The manual won't tell me, but I bet you will!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Now that I've been playing a few months, I find that there's some specific information that the manual (for ToT, anyway) doesn't contain but that should be there. Can anyone tell me:

1) What are the specific benefits and limitations of communism? For all other governments, the manual gives reasonably specific information involving production limits, or extra trade arrows, or tithes, or science being halved, or etc. But all it says about communism is that science is good and trade is bad. "Good" and "bad" are hardly terms which help me evaluate whether or not to switch governments. Anybody have a more precise sense of how it works?

2) It really bugs me that there's no specific explanation for the relationship between SS Structurals and Components, beyond "more is better." The Mars Probe debacle notwithstanding, NASA doesn't build spacecraft by trial and error, and I shouldn't have to, either. So, again, is there a formula here?

3) Are there game-based definitions of those adjectives used to describe AI civs? Expanionist/perfectionist I understand, and militaristic and aggressive are pretty obvious once you've played the Russians. But what makes a civ rational? Or civilized? And why are some civs described with three adjectives, some two, and some only one?

Thanks in advance for the insights.


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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder

[Laertes]

Hi Rufus

Communism produces vet spies, which are a fantastic weapon - more likely to succeed on any given mission, cheaper to incite revolt in AI cities and more likely to defend against incoming espionage.

Communism is a halfway house between Rep/Dem and Fundamentalism. You can maintain happiness with a few units, you can still get high science rate, but I think you have to maintain the units still. You are not punished for having units outside your cities, so you can go to war.

If I have the Statue, I often switch into Communism for a few turns just to turn out 20-30 spies and then hop out of it again.

The spaceship formulas are probably well documented but I do not know where. I think it is:

3 Modules, 8 Components, 15 Structurals for the smallest
6 Modules, 15 Components, ?? <30 structurals
9 Mods, ?? components, 39 structurals.

Dont know about the adjectives you specify.

HTH

Fergus

[N35t0r]

check the ruled.txt, leaders part, to get some more ideas of them. they are basically pairs of opposite adjectives which rule out a civ's behaviour. when none of the two in the pair are present, it means the leader is something in between.

hope i'm useful.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Thanks Fegus. I just found the spaceship info on the Scrolls of wisdom; I keep forgetting about that site! But I'm still curious about the other two questions, and with regard to Communism wonder if there is a trade penalty involved, or if it's just not as good as Fundy (because you have to support some units) or Democracy (because of the extra trade arrows).

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder

[jcarkey]

In Communism you don't lose any trade outside of corruption. It is a very low level though. You can support some units for free. (I think 3? )
It has a max tax rate of 80%. I like to use it for a war that you still want to research. (If you don't I like going into Fundy.)
[This message has been edited by jcarkey (edited November 02, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by jcarkey (edited November 02, 2000).]

[Caesar the Glutton]

I played many games before trying Communism. If you have a large empire and plenty of libraries and universities, it can be a very effective gov't. Communism has no corruption, vet spies, and you can support a huge military w/o much unhappiness. I like it better than any other wartime gov't.

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Nam si violandum est ius, regnandi gratia violandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas

[DaveP]

Must be a different manual from the one I got
Here's what my manual, from the TOT version, says:

Benefits:

• Up to 3 units per city for martial law, and each affects 2 citizens, making up to 6 unhappy citizens content.
• No corruption or waste
• First 3 military units for each city require no shield support
• All spies produced are veterans

Limitations:

• Military units after the third (per city) require 1 shield for support
• Settlers require TWO food
• Tax, luxury, and science rates limited to 80%

In addition, under WLT*D Communism gets the Trade bonus (extra arrow for any square that already has at least one) of a Republic or Democracy.

Science depends on trade, so Communism should have the following effect on both: much better than Despotism (no reduction on squares producing over 2), better than Monarchy (no corruption), better than Fundamentalism (up to 80% science instead of only 50%); worse than Republic/Democracy (unless celebrating in all cities).

