Feudalism?

[Glitch Master]

Whats the point of feudalism?

 

[civverguy]

Feudalism is pretty much useless but you might want to use it on larger maps for cultural victory.

 

[gmaharriet]

Here's a link to a fairly lengthy discussion on Feudalism. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232090

The original poster of the thread was considering modifying how Feudalism works, but the discussion following goes into many of the pros and cons of the way it works and when to use. it.

 

[Hasdrubal Barca]

From Single Player Tips on CFC:

Feudalism – This is the communism of the middle ages. There’s no communal corruption, but corruption is minimal, and unit support is higher for small towns. This is a warmonger government, but is balanced by the fact that there is war wariness. Like despotism, the method of rushing is by forced labor (pop-rushing). Switch to this one if you’re planning a lot of short wars.

 

[gmaharriet]

This is a warmonger government, but is balanced by the fact that there is war wariness. Like despotism, the method of rushing is by forced labor (pop-rushing). Switch to this one if you’re planning a lot of short wars.

Only sorta. This government is for 100k cultural games, and the short wars are for the purpose of gaining enough territory to build more small towns in which to build temples, libs, cathedrals, unis and colosseums.

You probably don't want to use pop-rushing in your larger core cities, because they build your military and you don't want the unhappiness from whipping in those cities. The pop-rushing (including pop-/short-rushing) is to hurry your cultural buildings. The happiness cultural buildings help with managing the whipping unhappiness.

If you're interested, I can give you a link to a Succession Game, 100k culture using the Mongols, where this was used to great effect.

Edit: Here's the link. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=154563

 

[Hasdrubal Barca]

I knida agree with you gmaharriet, feudilism is made for cultural, but if you build on infinite city sprawl on your outer circle you will get over 250 unit free support cost, it will also be an effective government for an early warmonger dont you think? Intead of using your workers for rushing temples/unis/cath and go for cultural vic, just rush Knights and go for conquest/domination victory, you will be able to crush up to 3 neighbours in 20-30 turns and then just switch to republic/demo/comunism/fascism.

 

[Aabraxan]

The unit support supplied by feudalism probably can make it a good early warmonger's government. I tinkered with it not long ago and was astounded by the unit support that I had with a relatively small empire. Here's the catch, though. The additional unit support only does you some good if you are at the unit support limit. And if you're over it, extra units cost 3 gpt in Feudalism, IIRC. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

So if you're talking about 50 size 6 towns, to use your example and make the math easy, a Feudal empire supports 250 free units. Assuming that all citizens are working roaded tiles, a Republic of the same size only supports 50 for free. But, the Republic commerce bonus brings in an additional 300 gpt, ignoring corruption, riversides and bonuses. (Or is it 350 gpt because of city squares? I don't recall right now.) So the unit support in a Republic, for the same 250 units is 400 gpt [(250-50)*2]. That makes Republic look expensive but consider two factors. First, Republic has no MPs, so I can send the entire 250 into the field if necessary. In Feudalism, I'm probably going to have to leave some at home to control unruly citizens. If we count 1 MP per city under Feudalism, the size of the military that I can actually put in the field is larger under Republic. Second, I can disband obsolete units and reduce my unit support costs. If I disband units under Feudalism, I get the shields, but no gold. So Feudalism loses something in terms of "treasury flexibility." Finally, if I want towns to grow over size 6, my unit support actually drops in Feudalism. If we add just 1 citizen to each of our hypothetical 50 towns, unit support in Feudalism drops from 250 to 100. That 250-unit army now costs 450 gpt, because we're 150 units over the limit. In Republic, unit support goes from 50 to 150, and unit support drops from 400 gpt to 200 gpt.

As I said, feudalism probably can be a good early warmonger's government, particularly if you pair it with the right traits on the right map. Any agricultural civ going for conquest on a small pangea could be just devastating under Feudalism, especially if they've got favorable terrain and lots of food. On a larger map, though, the unit support of Feudalism gets outrun by the commerce bonus of Republic.

As to switching governments a second time, that's probably fine if you're a religious civ. But at 50 cities, as in the example, I don't really want to face a second anarchy.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Well I'm sure I said it all before in gma's first link, but I'll leap to the defense of Feudalism once again, just because it seems to have no friends but me.

