The Vassalage Metastrategy

[ParadigmShifter]

 

[oyzar]

Vassalage is great in a team game where one of the team mates doesn't have a great burrecracy capital and/or are largely producing units empire wide... Combining it with more GG's and/or theocracy and/or carismatic are of course also impossible(with 2 gg's and carismatic and a stable you can produce comando mounted units once you get the needed techs)...

 

[Artichoker]

Is that your version of the War Room?

 

[troytheface]

The Babylonian Maneuver suggests that The Hanging Gardens wonder will favor an Organized, small sized Civ running Vassalage and Serfdom while teching towards Feudalism and fielding Bowmen and Horse Archers.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Is that your version of the War Room?

"Uvavu" XCL

 

[Airey]

Hello...I welcome your opinion here, by the way. I'm not trying to assert that my strat is strictly better than Dave's.

I'm not the one who brought up the Feudalism vs. Theology comparison, but was only defending the value of Feudalism as an important tech. In order to appreciate it fully, you need to appreciate the power of Longbowmen, which many people seem to ignore.

Don't get defensive and put words in my mouth. I never mention anything between you and Dave and who's is better. I only said it's different. Besides, Dave is a better player than me. I am not going to suggest how he can play. I merely state that if he's concern about wasting anarchy, he has the option to do when the 4th civic, pacifism, is available via building Paya. Because the synergy of waring and pacifism.

If you object why people ignore the "power of Longbowsman," please elaborate how you use them in your strategy and how big a factor it is in winning the war sooner. More specifically, how does longbowsman's benefit outweight early Bureaucracy. Or whatever your argument is.

Guilds. Call that a dead-end tech if you like, but I certainly value it much more than Divine Right.

Where did I say Guilds is a dead-end tech? You were the one calling techs dead-end. If you prioritize the bottom part of the tech tree early and use it to leverage your tactics then it's reasonable. But it seems like you are doing Feudalism and going at the top of the tech tree, CS/Paper/Edu like most. And you are trying to argue Feudalism is better than Theology. Essentially you are just using more turns researching a tech for 2 XP and netting longbowsman whom is not a war deciding factor. I agree that DR is not more important than Guild if you research Guild right after at that time period. If you delay Guild, ie. post paper/education, I find DR is usually more beneficial for me because the size of my empire and the 2 world wonder it allows me to build to help with my commerce.

Here is where I'll just have to disagree with you. +2 XP in all cities for military is much better than +50% production in one city, by far. On the other hand, the commerce bonus of Bureaucracy can compensate, but without fully mature Cottages this takes some time to realize.

Please don't forget the unit cost you need for building army large enough to attack another civ on your own.
So the commerce difference is almost 100% because you loose 50% bonus and you have to pay extra fee for units idling while waiting for war. In addition, I will assume you are not working any cottages when you are building invasive forces, thus further delay your cottage growth. Cottage growth is proportionate to the increase in research beakers in later techs. Thus its normal to see it takes the same amount of terms to research a later tech as it does for fishing if one starts working cottage early enough. Your method of delaying Bureaucracy and working on mines only further delay your cottage growth, couple that with unit maintenance fee, and minus 50% capital production/commerce bonus and increase the number of turns it will take you to reach Liberalism. A capital with 50% production bonus can crank out axeman and work cottages at almost the same rate as one working mainly mines. And the 50% commerce bonus can help supplement the unit cost.

I don't really care if I can take a city with a level 1 axeman or level 3 axeman as long as min causality. In terms of 2 XPs, there are easy way to get to level 2 on the open field/new cities while en-route to the enemy's capital.

Coupled with Religious allies, it's easy to get more than 2 XPs even if I start building axeman without barracks. Preparing for 5XP army is worthless when it can be achieved by other means at the same time, while gaining production and commence bonuses at the same time.

