Do voluntary vassals break free more easily?

[dalamb]

In an Earth 18 Civs game as Spain, I asked whether to accept the voluntary vassalization of Cathy, and someone replied they thought a voluntary vassal could break free more easily than one that capitulates in war. Given that Cathy is also a famous backstabber, and in E18 has lots of room to expand eastward from Europe, does that make accepting her vassalization offer a bad idea?

 

[Shurdus]

Peacefully obtained vassals can break free when they choose to do so while the vassals that you conquered may only break free on certain terms afaik. Getting vassals influences your diplomatic standing in the rest of the world in the sense that the opinion towards you is averaged. Other AI's now consider their dispotition towards you and Cathy, calculate the average of those values, and that is the new disposition towards you. the interface will not show a difference before and after - except maybe for the -1 'worried about rivals being vassals' modifier - but the new averaged disposition is there.

AFAIK Cathy may not go from being a vassal to declaring all at once so there is no reason to fear her becomming a vassal only to suddenly declare at you. She needs to break free before she can backstab any one. This means that having her as a vassal will make you safer from backstabbing. If the backstabbing is the thing you are concerned about it is therefore the wisest to vassalize her.

 

[huerfanista]

While it is certainly possible for voluntary vassals to break away (and I've seen many times that an AI that voluntarily vassals to another AI will break away), I've never had it happen to me in any of the (many) E34 and E18 games that I've played. Also, as Shurdus pointed out, Kathy can't backstab you if she's your vassal - she'd have to break away first.

 

[Sian]

well ... she could break away and backstab the very next turn ... but thats highly unlikely

 

[dalamb]

She's a nearby neighbour, so maybe I should just conquer her in this particular game.

 

[mboettcher]

Another thing to consider with vassals.

If you are powerful enough then force them to adopt your civics and religion. This will at least keep the averaging penalty to a minimum as the vassal will be getting the same modifiers as you are (and therefore your friends are more likely to like your vassal). Also I find that in many situations the forced changes for diplo modifiers and the excessive happy modifiers of your 'best friends' can still keep the average at friendly with the right allies. Plus the time in the game when you are vassalizing is usually past the confrontation with the more warlike civs that was going to come anyway. Hopefully the vassal was always your religion and has good modifiers. This can keep those important long distance/term relationships with techies like Ghandi and MM going.

This, by all means, isn't the case always and each vassal situation is different. If there is a rule of thumb here I guess vassalizing civs that have been in the same religious block is usually alright.

Vassals can be a very profitable as the point of vassalization is often when its a long and tedious mop up with not a whole lot to gain. With Corps, you still get the resources, can spam the vassals with Corps, force them to accept Mercantilism and still get TR with them and use their bases. Not a bad gig.