Vassals

45°38'N-13°47'E · Apr 14, 2015

I think it's just too complicated. In this case I would prefer an internal voting system for every alliance, but that's not going to happen anyway.
My idea is that we should encourage smaller civs (especially close ones) to form alliances. Sometimes larger civs should also form alliances later in the game to pose some kind of threat to humans as well. Just brainstorming anyway.

Rezca · Apr 14, 2015

I'd like it if you could remove a Vassal from your "protection", cancel the deal so to speak.

I've had several times when a vassal ended up teching past me but refusing to trade me anything (And because he was 'Friendly' towards me, I couldn't demand that he fork them over) and started building wonder after wonder after wonder. Even passed me in power a few times - but because he was huddled in a corner with five cities, he couldn't break free.

I had a neighbor that hated his guts, but was too afraid to declare war on me to get at my vassal. I cut the agreement via the World Builder, and sure enough a few turns later the guy declared on him and they started tearing each other apart, dragging both of them down the scoreboard.

It's that sort of "Magical Protection" I'd like to do away with at will, if a vassal starts getting annoying and whatnot :king:

As it is, you can only really do so with vassals that hate you. Demand something twice, and generally they get fed up. Can't do the same with vassals that like you, since you can only "ask" that they give you things.

Arakhor · Apr 14, 2015

Master of Orion II had research and trade treaties, which you could sign with anyone. They started off at a net loss and then became quite profitable. Of course, if you went to war with someone, any treaties you had with them were broken.

<Nexus> · Apr 14, 2015

Rezca said:
I'd like it if you could remove a Vassal from your "protection", cancel the deal so to speak.

I've had several times when a vassal ended up teching past me but refusing to trade me anything (And because he was 'Friendly' towards me, I couldn't demand that he fork them over) and started building wonder after wonder after wonder. Even passed me in power a few times - but because he was huddled in a corner with five cities, he couldn't break free.

I had a neighbor that hated his guts, but was too afraid to declare war on me to get at my vassal. I cut the agreement via the World Builder, and sure enough a few turns later the guy declared on him and they started tearing each other apart, dragging both of them down the scoreboard.

It's that sort of "Magical Protection" I'd like to do away with at will, if a vassal starts getting annoying and whatnot
As it is, you can only really do so with vassals that hate you. Demand something twice, and generally they get fed up. Can't do the same with vassals that like you, since you can only "ask" that they give you things.

Still there is one way, though not always easy: Bribing his city via espionage sure to make the most loving vassal declare war on you, if not for the first city, then for the second :king:

45°38'N-13°47'E · Apr 14, 2015

Arakhor said:
Master of Orion II had research and trade treaties, which you could sign with anyone. They started off at a net loss and then became quite profitable. Of course, if you went to war with someone, any treaties you had with them were broken.

Nice info, thanks, I'll have a look!

Rezca · Apr 14, 2015

Sogroon said:
Still there is one way, though not always easy: Bribing his city via espionage sure to make the most loving vassal declare war on you, if not for the first city, then for the second

Which isn't something I want to do with Egypt, who is not only six techs ahead of me but has twice my military count

Why she's still a vassal I have no idea. Just because I have more cities and land? *shrugs*

45°38'N-13°47'E · Apr 14, 2015

@Rezca and others, you can always ask for tributes, even to friendly voluntary vassals: alt+click the name of the vassal in scoreboard.

gay_Aleks · Apr 14, 2015

What about cancelling vassals as part of a peace treaty?

45°38'N-13°47'E · Apr 14, 2015

Tolni said:
What about cancelling vassals as part of a peace treaty?

Nice idea!

Rezca · Apr 14, 2015

45°38'N-13°47'E;13774557 said:
@Rezca and others, you can always ask for tributes, even to friendly voluntary vassals: alt+click the name of the vassal in scoreboard.

