Leveraging Vassalage - Tokugawa and Pacifism II (Fractal, Emperor, Normal)

This is the second game in the Leveraging Vassalage, Tokugawa and Pacifism mini-series. In this game we will be exploring the possibilites of this strategy on a Fractal map.

As you recall, the Vassalage/Pacifism strategy involves the use of the Vassalage and Pacifism civics to support both war and economy. They can be used individually, or in combination, depending on the needs and capacity of the economy. The exact timing of the civics changes for Vassalage and Pacifism is not set in stone, and is very likely dependent on the situation at hand.

A cramped map with close neighbors and high level of aggression is likely to lead to an early Feudalism strategy, with the aim of producing highly experienced units and also unlocking the Longbowman early. On the other hand, a more peaceful map with lots of time to develop is likely better served by using Pacifism more to gain an economic edge.

When Vassalage and Pacifism are used in combination, a tradeoff must be made between the enhanced power of newly built military units and the extra cost incurred by Pacifism. This tradeoff is very likely to be encountered during a war. Before an enemy army is defeated, the need for stronger, more numerous military units will be greater. However, after the bulk of the enemy army is defeated, the need is greatly reduced, since a much smaller army will often be adequate to crush the remaining defenders.

The expansion of land and population, whether gained through peace or war, leads to a trend in which the free unit bonus from Vassalage increases. Also present is the availability of more hammers for military production. The combination of these two factors allows either of the following two advantages: 1) fewer units can be used to effectively defend territory or wage war, or 2) more units can be used to leverage the +2 XP bonus from Vassalage. It is 1) that gives way to the use of Pacifism while using a downsized military. On the other hand, 2) is ideally leveraged before making the switch to Pacifism and downsizing the military.


That is essentially the strategy in a nutshell. So here is the game...


The settings:




The start:




This capital will make a great GP farm and National Epic city.



I started with a Worker and Agriculure to develop the Corn.

Seeing the abundant coastal land and resources nearby, I employed a early development strategy based on The Great Lighthouse.

With Fishing and The Wheel for free, I began research with Agriculture, Mining, Mysticism, and Bronze Working. After finding no Copper, I then proceeded with Hunting and Animal Husbandry.

Meanwhile, I founded a food-rich city on the coast to the east, with a lot of ocean in its BFC--a very good candidate for the Moai Statues. To the southwest, I founded a production-rich city with a 3rd type of seafood resource.

stone --> mids (pacifism means you will be running some specialists, so REP is good to take + the happyness bonus will increase 5 city by 3, which means 4 more free units)

you have to go at war early to make sure all your non-defending-free units will be experimented ones.

ese-aSH said:

stone --> mids (pacifism means you will be running some specialists, so REP is good to take + the happyness bonus will increase 5 city by 3, which means 4 more free units)

you have to go at war early to make sure all your non-defending-free units will be experimented ones.

Click to expand...

Yes, I was considering that as well. However, I actually played to 725 BC and focused on The Great Lighthouse.

I will make the 4000 BC save available, in case I (or someone else) want to try a Pyramids-based strategy.

Strange thing to me that you settled south first (no one will ever claim this land to you).
The map looks good, you already got 7 sushi ressources in sight ^^.
---
Following your first thread I had a try on vasselage + pacifism with charlemagne
(in the previous thread I did say that other leaders could fit this strat better, I evocated SB but I was told having a eco trait was out of subject yet you'll agree charlemagne has no eco traits )
I REX, defended by protective archer, went at war with 5xp landskenet & trebuchet and used my great scientists to win the lib race. past liberalism this strat became too limitative and I switched to buro/FR (no more wars and win with space)

ese-aSH said:

Strange thing to me that you settled south first (no one will ever claim this land to you).
The map looks good, you already got 7 sushi ressources in sight ^^.

Click to expand...

The reason I did so was because of hammers, and also because the area to the north is surrounded by jungle (you will see in the 725 BC map).

I might consider sending a settler southwest to settle a city on the continent there.

---
Following your first thread I had a try on vasselage + pacifism with charlemagne
(in the previous thread I did say that other leaders could fit this strat better, I evocated SB but I was told having a eco trait was out of subject yet you'll agree charlemagne has no eco traits )
I REX, defended by protective archer, went at war with 5xp landskenet & trebuchet and used my great scientists to win the lib race. past liberalism this strat became too limitative and I switched to buro/FR (no more wars and win with space)

Click to expand...

Yes, I had a feeling the strategy could work with other Protective leaders as well. I'll have to try it with other leaders when I get the time.

