Feudalism: Does it work, even in war?

[Fried-Psitalon]

I was discussing this with the ladder players, and someone ran a few tests and came up with some results that I must say surprised me. It appears that Feudalism is *never* actually the "best" government to use in any given situation, war or peace, big nation or small. Unless I'm missing something, while there are at least situational uses for every other government, Feudalism is hanging out to dry.

This testing was done by Wtiberon, to give credit where it is due.

Test 1: Ideal, happy-expansion environment:

"I created 20 cities with 8 improvements in each, there were 7 size 12 cities, 4 size 7 cities, 5 size 6 cities, a size 4 city a size 3 city and a size 8 city. I roaded all the land in empire, set 93 units variously throughout the cities, cities production were placed on wealth and 5 luxury resouces were placed inside the empire.
Monarchy was able to research at 50 percent with +5 gold, Republic was able to research at 60 percent with +0 gold, Feudalism was able to research at 30 percent at +3. Fairly close together.
When I added 40 more units (simulating war) Fuedalism was running a -23 deficit at 0 research, Republic ran a + 22 at 40 percent, and monarchy ran a +4. "


Now obviously, this test is for a larger, more expansive environment, and I objected on those grounds. Feudalism is a government of ICS placement and in-your-face fighting, said I, that 5 support at town size is meant to be used, said I.

So, this test was run:

Test 2, the backed-in-corner-and-hating-life scenario:
In this scenario we are backed in a corner next to another civ with nothing but grassland and tundra to call home. Only one river by the capital and not much else.
I planted 17 cities very tightly packed together (one to two spaces) as is the ICS style. All squares within the empire are roaded and 88 units were placed variously throughout the empire. There are 4 size 2 towns, 2 size 3 towns, 8 size 4 towns, and 2 size 6 towns. Each town has 2 improvements for a total of 34 improvements and production was set to wealth.
In monarchy we would be able to research at 50 percent with +1 gold per turn, Republic did horribly only able to research at 10 percent with +2 gold, and the big winner is Fuedalism which researches at 70 percent with a +8 gold.
After adding 40 units to similulate warfare Republic isn't even worth mentioning, Monarchy was running a deficit of -2 at 0 percent research, and the big suprise was Feudalism running a -37 deficit at 0 percent research.
So far from these tests it seems that Fuedalism falls short during times of war, Republic needs large cities, and Monarchy seems to do comparatively well in most situations.

I was stunned by these results, and so I'm bringing this to light here, at Apolyton, where the great minds work together.

Republic vs Monarchy is no surprise - particularly in the MP world, Republic is for peace and Monarchy for war. Feudalism, I had assumed, was the way to go for a government of total war, however, these results suggest that Feudalism is NEVER a good government for war, and only a good government for peace under very ugly map conditions.

And so I ask you: Is there a viable use for Feudalism? Should it be tweaked, and if so- how so? Perhaps lowering the brutal "over maximum support" cost for extra units?

What can be done to make this government viable?

[Provost Harrison]

The whole free support thing needs to be sorted out, it is completely the wrong way around which makes no logical sense (how can a small town support more military than a large city). Perhaps these stats should be levelled off at a reasonable number for all three size classifications.

[Wtiberon]

Fuedalism is based on small communities that surround themselves around a central lord. The greater unit support for smaller cities is simply a way of promoting this kind of gameplay. Perhaps increasing the unit support and mabye decreasing the unit cost for small towns v cities and metropolises.

Wtiberon

[notyoueither]

Hmmmm. I am playing one of the strangest maps I have ever seen. I used Feudalism to very good effect by subduing the biggest power. By the time I had accomplished that, it was time for democracy.

This was a war, war, war game from the get go. About turn ten a Dutch settler plopped down very close to my capital. I knew I was in trouble and started to plan accordingly. By the time the Dutch were subjugated, the Inca had arisen as the biggest bad ass power relative to everyone else that I have ever seen. Never before had I seen such a lop sided progression of the various civs. The only thing that saved my ass was that Inca had no Iron when I went after them. That and the Feudal government. I will look up some numbers.

[notyoueither]

21 cities. I am not crowding them too much, but I have 3 camps (2 built, 1 captured). Most cities have a neighbour within 3 tiles, with some larger gaps and some smaller.
Feudalism, 7/3/0, 38gold, 62bpt, +86gpt. 3 luxuries
85 units (of 102 allowed); 17 work, 4 arch, 28 pike, 9 longbow, 19 knight, 2 galley, 2 army [2 archers, med inf; 2 knights] 8 legion, 2 med inf
49 improvements; 11 barracks, 12 temple, 9 MP, 11 library, 3 court house, 1 harbour, 1 FP, plus free granery in all cities. Have captured the Colossus, Oracle, Pyramids, Hanging Gardens.
Researching Gun Powder (6)

with research set to 50%; 5/5/0, 111bpt, +41gpt

As you can see, I have room for more than 40 more units, but this is not MP and it is very strange for SP. 7 civs on one continent, 1 civ alone on another continent. Standard map, 8 civs.

