So, a recent thread had me thinking of this... Which of these techs do you usually tech first? I am not thinking of extreme situations of offense or defense, but in general?

I personally often grab Engineering first because of the Machinery prereq (a tech i loove), and the early access to trebs, pikes and castles.

i often ignore war in medieval so feudalism is first up for me just for the defense

Engineering...I rarely tech feudalism and usually wind up trading for it. Unless I'm pointedly going for medieval war the same is true for engineering though. Still, if I bother to tech one or the other engineering is more likely.

The best defense is a good offense and trebs give you oodles of that. If you have Engineering you have Machinery and between pikes and crossbows you won't have any problems with medieval-era units. The Notre Dame is also a very nice wonder to grab too.

ENGINEERING

I'm always warring and the extra movement on roads speeds up getting my units to the front and with defensive mobility.

If I want some archery units then I will make do with crossbows rather than longbows or will just use stacks of archers to wear down attackers until mobile defense can finish them off, once I get catapults then these are better to take the war to the invader.

Otherwise I don't usually bother with city garrison promotions until the renaissance when I have Musketmen.

It can be either of them if I self research and decide to fight in the middle ages. Sometimes I do the Feudalism slingshot and run Vasslage for an early war. Other times I'll go through CS and Machinery for maces and crossbows and then it makes sense to research Engineering;even though it's an expensive tech it is decisive in warmongering. But that would be a real middle age war and Feudalism wouldn't add much except the ability to vassalise another civ. With a strong offensive force including trebuchets and pikes, longbows don't add much.

But if I go for a Liberalism beeline I won't bother about either of these middle age techs. I just press on through Education to Liberalism and take Nationalism as the free tech. Then research Constitution or Gunpowder while trading for many middle age techs such as Machinery, Optics, Feudalism, Engineering, Music and Theology. So in that case I wouldn't research either of these techs and might trade for them on the same turn, we need a third option ;). With jails, Representation, Taj Mahal and Nationhood with Theology for drafting muskets a powerful early Renaissance army can be whipped up. That seems to be one of the best ways to play a Protective civ, despite the power of early longbows under Vasslage (Feudalism Slingshot) or the devastating power of trebuchets and castles from getting Engineering early.

I didn't vote, as my answer is both at times and sometimes neither.

I usually trade for both, engineering is more useful because it opens up chemistry.
I sometimes tech Feudalism myself because i want to have the very useful guilds but don't want to give education for feudalism first.

I usually trade for both, engineering is more useful because it opens up chemistry.
I sometimes tech Feudalism myself because i want to have the very useful guilds but don't want to give education for feudalism first.
Agreed. Probably 90% of the time I end up getting both in trade.

I usually trade for both, engineering is more useful because it opens up chemistry.
I sometimes tech Feudalism myself because i want to have the very useful guilds but don't want to give education for feudalism first.

Same here. I usually go for civil service-paper-education-liberalism route, completely ignoring feudalism and engineering. I need both of them later, so the one I get first depends on situation and which one I get better trade for.

Where is the Education option? :lol:

I rarely tech any of those 2 techs, but if I had to choose , most likely it would be Feudalism. I need it for RP and Rifling :p

to be honest, i rarely tech it either. i normally trade for it using CS or philo.

I often split. Sometimes I really want Vassalage and serfdom; at other times I'm desperate for Pikemen and 3-move roads. This is a tough one for me.

Engineering for me, and lately with the GLH games I have been playing, I push for it early so I can get a lot of benefit from Castles. Still sort of trying to decide if they are worth building, they go obsolete so quickly, and I dont like postponing Economics to keep em up. Still, even without Castles, I go Engineering for Pikes and Trebs, as well as travel, and trade for Feud later.

You want to tech to Eng first, to get your war machine up and running. After you do THAT you want to get feudalism, so you can vassal people

;6937990']You want to tech to Eng first, to get your war machine up and running. After you do THAT you want to get feudalism, so you can vassal people

I tend to want my war machine rolling before trebs and pikes. Vassalage is good for my first war with swords/cats/longbows. The extra land means researching machinery/CS/engineering goes quicker and you have more production to build maces and trebs. Besides. It is cheaper to get techs in exchange for peace than by trading your own techs.

Umm, this is skightly off topic, but how would you go about setting up to lightbulb engineering?

I just started a nice game with the HRE. It's only 2000BC and I have 3 cities. I have plenty of time to set something up.

I can't remember the last time I actually teched for either of these techs. I always trade for them and ignore medieval warfare.

