Vassal Spite - predictable ?

I had a couple of games in a row where I was beating up an AI and before I could finish them off they vassled to another strong Civ, killing my game.

However, is this my fault ? - in both games I did have the opportunity to force a capitulation, I just went for the kill, is this a mistake ?? OK, I'm the human so its always my fault, but is there a method I can use to control this ??

I believe I saw somewhere on this forum that the AI takes account of your vassals strength when determining how "hard" you are - in which case a better course of action might have been to take a vassal first, then I can cream everyone else, as they would be less likely to join a weak civ against me.

Does anyone have any knowledge of this issue ??

Most annoying game mechanic in the game. Also, next to AP war end votes, a great argument in favor of getting all your warring needs met before the medieval age. The only real remedy that I'm aware of is to be the one doing the vassalizing as soon as the option comes available. Every AI also has an XML defined likelyhood of vassalizing at certain conditions that is good to be aware of (I don't currently know the details of this myself).

It's kind of predictable, but hard to tell. Check wheter they are willing to capitulate every turn, once they may negociate capitulation you have few time before they are willing to capitulate to about everybody else.

Don't forget other civ treat the cap demand as a bribing into war with you, so good standing with them help in this regard.

As a general rule when they are willing to capitulate to you they will capitulate to everyone else. Check when capitulation comes up as an option and then its time to start looking to end the war.

In regards to the vassal mechanics I found this article very helpful

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/vassals.php

TheLazyHase said:

It's kind of predictable, but hard to tell. Check wheter they are willing to capitulate every turn, once they may negociate capitulation you have few time before they are willing to capitulate to about everybody else.

Don't forget other civ treat the cap demand as a bribing into war with you, so good standing with them help in this regard.

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It is not kind of predictable... it is almost deterministic

Some facts ( this is for stock BtS, remember ):

-A AI will only consider vassaling if they think they are losing the war vs the possible master and if the possible master is the one doing the most of the perceived damage. See this for more details

-A AI will never consider vassaling if they have more power than the average of the alive civs or more than 3/4 of the power of the possible master ( "doing fine on their own" )

-A AI will not vassal to a possible master that is warring another civ stronger than them at the same time ( "we are afraid of your enemies" ). IMHO this one is probably the most stupid rule regarding vassalization... probably because I was already in situations where I ended up warring 3 civs with roughly the same power and, in spite of being beating the crap out of the three of them, because of this rule combined with the previous, none of them was willing to vassal

-A AI will be more willing to vassal to a civ that has ( or that has a vassal that has ) 10 tiles or more of common border. This is one of the sources of the so-called "chain vassalizations" where vassaling one civ starts a cascade of vassalings of the first civ neighbours. It also explains why it is normally harder to vassal people outside of your continent

-A AI will pretty much acept a capitulation as long as there is someone willing and able to vassal via capitulation ( peaceful vassaling is another and completely diferent issue )

If you sum all of the above ( and obviously read the game in search of the intel you need ) you can have a pretty clear idea of when a civ is willing to capitulate to any civ it is warring, human or AI, at any moment.

r_rolo1 said:

If you sum all of the above ( and obviously read the game in search of the intel you need ) you can have a pretty clear idea of when a civ is willing to capitulate to any civ it is warring, human or AI, at any moment.

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I agree, but still thing like if they think they are winning the war are not that easy to check.

It's kind of predictible (minus some random problem), but it take some time before having a good grasp on that

Knowing if they think they are winning the war vs us is simple beancounting based on the log, so it is pretty easy ( and boring ) to know if they think you are winning the war. I do agree that it can be harder to know if they think some other civ is winning the war more than you, though , atleast without some recon and attention to the detail ... captured cities and nuke detonations from other civs will still be easy enough to know about, but it will require some kind of scouting unit and/or espionage-given view of the other civs battles to know exactly how things are going in the fronts that don't include you.

That said, it is not that hard to develop a empirical feeling of how things are going based only in power numbers and troops garrisons if the other civs are AI controlled ... if you know the stuff under the hood, that is

r_rolo1 said:

if you know the stuff under the hood, that is

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Yes, knowing how the check is done is already half of the work on that matter ^^

My OP was based on AIs vassaling to other AIs that were not involved in the war, so issues of who dealt the most damage were not quite what I was after.

But I have come to the conclusion that if I am in an early war, I can't wipe out an AI if he is willing to capitulate, as he will simply capitulate to someone else, unless I am more powerful than all the other AIs, which I rarely am in the early stages of the game.

from my experiance they usualy capitulate once you damage them enough to have their score be half yours

It counts as a bribe to war, selling themselves as the bribe. If the potential master is otherwise willing and able to be bribed against you, he can accept the vassal and declare, and generally will.

It counts as a bribe to war, selling themselves as the bribe. If the potential master is otherwise willing and able to be bribed against you, he can accept the vassal and declare, and generally will.

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I'm sure he would, and I can also see that it makes sense from the vassals point of view as he is selling his liberty to allow his survival, which is more intelligent that sitting there waiting for the human player to wipe him out.

So, I have to take more vassals in future.....

TheLazyHase said:

Check wheter they are willing to capitulate every turn

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The BUG mod will tell you this -- a little green notification in the log.