[BTS] Could someone help me understand what I'm missing?

[earthy]

So I was playing a game last night where Zara had Willem as a vassal. I'm not sure if it was capitulation, as he was a vassal from the moment I met him(very very late, around 1200 AD). Here is a screenshot of Zara's land compared to Willem's in the early days:



So for whatever reason I decided I wanted to start razing Zara's cities until Willem renounced protection and split from the vassal agreement. I destroyed all but two of Zara's cities, and Willem is still his vassal for some reason. At this point, Willem has more land area and twice the cities that Zara has, but he's still a vassal. When I hover my mouse on Willem's name, it also doesn't say anything about his original land/population, or what he needs to break free.

Screenshot of Zara compared to Willem post destruction:




Can anyone explain to me why he's still a vassal of Zara? This is confusing the hell out of me.

 

[AcaMetis]

In that game Willem is a colony that Zara originally founded and later released as a vassal state under Willem's command, not a separate civilization that Zara made a vassal through peace or war. I couldn't tell you the exact mechanics thereof, but that's probably what's causing the oddities you're seeing.

 

[earthy]

I did not know colonies were a thing in BTS. Thanks, that makes sense. It did throw me for a bit of a loop when he randomly introduced himself to me after I was sure I had met everyone. For a follow up question: if I have popup tips disabled in my game, will I ever get the option to give independence to one of my cities? Also would you recommend forming colonies?

 

[lymond]

Popups have nothing to do with creating a colony. It is something the player can do voluntarily on the F1 screen - button at lower right. Colony vassals can only be created with cities on a different land mass. I think you need at least 2 cities on that landmass.

The benefit of making colonies is very situational and likely map dependent. It can reduce your overseas maintenance and if you setup a few cities with decent improvement, you can have a fairly strong vassal that is very loyal. A colony gets all your techs so they will be a par with you in that regard, so you might have them tech some stuff for you (you can direct a vassals tech choices). There's other factor's and variables at play in your choices. Are the cities of better use to you than a new vassal? Or are you having issues reaching the Dom limit but don't want a Domination victory? Vassal land counts 50% toward the land limit. There's some other situational exploits on colonies but I'm not all that erudite in that usage.

 

[AcaMetis]

You can release a colony as a vassal state through the domestic advisor (the screen with the list of cities you own, I believe there's an icon on the lower right somewhere for releasing colonies), though I wouldn't recommend doing so. The big draw to releasing a colony as a vassal is that you don't pay colonial maintenance on your colony cities, but it's not that crippling even on Deity, and Colonial Maintenance is tied to Distance Maintenance, so if you build Forbidden Palace or Versailles on a colony it'll reduce Colonial maintenance even further. State Property also completely negates Colonial Maintenance, since it negates Distance Maintenance. Don't trust AIs with managing your cities, or your tech trades, or really much if anything. They are generally not as good at it as you will be.

Tip: Instead of building Courthouses/FP (base 920 on Standard size/speed maps) or Versailles (base 800) in your colony cities, build them in your core cities and move your actual Palace (base 160) to your colony. Same effect, neither continent will pay colonial maintenance, but established cities can handle the cost of building Courthouses/FP or Versailles much more easily than newly established colonies that are struggling to build a Granary.

 

[Anysense]

As far as I know only peace vassals tend to break free. Conquered civs and colonies remain your vassals even if certain conditions are met. I've never seen vassals with >50% of my land and population break free.

Would Zara capitulate? Normally, a civ which has vassals won't capitulate, but sometimes they do.

 

[ArchGhost]

Peace Vassals (which Willem is) don't have land or pop requirements. They just have to be sufficiently happy with the potential master -- this threshold is different for every AI and can range as low as Cautious for Mansa -- and feel military threat from a rival (the potential master can ALSO fill this requirement, strangely enough). Whether they break free or not, as peace vassals, is an entirely different check than capitulated states who will often do so at the first opportunity if you're whooping their master's butt as that allows them to broker a separate peace with you.

Willem is always gonna be pretty happy with Zara because of the liberation bonus of being his colony. Breaking free and rejoining him is most likely a direct result of your military success, as you had been at war with Willem and he feared you. I've also seen it several times where the master will lose his/her vassal, and then themselves vassal to their own former vassal, if you stay at war with both of them.

It's just one of the glaring examples of how the vassal mechanic can be total BS in the AI's hands.

For a follow up question: if I have popup tips disabled in my game, will I ever get the option to give independence to one of my cities? Also would you recommend forming colonies?

There's a button at the bottom of the domestic advisor that lets you liberate cities. You must have at least 2 contiguous cities on a different continent to have the option to liberate a colony, vassal states on, and room in the game for an additional player (which can be satisfied by killing off an AI if you are playing 18 civs from the start or something.

Colonies aren't very useful IMO. They start with all your tech at the moment of liberation and make contact with all the other AIs which can bork diplomacy -- the AI you liberate is random but you are still subject to the other AIs attitude averaging toward you, bad if you liberate Gandhi or Lincoln on map full of warmongers -- and they quickly start making trades with your tech that you may have wanting to wait on making for one reason or another. Example: they might start spreading around Rifling, or giving out your monopoly tech you planned to trade for another AI's tech you know they are about to finish. The same problems with any vassal except they are at tech parity with you.

They also still start so far behind in development, in terms of the land and infrastructure, that specifically gifting away cities on another continent with the aim to create a teching partner or something ends up not panning out. The colony will quickly fall behind you and take forever to develop into anything contentious compared to AIs existing from the beginning of the game, unless you want to keep ferrying them more settlers workers. It just ends up being a big hammer sink and doesn't pay off well. It could be fine for just gaining Dom limit % I guess, but you're better off just keeping the cities in that case anyway and going for State Property.

In intercontinental warfare, they do have a nifty tactical use though: invade and take at least 2 cities, then liberate a colony. Gift away every new city you take on that continent to the colony as you take it, and they will automatically garrison with up-to-date defenders, the colony will push out culture and generally resist attack, and the best part is even if the AI you are attacking takes the cities back, they gain no war success against you --only against the colony -- and you can even recapture them again for MORE war success. Makes fighting with an advanced AI across the ocean go much more quickly and gives your landing units some safety.

As far as I know only peace vassals tend to break free. Conquered civs and colonies remain your vassals even if certain conditions are met. I've never seen vassals with >50% of my land and population break free.

Would Zara capitulate? Normally, a civ which has vassals won't capitulate, but sometimes they do.

You can cap masters with vassals of either kind; it automatically breaks any vassals they have have free. You just need a lot of power rating to do it as the AI artificially inflates it's own power for each vassal it has.

 

[earthy]

Thanks for all the great tips guys. I'm still pretty new to civ4, and the tutorial never worked for me so I've just been learning as I go. The war academy and posts on this forum have been a real lifesaver.