In my experience, a bunch of level 2 axeman/swordsman vs few level 1 and war allies, I don't find myself having problem winning wars. So level 2 army coming out of the gate is not a priority, because it's not such a big difference that it alters the result of the war. If a bunch of level 2 promoted units can win me my war (eliminate 1 civ) at a faster date (BC), by all means, I will try it.

With early religion diplomacy, I am just saying I don't have to invest so many hammers on "high level" introductory army (axeman and swordsman). Because by your method, maceman almost available soon. I don't want to have a bunch of highly promoted axeman sitting around while costing me commerce to maintain. The priority is to take down good cities and eliminate dangerous civs.

Lastly, while there's a way to compensate the 2 XP lost by fighting enemies. Is there a way to compensate 50% bonuses from the capital? In other words, if I delay using Bureaucracy, is there a way I can achieve the same result of neting proportionate amount 50% production and commerce bonuses from the capital? If you check your city screen, your capital production/commerce output is prob more than 2 of your other cities combined. So it's not just a city like you said.

The jump from 3 XP to 5 XP is big because it adds a full promotion. The jump from 5 XP to 7 XP is much less because it provides less than half a promotion.

Yes, that's right. At the end of the day, why does it matter when I can take all the cities with 2 level 2 axeman and you have a bunch of level 3 and 4s at the city after the war.

More often than not, I find it more advantageous to wait until the right moment to pick the right religion, because the choice may not always be obvious at the time.

Usually it's Buddhism or Hindu dominate. Sometimes Jud. Factoring in your neighbor, religion founding civs, and aggressive civs, it's usually easy to deduce which religion to side with. The founding civs usually spend lots of time making missionaries, ie. Gandhi. Usually I find one of the aggressive civs with the dominate religion and use them as war allies against another aggressive neighboring civ. It's fine if you want to stay neutral until mid game, post CS. Advantage of using the dominate religion is that I don't have to have a as high a power rating to prevent a DOW as if I was religion neutral.

I am just saying it's possible to have 4 hammer bonus at relatively very early stage of the game. These hammer bonus can be apply to any city build. After my first war, and infrastructure phase, I usually can build so much modern army so fast it doesn't matter what religion I pick during nationalism. I watch out my religion diplo carefully at the beginning of the game. By mid/end game, I am so much ahead I can careless what other AI is using. By Nationalism I usually switch back to my unique religion so other AI will DOW me and I won't suffer diplo demerit with other civs while engaging a war to acquire more land mid game. If the neighboring civ is the founder of the dominate religion or if they're tech leaders, I will usually make "arrogant" demands repeately in a single turn and get my demerit with them to -10 to accelerate being DOWed. Then I draft when they do. The goal is to get the dominate shrine and techs in midgame while not wasting time backfilling and maintain military advantage without having to trade techs. This is about the same time I war for the bottom Guild tech line and get them through peace talks.

Sure, we can go that way if you like, but I'll guarantee that you'll lose in your endeavor.

It's just you started the thread stating to leverage Vassalage and other community members are testing your theory. Just please don't be defensive and get personal with your tone of voice. Everyone is here to learn.

It looks like the price is basically 1 turn of anarchy for the bonuses.
Theology will get the 2XP earlier because of it's shorter research time.
It might also help to state what difficulty this strategy you find works in. I usually forget about full scale axeman rush on my own because they're usually outdated when I put all my resource into them. When I have axeman forces, the AI's culture defense is too high. When I get my Cats together, the AI usually have longbowsman. On lower settings, by the time you prepared an axeman/swordsman army large enough to take out civs on your own, I've already won and ended my war and preparing to make more modern units because I had help and I don't need to invest into construction/Cat in the beginning to making army. The earlier the multiplier buildings are build, the net benefit is exponential. Other infrastructure also help accelerate research indirectly.

In addition, when you are fighting the war alone. All the other Civs are running away technologically. By asking for allies, almost 1/3 of the world is technologically idle and the allies are getting the short stick because they're not getting new cities, and post war, they are busy rebuilding improvements and re-up their power rating. While I sit there and enjoy my new cities while knowing I will have Micheal Phelp like research rate post CS.

