Late Game Republics

[Eviota]

Hello,

I'm currently undergoing a Dithmarschen run to get the achievement "The lessons of Hemmingstedt" - which I obtained.

And I was wondering, when Age of Absolutism popped out, how I was going to squeeze this juicy Absolutism and trigger Court & Country. When suddenly I remembered :

"Wait, I'm a Republic - even a Peasants Republic."

And then I checked my Absolutism modifier : -50 maximum absolutism. Damn.

Since I hardly played a full game with a Republic until now - except Milan/Ambrosian Republic on 1.19, I am asking you this question : don't the republic have lost much power since the new Absolutism mechanic ?

The bonus of Administrative efficiency has been halved, from 20/40/60 to 10/20/30 to Admin Tech 17/23/27, you can at best have 25 + 5 with Golden Age modifier maximum Absolutism, which is equivalent to 13% additional administrative efficiency. 30+13 = 43, when the maximum without ideas/age bonus is 80% (Yuan power !) or 75/70 in Age of Absolutism and Age of Revolutions respectively.

I am not saying that it is making the game unplayable/imbalanced/etc, but shouldn't there be a bonus and/or a special mechanic for republic, or do I have to switch to Revolutionary Republic to compensate ?

Thanks

 

[Badesumofu]

Republics are complete garbage after 1610 with the exception of Revolutionary Republic if you have done C&C.

I also think there should be some sort of alternative mechanic to Absolutism that gives some other bonus. Development efficiency maybe, but then developing provinces doesn't sound like a very interesting endgame so IDK.

 

[Eviota]

In addition to this, I'm also doing the "Frozen Assets" with Novgorod achievement. The only way I had to get out of the Veche Republic (which only has +1 merchant as bonus) was to form Russia

 

[magni_]

Jes Republics are not good in the lategame (with exeption of Veche republic and revolutionary who have no malus)
how ever republics get about 8.4% more monarch points compared to other goverment forms
so the best atm is to stay a republic thil 1590 then swich out of it if possible

 

[Badesumofu]

8.4% is very precise. I am curious how you calculated the average income for a monarchy with proper disinheriting.

 

[magni_]

8.4% is very precise. I am curious how you calculated the average income for a monarchy with proper disinheriting.

there was once a math thrend on reedit where players did the math
8.4% was what they came up with when ignoring special goverments like ottos or prussian

 

[makaramus]

as I know there are republics not reducing your absolutism

but yea in real life that age wasnt "gold age"(got it? I belive you got it ) of republics

 

[Sfan]

It's bullshit now that you can disinherit, you actually have more monarch points with monarchies, and you have RMs, and PUs if you're christian. And now absolutism.

 

[makaramus]

It's bullshit now that you can disinherit, you actually have more monarch points with monarchies, and you have RMs, and PUs if you're christian. And now absolutism.

6/6/6 rulers are actually really good...
and being catholic gives you right to dodge being excominicated too (wich is... potantial trouble for every italian minor... wich is again almost all republics in game )

 

[Laurent1944]

On the other hand, republics in this time area were actually burgher republics, with merchant families dominating them and doing everything for increasing their trade. Conquering the world was not their program. After all republics in EU4 have a cap size in state provinces (even if they can have as much possession provinces as they want).

In this view, the main problem in game is the discipline disadvantage. The -50% percent of absolutism means -2.5% disciplin, but this is countered by the first plutocratic idea, that gives you +2.5% mercenary discipline. And most of republican armies will be made of mercenaries. So basically a republican army can have almost the same discipline as another country.

Still doing a WC with a republic is a bigger challenge for sure.

 

[MrParadux]

I like republics a lot, too. Like others have mentioned in this and other threads, it would be nice, if there was an additional type of modifier similar to absolutism. Increased development efficiency usually comes up in this context and I think it might fit well.

