Representation (Civ5)

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Representation is a social policy in Civilization V. It is part of the Liberty tree and requires Citizenship.

The establishment of a Representation system, such as a Parliament or a Senate institution whose members are directly elected by the people, is a necessary step for preparing your empire for enlargement. It greatly increases the efficacy of newly-established local governments, which facilitates acquiring new Social Policies. The effect is such that your empire immediately enters a Golden Age.

Game Info

• Each city you found will increase the Culture cost of policies by 33% less than normal.
• Starts a Golden Age.

Value

Table showing the size of the culture saving required for Representation to pay for itself, as a function of the number of cities and the number of policies already adopted. Deep purple cells imply the quickest return on investment (assuming culture is accumulated at a steady rate).

Table showing the number of policies which need adopting afterwards for Representation to pay for itself, as a function of the number of cities and the number of policies already adopted. Deep purple cells imply the quickest return on investment (assuming policies are acquired at a steady rate).

Without Representation, each city in the civilization (except for the Capital, puppet cities and cities being razed) increases the cost of social policies by 5-10% (additively), depending on map size. With Representation, this becomes 3.35-6.7% per city.

For example, with six cities (including the Capital) on a Large map, social policies cost an additional $5\times7.5\%=37.5\%$ without Representation. With representation, this decreases to an additional $5\times7.5\%\times67\%=25.1\%$, which is a $100\%-\frac{125.1}{137.5}=9\%$ decrease in overall policy cost.

The benefit of this policy may be obscured by the increase in policy costs which occurs when a non-free policy is adopted.

Strategy

N.B. Adopting Representation does not refund Culture already spent on policies. However, the reduced Culture cost of policies does apply to cities which have already been founded, and to annexed cities not owned by their founder, as well as to cities founded following the policy's adoption.

The best time to adopt Representation depends on your reason for adopting the policy. For instance, if you plan to adopt Representation in order to maximize the Culture saved throughout the game through reduced policy cost, it is best adopted early (or sometimes not at all); however, if expecting a quick return on investment, and if your Culture output rises in line with the increasing cost of policies, it can be worth delaying this policy's adoption.

Reduced policy cost

Purely in terms of the reduced policy cost, the best time to adopt Representation is a compromise between two competing effects. Adopt too late, and you will not adopt enough policies afterwards to benefit much from their reduced cost; adopt too early, however, and you will have to adopt more policies after Representation before you see a return on investment.

The more cities you have, the sooner you should adopt Representation. On its own, the reduced cost of social policies may not be enough to justify adopting Representation if you expect to have fewer than about 6 cities (so about 9 on a Large map, or 12 on a Huge map). For more detail regarding the return on investment of Culture due to reduced policy cost, consult the tables provided.

Golden Age

The second benefit of Representation is the resulting Golden Age. The timing of this is, again, a compromise - specifically, between delaying till Gold, Production and Culture yields are high, and taking the benefit early to avoid opportunity cost. Though the same amount of Gold, Production or Culture is worth more earlier in the game, you may wish to wait, for instance till you have Gold-yielding luxury resources, preferably with the respective tile improvements.

Liberty tree

The final benefit of Representation is the Great Person awarded if the policy is adopted alongside all the others in the Liberty tree.

Civilopedia entry

Representation is a policy where the citizens of a nation appoint "representatives" to run the government. This might be considered a step up from collective rule, once the population becomes too large to support that government type. In a representative form of government, the country is divided into smaller, more manageable districts (or parishes, or states, or whatever), and each chooses one or more local citizens to represent their interests in the government for a set period of time. The representatives form a parliament or some other kind of deliberative body, and they rule the country. While most representative forms of governments are republics, it is not strictly necessary. Some representative governments elect temporary or permanent kings and other nobility to rule over them.