Do you accept Vassals (and if so why)?

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I go for vassals in almost all my wars. Beeline their capital, capturing cities on the way if necessary, and sometimes they will capitulate before you get there. I then give back all their cities. Then on to the next until I am secure.

Recently I discovered that keeping one city allows the building of heroes so I may change that part of my general plan.

As to accepting weak nations as my vassals. It depends, if they are not at war and on my border, or a vassals, then yes. Otherwise the decision is more difficult. In one game I conquered a single city civ on a plateau island and both the other civs on that island, both single cities, offered to be my vassals. I accepted. Now I attack and capture the barbarian cities first just in case the ai has been waiting for such a scenario to vassal to me.

The Topkapi Palace wonder is about strengthening your vassals, by giving them some gold out of nothing. It needs changing, perhaps to give you access their culture so you can get the heroes.

 

[little_cyclone]

I go for vassals in almost all my wars. Beeline their capital, capturing cities on the way if necessary, and sometimes they will capitulate before you get there. I then give back all their cities. Then on to the next until I am secure..

Same here. A quick blitz followed by capitulation and liberation in short order

The Topkapi Palace wonder is about strengthening your vassals, by giving them some gold out of nothing. It needs changing, perhaps to give you access their culture so you can get the heroes.

I was wondering what that actually did.. Maybe change it so you can access their culture, and make them a little more stable Rev-wise?

 

[Koshling]

Same here. A quick blitz followed by capitulation and liberation in short order



I was wondering what that actually did.. Maybe change it so you can access their culture, and make them a little more stable Rev-wise?

I like these suggestions. Can someone familiatr with the culture (Hydro?) and REV stability (anyone?) comment on what (if any) extra XML would be required to support such things (both from this Wonder and more generally)

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I like these suggestions. Can someone familiatr with the culture (Hydro?) and REV stability (anyone?) comment on what (if any) extra XML would be required to support such things (both from this Wonder and more generally)

I am not sure if you can apply rev stability directly or not. If you were going to do it via a building then the wonder would need to provide a free building in all your vassal cities. Including new ones.

As to swapping cultures that can be done via a building or a unit that builds a building.

All sounds a bit SDKish to me

 

[JosEPh_II]

Due to the fact that vassalage becomes the escape for my enemies, leading to a huge war with a bigger opponent than I'm usually prepared for, a domino effect that ends up making a war with anyone, ultimately, a war with the rest of the world if you continue to be successful, I find cause for me to shut off the vassalage option in all games I play.

I like a lot of the elements about it from an economic and diplomatic complexity level, but due to this last ditch vassalage defense method all nations will employ when down to their last city, its entirely unfun to have it on at all.

Now... if a nation could not be made a vassal of another nation when at war except perhaps to the nation it is at war WITH, we may have a halfway decent system to start working with.

Here! Here! Well Said! Exactly why I never play with vassals on.

JosEPh

 

[Sleeeper]

Exactly why I play with vassals on

 

[Snofru1]

I always turn vassals off. For my playstyle they don´t give any real improvement. If I want to control a region I conquer it and build my own cities (maybe that changes, now that AI city placement has been improved).

 

[Necratoid]

I've only got far enough for v1 vassals but I now play with them disabled. The reason is they only realistically serve three(3) purposes.

1) The I told mommy/grampa on you... insta-war-kill defense.

2) To bog down the processor with a dozen 1-2-3 city nations under someone elses control.

3) Constantly annoying me endless head nation declares war!/makes peace every single 1-2-3 city vassal declares war/peace with X.

The guy I'm fighting hides behind some the other nation and thus isn't dead and once a war is insta-killed a nation with no units and one city now expells me completely from its borders and lives forever. In exchange the controlling nation endlessly gets hug amounts of free points for excepting the less-than-a-rump-state.

Capitulating utterly fails to kill the rump state wannabe... instead it becomes your vassal or whoever's it was that they capitulated to... this vassalhood is endable. Meaning Vassalhood is just a tempory humanshield... and my vassals never actually do anything noticable to my war effort when they do join my wars.

They do however add in a new type of diplo-hate... I hate your vassal. I'm also pretty sure that being in a war with a vassal that is hated means even more hate from the opponent as they hate you... the vassal... and that your teamed with the vassal.

So basically vassals just make more AIs stick around doing nothing, but pumping up the score of some other guy... and they all hate me and talk the nation they are vassals to into hating me.

In short vassals make a Civ a necromancer with and angry, near useless hoard of sad little undead Civs.

 

[Sleeeper]

... and my vassals never actually do anything noticable to my war effort when they do join my wars.

You can ask vassals to attack some cities of your choice, though they are lazy and do that slowly.

