Conquer vs. Vassalage

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STEINMAN1000

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I'm kinda new to Civ IV BTS. Which is better, completely conquer an opponent or accept their offer of vassalage? I kinda think conquer, that way they do not come back later to haunt me and bite me in the butt. So what do you experienced player think. By the way, I have been a big fan of this site for quite awhile, and just finally joined!
 
Welcome to CFC STEINMAN1000!

Answer: it depends : )
Generally speaking I like to control lands myself that are nearby because it'll be less of a maintenance hit and I can squeeze more out of the territory than an AI vassal can. Conquer some...extort maximum tech treaty...repeat until finished off.

A well developed vassal is useful because you can manipulate them into researching and voting for you, so they're good to have when you're going for a win in the later game.
 
I like to control lands myself too, maybe a psychological quirk of mine, I guess I got used to that from Civ III. I 'm just new to vassal, I'm at war with Khmer right now, kicking his tail, thinking he might offer vassal in next few turns. Trying to get advice on vassal. Thanks for the welcome, been coming here for awile and thought I should join!!
 
I would say that in the majority of cases, conquering is better than vassaling. Vassals are really only useful if you get someone like Mansa Musa, who can tech away for you. It's virtually guaranteed that you will manage those cities better than the AI will, and territory under your control will directly benefit you, whereas territory under a vassal's control will only indirectly benefit you.

In other words, conquering gives you 100% of the yield of a well-managed land, vassaling gives you maybe 25% of the yield of a poorly-managed land.

However, I always vassal, because I like playing big games with lots of civs, and finishing people off feels like it defeats the purpose. It gets awfully lonely, having an entire continent to yourself.
 
i believe there must be situations when vassal is better, so im not sure if conquerieng is always better or not.

But vassal is more fun even in situations when conquer is better, because vassaling making game more challenging and also when u vassal u not feel so lonely, when u vassal others u feel like u are not single person in team especially if your vassal is powerful and have tons of citys and techs.

So you can kill/conqueror some civs and vassal others which you like for fun.
 
Vassaling is almost always better. There are the occasional situation where conquering is better than vassaling, like if that's the difference in getting a Dom victory or not or he doesn't have much land left, and you aren't planning another war soon.

But those are the exception not the rule IMO. In the short term and long term your economy will be stronger, and in the short term your production will be better.

Conquering a lot of cities will greatly start to increase your maintenance and makes trade routes less efficient. Double the cities simply put doesn't double your economy. But leaver it to the AI and he'll get the imba Econ bonuses which you then capture. Vassals don't have WFYABTA limit AND you control what they research. Vassals don't just help your economy, they are your economy. With two or more vassals its possible to have a respectable economy just from manipulating your vassal tech trades.

So you get a vassal and so you're no longer losing troops, and you no longer need to power your economy my yourself -- time to go conquer yourself some more vassals :p

Also by suing for peace you can usually get gold/city/techs as part of the capitulation deal which you wouldn't if you just killed him.
 
drewisfat said:
Vassaling is almost always better. There are the occasional situation where conquering is better than vassaling, like if that's the difference in getting a Dom victory or not or he doesn't have much land left, and you aren't planning another war soon.

But those are the exception not the rule IMO. In the short term and long term your economy will be stronger, and in the short term your production will be better.

Conquering a lot of cities will greatly start to increase your maintenance and makes trade routes less efficient. Double the cities simply put doesn't double your economy. But leaver it to the AI and he'll get the imba Econ bonuses which you then capture. Vassals don't have WFYABTA limit AND you control what they research. Vassals don't just help your economy, they are your economy. With two or more vassals its possible to have a respectable economy just from manipulating your vassal tech trades.

So you get a vassal and so you're no longer losing troops, and you no longer need to power your economy my yourself -- time to go conquer yourself some more vassals :p

Also by suing for peace you can usually get gold/city/techs as part of the capitulation deal which you wouldn't if you just killed him.
Click to expand...

On IMM+. It's important to specify this given the average player plays on noble, which means vassals are worse than the city itself.
 
Meh, I think it's true on lower levels, if you are also a lower level player yourself :p
I feel a lot of people play at levels that are too easy for themselves, and my usual litmus test for this is if you're running away from the AI with techs at the end of the game.
 
I usually completely kill (or leave him with 1 city if he has a lot of techs to give up) the first target for "Lebensraum". The rest are usually judgement calls.

For example, if your next target has border with your current one, you might want to take the capitulation after capturing the core cities (and probably raze a few non core ones to prevent revolts) so it's easier to take out the next one.

Or if he has some island cities that are annoying to take then accept the capitulation. Also remember each vassal is a +1 happiness for all your cities, so sometimes it might be worth it just for that.
 
