Drafting for Fun and Profit

[vale]

Updated to include the new UUs available in Beyond the Sword in addition to detail the changes to legal civics relevant to this guide. Also, mentioned an obvious wonder synergy.

Feel free to comment on other BTS or drafting related issues if the mood strikes you since I am looking to update more if relevant.

 

[SGDave]

I see the drafting strategy being most useful when riflemen are just new. I could see it possibly be worth it just for the 1 draft per turn from the Globe Theatre city, which only needs 5 tiles with 23 food, with a bit of drafting here and there in your other big cities. A city with this little claim on land shouldn't be hard to fit in between your cities - you could even have neighbouring cities using the food resources while the GT city isn't in draft mode ie. while you're not employing the nationhood civic.

However, I can't claim to have used this strategy yet - the closest I've done is a pop-rushing GT city.

I've been trying this out as elizabeth, used liberalisim for rifling. Drafted a redcoat every turn, about 30 drafted so far. Now i'm looking at researching assembly line and drafting infantry. I've searched, but just curious if there is any way for a city to grow 2 pop in one turn? (The draft city has excess food (drafting at 7 pop down to 6), currently the food bar is at 38/32,)

Thanks for this guide!

 

[vale]

I've searched, but just curious if there is any way for a city to grow 2 pop in one turn?

It is impossible to grow more than one population in a single turn no matter how much food you have available.

 

[UncleJJ]

Cities can only grow 1 pop per turn regardles of how much food you pump into them. On the otherhand when starving they only lose 1 pop regardless of how little food they have. One per turn is hard game limit of growth and starvation.

 

[Munro]

Great article Vale - thanks for this. Haven't experimented with Nationhood at all yet but definitely will be giving it a go.

Most arguments I see agains drafting is: We do not need it, as we can win with just using slavery.
This is true on low levels, but higher you going up the more option you need to learn to use.

Couldn´t agree more.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

An excellent guide to the nationhood civic indeed. I especially like the way you explain the multiple benefits of it, and not just "this is what you will do with the civic". And thank goodness you noticed that no upkeep is significant.

As for drafting for war - no, I disagree when you say that it is not good to stack unhapiness. There is nothing wrong with +12 unhapiness for 45 turns for what you're getting. Usually I get astronomy from liberalism, but one time I tried nationhood instead, and then from my city empire, I really did draft 4-5 times from every city. During the drafting I built nothing but catapults. When I invaded, my army consisted of 3 mega stacks of 10 catapults and 20 maceman. I had just enough to take out all 8 cities in one war and wiped the civilization out (BTS AI stacks considerably more troops in cities).

To hell with the 60% cultural slider. Anything is worth this kind of land gain.

 

[Party]

Great guide, i'll be sure to consider it next time I conscript an entire army!

 

[TheDS]

I used to never use Nationhood at all, but with the new 25% Espionage bonus, I decided to try it out. Between that and Bureaucracy going to High, I noticed that when my empire is big enough, Nationhood is beneficial at that stage and Bureau is NOT. I habitually underbuild my army and got suddenly invaded by a couple SODs. They burned one of my little cities to the ground and gave me Musketmen as partisans (just got Gunpowder, didn't have any built yet). Those guys kicked some butt. But I still had the other SOD coming to a more important place, so I noticed I could draft, and did so since I was likely to lose the city anyway.

Before long, I was drafting Musketmen left and right, made short work of the invaders, and counterattacked with them. I couldn't have done this if I had relied on production, and whipping would've been too expensive, but each Musketman cost only 1 peep. The downside was that later, I discovered the cost went up, and I wasn't willing to pay it. (I RARELY whip units, only buildings.) So now, thanks to your post, I know where the boundary lies, and that the higher cost is justified, but I still might not utilize it.

As I played further games, I appreciated the money saved from Civics maintenance, and have drafted muskets and rifles a few times, particularly if it looks like I'm about to need them.

Drafting must be done with some sense, though. Don't do it in large production cities, do it in small, less developed cities where their economic and production impact and wastage of XP is minimal. I don't know if I'd keep on Nationalism for a long period, but it's a great thing to kick a Golden Age off for if you need some troops in a hurry, and your best time is right when you get muskets or rifles, ahead of anyone else.

 

[Still_Asleep]

Great article!