Simply, Feudalism is a great government for military VCs, i.e. domination, conquest and 100k. And for scientific VCs, it is marginally inferior to Monarchy, but then Republic is the obvious choice for these VCs anyway.
Now, if you can slingshot to Republic, or even to Monarchy, then you probably should, and unless you are REL it won't be worth throwing your empire up in the air a second time just to switch to Feudalism. But sometimes you don't get that slingshot, and if the tech pace is trotting along nicely, you could easily find the tech Feudalism in the game before or at around the same time as Republic and Monarchy. That's when you choose Feudalism.
The reason it is powerful is because it has good production. Who's counting unit support? Or beakers? This is a military VC remember, so the only question about commerce is: do I research as far as Feudalism for maces, Chivalry for knights, or Mil Trad for cavs? That kind of research can easily be done under Feudalism. As for unit support...

If we add just 1 citizen to each of our hypothetical 50 towns, unit support in Feudalism drops from 250 to 100.

yeah but why would you do that? The general shape of a medieval empire in C3C is a core of ~10 cities, surrounded by 10-20 native towns which are marginally productive, and then an ever-expanding stretch of captured land which is totally corrupt. That holds true whether you are in Republic or Feudalism. But in Republic you try to get the outliers up to size 7 (and probably no larger) for the extra unit support. In Feudalism you make sure that they stay under size 7, also because of the unit support. And it just so happens that the act of building stuff in these towns is what keeps their population down. How neat is that?
As for the happiness, don't sweat it. Sure you can keep your old despotic axes hanging around for MP, but just like any other government, you shouldn't waste proper units on MP. Capture luxuries. Get other people to dow you. Use specialists. And remember: keep the towns down in size. You may think whipping causes unhappiness, but bear in mind that it also gets rid of some of those unhappy citizens.
They say about spiders that their solution to every problem is to use silk. Well Feudalism is a bit similar: the solution to all of Feudalism's problems is to use the whip. I really believe that people who think this is a weak government just don't have the stomach to use the whip all over the place, every turn. It takes a ruthless streak a mile wide, and a lot of micro to make the most of it. But when you stand alone at the end of the game, with the seas stained red with the blood of your countrymen and enemies alike, then it was worth it.

 

[Aabraxan]

yeah but why would you do that?

I wasn't advocating it, just illustrating what happens. . .

Well I'm sure I said it all before in gma's first link, but I'll leap to the defense of Feudalism once again, just because it seems to have no friends but me. . . . Simply, Feudalism is a great government for military VCs, . . .

They say about spiders that their solution to every problem is to use silk. Well Feudalism is a bit similar: the solution to all of Feudalism's problems is to use the whip. I really believe that people who think this is a weak government just don't have the stomach to use the whip all over the place, every turn. It takes a ruthless streak a mile wide, and a lot of micro to make the most of it. But when you stand alone at the end of the game, with the seas stained red with the blood of your countrymen and enemies alike, then it was worth it.

As I mentioned in my last post, I tinkered with it recently and was amazed by the size of the army I could field. (As an interesting side-note, in one case, I was actually able to whip the last foreigner out of a captured town.) Frankly, I intend to experiment some more with Feudalism. But I have a question about the production. If all your towns are kept < size 6, you're only going to be able to whip so many items. Growth and the "1/2 of the population rule" will limit that. What happens when you start trying to build larger items like bombers and Mech Infantry?

And an interesting comparison with spiders, to be sure.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Erm, what's the "1/2 of the population rule"? Oh wait I know, you can't whip more than 1/2 of the citizens away at once. Well you can get around that rule with short-rushing. E.g. if you have 1 shield in the box, 6 citizens, and you want to whip up a cav (costs 4 citizens, 4 > 6/2) then first you set the build to a mace (costs 2 citizens, 2 <= 6/2), whip away. Then you switch to cav and whip the other two citizens (2 <= (6-2)/2).
But in fact the only large things you should be whipping are culture buildings in a 100k game. You won't whip bombers and mechs because you stopped research in the early / mid medieval. In fact, mostly you would want to whip horses and upgrade them to knights or cavs.
Now it's been a couple of games since I used Feudalism myself (although there's a high-level COTM due soon, so I might unpack my whip then) but I seem to recall there was a subtle shift in the way the whip is used as the game progresses. At first, you want to optimise the abuse of you citizens, because their unhappiness is a problem, and because food is not so abundant. So you might use the whip once per horse, and the other 10 shields take 10 turns. Later in the game, you more sources of happiness, and your land is fully irrigated, so population growth is very fast, and even after some whipping, everyone is still deliriously happy (especially in 100k games where you are building temples and cathedrals). Now you switch to using the whip to maximising your population growth! Sounds illogical? The point is that any citizen who cannot work a +2fpt tile is actually slowing down the growth of his town. So whip him away, even if you only get a few shields for doing so. Of course, it takes actually a bit more thought than that; maybe if you delay that whip a turn or to you can get 20 shields for it. Or maybe that whip will push the unhappiness up so that you need a specialist in the town, and of course that specialist isn't making +2fpt... It isn't a precise science, but after some practice you get a feel for when to whip and when to be lenient.