Vassallage in most cases. I only dont take vassals when:

1) He has only 1 strong city which i have captured and has only few weak cities left. (to avoid annoying revolting) he wont provide me with any help anyway.
2) very early stages of game, when taking hated vassals ruin my own relationships.

On other cases I almost ALWAYS take vassals for these reasons:
1) Vassals make excellent buffer zones on my borders against sneak attack when my core army is far. AI tends to keep significant amount of units in cities, which human player doesnt want to do... Its kind a stupid hold 5+ units in all Your border cities and pay for them, when You could actually use them.
2) Waring on vassals land is a huge advantage.
3) I can adjust vassals research.
4) free access to his ressources.
5) Military support, especially from warmongers. I even give back mediocre cities to vassals like montezuma, as I play deity and he builds much faster. He will use cities mainly for military anyway.
6) diplomatic votes
7) last is most important for gameplay: vassallage hurries huge map games A LOT. final stage of game, where everything is decided but You have to conquer till end is annoying...
 
But yes, as also was already said; on low difficulties You could probably make more out of cities yourself, as AI wont do virtually anything that helps You.

Moderator Action: Merged posts from a duplicate thread. The other thread will be deleted.
 
Its also important when praising vassals at high levels to mention two significant oversights in how they work.

First is that to capitulate a civ requires a power level below the global average, and keeping realtively small vassals brings the average down a great deal, often blocking future capitulations,
and second is that once you have vassals the ingame diplomacy system lies to you. i.e. despite the GUI telling you Shaka is 'friendly' he may well be cautious (may even be lower at times!) as AIs use the average of their opinion toward you and your vassals for many decisions including DoWs. This rounds down too so the only way to be truly friendly is for an AI to be friendly to you and all your vassals!
 
Thanks for the info. I have Civ III for a long time and just started playing Civ IV. Still getting used to all the differences, with vassalage being one of them. Thanks again...
 
I mostly agree with drewisfat. I will often gift back decent cities to a newly conquered vassal because these will be a pain to keep out of revolt and hence be more useful (or less painful) to my vassal than to me (this also grants you some brotherly love with your serf, which is cool). Don't get me wrong, I do keep most conquered cities :D

Another thing I would like to stress, is that accepting capitulation can offer you the possibility of immediately using your military for someone else. As you know every unit becomes obsolete at one point or other, and vassaling allows you to leverage a military advantage VS multiple opponents rather than wasting time killing off just the 1 civ (especially if going for Conquest). This gets truer the quicker the game speed is of course...

I will still choose to kill off a civ if it doesn't have enough tech power to contribute, if it's culture does not protect me from other AIs, if it's remaining cities are really good, if my economy would allow the immediate extra maintenance.

EDIT: have you patched your BTS to v3.19? There are some old vassalage stuff that don't work too well in older versions
 
I vassalize all the time as soon as I can. I play at a modded difficulty similar to Monarch with a weak Civ (usually Protective). I don't restart if I get all Jungle or no resources. I figure the quicker I can get a Civ out of the way the quicker I can start concentrating on my next target.
 
I never peace-vassalize. I'll capitulate-vassalize depending on too many circumstances to go into but, basically, when there's a good chance I can't conquer quickly or if my enemy's capitulation to another would be disadvantageous.
 
Olson said:
I never peace-vassalize. I'll capitulate-vassalize depending on too many circumstances to go into but, basically, when there's a good chance I can't conquer quickly or if my enemy's capitulation to another would be disadvantageous.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, that's one of the reasons I always accept capitulation ASAP. Really hate it when the long war I'm in ends up with my foe capitulating to another AI.
 
Never peace Vassalage Mansa. He can out tech you or create 3 cultural cities while hiding behind your protection. Capitulation is different. There you have an advantage as he should have been significantly reduced in number of cities/resources by your magnificent conquering armies.
 
There are a few considerations I make when taking a vassal.

  1. What effect will it have on diplomacy with other civs? I don't want powerful friends suddenly becoming threats.
  2. Is the vassal big enough to contribute anything to me? Usually not after my first war but from then on I can usually get civs to capitulate at a decent size.
  3. Where is the vassal on the map? I have just won my first game at Emperor and moved up to Immortal and find that it is much more cost effective to take vassals on other continents.

When used well it can completely change a game. In my last game I took over my continent and planned to invade a technologically backwards Shaka. He suicided a ridiculous stack of Caravels on one of my Destroyers and capitulated without me even attacking his cities. A few turns later after giving him all my techs he was a foreign powerhouse under my control on the other continent which made my position completely safe. He even researched a few techs for me.
 
I only peace vassal in the rare occasions I am going for diplo victory or maybe when I am near a conquest/domination but that never really seems to happen.

But I almost always capitualize for the principle reason of ending the war earlier. A lot of the other reasons have also already been mentioned such as research, buffer zones and the danger of them capitulating to someone else.
 
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