Vassals in Domination win

[Shafi]

When going for a domination win - does the land & population controlled by the vassal count as well?

Basically what i want to know is if i am pursuing a domination win should i accept a vassal or simply do it the hard way and take them out.

 

[wioneo]

Half of their land and population counts toward your win, so it's usually faster to just vassalize them and move on to the next target. You will have to fight more wars this way, but overall it will almost always be done in less time.

 

[Yared]

Half of their land and population counts toward your win, so it's usually faster to just vassalize them and move on to the next target. You will have to fight more wars this way, but overall it will almost always be done in less time.

It also guarantees a diplo win.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

I just played my first 11-hour Beyond The Sword prince game where I had a tremendous lot of fun playing out this strategy (domination win w/ vassal states). I find vassal states make the modern game a whole lot more interesting and a domination victory is much much less tedious than in vanilla Civ4 as I knew it.

Once a few crucial battles had been fought and important cities had been conquered I found most opponents were willing to capitulate, i.e. once they realized they were up against a superior power. You get your vassal's resources if you need them and often they're a bit easier to deal with when trading technologies too.

But what I found even more fun, is that if you declare war on a new enemy, all your vassals will also declare war against the new enemy. This makes an empire with a cluster of vassal states incredibly powerful, and you get to play out what it is like to be a superpower in the modern world "George W. Bush" sense.

 

[Gary King]

I just played my first 11-hour Beyond The Sword prince game where I had a tremendous lot of fun playing out this strategy (domination win w/ vassal states). I find vassal states make the modern game a whole lot more interesting and a domination victory is much much less tedious than in vanilla Civ4 as I knew it.

Once a few crucial battles had been fought and important cities had been conquered I found most opponents were willing to capitulate, i.e. once they realized they were up against a superior power. You get your vassal's resources if you need them and often they're a bit easier to deal with when trading technologies too.

But what I found even more fun, is that if you declare war on a new enemy, all your vassals will also declare war against the new enemy. This makes an empire with a cluster of vassal states incredibly powerful, and you get to play out what it is like to be a superpower in the modern world "George W. Bush" sense.

I find that the AI is usually unable to send troops to help out when they need Transports to send them to another continent. It's best when vassals are on the same continent as the target AI, since they are at least capable of sending troops from one end to another.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

True. I didn't get the full picture in my last game because I kept depriving my vassals of their crucial ressources, so most of the game they were not capable of supporting the war as well. Still, it was comfortable to wage a war on another continent with the vassal on it as well as the enemy but didn't notice any considerable transport of troops when the war moved to a different continent.

 

[noto2]

Yeah vassals are also useful as bases for your troops and air units.

 

[conception]

To help alleviate the problem of having vassals be useless in my wars, I usually am very generous with the technology sharing in order to keep them on a very competent level. This is, of course, when going for the conquer strategy.

 

[Ruman]

I found that many weaker states would offer peaceful vassalage when they saw me expanding much faster than they were. Only 2 of my 10 vassals in my current game capitulated. Peaceful vassals are nice because you don't need to control their growth to keep them vassalized. I play as the Persian Empire using the Earth18Civs map, and every other civ in the East is my vassal. The only civs that aren't are the Aztecs, Americans, and Incas, all in the West. They help in domination victory because not only do you get credit for half of their land and population, but they ONLY get credit for the other half. It's also really nice having 10 other armies attack anyone you're at war with. Being generous with technology really helps with their war effectiveness, but when I play like that I usually turn off Space Race victory just to be safe.

 

[Orzio]

I found that many weaker states would offer peaceful vassalage when they saw me expanding much faster than they were. Only 2 of my 10 vassals in my current game capitulated. Peaceful vassals are nice because you don't need to control their growth to keep them vassalized. I play as the Persian Empire using the Earth18Civs map, and every other civ in the East is my vassal. The only civs that aren't are the Aztecs, Americans, and Incas, all in the West. They help in domination victory because not only do you get credit for half of their land and population, but they ONLY get credit for the other half. It's also really nice having 10 other armies attack anyone you're at war with. Being generous with technology really helps with their war effectiveness, but when I play like that I usually turn off Space Race victory just to be safe.

Demmand all resources the vassel have and force him to reaserch useless things and the chance of him beating you to space is slim to non.

 

[Kawalimus]

The major problem I have with peaceful vassals is that they can choose to end it whenever they want. This can lead to VERY inconvenient situations. It's happened to me before. I prefer to have them submit to me so I can be sure they're not gonna ditch me right before a major war.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

@Ruman, noticed that was your first post! Welcome to CivFanatics!

