Undisciplined Vassals

I'm a long way into my first game with the Warlords expansion.
I have brought two states on their knees and accepted their pleas; they were spared in exchange of their allegiance. They are now my vassals.

I more than had my share of the advantages that are provided by this new concept by demanding money, undiscovered early technologies and luxury resources. Having a huge land, I still do not have any coal. Luckily, one of my vassals had access to that precious resource. So I also demanded his one and only source of coal.

However, that same vassal came a few turns ago and told me he had enough of that coal "deal" and canceled it (along with the per turn money tribute). That was fine with me since it would trigger war between our two nations... or does it?
Apparently not since he still is my vassal. Is it a bug or misunderstanding of the vassal concept from myself...
Let's "ask" him for his coal again then.
He refuses. Fine with me, let's bring the tanks in...
What... No war?
What the heck is going on?

Let's go ask Julius (my other vassal) for some money, he hasn’t paid his tribute for a while.
Another refusal?
Still no war!

How come all those lesser people can get along with this defiance with impunity?

Is it a bug?
Anybody has that kind of behavior?

Sounds like a bug to me.

you can only demand one RESOURCE per turrn and if they refuse that it is war

Fair enough.
However, I did many demands on the same turn (I remember asking all it's gold, then on another demand, 5 gold per turn tribute and then 2 luxuries totaling 5 demands on the same turn!) and that same guy accepted each times. He should have refused the last four of them since he has absolutely nothing to gain in accessing them.
But still, if it is the rule (neither Civilopedia nor the Warlords guide say so tough), then be it.

What is the point of asking for resources/luxury if the vassal can cancel the "deal" anytime he wants?

F@!$king vassal states.

Two thoughts come to mind...

1) You're in a war with someone and his coal gets pillaged.. he then has no coal to give you, and you can't demand something he doesn't have.

2) You're demanding more than one resorce from him, and that resource is considered to be the "required" one while the coal is optional. ... if this is the case, the fix will probably be to cancel any other demands you have from him and then redemand the coal.

After playing a little longer and giving a few vassal tribute tests, I may some kind of an explanation.

First of all; As far as I can see, the vassals are not forced to assess gold tributes. Refusals do not trigger war (Julius always refused to pay such tributes). Strangely enough, my first vassal (Aztecs) accepted to pay gold tribute for a while but from now on, he will always refuse.

Second; Resources tributes may have an expiration date, 20 turns maybe (though the remaining turns for the deal are not showed anywhere&#8230. All my other luxuries and per turn gold tributes were eventually cancelled few turns later. And if Janus0's #2 thought is right, my coal problem would make some sort of sense. 20 turns goes, coal deal cancelled but I still get luxury resources from the Aztecs so he is not obliged to assess my new coal demand.
I would surely cancel those deals but it is apparently not permitted.

Te same question is still coming back: Why did my vassals gave me more than they had to in the first place?

PS I saw many people asking questions regarding vassal's UN votes on that forum.
According to the current trend in my game, they are free to use their votes the way they want. However, up until now they have always voted for me on the supreme leader resolution. On the other resolutions, I saw some unaligned votes.
Considering the fact that they are all furious at me, I guess it means that they cannot overthrow their master with that UN resolution.

i meant only one resource per turn is REQUIRED for the vassal to give you and if they refuse that resource it means war

You can't retract your demands?!? You can't unvassal them!?! What a ripoff! What if I want bananas instead of gold?

Well, when I try to cancel the deal, I get the following message:
"This deal cannot be cancelled"

You have to wait 10 turns before you can cancel any deal, its in the fine print.

I want to be able to unvassal as well, I don't see why this is not an option.

Every time Mansa Musa came to me to offering vassalage all I had to do was declare war and let him get pillaged a little. He would then break off and come back after the war was over even I though I would do it again.

I usually don't demand any tribute from my vassals, by the time they surrender I've already gotten whatever resource I wanted from them anyway.

In my current game, I have four vassals (mongols, chinese, arabs & russians). They all refuse to give me any of their techs; they're all red, I can't even demand them.

Now, I know you're only supposed to get any their resources (or war) if you demand them, and not techs/gold/whatever. Still, I'd like to know what was the reason behind the decision on part of Firaxis to implement vassal state/capitulation in this way. You'd think if they had to essentially surrender to you, they'd be in no position to refuse your demands (or at least face war if they did refuse). And why can't the master decide that he's had enough of the vassal and let him go ?

Inquiring minds need to know.

In my previous game, my vassal never want to give anything without any punishment - war. The only "free" things I got were capitulation and increase maintenance. What a waste! Really useless vassal state!

Another thing is vassal should not attack anyone without the consent of the master. In my last game, I was attacked twice by Russian`s vassal (Izzy) which of course then made Russia to declare war on me. Both times, Izzy declared first before Russia. However, I don`t know if they have discussed the war before.

I stopped taking on Vassels for this very reason! You are Friendly with one civ, join a war against another, get them as vassel then a few turns later find out you just declared war on your friendly civ through your vassel. Either it's your friendly declaring war on them or your vassel decalring war on your friendly - both need to be looked into on whether working as intended or not. No vassels for me, when they offer to be a vessel, it just means they are ripe for the elimination.

FeelGood said:

In my previous game, my vassal never want to give anything without any punishment - war. The only "free" things I got were capitulation and increase maintenance. What a waste! Really useless vassal state!

Another thing is vassal should not attack anyone without the consent of the master. In my last game, I was attacked twice by Russian`s vassal (Izzy) which of course then made Russia to declare war on me. Both times, Izzy declared first before Russia. However, I don`t know if they have discussed the war before.

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Vassals are essentially useless. I would advise not taking on any vassals, unless you're going for a domination victory and you're too lazy to conquer the last two cities.

Vassal certainly has its use for domination and diplo victory. Otherwise, better be wise before accepting them. They usually have GPT for you if you have lots of resources! I hope they will fix vassal in patch later.

Yep, vassals are useless right now. I hope we'll have the patch soon