How does YOUR Civ become anothers Vassel?

[Oredreth]

I have been trying to become another Civ's vassel just for fun and I never have the option and they never ask...Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Willowmound]

Apparently the player can't become a vassal of the AI.

 

[Xanikk999]

Apparently the player can't become a vassal of the AI.

This is the sad truth.

This was a very bad decision on the designers part. How lame....

 

[Judge Dee]

Would be a good idea for a minor scenario - try to break free of X's vassalage in Y turns, that sort of thing.

 

[Janos]

I noticed this. Fair enough don't have capitulation perhaps, but we should at least be able to have the AI as our masters for protection. Nevermind.

 

[Helmling]

Apparently there was no way to get the AI to behave appropriately under these circumnstances, thus the designers have claimed they prevented this from happening to block "exploits."

 

[ice2k4]

Wow I'm actually disappointed now. I havent got the game yet, and this jsut put me in serious debate as wther to buy it or not. And by the way, is it possible to vassal every civ at the same time. (even though I realize this may be incredibly hard.)

 

[VeXeD]

Wow I'm actually disappointed now. I havent got the game yet, and this jsut put me in serious debate as wther to buy it or not. And by the way, is it possible to vassal every civ at the same time. (even though I realize this may be incredibly hard.)

You Vassel the whole empire at once... It is not city by city.

 

[jkp1187]

Wow I'm actually disappointed now. I havent got the game yet, and this jsut put me in serious debate as wther to buy it or not. And by the way, is it possible to vassal every civ at the same time. (even though I realize this may be incredibly hard.)

Hypothetically it's possible, but since 1/2 of the vassaled (vassalined?) civs' territory counts as your own for domination purposes, you'd probably win a domination victory before you collected them all.

There's also the problem of city maintenance, since your maintenance cost goes up as the number of vassal cities goes up.

 

[Common Sensei]

Wow I'm actually disappointed now. I havent got the game yet, and this jsut put me in serious debate as wther to buy it or not. And by the way, is it possible to vassal every civ at the same time. (even though I realize this may be incredibly hard.)

If all of your rivals become vassals the game ends and you are awarded a Conquest Victory.

 

[Nobody]

in multiplayer can you vassal another player?

 

[geebo]

i think so when i play hotseat, the option is there... this again explains that the problem is not the human becoming the vassel, but the AI handling a human as its vassel, still i do not get why this would be a problem as I have seen in many games the AI vasselize other civs...maybe a patch will fix this hopefully...

 

[AriochIV]

I think the problem is that voluntary vassalization is usually a sweet deal for the vassal... it's basically a free alliance with a more powerful civilization that you can terminate every 10 turns, and all you have to give up are perhaps some resources. I suspect that AI masters would hardly ever refuse an offer to receive a vassal, even if it means going to war, so you can essentially force someone to come help you if you're losing a war. The AI abuses this feature regularly, but apparently player abuse is a no-no.

 

[FastWorker]

I wonder if you can build a vassal state in, save the game in world builder, and then play as the vassal?

 

[Raisin Bran]

it will probably be tweaked in the next patch

 

[FastWorker]

OK, so I went into worldbuilder and made myself a vassal of Ghengis Khan before a single civ had settled. I met Khan during the first turn, even though he was half the world away from me. I was pretty isolated from every other civ. Then I met each civ that he met as if we were on the same team. He was able to walk on my land years before either of us had discovered writing. I didn't discover where he lived until well after that, so didn't even try.

As soon as I got horses, he demanded it from me, which was fine, But then he demanded those same horses every single turn. He didn't seem to be able to keep them like a regular trade. Later when I found iron, he demanded that instead, not in addition to the horses. I thought maybe he had horses of his own, so checked in worldbuilder, but he did not. Maybe he can only ask for one resource?

As far as resources went, maybe it was a coincidence, but when I went to the trading screen, none of my or any other civ's resources appeared. Only the techs showed up -- except when I was talking to Khan. And then, only my resources appeared. I couldn't even offer to trade money for one of his.

But what I found interesting was the affection he seemed to feel towards me. Maybe it was because I could cancel my vassal at any time due to my size, but he was just downright nice to me. His status was officially cautious, but he was gifting me techs and resources even though I was right next to him at the top of the score.

 

[Martinus]

Yeah, I also find it quite disappointing that it is impossible to become a vassal of the AI. It would offer, imo, quite interesting strategy possibilities (e.g. become a vassal of a strong neighbour and build your perfectionist empire vertically in peace, aiming for a cultural or space race victory).

I don't think it is a game design decision to be honest - rather, I suspect this has to do with the AI being unable to assess whether to refuse vassalisation offer from a potential vassal (it seems to me that they did only the "should I offer to become someone's vassal" part of the AI question - since the AI also seems to accept other AI's vassalage offers without much forethought, e.g. even if it would plunge it into a war with the whole world).

I hope they fix it in some patch.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well there is evidence the resource requesting and diplomatic assessment part of the Vassals is buggy. However, they should at least allow a Human Player to Capitulate to an AI, once the Human fills the requirements (less than 1/2 the AI's size, pop, etc.) That would be less 'Voluntary' since an exploit that involves an AI 2x your size is probably rare.

Of course the general problem may be that because Humans are generally much better at taking cities, they can expand more easily to abuse the war relationship.

But I still would let Humans Capitulate to an AI, it extends a probably losing game, but coming back would be interesting.

 

[Martinus]

in multiplayer can you vassal another player?

Yes. And it is great fun in a multiplayer game with 4 or more players, as it allows for power blocks to develop much earlier than in a vanilla game (where permanent alliances and defensive pacts came into the game quite late).

In my recent game there was Germany (Frederick) with peace-vassalised Korea and capitulated Turkey vs. an alliance of equals involving Russia (Peter) and Rome (Augustus) (through a permanent alliance), with Mali being capitulated vassals of Russia. Mali then rebelled (due to their territory shrinking) and entered a permanent alliance with Korea (which made it a vassal of Germany). Later on, when we (I was Russia) nuked Berlin, Munich and threatened to nuke Seul, Korea broke the peace-vassalage with Germany and joined us as a vassal of Rome. That gave us a victory by domination.

 

[FastWorker]

In multiplayer, if the dominant civ takes a resource from a vassal, does the vassal still have access to the resource?

The reason I ask is because in the game where I made myself via worldbuilder to be a vassal, I still was able to make swordsmen when Khan siezed my iron as well as chariots when he took my horses. It didn't seem much punishment for us to share my resources rather than flat out giving my resources to him.