Conquests: Advice on New Game

Playing on Conquests in Diety level in huge map, with maximum land. Current government is Feudalism. I'd like you to tell me your advice, on how I should proceed?

Victory conditions: Score, Space Right, Conquests.

My strategy thus far has been to prevent the Spanish from getting on my island, and that is why there are so many coastal cities. However all of those workers have just finished building those roads to wind all the way around my cities, and that is why they are north near the border with Spain. However all of my opponents are very advanced in moving troops through the ocean and can land troops in front of cities very quickly if they are not distracted by wars on the mainland.

I've actually survived by creating alliances with the major powers against countries I was never even near enough to attack (Egypt, Korea). In my testing, Japan generally goes to war with everyone else.

How would I physically penetrate the mainland? If I take Russia by land, I will have Carthage on one side and Spain on the other. But taking Carthage first would mean I have to build a lot of ships to carry the troops, or get a Right of Passage agreement with Russia (one of the few agreements I haven't broke yet in the game). Or I could get a Right of Passage agreement to attack the Carthaginian towns on my island, and the ones on the mainland, although that would take many turns and by the time I would get to the mainland, their technology and units would be too advanced even for the trebuchet.

If my strategy is war: So then the question is, regarding the Trebuchet, should my best cities start producing them big time, and send them over to the city named Calix., which has two barricades setup to slow any land invasion? So that any Russian cavalry advancing would be beset by Trebuchet bombardment? With the end goal being not to capture land on the Russia continent, but to capture the Russian cities on my continent (and the Spanish city, which has a mutual defence treaty with Russia, and will declare war on me once I declare war on Russia). There is one more tradeable luxury resource on my continent and it is controlled by the Russians.

If my strategy is peace: then of course, use my workers in the south near my main cities to build roads, mines, irrigation, use my cities for city improvements like the library etc. As my strategy has been to prevent the Spanish from expanding on to my land, and as they have a settler trying to penetrate my land in the north near the border between my cities and their city, should I continue building Pikeman to replace the workers whose current job it is to physically block the settler from getting on to my land, and then build three more settlers to fill out the available space still left on my territory, near the 3 different resource squares still available? There is a gold square near North Wheat City, a sugar square also near that city, and tobacco near Cempoala. However I am significantly behind in the technology race with the other civilizations, and they would beat in me the space race. So really the question is, attack now and then attack when I have tanks or something, or not attack now and attack when I have tanks or something?

I was just wondering if anyone can reply by playing this game?

Hey I took a quick look:

Build a few more core cities. Civ is a game of taking advantage of the land around you, and the most valuable land is around the capital. So every tile there should be improved with a road, irrigation/mine and worked by a city.

So start to build a city north west of Tenochtitlan, just under the cow.

Build another one south of Tenoctitlan, one tile west of the small hill there. (south, south, southwest of Tenochtitlan).
Improve every tile!

Fill up the land around the tabacco north east of Tenochtitlan (other side of the mountain ridge).
For the rest you're pretty good. Another spot for a city is south east of Huecotla, one tile southwest of the sugar there.

The reason why you're behind, is because you're not profiting optimally of the land around you.

Do that, and you might catch up in science and production. WHILE going to war if you'd please.

I couldn't locate Calix, but I'd attack anything north of your country, or see how the Russians are doing and attack them and involve other Civs to soften them up.

As for your question; yes, produce more military. It make your people happy (cheap units in the cities) because you lack luxuries.




One question; how did you end up with Asyut?!

Sorry for delay in replying, Theov. I am attaching the file from 1275 AD. I followed your advice and developed the cities as well as distributing more settlers. I wasn't able to successfully go to war with any of my neighbours because in all of the scenarios I played, my neighbours would crush me.

I am in an interesting time now because in a few turns, I will discover Metallurgy. Portugal will request peace with me, in which time I will offer 150 coins per turn for their important technologies, such as the one to create The Cavalry (forgot which one). In the scenario that I played saltpeter would be placed next one of my cities with a road already on it. As well, I would trade with Russia for horses (at a high cost).

After I discover Cavalry, my goal is to create as many as I can, first by forcing production in my northern corrupt cities, and building them gradually in my main cities, which I have shrunken to Town-size of 6, given the added unit costs in feudalism. The goal would be to invade the civilization that the Portuguese will make an alliance with against me, because that is usually what the Portuguese will do with either the Spanish, Russians or Carthaginians. So far I've been trying to avoid that alliance by giving away Asyut to the Spanish, who are the strongest civilization, and by being as friendly as I can be with the other civilizations.