 

[mr_knowie]

I usually accept vassals:

Depending on their position, they can work as a buffer state; separating you from your enemy.

Vassals are willing to trade anything, even resources that they only have one of.

For every vassal state you have, your cities get a .

They generally vote my way in the UN.

As someone already mentioned, they occasionally give up and join your empire entirely.

 

[Necratoid]

The issue with telling your vassal to attack somewhere is that by the time they have enough of a military to take said city they have enough military to declare independants from you.

---

I find the concept of a UN victory tripe personally... I mean the game forces you into the UN... won't let you out... then everyone rages at you because they demand you take a civic that will implode your Civ for no bonus. If the CIvs that built it had to bribe people to join It'd be one thing... but instead its madatory that when your worst enemy builds it your joining. In Vanilla BTS I tend to declare war on the Civ that builds it and raise that city... I only annoy half the world that way. The UN is just too crippling for me to allow.

Concidering that with vassals your worse enemy is now controling slave states that are voting with that Civ or in a break away war... it defeats the stated goal of the UN... realistic sure... but as participation is mandatory and you can't vote to make the leader Civ give all his cash per turn or techs or grants or the like real thing... and its just annoying.

 

[Praetyre]

I think the way GalCiv and SMAC handled it was much more realistic and balanced. GalCiv allowed players to opt out of the United Planets and thus be exempt from it's resolutions, but at the cost of losing trade rights with all members, while players in SMAC could defy the Supreme Leader at the cost of war with all players who didn't also choose to defy.

 

[W|M]

I get vassals for resources, and eventual annexation (If they're close enough and/or they have a culture group I don't have); I tend to annex my vassals to access their resources more directly, to make sure that my supply isn't dependent on a trade deal. Also, small civs generally build tons of units, and annexing vassals hugely inflates my power rating (even if the units are on the other side of the planet), so that nobody will attack me.

 

[DRJ]

I think the tendency for vassals to become independent has to be much higher.

Right now they never declare independence -
but what if they get annoyed if they are not constantly pleased with gifts like gold (imagine marshall plan after WW2) units, technologies and fair trade of resources.

So the higher you are # in score is the closer the vassals would watch how you act and the likelier they would declare independance. AI rivals could bribe your vassals to switch sides more easily, giving you a hard time to keep the benefits a vassal gives:
always trades all resources -- but only many fair trades keep that privilege --
and military access to the vassals land + better tech trade
(if vassal invents a tech you don't have he'll sell it not expansive but just normal).
The fun part would be to give the vassal enough to not break away but not too much so when he would somehow break away he would not have same techlevel as you.

So you could either be totally friendly and give everthing & always, making that vassal family but holding short another vassal at the same time. Lot of diplomatic twists in that maybe another construction site to dig for diplomatic wonders.

 

[Il Principe]

They actually do.. if they decide to go to war. Happend to me: I was bribing a vassals city close to my borders that already got 98% my culture and they imediatly declared war on me 8 and of course all my other vassals.... their problem, I had enough border security troops close by and a few mobile untis within 2 rounds reach. Took me about 6 turns to conquer it all.

 

[DRJ]

Maybe that's a bug or not so planned situation, Koshling should be able to look into that.
In the meantime, we know one more way to get rid of an ungrateful vassal^^

 

[Il Principe]

Indeed The culture levle was quite high , So I thought it save to bribe the city. On the other hand, no matter the culture level: A Human player would consider going to war with someone who just bribed a 19 population city as well.

 

[hotrodlincoln]

One thing I hate is that there is no way for you to end the vassal agreement. Quite often I have vassalised someone in a war, and then it later bit me in the behind. They like to settle cities in areas that I wanted, often right on my border, halfway across the map from their own lands. I should, by all rights be able to say "You are no longer under my protection for this unwarranted act of douchebaggery", but I can't. I even try annoying my vassals so much they leave of their own accord, but that doesn't work either. I get one vassal and i'm stuck with them for life.

Is it really all that realistic for one nation to be another nation's vassal for 2 millenia? By then the client state would have either been annexed, or would have gone independent. Vassal states should not remain vassals for so long.

 

[W|M]

Try constantly demanding resources by doing the option that threatens war. C2C vassals occasionally let you annex them, though not always.

 

[hotrodlincoln]

Try constantly demanding resources by doing the option that threatens war. C2C vassals occasionally let you annex them, though not always.

That option only works when your vassals really, really hate you. Which is usually only right after you have vassalised them. Once they have been your vassal for a while, nothing you do can annoy them past the point of "Cautious".

I usually just end up going into worldbuilder and editing the relationship. If it's been more than 60 turns I don't really view it as cheating to use worldbuilder to de-vassalise someone, since that's an option the game should already have, in my opinion.