Changing Government

[GodKing]

Just wondering, any advice on when to change government types, why to do so, and so forth. In all the games I have played I just stick with the one I start with. Every time I have tried to change I ended up with no production and major unrest for long periods of time. The manual doesn't help much, and I have not seen much on the forums here at poly regarding this. Any help and advice is appreciated.

[Harry Seldon]

If I'm going to change it, I change it immediately after starting the game. Smaller population means smaller effects from unrest. One of the reviews I read mentioned it, if memory serves. I've noticed most of the time that the differences between governments that you can select are minimal unless you can choose the hive or unification.

[Kloreep]

Whenever I change governments - even early game - I also get major unrest. Do you crank up unrest funding, lower taxes, or both? Or do you just have to wait several turns for it to pass?

[BobD]

I've read that one reason for changing governments (during a game) is to reduct the HFOG. Haven't tried it myself yet since I usually have enough unrest problems (without changing govs) that I don't want to risk a revolt.

[Prothero]

After several turns (~4) the unrest due to change of gov will pass, just lower your imperial and system taxes with ~2% for that time.

[Jamski]

Changing government wins you the game. It reduces your HFOG to the average of the current level and 1 :

NewHFOG=(OldHFOG+1)/2

The AI doesn't do this, so changing gov. gives you a huge advantage.

Example:

HFOG = 3 You change to another gov, and back again. Now HFOG = 1.5. You are probably producing now twice as cheaply as the average enemy empire. You win easily.

-Jam

[Flinx]

Originally posted by War of Art
Changing government wins you the game. It reduces your HFOG to the average of the current level and 1 :

NewHFOG=(OldHFOG+1)/2

The AI doesn't do this, so changing gov. gives you a huge advantage.

Example:

HFOG = 3 You change to another gov, and back again. Now HFOG = 1.5. You are probably producing now twice as cheaply as the average enemy empire. You win easily.

-Jam

Wait... .... hmmm no, I didn't understand that answer

This seams like an important strategy point, so could you go over that again? Let's take my current game. I'm the Evon, my government is Republican (IIRC), and my HFoG is around 2.5. So you are saying I switch to say Parliamentary and back to Republican (how many turns do I wait?) and the HFoG goes down just like that? By extension, repeating a few times would get the HFoG to 1.

[GodKing]

War of Art - can you explain a bit better please. Toss in an example if possible. Thanks.

[UnOrthOdOx]

That sounds like an exploit really.

I normally play as bugs with Hive, and don't want to change, though.

(just now trying out other things now my work is done on the C3DG)

[Jamski]

This is a bit of an exploit, so I only change government on the first turn. If you don't believe it, just try it.

Another example, for those that want it :

The formula applied is NewHFOG=(OldHFOG+1)/2
This means that changing governments lowers your HFOG halfway back to one. If you start with a HFOG=3, then one change will move this to HFOG=2. A second change will reduce this to HFOG=1.5, which is half of the original HFOG=3. This is a pretty big change.

For those unclear on HFOG, it is a simple multiplier of the costs of everything in the game. If you have a HFOG=2, then all your ships, buildings, spies(?) cost twice as much to build, and so on. It goes up slowly based on your opressometer, goverment type, economics racial pick blah blah.

Hope this helps.

-Jam

[Flinx]

Reading more about this in the forums at this, and other sites, this seems to be a poorly implemented feature of the HFoG game concept. The exploit is not in the ability to lover your HFoG by changing government types, but in the fact that the AI does not use this effect, and the reduction in the HFoG from switching governments is huge compared to the gradual increase in HFoG over time.

Another consequence ties in with Shnozwangler's observation that the 'Economic' Race trait is rather unimportant since you gain no interest on government surpluses (the opposite is stated in the game, and this was only changed just prior to release apparently). Given that you can reduce your HFoG by the above method and that you earn no interest from government surpluses, unless you play with a large debt, you might as well customise those races that have ‘Investor’ or ‘Monetarists’ level Economics trait to ‘Specie’ or ‘Barter’ and use the points to improve a trait that fits with your play strategy.

[Def Zep]

Flinx is correct. In custom setups, points are better spent on non-economic traits due to the changes QSI implemented immediately before release. See the game's readme for this change.

Also, the HFOG reduction benefit from Govt change is an exploit which can, over time, out produce the AI. QSI has stated it intends to fix this in a patch, though they do not say whether it will make the first one.

[Tuberski]

Where do you find your HFoG value?

I've never looked for it before.

ACK!

[Jamski]

Its on the "Victory" Tab.

-Jam

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by War of Art
Its on the "Victory" Tab.

-Jam

Thank you.

ACK!

[Noone]

I find hte best time to change govs is just after youve decimated a enemy, ie all there fleets are gone and you are waiting for transports to arrive to take the last few worlds. Also at this stage i usually disband most of my fleet as it i alot quick to disband then to move them to another front. If you change govs at this time you will suffer alot of unrest as others had said but it's at ta time when you are regathering your forces.

This does have it downfalls though: If you lost alot of ships in recent battles prodcuton will be affected and you will replace ships slower. Another disadvantage is newly *aquired* colonies are often in unrest anyway abd the extra bit could get them even more P****d off at you and maybe revolt (hasn't happened to me)

Another good time is when you have just scrapped all your designs and built new ones. You will suffer unrest but as your planets are building old designs they should be able to manage to churn them our relitivly quickly anyway (this is only of you cant be bothered like me and go and delete every thing from every que.)

Overall unrest from gov cange isn't that big a problem as long as you dont do it when you really need production, although losing a large amount of ships to the AI is quite hard due to its passiveness.

(hope that helps, although im not sure it makes much sence )

[GodKing]

Actually, it does make sence. Thanks.

[bakalov]

IMO the best time to change the government is when your HFOG has risen and you have no unrest in the empire. You can also slightly increase the unrest reduction spending and lower the o-meter a bit when changing the government, so you can handle the incoming unrest with ease.