Quick question about Vassalage...
- Thread starter Icewise
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Kierkegaard
Warlord
Hey,
It doesn't mean that you get free units without building them. It's the upkeep that's free
It doesn't mean that you get free units without building them. It's the upkeep that's free
Vassalage is best used when you want to build strong, large armies and don't want to loose the production adavantage of organised religion or are using free religion. It's best used when you're an organised civ, as it's civic cost is reduced. It has limited uses, and is one I don't personally always use unless I'm going for war around the 100th to 150th turn and intend to build loads of troops (it's too expensive for what it is) and don't have other techs I can use. If I'm going to war in the mid game, I find theocracy paired with mercantilism (improve manufacturing by working more tiles), representation (for the +3 bulbs per specialist per turn), beuracracy (for the money and production) and slavery (to deal with unhappy/unhealthy citizens by whipping theatres) better.
???? Working more Tiles ???
mercantilism allows a free specialist, you gain more hammers from specialist, not from the tiles.
if i have a small empire the bureaurocracy bonus which counts only for one city may outweigh the vassalage bonus but in a medium to large empire i would recommend vassalage which counts for all cities during war time.
Vassalage and/or Theocracy opens up the nice level 2/3 promotions which are important during war.
In wartime , you will build mostly units therefore organized religion makes not much sense, but theocracy does. If you already have theocracy as an XP booster, it is situational whether you need the other one but Vassalage combined with theocracy allows a Charismatic leader to take full advantage of the trait.
The fact that you get a free specialist means you can work extra tiles if you choose and still get the specialists you need. You don't necessarily use the free specialist as an engineer, as your criticism suggests. Depends what you want in a specific city. I normally mix it up depending upon what great people I want in that city. I normally find running as mercantilism will boost my manufacturing, regardless of what specialists I use, so I'm guessing it's down to having free extra tiles worked.
It's a matter of perspective. I feel that if you run as bureaucracy you can use your capital to build many of the troops you need. You also get the extra commerce in your capital. The main problem with war is that your economy is at risk of crashing. If you don't build at least some improvements to take advantage of your civic types and newly developed technology, your allowing the rivals who are not warring to gain a tech advantage.
This is the reasoning behind using vassalage with organised religion. Being capable of generating infrastucture more quickly helps keep the war going. But it's also why bureaucracy and theology combined with republic, slavery and mercantilism works better (the overflow is awesome in your capital when running as a bureaucracy, and I find it very easy to build pretty much every building I'm capable of in my capital. This means market, grocer, bank, library, university, forge, monastries, academy if I get great scientist, heroic epic (troop production them become simply stupid). Even for a medium sized empire, the pay off is better till you get to higher levels)
Should you only build troops during war? Do so and you stifle the development of your cities. Unless your planning to take a huge amount of land and have a good tech lead I don't necessarily see the sense of that. In the build up to war how long do you wait? During that time are you only building troops? again, failing to develop infrastructure when the necessary techs become available will stagnate your economy, particularly if your gaining a lot of teritorry. Those new cities need to be paid for.
Do you really need larger armies? I generally don't. A little trickery can be used to ensure 10 troops beat 20, and 30 units wipe out a country if backed up by a steady stream of newly built troops. I don't need all my cities building troops all the time to do this. By the time I get a large enough empire to make vassalage worth it my military cities are up and running and it's less important to run as either vassalage or theocracy.
What do you mean by large empires? I take it as meaning more than 16 cities, though that also depends upon map type and size. If your talking more than 32 (not impossible depending on map type) It's pretty difficult to get that without going to war first. When would you use vassalge then? When the inflation is really beginning to kick in making the civic really expensive? Unless you have more than 16 cities, bureaucracy still makes better economic sense. If your larger than that, Free speech or nationhood would be better, wouldn't it? After all, you don't get free upkeep for that many troops and bureaucracy will only get you so far.
Quality of troops is important, just as numbers are. But it's what you do with them and how you use them that are far more important, and a stronger opponent can still be beaten if your wise with what you do with your troops.
How careful are you with the troops you build? I like to keep mine alive for as long as possible so that I don't need to build more.
I can see the sense of running theocracy and vassalage if you're leader is charismatic. I usually use the above tactics for most of the leaders I play with and it tends to work oddly enough (it's most effective with organised leaders). It allows me to concentrate on techs I'll actually use. If you have six cities and only built units, you'll end up with a huge army no doubt. And backward cities. Using the above tactic, my capital will not only build about 30 units, but the infrastructure needed to pay for the expansion.
No you don't. You only get 2 Hammers from an Engineer, you get at least 3 from any Hill. 4 from a Plains Hill. If you're relying on Specialists to boost your production, you're using them the wrong way. Their main benefit is the Great People points, not what they actually contribute. Especially when it comes to Hammers.
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