Bullying is back (tech trading with vassals in 3.19)

[civzombie]

This has been mentioned in other threads that with the 3.19 patch vassals will always trade tech, but it deserves its own thread given the strategy implications in single player games.

Previously, you had to stay likable to ensure that you had a tech trading partner, especially if you wanted to research deep down a particular line on the tech tree. Now, you can research deep down the tech tree (for say military techs) with the reliable plan of running over a tech leader and then trading with them to catch up (even if they are furious with you).

I have been having particularly good luck on emperor level with slingshoting feudalism with the oracle. Run over an AI with your 5exp longbowmen and then trade monarchy and feudalism with your now vassal to get any techs that you might have missed. I've even had some success demanding a tech immediately after they vassalize (hey its not much of a risk trying because the arrogant demand penalty doesn't matter much with your vassals now). Rinse and repeat with other neighbors.

Thumbs up for the change. Previously, I resented having to kiss the butt of my vassals to ensure that they would trade tech with me. Even when I did, more often then not they would red out certain techs that I needed, e.g. if they had a monopoly and/or were building the wonder.

 

[miked1991]

As it should be, the protection should come at a cost and that cost should be their technologies.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Raise of hands... who here really "protects" their vassals?

Short of using them as human shields from the next civ I plan on demolishing/subjugating, I can't say I really give a crap as to what happens to them...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Raise of hands... who here really "protects" their vassals?

Short of using them as human shields from the next civ I plan on demolishing/subjugating, I can't say I really give a crap as to what happens to them...

I don't really care about them, but since they count as a "land target" for capitulation rules I try to keep their border cities in their hands during wars against civs that border them, and they make GREAT grounds to murder opposing stacks since the one with siege initiative is me rather than the enemy. Combining these two factors allows for chain caps ----> very nice.

So in practice I often wind up protecting them just because it helps me get more vassals .

 

[mirthadir]

Dumping outdated units to my vassal to promote via the AI bonus tends to work rather well for protecting them and chewing up the next victim's stack. I also find that vassal lands (either voluntary or one that owns some islands) can often secure me an airhead worth protecting.

At other times I will specifically attempt to get my vassal killed; it can be quite useful to gift the bugger nukes to blow into my target after I have kept the poor bastard at muskets + lbs into the modern era. I lose the homeland issues, I get to nuke my main adversaries without diplo penalty, and I adjust the odds that a different AI will cap.

 

[walkie]

at my earlier games i tend to not use vassals but lately i use them a lot, and start to like them because if you care about them they are useful. so now i dont like warring a lot, i vassalege my enemy as soon as i can, so i can dow on another civ

here why i like them:

1- getting free resources for both health and happiness is great...
2- if you use "no tech brokering" option, you can give them some important techs so they can have advanced army
3- when attacking another civ, if you order your vassal to attack specific city, he will most likely use his all power on that city and probably he will get the city, (if you give them enough army-based tech of course) this will allow you to vassalege 3rd civ faster.
4- watch them closely they generally get X gold per turn, give them a resource and get that gold for yourself, in time some (like mansa or elizabeth) will generate gold per turn again so again give a resource and get gold per turn. in conclusion you get lots of gold per turn for your unused resources. TIP: just demand resource from your vassal so he lacks the resource, then sell him that resource for gold
5- you can stop spending esp points for your vassals, but your enemies will still spend esp point for them.
6- you can have them change civics they use and spread your corporation if you like...
7- you dont need to fight and probably lose a few units for weird-positioned cities, nor minus points for raizing them nor extra city maintance. just go and get well cities in the end you are going to vassalege no need to worry about culture-border push... TIP: cities inside your vassal will have high probability for revolting..just put your old, out-tech units in city. even though you dont use monarcy, more units mean less revolt probability

 

[Minor Annoyance]

...
2- if you use "no tech brokering" option, you can give them some important techs so they can have advanced army
...

This backfired on me in my last game. I was at war with someone and I needed to collect gold to upgrade my units which put me behind in technology and I had to steal and trade for several key technologies later, like replaceable parts, rifling, scientific method, and I got Astronomy from a hut in the new world, all of which my colony now had to research themselves, and they were far most interested in building units than infrastructure and workers. So even while giving them lost of workers and gold per turn they still had long research times. I did later gift them a battleship and a tank to fight along side their caravels and musketmen.

 

[Grey Fox]

What's the best way to "grow" your vassals? Conquering nearby enemy cities don't seem to work well since you can't seem to gift those cities to them. Letting them culturally assimilate them works sometimes, and letting them do the killing blow works if they have troops in your siege.

I'm asking cause I like to have my vassals strong enough to research reasonably well.

 

[civzombie]

"What's the best way to "grow" your vassals? Conquering nearby enemy cities don't seem to work well since you can't seem to gift those cities to them. Letting them culturally assimilate them works sometimes, and letting them do the killing blow works if they have troops in your siege."

Can't you just gift them cities? I think the option is only available for cities on their border and/or under their cultural influence.

One thing I've never been clear about is how the vassal's cities affect your number of cities maintainence. Does each vassal city count for as much as one city of your own empire when counting number of cities? If so, this eliminates some of the advantages of giving a city to a vassal.

 

[walkie]

This backfired on me in my last game. I was at war with someone and I needed to collect gold to upgrade my units which put me behind in technology and I had to steal and trade for several key technologies later, like replaceable parts, rifling, scientific method, and I got Astronomy from a hut in the new world, all of which my colony now had to research themselves, and they were far most interested in building units than infrastructure and workers. So even while giving them lost of workers and gold per turn they still had long research times. I did later gift them a battleship and a tank to fight along side their caravels and musketmen.

i dont completely understand but it seems when a civ becomes vassal, they are no more efficient as they were free... may be their maintaince go up or something else but they loose effectiveness both in researching and military growth slightly. when it comes to research never rely on your vassals to save the day...

