Man I was really hoping they'd bring back vassals and capitulation...

[pokeravi]

Imo that was the best thing they added in Beyond the Sword. If it's not in BNW I hope people are able to mod it in because that's the one major thing that's still missing from previous games. It would make the game complete for me.

 

[NBAfan]

I hope vassals are done differently if added in Civ 5. That was one of the dumbest things in Civ 4 the way it was executed.

 

[steveg700]

This was brought up over in the official 2k forum (that pretty much nobody visits) and it seemed impossible to get any explanation as to what the point of vassals would be in Civ V. So, I'd be happy to hear it explained here.

Puppeting already gives you a good deal--wealth, resources, science, wonders, and so forth. Why do I need a vassal who might build up his strength and turn on me?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I feel that puppet cities are the successors to vassals and capitulation. When you fight an enemy and they surrender some cities to you, you puppet them. They are like vassals.

 

[pokeravi]

Well the major reason I want vassals is because I'd want to keep AI civilizations alive. For example if I'm playing as Germany and invade France, I might want to keep France as a vassal so that they can manage their cities for me, give me tribute, and aid me in my wars. I know puppets do many of these things but vassalization/capitulations adds more depth to the diplomacy in the game since you don't totally wipe out a civ and they might revolt if they become too strong. The vassal civ retains its unique units, can engage in some foreign relations, has its attributes, etc. which adds more depth to the game in contrast to puppet cities. Vassals have been around since the beginning of civilization anyway....

 

[Fabiano79]

I agree with the little darth vader...I want the AI to stay alive. Nothing would be better than having Monty as my bi.tch.

 

[pedrosfm]

I'd rather have capitulation and vassals which was fun, than city states. City states are the one thing I absolutely despise in Civ 5. I'm too busy with things to do their quests which are annoying anyway, I don't have money to give them and the benefits they provide don't compensate enough for the money they are given, they occupy land mass and if you start conquering them they turn on you. It's just an all around annoying feature, whereas a vassal represented a civilization that was submissive to you, which didn't disappear from the world map and it could always grow big enough to turn on you. It was fun!

I'd love for city states to go away and I pray to the heavens they are removed for Civ6, whenever that may come to be.

 

[steveg700]

Well the major reason I want vassals is because I'd want to keep AI civilizations alive. For example if I'm playing as Germany and invade France, I might want to keep France as a vassal so that they can manage their cities for me, give me tribute, and aid me in my wars. I know puppets do many of these things but vassalization/capitulations adds more depth to the diplomacy in the game since you don't totally wipe out a civ and they might revolt if they become too strong. The vassal civ retains its unique units, can engage in some foreign relations, has its attributes, etc. which adds more depth to the game in contrast to puppet cities. Vassals have been around since the beginning of civilization anyway....

At the end of the day, there has to be some kind of cost/benefits analysis that compares the quantifiable advantages of a puppet to those of a vassal. That you want to keep the AI civ around to engage in limited diplomacy and maybe stage a revolt against you is a fairly unquantifiable (and perhaps even dubious) benefit.

 

[AriochIV]

Vassals were actually introduced in Warlords.

City-States are Civ V's (unsatisfactory) replacement for Vassals, but the Vassal system provided two key features that are missing today: 1. a way to remove a defeated civilization as an obstacle without having to completely destroy it, and 2. a way to win a conquest victory without having to conquer your own allies. Both of these could be satisfied with different systems (a surrender mechanism and a real alliance system), but I think a unified system such as Vassals is preferable and offers more varied play. Vassals also helped to counter single "runaway" civilizations, as weaker civs would tend to team together as voluntary vassals of their strongest friend (which could also be done with a robust alliance system).

The Vassal system certainly had problems in its implementation, especially the universally-despised "feature" in which a nearly-defeated civ would offer to become the vassal of a third-party, who would promptly declare war on you. It was also tedious to have to visit the leader of your opponent every turn to see if he was ready to capitulate yet. But these issues would be trivially easy to fix.

 

[ehecatzin]

If ideologies really succed in creating diplomatic blocks...we may not need vassals, you could force your ideologies upon a defeated civ and try to make it a part of your sphere of influence through cultural pressure.

Its a good alternative to just destroying everything in your path, even more now with the world congress, you are going to need those votes.

 

[codepoet]

I was hoping for an actual Civil War / Independence mechanic.
Not dealing with the unhappiness properly? They might actually revolt. Would be so awesome. I don't care for the existing mild punishment of halted growth if the citizens are unhappy. Plus that could be connected up with spying to make it more interesting. Revolution is an element of history not really captured by Civ5.

 

[AriochIV]

I was hoping for an actual Civil War / Independence mechanic. Not dealing with the unhappiness properly? They might actually revolt. Would be so awesome. I don't care for the existing mild punishment of halted growth if the citizens are unhappy. Plus that could be connected up with spying to make it more interesting. Revolution is an element of history not really captured by Civ5.

Yes, but in play terms, such an event would be "game over" on all but the easiest difficulty levels. You don't want to put a lot of work into a system that will just cause most players to quit the game and start over at that point.

 

[PhilBowles]

I agree with the little darth vader...I want the AI to stay alive. Nothing would be better than having Monty as my bi.tch.

This is already feasible, mostly by liberating previously extinct civs. But in any case how would this offer any advantage over existing diplomacy where you have a dependable ally, since the vassal would seem to act the same way?

