Long Live the Revolution! : Guide to Governments

[Ultimate Newbie]

Hello.

The purpose of this thread is to briefly outline what government does in Planetarion, what are their current (R21) attributes, and from this, which Government(s) are the "best" for people to pick. Much of this information is sourced from the Manual, with thanks to Myk and others who contribute and update this arduous task.

Thus;

What Government Does.
Government in Planetarion is the framework to which your population lives by, and is another one of those critical choices that players face along with race. Once selected, your choice of Government cannot be changed, so its important to pick the "right" one for you. Of the four different systems of Government, each has a set of bonuses that are offset by weaknesses in different areas - as such, different government systems will better suit different players.

The Systems of Government.
Unification; (Mining +20%, Alert +20%, Research 20% slower)
This form of government's main advantage is obviously its mining bonus; as it doesnt only affect ships, players who choose this Government system early in the round will be able to take advantage of the increased income and init more roids, and thus giving them an early boost with which to capitalise on once protection ends. Not only does this Government effectively make your ships 20% cheaper, but also your constructions 20% cheaper, waves 20% cheaper and so on. I reckon that this is far from a bad choice for many players. Wandows mentioned that Unification might also be a good idea for scanners - if they hold off on choosing their government for the first 200 ticks in order to finish off all their research faster, then use the mining bonus to help pay for Amps as they get more expensive late-game. Its not a bad idea, though Democracy (below) seems to be the Scanner's thing.

Democracy; (Mining +10%, Research 20% faster, Production 20% Slower, Production 20% more expensive, Alert -20%)
This form of government may be a good idea for scanners, as both reseach is faster and the 10% mining bonus will help with paying for all those scans that those attack wh0res demand . However, if you want to actually build any ships, this Government is probably not your thing. The early research bonus will probably help alot though.

Dictatorship; (Production 20% Faster, Stealth +10%, Alert +10%, Research 20% Slower, Construction 20% Slower)
This has to be the most useless government of them all. For effectively a minus 1 tick bonus on your ship's production, it takes 20% longer to complete both research and constuction. Not only that, but the covert ops section of the "bonuses" is effectively useless as Covert ops is not a viable way to play this game (anymore, <3 Gate). Suggesting that this race would be good for Caths in the manual i think is a really bad idea. Regardless, dont even consider perusing this path.

Feudalism; (Production 25% Cheaper, Research 25% Slower).
With your ships costing 25% less, this form of government has to be pretty much the best choice for virtually everyone. This government has all sorts of interesting impacts on planet score (as i'm sure Wandows is busting to explain in detail ), as your ships cost 25% less but are identical to other ships, you have a large value gain (more than normal) when your ships come out of production. Further, in battle, your fleet will be able to pick up proportionally more salvage than it "should", as your fleetscore is equal to everyone else's on a ship by ship basis, but you can field 25% more ships in every battle. Having said all that, it would be a bad idea to pick this Government in the initial stages of the game - ie Protection - when critical items of research in a huge number of branches needs to be completed all at once. Futher, as there is very little point in building ships during protection (exception being attacking at tick 72), you dont need the Production bonus during this time. Thus, if you want to persue Feudalism as a Government (as i imagine at least 80% of the universe should), then hold off untill you've done your most important research items at least.


I personally think that Feudalism is the best choice for all "normal" players, however Unification can potentially be beneficial especially early on. Democracy is clearly designed for scanners, and i cant see a better form of government that would suit them (including having no government at all). I think these forms of government arent very balanced at this stage, as clearly Dictatorship is utterly crap and Feudalism seems to be far too good, but as it is the implementation round i think that they'll be more balanced and more diverse in future. Nevertheless, i think having a choice of Government is a good move for PA going forward, after finally being approved.

Best of luck with your round .

[Rinoa]

Only forseeable downside of feudalism is having to use extra polulation on security to protect your large stockpile ( assuming u top 200 planet etc and play with a stockpile). Because of this u will have to reduce either mining/cons/prod to keep ur security high enough. But for average player yeah it gives bigger value

[Tietäjä]

The mining bonus is far inferior to the production cost reduction on long run.

The alertness bonus is an arsewipe.

Do the math.

[aNgRyDuCk]

scanners using democracy will have no decent def vs cov ops, and $$$ per amp, thats a real bitch... so democracy is not a good choice for scanners

[Tietäjä]

You do realize, that alertness -20% doesn't mean you're off with 20% less alertness?

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

Feudalism;
...
as your ships cost 25% less but are identical to other ships, you have a large value gain (more than normal) when your ships come out of production. Further, in battle, your fleet will be able to pick up proportionally more salvage than it "should", as your fleetscore is equal to everyone else's on a ship by ship basis, but you can field 25% more ships in every battle.

33% actually. More if you take into account that it factors after other mining bonuses (essentially stacking).

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

Unification;
Not only does this Government effectively make your ships 20% cheaper, but also your constructions 20% cheaper, waves 20% cheaper and so on.

20% increased mining makes everything 17.3% cheaper (1.2^-1), similar to how 25% cheaper ships yields 33% more ships (0.75^-1). Unification is no match for feudalism, which also has stacked salvage.

At first glance, democracy looks great for scanners, but once you realise it's near impossible to have any sort of decent protection against cov ops (max 91, which blocks 42.5% of Information Blackout), you'll probably regret your choice. Personally, as a pure scanner, I'd pick Feudalism at tick 335, like everyone else should.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Indeed.