Theology increase power rating as well, like construction. Not sure if Feudalism do. If I had to guess, it should as well.

I don't know if you ever took any science class. It's the method, theory and supports we're discussing. It's not about who wins and who looses. If your theory turns out to be correct, I will be just as happy as if mine was correct. Entering a debate with the state of mind of "me win you loose" is not scientific. Dave is testing your hypothesis. Not your ego. Please do not mis-understand and try to be objective.

 

[pigswill]

@Artichoker: I'm one of the people that ignore the power of LBs coz I'm not sure about the power of LBs . I would be grateful if you could expand on that as I'm obviously missing something.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

the power of lbows and vassalage is quite dubious

but, to get more on the bright side, it enables serfdom too

 

[Artichoker]

Don't get defensive and put words in my mouth. I never mention anything between you and Dave and who's is better. I only said it's different. Besides, Dave is a better player than me. I am not going to suggest how he can play. I merely state that if he's concern about wasting anarchy, he has the option to do when the 4th civic, pacifism, is available via building Paya. Because the synergy of waring and pacifism.

If you object why people ignore the "power of Longbowsman," please elaborate how you use them in your strategy and how big a factor it is in winning the war sooner. More specifically, how does longbowsman's benefit outweight early Bureaucracy. Or whatever your argument is.

Use them defensively on high-defense tiles to lure enemy units to attack them. I am 100% sure that this tactic works efficiently.

Where did I say Guilds is a dead-end tech? You were the one calling techs dead-end. If you prioritize the bottom part of the tech tree early and use it to leverage your tactics then it's reasonable. But it seems like you are doing Feudalism and going at the top of the tech tree, CS/Paper/Edu like most. And you are trying to argue Feudalism is better than Theology. Essentially you are just using more turns researching a tech for 2 XP and netting longbowsman whom is not a war deciding factor.

Enabling Guilds by getting Feudalism doensn't necessarily mean getting Guilds itself. For one thing, it can be traded for.

Please don't forget the unit cost you need for building army large enough to attack another civ on your own.
So the commerce difference is almost 100% because you loose 50% bonus and you have to pay extra fee for units idling while waiting for war.

I don't really care if I can take a city with a level 1 axeman or level 3 axeman as long as min causality. In terms of 2 XPs, there are easy way to get to level 2 on the open field/new cities while en-route to the enemy's capital.

Coupled with Religious allies, it's easy to get more than 2 XPs even if I start building axeman without barracks. Preparing for 5XP army is worthless when it can be achieved by other means at the same time, while gaining production and commence bonuses at the same time.



In my experience, a bunch of level 2 axeman/swordsman vs few level 1 and war allies, I don't find myself having problem winning wars. So level 2 army coming out of the gate is not a priority, because it's not such a big difference that it alters the result of the war. If a bunch of level 2 promoted units can win me my war (eliminate 1 civ) at a faster date (BC), by all means, I will try it.



With early religion diplomacy, I am just saying I don't have to invest so many hammers on "high level" introductory army (axeman and swordsman). Because by your method, maceman almost available soon. I don't want to have a bunch of highly promoted axeman sitting around while costing me commerce to maintain. The priority is to take down good cities and eliminate dangerous civs.

With Phase 2 (Vassalage+Paganism), I can choose either no religion or a state religion. Religion diplomacy is also an option for me if I choose a state religion as well. However, Theocracy is only effective if you already chose a state religion. This is what you are missing here.

Lastly, while there's a way to compensate the 2 XP lost by fighting enemies.

Not if your units die while trying to gain those XP.

Is there a way to compensate 50% bonuses from the capital? In other words, if I delay using Bureaucracy, is there a way I can achieve the same result of neting proportionate amount 50% production and commerce bonuses from the capital? If you check your city screen, your capital production/commerce output is prob more than 2 of your cities combined. So it's not just a city like you said.

