The backstory:
(Skip this part if you want)

I was playing as Elizabeth, trying to beat my prior record for Great Person births, playing a specialist economy, attempting a cultural victory. Unfortunately, I didn't get a single religion. By opening my borders, I was able to coax a few AIs into spreading their religions to me.

Fast forward to the late 18th century. I was getting very worried, because I didn't seem close at all to having three legendary cities. Fearing for the worst, I embarked on the long, tense path to the SS victory. Staying at 100% culture, Representation, Mercantilism, Free Speech, and producing culture in all three designated cities, I slowly researched each SS tech. Strangely enough, I even bypassed a few AIs.

I signed a defensive pact with Hannibal, attempting to guarantee my survival, should Ragnar get uppity. Several decades later, I remembered that I had enabled Permanent Alliances. And Hannibal was willing! For the first time ever, I signed a Permanent Alliance with an AI (though, I had done so earlier with humans in MP games).

Now feeling quite a bit more ballsy, I declared war on Gandhi and gleefully accepted his capitulation, despite the protestations of my girlfriend, who was watching me play. I should have listened to her!

The Crux:

All my problems started when I accepted Gandhi's capitulation!

Gandhi refused to trade me any SS parts. Gandhi continued to research and build SS parts as fast as he could. He was a runaway train of research. I hate Gandhi.

Gandhi built the damn United Nations. Ever wondered what happens when your vassal builds the United Nations? He votes for himself, that's what he does. He votes for himself. I hate Gandhi.

My girlfriend yelled, "Nuke him! Nuke him!"

But I couldn't, because he was my vassal. I had to sit there, watching him build SS piece after SS piece, voting for himself, and trying to win via two different methods. He couldn't elect himself, but it was still frustrating. I hate Gandhi.

Ever wondered what happens when your vassal launches the SS? You lose.

I HATE GANDHI. AND I HATE VASSALS.

Next time, I'm checking "no vassal states", or I'm going to nuke Gandhi so bad, he'll be begging me to raze his cities.

...at least, we can know safely answer to the "can a vassal build the spaceship and win" question :D

Thanks for sharing :p

For some reason, that strikes me as something that should not happen. Capitulated vassals should not be able to win the game--they have been defeated.

Perhaps Firaxis will realise that and go make a patch so that capitulated civs must give you stuff and whenever they win, you win

Actually, they must give you stuff or declare war. That's not the problem--the fact that this vassal won, and he wasn't even a willing vassal, is the problem I see.

im sorry but im laughing out loud here!! :lol: how frustrating! :lol: :lol: needs to be fixed.

vassal civs should have to give you techs or face war.

:lol: Thanks for sharing!

im sorry but im laughing out loud here!! :lol: how frustrating! :lol: :lol: needs to be fixed.
Not only your vassal steals two possible routes to vicory from you, but you also got your gf ready to say "I did tell you, didn't I?" :)

Mate, you have all my solidariety!
I'll nuke Gandhi in my next game just out of principle. :)


I also got a few weird cases with vassal states, but never like you had.

The only real problem I see is production and research speedfrom Ghandi. If he capitulated he must of had very few cities (most AI personalities will capitulatewith only 1-2 cities left, although Ghandi's personality nay capitulate earlier.)

However I do not see why some people state vassals should not be allowed to win. A Vassalage agreement is Lord gives vassal protection in return for some bonuses. I havent checked yet, but can'tyou tell your vassal what to research by opening up the diplo screen and clicking lets talk about something, then clicking we would like you to research...

This is not so much a thing about vassals--if it's a willing vassal arrangement, where one state says "hey, protect me" then I have no problem with it. Especially because you can terminate the agreement later and challenge him.

This is about capitulation, where somebody wins the game because they surrendered. You shouldn't be able to be immune to being destroyed if you have surrendered because the vast majority of your country has been conquered.

ice2k4 brings up an interesting point. I know you can tell them to attack specific cities in war, but I don't know if you can tell them what to research. I'll have to try that next time I have a vassal...

Although, my solution: declare war on everyone who has a border with Gandhi, and then let their soldiers attack him. Don't support him, just guard your borders. And don't let him out of it by signing peace...



P.S. I have a little trick to prevent my vassals (and my capitulated enemies) in check. I typically offer them resources, and since they always have coin to pay, they always can pay ~10-15 gold per turn per resource (sometimes up to and over 20 if it's a strategic resource). So I offer that deal to them...several times...and thus extort at least 100 gold per turn on average from each vassal. That cripples their economy, and gives mine the needed boost to overcome the increased maintenance costs and then some. That's true mercantilism right there--don't trade with others, pay for our overpriced merchandise.