To me nationhood has always been an emergency-button when an AI came for a backstab, never thought about using it for offensive. With globe theater it is obviously amazing tough.

 

[Neato]

Fantastic article. Finding a damn good way to use an underappreciated aspect of the game is always important.

Never being the warmonger myself, I usually would never have glanced twice at Nationhood. Now I'm considering using it at least to some degree, especially if I can get a Great Theater and Golden Age combo. I think it's especially important for people to remember that city producution is not halted when drafting - that these are units you're getting on top of normal production and that the costs are doable if kept in check.
Good work!

 

[Noobilator]

I am going to give those boys a rifle, now.

 

[huerfanista]

It is worth pointing out that the ... Incans ... have draftable UUs.

This belongs in the Hall Of Fame For True But Useless Facts! Great article, though.

 

[Diamondeye]

Sheez, s'been a long time since I posted in here last. Sorry for the rather infantile and rack-down reply earlier. I have learnt to love the civic since then, although I still need to try the 1 unit/turn draft, since I often delay Drama and prefer to use the food cities for specialists (5 workers supplying 8 scientists is insane).

 

[SharpMango]

My two cents....

one cent- I got utterly destroyed in a multiplayer game once by a player who used the draft on me, whilst it was taking me 5-6 turns per city to churn out one infantry unit...in 20 turns he must have had an army of about 60...there was no way i could have fought that off...thats the power of the draft!

two cent- best thing about the draft is that it gives you the unit instantaneously....which is just brilliant sometimes, especially in an 'enemy at the gates' scenario...the slavery civic will always give you the unit one turn after....and lets face it, sometimes key moments in games are decided on the slenderest of margins.

 

[mystyfly]

two cent- best thing about the draft is that it gives you the unit instantaneously....which is just brilliant sometimes, especially in an 'enemy at the gates' scenario...the slavery civic will always give you the unit one turn after....and lets face it, sometimes key moments in games are decided on the slenderest of margins.

A whipped units appears right after your turn (before the AIs) so it'll defend if the city is being attacked.

BTW nice article vale. Explaining one of the strongest tools to prepare for war certainly is a Good Thing

 

[Diamondeye]

A whipped units appears right after your turn (before the AIs) so it'll defend if the city is being attacked.

It is worth noticing that while it may defend, you will not be able to promote it before it defends, as is the case with draftees (even considering their lower XP, one CG promo is better than none). This counts only for promotions that requires you to apply them (ie: Protective whips will have CG + Drill, Aggressive will have C 1, etc. - so will draftees ofcourse. Tokugawa for the win!)

 

[SharpMango]

A whipped units appears right after your turn (before the AIs) so it'll defend if the city is being attacked.

BTW nice article vale. Explaining one of the strongest tools to prepare for war certainly is a Good Thing

thats actually a good piece of info for me. i didnt know that. I was actually thinking of the multiplayer situations when i require the unit then and there. since it can attack on my turn, and then fortify, if it survives, then in effect, i still have gained it one turn early. =)

 

[Diamondeye]

@Vale: Due to the increased pop cost of infantry, would you suggest delaying Assembly Line in cases such as in the case PieceOfMind states (at war with a rifle UU)?

 

[jonel1111]

Excellent article. I've never tried Nationalism, but now I will. I, just a Noble player(and new to it!), but article like this help me to get better. Thank you.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm still trying to get the timing of this down. It seems possible to get just RIDICULOUS troop counts via drafting. Slavery is powerful when used properly but in terms of pure unit spam drafting is even more so. The anger is hard to deal with outside of globe though and it needs enough cities to really shine (spreading draft anger as the article mentions). BTS gave an already strong civic a serious buff via the espionage bonus. It's pretty cute to steal one's way back to parity after a serious war, and it's actually pretty easy even if your economy is otherwise bad: Jails, courthouses, security bureaus, and eventually intelligence agencies all give a straight up boost to EP irrespective of commerce in addition to their multipliers. These can be whipped out and still give sound bonuses to EP even at 0%. However, with the multipliers off of nationhood, combined with jail/intelligence agency, the commerce slider is extremely efficient. So much so that if going the EE route I think the cottages are much closer to their free speech efficiency than people would think.

With its civic upkeep, unit spam potential, and recovery synergy nationhood is a very powerful civic. I like this article a lot .