See above. Beginning with more promotions results in a higher combat percentage, basically, and will lead to saved hammers in the end.

Yes, that's right. At the end of the day, why does it matter when I can take all the cities with 2 level 2 axeman and you have a bunch of level 3 and 4s at the city after the war.

The promotions matter to some degree, but my point is the cost of gaining them through XP bonuses, which gets more expensive as the units go higher in level.

Usually it's Buddhism or Hindu dominate. Sometimes Jud. Factoring in your neighbor, religion founding civs, and aggressive civs, it's usually easy to deduce which religion to side with. The founding civs usually spend lots of time making missionaries, ie. Gandhi. Usually I find one of the aggressive civs with the dominate religion and use them as war allies against another aggressive neighboring civ. It's fine if you want to stay neutral until mid game, post CS. Advantage of using the dominate religion is that I don't have to have a as high a power rating to prevent a DOW as if I was religion neutral.

But you cannot be 100% sure. The advanage of Paganism is that you can either choose a state religion, or wait to do so.

I am just saying it's possible to have 4 hammer bonus at relatively very early stage of the game. These hammer bonus can be apply to any city build. After my first war, and infrastructure phase, I usually can build so much modern army so fast it doesn't matter what religion I pick during nationalism. I watch out my religion diplo carefully at the beginning of the game. By mid/end game, I am so much ahead I can careless what other AI is using. By Nationalism I usually switch back to my unique religion so other AI will DOW me and I won't suffer diplo demerit with other civs while engaging a war to acquire more land mid game. If the neighboring civ is the founder of the dominate religion or if they're tech leaders, I will usually make "arrogant" demands repeately in a single turn and get my demerit with them to -10 to accelerate being DOWed. Then I draft when they do. The goal is to get the dominate shrine and techs in midgame while not wasting time backfilling and maintain military advantage without having to trade techs. This is about the same time I war for the bottom Guild tech line and get them through peace talks.

It's great you have that style of play. I'm not trying to attack it at all.

It's just you started the thread stating to leverage Vassalage and other community members are testing your theory. Just please don't be defensive and get personal with your tone of voice. Everyone is here to learn.

It looks like the price is basically 1 turn of anarchy for the bonuses. Theology will get the 2XP earlier because of it's shorter research time.
It might also help to state what difficulty this strategy you find works in. I usually forget about axeman attacks because they're usually outdated when I put all my resource into them and cats early in the game. On lower settings, by the time you prepared an axeman/swordsman army large enough to take out civs on your own, I've already won and ended my war and preparing to make more modern units because I had help and I don't need to invest so much hammer in the beginning to making army.

In addition, when you are fighting the war alone. All the other Civs are running away technologically. By asking for allies, almost 1/3 of the world is technologically idle and the allies are getting the short stick because they're not getting new cities, and post war, they are busy rebuilding improvements and re-up their power rating. While I sit there and enjoy my new cities while knowing I will have Micheal Phelp like research rate post CS.

Theology increase power rating as well, like construction. Not sure if Feudalism do. If I had to guess, it should as well.

I don't know if you ever took any science class. It's the method, theory and supports we're discussing. It's not about who wins and who looses. If your theory turns out to be correct, I will be just as happy as if mine was correct. Entering a debate with the state of mind of "me win you loose" is not scientific. Dave is testing your hypothesis. Not your ego. Please do not mis-understand and try to be objective.

It looks like the value of Longbowmen is one of the main points of disagreement we have here. But to convince you of their value, it might not be so easy in a simple post.

 

[Airey]

Use them defensively on high-defense tiles to lure enemy units to attack them. I am 100% sure that this tactic works efficiently.

Essentially this high defensive tile strategy works for all units. Offensively, the extra benefit for longbowsman is 1st strike. Where during that time period, Swordsman's and Axeman's natural bonuses are at least equal. And that is not considering Civs that have special Axeman/Swordsman units. Defensively, which I think its more useful in keeping cities gained at post maceman wars, are its defensive bonuses for city/hills defense.

