Military Policies
Feudal Contract
Made obsolete by:
- Grande Armée
Required Civics:
- Feudalism
+50% Production toward Ancient, Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance era melee, anti-cavalry, and ranged units.
For commoners not serfs nor indentured servants, villeins – not to be confused with “villains,” although that may be mere terminology – were the vassals enjoying a feudal contract with a manor lord. They were legally free but subject to the lord’s authority.
Under the feudal contract, the lord had the duty to provide a fief for his villein, to protect him, and to provide justice in the king’s court for him. In return, the lord demanded fealty and the right to services attached to the contract (military, labor, taxes, and such). To violate the oath of fealty was a felony, like a breach of contract but with stiffer penalties.
Retainers
+1 Amenity for cities with a garrisoned unit.
Made obsolete by:
- Propaganda
Required Civics:
- Civil Service
In the counterfeit feudalism that prevailed in the late Middle Ages, a society organized along lines of personal service being a “retainer” was the best method to obtain favor in the form of offices, land grants, gifts, and honors from those higher up the nobility chain. In return, the gentry helped fight their lord’s wars or put down rebellions.
Not only did the gentry have to fight for the king themselves, but they were required to supply an agreed upon number of lesser nobles and knights as well. These personal retainers were known collectively as the “affinity” of the lord, akin to the celebrity “posses” of today… but more reliable.
Sack
Yields gained from pillaging are doubled for pillaging districts.
Made obsolete by:
- Total War
Required Civics:
- Mercenaries
Since most soldiers weren’t (and aren’t) well-paid, looting was the primary source of income… for those lucky enough to survive the battles, plagues, and punishments. Unlike pillaging the countryside, the chance to sack a built-up place offered much more than mere sustenance.
During the Middle Ages, a lord’s encouragement to sack a town, city, or district was the main way to insure loyalty and further willingness to fight. Even the gentry joined in the fun, often claiming the most priceless pieces and best folk to hold for ransom. The bigger and richer the city, the more to go around; thus, some places like Rome were sack-prone (410, 455,546, 1084, and 1527 AD).
Professional Army
50% discount on all unit upgrades.
Required Civics:
- Mercenaries
In the early medieval period, serfs and villeins formed the bulk of the armies; barely trained and ill-equipped, other than sheer numbers, they were pretty useless in battle. The idea of a state-maintained “professional” army had faded – as so much else did – with the Roman Empire (although China still had one).
But as various nations coalesced out of the ruins, kings began to supplement their mobs drawn from feudal lords with paid professionals. These soldiers were usually housed in barracks and segregated from the civilian population to minimize friction, and the king provided their food, weapons, clothes, and training. They were (almost) always more effective than the amateurs.
Chivalry
+50% Production toward Industrial era and earlier heavy and light cavalry units.
Made obsolete by:
- Lightning Warfare
Required Civics:
- Divine Right
Before it was reshaped by Christianity, our romantic notions of chivalry were introduced to Europe by the Moors of Iberia through their tales of knightly adventure for the sake of glory and love; once ‘The One Thousand and One Nights’ was translated into French in the 12th Century, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle.
More often idealized than practiced, Charlemagne’s chevalerie (“horse soldiery”) believed chivalry to include a code of conduct that elevated loyalty, honor, forbearance, hardihood and largess above all other knightly qualities (like trampling the godless). All those things that nutcase Don Quixote was raving about.
Economic Civics
Naval Infrastructure
+100% Harbor district adjacency bonuses.
Made obsolete by:
- Economic Union
Required Civics:
- Naval Tradition
If a civilization was going to have a naval and merchant fleet, it needed a lot of other things – docks, slips, wharves, warehouses, breakwaters, lighthouses, not to mention all those stevedores, shipwrights, harbor pilots, and others – to float ships and keep them afloat.
Without this naval infrastructure, navies don’t last long. In the Middle Ages, for the first time, some kingdoms devoted substantial planning and funds to their naval facilities.
