This is a small price to pay for huge production potential in the future. If you own the Statute of Liberty, you can switch to more advance government types much earlier. Never stop building cities and place your cities wisely. Managing city squares After you build 5 or 6 cities, you need to use some of your settlers units to improve city squares to make them as productive as possible. Always build roads first before irrigating the square simply because it takes longer to irrigate .
Roads are especially important in a republic or a democracy in reducing unhappiness.
If there is a road linking the city to the Capital city, corruption and waste are significantly lowered. Linking all your cities on the same continent with railroads offers unprecedented offensive and defensive potential. If a city is being attacked by your enemy, you could send in reinforcements instantly and annihilate all the invading enemy units. On the other hand, you could use all your military units in attacking enemy cities on the same continent. Victory is almost guaranteed.