Personally I skip monarchy entirely if not needed by map, ie. built mid and cannot grow into happy cap that fast, and get MC/Machine by trade or research. Xbowman is more beneficial at that time period for me and it can help me to research Engineering to counter Guilds. That's a different strategy than the one discussed here, but imo, Pikeman/Xbowman/Treb/Maceman is a more balanced force than Longbowsman/Knights/Cats. These low power rating units is good to attract DOWed 2nd war when expanding the empire mid game (post Nationalism).

Enabling Guilds by getting Feudalism doesn't necessarily mean getting Guilds itself. For one thing, it can be traded for.

Then the same thing applies to Theology and DR. Theology opens up DR and can be traded for. Trading potential's not a good logic base to challenge Feudalism is better than Theology to research first before CS at the expense of delaying Bureaucracy on purpose. The only reason I brought up Theology is because in your original post, you did not mention other beneficial aspects of Theology that it brings to the table. Either is fine depending on the map. I use Feudalism first when I have a weak starting capital and the goal is to defend myself in a more favorable environment (in my own culture square) long enough until I can counter-attack with my own force, post maceman. In this situation I am not the aggressor. The two strategy is vastly different depending on starting location. The high civic cost for Vassalage vs Theocracy is a downside of favoring Vassalage for the 2 XP bonus. In vassalage I spend more money on unit cost and civic cost, thus slowing down my research rate, thus slow down when I finish CS. In Theocracy, I can use the commerce saved to turn up my science slider and start Bureaucracy at a sooner date (BC/AD) even with the wasted anarchy.

With Phase 2 (Vassalage+Paganism), I can choose either no religion or a state religion. Religion diplomacy is also an option for me if I choose a state religion as well. However, Theocracy is only effective if you already chose a state religion. This is what you are missing here.

I am well aware of what it needs. I already stated the importance of using Religion Allies to mop up injured Targets defending the city. It also lowers the chance of getting dog-pilled by AI of a different religion. If one is religion free, it's power rating need to be higher during war time to prevent beging DOWed by a second civ during war time. These benefits outweights 1 anarchy and the need to produce large army. The earlier a common world dominate state religion is established with other AIs, the less one have to worry about being DOWed post war. Of course never say never. It's just lower probability.

Not if your units die while trying to gain those XP.

No. My ally units die. I mop up left over units defending the city with 90+% success rate.

See above. Beginning with more promotions results in a higher combat percentage, basically, and will lead to saved hammers in the end.

I trade that with 1 religious anarchy and sharing pre-currency techs for allies.
What is the difference in hammers wasted if my axeman rarely die fighting a sub 1.0 health defenders?

The promotions matter to some degree, but my point is the cost of gaining them through XP bonuses, which gets more expensive as the units go higher in level.

Of course it matters. Ideally we want to have best of everything. High promotion and current units. But in terms of level 2 to level 4. The extra 2 XP in the beginning is not really a war changing factor. If you can win with 5XP axeman, I can win with barracked axeman.

But you cannot be 100% sure. The advantage of Paganism is that you can either choose a state religion, or wait to do so.

Paganism is a religious civic. It's independent to religion anarchy. You can gain religion diplo bonus even if you don't switch religious civics: Theology, OR, Pacifism.

Of course nothing is sure. Otherwise it'll be too easy a game. If by that phil, why not wait to war? You can't be sure who you will piss off by declaring war.

It looks like the value of Longbowmen is one of the main points of disagreement we have here. But to convince you of their value, it might not be so easy in a simple post.