Vassalage served no real purpose in Civ IV, and it serves no real purpose in the other games I play with a vassalage system (Total War, in which it's made more of a liability still by the fact that vassals will always revolt at the earliest opportunity once they have a developed military - except in Fall of the Samurai since they share your allegiance, and this is the only TW game that's got a semi-workable vassalage system).

If it can be added to Civ V in a way that works better than most games manage I'd be all for it, but I don't want it 'just because' it's in a previous version of the game and it's not worth building an expansion around.

I think it just isn't very feasible to represent vassalage in games because it's very hard to provide the vassal with an incentive to remain a client state, given the unrealistic but necessary game condition that every faction wants to 'win'. In reality vassalage might often be in the client's interests because they get protection from larger states and not every state has ambitions to be a world power, but in a game where it's usually the player offering protection, you can't really add mechanisms that force the player to protect their vassals, nor can you really have factionss that are content to be minor powers in the player's shadow.

I'd rather have capitulation and vassals which was fun, than city states. City states are the one thing I absolutely despise in Civ 5. I'm too busy with things to do their quests which are annoying anyway, I don't have money to give them and the benefits they provide don't compensate enough for the money they are given, they occupy land mass and if you start conquering them they turn on you. It's just an all around annoying feature, whereas a vassal represented a civilization that was submissive to you, which didn't disappear from the world map and it could always grow big enough to turn on you. It was fun!

I suspect your opinion of CSes is in a minority. I certainly find them an extremely welcome feature. If you're "too busy to do their quests" that's just a matter of your own priorities; for players at large they provide an alternative strategy to achieve victory. Monetary outlay is only likely to be prohibitive if you rely on that exclusively to obtain CS favour (which is very deliberately not intended to be efficient in G&K, which made quests more important and introduced espionage, a cost-free way of obtaining influence). It's easiest to quantify CS favour with militaristic states: say you pay 250 and have a friend for 6 turns or so. In that time, with no other outlay, you'll probably be gifted one unit - even in the game's early stages a Spearman is of equal value to your initial outlay; anything you get on top of that is free money.

 

[Matthew.]

I don't know if vassal states are the solution, but I do want to see a system where there is some control over another nation's strength. To pull from real world examples, just look at the billions upon billions of dollars fueled into strategically targeted countries by the US every year.

Yeah, you can send gold per turn for free, but knowing the AI it won't get used effectively. I want to see something where you can send techs (science) and military. The benefit would be the same as the real world: Creating roadblocks against opposing forces. If Hiawatha is systematically clearing out his entire continent, I want to be able to send supplies to his targets to slow him down or prevent him from running away with the game.

 

[Calouste]

I don't know if vassal states are the solution, but I do want to see a system where there is some control over another nation's strength. To pull from real world examples, just look at the billions upon billions of dollars fueled into strategically targeted countries by the US every year.

Yeah, you can send gold per turn for free, but knowing the AI it won't get used effectively. I want to see something where you can send techs (science) and military. The benefit would be the same as the real world: Creating roadblocks against opposing forces. If Hiawatha is systematically clearing out his entire continent, I want to be able to send supplies to his targets to slow him down or prevent him from running away with the game.

You can send units to city states and fight a war by proxy, which is fairly similar to what the US and the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. I don't think the Diplomacy is good enough yet that Declarations of Friendship and Defense Treaties really are the deterrent they should be.

 

[Zango]

I don't know if vassal states are the solution, but I do want to see a system where there is some control over another nation's strength. To pull from real world examples, just look at the billions upon billions of dollars fueled into strategically targeted countries by the US every year.

Yeah, you can send gold per turn for free, but knowing the AI it won't get used effectively. I want to see something where you can send techs (science) and military. The benefit would be the same as the real world: Creating roadblocks against opposing forces. If Hiawatha is systematically clearing out his entire continent, I want to be able to send supplies to his targets to slow him down or prevent him from running away with the game.

I just noticed this, but you can actually gift military units to nations you have open borders with. You have to manually walk the unit into his territory (so it isn't the most efficient thing in the world) and you get an option in the "More Options" tab of the Unit "panel" to gift it to that nation.

 

[joncnunn]

Capitulation has been in Civ V since the beginning; that's when your at war at the AI offers everything they have other than their current capital.

 

[AriochIV]

Capitulation has been in Civ V since the beginning; that's when your at war at the AI offers everything they have other than their current capital.

First, I haven't seen that behavior much since the latest patch. Second, this doesn't remove that civilization as a problem; he will continue to denounce you and occasionally make suicidal declarations of war at inopportune moments.

 

[jalmar]

I'm not sure a reintroduction of vassals would be the best way to do it, but the thing i miss the most about CivIV is the feeling that you could make trustworthy allies and friends. I loved being able to rule over and care for friendly states and for example make great efforts to gift techs and resources to help my comerades in their conflicts.

I usually played CivIV as an RPG, where my actions was not aimed to "win the game" but rather to make my decisions based on what i would have done if i had been in the leaders shoes. I would reward kindness and peacefull neighbours while making geopolitical and strategical advances in a realistic way. That feeling is long lost since you never can trust anyone in Civ5. Its very unpredictable and does not encourage you to invest in other civs.

 

[Bechhold]

Since they added City States and Protectorates, sort of, they probably didn't /don't see the need of adding such a feature. They just REALLY need to rework add on to City State features.