 

[Sfan]

6/6/6 rulers are actually really good...
and being catholic gives you right to dodge being excominicated too (wich is... potantial trouble for every italian minor... wich is again almost all republics in game )

Monarchies now average at 12, at least (more if you have a lot of prestige and disinherit a lot), Republics need to reelect twice to reach that (but they are still behind on the first 12 years cycle), and to reelect 4 times to start getting ahead (about year 17?), which you definitely can't do all the time, unless you spam "strengthen government", but then the milpoint cost means you need to wait even more reelections for it to start getting better.

Republics would be good if they could actually make money, but the best way to make money in the game is still to do a WC, or to come close to it. Not only are states making more money from production and tax, but the real shame is that Republics have less trade income, because you need Colonial nations, TCs all around Asia and Africa and control of the two big inland roads (by Astrakhan and Novgorod (via Kazan or Kiev) into Lubeck into Channel, and by Persia into Aleppo into Constantinople) and of the two biggest ocean roads (Malacca, hopping around India into Zanzibar, towards Ivory Coast and Europe, and from all America to Caribbean to Europe). No matter how hard they try, merchant republics are unlikely to have more than 5000 income and it's already hard to make more than 2000, while these numbers are very casual for a WC with an European colonizer.

They probably make slightly less monarch points, they have less absolutism, they have less good relations because they can't RM, they can't PU, they make way less money. They are trash, period, no matter what you try to achieve.

I don't mean that people shouldn't play them, they offer a different and unique experience. But it's hard to argue with the fact that they're inferior in any circumstance.

 

[Incompetent]

Veche Republic is potentially the second least bad Republic in the second half of the game (least bad being Revolutionary Republic, which is the only good one), *if* you're building a TC-based empire for loads of money. Unlike all the other Republics, it has no Absolutism penalty (this also means it's easy to get the Court and Country 'disaster', so your Absolutism is generally fine).

The lack of Estates and Duchy rank lock are definitely downers, and the limit on provinces in states is horrible if you're not truly dedicated to the TC-based empire. On the plus side, you have Russian mechanics (nothing miraculous, but Streltsy and Sudebik take the edge off the worst features of this government type, namely lack of manpower and lack of autonomy reduction), and more importantly all the Merchant Republic abilities, which can be a serious income booster if you exploit them fully.

I mean I wouldn't say it's a 'good' government type, as there are too many restrictions for general play. But it's 'interesting', in a way that the other Republics are not.

Sfan has a point about Merchant Republics though: the almost complete lack of Absolutism is a disaster. (It's a bit of an exaggeration to say they have a hard time exploiting CNs/TCs though.) Probably the best use of the government type is if you start as a small country, use the trade league/trade post mechanics to get a bit of cash early on for expansion, and then collapse into a monarchy when you're getting close to the 20 province limit.

 

[Badesumofu]

there was once a math thrend on reedit where players did the math
8.4% was what they came up with when ignoring special goverments like ottos or prussian

Not convinced. Proper disinheriting is super powerful. 11 MP rulers should be minimum, average of 12+ very doable. People talk about 'constant 6/6/6' with republics but that ignores that they start as 4/1/1. Republican rulers don't even consistently live long enough to reach 6/6/6. Republics and Monarchies are very close on MP generation and I would venture that an expertly managed Monarchy is comfortably ahead of a fairly well managed Republic. Then you have PUs, RMs, Absolutism, the HRE and so forth.

Republics need a buff.

 

[Ninaran]

Yeahh.. with disinherit, PUs, absolutism, nobility estate monarchies have been pushing ahead of republics. At least they are more consistent...I guess.

 

[Sfan]

I don't say that they can't exploit CNs or TCs, I just say that to exploit them to the full extent they have to conquer massive swathes of land, in which case you better play a Monarchy. Sure you can play Venice, take Alexandria, follow on Aden, Hormuz and make TCs in India. And then go towards Malacca, and conquer Persia, and China, and Syria (because Sarmarkand and Persia need to go via Aleppo to reach Venice) and you can control the Asian trade pretty well by making it flow into Venice by the mainly inland road Samarkand-Persia-Aleppo-Alexandria-Venice, and the mainly coastal road of Malacca-Bengal-Ceylon-Goa-Aden-Alexandria-Venice. But that requires conquering 5k dev and that kills the idea of a Republic. If you don't do that, you'll always have less income than a well played monarchy.

