Vassalage and Theocracy together?

As some of you probably know, I'm pretty good at dumb questions. Here's something I've been wondering about:

Q: Is there any benefit to running the Vassalage and Theocracy civics at the same time? Both give you more XP per unit build, and Vassalage gives you a number of free units, but is there any point? I've never noticed if the XP bonus is cumulative, (+2 XP and +2 XP), or if the game just gives you the bonus for one of the civics. (+2 XP and ignores the other bonus)

I looked in my game last night, but I really couldn't tell if I was getting more XP or not.

Um, help? (please?)

Lemon Merchant said:

As some of you probably know, I'm pretty good at dumb questions. Here's something I've been wondering about:

Q: Is there any benefit to running the Vassalage and Theocracy civics at the same time? Both give you more XP per unit build, and Vassalage gives you a number of free units, but is there any point? I've never noticed if the XP bonus is cumulative, (+2 XP and +2 XP), or if the game just gives you the bonus for one of the civics. (+2 XP and ignores the other bonus)

I looked in my game last night, but I really couldn't tell if I was getting more XP or not.

Um, help? (please?)

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the bonus is cumulative, so you get +4 "free" XP.
Together with barrak and other stuff is a good starting point for buildingup a strong army

wolfigor said:

the bonus is cumulative, so you get +4 "free" XP.
Together with barrak and other stuff is a good starting point for buildingup a strong army

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Doesn't an Instructor give 3 XP? That would mean 10 XP or THREE promotions right from the start.

instructor gives +2,so Barracks+Vassalage+theocracy+instructor is 9xp

Ok, thanks. Now, if you're using a leader with the Charismatic trait (-25% needed for promotions), would that give you essentially even more XP (one extra promotion, if I do the math right), when used with Vassalage and Theocracy?

Jeez, if that's right, with that, and an instructor, and maybe West Point, you would have insanely promoted units. Wow.

Of course, if you don't have any instructors in any city, you just get Barracks (+3), and Civics (+4), which gives you +7XP. If your only concern is how many promotions you get right off the bat, then just run one or the other. But if you think it's more valuable to get the 3rd promotion with fewer fights, then go for it.

throw in the pentagon and and you can a city that produce a 11 point unit or a 9 point unit with Mil Academy. For Naval units that is 10points and Mounted units is 11points without the instructor.

Dom Pedro II said:

Of course, if you don't have any instructors in any city, you just get Barracks (+3), and Civics (+4), which gives you +7XP. If your only concern is how many promotions you get right off the bat, then just run one or the other.

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There are some situations where running both will get you an extra promotion: Vassalage + theocracy + charismatic = two promotions for new ships in all cities. That can be a big advantage in fights between ships of the same type. Add a drydock for a third promotion.

Also, vassalage, theocracy, charismatic, barracks, and the pentagon together gives three promotions for new ground units in all cities.

But those are some very specific situations, and getting more experience in all cities might not be important if your cities with military instructors or West Point are building most of your units.

But if you think it's more valuable to get the 3rd promotion with fewer fights, then go for it.

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It does put your units one step closer to good promotions like city raider 3. So if you're going to be doing some extended warmongering, what other civics would you choose? (theocracy + nationalism, duh )

I never run both vassalage and theocracy together. 7xp units are no better than 5xp units and I consider vassalage a very weak civic. Not weak by itself, but the other 3 are SO much better. Vassalage is a high cost civic, so the free units aren't actually free. I'm not a math person, but probably the total manteinance is higher when you adopt vassalage.

If for some reson I can't adopt theocracy (diplo), then I consider vassalage. 2 promos are usually enough in the first war. 2 promos are enough for CR2 and the most common stack defenders (shock and pinch). Formation requires a third promo, but I usually just build a few more spears/pikes.

If you are adopting vassalage for mass-promoted units with stuff like GG, drydocks, pentagon, imo you are making a very sub-optimal move. I really can't see any reason to adopt vassalage past the medieval era. Usually renaissance/industrial wars are won by numbers anyway, be it via drafting, rushbuying or raw production. No reason to give up a much better civic (can be any of the other three) to produce highly promoted units everywhere. Build West Point in your HE city, so you have a core of elite units (siege and stack defenders). Mop-up units to clean up after collateral damage can be draftees with no promos at all.

Playing Emperor atm, so the above can be wrong at higher levels.

Sometimes I load up a few cities with my game's great generals so that, late game, I can pop out amphibious mech-infantry out the gate at the end - which, of course, is greatly aided by running both of these civics.

Early game running both often puts you at 7 XP - which is not bad since it puts your closer to that 10 point upgrade... But really, just doing one puts you at that five point upgrade, so if you're going to be losing a lot of your units rather than carefully caring about them and trying to upgrade, just get to five and call'er a day.

If I'm protective. 5 xp gets me drill III out the gate - but since drill IV is where I really want to be, I often run both just to get me a bit closer to that point.

So yeah... That's my somewhat rambling and lacking-in-purpose story. I just woke up - give me a break

Lemon Merchant said:

Ok, thanks. Now, if you're using a leader with the Charismatic trait (-25% needed for promotions), would that give you essentially even more XP (one extra promotion, if I do the math right), when used with Vassalage and Theocracy?

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Charismatic doesn't give XP, it reduces the XP you need to get the promotions (-25%).

