towards the end... I'm a believer now!!
It's really cool to watch the Park Ranger at work. All I can say is

KA-BOOM!

[SoulFisher]

Compare that 27 gold with how much your empire is making per turn at that point in the game: typically 100 - 200 gold per turn.

Now tell me, if both you and your enemy (both human now) were making 200 gold every turn, would want him adding 27 gold for free every turn from one of your cities? Him: 227 You: 200. In 10 turns, he's a full turn ahead of you in money.

[TheRussianKing]

Soul fisher: I dont understand u!
how can you produce 200gold per turs when you have more than 5 cities in 1500BC?

[TheRussianKing]

Ecotopia does suck!
I usually play on islandic maps, and the whole area around and inside my civ is covered with battleships, subs and destroyers!
umm so thats about 50-100 Ships around 30 cities in my current game. I usually build more cities but Id have to get more land.

NOW if all those units cost me 3000 or something per turn (i mean all other units as well), and thats 23% of prod!! then how the hell am I supposed togo to war on Ecotopia?

[J Bytheway]

The whole point of Ecotopia is that you don't need all those expensive to maintain units to win, so you either disband them or go to a lower readiness setting - your eco-rangers will still work. In addition, disbanding them will speed up eco-ranger production if that was a problem for you...

[SoulFisher]

What is your question RussianKing? Are you suggesting that 200 gold/turn for 5 cities in 1500BC is too little, or too much? At the moment, I don't quite remember what my average number of cities is around 1500BC, but, my numbers above are just hypothetical.

[TheRussianKing]

Soul Fisher

too small. By the time I see clerics around me, I have each my CITIES producing 100gold. so the 27gold is nothing, sorry

[SoulFisher]

Sounds like I'd get wasted playing vs you, RussianKing.

Anyone else agree/disagree that Cleric's selling Indulgences is just not worth your time? See here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=530354&t=1933#post530354

[Fuzzball]

Depends on the situation. I think mass production of clerics and using all of their faculties is a great tactic when an opponent has their civ wide open. Grouping lots together within an opponents civ and conducting mass conversions and soothsaying throughout their major trade centres can wreak havok on their civ.... riots, rebellions,etc... which can pretty much double their science count and really piss them off for a while......

[TheRussianKing]

Originally posted by SoulFisher
Sounds like I'd get wasted playing vs you, RussianKing.

Nah, don't worry, Im generally pretty kind to the small civs unless they start a fight

[jlc9539]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Democracy is useful only in very specific circumstances (a short term improvement to research at the cost of everything else...).

I'm actually surprised. In my current game, I'm using Democracy for the first time ever. I did this mainly because of the number of cities that I have and all the other governments I had couldn't support them all. It's actually not that bad as long as I'm not at war (the war weariness builds up unhappiness too fast). I have decent production (not great, but decent), and high gold/science production. Not too bad for a government that nobody likes.