Infernal vassal, Mercurian teammate

[Bickendan]

I wonder what would happen if this pulled off:
You're building the Mercurian Gate. In the meantime, you have the Infernals cordoned off and some of their enemie are beating them down, then you go in for the kill. You cap a couple their cities, you've booted Hyborem back to the burning hells, and you're bearing down on their final (two) citie(s). Curious, you see what they're willing to offer to end the war... and they capitulate. You've made the Infernal your vassal, and at your complete mercy.

A few turns later, you finish building the Mercurian Gate, and from the heavens decends Basium and his consort of angels.
By default, Basium HAS to declare war on Hyborem. But Hyborem's your vassal, meaning Basium has to declare war on you. But you're Basium's teammate.

I actually came close to this scenario: I beat the Infernals, who spawned in an unclaimed corner of my empire's backyard, into submission, as I was buidling the Gate. But I was denied the delicious prospect of causing a possible game crash from Logic... because the Grigori beat me to the Mercurian punch. (That's more confusing than trying to figure out what would happen in this scenario's premise!)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Years ago it was actually possible for the Mercurian gate to cause you to declare war on yourself, such that your own units would even attack each other when trying to move onto the same tile. Kael fixed that bug pretty quickly though, and I think the move to BtS made similar situations impossible anyway. (When Kael was using a Hidden Nationality mechanic he wrote by himself rather than building on the one Firaxis put in the expansion packs, it was also possible for regular HN units to kill your teammates units.)

It has been a while since I tested it, and I forget whether the way it currently works is that Basium causes your vassal to break free in order to declare war on the Infernals or whether he can maintain peace until they would try to break free anyway.

 

[Bickendan]

... a Veil civ building the Gate resulting in own units attack each other feels like it should be a feature, not a bug! Obviously, game play wise it'd be bad, but it'd certainly be an interesting 'consequence' solved by converting away from Veil.

 

[Bickendan]

I'm in position to test what will happen, without risk of any AI building the Gate from under me:
Running a 19 Civ Hotseat game. Playing pretty close to lore builds (Lanun -> Overlords, Malakim -> Empyrean, Ljos -> Leaves, Svalt -> Esus, etc etc). Sheaim spawn in Infernals, who promptly petition to be a Svalt vassal. They set up shop a stone's throw away from Svalt forests. Svalts are sending a settler and a Great Engineer and a bucket of popcorn to the Infernals' doorstep to pop the Gate.

Interestingly, the Infernals haven't used the settler they get when they spawn, and it's been about 30 turns since they spawned, and room isn't an issue. They did use Hyborem's Whisper and snatched a Lanun city that randomly had Veil (Lanun deliberately haven't researched Veil), so they turned around and recapped the city and promptly sued for peace from the Svalt.

 

[Bickendan]

Results: Basium/Player AND Hyborem all declare war on all Ashen Veil Civs, THEN the vassalage is force broken between Player and Hyborem so Basium can declare war on Hyborem.

That was entertaining.

 

[Bickendan]

Turn 179: Mercurian Gate has been built in a far away land.
Turn 179: Hyborem has agreed to become a vassal state of Basium.
Turn 179: Basium has created Basium.
Turn 179: Hyborem has declared war on you!
Turn 179: <a bunch of other war declarations, defensive pact dissolutions, etc>
Turn 179: Hyborem has renounced the protection of Basium/Faeryl Viconia and is once again a free state.
Turn 179: Basium/Faeryl Viconia has declared war on Hyborem!

Hahahahaha!

 

[Tielby]

Freakin' EPIC.