The XP levels for non-Cha leaders are: 2, 5, 10, 17, 26, 37...
while those for Cha-leaders are: 2, 4, 8, 13, 20, 28 ...

When playing CHA, I find it very easy to get 2-4 cities to the point churning out 4-promotion units (13XP) in the later stages of the game with civics, pentagon, WP in one city and settled GGs or alternatively a single city to churn out 5-promo units (20XP), always depending on the needs.

Ai Shizuka said:

If you are adopting vassalage for mass-promoted units with stuff like GG, drydocks, pentagon, imo you are making a very sub-optimal move.

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In general your post is excellent (better than mine), but I will say that I don't *entirely* agree with this. In a lot of cases, you're right, but if you've dropped a few great generals in your cities already, running vassalage and theocracy VS just theocracy can make the difference between having two or three cities popping drill IV (as protective) vs III and CRIII vs II siege units, or putting a lot of your cities producing guys only 1 xp away from these upgrades.

When adopting both will put a large portion of your force with these last vital upgrades either right away or a *lot* sooner, it can be quite optimal. But, it's an issue of how valuable these upgrades are, and when... As protective, drill IV is your holy grail, so you have to consider it seriously. Also as protective, the one thing you're really hard up on is units that really pack a punch - CRIII trebs do exactly that. I find when I'm getting both upgrades out the gate, my protective stacks are like bristling, rock throwing, porcupines of doom as opposed to just pretty darned nasty porcupines.

Ai Shizuka said:

I never run both vassalage and theocracy together. 7xp units are no better than 5xp units and I consider vassalage a very weak civic. Not weak by itself, but the other 3 are SO much better. Vassalage is a high cost civic, so the free units aren't actually free. I'm not a math person, but probably the total manteinance is higher when you adopt vassalage.

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Vassalage is intended as a war civic. While it is true that it has high maintenance costs, it gives you a bunch of free maintenance units in exchange. I agree the other three are better in general, but they're not better for cranking out units.

If for some reson I can't adopt theocracy (diplo), then I consider vassalage. 2 promos are usually enough in the first war. 2 promos are enough for CR2 and the most common stack defenders (shock and pinch). Formation requires a third promo, but I usually just build a few more spears/pikes.

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Without Vassalage, your only option in the early-mid game for two-promotion units is barracks + Theocracy. Theocracy means I have to declare a religion and build monestaries and missionaries to spread it around. And of course a religion makes most civs in the game hate me.

And while Theocracy is a medium cost civic, Paganism is even cheaper. I can stay in low cost Paganism and hope that offsets the high cost of Vassalage.

If you are adopting vassalage for mass-promoted units with stuff like GG, drydocks, pentagon, imo you are making a very sub-optimal move. I really can't see any reason to adopt vassalage past the medieval era. Usually renaissance/industrial wars are won by numbers anyway, be it via drafting, rushbuying or raw production. No reason to give up a much better civic (can be any of the other three) to produce highly promoted units everywhere. Build West Point in your HE city, so you have a core of elite units (siege and stack defenders). Mop-up units to clean up after collateral damage can be draftees with no promos at all.

Playing Emperor atm, so the above can be wrong at higher levels.

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I agree with all the rest of what you say here with one caveat. It's true Vassalage makes little sense once you have specialized cities with GGs and West Point. Most of your military should come from specialized cities. But if you are Spiritual and want to build up for war, why not start all your cities cranking out units and then switch to Vassalage right before the first one finishes? You can always switch back five turns later. Of course, if you have the Pentagon, you don't need to do this.

I use Vallasalge/Theo for the Mongolians, since their unique building, the Ger, gives +4 to Mounted Units. Ger+Barracks+theo+Vassalge=3 promos to Knights (11 xp)during the Midevil era.

gunkulator said:

Without Vassalage, your only option in the early-mid game for two-promotion units is barracks + Theocracy. Theocracy means I have to declare a religion and build monestaries and missionaries to spread it around. And of course a religion makes most civs in the game hate me.

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I noticed that you can switch to Theocracy even if you don't have a religion. Do you still reap the benefits if you have no state religion?

Meteora said:

I noticed that you can switch to Theocracy even if you don't have a religion. Do you still reap the benefits if you have no state religion?

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You only ever get the XP bonus in cities that have your state religion, which is never the case for any city if you don't have one in the first place. The blocking of foreign religion spread works just fine though even in no state religion (if you want to block incoming AP religion missionaries to prevent someone from a religious victory).

The more cities and units you have the better vassalage becomes.

It's great going for domination on a huge map.

If you have a small empire Bureaucracy is better.

Pentagon + Vassalage + Theocracy + Barracks + Charismatic Trait + 2xGreat General Specialists

I spam out elite fighting units !

My game of yesterday as Genghis Khan, Heroic epic and west point gave me combat 5 out of the gate without theocracy or vassalage ^^

Barracks + Vassalage + Theocracy + Praetorians = Immediate conquest.

I'm working on it myself in my most recent game. I managed to acquire four cities from the French, my neighbors to the East and I'm about to invade the Arabs, my neighbor to the South. Since I'm the only Christian state in the current game, I need not worry about upsetting religious powers; I just need to work quickly before camel archers start showing up. Anyhow, my point is that -as others have said- the bonus is indeed cumulative, so it's a great choice for combative civilizations. Just be sure to have enough manpower: even with all the experience in the world, your troops are still prone to a loss or two!