How should I deal w/ "Culture Whore" Vassal Gandhi?

BammBamm

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Hi, all. I could sure use some advice, here.

I’m in a situation where one of my vassals will certainly pull out a culture win, unless Pacal and I do something drastic. Please check out the following screenshots and gimme your two cents worth:













I’ve demanded a few resources from Mr. Gandhi to the point of threatening war, but he’s such a pacifist, it doesn’t seem to adversely impact his opinion of me. I thought of declaring war on Japan, thinking Tokugawa might be able to take out Delhi to buy me some time, but I don’t really think that’s a viable option.

Since achieving a cultural victory of my own seems nearly impossible, it may be time for me to pursue a domination win, so maybe that’s my only option.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks ~ Bamm
 
Uh. I don't know how to get out of that situation. I always avoided it. Before vassalizing India or Egypt I usually burn down the capital. I mean, why not? Peacemongers will worship you as a master anyway, no matter what you do to them.
But wait, maybe you could try to give a horsehockyload of advanced units to Tokugawa as a gift on Gandhis borders, declare war and hope he'll not send them to your cities asap? Sabotaging Indias culture generating buildings (cathedrals) might also slow progress somewhat down.
 
I see four options.
1. Win quickly, before he gets a cultural victory.
2. Get in a war with someone else, and arrange for him to lose at least one of his cultural cities in it.
3. End the vassal agreement, then kill him yourself. Either get him to lose a lot of land in a war, or demand a lot of resources from him (I'd start with every strategic and luxury resource, and go up from there). Hopefully he decides the safety isn't worth it.
4. Use spies to keep one of his cities in non-stop revolts so it doesn't gain culture. Or use them to burn his culture-producing and multiplying buildings. Use them to force him out of Free Speech and/or Caste System if he's using those civics.

Without being able to look at your actual save-game, it's hard to tell which one is most worth pursuing.
 
Don't let him run Free Speech, tell him to run a different Legal civic (you have to be running whatever civic you want him to adopt). I've been able to escape defeat before by convincing AIs that were about to win culture to drop FS. Every time he switches back to FS you have to talk him out of it. This should buy you more time.
 
The key is don't vassal someone who's a threat for culture. When they offer themselves up, it's okay to say no.
 
All excellent suggestions – thanks!

ethemenanki: I believe, in this case, Gandhi was a vassal of Pacal before he & I "tied the knot", so I've never been at war with the bespectacled little scalawag. Good call on your Japanese "Lend/Lease" idea. That's some hardcore backstabbin', right there! :goodjob:

coanda: I like your ideas. I just checked, though, and I'm not able to nix the vassal agreement. Just popped into the game and scanned the Event Log; sure enough, Pacal had "pre-vassalized" Gandhi in 1760 AD. My game is attached, and just in case you're wondering, most of Pacal's territory in the Northern Hemisphere was mine that I simply gifted to him while chasing after (and achieving) the Mining Inc. "Greed" quest.

NihilZero: "Do as I say; not as I do". I love it! Thanks for the tip!
 

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I tried gifting troops to Tokugawa and I can't make it work, even tough Gandhi's 3rd city is putting out less than 250 culture/turn, so you might have 80 turns left.

The problem is that your buddy Pacal and your vassal Surya have large modern armies and must have been waiting for an opportunity to invade Japan for some time. Gandhi is far from defenseless also. Toku split up his stack of modern armours, mobile artillery and som mechinf :confused: , and it was severely mauled by indian artillery and cavalry mainly (probably by fighters too) In the second turn of the war.
Meanwhile, Pacal took 2 border cities in the first 5 turns of the war, and the remaining Japanese troops withdrew, only to get wiped out by a stack of Surya.
Maybe you could declare war on someone else first?

Using spies may be the only way. You'll need massive espionage investment. Since you have disabled the space race, winning the game while keeping Gandhi down may be very hard.

Gandhi has the Christo Redentor, so switching him out of free speech will not do much.
 
Well, this is another fine mess I’ve managed to get myself into, it seems.

Very much appreciate you taking the time to investigate my game, barber. This is yet another example of my desperately seeking to team with a more advanced AI, only to end up being bested by one of the vassals tucked under our wings. Funny how Gandhi had a major hard-on for me, until I sided w/ Pacal; then, he suddenly became my “best friend” in the whole-wide world.

This map seems really oil-scarce, so I made a beeline for Plastics to build a rig and gift petroleum to Pacal. As you can see, this game is only ‘Noble’ diff, so I really have no excuse.

Man … if this is the best I can do, I’d better stay far, far away from multi-player in Civ V for at least a few years.

Thanks again, barber. ~ Bamm
 
I'm not very good at all this Vassal stuff, but couldn't you just gift Gandhi enough
cities to push him over the limit for breaking free? Then declare?
 
Good ideas mentioned here. If it were my game, my order of operations would be:

-Build 6 spies quickly, 3 for Bombay and 3 for Vijanicaraguadora. Set espionage to 100% ghandi. Turn your esp slider to 100% for a few turns. When they get in place, foment back-to-back turns of city revolt. Keep it going as long as possible.
-Burn a golden age for a bureaucracy civic switch, tell ghandi to switch too. Delhi is out of the running afterall. Switch back to whatever you were using.
-Demand all resources he has that you can, hopefully this will throw the vassalage.
-Make sure he doesn't get Hollywood, Rock n Roll and Broadway. (have those been built?)

These will only buy you more time. Now the potentially quick ways to win are:
-Space
-UN Victory (you don't have very many foreign friends though).
-Diplomation (make more of your foreign friends your vassals for votes ;)
-Nuke/tank war? You're sufficiently advanced to pull this off quickly.
 
How should I deal with culture whore vassal?
You don't let them research culture techs, keep them off Free Speech, and, most importantly, try to prevent the situation, not remedy it.

There was a very nice discussion in MadScientist's Stagnation RPC precisely about that. Most people said that taking vassals while having to win time might lead you to defeat and TMIT sustained and demonstrated that the vassals were actually useful if one was willing to monitor it. TMIT was right. Read that thread and start checking F8 more often.

I once made that mistake myself, but I was able to pull off a win regardless. It's here. My game starts on post 56.
 
Thank you, all. Very much appreciate everyone's time and your valuable input!

I'm extremely impressed with the depth of knowledge some of you folks have about Civ IV. Even though I've played this game *extensively* over the past two years, I still find myself learning new strategies during nearly every session.

I have to wonder, though: How much of my admittedly limited knowledge of BTS will actually be of any use on September 21st? Hopefully, many of my fellow Civvers will join me in learning the ins-&-outs of Sid Meier's Civilization V!

See y'all on the hexes,
Bamm

:D
 
Thank you, all. Very much appreciate everyone's time and your valuable input!

I'm extremely impressed with the depth of knowledge some of you folks have about Civ IV. Even though I've played this game *extensively* over the past two years, I still find myself learning new strategies during nearly every session.

I have to wonder, though: How much of my admittedly limited knowledge of BTS will actually be of any use on September 21st? Hopefully, many of my fellow Civvers will join me in learning the ins-&-outs of Sid Meier's Civilization V!

:D

Aside from broad guidelines, not much of BTS will be applicable to CivV. The same way that III and IV were quite different and applying III strategies to IV could kill you.
 
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