Ways of Bulbing engineering:

#1 - GE: with prereqs ( Machinery + Construction ) and IW

#2 - GS: with prereqs, IW, Aesthetics, Calendar and Alphabet, no Fishing ( blocks Sailing, Compass, Optics, astro ), no Drama and no CoL ( to block philo and Paper )

#1 requires the elusive GE .... and you probably want to rush a wonder or settle him. #2 is more academic than anything else.

Ways of Bulbing engineering:

#1 - GE: with prereqs ( Machinery + Construction ) and IW

#2 - GS: with prereqs, IW, Aesthetics, Calendar and Alphabet, no Fishing ( blocks Sailing, Compass, Optics, astro ), no Drama and no CoL ( to block philo and Paper )

#1 requires the elusive GE .... and you probably want to rush a wonder or settle him. #2 is more academic than anything else.

I'll try for number 2. You must also need construction. Once you have Alphabet, you could probably trade for calendar, IW, and maybe Aestetics.

Number 1 might be easier if you are philosophical or if you built an early wonder that giver GE points.

Of course, it's:

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff31/semirami/Civ4ScreenShot0108.jpg

Someone is doing a Feudalism oracling with NA... that is not fair ;) I wonder if you would do the same with Shaka :p

Someone is doing a Feudalism oracling with NA... that is not fair ;) I wonder if you would do the same with Shaka :p


lol, actually this game ended 3 turns later, when a barb archer came to visit Chaokia:lol: Good night Dan Quayle :lol:

Ways of Bulbing engineering:
#2 - GS: with prereqs, IW, Aesthetics, Calendar and Alphabet, no Fishing ( blocks Sailing, Compass, Optics, astro ), no Drama and no CoL ( to block philo and Paper )


Ah, but you don't need Calendar, which requires Sailing. It's blocked when you skip Fishing.

I noticed that after I wrote, but forgot to correct. And you can also only skip Meditation, CS and Theo, to prevent the Paper line of bulbing ( other minor correction.... ).

Ah, but you don't need Calendar, which requires Sailing. It's blocked when you skip Fishing.

Yeah, I found that out. As soon as I clicked Calendar, it lit up fishing which threw the whole thing out the window. I ended up just researching engineering the long way. It seems you have to go pretty far into the game to forego COL. But, those extra trade routes are pretty nice from castles.

Trebs vs. Longbows

Easy choice, Trebs. You don't win wars by defending, you win them by attacking

definitely engineering

AI tend to tech feudalism, so you can trade it with them

you also need machinery for Printing Press anyway

and pikemen > knight
longbow men is only for defense

definitely engineering

AI tend to tech feudalism, so you can trade it with them

you also need machinery for Printing Press anyway

and pikemen > knight
longbow men is only for defense

Knights used to be by far my least favorite mounted troop, but over the past month I don't feel that way any more. If you compare their relative strength to their counter-unit, knights have the most (although what the official counter to cuirassers is is subject to debate also, so maybe them). Spears have 2/3 the strength of HA's and rifles, while they get less bonus vs mounted inherently, are only 1 str point away.

Knights are cool in that they have first strike immunity and are available in a time period where civics to aid extra promos are available without the more common opportunity cost of stronger civics that show up later. In this respect, a pike will struggle greatly to deal with a combat shock knight, and a 3rd promo on knights is relatively common. Pikes are only 60% the strength of knights, but knights also have the unusual mounted distinction of being *far* stronger than the other units that do not directly counter them, making them quite powerful until the time of cuirassers or rifles. Guilds comes much earlier than the techs allowing those units.

They still need something to lower defenses however, and unless you go with a great wall opening it's very hard to bring enough EP and spies while still making them. All that aside, machinery to engineering is the superior tech path IMO because you can trade either for feudalism pretty easily and the trebs allow for serious damage to all medieval defenders also. Engineering is a pretty solid tech for EE players also because of the bonus castles give to that (and power rating).

Feudalism

I almost always rush 2-3 civs with axes+swords until my empire is almost bankrupt from the expansion. Early medieval age is the time when I desperately try to avoid a strike and consolidate my huge empire with 13-18 cities (market+courthouses+cottages) and get my economy back into shape before the next expansion with cuirassers or rifles or gren/cannons. Feudalism is very good coz:

1/ It enables vassal state which may get the AI I am attacking to capitulate. This helps with releasing the cultural pressure in cities I recently captured from that AI andenable more tiles to be worked in those cities.

2/ Longlows are good for defense, which is what I do at that period of time.

3/ It is on the tech path to guilds and I need grocers to deal with health and get more gold to research better.

