Nationhood vs Vassalage

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Given that these civics are pretty much used by the same goal (warmongering), the question is which one is more useful.

Pro Nationhood:

• Draft have good food to hammers conversion rate
• Can still get level 3 units with theocracy
• Barracks provide cheap source of happiness
• Extra espionage points
• Have no upkeep while vassalage have high upkeep

Pro Vassalage:

• Experience bonus have no drawbacks unlike draft
• Experience bonus effect all units built while draft can only be used a limited numbers each turn
• Experience bonus boost all unit types while draft only give infantry
• With a great generals you can build level 4 units with vassalage and theocracy
• Free units may make it quite cheap to run if you are at war

 

[Lexicus]

I dunno, for me it's usually a choice between nationhood and bureaucracy, I don't really find myself running vassalage ever.

 

[InovA]

I think Nationhood. The drafting is just like whipping, but better - and has a separate turn timer from whipping, so doesn't need to last as long. The + and + % are always appreciated, but the number of basically gained from Nationhood is what's worth boasting over.

It is situational though. Vassalage can be better for mounted units if you're rushing cuirs/cavalry to take a civ on your continent. I find that when I draft Macemen/Musketmen for a Knight/Cuir sweep, the infantry rarely have as many chances to fight as I expected. If you'll be attacking another continent, Nationhood because mounted units' 2 is of no use during the landing. Immune to 1st strikes and 15% withdraw chance is nice, but so is 3 riflemen instead of 1 cavalry.

If I was in a Golden Age and plotting war, I'd go Nationhood to draft a ton, then switch to Vassalage before it ended if I wanted to kill more than 1 civ with this wave. The plenty of infantry, etc., could crash the 1st cities while upgraded mounted units come in at lightning speed to follow.

Outside of war, the + from Nationhood is definitely better than the free units from Vassalage.

 

[sinimusta]

Getting units to 5xp is important, getting them to 7xp not so much. So if you can use theo, vassalage isn't that important. Edit: tech stealing can be good and nationalism helps with that.

 

[lymond]

In all my years playing the game, I've very rarely used Vassalage. Exceptions may be if I'm Spiritual and for some reason was able to trade for Feud early before I had CS, and it suited my purpose at the time. Nationhood is very powerful if you know how to use it, but I still use it rarely since I'm more inclined to go with Mounted. It is great though for Steel/Rifle push. Theo not really needed depending on your religion situation, but certainly does not hurt during the period in which you draft. I mainly run Bureau though for pretty much the whole game when it is active.

So in short, I'd say Nationhood far surpasses Vassalage in usefulness, with Vassalage coming active around the same time as the more powerful and useful Bureaucracy. But Vass can have some usage in rare situations.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Sometimes Nationhood is great if say, you're spiritual, and they attack before you're ready for some reason.

Well, the way I see it Nationhood's recruits are good to follow after your mounted pushes; so say draft muskets stay behind and guard the cities the Cuirs took and once in a while a couple of enemy units do manage to threaten your cities and you don't want to go back and kill them.

It's also invaluable in :"do or die" scenarios; let's say for some reason you don't have horses or iron and your only thing is just rifles.

Overall Nationhood is better because it can turn a bad situation into a better one, either by getting the army you need when you need it, and especially making use out of crappy cities, whereas Vassalage probably wouldn't.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It's also invaluable in :"do or die" scenarios; let's say for some reason you don't have horses or iron and your only thing is just rifles.

You would probably would try a catapult/longbow rush in such scenarios as you would know the situation long before rifles. And because you get longbows you get vassalage.

 

[Fippy]

Vass can be really good for hard games (think deity isolation "outbreak", we had that example in Lain's thread and Rusten advertised a lot for Vass ).
It's not so much a standard game civic, cos you rarely depend on stronger units if you are ahead of AIs anyways.

But if you are really not sure how wars will go, 2xp can make a huge difference. Even if it's not a new promo right away, 7 instead of 5xp units reach 10xp faster and winning even odds battles often gives 3xp.
I also had plenty situations where i was thankful for stronger let's say galleons.

 

[Archon_Wing]

You would probably would try a catapult/longbow rush in such scenarios as you would know the situation long before rifles. And because you get longbows you get vassalage.

Closed in, probably. But if you did get some space to yourself and can just draft a bunch of rilfles (accompanied by trebs) it seems a bit safe, and you can lib Printing Press as well. Though ironically, if you're small, bureaucracy may actually help more.

You can do this with even really crappy land, as long as you have some food somewhere.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

It's quantity vs quality if talking mixed stacks. IMO most of the time, quantity wins in Civ4. The cav rushes that can sweep a Pangaea have little need for drafting, though, and can benefit greatly from Vass. 1 settled gg and you can get level 4 out the door which is huge for cuir+ breakouts and all cav domination runs. But even without settled gg, 1 victory gets the 4th level... still very strong.