I don't disagree the value, actually serfdom, imo is more beneficial than longbowsman. I disagree the value of it at the expense of early Bureaucracy. The number of turns to research Feudalism + CS is simply greater than Theology + CS + 1 religion anarchy + 1 wasted anarchy for odd number civic change. Essentially the difference between the 2 methods are just 1 extra anarchy turn for Bureaucracy. And early Theology also means Dav's method can start producing 5XP units earlier with only Heredity Rule + Theocracy (1 turn), a religion anarchy (1 turn). Most of the time, this is faster than Feudalism. He can switch to Bureaucracy (1 turn) later after he finishes CS. Plus, you made it sound like Longbowsman is essential in your invasive force. When in defense of your strategy, you explain by saying longbowsman's best used in defensive tiles. I fail to see how longbowsman will greatly shorten the number of turns it will require to take out a civ. I use the hammer I build with longbowsman and build extra axeman and the difference in results wouldn't matter too much. Because I have religious allies. My units are not use to attack. It's use to mop up and take cities.

 

[Artichoker]

1) Trading for Guilds, especially with Engineering, is a way to gain a military advantage in war, but this is possible only if you already have Feudalism.

2) Vassalage provides a discount on units that more than offsets the lower civic cost of Theocracy, when trying to tech Civil Service.

3) Feudalism provides a discount on Civil Service as well.

4) Longbowmen have 2 kinds of defensive bonuses (hills and cities) at the start, and these can be improved with promotions. The city bonus can be gained when using a Fort, and in some cases can even be combined with the hill bonus.

5) With Theocracy, you are required to have a state religion in order to gain the bonus. With Paganism, you can still have a state religion, but you are not required to. Very often, it is better to wait until you are sure which is the best one to take. Almost as often, you even have to wait to gain the religion in the first place.

6) In many cases, AI civs cannot be bribed into war. Only in a minority of common religion situations is this possible, because the enemy often has very good relations with the 3rd party leader.

 

[Artichoker]

See screenshot above.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I never go to Theocracy, and always combine the 1-turn anarchy for Hereditary Rule and Vassalage. If I do go for a state religion (about 40% of the time), I flip to Organized Religion so that my commerce cities can work their buildings and complete them before the modern age.

IMO the hammers and commerce from the capital lost from not having bureaucracy are made up for in the free units (a MUST for warmongering) and XPs. The larger your empire gets (via warmongering) the less efficient bureaucracy gets, so unless you're going to be a pacifist weasel chipping away towards a Cultural vic, dump the bureaucrats, bring on the War Vassals.

 

[Artichoker]

I never go to Theocracy, and always combine the 1-turn anarchy for Hereditary Rule and Vassalage. If I do go for a state religion (about 40% of the time), I flip to Organized Religion so that my commerce cities can work their buildings and complete them before the modern age.

IMO the hammers and commerce from the capital lost from not having bureaucracy are made up for in the free units (a MUST for warmongering) and XPs. The larger your empire gets (via warmongering) the less efficient bureaucracy gets, so unless you're going to be a pacifist weasel chipping away towards a Cultural vic, dump the bureaucrats, bring on the War Vassals.

It's great to see the Vassalage movement gather some momentum!


To be fair to both Vassalage and Bureaucracy, both have their strong points. In a nutshell, Bureaucracy draws power from quality, whereas Vassalage draws power from quantity. Specifically, it's the quality of a single city versus the quantity of empire size.

But this thread is not really about Vassalage versus Bureaucracy. It's about a strategy that enables efficient use of both of them, in the right situations. Specifically, by having Feudalism the player not only gains access to Vassalage, but also gains a discount on the cost of Civil Service, as well as access to Longbowmen. Furthermore, by delaying switches in state religion and religion civic, the player can temporarily gain significant savings in terms of anarchy turns.

With precise play, Longbowmen can be leveraged in war to maximize their defensive advantages. A common quote that we read often is "The best defense is a good offense." Although we see this principle demonstrated often, equally often do we see "The best offense is a good defense" demonstrated successfully. A complete army must have both strong offensive and defensive components in order to adapt to the entire range of situations that can happen during a war, either imaginary or real-life. The need for defensive components becomes greater when enemy forces are mightier, because in these situations the options available to offensive components become more limited. Therefore, a complete strategy that ultimately aims for successful offense must also strive for effective defense in order to maximize the likelihood of victory in the end.

