Questions on a Feudalism Game

On a whim, I've decided I'm going to play a game with my government as feudalism from the start of the middle ages on. Skip republic, skip monarchy, and go straight for Feudalism as my first tech.

I still haven't figured out what type of civilization I'm going to play, unfortunately. I'm thinking that agricultural will be useless since Feudalism is only beneficial when you're under 7 pop, and that industrious and commercial are both severely weakened since they lost the extra shield/commerce benefit. A militaristic society seems like a must, as I imagine I'll have to use my army to force techs out of my republic and democratic neighbors. Though I'm still stuck...What would you guys suggest?

Also, for a world I'm thinking of a cold, dry, 3 billion year-old pangea planet so there wouldn't be too many high-pop cities anyways.

So be so kind as to give me your suggestions for civilization, planet, and strategies I should use on this little game of mine!

Interesting!

Strategy:

I find Feudalism works best as a springboard to Communism, i.e. build lots and lots of really crowded towns, Borg-style (ICS) and try to only research the required techs, then Nationalism-Communism-WHAM.

There's no harm in letting your inner core grow to larger sizes, as long as you keep your empire big and outer, corrupted towns small by chucking out Settlers and Workers from them and pop-rush-building Culture buildings (temples, libraries). They'll be corrupted silly anyway. And watch out for the max free unit upkeep, each new town means +5 units supported but each unit above max is 3 gpt.

War should be short and decisive, since Feudalism suffers from War Weariness.


Planet:

Like you said: Cold, Dry and 3 Billion. Larger maps with fewer civs is good too, since you'll be able to expand over a large area for a long period of time.


Civs:

Militaristic: Better for Monarchy. Feudalism has WW. But, an ok trait.

Agricultural: Not if you'll be playing with a lot of tundra. Otherwise it's pretty ok as its primary effect is in the Ancient Age, long before Feudalism anyway. Although, cheaper Aqueducts is pretty worthless for those little Feudal townships...

Industrious: Works better for empires with Large cities. Not bad, but not optimal, Workers will be spammed by periphery cities anyway, to keep population down.

Commercial: Like Industrious, it works best for empires with Large cities and the effect on Rank corruption is pretty meek in Communism anyway (and that's where you're headed right? )

Religious: A very good trait, since we'll be switching govs at least twice (Desp-Feud-Comm). We can also pop-rush cheaper Temples everywhere for culture.

Scientific: Very good as well, since it tend to give strategically free techs (Feudalism --> Nationalism) and cheaper libraries which can be rush-built everywhere for culture.

Expansionist/Seafaring: I'd say either of these traits (but not both) is a must-have. Seafaring gives Commerce bonus in all coastal city, even the small ones, and you start with Alphabet, and - most importantly! - earlier contact. Expansionist also gives you earlier contact, and potentially free techs and Settlers.


So, my top choices would probably be:

Russians
Arabs
Byzantines
Spanish
Babylonians
Germans (That Panzer is great for late-game catch-ups)

...or somesuch. Normally not first-tier choices, but arguably pretty good for this kind of game.

Good luck! And keep us updated!

Thanks for some of the tips..In the back of my mind I was thinking that this game would be a continual war, but that was because I had forgotten about the WW. D'oh!

And about the communist thing..See, that would be too easy. I prefer to use communism as my government of choice in the industrial and modern ages, as it is very good for war mongering. I want to see if I can rush to feudalism and then stay there for the game and win it out.

I am doing tight city production, and man is it nasty. My capitol has no overlap, and my four closest cities have very little. I intend to let them get to metropolises eventually, while everything else stays rural hick-ville.

Right now the tight city pattern is a huge bonus because with 2 or 3 shields I can produce most of my units in 8 turns or less, and I have twice as many cities as anyone else so I can out produce them now and in the middle ages. But once I hit the industrial and modern age I think I'll be hit hard by those production times. Any idea on how to avoid that?