I then teched toward building The Great Lighthouse. I continued research with Sailing and Masonry. In 1320 BC, Kyoto was prepared to begin production on The Great Lighthouse.




I then continued with Pottery and Writing. In 975 BC, I did a 2-pop whip on the Great Lighthouse.




Now that The Great Lighthouse was completed, I could safely proceed with further expansion. I then got Archery to support that expansion.


Meanwhile, I met 3 other leaders: Joao, Wang Kon, Hammurabi, and Darius. One of those leaders, Joao, was ready to make a resource trade with me:



One health resource for one happiness resource...what can possibly be better than that?


I was alarmed to see that Darius already had Alphabet and Iron Working. With the large area of jungle to the north, I might be seeking to trade something to him for Iron Working.




Is Mathematics a possible choice? If I research Mathematics and trade it to Darius for Iron Working, I might be able to save some beakers for myself. I was also considering Meditation and Priesthood, but these won't be enough beakers to offer Darius in trade for Iron Working.



Now that my two production cities were settled already, I then proceeded to settle a commerce city to the northwest--on the coast, of course, to take advantage of The Great Lighthouse.




With Horse uncovered and revealed in Kyoto, I now have two chariots actively scouting the territory to the north, looking for some potential city sites.
There are some good Dye tiles to the north buried under jungle, which I will be aiming for once I get Iron Working.

To the northeast is Wang Kon, with whom I have an Open Borders agreement. I will soon be scouting all of his lands with one of my chariots.
I might be able to squeeze in a city 1E of the stone to the northeast. It will have a Clam, a Flood Plains, and a Stone within its BFC.

Another settler will be completed in Kyoto within a few turns. Where should I settle the next city? Should I go for the city to the northeast, or should I try my luck with the continent to the southeast? I already have one Galley completed in Tokyo and another being built in Osaka.

Kyoto as GP farm doesn't make sense to me, what about using it as a commerce or science city?

Settling the offshore island will be lucrative for trade routes. Put two cities there if you can. GL and offshore cities is an excellent combo once you go to war and lose the foreign trade.

Stone + Protective means whipping walls is a way to get a load of gold with the overflow hammers and that'll raise the research slider. You need to hook up stone fairly soon. Are you going for the Pyramids yourself or will you try the stonethrowers gambit... that's more like a toku strategy

Getting great lighthouse and pyramids, very innovative way to leverage vassalage and pacifism and tokugawa.

BornSlippy said:

Kyoto as GP farm doesn't make sense to me, what about using it as a commerce or science city?

Click to expand...

I was thinking about the classic science/gp farm city with the aim of building National Epic and Oxford University.

There are 3 food sources in Kyoto, as well as potential for building Farms.

Osaka is definitely a Moai Statues city and gp farm, but it lacks the +2 GP points from the Great Lighthouse.

With Pacifism, there will room for many GP farms. With no Marble in sight, I may have to delay building National Epic until I get Marble.

UncleJJ said:

Settling the offshore island will be lucrative for trade routes. Put two cities there if you can. GL and offshore cities is an excellent combo once you go to war and lose the foreign trade.

Stone + Protective means whipping walls is a way to get a load of gold with the overflow hammers and that'll raise the research slider. You need to hook up stone fairly soon. Are you going for the Pyramids yourself or will you try the stonethrowers gambit... that's more like a toku strategy

Click to expand...

"We appreciate the years you have supplied us with resources"

...

"I appreciate the years you spent using them rather than metal"

.

Definitely settle domestic cities on islands to hike trade routes. With GLH this makes them very strong. It also means you'd want to go compass a little earlier than normal which is ok because it's a tradeable tech in many cases too. Get harbors up and you have 3 commerce/domestic route. Pretty solid, especially if you can get all of your trade routes to this minimum.

I find toku interesting in that he can research pottery straight away, and can cheaply spam 3 xp archers. You'll need this stuff though, because he's pretty weak otherwise.

Here are the saves:

UncleJJ said:

Settling the offshore island will be lucrative for trade routes. Put two cities there if you can. GL and offshore cities is an excellent combo once you go to war and lose the foreign trade.

Stone + Protective means whipping walls is a way to get a load of gold with the overflow hammers and that'll raise the research slider. You need to hook up stone fairly soon. Are you going for the Pyramids yourself or will you try the stonethrowers gambit... that's more like a toku strategy

Click to expand...

I have a worker on the Stone building a quarry now. Once it gets done, I'll take a look a which other leaders have Stone and/or are Industrious, and make a decision from there.

With the high food available in Kyoto, it looks like I can get a lot a help from the whip.


