Ok so I'm mid-level player, I can win on monarch but certainly not every time and recently I have been struggling to do that more than I did a few weeks ago. I have a few question or areas of the game that I can't really get my head around or I know are weak points for me. The intention is to not only possibly get my questions answered but also to encourage discussion so that maybe others in the same situation could learn something as well. Also I find that through discussion you come to actually learn the ins and outs of things as opposed to just a specific answer to an issue, it’s the whole “give a man a fish….teach a man to fish” thing. I will post these question one a day (+ or -). So with out further ado:

*for this question lets assume you are trying for a domination victory.

Executive Summary – Sorry for the long post I’ll try to sum it up for those who don’t want to read my chicken scratch. Basically I need land to get power therefore I war, but when I try to wipe out each civ I end up being “at war” so much that the aggregate of the negative effects become pronounced. The alternative I see is to take some cities then make the civ my prison . .. .. .. .. . …err vassal. This is undesirable because of culture issues at border cities, happiness issues in all conquered cities, and many vassals are insolent A-hole’s. What to do?

Is it a good Idea to try to wipe ppl out or do you make them vassal (I would assume ideally as soon as they will capitulate)? I usually do not do this for a variety of reasons (below) except late in the game for the last one or two civs I take out just trying to push myself over the domination limit.

The problem with this is that war is very expensive and hurts your economy/research. Due to war weariness the longer the war goes on the effect grows exponentially. Many times in a war against a civ even after you know you have it in the bag (and they will capitulate) it still is many turns of wiping up and sacking trash cities so the effects of this drag on your civ can become significant.

The reasons why I don't like to take vassals are:

1. You only get half (I think) credit for their land and pop for victory conditions. This is actually not a big deal I would think that you could more than make up for it in what you save from less war, but I’m just listing it because it is one of the relevant factors.
2. If you have taken some of their cities then after the war you either have give them back or worry about them getting culturally swamped and basically being a useless city for a long time. You also have the “we miss the mother land” or w/e unhappiness to deal with.
3. Vassal are very annoying sometimes you will get one that will co-operate techs fast and is willing to come off its tech and/or has a decent military and is willing to do a good job of attacking what you tell them to….But….lots of times this isn’t the case. Many times my vassals don’t want to trade with me if they are not friendly or pleased this can be ok b/c you have the option to say give it to me or else BOHICA. But, and this gives me a screaming case of the reds, if they are pleased or friendly you can’t do that so its up to them to if they want to traded. Sometimes I go the uncle Joe route i.e. ‘quantity has a quality all it’s own’ and conquer a technologically superior foe, or maybe will accept him as a vassal which puts me at war, and then the SOB won’t trade with me any differently than he would before he was a vassal (tech wise) that is he wants more than fair value for everything. So lots of times vassal seem to me to be much like the proverbial “tits on a bull” or is it boar.
4. This leads into may last point and this is the real important as is often said here ‘land is power’ and I find from mid game on you need lots of cities cranking away putting out beakers and units to say relevant. It’s like I saw some one post the other day 50% of 1000 is still lots more than 90% of 400. So you need to have some of the other civs cities.

Please don’t miss understand this as me trying to argue why you should not take vassals it is me say this is what I do and why and I think what I do is wrong or at least needs to be improved on so what are your thoughts?

Also do you every try to take out other Civs in bites? Like once you offensive starts to run out of steam and needs to rest and retrofit instead of just waiting or taking the other civ as a vassal do you just make peace and then down the road try to finish the job?

What version of civ do you have? The AI vassals are always willing to trade techs in 3.19.
What do you mean by culturally swamped? You'll be able to use your BFC your your formal vassals cities.

1. You admit it's not a problem.
2. Fixed in the latest BTS patch.
3. Fixed in the latest BTS patch.
4. You already got some cities in the process of vassalizing them. If you really need more, keep conquering.

i have version 3.19 i did not realize the cultural thing was fixed. As far as the tech issue it's not that they won't trade with me at all its that they won't do it with me on favorible terms and that I can't make demands of vassals if there friendly or pleased. I swear I had this problem 2 days ago I've had 3.19 for at least a month although i could have just miss read the options or some thing....this has happened once or twice....;-)

P.S. thank you very much for your replies and help.

