Governments/Federation OP

[Apheirox]

Search found no useful threads on this pretty key topic so here I'm hosting room for discussion about government/senate options.

Here's the thoughts I want to bring up with regards to questionable balancing:

Dictatorship

Dictatorship on Horatio: Awful. The main benefit of dictatorships is you get to choose what party gets put in power... but since Horatio will want to have just Horatio population (which all votes the same due to identical opinion, ie. Ecologists by default) there's little need to. Sure, uou can then force your Horatios to live under an Industrialist government - but they'll hate it, giving you large approval maluses.

Dictatorships thus don't make much sense on a uniform empire population (typical Horatio empire) so they essentially have the worst government possible. Also, Dictatorships seem pretty underpowered in general; they let you force policies - but why do you want to force something that is supposedly very different from the actual gameplay choices you are making that made it necessary to force something different in the first place?

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Autocracy

Seems almost universally superior to Dictatorships, the sole drawback being the inability to switch away from it. How often do you go into a winning game planning to change government type, however?

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Republic

Republic gets slightly better laws but loses out by having no additional bonuses. The early game very useful Cram Exam Act law (+science at cost of approval) gets moved to requiring 'entrenched' status on Independent laws for some reason, meaning you can't make use of this often-optimal early game science bonus.

I suppose Republics are for when you have a mostly uniform empire population and you really, really like a certain set of party policies (ie. you want to run pure Industrialist laws)... but, does the Republic hold up compared to the options below, with just two law slots and no extras?

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Democracy

Strong and versatile. Approval bonus per population, better representation of parties means additional approval/decreased malus from lack of representation, +Influence discount from multiple parties represented, extra law slot enables fine tuning of optimal policies. Even with the discount from Democracy it will cost a lot of Influence to run many expensive laws concurrently but I find the free Independent laws are often enough the best choice so you won't have to.

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Federation

In larger games, especially against the AI, this appears to be where it's at due to the bonus to number of expansions permitted from Heroes. If you get into an economic lead where you can purchase Heroes from Marketplace before opponents you will soon get to a status where you are allowed a ridiculously high number of expansions before Overcolonization malus hits, effectively nullifying one of the main caps on how fast your empire can grow. Federations ADDITIONALLY get a discount on luxury costs making it even easier to create a vast and powerful empire.


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That's it, what do you think? Could Dictatorships and Republics use a helping hand and is the +Colony hero bonus on Federations a little too good?

[PixiCode]

"The early game very useful Cram Exam Act law (+science at cost of approval) gets moved to requiring 'entrenched' status on Independent laws for some reason, meaning you can't make use of this often-optimal early game science bonus."

I do not necessarily agree. I usually use the "Toys for Boys" one, because the benefits for a very happy empire are very strong. You get more food, dust, science and influence at the cost of some industry. If you can use the cram exam act without going below 70 or 85% approval then obviously it's a good idea, but with some factions it's not the *best* choice.

Would you rather have +10% FD, +15% SI and -10% industry, or +3 science per pop at the start of the game? The malus to industry sucks, but you can argue the bonus to food will get your pop faster and overcome the industry malus compared to if you did not have the food bonus. For this reason, I believe starting as a Republic is not bad.

Unless you are playing as the Riftborn, So long as you don't go below 30% approval, sacrificing early industry sounds awful. But they also start as a republic, rip. Vodyani wouldn't benefit as much either from the difference between early game Toys for Boys or Cram Exam Act.

[Spacesuit Spiff]

Really earlygame, autocracy is king. Past the expansion limit, federation. Theoretically it falls off if you get enough luxuries, but the game will be over by then.

-10% ind isn't as much as it sounds on faster speeds, since it probably won't change the number of turns needed, and you're probably building production improvements anyway

[Giga]

Republic is king early game

Federation is god late game.
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Republic adds major effects to some of the 'auto-laws' that each party has:
Religious: +1 Influence per person
Ecologists: +1 Food per person
Pacifist: +1 Dust per person
Scientists: -10% Tech costs

Indu just gets 15% dust instead of 10%, and war party gets bonus approval on war.
But those bonuses change the early game vastly depending what you're doing. +1 dust PP is enough to tilt early game economy well into your favor and make rushing easier. +1 influence means laws are basically free; +1 Food means your systems never starve early on.

But it's the tech bonus that's critical. On Sophons, it means all techs that get their 50% omni bonus cost 45% of maximum, on top of any other bonuses. It doesn't sound like much, but consider that with Oracle you're likely going to be researching T3 techs before turn 50. This changes it from a 'normal' 45 turn slog to an easier 15 turn. If that.
Without Omni, it's a 90% of maximum cost, which is still significant. That can be a whole 1~5 turn difference. It makes Science-Conversion easier to grab early on and rush the techs. Remember, turn 50 is mid game, turn 100 is end game.

Federation on the other hand is mean to compete with Democracy, which main draw is bonus approval, more laws and parties, and reduced law costs. While the bonus system cap is nice, by the time that Federation is relevent it's irrelevent. The critical thing is the -20% System Development cost. This is massive. This is a whole star system worth of difference. Especially if you're rolling with a custom faction or Vaulters. It means you can more quickly build up to Sys-lvl 4 and roll out Auto-admin improvements and raise the system cap. It also means you can reach a 180% fids bonus-- or a 505% bonus if you're using Material Experties and Quadrinix.

One you finish bumping up your systems to lvl4, switch to Democracy or back to Republic. There's no point to sticking with Fed after you've tooled up....And better or more laws is flat better, trust me. Especially when you can make some of your fleets esscencially free.

[Chaika Trabant]

Republic and Saint and Sinner law allow you to expand as long as the religious party is represented.