Monarchy vs. Fascism ?

[jamesyao]

Well, I found a lot people here say, if you want to go for war, then choose Monarchy.

I am just wonderring, in this case, will Fascism works better for long time war game?

[vmxa1]

Most of what I have heard is it is not good for much. First you need to learn two optional techs in the industrial age. This can be very detrimental to getting to key techs first and to the next age.

Second your cities can lose pop and that will be expensive. No culture in captured cities until you have the majority.

You will likely be in your second government already and if not religious it will be painful to switch again for very little gain.

If you can afford the side trip to learn those techs, you already have the game in hand.

Monarchy for the rest of the game is best left to Deity and Sid levels. You just do not need to be in war so much that WW is going to break you below that in a normal game.

In fact if not religious, I would not switch to monarchy at all in any game. I would want to be in a form that remove MP, so I can free up those units.

[jamesyao]

Thanks for your input, vmxa1, well, actually I don't quite understand what you are saying.

Basically, you say Fascism is not worth going for, better stick with Monarchy, right?

While, I see Fascism can support more units per city, and you can add more military police.

I don't worry too much about loosing pop in city, there too many now, I have to draft some of them to keep the rest happy.

For captured city, I normally raize them and build a new one, except there is a Wonder.

Well, a lot of people here talking about 'religious', what is that? how do I find out? - I am sorry about my dumbness.

[alexman]

Fascism and Monarchy are not that different. Fascism is slightly better because you get more free unit support, more MP, and a bit less corruption. On the other hand you get the Fascism penalties.

The "if you want to go for war, then choose Monarchy" saying is a leftover from before C3C. Communism, the other warmongering government, is much better than both Monarchy and Fascism in most situations under C3C. Try it.

vmxa1 mentions Religious civilizations because they can switch governments with just one turn of Anarchy.

[jamesyao]

hi alexman, would you kindly point out where I can find a detailed comparison between these government?

and, how to give my civ some 'religious'? is it pre-determined by their nationality, or some wonder can turn them into, or some other way?

[CrONoS]

Go into your civiliopedia and look about each (or some) nation. You'll see that the game refers them at: Religious, Indistrious, Millitaristic, Commercials, Agricultural, Seafaring.
Just click on each word, it will give you a small description.

see ya,

[alexman]

Good idea. The civilopedia will also tell you the difference between governments.

[Arrian]

Alexman speaks truth: Communism in Conquests is very powerful.

Almost certainly too powerful, as a matter of opinion.

Though communism is an optional tech like Fascism, it at least allows an improvement that any government will gain benifits from: police stations. So it's not quite the same cost-benifit of researching fascism.

-Arrian

[Solver]

Arrian, what changes has Communism received under C3C that makes it a strong government?

[alexman]

It has received just minor changes. The Secret Police HQ increases the OCN, and the FP increases the OCN more than in PTW.

However, the biggest boost to Communism comes from the new corruption model for the FP for all the other governments, which removes the ability to have two separare cores in your empire.

[Arrian]

Yup. Communism is now relatively more powerful as well as absolutely more powerful. The regular governments were all weakened when the FP was weakened.

I should post the Babylonian game I have going where I decided to experiment with Communism. I own roughly 1/2 the world, and my empire is incredibly productive.

-Arrian

[The Pioneer]

Only if I could understand how the FP functions in C3C

So long...

[SirOsis]

Originally posted by alexman
vmxa1 mentions Religious civilizations because they can switch governments with just one turn of Anarchy.

I believe it is 2 turns now for Religious civs.

[player1]

It's simple.

FP fuctions almost as second core.


It's second core for distance corruption.

But, it's not second core for for rank corruption (how many cities between this that capitol). Still, for this onc, it increases OCN, which reduces effects of this corruption.

[jamesyao]

great! now I will switch to Communism, not a bad combination with my selected nation - China,

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by jamesyao

and, how to give my civ some 'religious'? is it pre-determined by their nationality, or some wonder can turn them into, or some other way?

