BC Wars to avoid vassal state mechanics

[Monsterzuma]

I find myself favoring Axe-, Chariot- and Catapult rush approaches over high-tech ones a lot these days. The main reason is that any kind of attack launched during and past the middle ages has a chance of resulting in my target getting vassalized by some AI before I even get the option to do so myself. The result is real disaster: I end up doing half another guy's job AND get dogpiled on top of it. It's a risk that turns every warring attempt past Feudalism into a game of Russian roulette.

Meanwhile, the benefits of being able to vassalize targets yourself don't begin to weigh up to these risks. I'll prefer to just conquer my target's cities and will only ever vassalize them to avoid having someone else do so. With Courthouses and cottages it's easy to make a city turn a profit, and when your target is weakened to the extent of being available for vassalization, the cities are there for the taking. Hell, the need to vassalize in these situations for avoidance reasons is another downside of the whole thing!

Anyone get the general gist of what I'm saying here and have similar experiences?

 

[DampRain]

First of all, what difficulty?

But yes, vassalling dogpile can be a problem, but this is where diplo manipulation comes in. As well as that, if you have a very high power rating, either people are scared off vassal declaring, or you can wipe out their SoD (person pending).

This is actually another strong reason why going for a full war in medieval can be so troublesome, since you almost can never have a huge tech advantage (in normal) against most AIs (if you had macemen against archers, and then they vassaled to a guy with swordsman, would you care? no, but not the case usually). Where as once you get rifling you have enough power (rating and actual military) to just blow through them, not to mention by then you have enough production to gather a considerably larger army. That being said, someimes medieval war is good though.

Mind you, normally you'll either have enough land from rexing that you can just tech to rifles, or you are so close to someone that you'll need to rush them for their land anyway.

I really dislike how a medieval war almost means you can't get lib, since paper edu come right after CS, and CS is the time, or close to when you'd start building and then warring with medieval. Waiting for after lib is silly as well, since then you'd go for rifling/steel.

 

[Yared]

I usually if not always just chill out in the early games and then get to Rifles & Cannons. After that I invade neighbours left and right.

 

[Mudcrab]

Keep checking your diplomacy screen.
Some guys vassal easy, some don't. Some make vassaling a priority, if not to you, them to someone els. I have noticed that the civ to vassal 1st is not fussy, they go to anyone that offers. Once a couple of civs are vassaled, then they tend to hold out longer.
Be aware that after you take their capital, most civs become very open to vassaling to you. Always consider this in youre strategy, so going straight for the capital may be your best chance of a fast Vassal. If you are after the land/resources 1st, then you usually can take a few cities before that civ considers vassaling to someone else.
Be aware that power plays part of vassaling to someone else, they want protection from a strong civ, not a weak one. So if you are not top dog, power wise, chances are the civ you are attacking will go to the top dog and dogpile you. woof woof.

 

[Etheric]

Note it also gives you a reason why they wont capitulate on the diplo screen if you look at it.

"We fear your enemies" - make peace with the other powerful civ you are fighting and they should vassel you

"We are doing fine on our own" - This one is two pronged. Eitehr you have to hit them harder OR you have to get the other person fighting them out of the fight. You can bribe your war allies into peace with your vassel target. If you are the only one fighting them then normally they will vassel to you. Anyone else they vassel too will have to declare war on you at the same time.

Keep an eye out for when you can't bribe your vassel target into having peace with someone else. When it says "We would love to, but you will have to ask them" then they are probably losing the war badly and you should try to bribe the other civs into peace, or pretty soon your vassel target will go join someone else.

LIke most of the game there is a lot of depth to stuff like this. Use the tooltips when options are red on the diplomacy screen. They tell you a lot.

 

[bakshi]

Just turn off vassals in custom game if you don't want them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Peacevassals are an awful default option. You *can* stymie them via using diplo to keep an AI at a range where it won't declare (if you're at war with someone, their PAssal is a war bribe), or by pleading 1 gold for 10 turns of PAssal block.

So this decision is also based largely upon the leaders in question...

 

[Lone Wolf]

At the very least, AI's should stop feeding techs to voluntary vassals.

 

[Yared]

I hate it when Shaka vassalises all of his continent and they keep him up in tech

 

[PPQ_Purple]

On the other hand it makes sense that if you have vassals you would want to keep them up to date so that they can contribute meaningfully to your wars.

 

[Yared]

Yeah.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

On the other hand it makes sense that if you have vassals you would want to keep them up to date so that they can contribute meaningfully to your wars.

Not peacevassals (permanent ally vassals ----> PAssals or a non-family friendly word that sounds similar) who are whoring up a culture storm. Not only would nobody in their right mind take such a civ as a vassal, they certainly wouldn't feed them tech to make sure they win. That's why it really is a permanent alliance.

Gifting vassals tech that can break free and use it for whatever they want later is bad practice in general, but the AI so adores it. Despite what people say, this *is* an instance of anti-human AI bias.