 

[baryon]

Since I just finished a game as Venice, remaining a republic for the entire game, I thought I'd say that I enjoyed it just fine - though it depends on what you want to achieve I suppose. As a Merchant Republic with the provinces in states limit, I focused on feeding vassals. Since I had no intention of annexing them, I made them Marches and saved a ton of admin/diplo points, allowing me to keep ahead on technology and ideas. Since Marches have reduced Liberty Desire, I could enable Divert Trade to get 100% trade power from them. I took Influence and Diplomatic ideas to get extra slots for vassals/marches (since each one can't grow too large) and to get better Diplomatic Reputation (compensating for lack of RMs). Later in the game I took the decision to switch government and got a Constitutional Republic which also removes the limit of 20 provinces in states.

I can appreciate they may not be suitable for world conquests, but it offers some good variety in gameplay style IMO.

 

[Sfan]

Actually, divert trade from marches is an interesting way of playing around the state limit. Good idea you got there.

 

[Incompetent]

I don't say that they can't exploit CNs or TCs, I just say that to exploit them to the full extent they have to conquer massive swathes of land, in which case you better play a Monarchy. Sure you can play Venice, take Alexandria, follow on Aden, Hormuz and make TCs in India. And then go towards Malacca, and conquer Persia, and China, and Syria (because Sarmarkand and Persia need to go via Aleppo to reach Venice) and you can control the Asian trade pretty well by making it flow into Venice by the mainly inland road Samarkand-Persia-Aleppo-Alexandria-Venice, and the mainly coastal road of Malacca-Bengal-Ceylon-Goa-Aden-Alexandria-Venice. But that requires conquering 5k dev and that kills the idea of a Republic. If you don't do that, you'll always have less income than a well played monarchy.

I shudder to think of anyone basing their economy on a long inland trade route. That's the one kind of trade route that truly requires epic WC-style blobbing, because of marauding caravans and the inability to use ships to protect trade. Like seriously, you'll find you can't control which way the trade goes in Samarkand because of the whims of German/Italian minors.

Lucrative coastal routes still require significant territory, sure. (Regardless of which tag you started out as, I wouldn't get too hung up on collecting in your homeland - you can move your trade hub anywhere, and collecting in Zanzibar or Cape of Good Hope greatly reduces the amount of non-TC land you need.) But why is that against the spirit of a Republic? I mean a Merchant Republic is basically a sovereign Trade Company. There's nothing in the rules that says you have to go tall, just that you can't rely on States.

 

[Sfan]

That doesn't matter if you control both Constantinople and Novgorod. They are almost end nodes, like Zanzibar, and the only Asian money you lose is Samarkand-Astrakhan-Crimea-Kiev-Krakow which is really not a high percentage. And you can still get a good half of it if you have The Baltic Sea as well, and almost all of it if you have Lubeck. Yes that's blobbing but that's kinda my point. You have to blob to make money, small trading outposts bring almost nothing and that's the reason why Republics and Tall play in general is vastly inferior in the current state of the game. Even an "easy road" still requires conquering all of Egypt, Arabia, India and Indonesia to not even get 1000 trade income. That's because trade works ahistorically in game.

You make money by collecting, an abstract and weird concept that forces AI to block the flow of trade and decrease value, while historically it was the exact opposite. You historically earned money by selling stuff, ie transferring downstream. Venice was not rich because it was an endnode. It was rich because it was the gate of Europe for most of the spice trade and redirected it into all of Europe, basically because their node was getting trade from many other nodes and sending it to even more nodes. Historically Yemen, Oman or the Mamluks had every reason to sell the spices they bought, and Venice every reason to sell what they bought from them. Nations usually benefited from free trade even if it had downsides, while in EU4 you benefit from keeping all the goods at home. It seems EU4 teaches us that your peasants give a better price for your spices than European nobles would do.