1. You admit it's not a problem.
2. Fixed in the latest bts patch.
3. Fixed in the latest bts patch.
4. You already got some cities in the process of vassalizing them. If you really need more, keep conquering.

ditto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You probably missed the most important negative in the equation is that you get negative diplomatic points with other AI's, plus there's no way to unvassal them if you want (which means you need to use spies if they're going for space or cultural victories). I'm by no means an expert at this game, but the only time I take vassals is to speed up winning the game or if they have something to offer.

I think the diplo is averaged when you have vassals. Its not so much a problem, except that the user interface doesn't make it easy to figure it out what your true diplo status is when you have vassals. Any mods do this for you?

With enough seige weapons, you can roll right up and take cities within just a few turns... it takes pre-war planning. There's no need to take vassals... once the first few cities fall, you can steamroll the AI civ. If things don't go according to plan and the WW or cost gets out of control, you can always sue for peace. (But warmongering is a lucrative, profitable business in Civ - the goal is not to let your main stack sit in enemy territory for an inordinate amount of time... seige weapons speed up the process, so bring LOTS!)

I think the diplo is averaged when you have vassals. Its not so much a problem, except that the user interface doesn't make it easy to figure it out what your true diplo status is when you have vassals. Any mods do this for you?

Actually, I think that's a huge problem. All of a sudden that friendly Gilgamesh with 25% of the land that you were counting on for techs isn't so reliable anymore once you vassal Mansa.

Generally if I vassal one person, I plan to vassal everyone else and ignore diplo relationships with everyone else. This is because I can't be bothered to figure out my diplo standing.

I just played a game where I ended up finishing with 9-10 vassals (prior to winning the strongest AI had 6 vassals). I have no idea what everyone outside my vassals thought of me because I'd have to do the math and average the relationships out. I wish the game would show you this in a simple way. Alternatively, they could make it such that vassals are thought of as being seperate to you for diplo purposes.

I used to have the same attitude as the OP, but ever since 3.19 I've come to appreciate vassals a lot more. First off, I only take them when going for dom/conquest/diplomation victories, due to the (hidden) diplomatic consequences. Also, I rarely get any until I'm closing in on rifling, since I rarely tech down the feudalism line until that point. But once I'm in the rifle domination train, I find that vassals are very good:

- taking vassals makes it easier to cap your next victim, especially if your vassal shares borders with them. I don't know the details about chaining capitulations (you'll have to ask someone like TMIT), but I know it works.

- directing your vassals research can easily double (at least!) your tech rate. If you're on the warpath, you don't have to worry about them trading with your enemies, since your enemies are now their enemies. You have a guaranteed reliable trading partner, which becomes harder to find the more you are at war. And you never have to worry with WFYABTA in trading with them.

- giving back cities that are under cultural pressure from another civ (likely your next target) not only pushes friendly culture (i.e., your vassal's) close to their cities (reducing the time needed to engage them), but also creates a buffer between your cities and your target's. Thus, your vassal's cities take the brunt of counterattacks, not your own. :)

- you can gift your obsolete units to your vassal, who can then take advantage of the obscenely cheap upgrade rate that the AIs get. This makes them a better war partner.

So stop whining about the unfair tech trades - that's the way it is with the AI, since they get large discounts on techs. What looks like a rotten deal to you seems eminently fair and reasonable to them. :lol: I never have trouble keeping ahead of my vassals tech-wise, so I always can trade for the techs that I direct them to research.

Ok guys I need more help here I'm running the 3.19 patch (unless it some how uninstalled it's self). Last night I play a game I was next to Isabella she was a different religion than everyone else on our continent and no one like her so my plan which I executed was to "take out the trash" so to speak. So I go to work on her using politics through other means and once I get what I want I decide to vassalage her......and......SHE WON'T TECH TRADE WITH ME worse than that all her techs are red so I can't even demanded them from her. Now she was furious with me (this may have had something to do with me having just raped and pillaged over half she empire and took her holy city) does this make her not willing to trade, if so you should still be able to demand stuff from (ie be able to say trade with me or I'll finish the job.....). I gifted her some stuff, canceled an open borders, and even changed a civ and got her up to annoyed, and I was no longer her worst enemy....but...STILL WON'T TRADE WITH ME (techs).....all her techs are still red I can’t even click on them to demand them. I couldn't do anything more (that I know of) to improve her attitude with out changing to her religion (she was the only one that had it) but that was not possible b/c of the negative "externalies" of doing that. Or I could have canceled deals with powerful ppl I was friendly with but again it would not have been worth it (part of the problem was she had the aposol w/e palace so even though I intended to take her out in one fell swoop I ended up having to declare war on her like 3 times)......and to top all this off during this time she was asking me to give her techs....she was a worthless vassal

