A Republic is a Government type in Empire: Total War. Lower classes revolt; a monarchy falls, and a republic is formed.
General Information[]
Head and Cabinet[]
The head and cabinet are elected through popular vote, and serve for four years (8 turns) before another election. The cabinet may be re-elected for another term, for a total of 16 turns. Players may force an election once per turn; the less popular the current cabinet is, the more likely it would be replaced by a new one. Government popularity depends on a variety of reasons, including satisfaction with taxes, successes and failures with wars, and popularity of ministers within the cabinet.
Republics have the least amount of control over their cabinets, and may only replace one cabinet member per turn (with a new, randomly generated member). However, they may still switch around existing cabinet members to new positions.
Diplomacy[]
Republics are given positive relationship points with other republics, a slight negative effect for constitutional monarchies, and a large negative effect for absolute monarchies. Should a revolution in another faction occur and transition it to a republic, there will be a very large (although diminishing) relationship bonus with that faction; the reverse is true for a faction becoming a absolute monarchy.
Unit Roster[]
Republics have access to Republican Guard and Conscripts, but do not have access to regular Guards (and their equivalents) or the Garde du Corps or their equivalents.
Other Effects[]
- Repression: 2
- Middle Class Happiness: +1
- Lower Class Happiness: +3
- Research Rate: +5%
- Effects of Clamour For Reform: -80%
- Minister Growth In Home Theatre: +10
- Town Wealth Growth: +12
Overview[]
Republics chiefly benefit from very low rates of clamour for reform coupled with the best research speed of all three government types. This allows republics to fill their territories with universities without worrying about public unrest as well as recieving the maximum benefits of research. Republics also have the best town wealth growth. These attributes make republics arguably the best government type in the mid-game, where factions often have multiple universities researching complex technologies. In addition, the penalties to diplomatic relations are not as important as in the early game, as alliances and enemies are largely already decided upon. On the minus side, republics have the least amount of control over their cabinets, resulting in a mediocre cabinet at worst or, at best, an excellent cabinet that can only stay for a few turns. The large diplomatic penalties republics suffer when negotiating with absolute monarchies (and to a lesser extent, constitutional monarchies) is a problem in the early game because nearly all factions are absolute monarchies.
After all desired research is completed, constitutional monarchies are superior in most meaningful respects over republics: their cabinet options are better, they have better public order due to the removal of penalties for industrialization, and they can make generate more income jointly due to their better ministers and ability to build factories without fear of upsetting the lower orders.