Leveraging Vassalage

[Artichoker]

Civics are now Representation, Vassalage, Emancipation, Mercantilism, and Free Religion.

I have decided that both Liberalism and Communism are worthless techs in this game, because I will never run the civics offered by them, in this game. This allows me to save beakers to research essential techs that will actually help.

I've been taking a record of the Free Unit bonus of Vasalage. So far, I have a few data points. After the game is finished, I may go back to earlier years to get more data points.

Year     Free Units    Expenses    Inflation    
1826      +40              941           468            
1840      +44              992           508          
1860      +48             1030           546

 

[UncleJJ]

I am wondering how Nationhood compares to Vassalage at this stage of the game. That is the only realistic alternative war civic, in that category. In my games I would usually be drafting in some cities on a long term basis, plus the +2 happiness is very useful in some cities and +25% EPs can be offset against the savings in troop cost. In fact the zero civic maintenance compared with the high maintenance of Vassalage might reduce costs, depending on army size.

 

[Artichoker]

I am wondering how Nationhood compares to Vassalage at this stage of the game. That is the only realistic alternative war civic, in that category. In my games I would usually be drafting in some cities on a long term basis, plus the +2 happiness is very useful in some cities and +25% EPs can be offset against the savings in troop cost. In fact the zero civic maintenance compared with the high maintenance of Vassalage might reduce costs, depending on army size.

The simplest comparison would be Nationhood + Theocracy vs. Vassalage + Free Religion, since it results in an equal amount of XP bonus. Free Religion gives a slight boost from lower maintenance, and some more from the science bonus. On the other hand, Nationhood has lower upkeep than Vassalage.

I may do a detailed comparison after the game is finished, to see how the two civics compare.

 

[UncleJJ]

I suggest you keep a few savegames at various times and then you can reload later and switch civics to make the comparison and see what the trade offs are.

 

[Artichoker]

Year     Free Units    Expenses    Inflation    
1826      +40              941           468            
1840      +44              992           508          
1860      +48             1030           546

An extrapolation of these data points leads to the following results:

Year       Non-Inflation        Rate     Weighted Bonus
1826          473                1.99	   +80
1840          484                2.05	   +90
1860          484                2.13	   +102

Non-Inflation is the total expenses, before inflation, which is:

Expenses - Inflation


Rate is the ratio of post-inflation expenses divided by pre-inflation expenses:

Expenses / Non-Inflation


Weighted Bonus is the equivalent amount of gold that the Free Unit bonus provides:

Free Units * Rate

 

[Artichoker]

Peace was upheld for several more turns, taking full advantage of the supercharged SE provided by Representation, until the key wonders were completed (Cristo Redentor and Mt. Rushmore).

Cristo Redentor was finished in 1884 AD...

Spoiler :

Eiffel Tower was finished in the meantime...

Spoiler :

The National Park city has developed to a reasonable extent...

Spoiler :

And now the 3 main SODs, featuring the new Infantry unit...

Spoiler :

With the railroad network built already, the southern SOD can be quickly re-deployed to join the northern SODs after Ragnar's single city in the south is conquered.

A full set of Jails has now been built, with the exception of Philadelphia, which has 2 turns of production remaining. With Cristo Redentor, we can make a quick switch to Slavery to whip this building, along with those in other cities as well, before going to war.

 

[UncleJJ]

Do you have enough land on your own continent to win a Domination victory? Looking at the mini map it seems close. If there's not enough land I suggest that you start building drydocks and then a fleet of galleons and frigates now. I guess you already have a big enough army to squash anything on your continent and it's time to prepare for what you'll do next anticipating the winning the war. With a fleet ready you can quickly invade one of the other small continents and grab enough cities to clich the Domination win. Vasslage and drydocks should help with making a faster sailing fleet.

 

[Artichoker]

I suggest you keep a few savegames at various times and then you can reload later and switch civics to make the comparison and see what the trade offs are.

Now that Cristo Redentor is completed, I found it convenient to compare the economics of various civics combinations, for the year 1884 AD.

Basically, I will be comparing Nationhood + Theocracy against Vassalage + Free Religion, by looking at the Gold and Beaker totals at various levels of the science slider. For 1884 AD, I will use 60%, 40%, and 20% as the three different levels.

I will also use both Representation and Police State as the government civic, since there is a heavy bias there for Free Religion.

