Peace Vassals, how do they work?

I've never witnessed such a massive nuclear holocaust in my days of Civving. And yet she was "doing fine on her own"? Wow.

It's the Izzy Crazy for ya. If she were alive today she'd be suing Firaxis for libel.

Everyone thinks Gandhi is a pushover, but in all of my games he was usually my largest enemy and declares on me as soon as he builds an army.

Yeah I tend not to underestimate Gandhi IF he's got a generous landbase. If he got choked out by a REXing neighbor or neighbors, he's got nothing for those fast workers to rapidly improve.

In my current game, Salad peace-vassaled to me, then later broke free, then the very next turn asked to get back in the fold. I think that's the first time I had a vassal break away. I must not have been expanding fast enough for him.

TheDS said:

In my current game, Salad peace-vassaled to me, then later broke free, then the very next turn asked to get back in the fold. I think that's the first time I had a vassal break away. I must not have been expanding fast enough for him.

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He must have thought you were another AI. Like you, I don't have breakaways (Admittedly I'm reasonably nice to my vassals). I see this with AI vassals all the time, though.

I love reading TMIT's rants about peacevassals because they're like an articulation of everything I've vaguely learned to be true (mainly after being screwed over a few times).

Blue Arc said:

....... I was worried for the entire game ........

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Most of time.. I request ALL of his resources , that includes 5 fishes 4 cows 2 irons whatever, to the point that, just make sure it will cause his cities into unhappiness and unhealthy, caused a long term decline.

RIcs said:

Most of time.. I request ALL of his resources , that includes 5 fishes 4 cows 2 irons whatever, to the point that, just make sure it will cause his cities into unhappiness and unhealthy, caused a long term decline.

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That's probably a wise approach to take. In my last game, I was kind to my Peace Vassal and shared Resources with him, leaving him with copies of his own Resources.

My reward?

My Peace Vassal went up against me in the Diplo Vote! That fact meant that I had to cater to at least one other AI rather than relying on my Vassal for the "automatic vote"--even that potential benefit of not needing to get an AI from another team to vote you as the Leader of the World went to waste.


The one thing that I do like about Peace Vassals is that they appear to be a bit more likely to break free from you than Capitulated Vassals... when you are doing well in the game and are approaching the Domination Limit, sometimes it can be helpful NOT to have to count half of that AI's Land Area in your own, especially if you let your Peace Vassal settle the junky land near yours (half of junk is still junk!). The downside is that you don't really have much (apparent) control over souring the relationship and weaning your Vassal out of your empire... but then again, as with many mechanics, there *may* be a surefire way to dislodge your Peace Vassal... we just need someone to spend the time to discover such a method and share it with us.

I don't care for vassals so tun em off

Tristan_C said:

I love reading TMIT's rants about peacevassals because they're like an articulation of everything I've vaguely learned to be true (mainly after being screwed over a few times).

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Me too; for a while TMIT's rants were the only thing I'd visit the forums for . I've long since turned off vassals (and AP, and events, and huts for that matter) and don't plan on going back.

I think I had one peacevassal in the few games where I had them enabled, and he never broke free all the way to my Domination win.

play colonization to see the power of the hut. It is hut mania in the form of indians
I use random seed load don't like those 80% 90% success losses or maybe I want a luck kill and turn vassals off

Clam Spammer said:

Me too; for a while TMIT's rants were the only thing I'd visit the forums for . I've long since turned off vassals (and AP, and events, and huts for that matter) and don't plan on going back.

I think I had one peacevassal in the few games where I had them enabled, and he never broke free all the way to my Domination win.

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Huts and events, fine- being RNG nodes, they can mess with timing and distort games played on the forums. But vassals and AP effects are an important part of the mechanics and it's best to leave them open for militant, religious, and wimpy AIs.

Tristan_C said:

Huts and events, fine- being RNG nodes, they can mess with timing and distort games played on the forums. But vassals and AP effects are an important part of the mechanics and it's best to leave them open for militant, religious, and wimpy AIs.

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That's how I like to play. Huts off, events sometimes for variety. But I find the AP often makes the game more interesting. Without vassals domination and conquest victories can become a real slog.

In a recent game, I, playing Peter, had been at war with Justinian since I met him early on and stole a worker from him. I won an early Archer battle which allowed me to keep him in check and prevent him from REXing in my direction, and allowing me to claim the good city spots between me and him (Monarch diff.) His capitol was on a hill, so I was mainly just using a couple of units to pillage and harass his units. After razing a few colonies and eventually taking his capitol, he was down to one city - a decent one on a hill, but lacking any strategic resources. He was now boxed in by me and Cyrus, but the city had walls and a hefty stack of archers, so I decided to string him along until I had cats.

