Is Feaudilism useless?

Prot · February 8, 2004, 04:47

There's war weariness, forced, labor, corruption just a step below Despotism, and it costs 3 gold for every unit over support. The only advantage is the high unit support for towns, which is good if your kinda small or weak. But other then that, the government sucks.

Is it meant for people that tech raced and never even researched Monarchy or Republic? Or is it worthless?

Switch · February 8, 2004, 04:49

From what I can tell, it's good for a civ without any rivers. To keep that working, though, you'd have to only have short, quick wars, otherwise your WW will fly through the roof.

notyoueither · February 8, 2004, 05:46

It increases the value of Religious civs, because it can be a very useful government if your military has to be too large in proportion to your cities/pop prior to conquering a neighbour and going into Republic.

I played a game as Rome where I had to go into Feudalism for wars of conquest. They did not stop until I went into Democracy.

WW can be managed better than no room or lack of resources can.

DrSpike · February 8, 2004, 08:28

Not worthless, just pretty rubbish.

player1 · February 8, 2004, 09:24

It is for those civ who have small cities (up to 6 pop) and small number of luxuries (so MP matters).

In those cases Republic is suicidal (especialy in C3C becuse different unit support), Monarchy is worse due to lower unit support for small cities.

Anyway, it is an upgarde from Despotism, but with some war warines.

WarpStorm · February 8, 2004, 10:33

It can be used very well if you plan for it. The trick is to have large numbers of units and lots of small densely packed cities. You don't need (and shouldn't build) aquaducts.

The downside is that you have to try to win in that era as this strategy won't allow you to build the later era expensive units and buildings quickly (although this can roll into the very effective Communism).

DrSpike · February 8, 2004, 10:40

Just how bad is the WW? Big land with bad terrain is the suitable setup........and as you highlight winning early is the plan. But if the point of the govt is conquest in the situation described then why have bad WW? Beats me.........feudalism seems badly thought out.

UnOrthOdOx · February 8, 2004, 11:05

The WW is equal to republic, but for the fact you are offered police as an additional method of dealing with it, it seems far less so.

I am playing through one right now as the Mongols, and was really surprised how valuable it can be as a govt in the right circumstance.

DrSpike · February 8, 2004, 11:13

Hmm maybe I'll try a feudalism-commie bounce with aggression at some point and see how it goes.

lethe · February 8, 2004, 18:02

I find the mixture of The Great Wall and Religious trait to be a strong allure to go for Feudalism. (I'm also obsessive about starving down captured cities to pop 1.) Feudalism is really wicked for those medieval wars.

Using knights as your offensive force cuts down on WW quite a bit. On many turns you can move in and take a town from outside their borders. Remember, WW goes up 1 every turn you end with a single military unit on enemy territory. (And 2 _each_ time one of your units gets attacked.)

If you are good at the maneuvering you can stay in pretty long wars. Off course, it all comes crashing down the round the AI's 47 knights finally finds you and you get over 100 points of WW all in one happy hug.

CerberusIV · February 8, 2004, 18:25

Feudalism as a government is great if you skip the other government techs, go for the feudalism tech, switch out of despotism and head into a big war of aggression and grab as much territory and as many AI towns as possible.

I don't pop rush but it can be a good way of getting rid of foreign citizens in those captured cities and getting something back.

If you have a decent ancient or early medieval UU and can get into Feudalism before triggering your GA you get the full benefits.

Really quite a useful government once you get the hang of when and how to use it.

Capt Dizle · February 8, 2004, 19:02

Using Feudalism is like hammering a square peg in a round hole.

Nisku · February 9, 2004, 12:57

I've used feudalism in every conquest game I've played except for one. You don't have to waste time to research monarchy or republic and it fits my style of play excellently. You just need to make a lot of small cities, the unit support doesn't matter when your support is so high that you are almost gauranteed not to hit it. I rarely find a situation where Republic or Monarchy would be better. I especially hate republic, maybe it's my style of play but I can almost never find a way to make it usefull.

lethe · February 9, 2004, 14:01

If you plan a game around using Feudalism (ok, this is stretching it a bit, but maybe you got bored out of your skull with always being in republic?) it can be very useful on higher difficulties.

It allows you to accept impossibly cramped city spacing. As your cities don't need much in the way of expensive city improvements you don't have to feel bad about abandoning them later on. (If you don't win a conquest in the medieval era you are going to switch out of feudalism. Ok, this will hurt if you aren't religious.)

All that said, it's still the second worst government, but far, far after fascism. Why is anyone ever fascist? It boggles the mind.

I think it's possible that MoO3 is a better game than fascism a government.

lethe · February 9, 2004, 14:17

Edit: Double post.

DrSpike · February 9, 2004, 14:51

16 minutes apart?

Prot · February 10, 2004, 02:39

Fascism is a great form of government people! You should just tech race it and Steam power, then start working your way to Replaceable Parts. This can really speed up your railroad building projects.

