Using Nationalism

[futurehermit]

Hi all,

I've been playing this game for awhile now, but I've never used nationhood, if you can believe it.

I'd appreciate if you could tell me how to draft units in game when nationhood is selected as a civic. Like, you know how with slavery you hit the arrow button (you know which one I'm talking about...) to pop rush units? I can't figure out how to draft units and I'm at a critical stage of my game where I need to draft a bunch of grenadiers (are they draftable, btw?).

I got chemistry sub-1000AD in my current emperor game but I'm behind in power rating, so if I'm going to invade the rest of my continent I need units asap! I've got the tech lead and I need to abuse it to conquer another nation

 

[beansbeans]

Yea, I've tried using Nationalism but whenever I want to draft units out of my city the "Draft" button is greyed out even though my cities have very high population. Don't know why... (This is when playing on Warlords, but I never get this problem on vanilla civ4)

 

[futurehermit]

what is the draft button? same as slavery/pop-rush button?

 

[Welnic]

It's just above the whip and buy buttons.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

what is the draft button? same as slavery/pop-rush button?

It's right above the rush buttons on the city screen (it says "DRAFT").

edit: Was reading other threads and then replied...beaten by Welnic.

 

[Xanikk999]

Im never on the defensive so i dont use it.

And besides, vassalage, beurocracy, and free speech are much much better civics.

 

[futurehermit]

^^^Depends on your style of play imo. Don't forget the extra +2 from barracks. Acidsatyr (who I'm currently learning a ton from) plays on immortal/deity and often uses nationhood with a SE. He's the expert whose playstyle most suits mine, so I'm working on working in nationhood to my game.

Thanks everybody!

 

[vilemerchant]

If you're a spiritual civ it can come in handy to switch to it in an emergency. ie/ some boat sneaks up and lands a heap of cavs next to a poorly defended city you can draft/whip 2 rifles for an instant defense. The +2 from barracks can also really help against war weariness.

 

[futurehermit]

Not to mention that it can be used to draft an offensive army iirc?

Are grenadiers draftable?

If so, I figure drafting some prior to 1000AD when I have a comfortable tech lead should allow me to do quite a bit of damage...

 

[ollj]

You can only draft limited times per turn depending on map size and civics.

There are some extreme civic and leader combos for a quick transformation of population in highly experienced units.

You an only draft defensive units (but the definition oif "defensive unit" changed with civ4, and 2 upgrades make a draft quite offensive).

You can only draft in cities with a minimum size (of 6?).

Later units draft 2 or 4 population.

Too much drafting ultimatively leads to starvation:
Now that you can combine drafting with slavery doesnt mean its a good idea so sacrifice your capital down to an unhappy starving population of 1 like in this image:

Thats how I defeated France as Germany, "sacrificed" my capital for many turns to get his in just a few turns.

 

[kniteowl]

Draft Once you have Rifling. You can Draft Musketman if you want, it's up to you. Have you Tried Globe Threatre Drafting? Do it in a food surplus City and since you don't get any unhappy faces in globe theatre city, you can draft to your hearts content, as long as you can recover pop and your City is atl east a minimum pop of 6.

The Best Civs to use Drafting are Aggressive Civs and Spritual Civs, Protective Civs are Questionable,The English (Redcoats) Especially Churchill Prot Redcoats. Toku(Agg/Prot) is just plain overpowered in my opinion,

 

[acidsatyr]

you cant draft granadiers, unfortunatelly. You draft melee units untill you can draft "defensive " gunpowder units , muskets, rifles, infantry
If you want to abuse it you really need to concentrate on FE so cities can grow back faster (infantry is 2 populations) and especially since you want to use that culture slider to combat red faces; 3 drafts per turn, 10 turns -> 30 units! without slavery and mine production.
I often use S. Theater in the city i draft + whip every turn, and often run nationalism for the rest of the game since it goes best with FE. All other civics in that column are less useless. Use nationalism for offense, not only last min. defense.
You need 6 populations, and 10% of city must be your culture to draft. Cant draft in new cities

 

[futurehermit]

^^^ok, so i guess i will have to prioritize rifling and then switch to nationalism, thanks everybody

 

[nullspace]

If you draft before gunpowder, you get macemen. That's pretty good. Like acidsatyr said, a high-growth city plus the Globe Theater and drafting can produce a drafted unit almost every turn.