Dave

[DaveV]

Some people have called Communism "super monarchy", and I think that's pretty fair. Unit support and trade are essentially like monarchy, except for negligible corruption. Another huge advantage of Communism (that no one has mentioned so far) is that there is no riot factor. For example, you can have a hundred cities at Deity level, and the first citizen will be content in all of those cities. This, combined with the double martial law, means you can have a bunch of cities, up to size 7, kept happy solely by their garrisons. Great for ICS.

[Julius Brenzaida]

quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly on 11-02-2000 05:10 AM 3) Are there game-based definitions of those adjectives used to describe AI civs? Expanionist/perfectionist I understand, and militaristic and aggressive are pretty obvious once you've played the Russians. But what makes a civ rational? Or civilized? And why are some civs described with three adjectives, some two, and some only one?

There are three different criterions for the attitude of a civ.
1) The Ai can be either aggressive, neutral or friendly. If it is friendly it will make peace more easily than if it is agressive (what a surprise !).
2) The Ai can be either militarized, neutral or civilized. If it is militarized, it will look for military advances while if it is civilized, it will look for scientific (and long term) advances. I'm not sure, but the militarized seems to produce more units.
3) The Ai can be either perfectionist, neutral or expansionist. If it expansionist it will try to expend fast with many settlers and units and should not care too much with citie's improvements, while the perfectionist will carefully grow a few cities at the beginning.

Here it is, on paper, it looks great, but all Ai's behaviours tend to mix up a little, although you can notice some differences. One sure thing : if you're on the same continent as an agressive expansionist, si vis pacem, para bellum.



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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

[Scouse Gits]

A small point - Spies require Espionage - so the vet spy advantage is not available to Communism through SoL (Commie is a prereq for Espionage)


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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
"The Great Library must be built!"

[Julius Brenzaida]

quote: Originally posted by Julius Brenzaida on 11-03-2000 05:26 AM 1) The Ai can be either aggressive, neutral or friendly. If it is friendly it will make peace more easily than if it is agressive (what a surprise !).

Oups, vocabulary mistake !
Rational means friendly !


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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

I think Rational is Rational in the German version, too. It was translated with the German word for Friendly in CIV1 however

so I guess you're a French speaking Swiss

[Julius Brenzaida]

quote: Originally posted by Andz83 on 11-12-2000 06:41 AM so I guess you're a French speaking Swiss

Sehr schön gespielt Sherlock Holmes !
(darf ich “Inspektor Derrick” sagen ? ich bin nicht sicher ...)

Oui, je suis un Suisse qui parle français, je l’avoue.
Je me demande en fait s’il y a beacoup de personnes dans ce forum qui pratiquent la langue de Molière. J’ai remarqué que Kcbob utilisait des expression de notre belle langue. Puisse-t-il faire des adeptes !

So your conclusion is correct, but maybe not the reasonning behind it. My mistake came from civ1, not from the (bad) french translation of civ2. I dare to suppose that you are from the German speaking part of Germany (oups I wonder if anyone will laugh at this joke).




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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

[Scouse Gits]

Not all Brits believe that in order to make oneself understood in Europe you NEED TO SPEAK LOUDER! One or two of us have a smattering of "la langue de Molière", and that of Schiller if push comes to shove.

But, I certainly could not post with the fluency that you and your many European colleagues do on this, a specialist forum, in a foreign language. You have my respect.

[tonic]

quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly on 11-02-2000 05:10 AM 2) It really bugs me that there's no specific explanation for the relationship between SS Structurals and Components, beyond "more is better." The Mars Probe debacle notwithstanding, NASA doesn't build spacecraft by trial and error, and I shouldn't have to, either. So, again, is there a formula here?

There is a thread somewhere that deals with this. I just remember two main types used in OCC. The smallest 100% successful SS is the 15-3-3-1-1-1 ie 15 structurals, 6 components and 3 modules SS, which with Fusion Power takes 15 years to reach AC.

The smallest possible is the 15-1-1-1-1-1 SS which although specified at ~79% success will always land but it takes 35 years (turns) with FP to land AC. The rule is to use the second type when you can launch before 1750 because of the years per turn change (from 10 to 2).