In the scenarios that I've played, I have been able to capture the Spanish town on my homeland, but the Carthaginians formed a coalition against me and managed to capture towns. So it won't work to go to war with both of them. Also, it appears that Russia may get bullied around by the Spanish at some point, and then the Carthaginians and Portuguese, so I don't know if it will be to my advange to take their cities in their time of weakness as I want to prevent the other main civilizations from getting even bigger and more powerful than they already are.

So my plan is to build 20 cavalry and then attack the Carthaginian or Spanish cities, whichever declares war on me first. Then eventually the Russians should be weakened anyways and eventually I will be able to grab the other cities. There is one one other resource on my island, a luxury resource.

Since my technological development is far behind the strongest civilizations, and since my research for each technology takes about 10 turns, I conceive that I will be at war with the Portuguese until the point in which they will send their own cavalry through the Spanish mainland (if they turn out to be their allies) and attack my cities by land. The Portuguese are usually eager to negotiate, so I would finally end the war for good once that point is reached. The reason why I want war is that every few turns, when the Portuguese want to negotiate, I am able to extract various technologies with my bogus "100 coins per turn" pledge, only to declare war right afterwards. This appears to be the only way I can try to catch up to the technological disadvantage.

Questions for everybody: How soon should I go to war with the northern cities, meaning, should I create 5-7 cavalry and attack, or wait to create musketman to prevent my cities from falling to the opponents? Which civilizations should I attack and in which order? I was thinking of putting a city in the space just beneath my capital, where there are two hills and at least one forest that no city can reach, where else should I put a city? Most importantly, in this scenario, can any of you win?

DamImLookinGood said:

After I discover Cavalry, my goal is to create as many as I can, first by forcing production in my northern corrupt cities, and building them gradually in my main cities, which I have shrunken to Town-size of 6, given the added unit costs in feudalism.

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I did not have the patience to open the savegame, but this sound like a major mistake. Having ~20 productive core Cities ASAP is of decisive nature. Feudalism is a really poor government unless there are some very very rare circumstances. Republic is way better than Feudalism. Monarchie is good, too. Republic is the stronger government, but under dire circumstances Monarchie is less vulnerable too high military maintenance and war weariness.

DamImLookinGood said:

The reason why I want war is that every few turns, when the Portuguese want to negotiate, I am able to extract various technologies with my bogus "100 coins per turn" pledge, only to declare war right afterwards. This appears to be the only way I can try to catch up to the technological disadvantage.

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This procedure of breaking threaties results in major diplomatic mali:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=44999
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=113376

Indeed, I did a double-take when I saw your government was feudalism and yet you were playing on Deity. You must be a much better player than I am!

Theov, to answer your question, I got Asyut while negotiating for peace with the Egyptians, who were desperate. Even in conquests, the AI will offer cities for peace, if it is in a desperate enough situation (and there are other factors that we don't know... the Koreans would not even exchange a small city for Iron or any amount of coins, shortly before their downfall). However all Asyut did was build Pikeman, and since I wanted the Portuguese to declare war on me (as I wanted to obtain technologies when they offer peace to me a few turns later, in exchange for 100 coins a turn), I made sure those Pikeman kept on going on Portuguese territory.

justanick, the saved game that I posted on January 23rd contains more cities in the core, although perhaps you or someone can advise for where the next cities should be.

Lexicus and justanick,, on the question of Feudalism vs. Republic/Monarchy, there are some advantages of feudalism in my game:
1. I have about 25 cities spread out over a huge space, so only a few will grow over 6... and when they do grow I tend to kill off everybody by forcing production. I only have 5 or 6 cities that will grow to 7 and only one or so that will grow to 8 in feudalism. As neither monarchy nor republic will produce more food for the cities, my cities will be the same size in monarchy and republic.
2. As the unit support is quite low in both of these governments for towns, I will end up paying a lot of money for my units. Right now I pay nothing. I plan to make even more smaller cities to raise the unit support, as I plan on building 20 or 30 cavalry and if I am over the limit, then I pay 3 coins for each. So I need 4 or 5 more cities (assuming I don't build defenders for it, but if I build defenders, then that is an extra 1 or 2 cities I will need to build).