So just as I'm finishing putting together a stack to take him out, Qin, on the far side of the continent, apparently discovers Feudalism and sees the poor Byzantines and thinks "neat, someone who will become a vassal already!" So I get a DoW from Qin, and he proceeds to gift all his techs, money, and a pile of resources to backwards little Justinian. And through the power of tech trading, he manages to acquire Bureaucracy and Machinery - which Qin didn't even have. Suddenly, instead of hiding behind his walls with archers, his Bureau capitol is cranking out Xbows and Macemen and attacking my stack of mostly Swordsmen and Axmen (I had Bureau, and was researching Machinery, but could get a trade for it.) Fortunately I had had the good sense to research HR and used Horse Archers to stem the tide, but taking him out ended up being far bloodier than I had planned.

The funniest part is that Justinian renounced Qin's protection pretty much as soon as he was able to. (But Qin still went on giving him 10ish resources for free, including Iron and Horses.)

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For peace vassals, I tend to get them when I'm strong militarily, and have a small weaker neighbor at Friendly. I've never had one leave, but I always treat them good, too.

Personaly I like diplomacy and anything it iproves it; so I like vasals and AP which both adds more flawor to the game. In fact I wish it could all be more complex so I would not mind to see some city states and optimaly culture-buy new teritory as well( I guess for that I will have to wait for civ6).
I have had a case which nobody mentioned yet. When I have vasalised Chengischan and couple turns later ask him for his iron he refused and there was an instant state of war few more turn he capitulatets again I demand some resource, he refuses so we have another war resulting in another cap after which I rather don't ask for anything...
Also what I have noticed a lot is when I wage a war with minimal loses I do not have to take many of the cities to get to the cap. Sometimes I take just one city but masacre his army and I get cap but then I usualy run into trouble of keeping the vasal under 50% of my pop and land so he doesn't brake off.

Gorakshanat said:

Personaly I like diplomacy and anything it iproves it; so I like vasals and AP which both adds more flawor to the game. In fact I wish it could all be more complex so I would not mind to see some city states and optimaly culture-buy new teritory as well( I guess for that I will have to wait for civ6).
I have had a case which nobody mentioned yet. When I have vasalised Chengischan and couple turns later ask him for his iron he refused and there was an instant state of war few more turn he capitulatets again I demand some resource, he refuses so we have another war resulting in another cap after which I rather don't ask for anything...
Also what I have noticed a lot is when I wage a war with minimal loses I do not have to take many of the cities to get to the cap. Sometimes I take just one city but masacre his army and I get cap but then I usualy run into trouble of keeping the vasal under 50% of my pop and land so he doesn't brake off.

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That sounds like a waste. Since I'm usually much bigger than my vassal, I just trade resources and even give him some extra for GPT. It helps your relationship with the vassal. Vassals will willingly trade their only resource so it's easy. I've never had a peace vassal break away.

Another idea on peace vassals is to send a couple of missionaries and convert them to your religion. This minimizes the diplo mess they can cause. If you're in FR and don't have tech brokering in your game (I don't) give them Liberalism and ask/bribe them to change into it as well. They like you better and are less likely to break away as well.

While some absurd situations regularly come up with the vassals mechanic, IMO it's an overstatement to qualify it as broken. It adds flavor to the game and works fine most of the time. Peace vassals can be incredibly annoying, but hardly broken. It adds flavor to the game and a somewhat random element that is hard to control, but once again, this isn't chess.

@Ataxerxes: thx but I didnt put it clearly, I didnt peacevasalise Chingis. What struck me was how he refused to give me his resouce which resulted in his break away and instant war. I asume that some AIs are programmed that way and I like it.
I have also learned my lesson and treat my vasals good forming kind of permanent alience, giving them my resources, asking them to convert to my religion, liberating their cities, I dont give them GPT though becouse doing so on immortal dif. it doesnt look like a good idea to me.... most of the time.
What I would like to do is to get to Vasalage realy soon (it can work to get it from oracle) get some vasal(s) and see how it affects the game- I mean to try to get the best use out of it. The problem is to get realy solid vasal who has the potential to research fast.

Barbu said:

While some absurd situations regularly come up with the vassals mechanic, IMO it's an overstatement to qualify it as broken. It adds flavor to the game and works fine most of the time. Peace vassals can be incredibly annoying, but hardly broken. It adds flavor to the game and a somewhat random element that is hard to control, but once again, this isn't chess.

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Yeah, I think that in real life there is enough absurd (or higly improbable) situations that I can call it illusion with ease so it does not give me trouble to accept some in game.