What da heck are we gonna do first in da Middle Ages

What Government will see the new age dawn

  • Feudalism

    Votes: 4 40.0%

  • Republic

    Votes: 4 40.0%

  • abstain

    Votes: 2 20.0%
  • Total voters
    10
fe3333au

fe3333au

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We have reached the Middle Ages :woohoo:

Our anarchy is lifted in 2 turns ... approx 2-3 days [party]

BUT :eek:

Government choice ... Discuss first and Vote later
> Republic vs. Feudalism

What direction Research Priorities ... Discuss
>Neutralise Great Library curse ?!
>Gunpowder Plot ?!
>Deadend Chivalry ?!

:twitch: too many choices ... But we need a strategy in 2ish Days :crazyeyes:
 
I hope that we can come up with a scenario where we enter a relationship with TNT where we share the research and that as a priority, one team speeds to neutralise the Great Library effect.

Government type ... I will wait until discussion has occured
 
It seems to me we already had this government discussion a number of times. However, if we're going to do it all over again, let's hear the pros/cons of each.

As far as research, I definitely am against going after Chivalry. I don't think we want to waste our tech lead on a dead end. Fe needs to work out a deal with TNT to trade techs, and one of us needs to go towards education, the other gunpowder. That said, if a deal cannot be worked out, I think it's more beneficial to go after gunpowder since the situation with KISS is seeming to erode ever further.

Bottom line: we need to make sure we stay ahead of KISS with military technologies. In the long run, what good are books if the building you read them in is blasted with cannons?
 
Poll or no poll, the decision is our Domestic Minister's to make, but I'm sure he will take the votes into account...

I'm still leaning toward Feudalism although it is not as obvious as it was a few turns ago (back when I thought KISS had a commanding military lead). I think the strategy we follow in Feudalism is straightforward - hoplites, hoplites, hoplites. Assuming roughly equal production, we can build 2 hoplites for every GS KISS builds. If it comes to war, we pillage like madmen, cutting off at least their 2 jungle luxuries.

I agree with gbno1fan that Chivalry is not the way to go (unless of course we pick Republic, in which case I think we need knights to keep our unit costs under control), but I don't think TNT is a short-term research buddy since they are taking a Monarchy detour, and I am not as concerned about the Great Library. I think Engineering, Invention, Gunpowder is our best research path.
 
I still think the Republic is the best way because it is the most flexible option. If we are to war, then we can and if we are to be peaceful, then we can. I will say this again for the benefir of the Pro Feudalism group, we will be wasting our traits if we do not go for Republic. Being in a Republic will mean that we can become a real commercial powerhouse by being able to get fast research and more money which will mean more troops since we will be albe to afford the cost that comes with more troops. Also it will benefit our research capabilities since we will have a greater capacity for research. We will be losing one gold for every square that has a road, by a river and any sea or coastal sqaure. I believe that we should not be wasting these opportunities for fast research and greater accumulation of gold.
 
Thanks for setting up the poll Fe. :salute:
We have had this debate several times, but this situation is evolving, and we had a false-start on our vote last time.

I was starting to question my faith in Feudalism after we found out how weak KISS was – but after reading that latest chat with KISS, I'm back solidly in the Feudalism camp.

I respect Classical Hero's position – but the simple fact is, Republic will cost us FAR more in gold and science if we have a standing military of any size. In an ideal situation, Republic plays more to our Greek strengths of Science and Commerce, but in our current "almost-at-war" status… Feudalism will be the strongest science and commerce pick.

If peace and goodwill break out all over, then Republic would be better… but after reading that last KISS chat, I'm more pessimistic than ever about the odds of that happening. The same jealously that drove KISS to abandon our treaty is now reaching a fever pitch in the KISS ranks. They seem hell-bent on foolishly destroying themselves out of jealousy for our wonderful Greek empire.
Now, maybe after losing some towns and getting slapped around in the jungle, they'll feel different.
And there's the rub - if we go for Republic, and hamstring ourselves in the short term, just hoping against hope that peace will come – meanwhile KISS goes for Monarchy as they have indicated, then they will close the technological gap on us – and we've essentially lost our best leverage to make peace happen.