The only other advantage of Republic/Monarchy is the added coin per tile, correct? In order to determine whether Republic/Monarchy would be financially beneficial to me, I firstly need to calculate how much units costs I would be paying in Republic/Monarchy, and subtract them from the +1 for every tile I would be getting. What do you think?

The only thing I am forgetting is the reduced corruption, and the added financial gains of having higher populations in Republic/Monarch (as I don't need to keep the population at 6 because of the concern with unit costs). But the problem with this is that in order to support the higher populations, I will need to build city improvements like temples, when all I really want to do when I get cavalry is to build a lot of cavalry. I also want to stop scientific production, pay to upgrade all of my pikemen so that I can use them to invade and to defend my border cities, and depend on continuous war with other civilizations to sign treaties for technology and then break them. Since the AI civilizations have such a tech lead, do I have any other choice?

I just experimented with switched to Republican government. I had 144 in unit costs!!! Wow. While I did have reduced corruption and an increase of one coin per tile, that is nothing in comparison to the unit costs - my civ was losing 100 coins a turn with Republic government. Republican government is only suited to a civilization that ALREADY has large cities to support many units.

Given that the unit support is 3 under republic for cities between 6-12, and I have about 118 units, I would need to have 35 cities over 6 to ensure I pay no unit costs!

If we do the math, then I have 20 cities under 6 (according to my mapfile, keep in mind I went through some wars during the anarchy time that reduced my city size), and 2 cities over 6. So the total unit support I would be getting is 20 x 1 = 20, and 2 x 3 = 6, so total 26 units. So if you subtract 118 units that from the 26 that Republic can support, I am left with 92 coins that I need to pay a turn. Whereas with feudalism I would support 5 x 20 = 100, and 2 x 2 = 4, so 104 units supported in feudalism in total.

In order to pay the 92 additional coins in Republican and be equivalent to feudalism, I would need 92 tiles that have one additional coin, correct? Only I have 75 total squares.

As well, keep in mind that to take advantage of Republic's +1 gold per square, you have to choose to utilize a square that produces money and not that is more for production. So you would benefit less from it with a plains that is mined that you would an ocean square, for instance. So Republic's advantage favours money generation, and I guess the reduced corruption helps production.

DamImLookinGood said:

Theov, to answer your question, I got Asyut while negotiating for peace with the Egyptians, who were desperate. Even in conquests, the AI will offer cities for peace, if it is in a desperate enough situation (and there are other factors that we don't know... the Koreans would not even exchange a small city for Iron or any amount of coins, shortly before their downfall). However all Asyut did was build Pikeman, and since I wanted the Portuguese to declare war on me (as I wanted to obtain technologies when they offer peace to me a few turns later, in exchange for 100 coins a turn), I made sure those Pikeman kept on going on Portuguese territory.

justanick, the saved game that I posted on January 23rd contains more cities in the core, although perhaps you or someone can advise for where the next cities should be.

Lexicus and justanick,, on the question of Feudalism vs. Republic/Monarchy, there are some advantages of feudalism in my game:
1. I have about 25 cities spread out over a huge space, so only a few will grow over 6... and when they do grow I tend to kill off everybody by forcing production. I only have 5 or 6 cities that will grow to 7 and only one or so that will grow to 8 in feudalism. As neither monarchy nor republic will produce more food for the cities, my cities will be the same size in monarchy and republic.
2. As the unit support is quite low in both of these governments for towns, I will end up paying a lot of money for my units. Right now I pay nothing. I plan to make even more smaller cities to raise the unit support, as I plan on building 20 or 30 cavalry and if I am over the limit, then I pay 3 coins for each. So I need 4 or 5 more cities (assuming I don't build defenders for it, but if I build defenders, then that is an extra 1 or 2 cities I will need to build).

The only other advantage of Republic/Monarchy is the added coin per tile, correct? In order to determine whether Republic/Monarchy would be financially beneficial to me, I firstly need to calculate how much units costs I would be paying in Republic/Monarchy, and subtract them from the +1 for every tile I would be getting. What do you think?

The only thing I am forgetting is the reduced corruption, and the added financial gains of having higher populations in Republic/Monarch (as I don't need to keep the population at 6 because of the concern with unit costs). But the problem with this is that in order to support the higher populations, I will need to build city improvements like temples, when all I really want to do when I get cavalry is to build a lot of cavalry. I also want to stop scientific production, pay to upgrade all of my pikemen so that I can use them to invade and to defend my border cities, and depend on continuous war with other civilizations to sign treaties for technology and then break them. Since the AI civilizations have such a tech lead, do I have any other choice?

