Ideas for an enhanced Vassal Diplomacy System

Overall, I think the addition of vassals was an interesting twist to Civ, but didn't go far enough. I've thought up some ideas which I think might enhance it. Constructive criticism is appreciated.

First, I think you should have an option in the diplomacy screen to force your vassal's production into a specific arena. Something in the order of -Build Military, -Spread Religion, -Build Culture, -Build Espionage.

Secondly, an option to command your vassal's troops during wartime would be interesting. The units would still be maintained and posessed by your vassal, but you would be able to give them orders for the duration of the war. This would be more historically accurate, and also give a concrete advantage to having vassals instead of just wiping out other civs. For purposes of balance, you might have to pay some portion of the maintenance, but not the full cost.

Finally, I think that you should be able to automatically see the espionage and world map of your vassal. For example if he can see another civs territory, you should be able to as well.

Let me know what you think! Thanks.

I like #3 and #1. Great ideas.

i like idea #1.

For example, your vassal can spread a religion your founded and have the temple to, while you build whatever. Your vassal is essentially helping you get money

Great idea. Maybe a Modder can mod it in.

idea 2 would be good, this happened many times in the pastin reality, like the many vassal states of england (like autralia and new zealand)having to go to the other side of the world and fight germany just because england was at war with them

I think idea #2 needs some work.

Upon declaration of war, the superior country can select which if any military units of its vassal it wishes to control for the duration of that war.
Limit to perhaps 1/3 or 1/2 of all military units of a vassal.
Then for the duration of that war the units chosen act as if they belong to the superior country: the superior country decides what they do, they move on the superior country's turn, they add to the number of units the superior country has for support purposes (and are not included in the number of units the vassal has for support purposes), may be upgraded at the cost of the superior country.

In the case of a declaration of another war, then the superior country can select additional military units of its vassal it wishes to control for the duration of that war. However, the total limit of military units under the superior's control still applies.

In addition, one could allow the superior country to select which if any workers of its vassal it wishes to control for the duration of that war.
Limit to perhaps 1/3 or 1/2 of all workers of a vassal.
Same features as with miltary units.

Germany is a vassal of Persia.

The Aztecs declare war on Persia or vice-versa.

Germany has the following military units: 2 Galleons, 2 Frigates, and 10 macemen.

Assuming a limit of 1/3, Persia can select up to 4 military units to control for the duration of the war with the Aztecs. (14/3 rounded down is 4.)
There are lots of possibilities:

Persia could choose none.

Persia could choose all of the ships.

Persia could choose 1 Galleon, 1 Frigate, and 2 macemen.

These are just examples.

Persia makes one choice at the beginning of the war, and that is it.

Let us assume, Persia choses a specific Galleon, a specific Frigate, and 2 specific macemen. Then for the duration of the war with Aztecs, Persia moves these German units on its turn. If they die, so be it. Persia can promote them. Persia can upgrade them if possible, if it is willing to pay.
If some other German units die or Germany builds additional units, that has no affect on this.

Perhaps, 1 of these macemen dies fighting the Aztecs.
Persia now controls 3 German units.

While Persia is still at war with the Aztecs, now Japan declares war on Persia!

Perhaps, Germany now has 2 Galleons, 2 frigates, and 11 macemen, including those under Persian control.
Persia can now control a maximum of 15/3 = 5 German military units.
Since Persia controls 3 German military units, it could add 2 more.
(If instead Gemany now had only 8 military units left, including those under Persian control, then the maximum would be 2. Thus Persia could not add any. I would also not force Persia to give back control of any of those units it has for the duration of the war with the Aztecs.)

For example, Persia could add 2 macemen curently under German control.
These two macemen would remain under Persian control until the end of the war with Japan.

I bet it would be a pain to program.
Vassal units under their supperior's control might have to be designated by a mixture of color patterns.

Glad you guys like the ideas. I think I play too much Civ, the ideas came to me when I was supposed to be writing a term paper.

Howard, I like your idea of choosing a portion of your vassal's units instead of all of them. Although, just to play devil's advocate, do you think that you should pay the full support cost if you only get 1/3 or 1/4 of the civ's units? Maybe a reduced portion of the upkeep like 1/4 of the upkeep per unit?

