Explaining the Vassal System (an attempt)

Thanks for the article!

I read it after acquiring a voluntary vassal, and decided to see if I could provoke Joao into breaking away so I could overrun him. I put a huge force on my border with him and stationed a couple of agents in his nearest city, building up lots of EPs along the way. Then I started requisitioning his assets.

I wound up with a nice tech for free, plus his iron, horse, spices, fish, 3 corn, and 3 silk. His cities are starving and he's still my best friend (+12)!

Sometimes a kind word and a gun....

What would be a good tactic to prevent an AI from :

1) Vassaling to your ALLY while being crushed?
2) Voluntary vassaling to a superpower and make it into a megapower you can't fight? (when it has multiple strong vassals already)

Does an AI need to be friendly with another to vassalise it or anything go?

But most of all would it be reasonable to disable vassalage alltogether in monarch+ since unlucky vassalage stacking can easily ruin a game? Or is it possible to deal with it?

Since I've had some practice with vassalage, it doesn't seem very bothersome to me. If I'm invading somebody and they go vassal to a stronger neighbor that I don't want to fight just then, I grab what I quickly can and then go passive until peace breaks out. Unless the other civ hates me already, they don't prosecute the war very aggressively. If a neighbor offers voluntary vassalage to me, I accept. I can usually get one tech and all their resources, if they drop me later I can still take them over, and if I refuse their offer of vassalage they will soon be somebody else's vassal.

Crighton said:

There are two ways to acquire a vassal state, voluntary Vassal-ing, and Non-voluntary (Capitulated) Vassal-ing. A Vassal State that has Capitulated does not get the option to voluntarily end the Vassal agreement unless certain conditions are met.

The less common method occurs during peacetime where a relatively small and weak Civ tries to partner up with a much more powerful Civ, and in exchange for protection agrees to become a Vassal State. A Civ which becomes a Vassal State during peace time is given the opportunity every 10 turns to end the agreement. Throughout long and turbulent games some states may routinely enter into and out of being a Vassal State frequently. When a Voluntary Vassal decides to secede the Master Civ is given the option of simply allowing the Vassal State to become independent, or can choose to protest this decision, in which case both states then become locked in a state of war.

Click to expand...

Does anyone know under what conditions a voluntary vassal will consider to break free ?

An AI just offered that deal to me.
Our relationships are at Pleased. I'm more powerful in score and military.
He is at war with an AI with whom I am at peace. Shared war bonus would up our relationships to Friendly.

Are those datas relevant at all ?

I could use a Vassal but I wouldn't want him to break free after 10 turns only. 30 would be ok.
Thanks in advance

Since my original post here, I've had a number of opportunities to take on a vassal state in time of peace. In each case I accepted the offer, and I've never regretted it. My experience is that I can immediately appropriate ALL of my vassal state's resources, plus any new resources he develops, keeping him weak enough that he never wants to leave me. I think other states are less willing to attack when they know they will be at war against at least two of us (I know I am!) plus I get my vassal's vote in diplomatic matters. Only once do I recall a rival state making a maritime landing against one of my vassals. I could have just allowed it. My tentative conclusion is that if I don't accept my neighbor's offer of vassalage, he's soon going to become the vassal of some other power, depriving me of the beneficial ownership of his resources and complicating any territorial ambitions I might have.

Thanks for your help, jmrathbun !

I take it that the AI will remain a vassal as long as your relationships are good enough and the player is strong enough

Staying strong is the key, I think. I haven't found a way to piss a vassal off yet LOL.

I don’t know if this has been mentioned before, but one tactic the AI uses for a weak civ on a losing end of the war is offer the player vassalage. This will make the player immediately go to war w/ the aggressor civ, which is not always ideal. One way around this is to initially refuse the offer, then go to the would-be vassal or the aggressive civ and try to broker a peace settlement. Once peace is established, you can return to the would-be vassal and accept the vassalage w/ no risk of entering into an unexpected war (the offer should still be on the table). This really needs to be done in one turn though.

jmrathbun said:

Staying strong is the key, I think. I haven't found a way to piss a vassal off yet LOL.

Click to expand...

I've never had a vassal leave me either. I do stay strong. One thing people do is to use the demand feature for vassals. I always try to structure it as a trade - good relations help to keep peace vassals. Remember that vassals will trade your their only one of a resource. If he has 1 gold resource and you have 5 dyes, he'll trade his only gold for your dye.

Crighton said:

*The master can demand any SINGLE resource from a vassal, even one that the vassal is using. The vassal has the right to refuse the SECOND demand but if they do the two states are immediately at war. This can come in handy if your Vassal has the only strategic resource available to you: i.e. Copper, Iron, Horses, Oil, Aluminum, etc. Just remember to plan ahead if the resource will lose it’s strategic value (cough horses cough).

Click to expand...

I just tried demanding my vassal's only Oil. It's the only outright demand I've ever made of them, although I have made some trades with them. They declared war. So perhaps this was changed in BtS or via the Buffy MOD 3.19. Or maybe there are conditions under which a vassal can refuse even the first demand.