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If you have smaller cities, they use less land. 1 population works 1 piece of land. So right now, a lot of land goes to waste, as you're not working it.

See the ground around you capital as the most valuable, as it has the fewest corruption. So if you have a small capital, and the next city is far away, all that land in between goes to waste.

I advised in my first response where you can add cities.
1: Build a city north west of Tenochtitlan, just under the cow.

2: Build another one south of Tenochtitlan, one tile west of the small hill there. (south, south, southwest of Tenochtitlan).

DamImLookinGood said:

justanick, the saved game that I posted on January 23rd contains more cities in the core, although perhaps you or someone can advise for where the next cities should be.

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I opened the savegame and quite frankly i was shocked by the mess i had to see. One blunder is more severe than the other. It is 1275 AD an you donnot have a single city. Proper strategy includes spamming population and workers to have Cities of size 12 that use 12 properly improved tiles as soon as possible. Aqueducts are probably the most important building in Civ3 and due to being agricultural you even get a 50% discount. You should have some cities by 250 BC, but now it is 1500 years later and you have none. This is insane. I advise to abandon this game and start a new one with a proper economic strategy.

DamImLookinGood said:

1. I have about 25 cities spread out over a huge space, so only a few will grow over 6... and when they do grow I tend to kill off everybody by forcing production. I only have 5 or 6 cities that will grow to 7 and only one or so that will grow to 8 in feudalism. As neither monarchy nor republic will produce more food for the cities, my cities will be the same size in monarchy and republic.

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If you had properly utilized workers you could have more than 20 cities of size 12 within the given land. Irrigate tiles to get cities up to size 12 as soon as possible and then rework irrigations into mines to max out production instead. Obviosly there are plenty variants to get a proper mix of production and growth. I simplyfied in order to convey the main idea. As workers can be expensive a more balanced approach can easily be the better choice. Also having enough production for aqueducts is important.

DamImLookinGood said:

The only other advantage of Republic/Monarchy is the added coin per tile, correct?

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Wrong. The the main advantage of Republik and Democracy over Monarchy and Feudalism is the extra commerce. The governments have many other differences, too.

DamImLookinGood said:

But the problem with this is that in order to support the higher populations, I will need to build city improvements like temples,

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Donnot build any temples before building factories and railroads. Temples are usually no efficient measure to keep the population content. Increasing luxury rate is more efficient. Temples give you one content face for a maintenance of 1 gtp. Luxury rate gives you one happy face for the same amount of money.

DamImLookinGood said:

I just experimented with switched to Republican government. I had 144 in unit costs!!! Wow

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Disband your 41 outdated units and you save 82 gtp. Did i mention that i think your military is a mess? When playing feudalism myself i also had a huge amounts of obsolete units for the purpose of military police. But as a republic you have no need for that.

DamImLookinGood said:

While I did have reduced corruption and an increase of one coin per tile, that is nothing in comparison to the unit costs - my civ was losing 100 coins a turn with Republic government. Republican government is only suited to a civilization that ALREADY has large cities to support many units.

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This is very wrong again. In a way feudalism can educate you to play wrong and that is what makes it so dangerous. Mimimizing unneeded military is important and so is building up cities. As a republik you get about 2.5 commerz per tile, so building markets and libraries to maximize that further becomes much more attractive. A very common strategy is to leave Despotism as early as possible in order to switch into republic and most likely stay a republic till the game is won.

DamImLookinGood said:

Given that the unit support is 3 under republic for cities between 6-12, and I have about 118 units, I would need to have 35 cities over 6 to ensure I pay no unit costs!

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If you have a proper amount of units it is a common thing to (slightly) exceed the amount of free units. Cities add so great amounts of production and commerz to your disposal that unit support easily becomes a minor issue. There can be one exception: Feudalism. Avoid it at all costs. There are some rares exceptions where feudalism can be useful but those circumstances are so rare that you are best to ignore feudalism for now.

DamImLookinGood said:

In order to pay the 92 additional coins in Republican and be equivalent to feudalism, I would need 92 tiles that have one additional coin, correct? Only I have 75 total squares.

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If you had 20 size 12 cities working 12+1 tiles each you get about 660 base commerce and a much greater amounts if you get a 50% bonus from marketplace and library.

