vassalage and theocracy or just one?

Hey community,

Assuming I'm a non-charismatic spiritual leader, and have no settled GG's, just a barracks in my production cities. I'm peacefully running my SE under caste system, but every few turns or so I make the quick flip from Bureaucracy and org religion to whip out a few military units for defense, eventual conquest.

Assuming I have state religion in all cities I'll be whipping, and will be reverting back to org, caste and bureau 5 turns later, would you go theocracy and Vassal for the extra +2exp per unit even if its not enough for a 3rd promotion off the bat? Normally I keep bureau and just switch to slavery and theocracy but I wonder if others do it differently.

any feedback is appreciated.

 

I always used to change to theocracy and vassalage but now just theocracy if the units are only for defence, I find I miss the bureau capital too much. If I'm gearing up for war then I'll do the double change.

 

situational... why are you building the units? offense, defense? just to boost happy cap with HR? to increase your power t6 cap a civ, or avoid a dow? what are your current economic needs? how far will the 5 non bureau turns set you back?

Answer all those questions and then some and weigh the cost benefit of 7/10xp vs 5/10xp. 7/10 gets you closer to that coveted 3rd out the box promo. vassalage also lets you support more units which can really save alot of money. Anyhow personally most of the time i wouldn't bother with vassalage with the exception of building alot of mounted units or citadel siege or something. the stable gives a nice xp boost combined with barrcks+vas+theo. that gets you to 9xp i think.

 

I don't like running Vassalage personally, especially once Civil Service is researched. Bureaucracy just seems too good to pass up. Theocracy on the other hand, I use it quite a bit when I am cranking out units. The Religion civics are really flexible, and I like all of them.... no junk civic like Serfdom for example. Does anyone ever run Serfdom? ^_^

 

If you are capable of oracling Feudalism and have a lot of jungle to chop, Serfdom is almost worth it.

 

If you're Spiritual you can switch between Serfdom and Slavery also. Slavery is only good for rushing production so if you're not going to whip and don't have 5 Scientists in your GP farm Serfdom gives you something.

Serfdom is definitely situational, but it does have it's uses. Your example makes me think of Earth18 as Inca or India.

 

Although I don't use Vass very often, Spiritual trait does make a Vass/Theo option more viable, at least in the short term. One thing you can do is, whether you keep Theo long-term or not, is do a short-term switch into Vass. You can build some units to within 1 turn (including whipping them) and keep them in your queue, switch to Vass, and let the pop out in the next few turns or so and then switch back to Bureau. I guess the question is whether or not the extra 2XP is really doing anything for you immediately. If you are getting an extra promo out of the gate and plan to war immediately, then it could be worthwhile.

Spiritual is all about the strategic civic changes and it can actually be a pretty fun and effective aspect of the game.

 

If you're not in immanent war buildup phase, I'd only do it if:
- your main offensive unit is mounted
or
- you have a mediocre bureau cap (maybe you should consider moving it?)
or
- you're playing as Brennus (SPI/CHA)

 

That +2xp isn't doing much. 5xp and 7xp units have the exact same number of promotions, it's just that the 7xp ones are slightly close to getting their third. I'd rather have more troops pumped out of my capital than fewer potentially stronger. I guess you can make a case for it if you have lots of mounted units, war elephants at 9xp sound pretty killer.

 

Siege and melee troops closer to 10 xp is NOT insignificant, and neither is bankrolling more units.

Vassalage is a civic for flat-out war, but in that capacity does very well.

 

I guess 7xp troops are 1-2 victories from being triple-promoted, instead of 2-3 victories. And with a decent bureaucracy capital, you gain alot more commerce from the +50% than your save from reduced unit upkeep. But I see your point that it's great for prolonged medieval warfare, when alot of your units will hit triple promotion status. I rarely go for that, so that's where my bias comes in.

 

don't ignore settled GG's.
I usually settle all my GG's around my biggest production cities (HE factory first of course) and then you can look at 11xp mounted troops out of the gate ;-) and 9xp melee/siege

 

3prom
docks + vassa + theo + (gg/penta/wp) = 3prom ships (IE +2 movement)
stables + barracks + vassa theo + (gg/penta/wp) = 3prom mounted
stables + barracks + vassa theo = 1 exp from 3 prom
airport + vassa + theo + (gg/penta/wp) = 3prom airplanes

wp 4 + barracks 3 + 4 civics = 3 prom units

I go into this mode when neccesary infrastructure is build to win game, so theocracy is ok.
decision between vassalage and nationhood is more difficult.
if you are short on cash, use espionage heavily, have trouble defending cities, go nationhood, otherwise vassalge, in long term it pays off for above reasons, but you need somethinking on great generals and national wonmders placement.

you military production city sgould be west point + heroic epic/ iron works,
and thus spitting 3-4prom unit almost every turn

and the help to ships is huge, especially the movement (you get the withdrwal one, then +1 movement tree opens)
if you need speed
or just make them stronger if you have trouble escorting your navy.
healing is also keay to survival in enemy territory

 

If you are just doing a temporary civics revolt for the production of more experienced units then I would go all out and be in both Theocracy and Vassalage when whipping the units. A few turns out of Bureaucracy isn't too high a price to pay in my opinion.

 

Don't forget that CHA only needs 8 xp for lvl 4 and that IMP gets more GGs that can be put towards 10xp.