Fascism: the new Fundamentalism?

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Looks like Fundamentalism was too good not to be brought back, albeit in an altered form. The civilopedia entry for Fascism makes this government type look unbeatable, for the world conquerer. It might even make buying cities via propaganda worthwhile, just like in the good old days of spies under fundamentalism in Civ2! What with killing your people instead of buying improvements, you'll have lots of gold laying around anyways...

...I hope this is not, indeed, far too powerful. I'm happy to have new government types but I like the balance in the current Civ, and I hope that Facism does not turn out to be a "super-government" like the old Fundamentalism, which made it possible to conquer the world the same way every time and still get new techs every 4 turns near the end of the game.

[Stuie]

You're right; it looks pretty potent.

Your cities lose population points upon a change to fascist government...

Is this a polite way of saying that any undesirable portions of our population are exterminated?

[Arrian]

Actually, the government that has shades of CivII's fundamentalism in it is Feudalism (the free city improvements thing).

Facism is a pumped-up Monarchy, pretty much. Relatively low corruption, no WW, high free unit support, with the double-speed worker boost. The downsides are forced labor + the poploss thing (I wonder how much?).

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Arrian
Actually, the government that has shades of CivII's fundamentalism in it is Feudalism (the free city improvements thing).
-Arrian

Well, I guess that's technically true, but facism will probably come along at about the same time Fundamentalism did, and seems to be a "super government". Who cares who you need to slaughter at that point in the game? What with corruption and all, it'll be good to be creaming some of those size-12 cities to build courthouses and police stations.

Feudalism might have free city improvements, but it looks pretty weak overall.

Who knows though. Both look useful in their own right. We won't know 'til a few months of solid gaming have gone into it I suppose.

[Stuie]

I wonder if the new government types might make the "Religious" attribute even more powerful. I rarely switch goverments using non-Religious Civs - maybe twice a game; otherwise I fall too far behind in the tech race. But with Religious, you can take advantage of whatever government is currently available.

[Myrddin]

The downside of Fascism is the "No culture generated until your population is in the majority"

All these captured cities will only have 8 tiles to work, a high probability of flipping back and your attack units will need to use movement points to get to the front, while the captured cities will remain vulnerable to counterattack by fast-moving units

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I guess the threat of reverting will be a problem. Still, keep enough high-powered quick-movers outside the city radius and this is NOT really a problem, except that the captured cities with lose more improvements each time - but they lose quite a bit on the initial capture as is.

Hell, fighting the Babylonians, I always get a city or two reverting. It's nothing more but an inconvenience, really (unless, I guess, you capture Utica Minor in the ancient era, and that flips, and you're up against a Numidian Mercanary, or some similar scenario... but that's rare)

[Jaybe]

The downside of Fascism is the "No culture generated until your population is in the majority"

Really historically correct (with currently politically very incorrect consequences).
Your total disregard for life of the conquered encourages you to massively bombard. Partisan activity is rampant, so you must keep large occupation forces (but perhaps outside the city in the game) to suppress/repress rebellion. You will migrate workers to the "expanded motherland" (especially IF it counts in the "majority" population calculation).

A large military may be relatively easy to maintain, but your military requirements may also be larger.

--
Regarding the Religious civ issue. Perhaps the government change will no longer be 1 turn. Perhaps 2 turns or (normal # of turns divided by 2 (or some other number)).

[Myrddin]

I would guess that the change will be the other way round, reducing the Anarchy period for non-Religious civs, rather than extending it for Religious ones

Otherwise who will be using all the new government types?

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Arrian
Facism [...] The downsides are forced labor + the poploss thing (I wonder how much?).

as long as it isn't an absolute number. imagine it takes away 2 pop-points from every city... and all your cities <2 vanish

[Spiffor]

I will never use fascism to conquer, because I'm too fan of a Blitzkrieg tactics: conquer as much as possible in a short time, with a swift yet quite weak force. To have culture in newly conquered cities is absolutely essential in my tactics, and fascism would force me to build a ridiculous force to maintain loyalty in said cities.

It can be quite good if you are overwhelmingly powerful already. But if you're an underdog striving to bite a top dog (or even an equal rival), fascism is not the way to go.

[joncnunn]

Where did you find this? I didn't see it anywhere on either the Civ III site or in any thread in this forum.

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
The civilopedia entry for Fascism makes this government type look unbeatable, for the world conquerer.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Where did you find this? I didn't see it anywhere on either the Civ III site or in any thread in this forum.

Civ3 site>Conquests>Screenshots, page 3

[joncnunn]

Thanks.

Saw another downside listed:

1. Switching into Fascism causes all cities to lose some population.

2. Newly captured cities when running a Fascist govt lose populations.

I wouldn't be surprized if foreign pop loses in both cases are higher than native pop loses.

[Louis XXIV]

I think Facism won't encourage Religious civs because you still loose population.

I don't mind the government, except that it makes Communism (in its current form) useless.

[Jaybe]

I wouldn't be surprized if foreign pop loses in both cases are higher than native pop loses.

No doubt, considering that foreign "subhumans" are little better than ... .
Especially after the political administration comes in.*

*Historical Note: as the German army advanced into USSR, they treated the populace civilly (Waffen SS excepted); they had no qualms with the Russian people and definitely didn't want hostility from them. Initially, the Russian populace (especially peasants) thought the Germans were "saviors" from the Communist yoke.
Then the Nazis (administrative) arrived, and the partisan resistance began as they found how "wonderfully" they had been treated under Soviet rule. It was all relative, and suddenly a matter of desperate survival.

