How to utilise Vassal States?

[blitzkrieg1980]

I've never had a problem. In fact, in my last game as Gandhi, I took the AI capital and took capitulated peace with him (Saladin). It was the Hindu holy city and had a ton of wonders. Between the Shrine income and the wonders I was happy, then I added in about 10 fully matured towns. It was more than worth it to station the troops necessary and take a fairly strong capitulate. I was able to swiftly move on to intercontinental invasions. The quicker I can take a capitulate, the better. The faster I can move onto another target.

 

[Rantamplanzzz]

The only real use of vassals i have found is as walls, i mean, i ussually leave the last city of the civilization im conquering for having it as walls to other civilizations, that way you wont build diplo penalities for sharing borders and in case they delare war on you theyll shuddently will find their reinforcement line cutted becouse they have to get across your vassal land.

 

[Meatbuster]

In that case they may just roll over the vassal on the way to attacking the player. Better than losing one of your own cities to a sneak attack of course.

 

[mirthadir]

Vassals retain their AI bonuses; it is quite possible to have your vassal pump so many units that they contribute more to the cap decision of your enemy than you do. Secondly, they still get the insta-upgrade dynamic. This can be abused in many ways, giving them your junk as UJJ suggests is very cost effective at sucking up other AI's units and bouncing up your power rating.

If you are very close to the edge, you can go a long way by gifting your vassal chariots (buildable out to Adv Flight if you lack HBR) and letting them insta-upgrade to knights, curis, cav or even choppers. Lacking oil or U also allows you to build caravels for insta upgrades if you let your vassal have those resources.

Another nice shot is that you don't blamed (entirely) for the actions of your vassals. A one city backward vassal can be quite handy if need someone to drop a few ICBMs onto an enemy, get killed, and then leave you with an irradiated enemy and no diplo penalties from the nukes.

 

[sjudubbel]

Good advice in this thread.
How about if you are about to conquer a civ located on a different continent.
How about instead of vassilizing him, you destroy his civilization, and then grant independence to these cities on the new continent through a peaceful vassalization.
Would that be stupid or could it be beneficial?

 

[UncleJJ]

Good advice in this thread.
How about if you are about to conquer a civ located on a different continent.
How about instead of vassilizing him, you destroy his civilization, and then grant independence to these cities on the new continent through a peaceful vassalization.
Would that be stupid or could it be beneficial?

The colony would be very friendly towards you (more so than most vassals) but would start with very low culture (unlike a vassal still with his own cities), it would get all your technologies and receive 2 draft troops in each city. So if its cities are in sheltered part of the continent and not under any cultural pressure from neighbours then it could work and be useful, better than an unwilling vassal. If it had 7 cities and you have Assembly line then it would start with an army of 14 infantry which would add to the garrison troops you had there. Just like with a vassal you could donate obsolete troops to build up the army as it will upgrade them with the AI bonusses.

The main problem with the low culture of a new colony is the lack of defensive bonus for troops defending a city. In the late game the cultural defence of many cities is 60% or even 80% as a vassal but would struggle to get higher than 20% for a colony. Unless, that is, you also used a corporation that rapidly boosts culture, like Sushi.

 

[Van Hohenheim]

Haven't tested it on 3.19 but on 3.17...

1. Sometimes AI will surrender after loosing 2-3 good cities. Sure, not always but if that happens I always take this opportunity to move my SOD to another target. I remember taking Standard/Pangea map with a stack of Catapults/Khessliks/Elephants before 1400AD without any special micro management.

2. AI costs for units upgrades are much smaller then for human player. Shaka, Monthy or Alex love to have big number of units, make them your vassals, grant them some military techs and they will solve problems like Zara or Joao in no time.

Good advice in this thread.
How about if you are about to conquer a civ located on a different continent.
How about instead of vassilizing him, you destroy his civilization, and then grant independence to these cities on the new continent through a peaceful vassalization.
Would that be stupid or could it be beneficial?

If you have military tech advantage (i.e. Riffling from fast Liberalism) there is no point. Make them capitulate and move your units to another possible target. Repeat and go for domination victory as fast as possible.