It was not clear to me if you got your answer. Each civ has two traits. Some have religious as one of their traits. It cannot be changed with out a mod.

Do a search for the C3Cref 1.03 in xls. It has a chart with lots of this stuff in one place.

Use the pedia for more detail.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by The Pioneer
Only if I could understand how the FP functions in C3C

So long...

The old way:

The FP acted just like a duplicate palace, doubling the optimal city number (OCN) and, if properly placed, effectively doubling the productivity of your empire. There was also a bug, the FP rank bug, that meant that any cities positioned closer to the FP than any cities were to the Palace were ranked 0 or 1. This, coupled with Ring City Placement, could offer an additional boost (not that I ever took the effort of working that out).

The new way:

The Forbidden Place now increases the OCN by 33% (instead of 100%). Cities nearer to the FP will use the distance from the FP to determine their distance corruption level, but rank corruption remains dependent on the Palace.

Basically, the old barbell shaped continental empire is dead. It is generally best to place the FP closer to home - often your neighbor's capital is a good spot (unless you have one of those games when they're right on top of you). This will produce an empire and a half, basically (33% OCN boost, plus the lowering of distance corruption in the FP area).

Overall, corruption isn't all that bad, since the OCNs were increased across the map sizes, maximum corruption rate has been dropped from 95% to 90%, and the effects of corruption fighting buildings have increased (dunno exactly how much). Then again, as far as I know, the RCP "fix" is still in effect, which effectively penalizes you if you happen to build several cities at the same distance from the palace.

Communism, meanwhile, got boosted by the addition of the Secret Police HQ, which has the same (cumulative) effect on the empire as does the FP under communism, providing an OCN boost. I'm no expert, but I think the boost is the same as under the other governments - 33%. So with both, you've now got a 66% boost.

So the power of Monarchy, Republic and Demo got reduced (at least for the warmongers who would create an empire large enough to take full benifit from the old corruption system), and Communism was boosted. It is now an excellent choice, I think, for those who like large empires - especially those who don't like corruption and really want to bother specializing corrupt cities to function as specialist centers. Me, for example.

-Arrian

p.s. alexman, please make sure I'm not leading people astray.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Arrian
Then again, as far as I know, the RCP "fix" is still in effect, which effectively penalizes you if you happen to build several cities at the same distance from the palace.

Ugh, can anyone confirm this? Alexman? I thought it was ironed out in the xmas beta patch (1.12, IIRC). I didn't play since then and follow the patches, so I don't know if it returned.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Arrian

The FP acted just like a duplicate palace, doubling the optimal city number (OCN) and, if properly placed, effectively doubling the productivity of your empire.

Actually, it didn't double the OCN, it increased it by just 10%. Of course, if you had it optimally placed, then it effectively doubled the OCN because you got two completely separate sets of ranks for each palace.

There was also a bug, the FP rank bug, that meant that any cities positioned closer to the FP than any cities were to the Palace were ranked 0 or 1.

Just to be a pain, and since you invited me to comment, let me say that the bug was actually that the rank of a city which was closer to the FP than the Palace was given by the number of cities closer to the Palace than the distance of that city to the FP. That meant that it the bug affected all cities that were closer to the FP than the Palace, but you only really noticed it when the city density was different around your Palace than around your FP.

The Forbidden Place now increases the OCN by 33%

The number is actually 37.5% (3/8) for non-communal governments and 300% for Communism.

Overall, corruption isn't all that bad, since the OCNs were increased across the map sizes, maximum corruption rate has been dropped from 95% to 90%, and the effects of corruption fighting buildings have increased (dunno exactly how much).

Each curruption fighting building reduces maximum corruption by 10%. So a city with a courthouse and a police station has a max corruption of 70%.

Then again, as far as I know, the RCP "fix" is still in effect, which effectively penalizes you if you happen to build several cities at the same distance from the palace.

