How to utilise Vassal States?

[Zortex]

Hi there,
I'm relatively new to civ4 (I am running BTS), picked it up recently with good memories ranging back from civ2 .

Anyway I'm doing allright, playing on Prince now so I'm not completely useless! Anyway I've aquired vassal states a couple of times in my travels, always done during war time so that they can't just bail on me when they feel like it. I have read all the information on vassals I can find but am still struggling to see the point.

So this is how I understand it to work.
* 50% of score, land mass, population is attributed to me.
* Increased happiness in my cities (how much?).
* Increased maintanence in my cities (not sure on this one - is it a big increase?).
* Vassal mirrors my war, peace, open borders with other civs.

After this I get a bit confused. Apart from the above what is the point of vassals? I tend to just dump alot of techs on them to make them happy with me and get them more powerful. But when I start a war with another civ...my vassal seems to just sit there doing nothing. He won't give me free techs or gold. So what is the actual point? Isn't it more beneficial to just finish the job and clear him out when I had the chance? Or is the whole thing a time saving technique so you can move on to other things?

Finally and probably most importantly, is there any way to control what a civ researches or make him attack a city or something?

In summary, can someone please explain to me how to actual garner some advantage from having a civ. Rather than just making sure he can't attack you and getting some of his score?

Thanks in advance.

 

[tycoonist]

vassals are really useless. i only take them on if i can't easily finish my opponent off or i want to move on quickly. for example, if i take all my opponents cities on the mainland an i don't have any navy to take his island cities, then i would vassalize him. or if i am heading for a conquest/domination victory and i want to move on to the next opponent before my rifles become obsolete, then i might take a beaten opponent as a vassal

 

[frekk]

I tend to just dump alot of techs on them to make them happy with me and get them more powerful. But when I start a war with another civ...my vassal seems to just sit there doing nothing. He won't give me free techs or gold. So what is the actual point? Isn't it more beneficial to just finish the job and clear him out when I had the chance?

No, not really. To ensure some other rival didn't pick up the territory, you'd have to build cities there. That will cost you more maintenance. Especially if you've already taken all the best cities, and all that's left are some not very good ones.

If your vassal isn't helping you in war, you can ask him to attack a specific city ("Let's discuss something else"). But it will take awhile. The AI spends around a dozen turns building an expeditionary force, and then it has to get there. So you might be looking at 20-30 turns before anything really happens. However, even if he isn't actively fighting your enemy, if they share a common border, your enemy puts more units into cities along that border, meaning fewer defenders and smaller stacks for you to deal with.

Also, I think (not sure) that he adds to the war weariness for your opponent.

Under Mercantilism, you can still get trade routes with vassals - meaning that you can get all the benefits of foreign trade and Mercantilism at the same time, with enough vassal cities (especially if they're on other landmasses).

Finally, your enemy is defeated when he becomes your vassal. This leaves you free to return to peace or go invade somewhere else many turns earlier than you would have been able to otherwise, and you don't have to worry about him again. He'll also count as defeated for purposes of a conquest victory, meaning you don't actually have to take every foreign city on the entire map to achieve it.

 

[Zortex]

So as I suspected they are basically a way of getting out of war and saving some time. The tip about getting them to attack a specific city however was very helpful. Thanks for the replies.

 

[Freedom]

It would be nice if you could warn your vassal that you're about to start a war, so they could start preparing (go into WHEOOHRN mode).

 

[Aamto12]

since 3.19, vassals ignore diplo standings when trading - they are treated as Friendly, which means you can bulldoze an advanced techer AI and quickly broker your way to tech parity.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

I noticed something curious about capitulations. I don't know whether it came with the new patch or was already there and I had never noticed.

As far as I can remember, Masters would never capitulate. However, playing Mad Scientist's Sneaky Mao, I came across this situation.

Spoiler :

Wang Kon is Tokugawa's master. He declared on me and I wiped him off the continent. Now, he is willing to capitulate.

Is this the way it's supposed to happen? Thanks everyone!

 

[Izmir Stinger]

Couple of things the other posters did not mention:

You share line of sight with your vassals. This may occasionally have strategic implications (more often on archipelagos, I've found).