I think engineering is probably more useful if one prefers to expand in the medieval age, whereas feudalism is more useful if one already expanded heavily and is trying to consolidate.

Of course Engineering. My civil rarely tech Feudalism. Feudalism enables longbowman, but I do not need defense, instead I built good relation with my rivals and build strong offesive armies. Feudalism enables CS, but CoL is better. I think CoL is a neccessary tech because everyone need courthose and Caste System. Feudalism enables Vassalage, but I prefer powerful Bureaucracy, and Theocracy and Barracks ensure units starting with 5 experinces. therefore 2 more from Vassalage does not matter.

I'm a wimp when it comes to war so almost always tech feudalism first, then turtle up and hope nobody DOW's on me. :blush:

I'm a wimp when it comes to war so almost always tech feudalism first, then turtle up and hope nobody DOW's on me. :blush:

:lol: I guess you love playing Wang Kon or Sitting Bull then aswell?

longbow men is only for defense
Clearly you never used Drill IV Lbows on attack ;)

Even with tech parity they can be a nice PITA to your enemies, mainly because unlike maces and Knights, AI does not invest that much in Cover and there is no unit in this game ( expect for the quechua ) that has native anti-archery abilities. This makes that the AI rarely makes a organized attemt to stop a Lbow + catapult rush

I'd rather have engineering first, but I usually end up getting feudalism first coz its easier to get.

Knights used to be by far my least favorite mounted troop, but over the past month I don't feel that way any more. If you compare their relative strength to their counter-unit, knights have the most (although what the official counter to cuirassers is is subject to debate also, so maybe them). Spears have 2/3 the strength of HA's and rifles, while they get less bonus vs mounted inherently, are only 1 str point away.

Knights are cool in that they have first strike immunity and are available in a time period where civics to aid extra promos are available without the more common opportunity cost of stronger civics that show up later. In this respect, a pike will struggle greatly to deal with a combat shock knight, and a 3rd promo on knights is relatively common. Pikes are only 60% the strength of knights, but knights also have the unusual mounted distinction of being *far* stronger than the other units that do not directly counter them, making them quite powerful until the time of cuirassers or rifles. Guilds comes much earlier than the techs allowing those units.

They still need something to lower defenses however, and unless you go with a great wall opening it's very hard to bring enough EP and spies while still making them. All that aside, machinery to engineering is the superior tech path IMO because you can trade either for feudalism pretty easily and the trebs allow for serious damage to all medieval defenders also. Engineering is a pretty solid tech for EE players also because of the bonus castles give to that (and power rating).

Nice analysis, but you miss War Elephants. At strength 8, they're 100% stronger than spearmen, their direct counter.

Completely unrelated, but I just amused myself by imagining what it would be to go on any other messageboard on the internet, not game related or anything, and post a thread which only says "Engineering or Feudalism?" without further explanation.

"well, uh, I guess engineering is pretty cool".

Nice analysis, but you miss War Elephants. At strength 8, they're 100% stronger than spearmen, their direct counter.

They're also rare :(. There is no classical counter to war elephants. They're in a league of their own. However once the AI gets them pikes are effective counters to wellies. Elephants are a strong inclusion in a stack and good anti-mounted until cavalry.

Clearly you never used Drill IV Lbows on attack ;)

Even with tech parity they can be a nice PITA to your enemies, mainly because unlike maces and Knights, AI does not invest that much in Cover and there is no unit in this game ( expect for the quechua ) that has native anti-archery abilities. This makes that the AI rarely makes a organized attemt to stop a Lbow + catapult rush

Immortals also possess the archery bonus, although they're not meant to kill longbows either.

Longbows on offense are good stack defense. Promoted with guerrilla or (if early) woodsman they can be GREAT stack defense/cleanup units for siege. The effective counter to them is knights, which once the AI gets it WILL make :p. You have a large window to use them on offense then but as you pointed out siege will be doing much of the work.

My problem with bothering to go for feudalism early is that the AIs usually prioritize it, so you can often trade for it. Also, it's not exactly my favorite tech to trade around to the AIs :rolleyes:. Sometimes you could but I feel far worse trading away something like aesthetics, CoL, or even in some cases machinery as opposed to given an AI its favorite spammed defender!