I also fibbed. There was a substantial era of peace (mostly) during which I built the infrastructure to enable more war.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
What can be done to make this government viable?

A few more cities in your second test, and a few less cities of size in your first test.

The key to Feudalism is freezing as many cities as possible at size 6 and then getting as many of them as possible, leaving just a very few to grow larger to accomplish better things.

As you conquer (and starve pop down, that is a nice boost; create slaves and have your army cap increase) you feed your ability to build more troops and conquer yet more.

I have seen several maps where Feudalism was favoured, in SP. MP may be another kettle of fish entirely. 5 to 7 turn knights in core cities might make things harder vs the 3 or 4 turn knights of the human monarch with larger cities.

[Cerbykins]

If you end up with your little-tundra pack of cities, they're frozen alright
Still - the fact we even had to ASK points out this gov needs some more tweaking...!
The question is really - WHAT should be tweaked...!

Think of the many Chieftain and Warlord players and see what THEY find...they don't have the collective brain-power of Poly and really need to see a glaring difference.

You essentially have here, a war-enhancing gov with war weariness. And that is what they'll see

[notyoueither]

A hidden 'benefit' of Feudalism is that smaller cities are very easy to manage vs WW. WW is also not a huge pain for them, but I would agree that for MP WW should be done away with. The whole idea of this government is scads of units, often of inferior type. Casualties are expected if not welcome.

How does a monarch have lower WW than a feudal lord, anyway?

[Cerbykins]

Beats me.
Shoot the extra cost back down, and ditch the WW - THEN feudalism becomes the little city guy's friend. Not before

[Sarxis]

Yeah. Feudalism is BORKED as it is now, that missing free maintenance really hurts.

I wouldn't be adverse to just lowering the unit maintenance and WW to compensate.

[CerberusIV]

I normally go despot-monarch-democracy in C3C but did find one use for feudalism.

Playing Sumeria on a continents map I found myself sharing the largest continent with China (about 40% of the total land area). After eliminating the Chinese quite early (horsemen and enkidus ) I ended up with 39 cities of which only around 10-12 were on fresh water and around 1/3 of which were hopelessly corrupt.

Monarchy and Republic would both have been economic suicide with unit costs (I needed a decent military to deter the AI's from getting aggressive) but Feudalism gave me a decent position in my core cities and free support for ~ 140 units (2 enkidus as garrison plus one worker per town/city plus some horses and galleys). With building a few aqueducts later I just got to Democracy before having to start paying unit support costs.

I would suggest the real use of Feudalism is for a sprawling early empire where it will take some time to develop many of the towns past size 6 and where you do need a reasonably large military. That isn't a common occurence - at least in my games.

Playing with the beta patch and corruption fixed probably reduces any advantage of feudalism. The other thing going for it is not needing to research an optional tech. In the example above I never bothered to research Monarchy or Republic at all. If you are set on Democracy but need an intermediate government that is better than despotism to get there it may offer a shortcut.

[steven8r]

So, basically what I'm hearing here is this:

Build lots of towns w/o Rivers/Aquaducts. Go for Feudalism and build your military. You may allow a few cities to grow (river/Aquaduct), but not too many. WW doesn't seem to be too problematic below size 7, so war your way to Democracy or some other Government.

However, if your cities start growing, you might want to switch to Monarchy, or Republic if at peace.

Is that about it?

Steven

[player1]

I think that Feudalism only needs unit gp/cost lowered to 1gp/per turn to be more effective.

[Jaguar]

I never switch to Feudalism because Monarchy and Republic are available first. I either have to spend extra time in Anarchy, or not switch out of despotism until the Middle Ages. Neither is profitable.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by steven8r
So, basically what I'm hearing here is this:

Build lots of towns w/o Rivers/Aquaducts. Go for Feudalism and build your military. You may allow a few cities to grow (river/Aquaduct), but not too many. WW doesn't seem to be too problematic below size 7, so war your way to Democracy or some other Government.

However, if your cities start growing, you might want to switch to Monarchy, or Republic if at peace.

Is that about it?

Steven

That's about it, but unless you are religious the choice is one of Republic, Monarchy, or Feudalism until the second set of governments. I wouldn't be wanting to switch around, so I would be looking closely at what would be best before I even start to think of beginning anarchy.

PS. Steven, the owners of the site specified that the upload feature was for material related to topics covered by the site (games). She is a handsome flag, but you might get a nasty surprise the next time DanQ goes through looking for violations (he just bans people without notice, because there are usually quite a few). Just thought you'd like to know.

[Cryptor]

There's one thing people haven't seemed to mention about fuedalism, and thats the whip. Its the only ancient era government without the tile penalty and the whip. A size 5 completely corrupt town on the outskirts of your empire in irrigated grassland can have a food surplus of 7 per turn, which is 20 shields every 3 turns with the whip, as long as you can manage the happiness issues. If its lucky enough to have some bonus resources, and/or happen to be agricultural, 10 food per turn, hence 20 shields per 2 turns is possible for these otherwise useless cities. And you can save you're gold for science or whatever else tickles your fancy.