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FreeCiv Game Manual
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Government

There are several forms of government with which you can rule your civilization, but none offers complete control. Under autocratic regimes your citizens readily support the military, but reduce your trade income through corruption. When granted representative government they are efficient and producive, but demonstrate against the use of military force by becoming unhappy. The possible forms of government are:

You begin your career as a despot, with your cities suffering heavy corruption until you gain the technology to impose more effective government. You may change governments as often as you like, once another kind is available, by selecting the start revolution command. This plunges your empire into anarchy for one to five turns, after which you may select any available form of government. Most players race to achieve the republic and democracy so they can expand their cities through rapture and boost their science output with expanded trade. Monarchy and communism are popular choices for players embarking on extended military campaigns.

Many features of the various governments can be easily compared:

Anarchy Communism
Despotism Republic
Monarchy Democracy


60% 70% 80% 80% 100% Limit for tax / science / luxury rates.


1 1 1 1 2 2 Cost of settler or engineer (food points per turn).
pop pop 3 3 Units each city supports for free (pop means one per citizen).
1 1 Trade bonus for each square already producing trade
1 1 1 1 ... and the trade bonus when the city is celebrating.


9 10 11 12 13 14 Empire size at which only three workers per city are content.
1 1 1 2 Workers made content by each military unit inside their city
3 6 ... and how many workers this can affect.
1 2 Workers made unhappy by each aggressive unit.
0% 11% 0% 6% 0% 0% Minimum possible corruption (ignoring buildings)
90% 277% 53% 6% 53% 0% ... and the maximum possible corruption.


Several properties should be noted in addition to those in the table:

The Capital and Civil War

Palace
Cost:100
Requires Masonry
The building from which your civilization is governed.
The city containing your palace is your capital. Should you build another palace elsewhere, its city becomes your capital and your old palace disappears. As the center of government, corruption is least in your capital and increases with distance from it. (But remember that communism produces the same corruption everywhere, and democracy simply eliminates it.)

Should an enemy capture you capital, you will be given a new one in another city, but your empire could experience civil war. This risk increases with each city in disorder at the moment of capture, and decreases with each city that is celebrating. Civil war is catastrophic — you lose as many as half your cities to a new computer-controlled opponent who takes with him all units and wonders owned by those cities, and also half your treasury. After one turn in the state of civil war (whose properties are similar to those of despotism), both you and the new opponent enter anarchy. Small civilizations of ten cities or less cannot suffer civil war, and under similar circumstances simply fall into anarchy instead.

Diplomacy

Once your advances provide you with diplomats, and later with spies, your can observe and manipulate other civilizations more subtly than is possible with simple military observation and intervention. Both units are fragile and must move cautiously — often under guard — to survive. Diplomats can attempt only one diplomatic act, whose success or failure brings them to their end, while spies are more hearty and often survive their mission.

One action requires your unit to approach an enemy unit and attempt to enter its square:

All other actions require your diplomatic unit to reach an enemy city alive and attempt to enter it. Enemy diplomats or spies in the city will oppose any hostile action and decrease your chances of success. The actions available at an enemy city are:

Currently the FreeCiv players controlled by the computer are inflexible with respect to international relations — they remain stubbornly at war with their fellow players and refuse to treat or negotiate. But when humans play each other, an entire spectrum of cooperation and betrayal becomes possible.

Players can make informal requests, agreements, and threats across the in-game chat channel, but to transfer actual property they must arrange a pact. This can only be initiated by a player who already has an embassy with the other. The window this brings up lets each player build a list of items he is offering alongside a list of what he will receive in return. These can include:

Only if both players indicate satisfaction is the pact concluded and the transfer of goods made.
Next: Technology

Overview Terrain Cities Economy Units Combat Government Technology Wonders Index