Feudalism (from civ3.com screenshot)

[player1]

Is it just me, or in this government smaller cities maintaing more free units.

Towns maintain 6, cities 2 and metropolises 0.

If this is not typo, I see some serious balance problems.

First considering that unit you do pay for cost 3 times more, but building a zero, you probably keep your cities at size 6 and build them close to easy other.

This will give you probably no gold cost whatsoever.
So you'll probably generate more gold/science then someone is Republic.

And due to tight city packing you overall production will not be lower then someone who used more spaced cities, since you'll have more of them on same territory.

Of course maybe I missed something, so comments are welcome.



P.S.
Maybe forced labor will be problem?

[statusperfect]

You will get corruption from having amny cities.

The corruption level i problematic.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by player1
Is it just me, or in this government smaller cities maintaing more free units.

Yeah, I saw it too. Strange. Very strange.
I'm curious how Feudalism will actually work. I mean, it certainly makes room for some interesting strategies.

[Jaybe]

I found it to be a very innovative recreator of the medieval period. It encourages a rural economy, and the transition to another government that prefers larger cities will be an "interesting" change. Perhaps some of your old towns WILL disappear!

[Spiffor]

I think feudalism is very interesting. It can definitely boost you if you're having problems in early medieval (small empire with scarcely populated cities). It will either help you build an infrastructure, or build an army with your fledging empire, but not both: if you have too productive cities, you'll have to pay a hefty price for your army.

If the AI knows how to use it, feudalism can turn underdogs into top dogs pretty quickly, depending on the skill an opportunities. Pretty much, it'll give more dynamism to the game IMHO

But if the AI doesn't know how to use it properly, then it gives an advantage to the player, especially at higher difficulty levels where he is often an underdog that early in the game.

[joncnunn]

Well, it looks to me that the support limits will ensure that evenually you have to get out of it. (As you build Aquaducts, your support costs will greatly increase.)

Also, look at the 3X money support costs if your over the limit.

[joncnunn]

I'm thinking if your non religious, that this won't effect those who currently chose to wait and then go Republic.

But those non religious who have been chosing to go Monarchy will need to check how many cities that they have that have natural aquaducts carefully and decide when they want their aquaduct building campaign to occur to decide between Monarchy and Feudalism. This would also be influenced by the amount of food growing in your cities.

In a typical game, you'd have Monarchy adviable first, Republic second, and Fuedalism last. In practice, it's going to be fairly close between the time in which you can support a functioning Republic and the time that Fuedalism is adviable.

Those that are religious though will have the advantage of switching to Monarchy as soon as discovered as always, then switching to Fuedalism when discovered [if they don't have a lot of aquaducts], and still later switching to Republic.

[player1]

Well, "Religious" players could also try to rush buy building by dropping from Feudalism to Monarchy and then going back.

Still, while I probably did overacted a little in first post, this government surely has a lot of potential for "min/maxing".

And will change early strategies a lot.


P.S.
I think that Depot --> Feudalism just could be interesting too.

Once of twice I was stucked in huge war in Despotism.
Changing to Monarchy would be serious problem in such game, sicne then you'll lose a lot of gold for maintaince (since most of cities are capped at size of 6).
Republic would also be not an option since you'll probably not have enough luxury res. to keep lux slider at zero (so you'll again lose gold like in Monarchy, since there are even more armies to support)

In such game changing to Feudalism would rock.
You'll get huge boost in gold and more armies to support.

Of course, on the other hand, there is some war warrines so it would be smart to use gold/science boost to win a war.
(although due to gold boost, you could even support use of luxury slider in needed).

After the peace is made, by use of Feudalism advantages, you could easily develop your country (and if you like, change to Republic later).