Summary: If we plan for peace, we'll most likely get a war we can't win. If we plan for war, we have a good chance to have a very successful war. Therefore – we must plan for war.

And that's why I'll probably vote for Feudalism.
(But I'm waiting to hear any counter arguments)


Final Notes: I also am opposed to Chivalry (unless we get a strong consensus going on Republic) The military path is more appealing – given our dire need to win this war decisively. If KISS sees musketmen show up in our border cities while they're still working on Engineering – that may be enough to start the peace negotiations right then. And lastly – the Great Library is just beyond our control right now – we'll have to deal with that when/if we come to it.
 
Regarding wasting our traits with Feudalism –

Scientific is unclear. It once again comes down to which actually produces more money for our situation. With Feudalism, we will unquestionably have the science slider set at a higher percentage, but that definitely does not mean we will have more money going to science because of the Republic gold advantage. It is uncertain which will have the edge – it is about how many units we maintain again. I do think that with Republic we will need marketplaces as well as libraries, while in Feudalism, we can probably just build the cheap libraries and forgo marketplaces.

For Commercial, the reduced corruption actually has a greater relative impact in Feudalism than Republic. This is certainly not a point in favor of Feudalism – commercial has a greater relative impact only because the corruption is greater, but it can hardly be called wasting our trait.

However, commercial also gives extra gold in cities (I believe it is +2 gold in a size 7 city beyond the normal bonus for size 7 – please correct if I am wrong). In Republic, we will be forced to have cities – in Feudalism, we will be able to afford cities? I think so – even if we let all our river towns grow to size 7, and just didn’t build aqueducts in our non-river towns, I think we would have a hard time reaching our Feudalism unit support limit. Right now I count 7 river towns, and 14 non-river towns. After growth (which will take a while) and assuming no new towns built, we could still support 84 units in Feudalism. Again, Feudalism backwards unit support will not prevent us from having size 7 cities.
 
Feudalism, for the reasons laid out in the Grand Strategy, Domestic, Next Few Turns, and KISS threads.

For anyone still on the fence, I refer you to General_W's concise explanation above: No matter what happens, we'll have an easier time in Feudalism. It is Feudalism that is actually the more flexible of the two Government choices.

Feudalism.
 
Feudalism
Corruption ... Problematic
War Weariness ... Low
Military Police Limit ... 3
Unit support ... 5 in Town, 2 in City
Unit Support ... 3gp per unit

Republic
Corruption ... Nuisance
War Weariness ... Low
Military Police Limit ... 0
Unit support ... 1 in Town, 3 in City
Unit Support ... 2gp per unit

I wonder which would be better in countering War Weariness ... I wonder if that becomes a bigger problem especially if the other team decides to use it against you (although it is against rules ... how can it be policed?)
 
War weariness doesn't seem to have much effect in multiplayer - it seems to take a VERY long time before it kicks in. In any case, war weariness would kick in at the same time in Republic or Feudalism. The MPs help Feudalism manage unhappiness, but the luxury slider has more effect in Republic because of all the extra income. In Republic we will need to attack whereas in Feudalism we will want to try to keep casualties low.

I don't think there is enough of a difference in war weariness to argue conclusively for either.
 
As I see it, the big advantage of Feudalism is that we are 'allowed' to raise a massive military and overwhelm our enemy with sheer numbers. They will not be able to afford to equal our numbers, so they will resort to increasing the quality of thier units; if we maintain a sizeable tech lead then we nullify that strategy.

End game is us winning a war through overwhelming forces coupled with technological superiority... In Republic it will be much more difficult to both maintain the advantage of numbers as well as the advantage of a tech lead.
 
