How do vassalage and pacifism affect each other?

[rewster1]

Just had a thought, and don't at the moment have the mental werewithal to try it and see for myself. My question is, how do the vassalage and pacifism civics work when combined?
Are the extra free units you get still free, or do they cost 1 from pacifism's "+1 gold support cost per military unit"?

Is there some kind of weird synergy here? Do you actually save more when running vassalage with pacifism than you save running vassalage with other religion civics? Should you use vassalage to partially counteract the cost of pacifism?

That would be odd... "followers of my religion don't believe in going to war, but if my lord wills it...."

 

[Danghis Khan]

That's a great idea for someone with a big civ but relatively small army since the number of free units is dependant on the number of cities. It might not totally overcome the cost, but at that point in the game when you have few legal choices (no beauraucracy, free speech, nationalism) it could be helpful.

 

[Wodan]

Switched for you in my current game. Ghandi, so no delay waiting. Anyway, the civ costs screen said "Military units: Free support for 28" and charged me 8 gold (1 per unit over 28... I had 36 military units).

So yes, seems to me that Vassalage + Pacifism is getting you the result you want. Zero cost for 27 units. Enjoy.

Wodan

ps this did NOT count non-military units. I could maintain something like 90 workers in addition to the military.

 

[Firebot]

It doesn't work, heck it does the opposite of the desired effect. You pay for the military cost of your total military units based on Pacifism regardless of what other civics you may have, and vassalage only gives a benefits to total UNITS, not military units.

This is what I had before I switched to Pacifism and Vassalage (had free religion and free speech)

2 Unit costs for 2 units (free support for 72) I had 74 units total
0 military cost for 29 (free 34)
-1 handicap
cost 1

This is my cost when I switched to Pacifism and Vassalage

0 Unit costs for 0 units (free support for 104)
29 military unit cost for 29 (free 34)
-9 handicap
cost 20

So yes, while I do gain more 'free units' allowed, my cost just went sky high. This also doesn't take in account the high upkeep for vassalage, and that I lost over 200 gold per turn by switching to weaker economical civics.

I don't see any benefit at all. Vassalage should go with Theocracy to get full benefits, trying to make up for a weakness in a civ like Pacificm will make your civic choice weak all around. Pacifism is a builder's civic and should never go with Vassalage, a warmonger's civic.

 

[rewster1]

This is what I had before I switched to Pacifism and Vassalage (had free religion and free speech)

Could you possibly do the same comparison if you started with pacifism? Obviously free religion/free speech is going to be different than pacifism/vassalage, what I'd like to see is pacifism/X vs pacifism vassalage.

 

[Danghis Khan]

Firebot - Agreed that it isn't always useful, but my original post said that it might be best suited to the research gap between feudalism and nationalism/beauraucracy; at that point the better legal civics do wipe out the advantage of vassalage. I still think it's worth a try, but not in my current game (too many units ).