 

[Gumbolt]

Half of their land and population counts toward your win, so it's usually faster to just vassalize them and move on to the next target. You will have to fight more wars this way, but overall it will almost always be done in less time.

Not always faster. You do still have to reach 64% of land. there are occasions where its quicker to fully take out a Ai fully than vassel each Ai.

The previous Shaka cookbook showed this. I was able to seal a domination win without taking out the Romans because I captured all of HRE's 15 or so cities. i had to settle 5-6 other cities to grab the land but it was job done. The alternative was to vassel every AI on the map. Time consuming.

 

[noto2]

Not always faster. You do still have to reach 64% of land. there are occasions where its quicker to fully take out a Ai fully than vassel each Ai.

The previous Shaka cookbook showed this. I was able to seal a domination win without taking out the Romans because I captured all of HRE's 15 or so cities. i had to settle 5-6 other cities to grab the land but it was job done. The alternative was to vassel every AI on the map. Time consuming.

Yeah, this is true. One annoying thing I find about vassalizing is usually to win the game I have to vassalize every single AI on the map and get a conquest win since I can't get the right land percentage for a dominatino win. OTOH, if I just take the land for myself, I can get a domination win.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah, this is true. One annoying thing I find about vassalizing is usually to win the game I have to vassalize every single AI on the map and get a conquest win since I can't get the right land percentage for a dominatino win. OTOH, if I just take the land for myself, I can get a domination win.

Its true sometimes you have to judge a map. Sometimes its quicker to fill out one large continent without a vassel and you can win by conquest without even hitting the ocean. It really is quite interesting how pausing for a few minutes to work out land size and percentages can save you a lot of time and effort.

 

[WuphonsReach]

The major problem I have with peaceful vassals is that they can choose to end it whenever they want. This can lead to VERY inconvenient situations. It's happened to me before. I prefer to have them submit to me so I can be sure they're not gonna ditch me right before a major war.

Peaceful vassals are nothing more then invasions postponed. Unless your power level is 2x or higher and you have a very long peaceful history...

 

[AngusMcNasty]

Great thread!

Something I am trying to figure out: If you dump all your techs on a new vassal to beef them up for the next war, can they trade these techs to the other AIs?

 

[conception]

Great thread!

Something I am trying to figure out: If you dump all your techs on a new vassal to beef them up for the next war, can they trade these techs to the other AIs?

I always play with tech brokering so this doesn't happen.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Great thread!

Something I am trying to figure out: If you dump all your techs on a new vassal to beef them up for the next war, can they trade these techs to the other AIs?

They can trade them, so make sure you don't give them _all_ your latest techs. But dropping all but the very latest & hottest doesn't hurt IMHO, as it improves relations a lot with your vassals. Neither will they trade every tech they discover back to you.

I find it doesn't matter a lot whether they trade them to other civs, but typically they won't if your attitudes are aligned well. In my last game the attitude and interests for my civ and my vassals very quickly became aligned. Even they Celts, which had nothing but negative modifiers with my civ quickly became incredibly friendly with a few gifted techs, shared religion etc. and hostile towards anyone not under my wings. But make them too powerful and they may decide to fight for their independence when you make your unreasonable demands.

You can ask your vassal to convert to your religion, for instance, to align your interests better. It's a matter of striking a balance between keeping them underfoot and make unreasonable demands, and aligning your interests so that they love you for it. That's the whole fun of it IMO

 

[AngusMcNasty]

They can trade them, so make sure you don't give them _all_ your latest techs. But dropping all but the very latest & hottest doesn't hurt IMHO, as it improves relations a lot with your vassals. Neither will they trade every tech they discover back to you.

I find it doesn't matter a lot whether they trade them to other civs, but typically they won't if your attitudes are aligned well. In my last game the attitude and interests for my civ and my vassals very quickly became aligned. Even they Celts, which had nothing but negative modifiers with my civ quickly became incredibly friendly with a few gifted techs, shared religion etc. and hostile towards anyone not under my wings. But make them too powerful and they may decide to fight for their independence when you make your unreasonable demands.

You can ask your vassal to convert to your religion, for instance, to align your interests better. It's a matter of striking a balance between keeping them underfoot and make unreasonable demands, and aligning your interests so that they love you for it. That's the whole fun of it IMO

Thanks!!! I'll put that advice to work in the game I am about to start (Assuming I don't get my a$$ kicked before I can get a couple of vassals). I think I will also play around with directing their attacks when I go after the next victim.