I think I'll go for the island to the southwest. I'll probably explore a few turns with a chariot before making the final decision. I'm eager to see how high those trade routes will be...

Artichoker said:

I was thinking about the classic science/gp farm city with the aim of building National Epic and Oxford University.

Click to expand...

Ok, I can accept a combo GP farm/science city. But I don't think you'll be needing to farm much - just throw cottages on the river.

Heeding the very good advice from UncleJJ and TheMeInTeam, I prepared to settle the island to the southwest. I first sent a chariot to scout out the area...





With our strategic position very secure thanks to vast jungle and our location in the corner of the continent, I decided to leverage Japanese stone to make a run for the Pyramids.





The combination of extra trade generated by The Great Lighthouse and a strategically secure position allowed me to pursue peaceful expansion to 8 cities by 620 AD...




I teched Mathematics and traded it to Darius for Iron Working. Then I got Mediation, Priesthood, and Code of Laws. I traded Code of Laws to Wang Kon for Alphabet, and to Hammurabi for Monarchy.

I then teched Compass and Polytheism. I traded Compass to Darius for Calendar, and to Joao for Currency.

At this point, Japan's coastal cities took in a full set of 4 trade routes, with extra yield from Harbors now soon available.

I then settled the Gem city to the northeast, next to Wang Kon's territory, and also a second city on the island to the southwest.

I then teched Civil Service. Although the aim was to run Vassalage, Darius already had Feudalism, and therefore I teched Civil Service with the intent of trading for Feudalism. By the time I finished Civil Service, Darius already got it himself but I was still able to trade it. I traded Civil Service to Joao for Feudalism, and to Wang Kon for Metal Casting and Monotheism. I also traded Code of Laws to Joao for Horseback Riding.

Then I changed civics to Representation and Vassalage:



Since is Normal speed, 2 civics changes results in one turn of anarchy, but 3 civics changes results in two turns. So I didn't make a change for the religion civic...the time is not yet ripe for Pacifism, even if we already had Philsophy by now.

I delayed the change to Representation until now because we have many resources to increase happiness, and our economy is very strong already even without specialists.

The high amount of trade shows in the GNP, in which Japan is 1st, even ahead of Financial Wang Kon and Darius...



But Japan is severly lacking militarily, even with our whipped Walls in several cities...



This will change very soon as a result of our switch to Vassalage, since we will be focusing entirely on military now.

Here is our current tech position:



And our rivals' tech position:



We should now be ready to trade Civil Service and Metal Casting to Hammurabi for Philosophy.


The expense screen shows that unit upkeep is now 0, which means that our military is still small and we can now focus 100% on military. We will be using some of that military to support further expansion, especially towards the north where the dye tiles on the western coastline are waiting to be claimed...

You do not need too many units !

remember you should favor quality over quantity there : first build good defense (CG3 bows) and then fill your free units with samourais (6 turns before machinery).
+ you should expand religions a bit more. Has the AP been constructed yet ? make sure all your cities get the religion for the +4 bonus hammers.

There is even a good chance that you can get philosophy for civil service alone. After that you can even trade philosophy for machinery (or is tech brokering on?). Looks good so far. Interesting game to follow.

ese-aSH said:

You do not need too many units !

remember you should favor quality over quantity there : first build good defense (CG3 bows) and then fill your free units with samourais (6 turns before machinery).
+ you should expand religions a bit more. Has the AP been constructed yet ? make sure all your cities get the religion for the +4 bonus hammers.

Click to expand...

I played to 1150 AD. It looks like I built too many units...my SOD has about 25 units now, with more than 10 samurai

The bright side of the picture is that I might be able to use some samurai as city defenders, if the need ever arises. I also have 3 crossbowmen that can double as stack protectors or city defenders.

I believe Hammurabi has built the AP, whose religion is Judaism. However, I don't see any hammer bonus in my cities with Judaism. Maybe it's a change in the 3.17 patch? By the way, I think the AI did a lot of the religion spreading for me already.

An update to come soon. I may play a little bit more before the next update.

But if you hadn't guessed already, the target of the next war is Wang Kon. We'll see how much The Statue of Zeus and the Protective trait can stand up to Japanese might backed by Vassalage!

The switch to Vassalage at 600 AD was the beginning of a 500-year period of military buildup. Although the money gained by the free unit bonus was less than what Bureaucracy would have given us, we saved hundreds of beakers by having the +2 XP bonus built into Vassalage. In order to mimic this bonus with Bureaucracy, we would have to do four things: 1) Get Theology, which would have costed several hundred beakers, 2) Spend an extra turn of anarchy to switch from Paganism to Theocracy, 3) Spend hammers on missionaries to spread Judaism to key cities, and 4) Wait for all these things to happen first. As you will see in this update, we lost very little tech-wise by using Vassalage instead of Bureaucracy--in fact, I would argue that we actually gained.