Yet more problems with a [insert profanity of your choice] vassal ! If he has capitulated then he should do whatever you want him to - give you free access to his resources (and, to be fair, gain access to yours), hand over techs on demand, build and research whatever you tell him to, pay yearly tribute, and so on. None of this business of selling him your resources, even if you do have spares, and definitely not building his own spaceship - but he could make parts for yours. And what does one do with a capitulated vassal who won't talk to you because he's peeved that you declared war on him and razed a few cities ? How do you get anything out of such a vassal except a rise in your costs ?
But I do agree that a voluntary vassal should have more freedom than a capitulated one.

Sucks for you, funny for us :lol: ;)

Outside the game... you win. Even though you were put in the most horrible position of being undermined by your girlfriend in a video game... SHE KNOWS ABOUT THE GAME- and that's simply outstanding.

I've never been able to hook my current or any previous girlfriends on to the wonderful world of Civilization. I'm hesitant about having them watch me play cuz usually there's too much stuff going on and they get bored... I offer them the game (with or without the manual) to get a feel for things- but they never bite.

You may be getting screwed over by the vassal, but in the long run, you two are sharing something beautiful.

I hate Gandhi too, that's why he is usually gone before the industrial age if he is in any of my games

Outside the game... you win. Even though you were put in the most horrible position of being undermined by your girlfriend in a video game... SHE KNOWS ABOUT THE GAME- and that's simply outstanding.

I've never been able to hook my current or any previous girlfriends on to the wonderful world of Civilization. I'm hesitant about having them watch me play cuz usually there's too much stuff going on and they get bored... I offer them the game (with or without the manual) to get a feel for things- but they never bite.

You may be getting screwed over by the vassal, but in the long run, you two are sharing something beautiful.

My wife doesn't like to play on her own, but enjoys being Queen to my general (no smutty comments ;) ) - she's a right evil warmonger too! I'm a tech whore by nature, and will usually shoot for a space race, but she makes me turn off all victories except conquest and then build a huge army to repeatedly crush the enemy!

Nothing wrong with vassal system. You guys just don't know how to use it. And why can't the vassal win? been capitulated is already a huge blow to the chance of winning, if you still got beat well you only got yourself to blame.

Anyways, eventhough they are capitulated, they are still a country, not one of your provinces. So they should still be able to win. But as a capitulated vassal, they are at huge handicap. First master can tell them what to research. second master can demand any ressource vassal has even if they only have single 1. third if you sell your extra ressource to vassal, they will always pay top price for it, with enough ressource sold to them, you can effectively suck out all the gold vassal makes per turn, which makes them to reseach at a speed of more than 999 turns. (Personally, I kinda feel like I'm cheating the game if I sell all my extra ressources to vassal, makes game waaaaayyyyyy too easy. I usally give them for free)

So if you know how to play with vassals, they have no chance to win what so ever.

They usually only capitulate when they have two or three cities for a human. That is not so for an AI. I have never been peacefully joined, and I have not seen any benefits from vassals. They never accept demands! I demanded 10gpt and the vassal said no! A normal free civilization would accept that. What is with the huge relationship demerits, too? How am I supposed to get anything if they still hate me for almost killing them? I have yet to see an option for commanding them on what to research, I can SEE what they are researching, but not do anything about it. Vassals are completely useless at present(at least capitulated ones), and it would be much better to finish off the remaining two cities. Is it true that they offer capitulation immediately after it is available? I have checked after every city is taken, and it has never been available before they offered.

I've always thught that captilaution is a bit cheap, your vassal should only be able to trade with you(like the european colnial empires), and you should be able to end teh agreement whenever you want. I'm fed up of seeing the comp vassalise a neighbour giving him loads of techs then declearing war on me! Which is terrible, and the vassal keeps in teh fight even if you manage to take half there land, becsause they love there former master who gave them all there stuff.

Mansa Musa especially makes a terrible vassal, I always kill him. Sounds like you should do the same with Ghandi.

Just use spies. When he tries to make SS parts but won't give them to you, then you sabotage all of his resources, his production, his farms, etc. Destroy his economy, cause his people to starve. If necessary, declare war with a country that neighbors him and just hold back to defend yourself.

Just use spies. When he tries to make SS parts but won't give them to you, then you sabotage all of his resources, his production, his farms, etc. Destroy his economy, cause his people to starve. If necessary, declare war with a country that neighbors him and just hold back to defend yourself.
Awesome! I love this.

