Feudalism and Fascism

[Barinthus]

In my current epic, I experimented with several governments to try to see what's good for what.

So far I'm not sure why anybody would want to run Feudalism and some vague idea why would I want to run Fascism.

The only reason I would want to run Fascism is the uber-fast workers. However due to its extreme nationalistic tendencies, it's not worth it for me to take the population hit and no culture-building. So the ideal time for me for this government would be after I'm satisfied with my borders and have no plan nor interest in expanding but that's usually very late into the game.

Are there anything I'm overlooking regarding Fascism? Advantages or ideal situations to use this form of government?

And what about Feudalism? This got me puzzled.

[Modo44]

IMO, Fascism is good if you have a small empire, and want to start The War That Ends The Game (TM). While your empire will grow and become more corrupt, your core will stay productive all the time, providing a constant stream of units. You'll never pay unit upkeep again. Pop-rushing is great for reducing the population (Courthouse, Marketplace: -4 pop; Granary, Temple: -3 pop). And the Fascism xenophobia (lack of culture) can be cheated by pop-rushing a Settler in a size 5 city (drastic, I know ). The downside is the population drop and research drop (if switching out of Democracy/Republic). However, you can finish building Railroads just in time to join workers back into cities, so a good timing can reduce the first effect. And the lower science... Well, you are going to kill anyone who dares research faster, so it's no biggie either.

[gunkulator]

I dunno. You need two optional techs for Fascism at a time when there are just so many good things to go for:

- Steam Power for coal and rails

- Industrialization for factories and coal plants

- Medicine/Electricty/Scientific Method for TOE and Hoover

- Replaceable Parts for rubber, infantry and double speed workers

After those, I'm usually interested in getting oil and tanks asap since the AI is often heading there. The AI hates trading gov't techs and Nationalism. By the time I've gotten the above techs, I've already finished railing most of my empire with the help of Replaceable Parts.

If I do go down the Nationalism branch, I prefer Communism. Even if you don't switch you get Police Stations that help with both WW and corruption.

If I do switch, I get Communism's superior corruption control, no culture penalty and usually better unit support for the war monger. Fascism is 4/7/10 while Communism is 6/6/6. Since you have to starve AI cities down anyway, they'll be spending a lot of time at just 4 units of support versus Communism's 6. If the AI only has a handful of cities left that I'll be taking in the next few turns, I don't bother starving them at all. I just rush a Temple and get the culture boundaries out. Once that civ is dead and I control all 21 tiles, the non-border cities have no chance of flipping, leaving me with large productive cities. Try that with Fascism.

There may be some unique circumstance where Fascism is better but I have yet to find it.

Feudalism? Worthless.

[Kloreep]

I would definitely consider Feudalism as a stepping-stone government if Religious but unable to go Republic due to units. So long as you don't have enough units to go over the 5-unit-per-town cap, it's a great way of getting rid of the tile production penalty without losing all that free support. Lets you start using the irrigated grass-mined hill dynamic, and you can irrigate your way to a faster REX if there's still land to be had. (There won't be in SP, but MP sometime proceeds at a slower pace.) Downside is, of course, the WW.

[Modo44]

I didn't say to go for Fascism before you are ready to kick arse. Switch after you have Factories and Infantry. But same goes for Communism, right?

The benefit is, as said, with a small empire. Communism will make your core cities suffer, while Fascism won't. This means that with Fascism those few well developed cities can keep 100% of their original production (assuming the switch is from Republic). If you have a big empire, Fascism will be useless compared to Communism.

Don't know about Feudalism. I'm too focused on science to use this, or Monarchy, except in rare situations.

[joncnunn]

Re: Feudalism and Fascism

When to run Feudalism:

You have poor quality land with both extremely limited # of fresh water cities and also not particularly attractive, extremely limited access to luaries and so know your going to be fighting with Knights or your Knight-equalivent UU.

In this case Fedualism will support more units than either Despotism or Monarchy and also not have the tile penalty of Desportism.

Fedualism also works much better with tight city spacing [3 tile] than loose [4 tile]

The Low WW of Fedualism is of very little consequence for the same reason it's of little consequence running a Republic.

Note that with Fedualism, you should not be building Aquaducts until your done with the war and are preparing to switch to another government. (Generally either Democracy or Communism)

Moreover, unless your Religious, you should switch to it direct from Despostism and be bypassing all optional techs.

On Fasicsm:
Worker speed is the wrong reason for it. It's best if you have a smaller size empire that's well developed and are intending to enlarge your empire militarily. (Lots of hospitals.) [For a bigger empire that less developed wanting to enlarge your empire militarily, use Comunism)

Originally posted by Barinthus
In my current epic, I experimented with several governments to try to see what's good for what.

So far I'm not sure why anybody would want to run Feudalism and some vague idea why would I want to run Fascism.

The only reason I would want to run Fascism is the uber-fast workers. However due to its extreme nationalistic tendencies, it's not worth it for me to take the population hit and no culture-building. So the ideal time for me for this government would be after I'm satisfied with my borders and have no plan nor interest in expanding but that's usually very late into the game.

Are there anything I'm overlooking regarding Fascism? Advantages or ideal situations to use this form of government?

And what about Feudalism? This got me puzzled.

[Arrian]

If you want to hear about the how feudalism can be used to your benifit, I suggest you ask UnOrthodox. He's the only enthusiastic user of feudalism I can think of.

-Arrian

[gunkulator]

Re: Re: Feudalism and Fascism

Originally posted by joncnunn
When to run Feudalism:

You have poor quality land with both extremely limited # of fresh water cities and also not particularly attractive, extremely limited access to luaries and so know your going to be fighting with Knights or your Knight-equalivent UU.