I think it also depends on the ultimate goal. If you're just trying to grab some cities but planning on Space Vic, neither may be worth it so stay in bureaucracy (unless spiritual).

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

My strategy is to use the capital cottages for gold per turn. Cottages are better for gold per turn than they really for science, actually I think it is better to produce science than wealth because wealth buildings are better than science buildings and come much earlier and the academy do cost a scientist bulb. My tech mainly comes from using great people and trading as that is more efficient. Also specialist farm cities can very quickly build up an army unlike cottage cities thanks to using slavery. This mean I can very quickly field an army of my most advanced unit as soon as I have developed the tech. If you have to much gold per turn it basically mean you have too few cities or something like that, you can always turn it into science if you need to.

Vassalage is on a quite decent tech path and you need to get it eventually while Im less sure about nationalism. Guild and banking give alot of good stuff and is needed at some point anyway.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Maybe it's the lower levels I play, but I usually don't even get feudalism before Nationalism. Usually I trade for it once I win lib or if my neighbors look really ornery. That tech path is heavily contested by AIs.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Maybe it's the lower levels I play, but I usually don't even get feudalism before Nationalism. Usually I trade for it once I win lib.

I find with scientist bulbs I am very far ahead on the lib race because their bulbs basically lead directly towards lib. At that point clearing out the bottom tech tree allow for stuff such as much better workshops and possibility to lib steel which is a ridiculous good tech for cannons and even more extreme cases we could be lib something post scientific method but there is less to be gained, communism is quite decent if you plan to switch from farms to workshops.

Alot of those tech such as chemistry and scientific method I think can be bulbed with great scientist without much trouble allowing some very nice liberalism techs but I don't know the exact bulb table.

I run pacifism, caste system and alot of farms and large cities which produce serious amount of great scientist points.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

My strategy is to use the capital cottages for gold per turn. Cottages are better for gold per turn than they really for science, actually I think it is better to produce science than wealth because wealth buildings are better than science buildings and come much earlier and the academy do cost a scientist bulb. My tech mainly comes from using great people and trading as that is more efficient. Also specialist farm cities can very quickly build up an army unlike cottage cities thanks to using slavery. This mean I can very quickly field an army of my most advanced unit as soon as I have developed the tech. If you have to much gold per turn it basically mean you have too few cities or something like that, you can always turn it into science if you need to.

Vassalage is on a quite decent tech path and you need to get it eventually while Im less sure about nationalism. Guild and banking give alot of good stuff and is needed at some point anyway.

Feudalism is usually useless for me until I'm ready to vassal my conquered neighbors. Sometimes that comes earlier than later but usually it's post lib. Rarely, I'll have to get it early if diplo failed and I'm facing an attack but that's an exception not the rule in most games.

Nationalism is on the way to military tradition and is, therefore, on a more powerful path, in my opinion. That being said if I find the space to try and lib rifling, feudalism is early on the list since it is a prereq for guilds which is a prereq for banking which is a prereq for replaceable parts. But more often than not I'm libing military tradition or steel. Nationalism lies on the way to assembly line and unlocks Taj so I just think it is on the more desirable path especially since I generally get to CS from CoL not Feud. In general I think it's more important to get to nationalism faster than the ai (often rushing self tech) and treat feudalism as backfill.

Different strokes, though.

 

[SnipedSoul]

I usually try to lib chemistry or steel because I play watery maps and the naval aspect helps me more in the long run. Vassalage is better for me since I can use it to get CRII trebs in every city while waiting for steel.

Once cannons are in, you become like a steamroller. Your army isn't that fast (ships help after astro), but it doesn't matter because cannons slaughter everything. Cannons also pretty much never die, so you don't really need to worry about replacing them. Just make sure to keep formation pikes around to deter cuir flanks.

Chem and steel also support a hammer spam strategy, which I prefer. I can bulb printing press and sci meth to get a fast communism after steel, too. Maxed out workshops are a great way to make newly captured cities productive and turn you into a production powerhouse.

Finally, because I go SP hammer spam, I keep AI cities rather than take vassals. If you like to cap civs as quickly as possible, you probably prefer cuirs and cavs.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Agreed on almost all points. Lib steel is strong on any map type as i consider drydocks to be a bonus rather than the purpose of libing steel.

Cav rushes can usually finish before Communism is even a thing. If not, I'd rather stick to the whip and keep spamming units anyway. When using cav rush, if I need to convert to hammer econ / go into SP, I probably didn't do it right. Cannons into arty is another story though. Workshop spam and SP kills it, no doubt about it.

 

[SnipedSoul]

I play on multiple continent maps, so I like to take a breather after conquering my own continent with cannons. I need astro for ships, so I may as well bulb sci meth and grab communism to deal with the massive maintenance that comes with owning an entire continent. Once that maintenance is gone, I can field a gigantic army while continuing to research for artillery or tanks.