In the following table, I will use these abbreviations:

PS = Police State
RP = Representation
NH = Nationhood
TC = Theocracy
VL = Vassalage
FR = Free Religion

Year, Science %, Government      Gold    Beakers    Espionage
1884, 60%, PS+NH+TC              +66     +1403      +488
 "  , "  , PS+VL+FR              +10     +1484      +426
 "  , "  , RP+NH+TC              +110    +2053      +488
 "  , "  , RP+VL+FR              +55     +2177      +426

1884, 40%, PS+NH+TC              +484    +1016      +488
 "  , "  , PS+VL+FR              +428    +1073      +426
 "  , "  , RP+NH+TC              +528    +1666      +488
 "  , "  , RP+VL+FR              +473    +1767      +426

1884, 20%, PS+NH+TC              +902    +629       +488
 "  , "  , PS+VL+FR              +846    +663       +426
 "  , "  , RP+NH+TC              +946    +1279      +488
 "  , "  , RP+VL+FR              +891    +1356      +426

Overall, the numbers look very close, especially when running Police State and 40% science.

With Representation and 60% science, Vassalage + Free Religion seems to have a slight advantage in total Gold + Beakers, if you ignore Espionage. On the other hand, Police State and 20% science tends to favor Nationhood + Theocracy.

The outside benefits of each civic combo (drafting for Nationhood and no state religion for Free Religion) will often become the crucial deciding factors. Having no state religion can often improve relations with leaders with various different state religions. On the other hand, drafting is a valuable tool for increasing army size quickly.

Also important is the type of army desired. A mid-tech army consisting of mainly Infantry will not need the extra beakers at this point of the game, but can really use the extra productivity offered by drafting. On the other hand, a high-tech army consisting of Modern Armor will need the extra beakers to make that unit type available, and doesn't benefit from drafting as much.

I may post more data from earlier years, after the game is finished.

 

[Artichoker]

Do you have enough land on your own continent to win a Domination victory? Looking at the mini map it seems close. If there's not enough land I suggest that you start building drydocks and then a fleet of galleons and frigates now. I guess you already have a big enough army to squash anything on your continent and it's time to prepare for what you'll do next anticipating the winning the war. With a fleet ready you can quickly invade one of the other small continents and grab enough cities to clich the Domination win. Vasslage and drydocks should help with making a faster sailing fleet.

I'm not sure about the exact land %, but as I was fighting Ragnar, Hannibal attacked Genghis Khan near the end of my war with Ragnar. So I joined the war against Genghis and captured one city. Meanwhile, Hannibal also captured one Mongol city. After I captured my city, I vassalized Genghis.

But, yes, I have been building ships in the meantime, and I will give a new update shortly.

 

[Artichoker]

The idea behind building Cristo Redentor was to allow a quick switch between Representation and Police State during peace and war. An added bonus was that I could use Slavery to whip essential buildings when I needed to (although this would also require re-adjusting all of my specialists after the switch...a major pain!). In fact, I also could have drafted using Nationhood, although I didn't because of the large size of my army.


A quick strike was first made against Ragnar's nearest cities, including his city to the south...

Spoiler :

This was followed by a few turns of redeployment, specifically of the units that were used to attack Ragnar's southern city. The next target was Jeiling, a city that caused cultural trouble with my cities for quite some time...

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, the units from my southern stack were integrated into the northern force, and the next two targets were taken:

Spoiler :

 

[Artichoker]

Finally, the last two Viking cities were taken...

Spoiler :

...and Ragnar was no more.

One turn later, Genghis Khan's nearest city was a valuable proving grounds for the new recruits...

Spoiler :

The party had to end there, however, because Hannibal himself was close to vassalizing Genghis.


Meanwhile, the new fleet has been amassing on our western shore...

Spoiler :

With 20 transports, we can currently hold a force of 80 land units.

 

[Artichoker]

At about this time, Hannibal just finished building Apollo Program. Since he founded Mining, Inc., his productivity is about 80% of mine, despite having less than 1/3 of my land area. So he must go down.

Meanwhile, I also founded a corporation of my own, Standard Ethanol. Because of the high maintenance costs, I have this corporation in only two cities: my wall street city, and my oxford city.

Spoiler :

Finally, here's a summary of Greek land forces:

Spoiler :

Maybe I can spread the corporation to Genghis Khan's cities, to increase the income of the corporate headquarters, while also helping GK with his research.

 

[mboettcher]

:

Vassalage + Theocracy - 7xp - but lower income/higher maintenance
Vassalage + Org Religion - Duh - we are producing UNITS right?
Vassalage + Pacifism - Double Duh - way to kill an economy quickly.

I can only see a benefit in running Vassalage if spiritual. And possibly if charismatic and it gets our HE city to 3 promotions. In fact I might use it with Brennus, but rarely otherwise.

Vassalage+pacifism is actually a pretty strong combo. Major Wars under pacifism are not necessarily too expensive. Pacifism is a powerful civic. Expecially if you're running SE and are, say, philosophical so its possible that you are generating GP out of more than one city. This way you can keep a strong stream of GP produced and outtech everyone while still producing level 2 units. PLUS YOU GET SEVERAL UNITS FOR FREE UNDER VASSALAGE. this offsets the additional gold costs a bit.

I'm not saying this is a primary otpion for government I'm just saying it's viable if your teching and want to deal with a minor conflict.