 

[eldar]

This sounds silly but... I don't think I really appreciated the power of the whip in Civ3 'til I played Civ4 and its 'Slavery' civic.

 

[Bardak]

Sometimes I got so many units that I can't afford republic: I should disband too much! In such a situation I prefer Feudalism.

 

[anaxagoras]

I hope it isn't considered hijacking the thread, but would someone outline the reasons for using Feudalism vs. using Communism for the 100k victory?

Both governments use pop-rushing. Feudalism gives 5 units/town, but fewer for bigger settlements; Communism gets 6 regardless of size. Per-unit cost over the support limit in Communism is cheaper and the MP limit is higher. Draft rates are the same. Empire-wide corruption is similar, but slightly worse in Feudalism - until the Secret Police HQ is built, at which point Communism is considerably better. Having distributed production allows the option of from-scratch building at the outskirts of the empire, instead of only whipping. The combo of from-scratch building and whipping can produce a scary amount of military in a very short time, even in later eras. Yes, the core is no longer a core - but you don't really need a core for a 100k victory.

Yet, with all these apparent advantages, Communism is always listed as an "also-ran" government, even for the 100k victory. Why? Are people just uncomfortable with it, or is there some serious disadvantage I am over-looking?

 

[Othniel]

Yet, with all these apparent advantages, Communism is always listed as an "also-ran" government, even for the 100k victory. Why? Are people just uncomfortable with it, or is there some serious disadvantage I am over-looking?

Feudalism comes over an Age earlier. That's huge.

Really, Feudal is great for 100K because it's the earliest whipping government that doesn't have the tile penalties of Despotism.

 

[eldar]

Feudalism comes before Education. Therefore the Temple of Artemis is still in effect.

 

[anaxagoras]

Feudalism comes over an Age earlier. That's huge.

Yes, and I should have mentioned that in my first post. But assuming you are religious (and that's often the case when pursuing a 100k victory), it seems to me that Communism is worth 1 turn of anarchy. Granted, if you are non-religious, there'd be no point to switching a second time (and you obviously can't remain a despot until the industrial era), but for religious civs, the switch should more than pay for itself. Yet, nobody ever contemplates it.

 

[Othniel]

Yes, and I should have mentioned that in my first post. But assuming you are religious (and that's often the case when pursuing a 100k victory), it seems to me that Communism is worth 1 turn of anarchy. Granted, if you are non-religious, there'd be no point to switching a second time (and you obviously can't remain a despot until the industrial era), but for religious civs, the switch should more than pay for itself. Yet, nobody ever contemplates it.

I think people do contemplate it. The deal is, by the time Communism comes around most of your culture should have already been built. Often times, if you're religious the best thing is to later on switch to Republic to generate enough cash flow to pay off the large maintenance expense from all those culture buildings.

If you still have mass whipping to do, probably Communism would be an excellent choice. It just seems like the later scenario is more rare, which might be why Communism is rarely mentioned.

 

[anaxagoras]

If you still have mass whipping to do, probably Communism would be an excellent choice. It just seems like the later scenario is more rare, which might be why Communism is rarely mentioned.

Fair enough. I'll have to try this sometime to see for myself how this works. I can't remember the last time I tried for 100k, and my play has improved since then. As you say, maybe I'd be mostly done by the time I could be a commie.

 

[MAS]

Sometimes I got so many units that I can't afford republic: I should disband too much! In such a situation I prefer Feudalism.

I build a lot of units to conquer, my conquest then pays for my unit support.

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

Unless you have lots of non-growing cities or a lot of settlers queued up, feudalism is USELESS. Its massive unit support is absolutely stupid, it can't even fall in with despot governments because it has war weariness. In short, it is a pathetic hybrid of Despotic governments and of Democratic ones.