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

I have some ideas
i think it would be cool if you could trade your vassal to someone else for money or cities and your vassal has nosay in the matter. that would be cool.
Also, if you could Annex your vassal after a certain amount of time to just add cities to your land. That would help alot.

I think the OP's ideas would fit well with something else I have seen suggested in various threads, which would be different degrees of closeness of alliance/vassalage; commanding their troops seems appropriate to a tighter bond than seeing their world map, frex.

I like that idea of trading vassals to a point, I think the traders should be friendly with each other first.

I wish I wasn't dragged into a war every time someone declared on my vassal, and vica versa. I want more control over who my vassal attacks.

I think having vassals would be cool if there could be proxy wars, say we got a superpower Persia and a superpower Germany with a few vassals each.

Here's what could happen.

You could order one of your vassals to declare on another vassal of the other civ. It'll be like the Cold War and stuff, the USA and USSR never went to war with each other, but kinda "fought" in other countries.

I like ideas 1 and 3, but two seems kinda boring to me.

hmm but Vassalage is largely about protection is it not. Therefore if someone declares war on your vassal you are supposed to protect them. I do agree that your vassal should not be capable of declaring war on anyone but you, and when defending your vassal, although you are "at war" with your vassals enemies they should not target you until you target them. On this topic also if someone you are at war with becomes a vassal of someone, they should probably offer peace and tell you that we are now protected by so and so.

Yeah, it is. Well, I at least want some more control on my vassal's production and stuff.

I agree with the offer peace thing, several times, I find myself against a huge superpower because they managed to get several vassals.

Ok, then I think vassals should be able to declare, and if they do, they're in it for themselves. It's kinda like a perma MDP, you don't have to help aggressive vassals, but help defending ones.

i would like to use vassal's airport. Have you ever been in that kinda situation, getting troops to hot spots in war from vassal city on other side of world?

Yeah, it seems to me you should have free access to their airports. It's nesscary considering there's no aircraft carriers.

You could order one of your vassals to declare on another vassal of the other civ. It'll be like the Cold War and stuff, the USA and USSR never went to war with each other, but kinda "fought" in other countries.

Click to expand...

Good Idea.

Also, if when you obtain a vassal, they cannot have diplomacy with other nations. It would be cool if after a joint war, the voctorious team can divide up their cities between those nations and each divided part becomes a part of the "_________ states which is viewed as a single nation by part of world who isnt one of the victorious ones, and the nation who got whatever part of the states has complete control over the cities, yet the former empire has no power over the cities, just a figurehead.

I certainly think more functionality fro Vassal state should be in the game, and as usual I think a big part of the tuning of the system should involve civics...

Various civics choices would have different effects on not only what you can order your vassals to do, but also their relationship to you.

For example, if you adopt the simplest option that allows for vassals, i.e. vassalage, you'd be forced into any battles that your vassals chose to engage in and would be unable to control any of their troops, but they'd like you quite a bit, making rebellion very unlikely. If, however, you chose to switch to Imperialism, you'd be able to order all their troops and could refuse to join in any offensive wars (wars that your vassal declares without consulting you) but they wouldn't be nearly so happy with you.

Those are just two examples, several other civics (some that exist now and some that don't) could easily have effects on your vassal relationships.

to fromage: this is a very good suggestion I hope that someone important is reading this.
I would like to be able to inherit some land trough marriage if both countries have monarchy.. annex a vassal if I have good relation and so on

I would already be pleased if you can agree with a vassal to cease being their master.

For idea #2, I would like it as an option in the militarty advisor screen. You can click on units that belong to your vassal and they are put in a list in the corner of the screen. You then click a button and a pop-up appears asking if you want to take control of those units. You can't take more than 1/4 of their entire army. If you click the button and have too many, then a pop-up will appear and tell you that you have to many units and need to get rid of x number of units. This would work with #3 because you could see all of their units. This seems like a simple way to do this, similar to colonies. After you take the units, they will appear in your capital city. You can get these units even when there is no war because if you had to be at war, then people would just stage mock wars to get some units from their vassal. If your vassal DoW on you, they get their units back.