 

[Artichoker]

Vassalage+pacifism is actually a pretty strong combo. Major Wars under pacifism are not necessarily too expensive. Pacifism is a powerful civic. Expecially if you're running SE and are, say, philosophical so its possible that you are generating GP out of more than one city. This way you can keep a strong stream of GP produced and outtech everyone while still producing level 2 units. PLUS YOU GET SEVERAL UNITS FOR FREE UNDER VASSALAGE. this offsets the additional gold costs a bit.

I'm not saying this is a primary otpion for government I'm just saying it's viable if your teching and want to deal with a minor conflict.

Regarding Vassalage + Pacificism, I'm thinking that leaders like Tokugawa and Churchill, who have Protective but no economic bonuses, would be best suited for this combo.

They can use Protective's wall production bonus to build lots of walls, and use the CG bonus to help cut down on garrison units.

Meanwhile, the +100% GPP generation bonus from Pacifism would be a great asset considering that these two leaders have no economic bonuses.

In order to avoid the extra maintenance from military units, you would need to build a lean, but efficient, fighting force based on quality rather than quantity. And localize your battles to where they count the most.

I might try my next game with Tokugawa using this strategy.

 

[Artichoker]

Regarding Vassalage + Pacificism, I'm thinking that leaders like Tokugawa and Churchill, who have Protective but no economic bonuses, would be best suited for this combo.

They can use Protective's wall production bonus to build lots of walls, and use the CG bonus to help cut down on garrison units.

Meanwhile, the +100% GPP generation bonus from Pacifism would be a great asset considering that these two leaders have no economic bonuses.

In order to avoid the extra maintenance from military units, you would need to build a lean, but efficient, fighting force based on quality rather than quantity. And localize your battles to where they count the most.

I might try my next game with Tokugawa using this strategy.

To elaborate further on this topic, you'd probably want to open the game using an axe rush, making good use of Aggressive or Charismatic. Try to gain a land advantage during the early game. Only keep cities when you can afford it. For borderline cities, consider razing them and saving the land for future settling.

During the medieval age, slow down your war efforts and go for the techs needed for Vassalage and Pacifism. Focus on building the Heroic Epic ASAP, and concentrate your GGs in the HE city. Once HE is built, try to scale down your military production, perhaps making units only from the HE city.

Use Vassalage + Pacifism to fight a careful, small-scale war using your small but tough assault force. Use the extra GPs gained from Pacifism to sustain your economy. There's no hurry to build the National Epic, because with Pacifism, all of your cities effectively have the NE.

 

[Artichoker]

To elaborate further on this topic, you'd probably want to open the game using an axe rush, making good use of Aggressive or Charismatic. Try to gain a land advantage during the early game. Only keep cities when you can afford it. For borderline cities, consider razing them and saving the land for future settling.

During the medieval age, slow down your war efforts and go for the techs needed for Vassalage and Pacifism. Focus on building the Heroic Epic ASAP, and concentrate your GGs in the HE city. Once HE is built, try to scale down your military production, perhaps making units only from the HE city.

Use Vassalage + Pacifism to fight a careful, small-scale war using your small but tough assault force. Use the extra GPs gained from Pacifism to sustain your economy. There's no hurry to build the National Epic, because with Pacifism, all of your cities effectively have the NE.

This is most likely done with an FE as the backbone for your economy, for two reasons:

1) having the +100% GPP bonus of Pacifism allows you to effectively develop multiple GP farms

2) the small-scale warring is likely to induce enemy forces to invade your land. They will take their chances at pillaging your lands, but the damage is minimized if you use a farm-based economy.

To have a sustained state of war, it is necessary to minimize War Weariness. So the casualties of the war will ideally take place on home soil.

 

[Artichoker]

Well, I'm ready to wrap up the Alexander game.

With Ragnar eliminated and Genghis Khan vassalized, the aim was now to achieve the 64% land necessary to achieve domination. The obvious target for the next war was Hannibal, since he had already finished Apollo Program.

The modernized navy (shown in the previous post) was immediately ready to carry our land forces over to Hannibal's territory...

Spoiler :

It took a mere 3 turns for the invasion fleet to reach striking range of Hannibal's primary coastal city.

Spoiler :

And then the gates of hell opened!

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, Hannibal's sole possession on our home continent was attacked simultaneously...

Spoiler :

After just one turn of war...

Spoiler :

Thus concludes the game. We were able to continue using Vassalage all the way into the modern era. It allowed us to leverage the economic advantages of Free Religion and Organized Religion while maintaining a constant +2 XP bonus throughout the eras. While our empire got larger, the free unit bonus continued to grow, and as inflation grew, the anti-inflationary advantage of the bonus also continued to grow.

Vassalage has now gained proof of being a viable option with exceptional longevity extending from the medieval era to the modern era.