Here are some snippets from the earlier discussions on government type:

chamnix said:
I wouldn't be thrilled with Feudalism either because of the war weariness, but the MPs should ease the happiness problems, and we have the advantage of much greater unit support. If we can keep units alive, then we will either have a more powerful military than KISS or we will grind their economy into the ground just by unit support. KISS will have to keep coming to us, and hopefully we can attack on favorable terms. It's not great, but at least we have a plan of how to win.

Monarchy's big advantage is no war weariness. It also has better unit support than Republic. If KISS does raze a couple towns, we can just keep fighting as long as we have to in order to get them back. It may take a while to get their war weariness up, but we can use a mix of drowning them in their units and causing war weariness. Again, we have something to hang our hats on as a way of winning the war.

If you are right about no war weariness in multiplayer, then Feudalism becomes a lot more appealing...
Click to expand...

General_W said:
However, as we stand now – Republic will probably just choke us. We need to be devoting so much to hoplites, and swordsmen – we need a standing army that can deal with a “hammer” offensive. While we’ll need to spread our defenses thin across the whole jungle border, when the probable KISS attack comes, it’ll come in one giant stack of 15+ Gallic Swords, a couple Spearmen, and probably a nice number of catapults. It’s the most common human strategy. (and common because it’s effective!) None of out border cities have a prayer of stopping this. Our only hope is that our hoplites will bloody them enough that they loose a couple Gallic Swords. Then they’ll march to the next city, leaving that one lightly defended. Our goal defensively is to bleed them faster than they can re-supply. Since Gallic Swords have 2 moves, KISS will be able to resupply at a frightening speed… making the number of units we need to produce every turn even higher. (obviously, the more units we start with, the sooner we can stop their SOD Hammer, and push them back) As the get deeper into our territory, things get better also – we get better mobility due to our roads, and closer to our more productive cities as they get further away.

But here’s the problem (And the point I’m getting at) Once we get this huge standing army of units, Attacking is a LOT more attractive than defending! We take the battle to their cities – their infrastructure is at risk, and we set the rules of war. Even if we’re attacked first, we should try to take at least a small force to counter-attack them asap.
So once we get this massive army – if KISS suddenly gets all peaceful… we should probably just attack them ourselves! Otherwise we waste this awesome killing force we’ve invested countless shields in.
This is why it’s so sad that KISS is abandoning this treaty – it guarantees war. If they won’t attack us – we really SHOULD attack them! And since war appears guaranteed, a warmonger government is much better… Monarchy.
We don’t have the luxury of switching as the conditions change like KISS does – so we MUST recognize that unless something dramatic happens, war is coming on our land and we should prepare for it.

Ok, that was a VERY long way of saying that I think we need to go for Monarchy.
But hopefully I laid out some clear reasons why.
Click to expand...
*I assume he would change the word Monarchy to Feudalism in the last line :)
 
Peter Grimes said:
End game is us winning a war through overwhelming forces coupled with technological superiority... In Republic it will be much more difficult to both maintain the advantage of numbers as well as the advantage of a tech lead.
Click to expand...
Well said! :clap:



Chamnix said:
Scientific is unclear. It once again comes down to which actually produces more money for our situation. With Feudalism, we will unquestionably have the science slider set at a higher percentage, but that definitely does not mean we will have more money going to science because of the Republic gold advantage.
Click to expand...
In the broadest sense, I'm sure you're correct. However – it's worth pointing out, that even with the +1 gold advantage, Republic just can't kick out the same number of beakers and still keep our economy afloat.

When I get home from work today, I can produce some examples if people want to see them – but just from looking back at the what I've already posted…

To keep the economy cruising at around +15 gold per turn….
Republic only yields 22 beakers per turn. (20% science)
Feudalism would produce 43 beakers per turn (50% science)​

So yes – Republic gives us more beakers per % invested… but that hardly matters, because we can't afford to put a large enough % towards science under Republic. And all those numbers I just quoted are from BEFORE we started a massive unit buildup. As we build units, Republic just gets worse and uglier, while Feudalism stays the same.