Gandhi refused to trade me any SS parts. Gandhi continued to research and build SS parts as fast as he could. He was a runaway train of research.
Since Gandhi was your vassal, you could easily have slowed his research to a crawl by (1) trading resources to him for outrageous sums or (2) demanding gpt from him outright. (1) is actually the better route if you have resources he does not.

Vassal states adds a great variable to the game -- much more realistic with them. Instead of turning vassal states off, learn how to use them.

I think the vassal feature is pretty broken. I don't like how it currently works at all, and I always turn it off.

An AI forced into war slows down the space race. Merely declaring war would've stopped Gandhi (he also declares war) even if you didn't have neighbors to kill him off.

Originally posted by Jaybe
Since Gandhi was your vassal, you could easily have slowed his research to a crawl by (1) trading resources to him for outrageous sums or (2) demanding gpt from him outright. (1) is actually the better route if you have resources he does not.

Vassal states adds a great variable to the game -- much more realistic with them. Instead of turning vassal states off, learn how to use them.

I hear you Jaybe. However, in another thread Alexman made a post which indicated that this 'feature' of being able to exploit a vassal for all their gold (via trading or flat out extortion) and ruin their research in the process was bad design and would be fixed in the patch so that vassals acted more like regular AI's in this functionality. That is, their available gold could be traded, but they wouldn't automatically keep dropping their science rate to make more gold available. This will greatly reduce the usefulness of this feature to human players.

So it would appear that the main (intended) benefit of vassals is the occasional monetary extortion, some free resources and the +1 happiness (which actually doesn't work atm.) In turn you get some diplo penalites and increased maintenaince costs. You need to weigh up weather this is worth it or not, but in some cases it still may be. What I really *like* about it is the fact that it is a strategic choice, not a given, that you get a vassal. People here complain about vassals like once you take a couple of their cities you're entitled to own their entire economy. Now there are various game balance reasons, which I won't go into here, why this is just absolute rubbish and would ruin the game, making conquest and wars even more powerful than they already are. Yes, a lot of the times capitulation is a bad deal and is not worth it - I believe that is intended. It's not supposed to be some 'reward' for almost wiping out a civ, otherwise there wouldn't be a choice at all! Even if its only worth it 3 or 4 times out of 10, as long as their are enough factors to take into account when making that decision, its still a good game mechanic for adding strategic depth.

Also, another thing of interest, which I haven't heard anyone else mention, is that your diplo rating with your capitulated vassal is very important for how much you can get out of them, which actually favors being a backstabber and going after civs which you are on good terms with. Sure, you lose a valuable ally for a while, but if you can get them to capitulate and still have a strong + modifier, you'll get more out of them as a vassal if they still have a reasonable sized empire.

RedFury

The backstory:
...I declared war on Gandhi and gleefully accepted his capitulation, despite the protestations of my girlfriend, who was watching me play...

..My girlfriend yelled, "Nuke him! Nuke him!"..

This made my day..can't stop laughing :goodjob:

Declaring war on Gandhi's neighbor is not only the way to slow down his space race, it's also the quickest method to salvage your diplomatic standing with him.

To speak truth, Gandhi is a good fellow, easy to be friend with if you never attack him. i started isolated once, became terrible backwards i techs. Gandhi came with his caravel, next turn "HE" contacted me and gifted a tech. I realy started to like Gandhi after that. One thing about Gandhi is that he's easlay concuerd. having him as a neighbourgh is nice and often the first target. barely no defence att all, even the barbs defend there citys better, he often have a shrine or two to aswell making him even more goody.

Let him research Nukes and you will see how much of a peace monger he is :nuke: :eek: .

Something I did in a similar situation where I had a vassal getting out of hand was first gift about 10 or more of the best pillaging units to a civ thats much closer to my vassal than to my territory, then declare war on that civ and watch him pillage your vassals economy to hell.

Vassals have to give you resources (but not techs). I often go after a civ if i know they have a resource that I need, but can't get. Anywho, how this works into your game, destroy all your aluminum mines, and then make Ghandi give you his (or trade yours away). Of course, this only works if he has 1. If he has more than 1, you might need to go the spy route, destroying them.

By the way, why didn't you nuke him? Is it impossible to declare war on a vassal? I guess I've never tried.

I tried having a vassal in a few games and the results were not good. In one game, I built the UN and my vassal voted for another civ for Sec General! Vassals seem to yield many of the penalties of straightforward conquest without the benefits and the diplo penalty is a pain that lingers. As for resources, why ask for resources when you can simply finish your conquest and take them?