DamImLookinGood said:

As well, keep in mind that to take advantage of Republic's +1 gold per square, you have to choose to utilize a square that produces money and not that is more for production. So you would benefit less from it with a plains that is mined that you would an ocean square, for instance. So Republic's advantage favours money generation, and I guess the reduced corruption helps production.

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Wrong again. With the exception of vulcanos without a river nearby all tiles have a base commerce of 1 or more when roads are built. Sea tiles obviosly need no roads.

Theov, did you see the second mapfile I uploaded here? Justanick, according to the Civilization help file, some advanced players have used Feudalism with success on the higher difficulty levels. Regarding unused map spaces, the idea is that you create many many settlers and cities that all pop rush.

As for disbanding them military, I notice that I need 3 troops in every city to keep them happy. But in republican, a small city gets on 2 trips without a charge.

DamImLookinGood said:

Theov, did you see the second mapfile I uploaded here? Justanick, according to the Civilization help file, some advanced players have used Feudalism with success on the higher difficulty levels. Regarding unused map spaces, the idea is that you create many many settlers and cities that all pop rush.

As for disbanding them military, I notice that I need 3 troops in every city to keep them happy. But in republican, a small city gets on 2 trips without a charge.

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This is where I meant.

Your cities are small, so they are not using the tiles. Fill up any space with new cities then.

Working the tiles around you with population is the number one thing in civ you need to do. You're letting many tiles go to waste now.

For the rest, see this as a learning game. Next time, Monarchy or Republic are far superior governments. Feudalism (and Fascism) are niche govs used for very specific situations.

DamImLookinGood said:

Justanick, according to the Civilization help file, some advanced players have used Feudalism with success on the higher difficulty levels.

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That is probably true, but chances are that they could have done (much) better if using republic or monarchy instead. At Sid and higher Monarchy is somewhat useful because it has no war weariness. Feudalism would really suck than because you suffer from war weariness and 3 gtp per unit.

DamImLookinGood said:

Regarding unused map spaces, the idea is that you create many many settlers and cities that all pop rush.

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And this idea is seriosly flawed. After having 20 to 40 cities you might use the space even more distant to the capital with those poprush factories. But having the 20 to 40 size 12 cities in the core is much more important. If not discussing communism the rank corruption is proportional or even more than proportional to the amount of cities closer to the capital. So the fewer cities you have within a given amount of space, the lower will be the average corruption there. Corruption wise cities of size 20 or more are perfect. Given that using 20 tiles in every city is only possible if leaving some tiles unused i advise to slightly lower amounts of tiles usable per city, say 16 on average. Leaving any tile unused is a sin. Further one needs to consider the costs of buildings. Having few big cities reduces the relative costs of barracks, libraries, factories etc.. Having many small towns however makes building them in the first place so ineffecient, that you are destined to stay an underveloped country. Such nations are swept from the map for good reason. Your goal is the opposite to that. Your goal is to build up an empire of great metropolises that can dominate the world.

DamImLookinGood said:

As for disbanding them military, I notice that I need 3 troops in every city to keep them happy. But in republican, a small city gets on 2 trips without a charge.

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Use the luxury slider. If a size 12 city produces 33 base commerce before corruption and 26 after corruption you would need 40% luxury rate to produce 11 happy faces and still produce 30 Gold per turn with a bank in the city. Also it is possible to import luxuries. That is usually cheaper than luxury rate. Also you can utilize the way superior production of great cizies to expand your empire so you do no longer need to import them. Big cities make even war worthwhile.

Theov, you are quite right about the city placement, that I should place those two there. What priority will it have, once I get the technology for metalurgy next turn and am able to extract Military Tradition shortly thereafter, and need to consider pop rushing cavalary to take over my local land mass?

Justanick, I appreciate how the norm has been for players to succeed with Republican government, but to what do you attribute the various places where it says very good players have used feudalism in the extra challenging levels like sid and diety?

According to the Civfanatics' governments file, feudalism is "for countries that are behind at the start of a game and want to expand through war, " and that was precisely the position I was within in diety level. My goal was to secure the borders, get culture for my borders, and establish my own borders around my landmass, and I did that... I have space to build another 30 or 40 cities in my borders if I wish, should I do this or is now the time to pop rush cavalry and take over my local landmass?

Also justanick, note that under despotism in diety, I didn't develop Republic government in time for when the revolution ended. In fact I still don't have Republic.

