Power of Feudalism

[UnOrthOdOx]

Just some personal ramblings on Feudalism.

I'll try to get an example game up soon, but no promises.

I have been playing Feudalism allot lately, trying to work it all out. Usually as a Religious civ, and most often as Japan.

I've found it quite usefull to employ temporary camps over simply stopping everything at size 6. Allow your main cities to continue to grow, but keep your border stocked with camps to stay under 6. Disband and move them as your border does. Keeping ALL your cities under 6 will cripple you in the end. Let good sites grow, but keep others at or below 6 to provide upkeep. Like all else in the game, this becomes a balancing act, and is what I am working on most right now.

I really like Feudalism as a Religious civ to poprush temples in the newly conquered cities, or to poprush in general when needed. I've even come to where I prefer it over Monarchy.

War weariness is LAUGHABLE! Feudalism allows the use of police, making republic-level WW laughable provided you're paranoid enough to leave police in your cities. You have the extra support to do that anyway...

Typically, I am setting up this kind of a game for a switch to Communism/Fascism if it should even be dragging on that long .

[ducki]

I'd be more likely to switch if it came sooner - like at the same time as Monarchy, which is contrary to what I've suggested in the AU forum, but the more I play with it, the more it seems that you have to decide on it when you build your first settler as opposed to having the flexibility choosing between the other two. Waiting that long just feels like it hurts, but that may be my lack of experience showing.

[pvzh]

My Game

Sorry, for being later, but real life matter interfered with my C3C devoution

I have not read others report yet and will post what I have upto know written down.

4000 BC Set Ceremonial Burial as a research before polped the setler and got Masonry from the hut switched research to Bronseworking, a plan is to find out where is iron because it is paramaunt Tenochitlan due to build 4 workers before anything else. I do not plan to build before inital land grab granary because the food is abundant

3400 BC 3 workers built, Carthagian warrior found us. Exchanged WC and Pottery for Alphabet and 35 gold. I bet they do not know anybody, but me.



3350 BC Carthagians just researched Bronseworking. Bought it for 41 gold and set Mathematics (40 turns), I hope it is still not that desirable tech by AI in AU mode.

3220 BC 4 workers build. Tenochitlan is set to build settler.

2750 BC Teotihuacan build and american scout shows up. Abe alredy has all mine tech plus CB.


2550 BC Second settler ready and heading to another wheat tile (see roaded plain NE) and the first jag (Teotihuacan) sent to explore south shore. Jags are build as reg do far just to see things around (I am already behind on exploration), will build barrack after 2-3 more.
I will not mention settlers anymore they are comming ASAP.

2350 BC 1st jag found 2 furs SE across a river and 2 spice E, 2nd jag went for further exploration

2190 BC Americans are close


but Evil Carthagians are even closer



we hates them... we curses them...

2150 BC Math is 1 turn away and... Look. Look what Smeagol finds


2110 BC Traded Math to Americans for IW, wheal, CB and than to Carthagians for Mysticism and 74 gold Carthagians have HBR and Wrting but would not sell it for math. Iron apears under Carthagian warrior NW of Tenochitlan (see previous pic).
Time for warriors prebuild.
Currency is set to minimal research time.
Prebuilding SoZ with Pyramids in Texcoco (city near spice stolen by Carthagians)

1475 BC Connection with Ivory istablished and Pyramids are switched to SoZ (59 turns, size 4)

1250 BC 1st Curragh build and set to sail north along American coast

850 BC Couple truns ago found Indians north of Americans, same tech ahead nobody out of know have currency -- a good news.
Noticed that americans sending troops to carthagian lands for quite some time, must be a war between them
Times up! 15 swordsmen upgraded, currency 5 turn away. Time to smash some skulls.
Thus, operation "Carthagian Freedom" must commence. Plan to liberate Fur and Spice, then onto Carthage.
War declared and troops are moved in.


The main worry is american troops, moving towards empty cities. Put a millitary unit in and they will try to get to another one. Ehh... Abe looking for a fight, but better not now.

750 BC Found Chinese a bit more north again, somewhat backward.
Carthagian war goes well: Fur and Spice are liberated. The bad news, I am 1 turn away of currency and bastards Americans got it, only them though thankfully. They will pay for this unspeakable treachery when time comes.

Currency traded next turn for Writing, Mapmaking, and horsebackriding (all together from all civs)

710 BC "And here we are, born to be kings"... The Great Leader Ahuitzotl means the Army.



690 BC Carthage constructed The Great Lighthouse

650 BC Carthage is taken, SoZ is one turn left (mine as well), but lost Colosus (Chinise built it) I will built HE instead (3 turns left).

610 BC another Leader, HE even is not completed yet (1 turn left). This one will rush FP in Carthage. American asked to leave and refuse declaring a war. About time I would say.

590 BC FP rushed, Persians found (the level as others AI's, but I do not see further enough in tech tree)

570 BC Peace with Carthage for all tech they got (all to make in to the Middle Ages and Literature). Chinese (no new tech) and Persians lacks litearture, but have Engeneering, Feodalism (!), and Monarchy (worthless for me). Indians have Philosophy (optional in AU mod, thus worthless) and Monarchy.
Troops are relocate to the North to fight in operation "American freedom". We will liberate fertile desert to make it death camp valley (we will pop-rush valuable military equipment there) and dye.



