Vassalage and +8 units free bonus

[marioflag]

I played my last game as elizabeth of england in earth18 civs scenario and after i discovered a tech which allowed me the choice of vassalage.
One of the advantages of vassalage was that i could get a bonus of +8 free units.But after vassalage was chosen i didn't get any free unit.So it's a bug or i have misinterpreted vassalge?

 

[Orion071]

I played my last game as elizabeth of england in earth18 civs scenario and after i discovered a tech which allowed me the choice of vassalage.
One of the advantages of vassalage was that i could get a bonus of +8 free units.But after vassalage was chosen i didn't get any free unit.So it's a bug or i have misinterpreted vassalge?

You misinterpreted Vassalage. The +8 free units refers to maintenance costs, not actual units. It means you can supply 8 more units for free before you start paying maintenance. So if you could have 8 units for free before Vassalage, after Vassalage you can support 16.

 

[zafyro]

I believe you misinterpreted vassalage. It gives you 8 free units as in "stop paying for them". That's not 8 free units poping up in your cities.

 

[Watiggi]

The strange thing is that it costs more to have Vassalage anyway. Has it been tested to see if it's more expensive to have Vassalage with its free units than it is to not have Vassalage and cop the extra unit costs?

What's the advantage of Vassalage with regards to the free units? The +2 experience is a no brainer, but is Vassalage's net advantage ultimately *just* the +2 experience?

 

[marioflag]

Well if vassalage is only support for 8 units and +2 xp it would be useful only in ancient times and in correlation with theocracy so you would have a +4 experience for all your units

 

[Watiggi]

The +8 units is a variable though. As your civ gets bigger, the number of free units gets bigger. In one of my civs, I had +90 free units.

But the high maintanence costs seem to at least cost as much as it would to not have the high maintanence and instead just pay for the unit costs themselves. Apart from the +2 experience there doesn't seem to be any other advantage.

Can anyone give some insight into this, or at least elaborate on the rationale behind it?

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

At one point in one of my games I saw my gpt rise when I switched to Vassalage, so sometimes it is actually worth it, especially with the 2 free EXP points it gives.

 

[Watiggi]

Yeah, it changes when you switch. I have had it also go up. The Vassalage civic changes the dynamics of where your costs come from.

So, instead of your military expenses being based on your military size, it becomes based on your empire size (up to a point).

 

[Watiggi]

No, the other way I think. I don't actually know, to be honest.

You automatically get free units based on the percentage of you population (I think it is 24% or somthing, but I am not sure). Vassalage gives you an additional 10% or something. The problem is, because the civic cost is also based on empire size, and because the civic cost is high, it essentially makes it go one for one in expenses (I think the maintanence is more expensive than the amount of free units you get, but again I am not sure).

The problem with a large empire, is that you need a bigger military to protect it. So I don't know what's better: A bigger empire or smaller empire. One thing that might be of interest, is that the Vassalage civic may have an interesting impact to costs when expanding through conquest. When expanding through conquest, you get essentially free population points that will increase your free unit count. But that will also increase your civic costs too. So I don't know.

Bigger cities would be beneficial as the city could look after it's civic cost easily. I think the population growth out grows the rate of civic maintanence increase so it could be better to have big cities. That way your free units may out do the civic costs required to have the civic.

That would be my answer: Bigger cities equals a better ratio of free units to civic costs. I wish someone out there had more insight into it though.

Watiggi

 

[scooter]

It's a relative number, so the empire size seems to be pretty irrelevant, just make sure your size isn't considerably smaller than your army (in perspective), or else you will be paying "normal" costs for all the units past the freebies. I do think they need to change the wording because that messed with me the first few times I saw it too.

 

[DarkFyre99]

Vassalage (and theocracy) are civics you want to use when gearing up for war, and thus producing a lot of units. It doesn't make any sense to use these civics when you're just producing units from your military production city. You're better off switching to a different civic during peacetime, when you're just constructing buildings.

 

[Qitai]

Vassalage gives 1 more free unit support for every 10 pop. However, since it has high upkeep, it cost 1 more upkeep for 12.5 pop for every additional population and another 1 more upkeep for every 5 cities, when compared to low upkeep civic. So, mostly likely than not, the net cost will be higher. But it will also provide +2XP for new units.

In short, don't expect any or much cost saving from vassalage. Go for it only if you want the +2XP. I.e., it is a war or preparation for war civic.

 

[Blazer6]

I use it anyway since that removes at most two battles towards the next promotion and a much stronger unit. How long would the same unit take to recover if those two battles caused serious damage and inside large borders? You can expect most of the army (during the early ages) to be recovering for too many turns while moving towards the next city.