Feudalism-the forgotten government

Ok, I am just getting to a point where I can handle playing against 7 civs on a normal size, Regent level game. I am curious if anyone has ever successfully used Feudalism and under what circumstances. I have never tried it and from what I see in the Civilopedia, it seems to not be worth much, but maybe there are instances when one would use it.

Any thoughts?

I believe that there is a feudal HOF entry, cultural victory thanks to whipping libraries.

I don't use feudalism.

I believe that feudalism has its advantages in huge unit support costs. Because of the high number of units per town you can fight very quick wars with this huge number of units so as not to bring down the war weariness on your head. However, i think people see this war weariness in the middle of the expansionist late Ancient- early middle time frame and don't want to deal with that government even though it has some very good perks.

If you for some reason get feudalism before both republic and monarchy and you're religious then it is worth switching to it for a temporary improvement. Another case is if you've got a lot of small towns but a huge military and you are still conquering to expand your territory. But as soon as your empire gets more developed republic will be a better choice.
Off course, the celtic culture feudalism whipping strategy is an exception and in which case feudalism is the best government thoughout the entire game.

Feudalism would be great if it was available at the very early stages of the game, and had no long anarchy, as of the situation presented, no dice.

Has anyone used it with the Iroquis? Poprushing MW might also keep cities below size 7.

Problem is, it's more of an interim government over the long haul, and with 9 turn anarchy for non-religious civs, you are better off sticking with republic, if you are a builder, until you hit democracy, or staying in Monarchy as long as is feasible if you are a warmonger and expect plenty of wars. The 3 gold per turn for units above the limit doesn't help either. Drop it to 2 or maybe even one, and I think it would be more viable.

I wish there was a way to drop that anarchy down to maybe 4-5 turns max in the editor, then it would be more fun to play with different sorts of governments.

Since Fuedalism (historically) is a somewhat LESS centralized government than a Monarchy, shouldn't a Monarchy be a better (i.e. more powerful) government? Just one example, wouldn't corruption be much higher in a Fuedal government than a Monarchy? Therefore perhaps Fuedalism and Monarchy should change places in the tech tree. Or maybe my history isn't what it should be...

In my opinion the combined troop support for town + city is too low to make it a viable government but I have occasionally found it useful. It has always been the following situation:
1. Fighting too much to be able to handle the anarchy to switch to Monarchy/Republic
2. Agricultural civ with good terrain
3. Fighting stops around the time I get Feudalism and I need to catch up in structures and would rather burn population than pay for them.

For me, I have used feudalism and I personally think it's quite cool There was this one time (monarchy diff, don't remember the civ ) when I was kinda determind to try it out, I knew that my economy couldn't handle Republic (and thus a peaceful option wasn't possible), and because I wasn't really bothered where the game was going. I was playing for the fun of it. Also, I was involved in a lot of wars (closed space, no place to expand) and needed unit support costs to be lower.

So I tried it

Loved it.

Couldn't get enough of it.

I found that I was slaughtering the opposition with huge armies and that I had plenty of money. Techs weren't so good but because I changed at the beginning of the Middle Ages I was still fighting AI units from the previous Age with a numerical advantage and before they got themselves sorted I was a huge civ

I was reluctant to change back into another government coz of many people here saying "too many turns of anarchy are bad" and because I knew my economy wouldn't benefit from the change, but I needed to because otherwise I'd fall behind in tech. It's a difficult transition from Feudal to Republic but I managed it and looking back, I should have just continued the military expansion, but too late for that now

Anyway, that's my little story about Feudalism. Personally, it's fun and in games where you're not bothered about what happens, use it because it'll make the game seem that little bit... better in a way. Can't really explain it really But if you want to beat higher levels and really 'play' the game to win and get a good score, ignore it

LoopyLewis said:

For me, I have used feudalism and I personally think it's quite cool There was this one time (monarchy diff, don't remember the civ ) when I was kinda determind to try it out, I knew that my economy couldn't handle Republic (and thus a peaceful option wasn't possible), and because I wasn't really bothered where the game was going. I was playing for the fun of it. Also, I was involved in a lot of wars (closed space, no place to expand) and needed unit support costs to be lower.

Click to expand...

Ok, how are unit support costs lower? Unless I'm totally missing something, here are the free units support:

Town: Monarcy 2, Feudalism 1
City: 4, 2
Metro: 8, 5

And excess unit cost is 1 GPT in Monarcy vs 3 GPT in Feudalism.

It all looks to me as if it's much more expensive to maintain a large army in Feudalism than in Monarchy.

What am I missing?

I never use feudalism may as well just stick with monachy or republic.

mac224 said:

Ok, how are unit support costs lower? Unless I'm totally missing something, here are the free units support:

Town: Monarcy 2, Feudalism 1
City: 4, 2
Metro: 8, 5

And excess unit cost is 1 GPT in Monarcy vs 3 GPT in Feudalism.

It all looks to me as if it's much more expensive to maintain a large army in Feudalism than in Monarchy.

What am I missing?

Click to expand...

I believe you have your support costs for Feudalism backward. Towns get more, then cities, then metros. I am pretty sure about this. People have said it is a great government to use if you have an empire of all towns with only 1 or 2 cities.

theskibum said:

I believe you have your support costs for Feudalism backward. Towns get more, then cities, then metros. I am pretty sure about this. People have said it is a great government to use if you have an empire of all towns with only 1 or 2 cities.

Click to expand...

Yes mac224, it works when you have lots of towns (pop size 6 or below) - which is what I had because I was always at war and couldn't waste the shields building aquaducts. I think that if you're in a situation where you can't grow upwards - grow outwards and pick feudalism

I sometimes use feudalism if I've got a small nation, and want some quick expansion, but I never stick with it for long.

Feudalism is only marginally better than Despotism so I never bother with it. Yes, you support 5 with Feudalism but Despo supports 4 and there's no penalty for growing to size 7. That's a wash in my book. There's no tile penalty with Feudalism but with size 6 towns, how many mined hills are you really gonna be working? Corruption is a bit better with Feudalism but without libs and markets, you really aren't capitalizing on the difference. And then there's WW which Feudalism suffers from and Despotism does not. I dunno. I just don't see the point.

I have not used Feudalism often, and don't find it much better than Despotism or Monarchy. Maybe further discussion of the matter will enlighten me.

I tried Feudalism once as Japan.
I didn't notice much difference but agree it's mostly transitional.
I think it's better than despotism. I had mostly towns and not very good territory with a couple big neighbors so I tried it to see if it would pay off.
I think I would have been better off with Monarchy overall.

Feudalism is one of those governments that works better in certain situations. In the same way communism works best for large, wide empires, because of it's communal corruption, feudalism works best when you have a small nation and want to expand quickly. It's not a good government for economic expansion, but it's useful for quick military expansion.