Do we really want Democracy?

realpolitic · October 15, 2002, 19:30

Democracy will come back to bite us. It's just going to cause more War Weariness, and speed our change to Communism. You might as well face it, you're addicted to war (and that becomes the only game in town when you get tanks).

Duddha · October 15, 2002, 19:37

Quote:

...and speed our change to Communism.

exactly

If we are going to have any war weariness we might as well get all the benefits.

Panzer32 · October 15, 2002, 19:48

This is the advantage of being a religious civ. We can change governments often , and only get 1 turn of anarchy. Change to democracy, and when war weariness gets to us, switch to something else!!!

(Commies

)

History Guy · October 15, 2002, 19:59

I'm no "Capitalist Pig", but I don't like the idea of seeing Apolytonia turn Commie!

Meshelic · October 15, 2002, 20:05

I agree. In my own games Democracy is always troublesome and leftfor some major wars that were begun and then cut short.

Once we reach modern times the other civs (Greeks and Germans in my opinion) will want to flex their muscles. If we switch to Democracy we'll have to do some serious military build-up, otherwise it could get ugly...

RP
*I foresee a glorious, bloody revolution on the horizon! And through that revolution a mighty socialist nation! But alas I cannot foretell who that nation will be! Could it be us? Time may tell.*
END RP

Meshelic · October 15, 2002, 20:07

Democracy often calls for quick, limited wars as well. I agree with that, but for game purposes it's so much more fun to have an arch-nemisis with a titanic struggle between the two....I'm not saying 'let's go make enemies' but....

Panzer32 · October 15, 2002, 20:09

Communism (in civ terms) is like a monarchy on steroids

It is much better for a large empire because distance from the palace has no effect on corruption.

The only downside (or maybe upside) is that rush building is done through human labour, which results in smaller cities.

Panzer32 · October 15, 2002, 20:15

Quote:

*I foresee a glorious, bloody revolution on the horizon! And through that revolution a mighty socialist nation! But alas I cannot foretell who that nation will be! Could it be us? Time may tell.*

As the red hoarde sweeps down on us, the older citizens remember a time of the great monarchs as they recolect the olden days with a passion that would have swept the nation... [Narrator's voice faces off into the distance...]

Oh yeah, we haven't discovered communism yet... SHHHH... no one's supposed to know about that...

Meshelic · October 15, 2002, 20:20

jdjdjd · October 15, 2002, 20:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Meshelic
I agree. In my own games Democracy is always troublesome and leftfor some major wars that were begun and then cut short.

Once we reach modern times the other civs (Greeks and Germans in my opinion) will want to flex their muscles. If we switch to Democracy we'll have to do some serious military build-up, otherwise it could get ugly...

The thing is, the Greeks and Germans won't be too quick to flex their muscles if we make sure we keep our military up tp date and sizeable. We can't do that until we start closing the tech gap and improving our infrastructure. We need to do that now. Democracy comes with many benefits if you can keep your nation at peace. Also. of we decide to go for the spaceship, then we'll need the boost Demo gives.

Meshelic · October 15, 2002, 20:36

You're right, and I pointed out the fact that we'll still need to maintain a large military in my last post. In that light I think we need to always be producing at least 4-5 military units in each city, while working on industry and commerce in the other cities,....then rotating the build queus.

At no point should we build improvements at the expense of our military production is all I'm saying.

kring · October 15, 2002, 20:56

If you wait until the end of the turn to switch, then you don't have to worry about Anarchy in a religious civ. I learned that trick a while back. I don't automatically switch at the beginning of the turn and lose that whole turn's production anymore.

We would benefit from the increased Worker rate as well, esp. with all this jungle to deal with.

Torkkeli · October 16, 2002, 03:55

Well I usually go straight to Dem. skipping Rep.. But as we already have Rep. Dem. is not needed.

Meshelic · October 16, 2002, 04:52

We JUST moved to Republic! Now all this talk of democracy! Sounds like I hear a "Apolyton Democratic Front' beginning...

Donegeal · October 16, 2002, 05:35

Quote:

Originally posted by kring
We would benefit from the increased Worker rate as well, esp. with all this jungle to deal with.

This is the main reason for going to Democracy. What is the wkr bonus again? 50%-200% I believe (don't know for sure, I don't have the game available).

Mr. Orange · October 16, 2002, 08:43

Democracy... of course. To use the analogy, like Republic on steroids.

1) Worker and Trade Bonus!
2) We have the Lux and can trade for it. He have the cash and can boost the Lux slider in a prolonged war.
3) The switch is easy with 1 turn anarchy.
4) War weariness? Fine, but we'd switch if we went into a prolonged offenisve situation.

Plus, there is nothing cooler winning a global war in Demccracy beating back all the Monarchies and Commies! Ah the struggle!

Shiber · October 16, 2002, 11:38

Regarding wars, first of all keep in mind that if your civilization is attacked, war weariness actually drops to a negative value and so the first five turns of war will be free of any effects of war weariness.
In our planned wars, we can make them short by building masses of troops (which we'll need to protect our vast empire anyway) and achieve most of our objectives within five or six turns. In the meantime we can compensate for war weariness with luxuries and improvements - all large cities should have a cathedral and a marketplace so that we won't have to worry about war weariness resulting in short wars (7 or so turns) until hospitals.

The bonuses are well worth it, and will also compensate for the drawbacks. For example, an increase in the speed of workers will allow us to produce more with less citizens and adjust the WF if needed to balance the effects of war weariness.

Arnelos · October 16, 2002, 12:01

Espionage and the Intelligence Agency are by far the coolest thing to have if you are in a Democracy and want to go to war... if you have some spare cash, just burn around 200 gold trying to get a spy into an enemy civ... they'll declare war on you and give you negative WW (so your people are happy for 5 turns, normal for 5 turns, and only start to experience war weariness after a 10-turn grace period).

