What's the point of Feudalism govt?

[ZEE]

i posted a thread about the superiority of feudalism over republic a while ago in the conquests forum, and i think, because of the discussion in this thread, it requires repeating.

first of all feudalism is superior in the military you are able to support. the unit support is 5 for towns, and that is all you need to worry about. DONT build aquaducts, and when you are done REXing, you can balance military building with your science, culture, economy. you could even forego everything else BUT your military. if you have, say, 30 cities when you get feudalism you are able to support 150 units!(keep in mind that this is just an example) now if you were republic, you would be forking over some major cash to support your military (2 gold per unit!!!). monarchy, you could support a decent military, albeit not without forking over some cash. not to mention you have to wait until your cities are above size 12 for it to be effecive at all. and if you play on the harder levels like i do, every single military unit counts. as well as every single gold piece.

as far as war weariness, it really isnt a problem if you are WINNING the war. or if you are extremely paranoid about attack, build up all your military, post some border guards, have a naval coast guard, and destroy any enemy that comes close. if no enemy units are on your land, war wearyness isnt a problem.

now all those units, as well as my worker core, would have me bankrupt in republic in a couple turns. if i was monarchy i could only support a fraction of the total units i have, and i would be bankrupt in a couple turns.

so you see feudalism is not only a feasable govt use on an aggressive or defensive strategy, it is tactically superior.

when you hit democracy THEN you can build your aquaducts, and build up your infrastructure. then if you really wanna kick butt, go commie!

so with my feudalism strategy you only go anarchy 2 possibly 3 times= despo to feaudy, feudy to democracy,
and democracy to comimie (i usually stick with democracy the entire game so for me= only 2 times)

ALSO a side note about anarchy: you DONT generate culture in anarchy so with my strategy you wont take a big culture hit.

[ToeTruck]

I agree with AAHZ regarding the power of Feudalism with one addition comment:

I only use Feudalism if I intend to end the game in it. It is superior as a military government if you are aiming for an early Domination Victory (pre 1000AD or so).

Yes, you can get some very good early domination victories using just Despotism, but I see Feudalism as "Despotism Plus". It gets you better tile production, better unit support, and allows for more military police. War weariness is a small price to pay and very easily managed.

Feudalism is probably also good for early Conquest Victories, but I haven't won enough games that way to know.

If you play for Spaceship, Cultural, or Diplomatic victories, however, don't bother with Feudalism. I will usually switch to Republic as soon as I connect enough luxuries and then switch to Democracy sometime later (maybe) for the worker bump and the reduced corruption.

- TT

[Mountain Sage]

TT,

You're right. If you play for victories other than Domination, you cannot research fast enough on Feudalism, especially at higher levels. Further, if you're not religious, you'll lose 3-6 turns of anarchy and that often means another tech less in the bag.

If you wait until you have Democracy to build aqueducts, you won't have shields enough to build wonders and just building the other city improvements (and/or units) will take too long. In fact, your building queue will get longer and longer.

AAHZ,
War weariness happens regardless of enemy military units on your land or not. It kicks in after a certain amount of turns, even if you are winning.

As for the impossibility to keep a large military in Republic, I suspect it's more a question of NOT having fully developed (size and improvements) cities, i.e. less gold and not enough trade, i.e. less gold and unhappiness (not enough luxuries).
30 fully developed cities should easily support 60-80 units, which is enough to win a war up to Emperor.
Then don't forget that in Republic you don't need MP, whereas in Feudalism if you don't have 2 per city, it's 10% (at least) more lux, i.e. less gold. With 30 citiesx2, you can spare 60 units.

[DrSpike]

I still think any feudalism conquest/domination strategy is more suited to Pangaea maps than continents or *shudders* archi maps.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I still think any feudalism conquest/domination strategy is more suited to Pangaea maps than continents or *shudders* archi maps.

You don't like archipelago maps?
Try a conquest/domination victory with Scandinavia

[DrSpike]

I don't mind them at all. I'm just saying this strategy could be much trickier on such maps. Thus there may well be limits in practice that weren't really given enough emphasis in earlier posts.

[gunkulator]

Someone explain to me why Feudalism is so much better than Despotism.

Yes, you get 5 units per town in Feudalism, however you get 4 with Despotism, including those built next to rivers that grow into cities. The penalty for going over is a mere 1 gold instead of 3 - small enough that you really don't have to worry about.

