Philistia is a bugged mess of a tag
Tried to play Philistia and was shocked at how trash and buggy their unique government reform is. It's like a League reform, but worse, since you don't get trade bonuses or buffed army and navy limit modifier; and instead get a worse army maintenance boost, a puny citizen unit bonus, and have to contend with the oligarchy bonuses instead of the superior republican ones.
Your special pentapolis local province buffs don't even work properly. The local autonomy in those provinces is still at 20%.
tbh for anyone interested, you'd be better off letting a democratic revolt pull around, and then switch to the Israeli culture and Jewish, finishing the Philistine mission tree and then switching tag to Israel, losing the Pentapolis government. Nothing of value would be lost.
Honestly I don't get why Philistia's Pentapolis reform doesn't give them a lot more citizen limit modifier, since the biblical account point to them being massively militarized. Otherwise I'd modify the local pentapolii province modifiers to negate the global +20% autonomy limit if you own them all tbh.
Posted May 8, 2026, 3:49 PM UTC