ALSO, with the advent of Nationalism, you can use this same tactic to sign mutual defense pacts with a couple of AIs which will declare war on the guy you pissed off when he attacks you

I use this all the time in my single-player games... it's a great deal of fun.

Arnelos · October 16, 2002, 12:04

Oh, and as for communism, you can count on me to be an absolute and unwavering opponent of such a form of government

Looking beyond any RL junk, in GAME terms Communism slows down science and trade and makes cash rushing impossible... the distance from capital corruption bonus is only worthwhile if your empire controls nearly your entire continent (and you have to keep in mind that the optimal cities corruption penalty can actually be WORSE under Communism than Democracy because your core cities will lose more trade than your fringe cities will gain... and the more cities you get, no matter how small, the higher corruption goes in your core cities!)

In all, Communism is only useful in Civ3 in a specific set of situations... if you're not in one of those situations, it's not worth it.

joncnunn · October 16, 2002, 12:47

On Reseraching Printing Press + Democracy.

Off course we want to continue to reserach along this path. Printing Press is the only tech we currently have a chance of being first to discover.

Once we have Printing Press, Democracy will be the only tech we have a chance of being the first to discover.

(The preqreq to being first to discover Democracy will however, require investment in enough Market Places followed by Libaries now to where it can be discovered within 10 to 15 turns without bankrupting us.)

Printing Press and especally Democracy will allow us to aquire other techs cheaper and then sell for a profit.

On do we want to switch as soon as we have Democracy:

If not actually at war at the time: YES! We are Religious. Corruption is less under Democracy than Republic so we make more money under Democracy than Republic. (And get faster workers & slaves.) It's really a no brainer.

If however we are at war when we discover Democracy, wait for the war to end and then switch.

If we later get into a war as a Democracy, then monitor the war werrious levels and when it starts hurting too much then switch if we don't feel like ending the war then. Our being religious will only cost 1 turn during a switch. I do suggest that quick wars of expansion are much prefered over stagnation wars even if war werriousness wasn't a factor.

Post Democracy research: If in a position to actually do so, then beeline to Calvary. If however we aren't in a position to do this, then Free Artistary would be a fall back position because most of the time, the AI's aren't interested in researching it at all until they discover a few Industrial Era techs.

GodKing · October 16, 2002, 12:53

banana. I see the benifits, but I am not seeing the detriments other than "we could research something else".

jdjdjd · October 16, 2002, 12:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Shiber
Regarding wars, first of all keep in mind that if your civilization is attacked, war weariness actually drops to a negative value and so the first five turns of war will be free of any effects of war weariness.
In our planned wars, we can make them short by building masses of troops (which we'll need to protect our vast empire anyway) and achieve most of our objectives within five or six turns. In the meantime we can compensate for war weariness with luxuries and improvements - all large cities should have a cathedral and a marketplace so that we won't have to worry about war weariness resulting in short wars (7 or so turns) until hospitals.

The bonuses are well worth it, and will also compensate for the drawbacks. For example, an increase in the speed of workers will allow us to produce more with less citizens and adjust the WF if needed to balance the effects of war weariness.

I always feel releived when Shiber comes out on the same side of an issue as me.

Shiber · October 16, 2002, 12:59

Am I over-responsive?

zeit · October 16, 2002, 13:01

Have you forgotten less corruption- another democratic trait. And besides, we play a Democracy Game- sooner or later we should have Democracy, it is only appropriate that the leading world power is also a democratic one.

Shiber · October 16, 2002, 13:08

Less corruption, less waste and faster worker rate (more land improvements) => more production per citizen => ability to turn some citizens into specialists in case WW rears its ugly head and still produce as much as we would have produced if we were in Republic.

Panzer32 · October 16, 2002, 16:02

Quote:

We JUST moved to Republic! Now all this talk of democracy! Sounds like I hear a "Apolyton Democratic Front' beginning...

We shall conquor your republican a***s

realpolitic · October 16, 2002, 16:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Panzer32

It is much better for a large empire because distance from the palace has no effect on corruption.

Well, we will have to change our city improvement strategy. Any Police Stations we build will only be good for cutting corruption,

and we'll have to build more improvements outside our central core. In any case, it looks like I've been outvoted.

joncnunn · October 16, 2002, 17:08

Under Communism there are the following weird affects:

Palace & Forbidden Palace only effect is culture.

Each far flinging city you build/ capture reduces the production of your core cities.

Building a factory can reduce production in other cities.

Manually moving the workers in one city to reduce shield production can increase production in other cities.

You can have so many far flinging cities as to have castasphorpic corrpution everywhere.

Court Houses & Police Stations usally have no local effect, but each slightly benift one or more other cities.

This is all because of communal corrpution where the corruption is simply reassigned to give every city as near as possible the same percentage of waste & corruption.

Meshelic · October 16, 2002, 19:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Panzer32

We shall conquor your republican a***s

Is this where I say I wasn't one of the ARF, or that I swear I'm not a monarchist for fear of being hung for treason?

I support democracy, I just have the feeling that once we switch to that government type then we won't be able to have a choice of what victory type we want to aim for; it'll already be somewhat set in stone. Well maybe not, but I'm apprehensive somewhat.

It's good for the economy though...

Panzer32 · October 16, 2002, 22:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Meshelic

Is this where I say I wasn't one of the ARF, or that I swear I'm not a monarchist for fear of being hung for treason?

[Macarthyismic attitude]

It doesn't matter what you say... whatever you are we will get you...

[/Macarthyismic attitude]

Seriously, deomocracy is good, it will help us build infrastructure, even preparing for an eventual war

[Sensitivity training]

Democracy is good
Democracy is your friend...

[/Sensitivity training]