330 BC Leader: AC army

210 BC America is obliterated just Philadelphia left. Abe signs peace for St. Louis (1 pop city near Carthage, other side of the continet), Monarchy and Engeneering.
Monarchy, Engeenering, Iron, Ivory, Furs go to China for Feudalism.. Revolution began (5 turns of anarchy).
Forces are relocated back to remnants of Carthagians because I spotted Iron there, to replace a sold one.

190 BC Found Babylonians on the furthest end of Pangea. Less advanced than Persians but still strong.

130 BC 1 turn of anarchy left I declare a war on Carthagians.

10 BC Signed peace with Carthagians. City with Iron taken for some time already. Not sure why I signed peace with them. Bad habbit?

That is it for now as far as report. I am further in game than that (Persians obliterated, and I am planning a two front war Indians, beat me to Leo and Iroquese for their Pyramids)

BTW Is it possible to insert an image through vB Code? All I get is a link. Tried thumbnail link as in help example and my uploaded images still appear as a link on preview. Had to use HTML.

[ducki]

Just a short update.
I didn't keep notes this session because I was too into being a bloodthirsty barbarian.

Man, anyone that says you can't wage war in Feudalism is suffering the Monarchy version of Wonder Addiction. I just gobbled up all of America, using slowmovers and trebs mostly, took my sweet time on each town, waiting for Elites to heal to at least 4hp and then catch up with the treb stack.

By the end, my capitol had 10-20% war weariness and a bit of "cruel oppression" which was probably from me rushing settlers/temples in the American cities to drop the pop.

This is using the AU mod, right? I think this is the right level of WW, though for other aspects of the game I still think I'd prefer Monarchy or Republic, but my unit support is insane and I'm researching via the pointy stick method and just trading my luxes and an extra horse.

Here's a screenie. You can't see it, but I have my second Army, 3 knights, and with the 3 swordsman Army, I don't think I'll be resting for long. Carthage and Persia are ganing up on Iroquois and there's some prime real estate that's been covered with this ugly brown border - should be green. Will be green.
Damn you, Theseus. I used to be such a happy, if ignorant, builder. Grr.

[vmxa1]

The lean green machine hey Ducki! Nicely packed in, you seem to have taken a liken to it.

[ducki]

That's not any tighter than my typical game lately - AU501 I was a bit looser than I like because I was trying not to "eat" what few bonus tiles the home island had, so I ended up with a hybrid 3-tile/4-tile spacing.
I prefer a farily strict 3-tile with some 2-tiles close to home for disbandable camps(that I never seem to disband ) but I've been trying to get the hang of Ralphing(sorry SirRalph) and not having much luck.

Currently I'm stuck - my infrastructure sucks, bigtime and I don't see much of a way out other than using my Swordsman Army and Knight Army while they're still strong to take the lower half of the map. I also have no clue where to put my FP in this one - actually in any one with the new corruption model.

But yes, I have come a long way as far as my city-spacing goes. A long, long way. Now if I could just learn to actually use the disband method in the later game I'd be happy.

[Aqualung71]

I've finally learned to space my cities closer and can't work out why it was so hard to do. Old habits die hard I guess. But AU501 was a watershed for me on this issue.

Ducki, I've also taken to building a couple of worker camps close to my Palace/FP. But I'm not sure why you would want to disband them later, unless every square can be used up by an adjacent city. OCN issues I guess, but my MM hasn't reached that level yet!

With closer spacing, in my last game I capped most of my cities at 12 to avoid the Hospital build, which worked out very well in terms of overall tile usage - though I must say, closer spacing leads to a lot more intensive MM for a lot more of the game (yes, yes, I know...how do you win at higher levels? MM!). Only later did I build a few Hospitals and add-in my excess workers (and even then only in coastal cities for the research).

[lethe]

OCN, and the fact that camps are almost always in your core, so they push alot of cities up in ranks. In the worst case scenario a camp costs more shields in other cities than it can produce itself.

[vmxa1]

Basically when you are ready to go over size 12, you need and can use the extra tiles, so disband the camps.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by lethe
OCN, and the fact that camps are almost always in your core, so they push alot of cities up in ranks. In the worst case scenario a camp costs more shields in other cities than it can produce itself.

Yes, I can see how that could definitely be the case. This is probably a compelling reason for disbanding. The usable tiles issue depends on your overall spacing and whether you really want to go over size 12.

But perhaps I am looking at this a little differently. My "camps" are perhaps not really camps in the accepted sense. They are really just towns that fit within a spacing configuration that will allow most cities to grow to size 12, but perhaps the camp will only have enough room for 6....and it specialises in producing workers. Later it adds infrastructure and becomes a normal (but smallish) town.

I may need to re-think my approach. Still, I've come a long way from being obsessed with size-20 mega-cities!