Commerce will be slightly better in Feudalism, true, but how long does it take to make up the difference given 7 turns of Anarchy? Same deal with production. Most people make do with mined grass for shields. Mining hills is best left when your workers have finished with the grass, plains and road building. Is it really worth that extra shield? And you certainly don't want too much extra food since the goal is to stay below size 7.

War is never an issue with Despotism. Given the parity of AD stats, early wars are often slugfests, with significant losses on all sides. If you lose too many units in Fedualism, you'll be sorry. Worse, you need to make sure all your far flung cities are very well protected. I've had the AI land two Archers next to a fairly new city on an island. As luck with have it, the Archers beat my Spearman and took the city. I eventually took it back but the resulting WW crippled my civ. The luxury slider is far less effective in Fedualism compared to Republic due to the lack of a commerce bonus.

[UnOrthOdOx]

It removes the food and shield limit that Despotism has. Irrigate grass to work those mined hills/mountains. It actually ALLOWS for more growth overall as a result.

Again. I cannot stress enough that to make a truly effective Feudalism one must allow cities to grow. The trick is making sure you get the RIGHT ones to grow, and have enough to stay small for the unit support.

Leaving them all at size 6 condemns you to an allotted time space to win the game. Personally, I don't know that I would really go Feudalism unless I were Religious and could easily switch out later.

But, by allowing your CORE to grow, while leaving camps and useless towns to remain small, you are able to maintain a high military while simultaneously growing your cities for an eventual change of govt. I find this the most usefull govt to conquer the home continent, as I enjoy poprushing in captured cities.

Again, you have mil police. USE THEM if you need. Support shouldn't be an issue if done correctly. This just makes WW laughable. Not that WW isn't already laughable in Republic with NO police.

I'm gonna have to make a demonstration of what I mean it seems. Let me finish this nice NTTC game, then I'll get right on it.

[ZEE]

i must agree with UnOrthOdOx. by spacing out your large cities, and small towns, you leave room for your military support, as well as having some key wonder/science/commerce cities.

thats why mainly i build as many cities on lakes and rivers as possible, then letting all my other cities stay small, i get a good mix of units, support, science, wonders, and commerce.

if i dont have any rivers and lakes, i build aquaducts in only a few of my core cities, and since my empire is usually very large in size anyway, it dosent affect my unit support too much.

so in short, for feudalism, having a mix of large and small cities will yield a good, productive civ.

[UnOrthOdOx]

This is from the NTTC game, so those of you playing that be warned of spoilers.

Second, as said earlier, I typically wouldn't do this without a Religious civ, as this is now begging for a switch to a more advanced govt.

As you can see, though, Feudalism does NOT mean small cities. Most are grown, nearly all in the core are grown.

Remember too, this is for the NO TECH TRADING game, thus the tech deficit. I assure you with the ability to sue for techs, I would be even/ahead. Even under Feudalism AND without the ability to trade, I was first to several through the middle ages, which, IMO is exactly what Feudalism is designed for.

[Mountain Sage]

A textbook example of the superiority of Feudalism over Monarchy or even Republic may be found in my latest Emperor game (on the relevant thread). Try this game with any other government and you'll see...

[Aqualung71]

Oh no, just when I was trying to temper my addiction MS posts another game! Oh well, see you over there

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
This is from the NTTC game, so those of you playing that be warned of spoilers.

I've been trading some data with Catt over on the NTTC thread, and your Feudalism comparison is interesting - I'll post some more numbers over there based on your 1300AD save.

[bigfatjonny]

An idea ive been toying with about Feudalism and city placement.

In a previous game using the AU mod i used a combo of ICS and feudalism to help me to gain the advantage on my large continent.

Then when we came to the industrial age I switched to Democracy, disbanded quite a lot of my military to help build infastruture and MOST IMPORTANTLY disbanded lots of my towns.

Disbanding towns?!? am i mad?!? The only problem with close city placement (in any government) is that when you hit the industrial age you cant make the most of the improvements unless you can work as many tiles as possible.
With this in mind i placed my early towns so that they
they were tightly packed small towns, producing only workers and military units.
Later i could disband the 'in-between towns' (which didnt have any improvements) to give my best towns room to grow into huge industrial giants.

So in the industrial age I had the land lead from my previous warmongering, then i was able to expand into the largest industrial power.

[Aqualung71]

It's called "Borging" or "Ralphing", though our friend SirRalph would deny that it's named after him