Drafting works best with leaders who are aggressive or protective, because the drafted units get the free promotions. And draftable UUs are fun too. Tokugawa is great here, he can draft Samurai with free combat 1, then once he gets gunpowder, he drafts units with combat 1, drill 1, and city garrison 1. Plus if you have a barracks and Theocracy or the Pentagon or a military instructor, the drafted unit gets one promotion of your choice. That's a total of four promotions on a drafted unit.

Nationalism isn't always great, but with some strategies and some leaders, it's powerful.

 

[Gogf]

^^^Depends on your style of play imo. Don't forget the extra +2 from barracks. Acidsatyr (who I'm currently learning a ton from) plays on immortal/deity and often uses nationhood with a SE. He's the expert whose playstyle most suits mine, so I'm working on working in nationhood to my game.

Thanks everybody!

No, it really doesn't. Nationhood is a terrible peace-time civic. Its only worthwhile uses are instantly drafting out units needed to survive, and quickly producing a very large army to go kill someone. It's not that the +2 happiness in every cit is bad, it's that giving up bureaucracy or free speech is an enourmous commerce handicap. Turning your culture rate up to 10% to generate +2 happiness would probably have a far lesser effect on your research rate.

Immortal and deity are all about abusing the AI. I would almost guarantee that any "expert" who is used to spending hours playing individual turns in order to abuse the AI's programming would be eaten alive in any multiplayer game. Especially if they ran nationhood as a peace-time civic.

Im never on the defensive so i dont use it.

And besides, vassalage, beurocracy, and free speech are much much better civics.

Try moving up a level or playing multiplayer. I can't imagine the game being remotely challenging or interesting if you're never on the defensive.

 

[Gogf]

^^^ok, so i guess i will have to prioritize rifling and then switch to nationalism, thanks everybody

Yup, if you're going to use drafting to produce an army, then prioritizing Rifling is a good idea. Make sure you have plenty of farms so that your cities can regrow quickly, get theaters up, and then turn your culture up if necessary. Needless to say, England is a strong candidate for this strategy.

 

[Xanikk999]

Try moving up a level or playing multiplayer. I can't imagine the game being remotely challenging or interesting if you're never on the defensive.

I play prince and im still not on the defensive that often. Maybe im just better then you?

 

[acidsatyr]

No, it really doesn't. Nationhood is a terrible peace-time civic. Its only worthwhile uses are instantly drafting out units needed to survive, and quickly producing a very large army to go kill someone. It's not that the +2 happiness in every cit is bad, it's that giving up bureaucracy or free speech is an enourmous commerce handicap. Turning your culture rate up to 10% to generate +2 happiness would probably have a far lesser effect on your research rate.

I don't think you really understand whats going on here. Nationhood is best FE civic. Bureaucracy and free speech, is, how shuold i say this..... useless in FE.
And slider .....

I play multiplayer but we'r talking about something else here.

 

[Xanikk999]

Acid, if i wanted to player multiplayer, and i do with some games, i wouldnt be playing civ4.

 

[Gogf]

I don't think you really understand whats going on here. Nationhood is best FE civic. Bureaucracy and free speech, is, how shuold i say this..... useless in FE.
And slider .....

I play multiplayer but we'r talking about something else here.

Uh, I play plenty of multiplayer, but I have no idea what "FE" stands for. Future era? Of course Nationhood is has a much stronger case in future games. After all, there's no teching to worry about! On the other hand, the production bonus from Bureaucracy and the additional commerce for rushing units can be extremely useful. Nationhood is a sound choice in future, but it's certainly not the only decent one.

And, while I agree that it's best to avoid the slider, I was merely pointing out that it's a much more efficient way to generate two happiness per city than switching into Nationhood. Of course, hereditary rule is much better, but I can understand that there are times when you want to be in other civics.

I play prince and im still not on the defensive that often. Maybe im just better then you?

Well, first of all, I never said you weren't better than me. I said that the game isn't interesting if it's not challenging. However, your suggestion is, of course, wrong. I'll leave my reasoning out, since I don't want to sound pompous or demeaning, but, if you want to try to test out your assertion in multiplayer, you're more than welcome to.