Feudalism is usually useless IMO. If I am relying on LBs for defense then I probably botched diplomacy at some point. In general, if you are spending a lot of time defending (meaning more than just letting an enemy SoD move in to be slaughtered on the first turn of the war) then you are not on course to win. Until I am pushing for rifles I don't find Fuedalism very useful.
I sometimes tech engineering to unlock chemistry if attempting to grab steel from Lib. Otherwise, I usually trade for both of them. The AI always goes for Feudalism and is typically very willing to trade it.

a lot of people here never tried attacking against immortal-sized stacks apparently. once you have gone through that kind of pain you start to realise that attack isn't the best form of defense, longbows are.

a lot of people here never tried attacking against immortal-sized stacks apparently. once you have gone through that kind of pain you start to realise that attack isn't the best form of defense, longbows are.

I find siege is far more effective against immortal stacks. I totally agree with allowing the enemy SoD to enter your territory to reduce WW but allowing them to attack your cities directly?
1) Once they get that close they are likely to pillage your tiles which is annoying, especially for CEs.
2) Your units receive twice as much experience from attacking.
3) It is much cheaper to maintain an offensively oriented army (in unit composition and promotions) with only a few MPs than to have defensive units in addition.
4) In the time it takes for an AI SoD to cross your culture, bombard your defenses sufficiently, and attack, an immortal AI will already be on its way to reconstituting its SoD.

So to return to the original thread question, feudalism sucks. ;)

Engineering ftw, more useful then fuedalism in my book(increasded road mobility, pikemen, trebs compaired to longbows and the ability to vassel and 2 civics that one is least used), and besides if i do need it the ai is always willing to trade it.

Feudalism is usually useless IMO. If I am relying on LBs for defense then I probably botched diplomacy at some point. In general, if you are spending a lot of time defending (meaning more than just letting an enemy SoD move in to be slaughtered on the first turn of the war) then you are not on course to win. Until I am pushing for rifles I don't find Fuedalism very useful.
I sometimes tech engineering to unlock chemistry if attempting to grab steel from Lib. Otherwise, I usually trade for both of them. The AI always goes for Feudalism and is typically very willing to trade it.

What do you defend your newly captured cities with? Trained monkeys? I guess knights are useless too. They sort of require Fuedalism. And grocers are a waste of time. Who needs +25% in their gold city. And no one needs extra health.

Feudalism is one of the most unusual techs for me to bother to researching. The AI is so keen on this one I can almost always trade for it, and I'm not that fond of longbowmen. Even at Immortal level it is relatively unusual I resort to holing up in cities - I find attacking, or at worst active defense to be a better approach. The fact the AI so monotonously beelines it is the prime reason though - it's such a reliable trade.

So obviously I'd go for Engineering. Trebs are great for attacking, and pikes are good whatever. The extra road mobility is also a huge advantage, particularly on larger maps.

I usually trade for whatever's available. The only real way to use engineering is to build a stack of trebuchets, and that's usually accompanied by curaissers, rifles or grenadiers by that point. Trebuchets are costly in hammers.

Feudalism you might have to get early if you are placed next to unit-spammers. They will build masses of classical-age units and then attack you, supported by a few catapults, regardless of how well you played. You really need longbows to hold them off, as you won't have cultural defenses to help you.

What do you defend your newly captured cities with? Trained monkeys? I guess knights are useless too. They sort of require Fuedalism. And grocers are a waste of time. Who needs +25% in their gold city. And no one needs extra health.

:lol: Trained monkeys might be an interesting UU.
Seriously I usually defend captured cities with the units that need to heal. Effective wars are typically fought with a generational advantage in weaponry, eg. rifles vs. LBs. This advantage is often enough to scare the AI off from counterattacking. Often, I bring along outdated units to give my garrisons some depth. That way a surprise AI counterattack, even though it may kill some units, will usually peter out before capturing the city. The main thing though, is knowing the whereabouts of enemy SoDs and eliminating them early in the war, thus eliminating the AIs capability to effectively counterattack, reducing the need to pay a bunch of useless LBs which will spend most of the game sitting on their asses.

As for the rest, you are talking about guilds rather than feudalism, but since the one is a pre-req for the other I follow your logic. After all, I did argue for engineering on the basis that it unlocks chem which unlocks steel, which is admittedly a bit convoluted.
As for knights, I don't often build them unless I am a civ with a knight-replacing UU. I just rarely find them very useful as their counter, pikes, are really effective at shutting them down and the AI rarely has a problem getting engineering. In another thread TMIT was arguing for them though, so maybe I should give them another chance.
Grocers are a very low priority building, IMO. My gold city will eventually get one but it can wait. I usually build a bank first and come back to a grocer at my leisure. As for the 0-4 health, there are usually easier ways to get it and health concerns are rarely a top priority until it gets real bad in the industrial era or later.