For instance, the threat of Ottoman expansion brought the Venetian Republic to establish extensive shipyards (including the famous Arsenal), while the Fatimid Caliphate and Byzantine Empire needed efficient naval infrastructures to keep killing each other for two centuries.
Serfdom
Newly trained Builders gain 2 extra build actions.
Made obsolete by:
- Public Works
Required Civics:
- Feudalism
Although forms of land bondage had been present in civilization before (such as the Roman colonate system), medieval serfdom really began with the collapse of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th century AD.
In the period following, local lords needed a ready supply of agricultural labor for their manors, and the peasants needed protection against just about everybody… so the practice of serfdom spontaneously arose in various places across Europe.
By the 12th and 13th centuries, serfdom had acquired a strict legal status, for serfs were not slaves and did have rights (however minimal). With the rise of powerful monarchs and central governments, serfdom became less useful, and by 1400 true serfdom was rare… except in Russia.
Meritocracy
Each city receives +1 Culture for each specialty district it constructs.
Required Civics:
- Civil Service
Plato, among others, advocated meritocracy as the most sensible form of public administration… in his case that rulers should be philosopher-kings whose right to rule came from their intellect and insight.
Simply put, a meritocracy is a system in which the most talented and worthy gain advancement in the government bureaucracy, rather than, say, those who are close personal friends of the current ruler (or congressman), or those from a certain tribe or caste or religion.
Most civilizations swing back and forth between some form of meritocracy and some less sensible method of choosing those who run things. This pattern repeats itself until the sun explodes and all life is wiped off of the face of the planet.
Trade Confederation
+1 Culture and +1 Science from international Trade Routes.
Made obsolete by:
- Market Economy
Required Civics:
- Mercenaries
As international trade recovered after the collapse of the Roman Empire, some traders found it was better to pool their resources and establish their own economic infrastructure than go it alone or trust to the government (whatever uncertain form this took).
In short, the merchants of a city or region sought to establish shared trade routes, or establish monopolies in certain commodities, or both. Many of these were foundations for the more formal merchant confederations that could span several cities.
Too, trade confederations tended to be shorter lived, as the death of a merchant or trader family usually ended the ad hoc and loosely organized confederation.
Aesthetics
+100% Theater Square district adjacency bonuses.
Made obsolete by:
- Sports Media
Required Civics:
- Medieval Fairs
Aesthetics, focused on the nature of art and good taste, was a product of early philosophers concerned with the creation and appreciation of beauty (forget that foolishness about “eye of the beholder”). By the late Middle Ages, aesthetics had evolved to the point where it did not encompass the functionality or utility of a thing, but rather only its beauty of form, color, contrast, and other aspects.
Hence, those soaring Gothic cathedrals. Just before the Renaissance got rolling – and all sorts of folks got involved in judging aesthetic appeal – Medieval thinkers were already developing general theories on proportion, perspective, and harmony for all the arts.
Medina Quarter
+2 Housing in all cities with at least 3 specialty districts.
Made obsolete by:
- New Deal
Required Civics:
- Medieval Fairs
All Arab cities with some history left have their medina – an urban residential quarter typically walled, with narrow and maze-like streets, in some places less than a meter (39 inches) wide. To a follower of Islam, the Prophet decreed that a just and ordered city was obligatory, and so the design of medinas reflected communal values, often containing at their heart fountains, mosques, and markets.
Because of their winding, narrow streets, they also served as defense against invaders… and they are also free of auto traffic, and usually of motorbikes, and even bicycles as well.
Craftsmen
100% Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses.
Made obsolete by:
- Five-Year Plan
Required Civics:
- Guilds
The craft guilds of the Middle Ages not only protected craftsmen (and their customers from shoddy work), but insured that there would be ever more craftsmen. An aspiring craftsman would pass through various levels of training and responsibility – from apprentice to journeyman – before being tasked with producing a “masterpiece.”