According to theoden, feudalism is worth it "if you've got a lot of small towns but a huge military and you are still conquering to expand your territory. ".
Also according to Grond, feudalism is good for a "Agricultural civ with good terrain", and my civilization (Aztec) is an agricultural civ. For these quotes see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145998

Also according to Peepers, "I just find that people dismiss feudalism too readily. Sometimes, on emperor and above, it's all you've got to escape despotism." For this quote see: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=114078

Another question, note that for Aztecs, despotism is their favourite government, and monarchy is their shunned government, so how does feudalism rate?

Given the attached file, and the opportunities for expansion, do you think it is right switching to the Republic only once my Cavalry expansion has been entirely rebuked by greater defensive units than musketmen, and I thus cannot succeed without greatly expanding my science base? Or should I just bank on continuing a perpetual war on my distant neighbours that are too far to attack me, everytime making peace and obtaining technologies, and declaring war right away?

Here's the latest file. I converted everyone into a scientist so that I can obtain metalurgy quickest, then get peace with the Portuguese in exchange for Military Tradition, then I can build cavalry. Would you invade from here or create more settlers on the land, or revolution to Republic? You can find the file here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=542492

DamImLookinGood said:

Theov, you are quite right about the city placement, that I should place those two there. What priority will it have, once I get the technology for metalurgy next turn and am able to extract Military Tradition shortly thereafter, and need to consider pop rushing cavalary to take over my local land mass?

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you should make them right now.

Another question, note that for Aztecs, despotism is their favourite government, and monarchy is their shunned government, so how does feudalism rate?

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this is for AI players; it means that an Aztec AI will prefer despotism, and will stay away from monarchy. They will pick another gov if it suits them though.

This has no influence if you play as them.

DamImLookinGood said:

Justanick, I appreciate how the norm has been for players to succeed with Republican government, but to what do you attribute the various places where it says very good players have used feudalism in the extra challenging levels like sid and diety?

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Unless you give me a very concrete example i have to speculate on this. Also it seems not very fair to make me prove why i am wrong.

The most probable assumption is that those player are in error and donnot sufficiently understand how C3C 1.22 works. If someone think i am wrong on this please prove me wrong.

Another explaination is that strong players have already mastered to play in a regular fashion and hoped for a challange or simply try out something new.

There also are some rare circumstances such as achieving cultural victory or dominations victory ASAP. Then poprushing temples for cheap culture can come in handy.

I tried feudalism once in PBEM192 at civforum.de. I got lucky twice. Playing russia i found a settler in a hut early and i got a SGL early, too. Effectively starting with twice the amount of settlers and rushing the pyramids i got an immense advantage at early expansion via settlers. Soon i could have researched republic if i wanted, but being scientific rushing for the medival age had its merits, too. Feudalism was within reach and not researching republic myself i robbed my enemies of the option to profit from discounted research on the very important republic. Keeping enemies in Despotism has some value. The main advantage of republic over feudalism and monarchy is the much higher research. But having lots of cities a properly timed Golden Age allowed me to rush through the medieval age in 4 turns per tech as if i was a republic. So the advantages of republic melted down to little. Also feudalism allowed me to handle a huge army of workers required to met the needs of fast growing cities. The corrupt towns made this possible and later on military police by masses of 3/3 warrior saved me considerable amounts of luxury rate. Properly played feudalism can offer research outputs considerably larger than at monarchy. As the industrial age approached i still had to pay no salaries for the still expanding military. Maintaining a big but not huge army in feudalism is easy and this helps to deter enemies from attacking. That way i could maximize the civil build up of my cities. But support limit was in reach so leaving feudalism was of huge importantance. I had to switch to communism before even researching steam engines for highly valueable railroads. Had i been a republic i would have gone for railroads, replaceable Parts, ToE and Hoover first, before switching to the all superior communism. In the end it worked out fine for me. Still i wonder whether simply going to republic could have saved me lots of trouble and given me a better civil build and a better totaled research.

Anyway, not having a single city while your enemies have metropolises and way superior research and production is not what feudalism was meant for.

DamImLookinGood said:

According to the Civfanatics' governments file, feudalism is "for countries that are behind at the start of a game and want to expand through war, " and that was precisely the position I was within in diety level.

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Well, feudalism is superior if you played wrong in the first place.