The importance of choosing the correct state religion cannot be overemphasized. The ability to make the correct decision becomes better, the longer the decision is delayed. As the player advances in difficulty level, rival empires become more powerful and diplomacy becomes more critical as a result. The diplomatic bonuses and penalties from religion must be considered as an aggregate of all rival leaders that have been met in the game. The difference between the right choice and the wrong choice can directly affect the declaration of war by some of those leaders. A player using Theocracy is forced to make a decision regading state religion; often, the timing of this decision must be compromised as a result of the need to deploy an army for war. On the other hand, a player using Vassalage gains the +2 XP bonus regardless of state religion, and therefore has the option to wait until the best time before choosing a state religion.

It is the combination of powerful civics, not the exclusion of them, that leads to overall efficiency in the play of the game.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I'd certainly classify myself as a "defensive war-monger" because when and where possible, I'd rather fight an enemy on my turf (and on his war weary hit). That is, until the enemy's got nothing more to bring (down to the onesy-twosy cavalry-type units they'll blast out for desperate attempts at pathetic pillages, or in other words, no more STACKS). I sometimes use longbows on terrain for that defense, but more often they're city defenders, while in the open field a stack of knights, crossbows, a pike or two, and catapults are dedicated to wearing the enemy attack stack down to chopped meat and scrap metal. Woodsman 2 macemen make for a good defensive anchor for that stack when playing "NONE SHALL PASS" versus, say, Monty.

 

[Ringwraiths]

Is it fair to say that Bureaucracy favors a smaller empire while Vassalage favors a larger one?

A combination of Bureaucracy and Theocracy gives one bonus to your capital and the other empire wide.

A combination of Vassalage and Organized Religion gives the whole bonus across your empire.

Both combinations are good, it just depends on the game.

 

[Artichoker]

I'd certainly classify myself as a "defensive war-monger" because when and where possible, I'd rather fight an enemy on my turf (and on his war weary hit). That is, until the enemy's got nothing more to bring (down to the onesy-twosy cavalry-type units they'll blast out for desperate attempts at pathetic pillages, or in other words, no more STACKS). I sometimes use longbows on terrain for that defense, but more often they're city defenders, while in the open field a stack of knights, crossbows, a pike or two, and catapults are dedicated to wearing the enemy attack stack down to chopped meat and scrap metal. Woodsman 2 macemen make for a good defensive anchor for that stack when playing "NONE SHALL PASS" versus, say, Monty.

Don't forget that "NONE SHALL PASS" using said stack composition of Macemen works especially well when playing as Monty, since you can upgrade your Jaguars to Macemen, and the free Woodsman I promotion is carried over to the Macemen.

With Longbowmen, you have Guerilla and City Garrison available, instead of Woodsman. With City Garrison, any hill or forest tile can be strengthened with a Fort to enable City Garrison and boost the defensive bonus.

Compared to Crossbowmen and Melee units, Longbowmen have the additional advantage of gaining an extra +25% for both hills and cities (including forts). Needless to say, a combination of a hill, a forest, and a Fort can make the defensive capability of Longbowmen extremely deadly.

Is it fair to say that Bureaucracy favors a smaller empire while Vassalage favors a larger one?

A combination of Bureaucracy and Theocracy gives one bonus to your capital and the other empire wide.

A combination of Vassalage and Organized Religion gives the whole bonus across your empire.

Both combinations are good, it just depends on the game.

You do have a point in saying that the value of civics should not be considered in isolation to other civics. However, the civic combinations you mention are not the only ones available.

For example, the strategy I'm proposing in this thread is to switch from Vassalage+Paganism to Bureaucracy+Organized Religion as one of three possible options. The other two main options are Vassalage+Pacifism and Vassalage+Organized Religion.

