Feudalism

[JimiD]

I have been debating whether to start of thread on this or not, as I dont have enough evidence, but the Forum seems quiet, so you get my 2 cents:

I cant help feeling Feudalism is a tad over powered, or too early in the tech tree. Specifically the corruption seems too low.

The support model presumes towns and thus against any large cities, but a couple of camps can offest any loss in support from upgrading cities. Since they provide max support at any size without corruption (ie courrption of the unit support figure, which is not a concept in the game), they can be at the edge of your empire without any trouble. Or they can have previously belonged to someone else...

This is acceptable - if it is to be a war mongering government, but it also provides low corrpution, so allows me to wage war and earn cash.

Not being able to rush buidings with cash is a concept I am much happier with since I came to appreciate communism, so not enough of a penalty either.

This does lead down a warmongering path, but this is a good route to success in this game, so who am i to fight it...

[nbarclay]

If we hadn't nerfed Republic so seriously, I would have no qualms about Feudalism's balance. Feudalism's minimal corruption makes it better than Republic for corruption but worse for generating wealth. Both have war weariness, which is a disadvantage compared with Monarchy. The inability to use cash for rushing with Feudalism is also something of an offsetting limitation, as is the fact that Feudalism tends to come significantly later in the tech tree than Republic or Monarchy.

In my view, if there is a problem in the current balance, it comes from how extremely limited free unit support for Republic currently is in the AU Mod. With that limitation, Republic doesn't even necessarily offer enough free unit support to accommodate a civ's workers much less a significant military, while Feudalism offers what feels like virtually unlimited free unit support as long as a civ keeps expanding through growth and/or conquest. That, plus Feudalism's lower corruption, can go a long way toward offsetting Feudalism's lack of a commerce bonus from a financial perspective. And if Feudalism can keep up with Republic financially while at the same time providing higher production and and good support for a large military for fighting, that carves into Republic's niche a little too much.

But if the main issue is Republic rather than Feudalism, the right place to discuss that would be in the Republic thread.

Edit: Looking back, there is a single thread that is supposed to be for all government balance discussions, so this discussion also ought to be moved there if we continue it.