You can demand any resource your capitulated vassal has access to as "tribute." Refusal on their part is a declaration of war. They will accede to any but the most outrageous of demands (they seem particularly touchy about giving you access to their only source of uranium - demanding this and a bunch of luxury resources is the only case I've experienced where they refused). This means that if the purpose of the war was to gain access to their resources, you need not take the cities connected to that resource, you may simply demand it as the spoils of victory.

Your vassal's cultural borders will not take any plots away from your city radii, even if their culture overwhelms yours in that plot, as will likely be the case for cities you captured from them. This is in stark contrast to the way the map looks after declaring peace with a rival that does not capitulate, where the culture from their cities may overwhelm that of the ones you conquered from them, causing fewer workable tiles and possibly revolts if the situation is bad enough. Bottom line, if you can only halfway finish conquering a rival, it is much better to have them capitulate than simply declare peace, unless you intend to finish the job soon.

The "50%" of their population is attributed to me" also applies to your voting power in the United Nations.

The ability to direct their research, if their economy survived partially intact, will let you have them research techs that you do not need urgently (like fascism) and trade for it with a tech you were going to give them anyway.

That being said, there are a few disadvantages to weigh. Don't give them every tech you know unless "no tech brokering" is turned on, or they may trade it to rivals you would rather they did not. If tech brokering is allowed, hold back any important military techs like rifling until just before war is declared, and give them some gold to upgrade their troops along with it. Also note that once you start acquiring vassals it will be more difficult to maintain peaceful relationships with other civs. Each vassal you have causes a -1 diplomatic penalty with all other civilizations, which will grow over time. Of course, if you are acquiring vassals in the first place, peace may not be what you had in mind.

EDIT:

since 3.19, vassals ignore diplo standings when trading - they are treated as Friendly, which means you can bulldoze an advanced techer AI and quickly broker your way to tech parity.

I did not know this. Edited above post to correct information that is no longer valid.

It seems 3.19 changed a lot more than was in the release notes. I need to look into it.

 

[Shearer9]

How do you direct their research? Let's talk about something else?

 

[Morthrod]

How do you direct their research? Let's talk about something else?

you go to 'lets dicuss something else' and then to i'd like you to research... or something that looks like that and then you choose what they research.
if youre both at war with someone you go to 'lets discuss something else' and then 'we'd like you to attack...' and it will give you a list of the enemy's cities.

 

[StrategeryBush]

One other reason to take on a vassal is so that they don't capitulate to someone else, with all the negative consequences that that may entail.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

AFAIK 3.19 did not change the cap rules. Masters of vassals would and can capitulate, but it's unlikely because they add their vassals power to their own and get a multiplier on top of that for having the vassal. If all that put together is STILL below half your power AND half the average power of all civs, the master will capitulate. Understandably, this isn't overwhelmingly common...masters are usually so because they're big.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

vassals are really useless.

I disagree. Maybe in Warlords, but in BTS with the advent of corporations, vassals have become pretty useful to me. They basically always accept a decent trade. So I can trade my extra food or resources for metals, demand a coal etc etc to max out Mining Inc.'s output. Also, having a vassal as a buffer zone between your cities and a potential target is always nice.

Further more, capitulating a largish empire when you've obliterated his stacks and taken a few cities is cool. One time I had a vassal that was 40% my land, 45% my population and I had a rather large empire. To keep him below the land requirement, I settled a couple more cities (and was planning on further warring with another civ anyway). A large capitulated civ can provide a LOT of resources and can often research backfiller techs while you make deeper beelines. If they're not willing to trade, a spy can always fix that

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I disagree. Maybe in Warlords, but in BTS with the advent of corporations, vassals have become pretty useful to me. They basically always accept a decent trade. So I can trade my extra food or resources for metals, demand a coal etc etc to max out Mining Inc.'s output. Also, having a vassal as a buffer zone between your cities and a potential target is always nice.

Further more, capitulating a largish empire when you've obliterated his stacks and taken a few cities is cool. One time I had a vassal that was 40% my land, 45% my population and I had a rather large empire. To keep him below the land requirement, I settled a couple more cities (and was planning on further warring with another civ anyway). A large capitulated civ can provide a LOT of resources and can often research backfiller techs while you make deeper beelines. If they're not willing to trade, a spy can always fix that

In 3.19 they're always willing to trade.

Their top contributions, however, remain diplo votes, the 50% land/pop, and if near your target shock absorption.

Obviously on continents/water maps you can just keep vassaling one after another and win conquest/domination with minimal effort...you might never have to use anything but your navy+marines.