Vassalage is interesting in that it provides a third way to end a war but I feel that it needs some tweaking to make it an attractive option.

At present, a vassal is a competitor who is also a burden.

There are lots of good uses. One, you can use them as a buffer to protect you from a nasty civ. Two, you can use their cities later in the game to conduct war from. You can airlift a few mech infantry, and a whole load of stealth bombers to those little cities they have all over the place and bomb the heck out of anyone anywhere.

I don't see any info re. the size of Ghandi's land. I guess it should be big enough if he can win SS victory. If that's the case, you can whip and draft tons of military units till your population drops below the point when the vassal will automatically break off. I don't know if you can even gift him some border cities to accelerate this process. Park all your military units near the border and immediately finish off the old chap once the capitulation is terminated.

Somebody tell me if this hypothetical strategy may work or not.

I don't see any info re. the size of Ghandi's land. I guess it should be big enough if he can win SS victory. If that's the case, you can whip and draft tons of military units till your population drops below the point when the vassal will automatically break off. I don't know if you can even gift him some border cities to accelerate this process. Park all your military units near the border and immediately finish off the old chap once the capitulation is terminated.

Somebody tell me if this hypothetical strategy may work or not.

I don't think this will work. There are three conditions you have to meet to keep your vassals.

1) Their land can't exceed 50% of your own.
2) Their population can't exceed 50% of your own.
3) Their land can't drop below 50% of whatever it was when you took them on as a vassal.

Here's the thing though. If they capitulated they won't stop being your vassal. I have had nations agree to vassalage with quite a few cities left and they started off with more then 50% of my population or land, yet they remained vassals. I don't think a capitulated vassal can leave you (although I have certainly wished they would sometimes).

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but in my own experience the only vassals who come and go are the ones who voluntarily become vassals, not the ones who capitulated. If anyone has seen AI behavior contradictory to this, I'd sure like to know.

Ever wondered what happens when your vassal launches the SS? You lose.

I HATE GANDHI. AND I HATE VASSALS.

Next time, I'm checking "no vassal states", or I'm going to nuke Gandhi so bad, he'll be begging me to raze his cities.
Well, that was an entertaining rant.

I hate to say it, but you deserved to lose that game. You made a huge strategic blunder, and that was having a superior position and going for a CULTURAL victory.

You must have had 2x the population and 2x the land that Ghandi had (otherwise he could have declared independence), and you allowed him to out-tech you, by turning your tech slider off. Sorry, but that was foolish.

Even then, you could easily have ruined Ghandi by demanding all of his resources, one by one, until you either wrecked his economy (and his chances of victory) or until he declares war, at which time you nuke him to the stone age.

It was a winnable game.

Actially that was idea behind vassal. Vassal is still independed state which CAN and SHOULD be able to win, theoretically.

Vassals who have capitulated can declare independence when they reach the thresholds. I happens a lot in my OCC (one city challenge) games, since I practically destroy them, but of course I only have one city, so they eventually outgrow me. I helps keep them in line though :)

The only real problem I see is production and research speedfrom Ghandi. If he capitulated he must of had very few cities (most AI personalities will capitulatewith only 1-2 cities left, although Ghandi's personality nay capitulate earlier.)

Not really, i played as Memmed II on prince and got monte to be my vassal without even taking one city. I did repel his attack on my empire and take his vassal from him.

I guess I don't get it, can't you tell Ghandi to give you the resources needed to build SS parts? Then he can't build them, and if he refuses you're automatically at war with him.

What i dont understand is, th eonly way a vassal can leave you after capitulation id if he refuses a demand from you, in which case you go to war again.

But why are some techs/resources redded out so cant be ordered off him.

Seems stupid to me

I guess I don't get it, can't you tell Ghandi to give you the resources needed to build SS parts? Then he can't build them, and if he refuses you're automatically at war with him.

Strangely enough, the Spaceship is completely resource free. Several resources speed up its construction, but you dont need them to build it....So you really can build the U.S.S Enterprise out of cardboard :lol:

I think I saw them doing that on Blue Peter once. Lots of sticky backed plastic and kitchen roll tubes were required.

I sympathize with the rant, even though I haven't had a vassal of my own yet (I just got Warlords recently).

Here's the way I see it on the whole "Why shouldn't your vassal be able to win?"

I view vassals as "Satellite states" akin to how the U.S.S.R. ran eastern europe from 1945-1989/1990.