[WarpStorm]

I don't mind the government, except that it makes Communism (in its current form) useless.

I don't find Communism useless. It is still the best if you like big empires (no, make that huge) empires.

[Louis XXIV]

If you have lots of cities, your normally good cities will dragged down to lower levels. If it had the corruption level of Democracy, plus communal, it might be worthwhile, but, IIRC, it has more corruption than that.

It was always simply a war gov, but Facism makes Communism less valuble, as Facism has more free units.

[WarpStorm]

In a huge far flung empire all my cities are productive (<5 lost shields in the cities that used to be old core (about 5-10% corruption) - there is no core under communism).

Let's just say that Communism got a little lovin' too.

[joncnunn]

To me, it looks like they designed Fascism as something to choose when your empire is realtively small in territory, but has Hospitals everywhere and you want to build up a huge armies for your number of cities. (Look at those huge support numbers!) It's main disadvance seems to be massive revolt problems if the Britzkreig fails. (And also a human would see the cross the board pop drop, and thus be warned.)

Communism is more of the inverse in practice: You have a realtively easy time building things and keeping order in newly conquered cities, but each one you conquer knocks that much off of production of your core cities.

In times of peace, all govts have trouble keeping up with the techs both Democracy and Republic can produce.

[sabrewolf]

this question is for jeff, he mentioned on the forums asking him about what they had done to change the corruption in communism
ah yes, I was alluding to the Secret HQ, or whatever it's called... help me out here, fellahs...
giving you the equivalent of a second forbidden palace, but only if you're in Communism
Secret Police Headquarters is the new Communism Small Wonders name Jeff
The Secret Police HQ allows Communism to be the favored government for a larger nation
Ed to the rescue...
much larger nation =)

source: edited CFC-firaxis-chat

so communism is slightly better now (or should one say less worse)

[Odin]

I really wish there was a "Democratic Socialist" Government that is like Democracy on most things but have communal corruption, no gold bonus, and some kind of production bonus.

[sabrewolf]

you mean like some european governements?

then there should be communal corruption (but less than in communism), no commerce disadavantage, but a lot higher war weariness (that's why a slider would be better for war weariness and corruption)

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

YEAH! How about "Democracy" and "Representative Democracy"? Higher levels of commerce for representative democracy + some MP factor, and for "Democracy," less commerce, no MP and high war weariness, but culture is generated faster, and some sort of benefit for tech too...?

Oh well, at this point we're waiting for Civ 4.

[Emperor Iaius I]

I'm personally looking forward to the Imperialism government. Fascism just seems to be too harmful for its worker benefits, and I don't approve of forced labor for my loyal citizens.

I'd much rather enjoy the expansionistic views of an imperialist government, and perhaps there will be cultural bonuses associated with this, since imperial powers tended to try to convert those regions they colonized.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Odin
I really wish there was a "Democratic Socialist" Government that is like Democracy on most things but have communal corruption, no gold bonus, and some kind of production bonus.

I put something like that in my Zeitgeist Mod - which I was playtesting right before Conquests was announced. My space age mod (see link below) has a government called 'Neoliberalism' which has communal corruption/gold bonus/no worker bonus/no draft. Check it out.

My main concern with conquests is how AI selection of governments will work. As Civ currently works, the AI seems to "see" two types of governments - peacetime and wartime (likely based on war weariness and tile bonus). The AI always seems to select the most advanced gov type for its given situation. E.g. a protracted war will create a preference for low war weariness over tile bonus. I've never seen (and I've been playtesting gov mods for awhile now) an AI select Republic after Democracy is available or Monarchy after Communism is available. The AI only seems to trade off between tile bonus and war weariness. Which leaves me to wonder if the Conquests AI will ever even select Communism after Facism is discovered.

[joncnunn]

Good point.

And will the AI ever pick Fuedalism? (Since it has some war werriousness and doesn't have trade bonus)

[Virdrago]

If anyone is worried about not getting culture from your newly taken cities, just pop-rush the temples and libraries. Your "new" city might be 1-3 citizens (out of, say 10 when you took it), but they'll all probably be your civ's by then. Failing that, many migrant workers can leave the cities for concentration camps in your version of Siberia

[WarpStorm]

Virdrago,

Why would there be any citizens of your civ until the city has actuallly grown a few people? This can take a while. In addition, fascism isn't good at assimilation.

I don't know that pop-rushing is selective (I really haven't payed attention) so this may backfire by getting rid of those people who were of your tribe also.

The other problem with pop-rushing them is that then you'll need to leave more of your troops behind than usual as MPs for a long time due to the rushing unhappiness.


Joncon,

The AI likes Feudalism as it frees up lots of cash (trust me on this).

[joncnunn]

Usally, when you take over a city there's NO native citizens. (Unless of course it used to be yours) Immedate pop rushing would of course take foreigners because there's no native pop, but even if you pop rush things down to size 1, it's still going to have no culture produced until it grows to size 2. (Assuming the city started at 10+ by then either all the workers better be specalists, or more military units than the number of citizens will be needed to keep order)