 

[AmazonQueen]

In 3.19 they're always willing to trade.

Their top contributions, however, remain diplo votes, the 50% land/pop, and if near your target shock absorption.

Obviously on continents/water maps you can just keep vassaling one after another and win conquest/domination with minimal effort...you might never have to use anything but your navy+marines.

Not if you're going for a cultural victory via corporation. Not only do they always trade but (presumably because relations are better) they sell goods much cheaper than other civs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not if you're going for a cultural victory via corporation. Not only do they always trade but (presumably because relations are better) they sell goods much cheaper than other civs.

If you're going for late culture, you're opening a whole new can of worms here. I'd argue that this is still not the primary use of vassals because:

1. You might win faster just by ignoring the war/settling spree and going culture sooner.
2. If you ARE going to war, the opportunity cost for just taking the land for yourself might not be that high. The conquest cities can build forge/factory/power then wealth an EASILY pay for themselves at any slider value within a few turns, and now you can avoid (cheaply) trading for these resources because you have them...and extras of non-corp resources to trade for more corp resources.

I'd say under the context of culture the situations where you'd invade are already pretty rare, and rarer still would be the times where it's more worthwhile to invade for the vassal rather than the cities...

Even on something like Terra (an ideal colony situation, if there is such a thing) you might get higher returns just keeping the cities...!

 

[frekk]

The conquest cities can build forge/factory/power then wealth an EASILY pay for themselves at any slider value within a few turns

Depends on what sort of cities are left when a capitulation is possible. You can just take the cream of the crop, and leave him with some desert/plains/mountains cities whose only use is to grab resources.

now you can avoid (cheaply) trading for these resources because you have them

Ah ... not necessarily. Don't forget that the captured cities start at culture 0 again, so if the resources are near the borders of a third party, there's a good chance that not only will you not get them for free, you won't get them cheap either. Perhaps you won't get them at all.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Ah ... not necessarily. Don't forget that the captured cities start at culture 0 again, so if the resources are near the borders of a third party, there's a good chance that not only will you not get them for free, you won't get them cheap either. Perhaps you won't get them at all.

Well, with enough troops stationed in border cities, they will never go into revolt and with the 3.17 patch, you are guaranteed a full BFC in a captured vassal city. So just "build" culture for a couple turns and you've got the full BFC, resources and all.

 

[UncleJJ]

I have found a vassal state on another continent very useful as a platform to take out a strong AI on that continent. The vassal usually has strong culture which counts as friendly from the WW point of view and that makes defensive movement good for your troops and the vassal's and difficult for the other AI. It provides an ideal vantage to attack a stronger AI from, with lots of bases for aircraft and the ability to airlift in re-inforcements. Since he has strong culture defensive troops get 40% to 80% defensive bonusses when in his cities and the AI seldom does a good job of reducing defences before throwing in his attackers. On the otherhand if it was your newly captured city it would be unlikely to have more than 20% defence.

In one of my games my newly acquired vassal had 4 decent cities left and I liberated another after giving him Assembly Line. That immediately recovered it's culture and pressed back the borders of the strong AI I had to beat to win the game. My vassal did have good commerce (partly from trade routes with me) but poor production so I supplimented his army by donating archers and catapults, which he duly upgraded next turn to infantry and artillery (I named each gift so I could follow his behaviour with gifted troops). When the time to attack on the main opposition came my vassal had a half decent stack of fairly up to date troops and provided useful support (effectively 20% of the attackers). Of course he was useless at attacking with them... but hey, they were only archers and catapults when I had them and it would cost an arm and leg for me to upgrade them (actually I would have deleted them and built new stuff). He provided a useful distraction while I delivered the coupe-de-grace.

 

[frekk]

Well, with enough troops stationed in border cities, they will never go into revolt and with the 3.17 patch, you are guaranteed a full BFC in a captured vassal city. So just "build" culture for a couple turns and you've got the full BFC, resources and all.

-Lots of troops is expensive, they cost money every round. This is, in effect, a hidden cost to city maintenance.
-You aren't guaranteed a BFC if the city lies near a 3rd party. If you leave the city to its owner and just make him a vassal rather than wiping him out, he'll keep the culture of the city and the current borders with the 3rd party. If you take it, you might never build enough culture to shift the border back over the resource.