Alright. Capitulation.

[Takagi Hiro]

I have a simple question.

What the heck is the point of being allowed to tell your vassal what to research? It's not like you're able to demand techs as a tribute. I have De Gaulle as my vassal playing as Julius Caesar (oh God he's so broken). It would have been a bit more useful if capitulation was more... useful. Yes, the double word was intended.

Anyway, if I wanted the resources he had, all I'd need to do is finish him off, something I'm easily capable of doing. -waves to his praets- So what's the point?

EDIT: Oh, another question. Is it possible to be a vassal of an AI? I have never had the opportunity to do this, if so.

 

[mrwookie]

1- some AI vassalize easier. so your vassal could be more powerfull
2- you need to be in peace, because WW is hitting you hard.
3- ever saw an AI ask you to vassalise even if your not at war? the ai can still be strong
4- personnally when I take a vassal, I tried to have him to friendly (easy) after that you can trade the tech quite easily and since your stronger you normally have simple tech to guive in exchange of that new one

5- the rest of his land suck and losing part of your army to destroy cities you wouldn't keep is a waste

 

[Takagi Hiro]

Not to be rude, but you did not answer my question. At all.

 

[magicwalker]

Well, this might be a minor point, you can keep your vassal from otherwise beating you to a "First to discover receives a treat!" tech.

Some vassals tech well enough and part easily enough with their tech, that you can supplement your researching with his (you tech the top, he techs the bottom).

 

[Takagi Hiro]

Hm, still... does that really seem worth it? You can prevent the AI from being the first to discover something by kicking them off the face of the map, too.

 

[shyuhe]

With bts 3.19, capitulated vassals will trade techs like they're friendly. So with smart tech choices, you can rapidly catapult to the front of the tech race if your vassal still has teching capabilities.

Unless you mod the game, you cannot be the vassal of an AI.

 

[catfish99]

Hm, still... does that really seem worth it? You can prevent the AI from being the first to discover something by kicking them off the face of the map, too.

True, but you get a decent score bonus from having a vassal (above the value of owning that land/cities yourself) and don't have the maintenance costs of the bigger empire.
I tend to overrun instead of turning civs into vassals, but there are times where the extra costs will seriously cripple your economy. Once you play a game where you end up pushing the tech slider to zero and setting a lot of cities onto wealth while you build courthouses, you will get a big appreciation for vassals.

 

[mrwookie]

I think the answer to your question is TIME.
if you can continu waring against him you should do so.
but if you cant ( war woriness to high ), have an other oponnent to attack quickly(cultural victory near for example ).

other thing :
he still as 4 one plot island wich you don't want to bother at all

 

[Takagi Hiro]

I see. Well with three cities, I'm gonna say De Gaulle is useless. Not to mention I'm waaaay ahead in technology.

And that's too bad about the non-AI vassalization.

 

[Ecori]

A 3-5 city Mansa Musa/WvO Vassal state can be a great boost until the very late game (if they don't gun for culture that is). They will still tech fast (they get AI bonuses), and by making them research other techs than you you can almost double your tech speed. Completely destroyed vassals are indeed useless though.

 

[Orzio]

I see. Well with three cities, I'm gonna say De Gaulle is useless. Not to mention I'm waaaay ahead in technology.

And that's too bad about the non-AI vassalization.

At lower levels the vassals obviously arent to good and you might aswell kill them off most of the time but as you move up in level the AI will get way more powerfull and even a smaller AI empire with 6 decent cities can be of a nice help and you might want them as a vassal.

 

[euripides]

Another point is getting conquest faster. late game (meaning your final offensive has come) you might not want to waste turns and units capturing cities which will be in revolt for (most of) the rest of the game. finishing faster will also give you more points for the victory screen...

 

[Ataxerxes]

Most of my vassals don't research fast enough to suit me. Although Mansa Musa is often an exception. If you can bring Cathy to heel, she's often a good warrior and will often take the city you ask her to go for.

One advantage to vassals is that you can take any resource of theirs, even if they only have one of it. If they have several resources you don't they will trade their last one of every resource to you.

They also give one happiness in every city. Although there is a rise in city cost associated with having vassals, it normally isn't as bad as if you took all those cities yourself.

 

[naterator]

Late game you can direct your vassal to research a tech owned by one AI. This can speed the backfill of techs with the internet in a close space race when you need to concentrate on the more expensive techs (like having them research ecology when you're trying to beat an AI to fusion.) If you take a Civ's capital then culture shouldn't be an issue, giving them sushi and mining can supercharge their remaining cities and make them a very useful tool. Also you can direct their research AWAY from space techs if they're a threat to launch before you.

You can't vassalize to the AI without a mod.

 

[r_rolo1]

- Vassals are forced to vote for their masters in a diplo win vote if they aren't candidates to the win.

- If every civ besides you is your vassal you win the game via conquest.

Those two reasons most of the times are far more important reasons to keep vassals than techs or resources.

 

[EsaKo]

I like having vassals for the happy faces and stability (a LoR concept I both love and hate). I have never been an AI's vassal but a war for independence from AI would make a cool mod/scenario! Perhaps something like randomgen map, with only two civs - one whose leader AI is extremely likely to offer capitulation (and speed up the process by creating a substantial army) and the other's leader AI is more likely to accept capitulation (and speeds the process up by not creating a substantial army). And the game autoplays until the strong AI capitulates the weak one, at which point the player takes control of the weak one and has a certain number of turns to declare independence and capture back the cities taken by the strong one! Of course, this would be nigh impossible, but some revolutionary heroes/other boosts (free promos!) for the weak one once the autoplay ends could give the player a fair chance. Of course, the strong AI has to demand unreasonable resource tributes so the player has chance to refuse, which, as we know, means war.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Vassals tech trade as if friendly no matter how they feel about you in 3.19, so you can use them to actively broker techs if their research rate is decent.

Also, you can tell them to research technologies that prevent them from winning culture or space, or from getting wonders you don't want. It is possible to get the AI to continually research future tech, ignoring fiber optics/fusion. If they can't steal those they literally can never win space.

 

[Dr.Null]

I sometimes gift conquered cities to my Vassal, particularly if they're closer to him than me.

It's possible to make your vassal non-useless, even if you've mostly destroyed him.

 

[EsaKo]

I sometimes gift conquered cities to my Vassal, particularly if they're closer to him than me.

It's possible to make your vassal non-useless, even if you've mostly destroyed him.

This is especially true with LoR as large empires tend to riot, it's much better to have your vassals control the riots!