I recently ran into a couple of occasions where a vassal suddenly cancelled all his "trade" arrangements with me (my terms of trade with vassals being, "Time for your tribute!"). In the first case, I tried demanding tribute and he immediately declared war against me. In the second, I refrained from provocation in the near term while building up my forces for an invasion. When I had twenty knights poised on his border, I demanded everything he had in tribute, which he grumpily gave me. Since I couldn't go to war with him while he remained my vassal, I pulled my forces back beyond his horizon, whereupon he started canceling trade agreements again. This time I immediately demanded tribute which he refused, uncoupling him from me and precipitating a state of war. My knights were outside his city walls on the next turn and took possession the turn after that.

I just ran into a situation where I was offered vassalage and refused. MM had been my most powerful rival but he PO'd the other two leaders on his continent and wound up losing heavily to them. Finally he asked to be my vassal. I refused because

1. I didn't want a war in 1830 with two overseas civilizations
2. MM didn't have much to offer in compensation

Would you have accepted?

Just a few question & discussion points:

1. Do you have to have vassal for liberating colonies?
Seems like the options only came up when I had vassal and it's giving cities to my vassal. And Sid suggested to liberate the cities to a vassal that has like 47% land area ... (which is kinda stupid as they can break free when it's >50%).

2. Is it better to give the cities back to vassal? Sometimes I want the wonders but revolting cities every few turn kinda turn me off. But then again sending reinforcement across vassal area seems to take forever (pre airport&railroad).

3. I'm also not sure how to use vassal for war, when I want war, usually I have my stacks near the victim border, rush quickly to end war as soon as possible. By the time vassal's army reaches the battlefield, the war is almost done. Of course I can declare war first and let vassal's army take the beating first but this usually take a long time that ww is hurting once my army set out for the kill (unless converting to police state).

Maybe a stupid question, but does anyone know whether it's possible to have multiple layers of vassalage?
So, for example: Monty is Asoka's vazal and Asoka is your vazal?

Part_Time_Civer said:

Maybe a stupid question, but does anyone know whether it's possible to have multiple layers of vassalage?
So, for example: Monty is Asoka's vazal and Asoka is your vazal?

Click to expand...

You can't

So, how do I free my neighbor from being my enemy's vassal?

I was out settling the barbarian jungles when my good neighbor Cyrus (no complaint against me) became Alexander the Great's vassal. He then declared war on me. Since Cyrus had no army, I focused all my attention on Alexander. I took over 3 big cities, then asked for peace. I figured I could give then negotiate with Cyrus and give him the cities, expanding his population and territory so that he could be free. BUT HE WON'T TAKE THEM!

What gives? The cities are along his border, and were pushing back his cultural borders until I took them.

Moses7 said:

You can't

Click to expand...

Does that mean someone with a vassal can never become your vassal?

Arrgggg. I simply can't find why vassals break up!

andimantis said:

Does that mean someone with a vassal can never become your vassal?

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that's how it works. The standard way to break up a vassalage is to hit the master so hard the vassal breaks away. But I've never had anyone with a vassal submit until the vassal broke away.

I have however, seen the reverse in RFC. Someone offered to vassalize to my vassal. The funny thing was, the sub-vassal didn't recongnize me as the ultimate master.

In a lot of games, such as when I play OCC, I see the AI's peace-vassalize, break free, become vassal, break free, etc. So in a normal game you could just wait until the vassal breaks free to attack the master. That would scare the ex-vassal. I wouldn't do it the other way, however, because the ex-vassal will immediately seek out the old master.

Crighton said:

I've written the following in an attempt to help explain the Vassal System in the CIV: Warlords expansion.

Outsanding Questions:
(For which if someone could locate in the xml's or wherever I would be gratefull to know the answers to)

What is the formula for Vassal Maintenance?

What is the formula for Vassal Happiness boost to Master?

Click to expand...

I searched around the War Academy, Strategy Articles, and forum threads and it doesn't appear anyone answered the question re: "What is the formula for Vassal Maintenance?" Perhaps I didn't find the key search word(s).

I don't have the answer but I'm guessing it has something to do with what falls under the city maintenance (both distance from capital and # of cities). If someone posted the formulae for city maintenance then vassal maintenance could probably be derived from it.

[Edit: not accurate... "It may not be of interest or relevant but I acquired Japan as a vassal for Louis XVI's France and was charged with +0.84/each of 10 French cities (total 8.40) upon acquiring Japan's vassalage." I stopped checking after the 5th city which all happen to be pop.8. As it turns out, my pop.8 cities were charged +0.84 in vassal maintenance; pop. 6 = +0.78; pop. 5 = +0.75; pop. 4 = +0.69; pop. 1 & 2 = +0.63 for a total of +7.68]

Japan retains
- Kyoto (pop 7) w/20 water & 16 land tiles @ 10 tiles from French capital (Paris).
- Satsuma (pop 2) w/12 land @ 12 from Paris.
- Kagoshima (pop 2) w/3 water & 5 land @ 16 from Paris.

I note the # of tiles within Japan's cultural borders only because Japan's 23 water + 33 land tiles = 56 total tiles. And 8.40 vassal maintenance / 56 vassal-controlled tiles = 0.15 maintenance/tile. This relationship was the only one in which the result was a nice, neat number (everything else was like "Pi".)

I'll watch Japan's borders to see what happens. In the meantime, if anyone can answer the OP's question....