Whipping versus Drafting

[Sisiutil]

I've gotten into wielding the whip in a big way, but I must confess that I never use drafting. In fact, I hardly ever use the Nationhood civic unless I desperately need the +2 per barracks to deal with the war weariness that results from a long, modern war. So if and when I do use Nationhood, I'm not taking advantage of one of its characteristics.

So what are the advantages/disadvantages of drafting, especially versus using slavery? How do people use it, if at all? Does the Globe Theatre figure into it? An inquiring mind wants to know!

 

[patagonia]

I don't think I make enough use of drafting either, but the best use I've seen of it is by Sirian here.

Your Globe Theatre city could definitely draft one unit a turn as long as food and population permitted. I guess the one drawback to drafting (aside from the major unhappy) is that drafted units only get XP bonuses from civics (which is limited to the +2 from Theocracy) - they don't get any bonus from barracks...which I guess is fair since they've been drafted rather than recruited and trained. However, it definitely seems like a rapid way to build up an army considering you can build units normally at the same time.

EDIT:
Actually, I have played as England once and drafted an army of Redcoats from nowhere to quickly put the smackdown on a neighbouring AI. I'm pretty sure I had to make use of the culture slider in that instance as war weariness overlapped with draft anger and police state was still a way off techwise.

Thinking about it, combining nationhood with slavery, you could draft and build/poprush two units from each city in less time than it'd probably take you to produce one normally, giving you a massive army almost instantly (say 20-24 units from 10 cities in 4 turns), which could have a huge impact on the game. Since both of those production methods cost population, an approach like that would probably lend itself best to a spiritual leader running a specialist economy (bountiful food means faster regrowth and spiritual means free civic swaps), which means Saladin in vanilla (Phi/Spi) or Gandhi in Warlords.

 

[DarkFyre99]

I've never used the draft myself, but I believe each unit you draft costs you one population point. (can anyone confirm?)

If it's true, that would make it more powerful than the whip... but it also generates a lot more unhappiness (+3 for ten turns), so the two sort of balance out. That would probably explain why the combination of the globe theatre and a lot of food works great with Nationhood.

 

[Nufuhsus]

I have not used Draft and too, have become fond of the whip though more for the population control than for the rush it can give. I am still new to Civ (this is my first Civ title) and am still finding it difficult to get into Nobel (attempting Settler - Nobel Jump).

 

[NaZdReG]

think about the +2 happiness. instead of -1 from slavery you get -3 from drafting but thats still only a net of -1 for 10 turns. in that aspect it is IDENTICAL. VERY powerful if you happen to upgrade your infantry right before the civics switch. being able to spontaneously mass is really strong just by itself.

also great when freshly taking over a city. instantly you can draft a defender.. unhappyness be damned they're going to starve from cultural pressure anyway so I draft 2-3 units over a few turns and suddenly the enemy is fighting their own civilians. worst case if you lose the city its down on pop from where it was and will be easier to retake

NaZ

 

[uncarved block]

I've rarely used a Draft as an offensive tactic; the unhappiness right before you're planning on starting a war just seems too high a price. (Although I guess if you build enough units the war shouldn't last that long.) Mainly, Drafting is a handy thing to have if you get caught with a weak military after a surprise attack, something that will happen less and less often as one masters the game.

The big strike against Drafting probably has more to do with a human (in contrast to an AI) way of going about war. Allowing the AI to destroy itself against a well fortified defender works better if you have good promotions-- the lack of XP really hurts this tactic. There's also the business of trying to husband Swordsmen and Macemen along the City Raider track, in order to promote them to Grenadiers and Riflemen. If you're going to make a civics change, Vassalage seems the better option over time. (Yet another plus for Spiritual civs, eh?)

Of course, we've had the luxury of seeing many of your games, and sacrificing population when you've dominated the game by 1 AD or so onward wouldn't have much appeal. Why, it's right there in your quote from Dr. Jiggle, now that I think about it . . .

 

[malekithe]

I believe, though I've never tried this in a real game, nationhood combines very favorably with a mid/late game specialist economy. In theory you could run the culture slider at a very high rate to keep happiness up while you draft 2-3 units from every city. Then, you could bring the culture slider back down slowly as the unhappiness wears off (or keep it high and keep the flow of units coming).

