How do I declare war against a Vassal?

[Lord Ben]

I have a vassal who'd capitulated and now I'm changing my mind since cities are revolting to join him. How do I crush Napoleon?

 

[Jerrymander]

You don't. Enjoy your cities revolting.

 

[Tibur753]

You can't declare war on a vassal. The only way to do it is to get him to DoW on you. You have to satisfy the land/pop requirements to allow him to do this.

 

[Lord Ben]

You have to satisfy the land/pop requirements to allow him to do this.

What's that?

 

[Tibur753]

What's that?

To declare independence, a vassal has to have territory and population equal to or greater than half of its master's. You can achieve this by gifting them cities which you will later take back. Once the requirement is fulfilled, get them really mad at you (demand a bunch of stuff from them) and if your power is low enough, they'll DoW.

 

[Joshua368]

What's that?

There are actually two ways:

One is, as he said, get his land/population into the threshold where he has the option to break free, and then tick him off until he does so. You can mouse over his name to see where he's at, but basically:

- 50% land area of his master, or
- 50% population of his master, or
- 50% land area since when he capitulated (i.e. you're doing a really crappy job protecting him)

The other method is to demand resources as tribute. As opposed to demanding techs, cities, or civic changes, resources he has to give free of charge, or else its automatic war. So see if he has a lot of resources and demand them all from him. (you don't even get diplomatic penalties) If he isn't completely scared of you, he may refuse. Even if he doesn't, you still get a lot of free resources.

 

[Wolfshanze]

What Joshua said...

You either have to let him get really big, let yourself get really small, or completely tick him off by demanding resources and trick him into declaring war on you.

Otherwise, enjoy your vassal... he's yours for life.

 

[GooglyBoogly]

If you put enough troops within a city, they will stop revolting and get back to work

 

[SpiritWolf]

Gift units to nearest neighbor, declare war.

 

[Harry Potter52]

Destroy all units and leave production in each city to 1 turn from producing highly advanced unit. He will say you are too weak to help us and then break up the vassalage. If he DOWs wait 1 turn and then send out disciplined units.

 

[Crighton]

If you're playing Beyond the Sword you can use your espionage abilities to truly aggravate the teetotal crap out of your vassal (poison his water, destroy his luxury resources, deny him health resources etc).

Otherwise you've got the above mentioned conditions (which means you're kind of stuck with him). Which is a problem since he's a capitulated vassal. Sadly what's probably your best option to mitigate the circumstances is to begin a culture war and try to increase your culture vs his. Then carry on with your endeavors elsewhere (it's going to be pain though, I learned this leason against Ghandi - NEVER TAKE HIM AS A VOLUNTARY VASSAL EVER! JUST CRUSH HIM OFF OF YOUR CONTINENT then make him capitulate and everything will be ok).

Otherwise, is it possible to start up a war with someone else and let the vassal bear the brunt of the beating?

 

[Harry Potter52]

If the vassal is in the enemies way, though the AI are so stupid, they'll pass scores of lusicious vassal cities and then attack you. Seems kinda pointless.

 

[Crighton]

Not necessarily, if the enemy AI has fuzzy feelings for the vassal but hates you like there's no tommorrow it could be in his interest to simply bypass/ignore the vassal and try to skullthump you.

If the AI manages to beat you up sufficiently the vassal might break away and either become his vassal or his ally / noncombatant.

 

[Sub]

It's silly that you can't declare war on a vassal or let your vassal become an independent state.

 

[LordBuildaholic]

In the future only allow capitulation to a civ that is of a decent size/strength so as to benefit from their resources. When he nears breakaway strength, pile up advanced units nearby. If he separates from you, crush him. Just make sure that you don't give him any techs.
Right now it sounds like your cities will eventually revolt to the point of giving him the ability to breakaway.

 

[Joshua368]

It's silly that you can't declare war on a vassal or let your vassal become an independent state.

In real life perhaps, but in the game it'd make the whole point of the civ wanting to capitulate useless if they know you can just kill them after ten turns regardless. A capitulation deal isn't just them saying "we surrender!" but you saying "we won't kill you".

 

[Harry Potter52]

I guess that makes sense then

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

continuously demand resources from him. Declare war on a neighbor that borders him and don't help him. When he breaks off due to losing 50% of his land, join in obliterating him.

OR:
Gift all of his annoying old cities back to him. As long as you have enough land and population, he will be a good permanent ally. If you don't, he'll likely break away and you can continue dismembering the rest of his civ.

 

[Harry Potter52]

...

OR:
Gift all of his annoying old cities back to him. As long as you have enough land and population, he will be a good permanent ally. If you don't, he'll likely break away and you can continue dismembering the rest of his civ.

Wont that kinda negate the advantage of a vassal?

 

[Willem]

I have a vassal who'd capitulated and now I'm changing my mind since cities are revolting to join him. How do I crush Napoleon?

You don't need to crush him. If your citizens are revolting to try and join your vassal, that means his culture is overpowering yours. Just start building more cultural improvements to counter his. I'd also keep a close eye on him, he might be trying for a cultural victory.