when we have a covering $p:Y\to X$ choose $x\in X$ and we have two actions on the fiber $p^{-1}(x)$:
1) The monodromy action of $\pi_1(X,x)$ defined as follows: $[\gamma].\tilde x=\tilde \gamma (1)$ that is; the action gives the endpoint of the unique lift of $\gamma$ starting at $\tilde x$.
2)The Deck group action of the group of Deck transformations $Deck(Y,X)$ on $p^{-1}(x)$ defined as follows: $\phi. \tilde x=\phi(\tilde x)$
When $Y=\tilde X$ is the universal covering we have that the two groups $Deck(\tilde X,X)$ and $\pi_1(X,x)$ are isomorphic.
Now my problem is the following : when defining homology of $X$ with local coefficients in a $\mathbb Z[\pi_1(X)]-$module $A$, many authors say that $\pi_1(X,x)$ acts on $\tilde X$ by Deck transformations and set $C_n(X,A):=C_n(\tilde X,\mathbb Z)\otimes A$
so first why they don't say $\pi_1(X)$ acts on $\tilde X$ by monodromy action as defined above instead of saying that it acts by Deck transformatioins and second why taking the universal cover when they could take any cover of $X$ and we still have monodromy and Deck actions.