*starts searching for SirRalph's thread again*

[ducki]

*starts searching for SirRalph's thread again*

There's also a really nice PDF that vulture compiled called "Growth and Expansion in Civilization III" that has a nice explanation of lots of expansion stuff and a good picture of OCP and Ralphing. I think I got there from Theseus's Must Reads. Unfortunately, the corruption stuff is slightly out of date, but it has a wide variety of information gleaned from several of the Must Reads, including Aeson's treatise on Scouting, using the Luxury slider, and, of course, City placement.

Great read, I have a printout I reread on breaks at work.


Edit: Here it is, the Ralphing bit starts on page 28, it's section 3.2.3.

[Aqualung71]

Cheers ducks, thanks!

Originally posted by ducki
Great read, I have a printout I reread on breaks at work.

Ummm, yeh I do stuff like that too.

Sad....so very very sad

[ducki]

More fun with feudalism

1 settler, 19 workers, 4 warriors, 5 swords, 3 pikes, 18 muskets, 21 knights, 2 armies(3xSwords, 3xKnights), 12 MedInf, 6 Trebs, 7 ACs, and a bunch of slaves.
100 Units total out of 155 allowed.
I haven't lost many in war, I just can't keep producing enough to keep up with the allowed number.

Infrastructure sucks, though. Less than half my towns have a temple, and most of those were for border expansions, not happiness. I'm importing wines giving me a total of 5 luxes. Research is a single scientist on Metallurgy since the last few techs - gunpowder, monotheism(I think), chemistry - I've just waited until 3 or 4 AIs have it and buy from one that needs a resource, so I can mitigate the actual cash cost a bit.

MGL #4 rushed the FP in Utica, my far eastern border. That's some good land for the surrounding cities and Utica has enough food and shields to become rather strong with zero corruption. I could have gone more north, but I wanted the FP city itself to be on a good site more than I wanted to try to get the most out of the reduced distance corruption.

I have to say again, Feudalism in this game (AU mod, right?) is definitely capable of some serious warmongering. 4 MGLs, two AIs gobbled up, I can support 50% more troops and I have 2 armies in the field.

(Insert rabid, barbarous battle cry here.)

[Aqualung71]

How would you compare the WW element with say Republic? More harsh or less harsh? Kicks in earlier or later?

Based on some of these reports I've read, seems like Feudalism can be a kick-arse government to basically control the world pretty early if you can crank out enough units....as long as the WW doesn't kill you.

[ducki]

The problem with a comparison to Republic is that to get where I am, you have to play a completely different game.

I have, what is it, five or six "Cities" out of all those "Towns"?
Only 3 of those are "mine" - the Capitol, the Coastal high-production city next to it, and the City to the Capitol's SE in all that grassland. I have built 2 - count em, TWO - aqueducts and have only settled 1 - count it, ONE - city on a river(the capitol).
So I don't have Happiness problems, so I don't have Happiness improvements. I have a couple(less than 5) libraries. I've got marketplaces and courthouses going up in various places in a vain hope to keep me rich enough to keep buying tech at 4th or 5th civ cost as well as upgrade my units.
I've got MPs where I need them, but the 5 lux really does the trick on a size 6 Town.

If I'm willing to remain the bloodthirsty barbarian and stay just close enough to the tech leaders for my units to be effective, I might be done once I get courthouses and marketplaces in every town and later banks.

And to finally get to the real question, it _seems_ easier to wage war in Feudalism than Republic, but again, there's no way in hell's half-acre I'd have developed my civ the way I have had I been going for Republic - or even Monarchy, for that matter. And having the 5 lux with 0% spending on ANYTHING(single scientist plan), I have a lot of leeway on the slider should WW bite me. I've had towns slipping in and out of WLTBD from time to time and I've seen 10% - 20% WW on occasion, but each time it hit just as I was about to deal the final blow to my opponent or sue for peace and take a 20 turn breather(which, IIRC, resets the WW clock).

So, if you can get at least 3 lux and if you are willing to mostly forgo culture and research and if you can stomach tight town-spacing and if you are able to keep your 20-turn peace deals, this is a great government for warmongering in well-targetted stages if for no other reason than the sheer number of troops you can bring to bear on your enemy. Also, planning on Commie/Fascism for your second govt probably will help with the whole no-culture, no-science, every town is a suburb uneasiness I had at first.

But if you don't plan on being rabid and can't stand the sight of towns stuck at size 6, this probably isn't the best govt for you.

Personally, it has finally brought me over to the darkside. Funny, it took a government that most people feel is too limited for either building or warmongering to get me to see the light... er, dark.

To really get the feel, I think variant rules might help - no culture in Towns, no science buildings in towns, limit Cities to 3 that you build yourself(enemy cities are ok and unpreventable) - one for the palace, one for the FP, one for the SPHQ. I've never been able to wage effective wars using only 66% of my allowed units. On this map, war is (probably) too easy in Feudalism, but how many wars do you really need to secure enough lux to keep size 6 towns from rioting? Probably not many, and you'll have the unit support to do it, even from a tech-deficit, I believe. And if you are industrious, so much the better for faster mining on hills/mountains.