We can have our war, or we can have our Republic. But we cannot have both.
(and I think we really don't have a choice on the war… therefore no real choice on Republic)

P.S. Please understand that I'd rather have peace. But KISS is not going to let that happen.
 
I'm still not convinced that KISS even wants a war. If they've been trying to freak us out, they are clearly succeeding. I'm pro repulic, because wont cant aford another anarchy to get out of Feudalism after our warring. We may be hurt short term from Republic, but the long term benefits of republic are definately worthwhile. Personallly, I've always thought of Feudalism as a government where you build a lot of defensive unit for MP. I cant see how in the long term Feudalism will beat Republic.

I also believe that Chivalry should be the first tech we research in the MA. Knights are virtually MA tanks, and if we build KT, we also get some juicy Crusaders.
 
I see this stage in the game as establishing a conflict of governments. KISS has the ability to switch effortlessly between optimal governing types as the situation changes. They have a 5 speed transmission.

We only have a two speed transmission. We have to guess, in the next two turns, if the road ahead will be mostly downhill, mostly up a steep hill, or something inbetween. I don't think it takes much to see that the "something inbetween" is the safest thing to plan for... It spreads the risk around.

If we go into a Republic, and wind up in a protracted conflict with KISS, we will face the very real possibility of losing our Jungle Luxury towns. If we lose those luxuries, we're going to have serious economic problems. That's a huge risk. But that risk can be mitigated by improving our chances of not losing the towns. In Feudalism, if we lose the towns, it will never be due to lack of units. But in Republic, we'll have to be incredibly frugal with each unit we choose to build.

That's a scary proposition against a civ that can switch to Monarchy on a whim.

As for KISS not wanting a war - Azzaman may be right. They really might not want war. But they have not acted in a manner consistent with strivign for Peace. I'm not willing to risk being unprepared and finding ourselves in a war that we weren't thinking was an option for our enemy. KISS may not want war, but by forgoing our tight peace arrangement, they have guaranteed the inevitable buildup of military forces on our frontier. We will be placing units there, as they are doing right now.

If there are units facing eachother, they will eventually fight. Unless we can convince KISS to get back into a KISSMIA style peace (which I'm all for!), we are forced to leave a sizeable military presence in the jungle. That military presence will beget a corresponding presence on KISS' side, and the snowball will just keep getting bigger.

Feudalsim is the only government type that can manage continued growth through the Middle Age tech tree as well as a meaningful military presence in the jungle.
 
If we go Feudalism and they don't start a war, it would then be in our best interest to start the war...
 
I vote for a war economy to crush all those meager to oppose us BWRAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! :spear: :sniper: :ar15:

I just got civ 3 conquests recently and haven't tryed the main game and tryed out feudalism or republic in the new one so... I am not sure which is best

Also the war between TNT & Donuts... which is winning and who is in favor of us if the winning one likes us we may be able to beat kiss? Maby we could go to war with Kiss and beat them early off and prepare for a gloryious future of war with the other continent. (Yep, I have been doing a lot on WWII so im in an extream war mood :lol: )
 
Hey – I got home and crunched some numbers – and I’m a little surprised at what I found… but I’m not sure it really changes anything.

Controlling for an economy of about +25 gold per turn…
Republic = 44 beakers per turn
Feudalism = 49 or 55 beakers per turn (depending on if it's +27 or +21 economy) – either way, not as much extra as expected!​

If you add a forbidden palace – it gets even more pronounced…

Controlling for an economy of about +37 with a FP….
Republic = 51 beakers per turn
Feudalism = 52 beakers per turn​

And controlling for an economy of about +15 with a FP…
Republic = 73 bpt
Feudalism = 72 bpt​


Now, of course, this doesn’t take into account all the extra units we’ll be building. So I’m not sure this really changes a whole lot… but Republic (especially with a Foreign Palace) isn’t nearly as devastating as I thought.
(In all those examples, unit costs = 46gpt under Republic and 0gpt under Feudalism)

Does this change anyone’s minds? I’m starting to waver in my fervency for Feudalism.
 
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