As to the question you raise here, in general Vassalage does tend to become stronger as empire size gets larger. This is evident in both the free unit bonus and the XP bonus. In contrast, Bureaucracy becomes stronger as the capital gets stronger, which happens on a different scale from empire expansion.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Don't forget that "NONE SHALL PASS" using said stack composition of Macemen works especially well when playing as Monty, since you can upgrade your Jaguars to Macemen, and the free Woodsman I promotion is carried over to the Macemen.

With Longbowmen, you have Guerilla and City Garrison available, instead of Woodsman. With City Garrison, any hill or forest tile can be strengthened with a Fort to enable City Garrison and boost the defensive bonus.

Compared to Crossbowmen and Melee units, Longbowmen have the additional advantage of gaining an extra +25% for both hills and cities (including forts). Needless to say, a combination of a hill, a forest, and a Fort can make the defensive capability of Longbowmen extremely deadly.

I've tended not to have good luck in trying to lure an AI into attacking a longbow fortified in a hill-forest-fort combo. They'll even spend 3 extra turns bypassing around it to continue their march towards the nearest city instead.

Hills alone are a little more likely to lure them into the attack though, even if the LB has Guerilla 2. The LB eventually dies, but not before it takes out a good half dozen units from the AI's attack stack (most of them trebs, which means he's severely hampered his ability to threated that city he was gunning for!)

One time in an American Colonization scenario I built, I was the Spanish and had grenadiers but not much production going (had been a wonders-and-buildings-whore for probably too long, leaving the north american natives alone with their English and French friends for probably too long), and the Navajo (Genghis Khan/Mongols) declared on me. Stacks and stacks and stacks of keshliks flood into Mexico against my 2 or 3 Grens, 1 pikeman, and 2 or 3 Conquistadors (which I should have spammed but didn't, because I guess I was high).

Anyway, right about that time I'd finished gearing up Tenochtitlan (which I had taken from Monty right at the beginning of the game) as an extreme production-city, and started blasting out grens, each coming out with G2. There was a coastal city the Navajo were obsessed with taking and they didn't want to fight across a river to assault it, so they kept trying to cross a hill route to the south side of the city. I'd put a gren with G2 there, the Navajo would lost about 6 keshliks, kill the gren, and take that square. Then I'd move another G2 gren in the way on the next hill top, same thing, 6 keshliks down, one more square. All the way across the hill country they'd burn keshliks and trebuchets until finally they were 2 squares away from that coastal city they wanted, but were down to just 6 badly-wounded keshliks, about 2 trebs, and a badly-wounded crossbow. Counter-attack time with the Conquistadores, and that was the end of that stack.

Anyway, the point is, if those hills had been forested with forts and defended by longbows, not even the AI would be stupid enough to beat its brains against that sort of a wall.

 

[Artichoker]

I've tended not to have good luck in trying to lure an AI into attacking a longbow fortified in a hill-forest-fort combo. They'll even spend 3 extra turns bypassing around it to continue their march towards the nearest city instead.

Hills alone are a little more likely to lure them into the attack though, even if the LB has Guerilla 2. The LB eventually dies, but not before it takes out a good half dozen units from the AI's attack stack (most of them trebs, which means he's severely hampered his ability to threated that city he was gunning for!)

The likelihood of the AI stack attacking your defensive stack is, I believe, a function of the relative strength of the AI stack vs. yours, as well as the AI's courage.

The catch here is, the stronger the AI stack is, the more likely it is to attack...and the more liable the AI army is to casualties. So if the AI stack shows exceptional offensive strength, you match that with exceptional defensive strength. By doing so, you capitalize on the AI stack's higher likelihood of attacking (since it's own stack is strong) and its greater liability to suffer losses (since the stack achieved its strength through numbers).

 

[artificialj]

i was fairly sure this was an attacko article, and this confirmed it:

The Babylonian Maneuver suggests that The Hanging Gardens wonder will favor an Organized, small sized Civ running Vassalage and Serfdom while teching towards Feudalism and fielding Bowmen and Horse Archers.