You can think about it as a round-about way of converting commerce into hammers. By funnelling a small amount of commerce into culture/happiness you are able to consistently convert excess food into hammers at a very favorable rate in all of your cities.

 

[kniteowl]

I'm not gonna talk too much about drafting, if you want to know more check out this thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=188581...

I generally use it for Rilfles When the Civ's Traits are either Spritual or Aggressive, (Drafted get combat 1 from agressive you know)

And Sometimes I draft when I have a UU advantage... obvious one is English Recoat, you could also try drafting Musket UU eg- France and Ottomen

If your quick enough to get to Nationhood early you could also draft Maces but they have a VERY SMALL WINDOW OF OPPOTUNITY

Slavery vs Nationhood?

Well Slavery is good for the early game because you have a low happy cap and it's best to whip off your unhappy pop. By the time you reach the industrial ages Universal Sufferage is a couple of techs away after Nationalism so slavery isn't as effective (In most games in general) growing back Large pop is more time consuming then growing back a small pop so your better off rushing with cash at this point in the game.

If you want to rush units drafting is your civic, it takes 5 turns for a Civ to change between Civics, and on a standard map you can draft up to 3 units per turn. I generally (in a CE) go from Bureaucracy to Nationhood to Free Speech after drafting 15 units (without causing too much unhappiness)

So it'd optimal to have a large emprie of 15 cities obviously. I guess you could have 11 cities if you draft your globe city repeatedly.

In order to draft your city must have

- A minimum Pop of 6
- A minimum 10% of your City's nationality is of your own Civ

eg - if you were Rome, 10% must be of Roman Nationality the 90% can be anything else.

You generally use your Drafted units in combination with your veteran Units like Maces from previous wars who have CR3 (of course yo u can upgrade them)

Of course you could use your 15 drafted units to capture a city or two if you Quick or attacking a backward Civ.

Check your Low food Cities I know they grow slowly BUT by this point in time you have a High happiness cap, Imagine a city with 1 food resource and many plains and hill tiles, by logic and calculation you estimate that it's max pop is 12. The City has a Max Happiness cap of 24 and has 12 Unahappy Citizens.

SO???

You can Draft that Same City 4 times!!! and balance out the happy and unhappy cap, 4pop for 4 Units and No happy citizens??? WHY NOT!?

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I have used it a lot in my last game as Ramses (spiritual industrious). With spiritual you can dip into it for 5 turns, draft 10-20 troops from cities that have enough spare happy and exit out. The draftees weren't the front line troops, but I was capturing so many cities that it was great to have a source of cheap garrison troops so my highly promoted attackers could keep moving.

I've also used it to save myself in a few games when I wasn't ready for a war . The AI likes to swarm with cavalry and drafted riflemen can be a real help.

The main problem with it for a non-spiritual civ is that you never want to spend much time in Nationalism. The other civics on the list are simply too good.

 

[aelf]

Drafting is a powerful military option. Do check out the link given by kniteowl. There has been a rather exhaustive discussion of the merits of drafting and Nationhood in that thread.

 

[slowcar]

you can't draft in a newly concquered city as it requires a certain amount of own people in the city.

 

[Pogel]

I find I either need a slow trickle of units from a military production powerhouse or a quick rush of units from across my civ. The latter can come about if on an isolated or conquered continent. Aggressive works well as you still get the combat 1 promotion and the cheap barracks are likely to be widespread. Protective also works nicely as the drafted troops will start with Drill & CG.

The value of nationhood is in being able to ramp up for war very quickly after researching Rifles. A build up ight look something like:

1. Promote CR Maces to Grenadiers and other highly promoted units as appropriate.
2. Switch to vassalage/theocracy and whip offensive units (siege/cavalry)
3. Start assault with offensive stack
4. Switch to Nationhood and draft garisson Rifles
5. Deploy garisson rifles to conquered cities


Another use is in a cultural game. I've often found myself relatively under-powered in the build up to cranking up the culture as I've had to spend a lot of hammers on missionaries and temples. Temporarily switching to Nationhood to get a modern garisson unit from each of my support cities can be a quick and easy way to get a power boost to ward off potential aggressors. The unhappiness is rarely a problem with culture games.