I find siege is far more effective against immortal stacks. I totally agree with allowing the enemy SoD to enter your territory to reduce WW but allowing them to attack your cities directly?
1) Once they get that close they are likely to pillage your tiles which is annoying, especially for CEs.
2) Your units receive twice as much experience from attacking.
3) It is much cheaper to maintain an offensively oriented army (in unit composition and promotions) with only a few MPs than to have defensive units in addition.
4) In the time it takes for an AI SoD to cross your culture, bombard your defenses sufficiently, and attack, an immortal AI will already be on its way to reconstituting its SoD.

So to return to the original thread question, feudalism sucks. ;)

Now now, I wouldn't say it SUCKS :mischief:. It just wouldn't rate it as highly as engineering, and I'm not likely to tech it early game. You'll probably need it...it's a pre-req for guilds after all ;).

Sometimes letting the AI attack your city is worthwhile, especially in early wars where you have a wall. Better if not running CE too. Anyway, flanking out the AI's siege usually results in it suiciding it's SoD quite nicely into +50% defenses. You DO need HA's for this though, or knights later. In fact, doing this played a role in winning that immortal U game - still the only one I've come away with a W playing on immortal :(.

I usually trade for whatever's available. The only real way to use engineering is to build a stack of trebuchets, and that's usually accompanied by curaissers, rifles or grenadiers by that point. Trebuchets are costly in hammers.

Feudalism you might have to get early if you are placed next to unit-spammers. They will build masses of classical-age units and then attack you, supported by a few catapults, regardless of how well you played. You really need longbows to hold them off, as you won't have cultural defenses to help you.

I completely agree with this argument.

I think a lot of people here are dismissing Feudalism unfairly.:( It is not just a defensive technology that gives longbows. It can also be leveraged to be the foundation of an early attacking strategy using Vassalage to give better attacking units, long before anyone could hope to research Engineering. I have done that a few times and swordsman, longbows and catapults built / whipped out with 5 exp are impressive, and much better than just having the 3 exp versions. The Feudalism slingshot using the Oracle to take Feudalism is a very effective strategy in the early medieval, if that is when you choose to attack. No one is advocating getting Feudalism very early just to defend with longbows but you might well get it before Engineering if you had a defensive posture at that stage of the game.

Of course using trebuchets from Engineering is also an effective way to attack but that is much later in the game (probably 50 or 100 turns later) and is firmly in the middle ages and stretches into the Renaissaince. In that case you might have avoided researching Feudalism since it is not very useful for your plan. It is true however that as soon as you get Engineering it's a good idea to trade for Feudalism as Vassalage makes much better trebuchets than normal 3 exp ones. There is often a big difference in survival chances between a CR2 trebuchet and a CR1 one when facing a longbow defender.

Grocers are a very low priority building, IMO. My gold city will eventually get one but it can wait. I usually build a bank first and come back to a grocer at my leisure. As for the 0-4 health, there are usually easier ways to get it and health concerns are rarely a top priority until it gets real bad in the industrial era or later.

Well, unless I misremember the tree, you need Guilds (and hence Feudalism) to get Banking, so ...

Anyway, I'm too slow a starter to run medieval wars of conquest, I usually trade for both and take the Education path through the tech tree. That said, when I try to get a medieval steamroller going, I tend to aim for engineering - trebs are nice, and the movement bonus lets me keep a single defending stack even with multiple borders.

CS-Paper-Education-Liberalism tends to makefor a pretty short Middle Ages, so like a lot of others I just trade for them whenever they become avaulable. Grocers are usful for health and revenue, but mainly later in the game.

Well, unless I misremember the tree, you need Guilds (and hence Feudalism) to get Banking, so ...


Of course, I just meant that I typically leave grocers until after I tech the lower side of the tech-tree, after Lib, and on my way to rifles. If I tech guilds->banking at some point then there is little reason to postpone banks while building crappy grocers. The benefit is usually pretty marginal in most cities at this stage (excepting maybe capital and/or shrine city).
I agree that both can often be traded for without serious consequences, especially since the AI always prioritizes the lower side of the tech-tree. I guess it just depends on what I plan on taking from Lib and what (if any) bulbs I plan to use to get there. For example, unlocking engineering with machinery means that a Liberalism bulb is impossible (the GS will try to bulb PP). If I am trying to grab steel, though, it may be necessary to self-research engineering while waiting for GSs for Edu.
As for using Feudalism and Vassalage as part of an offensive strategy I will have to take UncleJJ's word for it, though it seems like a very situational strat (maybe with SB and his UU). In general, I hesitate to advise anyone to go for medieval wars with some kind of LB-heavy Stack of Disappointment.