Aegis Shield said:

Thanks for some of the tips..In the back of my mind I was thinking that this game would be a continual war, but that was because I had forgotten about the WW. D'oh!

And about the communist thing..See, that would be too easy. I prefer to use communism as my government of choice in the industrial and modern ages, as it is very good for war mongering. I want to see if I can rush to feudalism and then stay there for the game and win it out.

I am doing tight city production, and man is it nasty. My capitol has no overlap, and my four closest cities have very little. I intend to let them get to metropolises eventually, while everything else stays rural hick-ville.

Right now the tight city pattern is a huge bonus because with 2 or 3 shields I can produce most of my units in 8 turns or less, and I have twice as many cities as anyone else so I can out produce them now and in the middle ages. But once I hit the industrial and modern age I think I'll be hit hard by those production times. Any idea on how to avoid that?

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Once you get Nationalism, you could start letting your hick-villes grow to size 7-8 and use Draft to get them down to size 6 again. That way, you get some extra military units without having to use production.

You could go for a 100k Cultural win as Babylon. Pop-rush temples, then libraries, then cathedrals, then universitites, in all those small towns, and just wait it out.

I think you could play a fairly ok warmongering game with Feudalism as well, especially if you build the Universal Suffrage at some point. Just keep the wars short (>20 turns) and decisive, which calls for fast strike-squads and plenty of bombardment support, and try to provoke AI's to declare war on you instead of the other way around. The unit support shouldn't be a problem...

Meh, I'm not overly concerned about war weariness. The small towns aren't generally affected quickly, and feudalism also is the only war weariness Civilization to have military police(3) so that should also help a ton.

Aegis Shield said:

Meh, I'm not overly concerned about war weariness. The small towns aren't generally affected quickly, and feudalism also is the only war weariness Civilization to have military police(3) so that should also help a ton.

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Yeah, but Feudalism is also the only government with war weariness that does not have the trade bonus. I know that when I'm a republic, I take care of war weariness by upping luxury spending. This doesn't work as well in feudalism, and you've got less money in general to throw around. I've tried feudalism, and war weariness is a major pain.

Alright, so war weariness is slightly worse than I thought, but still not a huge problem. The research rate of feudalism blows once you hit the middle ages, even with ICS, so I have acceptable money with 0% research. I can go for 25 or so turns before people start to protest. Then, since I'm at 0% research anyways, I can put the luxury slider to about 50% and I'm set for at least fifteen more turns, probably a lot more(My opponent died before more protesters appeared.)

I imagine that once I get universal suffrage the war weariness will appear so long after war breaks out that I'll be close to finishing the war anyways. But unfortunately, I'll probably have to conquer the wonder from one of my neighbors, hrm.

Aegis Shield said:

Alright, so war weariness is slightly worse than I thought, but still not a huge problem. The research rate of feudalism blows once you hit the middle ages, even with ICS, so I have acceptable money with 0% research. I can go for 25 or so turns before people start to protest. Then, since I'm at 0% research anyways, I can put the luxury slider to about 50% and I'm set for at least fifteen more turns, probably a lot more(My opponent died before more protesters appeared.)

I imagine that once I get universal suffrage the war weariness will appear so long after war breaks out that I'll be close to finishing the war anyways. But unfortunately, I'll probably have to conquer the wonder from one of my neighbors, hrm.

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Yes, this is I learned to beat demigod (on huge panagea), Science = 0 , lux= 0-100%, cities enough to support most of Your military -- don't forget to build marketplaces in your core and never buy a tech unless you urgently need it. WW is not an issue, just remember move up the slider every now and then.
I prefer early middle ages UU civs, this gives You the GA boost rigth after govt switch. I often do not buy the education intentionally so that I get the benefits of the great library and jump straight to the industrial age.

PS. Never mind the universal sufferage -- by that time the game is about to end anyway.

INdia would make a great civ.In my opinion