Free improvements in Feudalism?

[player1 fanatic]

Actually Regent and below.
AI still gets bonus maintaince at Monarch.


On the other hand same behavious dictates that AI loves Rpublic so much compared to Monarchy.

 

[Pfeffersack]

So you are saying that if you are playing at Regent/Monarch level, that Feudalism could be a balanced government if modified to provide free maintenance??

I wouldn't even say it is unbalancing with free maintenance on higher levels - the only "problem" is the AI, which gets stuck on it.But if the free support from difficulty is the reason behind, it I wouldn't call it a real problem.The AI is still able to maintain a decent military, so it isn't really weakend by staying in feudalism and it doesn't get too strong, because after exceeding the free support it will pay the hefty 3 gold per unit.This makes sence, too - as long as free improvements "pay" for it.It may be odd to have some AIs in modern times in feudalism, but why not...most of the AI civs won't change to feudalism ever and go the normal way.At least that is what I have read on a German Forum - a special "feature" of the German version was it has free maintenace until one of the last patches.
Free maintenance would definitly make feudalism more worth to switch for the human player...I only used it once and while it was good having it, I found it difficult switching over to republic without killing my treasury later(the question is here when to let grow cities beyond 6).

 

[Warwind]

I think Fedualism is good for civ that never stops expanding, that is until you reach communism.

 

[King PJ]

IMO, Fedualism is good for smaller isolated contries. It's not a very good war mongering goverment because of unit costs, and corruption is pretty bad. I have Conquests and I have never seen the AI use Fedualism.

 

[migo]

Trouble with feudalism with free maintenance is that every AI player switches to it and never switch back at least on Monarch level of play. This actually makes game far easier for human players as it seems that AI overproduces units and then is forced to lower its science level to keep up with maintenance costs.

Result is that AI players are backward in tech, with tons of obsolete units. Somewhere at middle ages AI science is so crippled that it almost makes no progress at all compared to thriving human republics.

Out of subject, to fix feudalism I have modified it to communal corruption and 5/3/0 unit support. All other stats remain the same. This way feudalism still stays a lot behind communism (war weariness, much lower upkeep), but gives something new compared to other govts. AI also seems to use it sometimes, depending on situation but still mainly uses in rebublic that is in my opinion most competitive government for AI to use in game at early stages.

-- Migo

 

[player1 fanatic]

Hmm...

I had Aztecs AI use it in my Hotseat demigod game.
And they had both monarchy and republic discovered.

 

[tomart109]

Just chiming in that I Like Feudalism. Notice how similar it is to Monarchy. It fits my style of an ever-increasing number of small (6 or below) towns. Every time they're about to hit 7, they produce a new Worker or Settler, so they keep growing at their maximum speed, and we're aggressively taking over the map. Feudal unit support turns out to be quite generous, and if you do hit the ceiling, either start or capture another couple of towns or pop-rush something you need (turning a city into a town,) or all of the above! You should never have to pay that 3 per unit. I can have both fast growth and large armies - what else do i need? Of course you still have a few bigger cities for Wonders and faster unit builds, but notice how this system gives you lots of worker/settler factories...

The only drawback is that pop-rushing takes steam out of growth. I'd rather spend gold to rush, but oh well. Can't have everything.