Is this a bug?

[lulu135]

I thought I saw in the 3.13 changelist something about AIs only capitulating to the civ that caused them the most damage.

So, I was waging war against Wang Kon and he was down to his last 2 cities. I didn't really want him as a vassal, so I was preparing to finish him off, when suddenly my good buddy (he was at "friendly") Frederick DOWs on me. Then there's a message "Wang Kon has become a vassal of Frederick".

I was like WTH? So I reloaded the most recent autosave and sure enough Wang Kon was perfect happy to accept vassaldom if I offered it. So why didn't he offer to capitultate to me?

It seems like there's several issues here:
1) Is a civ supposed to offer themselves to another civ who they are not at war with, and thereby automatically bring that other civ into the war?
2) If the answer to #1 is yes, does the AI consider whether they want to DOW before accepting the vassal?

I don't know if it's really a bug, but it seems fishy to me.

 

[Inky]

Not a bug. Wang Kon didn't capitulate, he offered voluntary vassalization. In order for Frederick to accept, he had to also take on the war with you. So he makes his war check, and decides that it is an OK trade to go to war in order to gain a vassal.

What was blocked was a war ally getting capitulation without doing much damage.


I got bit by this. I was trying to take the French capital, just one more city and then I'll ask for capitulation, I thought. The Ethiopians grab the French as a vassal, DOW on me. My first thought was to make peace with the French, because of the way the messages appear -- the DOW comes first, then the message about the French becoming vassals.

While not a bug, it would be nice if the declaration of war messages included a "cause of war" statement. DOW due to accepting vassals or defensive pacts can be confusing, because you can't tell them apart from simply declaring war for no particular reason.

Even the diplomatic we are now at war screens don't say much about causes or reasons, simply that war now exists.