If you play on a single continent, I agree that there's no need to stop warring unless something has gone wrong.

 

[ArchGhost]

Vassalage is one of things that looks good on paper but in practical terms doesn't pan out as well.
-It's expensive. This directly offsets the "free" unit support, and in large empires it will end up costing you more to run it than anything else other than Bureau or Theocracy
-Which leads to the next, point: If you can run Theo, you don't need it, and you shouldn't, because Theo is expensive itself; using them together can wreck the economy of a large empire
-The value of the experience it gives (+2) is questionable in its window (before Nationhood or Free Speech). At the point at which you might have it, it's quite easy to have a barracks in each city. If you're using mounted units, the stable eliminates the need for it at all, since Vassalage alone won't get you that 3rd promo with Rax+Stable--you need Theo as well.
-For other units, like siege or infantry, they tend to be more expendable or likely to die than mounted anyway (which you want to stick around and keep stacking promos on to rip through more and more territory), so an immediate second promotion isn't all that it's cracked up to be for these guys. It's nice, but when you're throwing out suicide catapults and mopping up with C2 Elephants or CR 1 Maces afterwards, it's not really hard to replace the siege and stack up promos on the clean up crew.
-Cannons are another story. Having CR 2 out the gate is very powerful, enough to have cannons survive to become highly promoted when cracking cities open. But this is at a much later point (Steel). Trebs are kind of a fence sitter, but I tend to find they don't need much help as the massive +100% modifier helps a lot due to the way the combat system rolls.


Nationhood is something I never used to consider (would always just blindly go Bureau until Free Speech later) but have been playing around with recently. Ignoring the drafting aspect for a moment, it seems to offer more than it seems at first:
-Very cheap. The polar opposite of running Bureau or Vassalage in terms of cost. Large empires especially can feel this effect. As a big fan of Organized, this alone makes me like the civic.
-Barracks, as mentioned, are a cheap commodity and are easy to emplace long before you even get the Nationalism. In addition to the point about devaluing the free XP Vassalage gives, they net you a free +2 happy, which is very welcome when whipping up an army and warring/accumulating weariness.
-Those are really the big points, but hey, extra espionage. Great?

And of course, it opens up the draft, which with the proper techs in place can be a powerful method of raising an army fast. The barracks happiness works right along with this, giving you more cushion.

I hardly ever use Vassalage anymore. I expand a lot in most games and it's too expensive to justify. I make a point to start some religion spread before pushing, and I usually have at least one of Christianity/Taoism/Confucianism due to bulbing, so Theo is there for at least some of my cities when build up time comes.. Cuir rush is my most common pursuit so it really comes down to: what is the value of +2 XP that can't even give a promotion by itself vs. less expenses and more happy?

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

-Which leads to the next, point: If you can run Theo, you don't need it, and you shouldn't, because Theo is expensive itself; using them together can wreck the economy of a large empire
-The value of the experience it gives (+2) is questionable in its window (before Nationhood or Free Speech). At the point at which you might have it, it's quite easy to have a barracks in each city. If you're using mounted units, the stable eliminates the need for it at all, since Vassalage alone won't get you that 3rd promo with Rax+Stable--you need Theo as well.
-For other units, like siege or infantry, they tend to be more expendable or likely to die than mounted anyway (which you want to stick around and keep stacking promos on to rip through more and more territory), so an immediate second promotion isn't all that it's cracked up to be for these guys. It's nice, but when you're throwing out suicide catapults and mopping up with C2 Elephants or CR 1 Maces afterwards, it's not really hard to replace the siege and stack up promos on the clean up crew

I agree with much of what you say.

One thing is that Theocracy is medium upkeep which isn't all that expensive considering you can get a second promotion for siege pretty early on. CR2 trebs are relevant for a pretty good amount of time.

Also, Charismatic leaders can get 3 promos out the door with rax, one settled GG and vassal / theo combo. Even better with Mongols whose mounted units will have 3 promos out the door without a settled GG. So there are several instances where vassalage can be a good choice particularly if you are Brennus who combines both CHA and SPI. ORG could be included in there, too, since it cuts the civic upkeep costs in half.

Another use is when you are starting to build an army for future upgrade but are still pushing out GP on the way and so want to keep Pacif going but still get 2 promos out the door. Vassalage takes care of that and also helps offset the unit costs of Pacif while Pacif itself has no upkeep. It would seem to be a strange combo but govt civics don't offer any GP or specialist boosts anyway.

Definitely agree that vassalage has a limited span, though. And as soon as you hit around 10 cities on immortal/deity, the cost tends to become prohibitive in comparison to Nationhood (unless ORG). Drafting in non-cav domination runs is pretty powerful when combined with whipping to help with unhappiness and stack balance. So I see vassalage and nationhood as more of a progression from one to the next in domination games that focus on siege and infantry. Vassalage early prepping first conquest and nationhood after getting a bunch of cities.