AGH Cant compete with that!?

[thomson_2001]

played game of life the other day. on monarch or one aboce i think. trying out SE elements (specialist economy) and was able to beeline the techs i wanted for free specialists, free techs etc. was doing nicely. and only competitior was ragnar. i dont understand how he could be so close though. i was ahead him on land area and number cities. my cities were bit thus population in my favour. i was WAAAAAY ahead in teach (like 6-8!) and i had plenty wonders and gold, even a religion of my own. so bit confused as to why he was only 50-100pts behind.

anyway. germany were in 3rd place, just behind me in tech so v strong. and not that far behine on points, good army, cities etc. then completely randomly he becomes ragnars vassal!!!! WTH? why? i tried a few turns ealeir and he was saying "we are doing ifne on own" and i was freindly with him!

well its ruined the game a bit as its v hard to compete with thiskind of unfairness, espec as its on of most calculated games ive played

 

[toft]

It didnt ruin the game IMO. Just made it more fun/challenging

 

[skallben]

I pretty often give myself the mission to "liberate" vassals and then claim them my own, it's a fun "quest". Of course the more powerful move would be to knock down the masters land/pop so vassals abandom him. That takes some intense warring though. It sounds like a good challenge to me, winning games too early aint too fun IMO Good luck.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

What kind of irks me about the vassal system is the free tech that tvoluntary vassals get gifted by their master. My last game as Pericles I decided to go for a cultural victory, I scored copper in my capitals fat cross so I couldn't resist going for JC before he got Preatorians, I took his capital and another sweet city leaving him with 2 average cities then signed peace.

I chopped out the Pyramids then settled in a specialist economy first running a few scientists for some academies then pure artists from then on. I was blitzing the tech tree, when I did decide to pull some trades I noticed JC had the same techs a Joao who was going along at a good pace also.

Turned out the JC had vassalised to Joao, kind of worked out the best for me as JC just had to remain furious without being able to declare war on me, but at times he was actually a tech ahead of Joao.

I do the same with my vassals but I never give them monopoly techs just military techs.

And I seen civs voluntarily vassalise, get a swath of free techs from their master, then split away. Smart? yes. Annoying? yes.

 

[MrTomothy]

I think the vassals are way to screwy, so I leave them off, at least until that next patch becomes available, it looks yummy. P=

 

[SwordofStriker]

I turn of tech brokering so trading techs isn't quite as abundant in my games. I also give free techs to my vassals if there is no chance of them pulling off some kind of victory under my nose. Even then, I only give them to vassals who have capitulated.

 

[KMadCandy]

And I seen civs voluntarily vassalise, get a swath of free techs from their master, then split away. Smart? yes. Annoying? yes.

i had one case of that (in an SG) where it was super useful, not annoying. brennus (last place) voluntarily vassalized to cyrus (first place or so). brennus was only at pleased with me, cyrus was friendly. well, cyrus gave brennus almost EVERYthing, and all of a sudden sometimes brennus learned things cyrus didn't know. and i had the luxury of WFYABTA not applying with either one of them, since i got the "both in bottom half on score" exception with B. often that exception does you no good, since if they're in last place they're not teching real fast, but if they're being handed freebies ... can be juicy

usually tho, vassals drive me up a tree! i used to turn the option off but i leave it on now. if they cap to somebody else when i'm about to wipe them out and i really want them gone, i save it and come back later, sometimes to an earlier save and just vassalize them myself. not very kosher but i get infuriated, war is such a hassle anyway really! the BtS patch is going to change how they decide who to cap to, that should help my frustration there, yay!