Usually republic is available much earlier than feudalism. Delaying leaving despotism is almost always an error. If for some reason you get feudalism first and you start with a big army for military police or conquest, than feudalism is likely the better choice in the short run. But it comes at high costs in the long run. The proper way is to aim directly at republic. You should also do this to get the basics right first. Mastering the very basic concepts of C3C first should be your first step on the learning curve.

DamImLookinGood said:

I have space to build another 30 or 40 cities in my borders if I wish, should I do this or is now the time to pop rush cavalry and take over my local landmass?

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Unless corruption exceeds levels of ~70% poprushing is usually a great mistake. The population destroyed and the dissent created donnot justify the small gain of 20 shields. In most cases not poprushing gives you more than 20 shields in slightly less than 20 turns. Once you reach the industrial age with its economic advancements thing get even more favourable for not using poprushes.

DamImLookinGood said:

According to theoden, feudalism is worth it "if you've got a lot of small towns but a huge military and you are still conquering to expand your territory. ".

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So feudalism is good when you play bad. Great. Admittedly sometimes choice are limited and switching to feudalism is clearly superior to staying in despotism. For early warmongering and puprushing feudalisms has its merits. But this comes at a huge price i am not eager to pay. Killing the population deteriorates diplomatic relations and thus increases the price for military alliances and importing goods and trading with techs gets less beneficial aswell. To cut it short, republic is way superior if you can secure a meaningful minimum of peace so your civilisation can prosper.

DamImLookinGood said:

Also according to Grond, feudalism is good for a "Agricultural civ with good terrain", and my civilization (Aztec) is an agricultural civ. For these quotes see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145998

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And i think he is very wrong with this. He would be right to state that having enough foods is required for poprusing. But poprushing is way too expensive unless curroptions is very high.

On a sidenote i think that goldrushing is too expensive on many occasions, too. Partial rushing of aqueducts and courtshouses can be meaning strategy. Also rushing some non-wonders so cities can start earlier a producing wonders can be reasonable. But those are all exceptions from the rule and building wonders if often less beneficial than using the shields to build up military and take wonders by force.

DamImLookinGood said:

Also according to Peepers, "I just find that people dismiss feudalism too readily. Sometimes, on emperor and above, it's all you've got to escape despotism." For this quote see: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=114078

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So again feudalism is only good when you play bad. Great.

DamImLookinGood said:

Another question, note that for Aztecs, despotism is their favourite government, and monarchy is their shunned government, so how does feudalism rate?

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Those prefences are only relevant for diplomatic relations with AI. So it is only relevant if not playing the Aztecs and having them as a neighbor or so. Having spefically them as neighbars is somewhat unpleasent, though.

Theov said:

this is for AI players; it means that an Aztec AI will prefer despotism, and will stay away from monarchy. They will pick another gov if it suits them though.

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So in essense they ignore it when choosing their government. It really is only relevant for diplomatic relations. If you both are despots you are best buddies. This might be offset by their UU, though.

justanick said:

Unless you give me a very concrete example i have to speculate on this. Also it seems not very fair to make me prove why i am wrong.

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for the sake of everyone's pleasure here, dial it down a notch on the confrontation level.

DamImLookinGood is just saying he read that Feudalism can be a useful gov, and he went for it with this game. You might have done it differently, but that's not the point here.

So maybe, instead of saying a playing style is 'wrong' or 'bad', just advice on how to improve ones game.

From most of the posts that I read in here, you're just telling how 'bad', 'wrong' and 'flawed' someone played, without much advice going forward. Really, how helpful is that?

Sure criticism is a big part of this board (it's encouraged! ) , but try to pair it with advice going forward.

Theov said:

From most of the posts that I read in here, you're just telling how 'bad', 'wrong' and 'flawed' someone played, without much advice going forward. Really, how helpful is that?

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Avoiding the bigger mistakes is required to improve the gameplay, isn't it? I name what i consider a mistake and explain why it has such serios downsides. Also i gave advise how to do things better.

Theov said:

Sure criticism is a big part of this board (it's encouraged! ) , but try to pair it with advice going forward.

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But that is exactly what i did, didn't i?

Theov said:

for the sake of everyone's pleasure here, dial it down a notch on the confrontation level.

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I understand that my style to critique things can be harsh, but (usually) it is justified. Here it may also appear so harsh, because there is reason for it. DamImLookinGood asked for my opinion on the savegame and on the usefullness of feudalism. In both cases i gave him an honest opinion.