On the next turn, I immediately made a few quick trades: Civil Service and Metal Casting for Philosophy (w/Hammurabi) and Philosophy for Machinery (w/Joao). I then traded for Aesthetics (w/Wang Kon) and continued research with Paper, Literature, and Education. I traded yet again for Engineering (w/Wang Kon), and then finally was within 1 turn of finishing Liberalism:



I then saw that no one else had Education, so I then switched to Gunpowder with the prospect of gaining Chemistry for free. However, Hammurabi asked for help in the form of Paper; after I consented to this, his diplomatic rating improved to Friendly. This was enough of a boost for him to get Education before I got Gunpowder, so I quickly switched back to Liberalism to finish it and gain Printing Press for free. It was a small price to pay for Hammurabi's improved diplomatic standing with us.

With the Liberalism race finsihed and won well before the switch to Pacifism, I then focused on mobilizing for war in the 1100s. I carefully guarded Gunpowder to maintain military superiority, and I avoided Theology to maintain tech superiority. I made one last trade with Wang Kon: Liberalism and Printing Press for Nationalism and Optics. I then traded for Guilds (w/Hammurabi), Banking (w/Hammurabi), and Music (w/Darius).

Finally, we were ready to invade Wang Kon. Since he built the Statue of Zeus in Seoul, which was a few tiles away from the first objective, I reckoned that we could solve both of these problems within the span of 10 turns.




Whether or not this was Wang Kon's main army, the power graph clearly indicated that I was already ahead of him. So I'm fairly confident that we won't be seeing any major resistance from him. Whatever strength he does have will be used defensively to guard his capital, and we easily have the means to overcome that strength.

So I finally decided to make the switch to Pacifism, along with Caste System:



In this game, I used a "skeleton infrastructure" building strategy, focusing only on essential buildings like barracks, libraries, courthouses, temples, and granaries. Expensive buildings like Markets have been put off until the post-Pacifism period. By adopting Caste System along with Pacifism, we will be able to run unlimited specialists despite having very little infrastructure.

The plan for the post-Pacifism period is to leverage Organized Religion and Vassalage to catch up on infrastructure while continuing to develop military.
In the meantime, we will be seeking to hook up Marble to build the Heroic Epic and the National Epic.

With the military threat from Wang Kon soundly put to rest, I then immediately downsized the military in response to the increased upkeep costs from Pacifism:




Even after the downsizing, Japan's mighty army at 1170 AD looks nearly invincible now...




With the +3 beakers per specialist from Representation and +100% GPP from Pacifism, we are now ready to go full throttle with the Specialist Economy...




The new configuration for our cities resulted in a staggering boost to our GNP:




Although our power took a hit from the downsizing, it is soundly ahead of both Wang Kon and Darius'. More importantly, all of that power is now concentrated in high-quality units, and we now threaten to strike Korea's opulent capital city, strategically located in the center of the continent...




Our territory at 1170 AD...




Our tech position, along with our rivals' tech position...




The plan is to conquer Korea's capital city and gain the Statue of Zeus, and then to send our samurai to the 4 corners of Korea's vast territory with the end goal of wiping him off the map.

We will then leverage the good diplomatic standing we have with our other neighbors to tech towards Assembly Line and Biology.

Korea's capital city Seoul was a tough nut to crack. Its cultural defense was a whopping 100%, with the added defensive benefit of a castle. So although it was garrisoned by a mere force of 8 units, I needed at least 5 turns to reduce its cultural defense before I could safely attack.




With 610 gold available from Korea, as well as the opportunity to regroup cities and units, I signed a peace treaty with Korea.




Seoul was now a part of the empire of Japan...



With 10 turns of peace before the war could continue, I decided to build some Jewish buildings in several cities to gain some extra production.




The domestic advisor...




The diplomatic advisor...




On closer inspection of the map, gaining Marble will be a challenge. Hammurabi has a marble source near our borders, but he is our only Friendly neighbor, and he leads the scoreboard. Joao controls marble and he has the weakest military on the continent, but he's located in the opposite corner of the continent. I may need to build a Forbidden Palace in one of the cities captured from Korea before I'd want to strike Joao.

With 4 turns of mandatory peace remaining on the treaty with Wang Kon, our samurai are itching to shed more blood, and crush more bones...