Condensed tips for beginners?

[Sisiutil]

Thank you both for the clarification. In my current game with Darius, I was at a situation where I needed to decide whether to capitulate an AI that was severely weakened after my war with them. I got an advice in that thread that if an AI was too weak and too small, it is pointless to capitulate them.

So I guess there is always the proper time and not-so-proper time to make a vassal out of the AI. I've always followed my own guideline at around 25% of my land and population as the guiding point when considering making a vassal out of AI. But it is nice to know that vassals can still win.

There are two main reasons to accept a vassal:

1. Attack Dog: Vassalize a war-like AI (Shaka, Monty, Genghis, etc.). When you declare war, they are automatically at war on your side (this will help repair diplomatic relations with them, too). But I'm not a big fan of this type of vassal. The AI's effectiveness at war is spotty at best, even for the warmongers. They won't usually travel long distances to attack someone, so your Attack Dog will usually only live up to that name if he/she shares a border with your next target. Also keep in mind that the AI will pillage the enemy back to kingdom come, so if you're looking at conquering a civ with a lot of mature cottages, you're better off fighting on your own so you can preserve those towns and villages.
2. Outsourced Research: Since you can dictate a vassal's research, you can have your vassal research techs you need and then trade for them. Obviously you want one of the better researchers in this role (any of the Financial leaders, Gandhi, etc.). You also want to leave them with enough cities in good locations to research effectively. Finally, you'll need to get on good terms with them, which can be a challenge if you've been kicking their butt for several turns.

The worst reason to accept a vassal is because you're just too tired of fighting the war to finish it properly. This usually reflects a lack of planning; you should have built and brought more units.

Has anyone been successful at being able to declare war on your vassal by demanding all of the vassal's resources?

I am not privy to the mechanics and mathematics behind this, but it seems very hit-and-miss. Based on my experience rather than familiarity with the code, it seems to happen more often based upon (a) the size and power rating of the vassal and (b) your diplomatic score with them. But even if your vassal is very near the break-free requirements, has a large army, and hates your guts, they'll still often cave and give you what you're after. DO NOT ever accept a vassal--voluntary or capitulated--if you know you'll eventually want to break the relationship, because it might not ever happen.

 

[Choeimok]

@ghpstage: Thanks, that was really helpful. In fact, my crisis did not last much longer, and by the early renaissance (Printing Press), I had caught up in tech with Suleiman and Gilgamesh. All the other AIs turned out to be way behind them. After getting rid of Izzy and her classical era units (she really did not tech at all in the 1000 years she was alive but crippled) with Berserkers, I gradually took over the other continent, starting with Rifles and Cannons, soon after Infantry (this part was painful, Gilgamesh declared on me at tech parity, adn almost all my siege was dead), and later it ended with a huge mining inc Tank spam. Gilgamesh was my vassal by then and I never fought Suleiman, so they didn't even need any kind of support.
Eventually I built the UN and won Diplomation. Woohoo, my first Prince victory...and I was already close to quitting...

 

[Hodory]

Thank you, Sisiutil. I understand the concept quite well now, I think.

I am gonna throw out another quick question: Does "March" and "Medic 3" stack in their abilities? I mean that... can a super medic with both of those promotions heal the units in the same stack if that whole stack moved? What about adjacent squares?

 

[adrianj]

March only applies to the unit with the promo. So if your super medic has march then it can move and heal itself, but if the stack moves then those units won't heal.

 

[Pwu.380]

If I run BUG can I open regular saves? Can I still play with people without it?

 

[Sisiutil]

If I run BUG can I open regular saves? Can I still play with people without it?

If you want that sort of flexibility you'll need to install BUG as a mod and load it as one.

 

[kcd_swede]

There are two main reasons to accept a vassal:

1. Attack Dog: Vassalize a war-like AI (Shaka, Monty, Genghis, etc.). When you declare war, they are automatically at war on your side (this will help repair diplomatic relations with them, too). But I'm not a big fan of this type of vassal. The AI's effectiveness at war is spotty at best, even for the warmongers. They won't usually travel long distances to attack someone, so your Attack Dog will usually only live up to that name if he/she shares a border with your next target. Also keep in mind that the AI will pillage the enemy back to kingdom come, so if you're looking at conquering a civ with a lot of mature cottages, you're better off fighting on your own so you can preserve those towns and villages.
2. Outsourced Research: Since you can dictate a vassal's research, you can have your vassal research techs you need and then trade for them. Obviously you want one of the better researchers in this role (any of the Financial leaders, Gandhi, etc.). You also want to leave them with enough cities in good locations to research effectively. Finally, you'll need to get on good terms with them, which can be a challenge if you've been kicking their butt for several turns.

I accept vassals a lot and have almost never used either reason. So lets add these:

3) My #1 reason for taking vassals is to speed up a conquest or domination victory. You get a snowball effect, too, since the AI over-estimate your power when they see you have a vassal. If you have two or three vassals, that's a lot of over-estimation. That means the next guy is more willing to capitulate faster.
4) Having a vassal means you always have someone who will accept a gift of a city, whether you want to give away the AP, the UN or just stay under the domination limits to prevent some ways to lose or secure a specific way to win.
5) You now have open borders and trade routes to a "foreign" civ, which might be useful to your economy if everyone else hates you for being such a nasty warmongerer.