"What's the best way to "grow" your vassals? Conquering nearby enemy cities don't seem to work well since you can't seem to gift those cities to them. Letting them culturally assimilate them works sometimes, and letting them do the killing blow works if they have troops in your siege."

Can't you just gift them cities? I think the option is only available for cities on their border and/or under their cultural influence.

One thing I've never been clear about is how the vassal's cities affect your number of cities maintainence. Does each vassal city count for as much as one city of your own empire when counting number of cities? If so, this eliminates some of the advantages of giving a city to a vassal.

to grow vassal?? well i only give a city to a vassal if it is not well-placed, i mean not worth to have the city, so you can get rid of city maintaince..otherwise why gift a city to your vassal??

your vassals cities doesnt count in city maintaince since you dont own them this is also the reason to have colonies, to get rid of high city maintaince..your main cost in civ is city maintaince after all

 

[TheMeInTeam]

to grow vassal?? well i only give a city to a vassal if it is not well-placed, i mean not worth to have the city, so you can get rid of city maintaince..otherwise why gift a city to your vassal??

To trigger the "land target" effect for capitulation and lower the threshold on your next target, of course.

 

[Iranon]

Whether I groom and pamper my vassals depends on the difficulty level. Deity bonuses > AI incompetence > Immortal bonuses.

 

[capnvonbaron]

so since we are on that topic, I still haven't figured out how to start a colony... Anyone want to give me the quick-n-dirty on how to do that?

 

[civzombie]

need to have at least two cities on a landmass seperate from your palace (I think the at least two target cities must be on the same seperate landmass). Then, go into your city summary tab and there will be a fist icon in teh lower right corner... click that and grant independence to the cities.

 

[SeptimusOctopus]

I'm glad they included this option; it always irritated me that my vassals wouldn't want to trade tech. This might not be on topic but for some reason 3.19 doesn't install for me. I've got vista x64, and Civ4 complete, the new one with warlords, bts, and colonization on one disc.

Also:

I still haven't figured out how to start a colony... Anyone want to give me the quick-n-dirty on how to do that?

civzombie answered this I see, but I noticed in your sig you have "Vanilla 4evr". The option to release overseas cities as colonies was introduced in BtS (I think, could have been warlords though), so if you're running vanilla you can't spawn colonies.

 

[Pindrus]

4- watch them closely they generally get X gold per turn, give them a resource and get that gold for yourself, in time some (like mansa or elizabeth) will generate gold per turn again so again give a resource and get gold per turn. in conclusion you get lots of gold per turn for your unused resources. TIP: just demand resource from your vassal so he lacks the resource, then sell him that resource for gold

If you are already trading a resource for gpt with a vassal (or any other civ really) and they show up having more gpt available, you can usually just cancel the first deal and re-negotiate the same resource deal for more gpt from them. The amount of gpt that AI will pay for resources (whether health, happiness, or strategic) is quite high and rarely is less than the total amount of gpt available. This all assumes you've had the original deal more than the minimum 10-turn requirement.

 

[capnvonbaron]

civzombie answered this I see, but I noticed in your sig you have "Vanilla 4evr". The option to release overseas cities as colonies was introduced in BtS (I think, could have been warlords though), so if you're running vanilla you can't spawn colonies.

Yeah been meaning to change that, I'm still a Civ3 vanilla junkie on the side. I have BtS, but haven't really done too much overseas. I couldn't find it in the civilopedia articles either. So what, it just gifts those liberated cities to some random civ/leader, right? They get all your current techs and some starting units..? What about the UU/UB?

 

[SeptimusOctopus]

Yeah been meaning to change that, I'm still a Civ3 vanilla junkie on the side. I have BtS, but haven't really done too much overseas. I couldn't find it in the civilopedia articles either. So what, it just gifts those liberated cities to some random civ/leader, right? They get all your current techs and some starting units..? What about the UU/UB?

It gives the cities to a random leader who starts out as your vassal and "friendly" towards you for "granting us liberty" or something like that. I haven't done it too often, but I think if you're playing as a civ with multiple leaders it will choose one of your alternative leaders (e.g. if you're playing as augustus it will pick julius rather than some random guy.) That might just be a coincidence from one of my games that I'm mistaking as a rule though. It can be fun though.

Edit: They get the UU / UB of their civ.

 

[wioneo]

Another decent strategy for keeping vassals competent is to capture garbage cities that will probably be weaker, and that you have no intention of keeping. Then just gift them back, and they will be that more useful...unless gifting the city pushes them over 50%, that would be bad.

 

[walkie]

If you are already trading a resource for gpt with a vassal (or any other civ really) and they show up having more gpt available, you can usually just cancel the first deal and re-negotiate the same resource deal for more gpt from them. The amount of gpt that AI will pay for resources (whether health, happiness, or strategic) is quite high and rarely is less than the total amount of gpt available. This all assumes you've had the original deal more than the minimum 10-turn requirement.

yes you are right but doing this with your vassals is better. because this way u dont give resources to your potential enemy

Another decent strategy for keeping vassals competent is to capture garbage cities that will probably be weaker, and that you have no intention of keeping. Then just gift them back, and they will be that more useful...unless gifting the city pushes them over 50%, that would be bad.

but a civ accept to become a vassal when it becomes weaker to a point. when u get well cities, especially their capital, their decrease in power will be so much higher..so with capturing less cities you can vassal them but of course those cities will have better defence