Peace Vassals, how do they work?

I was preparing to invade Mansa Musa of the Mali when he suddenly decided to peace vassal to me. It was only the second time that's ever happened to me, how does an AI Civ decide to peacefully vassal? Does he or she have the option of simply no longer being a vassal? I was worried for the entire game up till I managed a domination win that he might break free of vassalage at a very bad time. Is that even possible or is a peace vassal just like a regular vassal except that you can't order him or her around as much?

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a civ that choses to become a vassal peacefully can break the agreement after 10 turns. usually they agree to become a vassal based on military might although friendly nations are more likley than unfriendly ones.

i have never had a vassal of anykind quit being a vassal in a negative way. they wont for example quit being a vassal and then go immediately to war... I have however managed to damage an opponent enough to free a computers capitulation vassal. then because we were still at war i took three of the former vassals cities and forced him to capitulate to me.

Once I won a conquest victory with a peaceful vassal on Emperor.
I don't think the AI will see your domination victory coming, resign the vassalage and then attack you.

wolfblue said:

a civ that choses to become a vassal peacefully can break the agreement after 10 turns. usually they agree to become a vassal based on military might although friendly nations are more likley than unfriendly ones.

i have never had a vassal of anykind quit being a vassal in a negative way. they wont for example quit being a vassal and then go immediately to war... I have however managed to damage an opponent enough to free a computers capitulation vassal. then because we were still at war i took three of the former vassals cities and forced him to capitulate to me.

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This is my experience as well. I've never had a vassal break away from me. Peace vassals to the AI do seem to break away a lot. It's often vassal-free-vassal with the same master. With computer vassals I prefer to beat up on the master until the vassal breaks free.

OP: Some Civs vassal a lot, others almost never do. You don't need to invade Mansa if you have a military edge - just research Feudalism and wait a couple of turns. Sometimes Mansa offers to be a vassal before Nimoy starts to speak. Gandhi also vassalizes a lot. Remember to assign Mansa's research if he's your vassal. A little tag-team research can help a lot.

I generally don't trust peace vassals enough to give them important techs. But yes, my peace vassals are usually Mansa Musa, Gandhi, and Frederick.

ywhtptgtfo said:

I generally don't trust peace vassals enough to give them important techs. But yes, my peace vassals are usually Mansa Musa, Gandhi, and Frederick.

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Those three are normally the first people to declare war on me

Mansa will offer himself as a vassal quite frequently in my games. Most of the time, though, I have to beat the tar out of opponents to make them vassals.

It's one of the most terrible features in the game; it's a function to allow high level AIs to permanently ally and freebie tech swap even when permanent alliances aren't enabled. The only features that even come close to being as bad as PAssals are events, lying GUI, and the Apostolic Palace.

They function on a combination of power + relations; the higher the power/better relations, the more likely someone will peacevassal. Individual AI are more/less likely to PAssal, but anyone can/has done it.

The vassal state mechanics are broken. I proved this yeas ago by following these steps:

1. Declared war and took most of my opponent cities
2. Opponent wouldn't capitulate
3. Opened world builder and deleted one of my own vassals, lowering my power
4. Opponent would capitulate as a result of deleting my own vassal

and

1. Declared war and captured 8 of an AIs 10 cities
2. "we're doing fine on our own", despite being at war with someone 4x their power and losing 80% of their cities, once again ONLY because there were a couple small/weak civs out there..

and

1. Declared war on a master and vassal
2. Quickly took cities from the master using nukes/paratroops, his vassal broke free
3. Master now won't capitulate because "he's afraid of my enemies", despite ME having 5x the power of either.

Anyone who thinks vassals states aren't broken has some 'splainin to do. I'll concede it's not not as poorly implemented as events/global warming, but it still sucks a big one.

I play with vassalage on and have experienced the Peace-vassal pretty often.

The most memorable peace vassal I've ever had was Shaka, who was landlocked in the middle of a large contintent between Pete, Toku, Churchy, BurgerKing, Saladin, and myself.

My god he was hands-down the most militarily effective vassal I've ever had. In the final war w/all the above mentioned except Churchy (who Shaka and I finished off w/a rifle/cannon war) vassaled to Saladin (who had huge empire), Shaka was fighting on all borders against every other AI still left on the continent. I expected him to go down fighting, or perhaps I could send a big Cavalry army and rescue him if things got too bad. Surprise! He held his own and kept Saladin's 3 vassals busy all by himself while I rampaged through Saladin's empire. Memorable game because of that. Shaka's a pain as an AI, but he's the best vassal I've ever had.

TheMeInTeam said:

1. Declared war and took most of my opponent cities
2. Opponent wouldn't capitulate
3. Opened world builder and deleted one of my own vassals, lowering my power
4. Opponent would capitulate as a result of deleting my own vassal

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That never occurred to me.

1. Declared war and captured 8 of an AIs 10 cities
2. "we're doing fine on our own", despite being at war with someone 4x their power and losing 80% of their cities, once again ONLY because there were a couple small/weak civs out there..