So what’s the deal....what am I not understanding or not doing right? Will vassals not allow you to trade tech if the are not at least cautious...can you not demand things from vassal if you are not at least cautious (this makes no sense do you think the Germans negotiated with the Ukrainians about their grain or with the Romanians about their oil, did the English or Dutch go to an arbitrator with the Africans over their diamonds....no they just took it b/c they could and the victim was welcome to fight back if they wanted.....). Is the vassal thing fixed in the "unofficial patch" I think I installed the "official patch" P.S. if you question my sanity I have screenie's at the house...

Also as the post title says...throw me a frickin bone here; I'm the boss need the info....someone want to clue me in on these "hidden" diplomatic consequences...

Ok, new deal.

You throw us a frickin' savegame, we throw you the bone.

ok i'll see what I can do when I get home this evening

My guess is that either you're not playing under 3.19 or you have no tech trading selected in the game options. I have NEVER not been able to trade techs with a vassal under 3.19, no matter how pissed at me they were.

Check your game version.

OMG

want to hear something funny, well first off i did not have a save...BUT....it does not matter because i was running 3.17 :blush::rolleyes::blush::rolleyes::suicide:

so is there a prize on this forum for jackass of the week because i've made a strong play for it here......when did 3.19 come out? have 2 patches come out this spring/summer I know there was a patch that came out like i want to say may or june-ish was that 3.19 I thought it was and I thought I installed it maybe the install failed but i didn't notice and thought it was updated.....

lol well anyway thank you all for your help even if it was in a non-traditional manner....I will post another question soon...

this is starting to make more sense you have to dl the patch and then exit out then install.....being a firm member of generation x and possessing the y chromosome reading instruction is not my strong suit and I have a bad habit of clicking away message boxs with out reading I thought when it was download it it was downloading and installing then all you had to do was restart......in my defense most software is like that..

Don't worry about it. We all make stupid mistakes sometimes. Now go load up a save from that Izzy game (3.17 saves are compatible with 3.19, but no vice versa) and check out the difference. :)

With few exceptions, this is usually what happens in my domination victories:

1) My nearest neighbor (maybe my two nearest neighbors) will be overrun completely before feudalism, so I don't have to worry about them cap'ing to another civ. If I am on a continent with just two or three neighbors, I try to make the continent "mine" right about the time of optics. This is a bit hard on the bank account at first, but it means I have a new, large quantity of land that is already partly improved, and will soon have caravels to go meet the rest of the world to keep the tech rate from bottoming out.

That way, you have an extra-large chunk of your own land and should already be a good way towards the domination land/pop victory conditions.

2) Once astronomy comes about, it is time to make friends overseas. Figure out who's the weakest and send in the galleons full of your finest units. Take what cities you can and vassallize them.

2a) Try and make it so that the next person you take over is that vassal's neighbor. Conquer the cities that are neighbors to the first ones you conquered. Now, go into the diplo screen, and grant all these cities independance. Viola! Where you had two angry/annoyed vassals and a half-dozen cities you had to provide garrison for AND cost you rediculous maint amounts, you now have two angry vassals, a friendly vassal with its own garrison, and no maint :) All your troops go back on the boat and on to the next victim.

3) I try and target the most advanced civs after this, in hopes that no one attains tech parity with me (at least militarily). The best way to keep a cap-fest alive is by keeping superior numbers and qualities of troops. On Noble/Prince, it should not be uncommon to be using rifles/cannons/cavalry against LBs/muskets/knights, at least at first. You might start seeing currasiers and grenadiers by the end of it.

i'm running 3.17 and have the same issues, where do i download 3.19???

Man --- cant believe i've been putting up with that crap from those stupid AI's .... :mad:

on the main menu click on advanced then click on check for up dates it will download....but...then you have to exit out of the game find the file (it's call something alone the lines of Patch_3.19) and run the file. There are probibly lots of mirror sites etc. where you can get this also but this is how I did it.