Getting rid of vassals is much harder. Don't count on being able to make it happen. So as Sisuitil points out: be sure you want a vassal and what you want it for before you accept one.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

I've heard TMIT talking about a "Land Target Rule", where having a vassal who has 8 land tiles bordering your next target makes them absolutely terrified of you and will capitulate much more easily.

 

[cabert]

I've heard TMIT talking about a "Land Target Rule", where having a vassal who has 8 land tiles bordering your next target makes them absolutely terrified of you and will capitulate much more easily.

yep, exactly right
having a vassal without land tiles sometimes makes capitulation of the next guy harder, because there is a biaised "medium power" (I'm not fluent enough in english to be sure of the right wording here) because 1 or more AIs are weak( they should be because you just killed their units and took their cities).

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Mean power of you and your vassals?

 

[nfw]

Has anyone been successful at being able to declare war on your vassal by demanding all of the vassal's resources?

Try demanding a resource they wouldn't trade otherwise, seems to "work" occasionally, however unexpectedly.

An easy way to get rid of a vassal, just declare war on the its most powerful neighbor and hope your vassal lose a few cities (shouldn't be hard given you've probably killed most of their units). It will either break away or you can "liberate" those cities for yourself.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Mean power of you and your vassals?

I believe he's referring to whether or not the civ you want to vassalize is stronger than half the other civs or weaker. ."Sometimes the capitulation gets harder if you've made your vassals weak. Then the civ you're currently fighting thinks, "hey, I'm stronger than half the world, so I'm doing fine."

 

[vranasm]

as kdc_swede said... there is vassal snowball effect. I like to take first AI fully and maybe the 2nd too though. Makes you much stronger and cities from first AI you take will be close enough to make some impact.

last 2 AI's you can sometimes cap just after 2 cities taken, or even better just after SoD beaten.
Well at least up to Emperor...

 

[Hodory]

Thanks again to all who have clarified the concept of vassals.

I don't mean to seem like advertising my thread, but if any of the veterans who lurk here can give me some feedbacks in my current game on emperor, it would be greatly appreciated.

Michmbk, lymond, and few others have been helping me a lot, but I could use some more criticism and advice.

My apology in advance if this violates the forum rules.

 

[vhhawk]

@Hodory: "Has anyone been successful at being able to declare war on your vassal by demanding all of the vassal's resources?"

I have, once. Ragnar was my vassal, occupying a corner of my mainland, and during a subsequent war he took one of the enemy cities I wanted for myself. i began trying to culture flip the city to no avail since it had his SOD in it. I then began making arrogant demands, turn after turn, while concurrently running nonstop espionage sabotage efforts in his lands. Even so, our relationship had bottomed out for a long time before he declared on me. It ended up being too much effort for the reward of takign him out completely. Since then, I think carefully about vassaling anyone.

 

[Hodory]

@vhhawk: That is very interesting. I guess your experience proves the point even further that if I intend to get rid of an AI at some point, it is better not to capitulate them, especially if they are very weak.

 

[BIOGENETIC]

If I locate and raze the city which contains AP/UN, are elections, diplo wins, or resolutions still possible?

I usually get the UN done, but in my last game someone else built it, stopped my wars, forced civics onto to me that I didn't like, stopped me from building nukes and returned cities I captured to their "rightful owners"

 

[Sisiutil]

If I locate and raze the city which contains AP/UN, are elections, diplo wins, or resolutions still possible?

I usually get the UN done, but in my last game someone else built it, stopped my wars, forced civics onto to me that I didn't like, stopped me from building nukes and returned cities I captured to their "rightful owners"

As with any world wonder, if you raze the city containing it, the wonder is destroyed along with its effects and can never be rebuilt. So no more AP/UN votes in the situation you describe.

I must admit that haven't encountered this exact situation, but I think you should be able to change civics out of the mandated ones. "The world considers you a villain" unhappiness might persist for the required number of turns, however.

 

[kcd_swede]

I must admit that haven't encountered this exact situation, but I think you should be able to change civics out of the mandated ones. "The world considers you a villain" unhappiness might persist for the required number of turns, however.

No, it is impossible to change civics out of the UN mandated ones. All other civics in that tree get greyed out. The only way to do so is if the resolution for the civic is brought up again and fails. Easy enough to do if you are the Sec Gen and hold enough votes to get anything passed, but otherwise a real PITA.

So if you think that civic will hurt you, you have to vote to DEFY the resolution, thereby causing it to fail, but giving you the "World considers you a villain" unhappiness if it would have passed without your defiance.

 

[Sisiutil]

No, it is impossible to change civics out of the UN mandated ones. All other civics in that tree get greyed out. The only way to do so is if the resolution for the civic is brought up again and fails. Easy enough to do if you are the Sec Gen and hold enough votes to get anything passed, but otherwise a real PITA.

So if you think that civic will hurt you, you have to vote to DEFY the resolution, thereby causing it to fail, but giving you the "World considers you a villain" unhappiness if it would have passed without your defiance.

Thanks, kcd_swede, that saves me the trouble if firing up a game in worldbuilder to test it out!