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Yes, that can be annoying. However, it usually isn't that bad.

1. Declared war on a master and vassal
2. Quickly took cities from the master using nukes/paratroops, his vassal broke free
3. Master now won't capitulate because "he's afraid of my enemies", despite ME having 5x the power of either.

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That's when you start capping the vassals.

The most annoying scenario I had was when a master refused to cap and the peace vassals refused to break even when the master was down to one city (from 20+) and one unit. After I WB out the master-vassal relationships between them, then I finally get the cap.

wolfblue said:

i have never had a vassal of anykind quit being a vassal in a negative way. they wont for example quit being a vassal and then go immediately to war...

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I don't think that's the big fear with Peace Vassals. For me, it's having my former peace vassal (let's call her "Whore") quit being MY vassal, only to then become the peace vassal of a rival I'm having serious trouble getting along with (let's call him "Pimp"). Then THEY go to war with you because Pimp wants to (and maybe Whore did too...but she gets the diplo cover of having no choice in the matter, right?)

The vassal system isn't broken. It's just unloved.

I actually don't have a problem with capitulation, but i hate peace vassles. Its the most broken feature in the game. I'm playing a game right now where i was friendly with kublia khan and even had a def pact with him. He ended up peace vasseling to Louis, who later DOWed on me. I had to fight a defensive war and managed to bribe Mao (who had three vassles on his cointent, two capped one peace) .After loosing a city to Kublia and two cities to louis. Louis was finally willing to talk. The game is still winniable, but it will be tough. Im actually considering to turn off vassles from now on because of this game.Here's a classic pic from my game that shows what vassles can do to diplo:

Peregrine said:

...BurgerKing

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I knew exactly what you were talking about

yturk39 said:

I don't think that's the big fear with Peace Vassals. For me, it's having my former peace vassal (let's call her "Whore") quit being MY vassal, only to then become the peace vassal of a rival I'm having serious trouble getting along with (let's call him "Pimp"). Then THEY go to war with you because Pimp wants to (and maybe Whore did too...but she gets the diplo cover of having no choice in the matter, right?)

The vassal system isn't broken. It's just unloved.

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It's broken.

If you think otherwise, you don't know the code.

In the majority of games I will get some fool that refuses to capitulate "Surely you must be joking". Then next turn peacevassals to someone else, who promptly declares war on me! The worst part is the new master is usually just suiciding into me; it's not like he has any chance of winning. So with a few of the master's city including his capital captured, he still refuses to cap, and the vassal is just hiding away off the mainland on some random island.

It's a bit annoying when AI players commit suicide just to annoy you.

EDIT:
Ok, it just got utterly ridiculous in the last game. This is probably the worst example so far.

Elizabeth refused to capitulate, and vassals to Khan which gets him to DoW on me. Then after a lot of battering, Khan finally decides to give up and Liz breaks free. And Elizabeth, ok seriously quit wasting my time, lol. I must be joking? All she has left is something on that tiny little glacier in the south.



Also, this game also features a peacevassal, Pacal because I had blocked him from expanding early and he failed in a war against Washington. They seem to just give up and offer themselves to you if you are friendly with them and they have nowhere to go.

Don't like vassals?
I don't usually goto Youtube, but, I found myself there after someone posted a link from this site.
I then went on to one of my favorite empires the Celts. TMIT's from 9 months ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otHaGzRK-LM
It is #12 in his series. If you jump about half way through, you can find the part about vassals.

It was from a tough starting location. Resources were not great either.
He came back strong, but, the vassal part ruined it the end.

ah yes, THAT game.

The biggest problem with that game was that I had very low food, bad commerce, and the AI had gobs and gobs of land because I picked terra and got a bad roll. So far, that's my only non-livestream loss on video...I've actually been pretty lucky for the most part while recording...or at least lucky enough to win.

Other bad vassal things have been going on in the game i've been uploading over the past week or so.

TheMeInTeam said:

ah yes, THAT game.

The biggest problem with that game was that I had very low food, bad commerce, and the AI had gobs and gobs of land because I picked terra and got a bad roll. So far, that's my only non-livestream loss on video...I've actually been pretty lucky for the most part while recording...or at least lucky enough to win.

Other bad vassal things have been going on in the game i've been uploading over the past week or so.

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Not disagreeing, but do you normally turn off vassals when you play? On YouTube you don't so I'm just wondering.

I normally leave them on, despite the problems you mentioned. Good for diplomation and a few vassals are a few you don't need to eliminate for Conquest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofh7biY0VkM&feature=related

I think this is a hilarious example of capitulation issues in this game. "we're doing fine on our own", lol.

Archon_Wing said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofh7biY0VkM&feature=related

I think this is a hilarious example of capitulation issues in this game. "we're doing fine on our own", lol.

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Firaxis is of the opinion, historically, that Izzy was born without a brain. That whole, conquer Iberia from the Moors, send explorers off to discover the New World, thing, that was a fluke produced by an idiot, of course.

I frequently lol at the stupid decisions Izzy makes as an AI during a typical game.