Yeesh. Sounds like a good reason to restart the game.

In this case Fedualism will support more units than either Despotism or Monarchy and also not have the tile penalty of Desportism.

But if your goal is war and you have small cities, you probably will not be bothered by the tile penalty too much. At least not worth commerce and production loss of a gov't switch, just to gain 1 more unit of support. If Despotism's 4 units is not enough for you, you are likely to exceed Feudalism's 5 pretty soon and then pay that nasty 3 gold per unit.

Note that with Fedualism, you should not be building Aquaducts until your done with the war and are preparing to switch to another government. (Generally either Democracy or Communism)

That's an awfully long time to stay with size 6 cities. The Middle Ages is where you should be striving towards size 12 on all your core cities to take advantage of the doubling power of markets/banks/libraries/unis. Republic makes this very powerful. Markets and libraries barely pay for themselves in small non-rep/dem cities.

In any case, you'll never build Sun Tzu, Sistine or Leo unless you have maxed out on city size. If you head for Democracy, you need two optional techs. I prefer the lower path towards military tradition and cavalry. You can barely build 70 shield knights in size 6 cities, let alone 80 shield cavalry and 60 shield muskets.

Moreover, unless your Religious, you should switch to it direct from Despostism and be bypassing all optional techs.

That would be missing both libraries (Literature) and Republic. Now I don't always switch to Republic when I get it so I could maybe see a small window for Feudalism if I was religious. But I definiately want to grow my cities aggressively throughout the Middle Ages and that dovetails nicely with Republic.

On Fasicsm:
Worker speed is the wrong reason for it. It's best if you have a smaller size empire that's well developed and are intending to enlarge your empire militarily. (Lots of hospitals.) [For a bigger empire that less developed wanting to enlarge your empire militarily, use Comunism)

I suspect you are right. I don't have a lot of experience with small empires in the Industrial Age. If I'm that small, I'm probably way behind in tech and can't hope to keep up in military production. Then again that's probably the best you can do if you play at the "godly" levels.

[joncnunn]

Re: Re: Re: Feudalism and Fascism

Originally posted by gunkulator

Yeesh. Sounds like a good reason to restart the game.

That would be the other alternative in single player.

But if your goal is war and you have small cities, you probably will not be bothered by the tile penalty too much. At least not worth commerce and production loss of a gov't switch, just to gain 1 more unit of support. If Despotism's 4 units is not enough for you, you are likely to exceed Feudalism's 5 pretty soon and then pay that nasty 3 gold per unit.

Fedualism also has substantlly lower corruption than Desoptism. [It's either at Monarchy or Republic level which are very close anyway]

Basically, that 67% corrupt city without a Court House in Depostism often becomes a 50% corrupt city without a Court House in these governments, taking turns off your military builds.

The idea under Feudalism is to be at war on the offensive before you exceed the 5 per city limit, and expand your empire faster than more units are built.

That's an awfully long time to stay with size 6 cities. The Middle Ages is where you should be striving towards size 12 on all your core cities to take advantage of the doubling power of markets/banks/libraries/unis. Republic makes this very powerful. Markets and libraries barely pay for themselves in small non-rep/dem cities.

That would be the builder path for the middle ages.
The war mongling path with be enlarging your empire with Knights or your Knight equivalent UU by knocking out an oppoent or two. With the possibility if playing the Chinese and Perhaps the Arabs with their 3 MP UUs of actually wiping out several oppoents.

Democracy is a mid- middle age pick, so those that just needed to knock out an oppoent during the early portion have time to catch up with the rest of the world later. [And they'll be much better off as a Democracy than Republic because of how large their military has grown.] They'll usually arrange to have the P and FP paired such that one of them is near their oppoent's starting area and the other is near their own. Often they've built up a large cash stockpile and so are going to be cash rushing Aquaducts, Court Houses, Market Places, Libaries. Any wonders they get are the ones they captured.

The ones that stay Fedualsim until Communism are the ones that just keep building military units and some baracks if they don't capture Sun Tzus soon. They aren't concerned with winning the science race at all, their really hoping to reach domination before Inf units become wide spread. They are also big fans of the Borg city placement.

In any case, you'll never build Sun Tzu, Sistine or Leo unless you have maxed out on city size. If you head for Democracy, you need two optional techs. I prefer the lower path towards military tradition and cavalry. You can barely build 70 shield knights in size 6 cities, let alone 80 shield cavalry and 60 shield muskets.

The Fedualsim path after bypassing all ancient era optional techs in favor of just the required ones is just Fedualism and Chivary on their own. They are going to be buying Monotheism from someone even if they were first to Fedualism.

All of the Knights used in their first attack wave will have been built as Horsemen and upgraded. They are likely to turn science off with 1 Scientist immedately after Chivary and bully their way to get other techs. They'll have probably choped some forest on the border city to have built a Baracks there to minimize the time from discovery of Chivarly to their Knights crossing the borders.

They aren't concerned with wonder building, they'll just capture any wonders their neighbors succeed in building.

That would be missing both libraries (Literature) and Republic. Now I don't always switch to Republic when I get it so I could maybe see a small window for Feudalism if I was religious. But I definiately want to grow my cities aggressively throughout the Middle Ages and that dovetails nicely with Republic.

The Republic usally can't be profitably switched too immedately upon getting unless your starting area was very high quality land. (3+ luxaries in your core area or else lots of rivers that have allowed several of your cities to already be size 7+.)

[Barinthus]

Wow, a lot of food for thought - thanks, folks!