If that was acceptable, the candidate would be a master craftsman, capable of producing the finest of works in their craft, be that jewelry or carpentry. As new crafts evolved across medieval Europe, new craftsmen swelled the growing cities: cobblers, barbers, brewers, curriers, farriers, apothecaries… a nigh endless list of the middle class.
Town Charters
+100% Commercial Hub district adjacency bonuses.
Made obsolete by:
- Economic Union
Required Civics:
- Guilds
Traditionally, the granting of a town charter gave it and its inhabitants the right to certain privileges in the feudal system. Townspeople were burghers, as opposed to serfs, and “free” in the sense that they were protected by (and owed allegiance only to) the king rather than the local manor lord.
Charters also gave the burghers some semblance of self-government, in that the rich merchants would be allowed to choose a mayor and hold a market or faire under their own auspices… so long as acceptable to the king, of course. As early as the 10th Century AD, German towns were being granted town charters, with their own militia, courts, and taxes… the model for all those after.
Gothic Architecture
+15% Production toward Renaissance, Medieval, Classical, and Ancient wonders.
Made obsolete by:
- Skyscrapers
Requited Civics:
- Divine Right
Distinguished by ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, pointed arches, overlaid tracery… and gargoyles, lots of gargoyles. Gothic architecture dominated construction of monumental European buildings from the mid-12th through the 16th centuries.
Arising from Romanesque styles, it was the architecture of choice for cathedrals, abbeys, castles, palaces, guild halls, and all sorts of buildings meant to impress and awe the commoners. With cavernous interiors and soaring rooftops, these were perfect for the pomp and pageantry kings and bishops so loved.
Sadly, a slew of Gothic revivals spanned the mid-18th through early 20th centuries, largely for stunningly ugly university structures, replete even with gargoyles.
Diplomatic Policies
Merchant Confederation
+1 Gold from each of your Envoys at city-states.
Required Civics:
- Medieval Fairs
More commonly referred to as a commercial league, a merchant confederation was created to protect the economic interests and diplomatic privileges of merchants in cities and kingdoms along trade routes.
Although such confederations rarely had official standing, several – such as the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London (founded in 1407 AD) and the even more powerful Hanseatic League (formed c. 1356) – had enormous influence.
These, and others, could dominate the trade in a specific commodity or across a specific region for lengthy periods. These merchant confederations would reach their peak during the 15th and 16th centuries, but rapidly decline afterward.
Great Person Policies
Navigation
+2 Great Admiral points per turn.
Required Civics:
- Naval Tradition
Early “navigators” plotted their course by the stars; although hardly an exact science, by the European Medieval Age navigation had been elevated to one of the “seven mechanical arts.” This was due in part to a few inventions to help mariners keep from going astray (although they tended not to leave sight of land). Since estimating speed and direction by the seaweed going by was rather inaccurate, the Han Chinese devised the mariner’s compass around 206 BC.
The next great advance came in the Middle Ages when Arabic sailors improved the kamal, used for celestial navigation, into the astrolabe. Once mariners began keeping detailed records, the first nautical charts – portolan charts were drawn… and finding home got more assured.
Travelling Merchants
+2 Great Merchant points per turn.
Made obsolete by
- Laissez-Faire
Required Civics:
- Guilds
Most villages, manors and towns in Medieval Europe were as self-sufficient as possible, so it was the more exotic and expensive luxuries in which a traveling merchant would trade. The Crusades, particularly, introduced the gentry and their vassals (those that survived the fighting) to the finer things… spices, fine woods, incenses, silk, and such.
Even as the conquerors acquired a taste for these, the conquest of Palestine opened the trade routes from far corners of the East, and Italian traders were soon bringing all sorts of goods back. From the Italian and Byzantine ports, these imports were carried by traveling merchants, even to distant England and Scandinavia.
