Feudalism or Engineering?

[JBossch]

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.

 

[Black Mech]

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.

 

[CivCorpse]

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.

 

[MrCynical]

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.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

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.

 

[JBossch]

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.

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.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

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 . 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 .

 

[Artichoker]

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.

 

[UncleJJ]

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.

 

[Kerran]

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.

 

[MikeH]

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.

 

[JBossch]

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.