They actually fixed it properly so that when two cities are at the same distance from the palace, a tie-breaker of founding date is used to determine the rank. Even if they are also equally old cities, they still get different ranks (you just have to know their order in the database to predict their rank).

All the rest was correct. Thanks for explaining it. I'm usually too lazy and point people to my corruption thread so they can figure it out themselves.

[Arrian]

See, this is why I wanted you to comment. About half the stuff I wrote was wrong.



Ok, so the FP increases the OCN by 300% for communism Same bonus for the SPHQ? So with both you've got a 600% OCN increase? No wonder communism is so powerful.

RE: OCN increase for the FP under the old system... I see where I got confused. Because I was all about placing my FP and Palace such that they were a long way apart, and had nice seperate spheres of influence, it was like doubling the OCN, because of the new set of city ranks.

37.5%, right. 3/8. I knew that, really I did.

Just to be a pain, and since you invited me to comment, let me say that the bug was actually that the rank of a city which was closer to the FP than the Palace was given by the number of cities closer to the Palace than the distance of that city to the FP. That meant that it the bug affected all cities that were closer to the FP than the Palace, but you only really noticed it when the city density was different around your Palace than around your FP.

You're not being a pain. But I have to admit it's still too early for me to work my way through this. I'm confused, and that's ok. The game doesn't work this way anymore.

They actually fixed it properly so that when two cities are at the same distance from the palace, a tie-breaker of founding date is used to determine the rank. Even if they are also equally old cities, they still get different ranks (you just have to know their order in the database to predict their rank).

Oh, wow! Somehow I either never knew or forgot that they had fixed that. Good

-Arrian

[kolpo]

In conquests is communism not only a good war government but even a good peace government when you have a big empire. I even sometimes end up gaining MORE tax money under communism then under democracy because communism has very little corruption(with secret police).

[Solver]

OK, I haven't played with Conquests up to that point.... not that I have had the game for long, but here's what I'm thinking. Is it really worth to build the Secret Police HQ and go into Communism then, contrary to staying in a Democracy and reaping the other benefits, IF you have a builder empire?

[alexman]

1) It depends on the size and shape of your empire.
2) The SPHQ doesn't make as much difference as you think

[Arrian]

Basically what alexman said.

When I switched to communism, the benifits were clear. I was playing a religious civ (quick transition), I owned an entire continent on a standard-size continental map (1/2 the world, roughly), and I had a MGL available to rush the SPHQ immediately. My old core areas were very well developed, but about 1/2 the continent was pretty underdeveloped due to max corruption under Republic. When I switched, research stayed about the same, but shield production exploded.

alexman is right about the SPHQ. It didn't seem to make a huge difference. I actually didn't realize the SPHQ required espionage, so I switched governments immediately after researching communism and found I couldn't build the SPHQ yet. I had to wait 4 turns to research espionage and rush it. That's a tech I often don't bother with, actually.

Anyway, it didn't seem to make a big difference. That's not real specific, I know, sorry.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

At the very least it could allow you to build happiness improvements in corrupt areas to set them up to be specialist cities, and then switch back.

The only irritation for me is going to be not being able to cashrush. I know that's gonna piss me off.

-Arrian

[planetfall]

Arrian,

Simple don't upgrade to 1.20 from 1.15 when it comes out. Build your SPHQ and switch back to republic/demo and you still get the SPHQ benes.

PF

[alexman]

Too late, it was already fixed in 1.15

[planetfall]

Darn, I was going to try that this week and see how the bug worked. Oh well, I still plan to give commies a try. I just don't like the pop rush method.

[alexman]

I don't mind the pop-rush because it encourages me to save my cash for more fun stuff, like espionage missions which are more likely to succeed in Communism due to veteran spies.

Otherwise, the extra cash is always nice to have for upgrades, alliances, luxury purchases, et cetera.

Also, Communists don't need cash rushing as much since all their cities are productive.

[jamesyao]

I have to print this thread out and read on my way back home, too much info..........