Thanks for trying out the game.
You are probably running into the game effect of an enemy capitulating and therefore becoming the vassal of another CIV. It's not a glitch.
This is typical of Warlords, and it's easy to miss the clues related to capitulation when it happens. When you are at war, be sure to keep an eye on the "spam" info scrolling on the left of the screen. It should tell you when one of your enemies capitulates, and in whose benefit. This automatically forces peace with all of that CIV's enemies -- including you! Which means, your entire army is instantly kicked out of your former enemy's lands. There's TONs of that stuff happening in AD1640. Tribes in this scenario are very commonly entering/exiting vassal relationships with someone else, and/or capitulating. Try the game again and watch what happens more carefully on the left of the screen.
Cheers!
In my latest playtests, I noticed AI-run England comes off a bit weak. On the other hand, AI-run France often turns into a monster eventually, with way too many vassals. In my last playtest, by 1888, France had Huron, Algonquin, Erie, Iroquois, Shawnee, and Choctaw (and would have gotten Chickasaw too if they hadn't wiped them out completely). Jeez! Talking about the Mississippi-St. Lawrence Axis of New-World-Gallicism!
Need to fix that. All these tribes aren't going to like each other as much as they used to, which is part of the reason why they accept to become vassals in the first place.
England and Spain need some kind of reinforcement -- but this can be pretty tricky because a change like that could become an unfair advantage at the hands of a player. Netherlands seem OK so far. Ideas anyone?
I really did not intend for Iroquois to become a vassal of the French at any point. It didn't happen in the early version (as a player, my Iroquois even took Quebec and forced peace with France). But then again, England tended to go to war against France when the Iroquois got into trouble. It doesn't anymore -- not sure why. The Diplo modifiers may be to blame here. I wonder if I should simply start England and Iroquois as permanent allies. This would be pretty drastic (and more historical).
Opinions?
I set up Europeans with exactly 2 cities each. If I start off Spain in southern Texas, this means they only get the one San Agustin city in Florida. This can be tricky both militarily and economically. It does actually work out well for France mostly because of their special honeymoon-like relationship with the natives (heck, France actually goes native by adopting the Cult of the Great Manitou over Catholicism fairly early...). Spain, on the other hand, is almost universally hated among nativedom. This could be bad.
The other issue is that by the 1640's, RW New Spain really hadn't established meaningful settlements in Texas yet. The only one to which I could find references is San Antonio, and it dates back to the early 1700's iirc.
England being split between Boston and Jamestown doesn't fare quite as well as France unless run by a player (which almost always leads to England getting both Catawba and Wateree, and going after New Netherlands).
Netherlands is nicely compact, but it is locked in with the Iroquois and Eries, so unless it gets really aggressive, it won't do much. Again a player can accomplish much with the Dutch.
I need to set up Abenaki as a foe for both England and Netherlands to motivate them to go after someone other than each other! Besides, the Abenaki are having it way too easy so far in the scenario. Then again, they might turn around and become vassals of the French.
At least worth a playtest.