Huh, I'll have to try that later then - I thought you could only do so from within the Diplomacy Screen (Where it always says "Can you spare us this?" if you're buddies)

45°38'N-13°47'E · Apr 14, 2015

Rezca said:
Huh, I'll have to try that later then - I thought you could only do so from within the Diplomacy Screen (Where it always says "Can you spare us this?" if you're buddies)

Try and see

MechatronicJazz · Apr 14, 2015

Nice ideas so far! I would like to see the ability in the late game to have a few options upon conquering a city. In addition to keeping or razing, it would be nice to have the option to give to any vassal (currently there are conditions on "liberating" a city that feel constraining at times) or, if this is possible to add, creating a new civ that becomes a vassal puppet state.

Splitting up large rivals appeals to me. It's already possible by using espionage to instigate rebellions, but you have limited control on the result that way. There would need to be some restrictions on this to prevent spamming new civs. Maybe a minimum city size that scales with map size, era, and average city pop.

45°38'N-13°47'E · Apr 14, 2015

Puppet state creation should work more or less as you're suggesting.

But I think we really need to understand how vassal works, because at least for me some features are not clear at all.
For example released colonies are considered peaceful vassals or capitulated ones?
Moreover, I've tried deleting all my units so that now I am at 0.1 strength with my 3 vassals (2 released colonies and a peaceful vassal) and nobody has left me after 30 turns on blitz speed. But as soon as I autoplay a single turn, my peaceful vassal breaks away. There's obviously something not working since the test is reproducible.

Rezca · Apr 14, 2015

45°38'N-13°47'E;13775325 said:
Puppet state creation should work more or less as you're suggesting.

But I think we really need to understand how vassal works, because at least for me some features are not clear at all.
For example released colonies are considered peaceful vassals or capitulated ones?
Moreover, I've tried deleting all my units so that now I am at 0.1 strength with my 3 vassals (2 released colonies and a peaceful vassal) and nobody has left me after 30 turns on blitz speed. But as soon as I autoplay a single turn, my peaceful vassal breaks away. There's obviously something not working since the test is reproducible.

That's strange... I'd have figured that the power compared to you would make them split off right away.... Maybe it's handled differently for AI-run masters than for Player ones?

Might explain why Hatshepsut was content being a vassal 2 ~ 3 times as strong as me for centuries on end :crazyeye:

platyping · Apr 15, 2015

Colonies are peaceful ones.

Both do break from a weak AI master, France. Test 1
But if i reload a save and give France enough land such that the 50% rule no longer holds, peaceful one will still break while forced one cannot. Test 2

45°38'N-13°47'E · Apr 15, 2015

Thanks platyping, I tested myself and you're right. What I don't understand now is why under very same condition some peaceful vassal breaks away while autoplaying and not while playing for real.

MechatronicJazz · Apr 15, 2015

45°38'N-13°47'E;13776930 said:
Thanks platyping, I tested myself and you're right. What I don't understand now is why under very same condition some peaceful vassal breaks away while autoplaying and not while playing for real.

I think the conditions for vassal breakaway all have to do with size. I don't think strength ratio has anything to do with it. Why that would change for autoplay I don't know, but perhaps strength ratio is a factor for the AI?

45°38'N-13°47'E · Apr 15, 2015

No, it depends on population and size in standard BTS, I've also added military strength as a separate factor some months ago

MechatronicJazz · Apr 17, 2015

45°38'N-13°47'E;13776952 said:
No, it depends on population and size in standard BTS, I've also added military strength as a separate factor some months ago

Oh, okay. I missed that. I've only been playing AND sporadically for the past few months so I haven't noticed a lot of tweaked/added features yet.

Afforess · Apr 17, 2015

I just want to point out that I am aware of the modcomp that expands vassals. The reason I never pursued it further is that vassal relations is fairly complicated already and merging in even a partial subset of the modcomp changes would be more involved than a straight merge. Areas where we (or BetterAI or RevMod, etc) have modified or tweaked how vassals (and vassal ai) work also each would need to be reconsidered.

I was (and still am) concerned that the complexity of the task is rather large, and the potential for introducing new bugs is near-certain. Maybe I am being overly pessimistic, but that is why I never took any action.

I'm not opposed, but I am concerned.

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