I want to throw an idea out there: would it make sense to try to get Feudalism from the Oracle? We are heading down monarchy anyway, and we could attempt to 1-turn the Oracle (if still available) when monarchy finishes. What do you think?
Otherwise, is the plan to get cities 4 and 5 by the fish and flood plains asap?
Vassalage is highly underrated. The free unit support can be almost as much economy as Bureaucracy. If we're taking Hed Rule at the same time, it's a free second civic change. And unit XP is always nice and longbows are a decent war deterrent.
But the biggest point of the Oracle might be simply the 1000-beaker gain and denial of it to any opponents. I like the Oracle-Feudalism plan if it works out.
(October 16th, 2012, 11:33)Shoot the Moon Wrote: What does feudalism actually give us though? I see no real appeal of that tech.
Krill swears by Feudalism, but our capital looks well setup for Bureaucracy.
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(October 16th, 2012, 11:33)Shoot the Moon Wrote: What does feudalism actually give us though? I see no real appeal of that tech.
To me, longbows means we can just keep building economically with little military worry.
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I don't see much value in Feudalism either. We're more than capable of defending ourselves with needing to tech to longbows. Vassalage is not worth a revolt; maybe if we were Spiritual, but we clearly want Bureaucracy for our capital. If Oracle is still sitting there in 20 turns, I'd say it might be worth a shot to try and take Metal Casting, but certainly not for Feudalism. Save thoses forests for Hanging Gardens or Mausoleum (which we can both likely land).
It's not that we cannot defend ourselves, but Feudalism will make people not even think about attacking. Then, as T-Hawk also said, the advantages are: sheer amount of beakers for a tech that we will eventually want, denial, and Vassalage, revolt together with HR (note that there is good synergy between Vass and HR). I do admit that we would also want to revolt to OR. This being said, I think that with us getting poly, nobody else having budhism, we have a good chance of getting the Oracle if we want it. Even if not for Feudalism, MC or even CoL would be worth it.
I would like to hear more opinions about this, and depending on that we can have a vote...
Oracle itself is fine. I simply think that we should slingshot something more useful. Metal Casting and early forges (combined with early Organized Religion civic) would be stupidly good. Wouldn't we want to Oracle Metal Casting tech instead? I think we'd get far, far more value there compared to Feudalism.
Didn't we have some kind of analysis somewhere suggesting that forges are more useful than any other city improvement other than granaries?
Feudalism would not be very good here. Our next planned civic swap is to HR and OR, so if we added Vassalage it would take an extra turn. Furthermore we will want Bureaucracy ASAP.