Now, think about that for a second, before you read further.


Imagine, if you will, the space race in the 1960s. You NEVER would have seen a headline reading "Czechoslovakian Satellite Launched!" or "Hungarians Begin Space Station Construction!!" or anything of the sort. Instead, it would've been "Soviet Satellite Launched" or "Soviets Begin Space Station Construction!!" Or possibly just Russians, instead of Soviets.

Why? Because the satellite states were basically "independent" only in a sense. Yes, they could govern themselves, but their economies were irrevocably tied to Soviet Russia's, and their militaries were nothing compared to the Red Army -- which loomed as a constant threat over them.

I view capitulation as basically "You got invaded and lost, and while you haven't been completely eliminated from the planet, you are now [invading country's] . .. .. .. .. .." Now, a voluntary vassal agreement, that I can see allowing for any of the victory scenarios. But capitulation? No way. Not unless they grow big enough to break the vassal agreement.

I would, however, be willing to accept another condition for ceasing to be a vassal -- namely that the vassal's military is 2x the size/power of yours. Under those conditions, they should be able to say "Screw this deal. We're out of here" and go their separate ways. Arguably, you could think of this as a beaten enemy that eventually rearms and becomes more powerful than you can control.

There needs to be a way for the master to get out of vassals, especially if they capitulate. Why can't I decide that I don't feel like protecting this puny civ I conquered any more? Lame.

Folk stop blaming vassal system; blame your own bad plan.

It is very easy to stop vassal from finishing space ship. You can tell him what to research! It is very easy to delay his spaceship by denying resources, trade them from him.

Why do you think Civilization will want to become vassal and not fight to death? Because as vassal they do still have a small chance to win, if there master is stupid enough to let them.

I agree. The best and efficient way to prevent your vassal from building the Apollo Program too early before you've started is to direct his research path to something else. You can tell him to research something that would take him ages to complete:D . I always like a vassal or two because they could be my best trade partners if I could make them pleased with me or they could assist me in wars. All in all, vassal is a great system. You just need to know how to use them well. Take a look at one of Mutineer's games on vassal, such as the one with Mongol's GK. It was a great way of utilizing his aggressive vassal from start to end.

Vassal is only useful on conquest or domination victory, to save you the pain of having to kill everyone off.
I at one point, had about 7 or so vassals, until everyone thought I was getting too powerful and refused to join me. It was fun because every time i declare war on someone, the whole world fights on my side. :goodjob:
Sometimes the AI surrender quite easily too, I never understood why. Shi Huang Di, the 3rd most powerful civ on the plan, had 3 vassals of his own gave up after i took 3 of his cities, with his army and empire largely intact.

Yes, you can tell vassals what to research, but I don't understand why I can't say "Screw this" to them. Sometimes they just arn't worth the trouble. Like one time I, stupidly, took the Mongols as a vassal when they had one city left. It was me being stupid and not paying attention but now I had a worthless vassal. I tried declaring war on one of his neighbours to get them to wipe him out, but to no avail. Eventually his lone city came in handy for dropping off military units, but it was still annoying.

:lol: :rotfl: :lol:

Sorry to laugh at your misfortune, but this story made my day, thanks for sharing.

On a more serious note, there definitely should be a way to release your vassal or something... I pretty much exclusively play with Vassals off because IMO it's an unfinished and broken feature.

I love capitulation, especially on deity. Once you have a vassal, give him gold every turn and lots of archers, and he'll upgrade them all into infantry when you only have rifles yourself. Force him into war against the most powerful AI.

I love capitulation, especially on deity. Once you have a vassal, give him gold every turn and lots of archers, and he'll upgrade them all into infantry when you only have rifles yourself. Force him into war against the most powerful AI.

Yeah, but then you end up in the war with the most powerful civ aswell. Can be a bit risky

I stopped vassalizing my opponents a while ago, unless I have no way of taking a heavily fortified island or something. They're are more trouble then they are worth. Only one game was it really helpful when I took a continent and Korea asked to become my vassal on the other land mass. Brennus declared war and I was able to ship my troops over using my airports. At the same time though it screwed me over since I brought China in on my side and after I only took two border cities and destroyed his entire army then he capitulated to China. I've played other matches where the computer leap frogged. I'd almost kill one and they'd drag another country into the war forcing me to finish off the previous opponent and move to the next one. Once I went through half the continent.

Also I'm pretty sure you can steer a vassals research which means you could keep them from researching the tech needed for the last piece of the ship.