It is only good for peace time terrain improvement, and for the novelty of being Italian or German fascists

lethe · February 10, 2004, 07:40

DrSpike: Yep, witness my amazing powers of lag!

joncnunn · February 10, 2004, 17:36

As near as I can tell, Feudalism is primarly for a non-agricultral civ that started with very few cities with a natural aquaduct.

To a lesser extent Commerical, Industrious, and Seafaring have attributes have bonsus for pop 7+ cities that would work against Feudalism.

When your going for Feudalism as a non-Religious civ, you should skip all optional techs.

The one step better in corruption is actually twince as large a step than the other non-communism / non-anarchy corruption levels. Fedualism also elimates the tile penalty, so it functions a lot like a Monarchy with inverted unit support costs.

Yes, there's some WW, but it's the same low level as Republic. Very managable particlarly if the other civ declared war on you.

The Hack · February 18, 2004, 11:15

I've never tried it but think it's more usefull at the higher difficulty levels.

Dis · February 19, 2004, 04:11

I hated it. I was having problems with war weariness in republic, so I switched to feudalism. No effect on war weariness

. I was too far from communism or fasicm

CerberusIV · February 19, 2004, 05:26

It has the same WW effect as Republic. The difference is unit support which depends on whether you have at least half your towns/cities are <7 and you want/need a large army. If so then Feudalism, if not then Republic.

Cryptor · February 19, 2004, 10:32

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

(Lots of small corrupt towns & high town free unit support & no tile penalty & reasonable military police & forced labour) => forced labour from unproductive corrupt towns producing lots of units (due to extra food above despotism) which are supported for free which keep the towns content via police. Those lots of units take more cities and land to make more towns and lots of free units. Rinse and repeat, it gets easier as you go. Unit support of 1 or lack of war weariness would make this government to powerful to entrench a powerful civ for a run away win in the middle ages.

Admitedly, I drop unit support to 2, but I know anything less would make feudilism too powerful.

gunkulator · February 19, 2004, 11:32

Looks like a Rel/Mil trait would be ideal for feudalism. Build lots of barracks and units and a few temples. Switch to Feudalism asap. Wage war, deal with WW using cheap pop rushed temples and police. Starve and pop rush new cities down to a managable level. Get lotsa MGLs and armies.

Of course you'd also want your UU and GA to come not long after switching gov'ts.

Feudal Japan anyone?

lethe · February 19, 2004, 14:13

Too bad Feudalism wasn't around in PtW. It would lend itself very well to the MGL farming required to insta-build all wonders from Sun Tzu until the end of the space-race.

And militaristic isn't all that great. Feudalism _really_ lends itself to a Sun Tzu-focus. And unless you are on Deity-Sid you can probably get Sun Tzu if you really work on it. Prebuild, wild trading etc etc.

Scientific/religious is a good combo to be pretty sure to get Sun Tzu, even if you don't get the right tech you atleast got a tech to base trades on to get the right tech, in case another Scientific civ got it. (Or cook your opponents so you have no Sci adversaries.)

Nisku · February 19, 2004, 15:28

I usually play with Japan or the Arabs. I build tons of little temporary towns and pump out UUs/workers/settlers. Samurai isn't that great of a UU but the Arab's Ansar Warrior I really like. I kind of steam roll over the AI civs. I build new towns in newly conquered areas and disband old far away from the front towns as I go. It is a great strategy.

Hmmm....I keep my unit cost at 3 because I almost never reach the unit support limit. I am thinking about removing war weariness for feudalism, I think that would be fair considering feudalism's disadvantages.

The thing with Sun Tzu is by the time Sun Tzu comes along I already have plenty of barracks so I'm not sure how usefull that would be for me. I just can't afford to wait for Sun Tzu before getting a lot of barracks built.

Jon Miller · February 19, 2004, 15:33

good when religious and/or lacking freshwater

definitely a good inclusion

Jon Miller

UnOrthOdOx · February 19, 2004, 15:34

Yep, Japanese feudalism has become my most recent favorite tactic.

I personally love the Samurai, though, and wind up with a complete military of them and few if any defensive units. Not to mention what the new armies filled with them can do. I find myself regularly having 3-4 Armies of Samurai and continue to drive them forward.

Letting the core cities grow to 12 while purposely building size 1-3 little camps to deal with the unit limit has been quite effective. If the game is around long enough, I usually jump right to Communism from Feudal and continue the military dominance.

WW is laughable with the ability to use police + oscillating wars, there's no need to remove it IMO.

Nisku · February 19, 2004, 15:57

My exact strategy too UnOrthOdOx, it's good to see others are finding it working.

The only diffrence in my strategy is I prefer the Ansar Warriors to the samurai. Ansar warriors with 3 movement and ten less shield cost really work well. I find my military consisting almost entirely of Ansar warriors/workers and various ancient age units scattered around that I use for police.

Sometimes I'll go from feudalism to communism other times if I've sufficiently crippled the civs around me I'll switch to democracy and stop warmongering for a while.