My vassal built the United Nations, but that's not the worst of it...

[Jaybe]

Gandhi refused to trade me any SS parts. Gandhi continued to research and build SS parts as fast as he could. He was a runaway train of research.

Since Gandhi was your vassal, you could easily have slowed his research to a crawl by (1) trading resources to him for outrageous sums or (2) demanding gpt from him outright. (1) is actually the better route if you have resources he does not.

Vassal states adds a great variable to the game -- much more realistic with them. Instead of turning vassal states off, learn how to use them.

 

[FranklinNoble]

I think the vassal feature is pretty broken. I don't like how it currently works at all, and I always turn it off.

 

[Meatbuster]

An AI forced into war slows down the space race. Merely declaring war would've stopped Gandhi (he also declares war) even if you didn't have neighbors to kill him off.

 

[RedFury]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Since Gandhi was your vassal, you could easily have slowed his research to a crawl by (1) trading resources to him for outrageous sums or (2) demanding gpt from him outright. (1) is actually the better route if you have resources he does not.

Vassal states adds a great variable to the game -- much more realistic with them. Instead of turning vassal states off, learn how to use them.

I hear you Jaybe. However, in another thread Alexman made a post which indicated that this 'feature' of being able to exploit a vassal for all their gold (via trading or flat out extortion) and ruin their research in the process was bad design and would be fixed in the patch so that vassals acted more like regular AI's in this functionality. That is, their available gold could be traded, but they wouldn't automatically keep dropping their science rate to make more gold available. This will greatly reduce the usefulness of this feature to human players.

So it would appear that the main (intended) benefit of vassals is the occasional monetary extortion, some free resources and the +1 happiness (which actually doesn't work atm.) In turn you get some diplo penalites and increased maintenaince costs. You need to weigh up weather this is worth it or not, but in some cases it still may be. What I really *like* about it is the fact that it is a strategic choice, not a given, that you get a vassal. People here complain about vassals like once you take a couple of their cities you're entitled to own their entire economy. Now there are various game balance reasons, which I won't go into here, why this is just absolute rubbish and would ruin the game, making conquest and wars even more powerful than they already are. Yes, a lot of the times capitulation is a bad deal and is not worth it - I believe that is intended. It's not supposed to be some 'reward' for almost wiping out a civ, otherwise there wouldn't be a choice at all! Even if its only worth it 3 or 4 times out of 10, as long as their are enough factors to take into account when making that decision, its still a good game mechanic for adding strategic depth.

Also, another thing of interest, which I haven't heard anyone else mention, is that your diplo rating with your capitulated vassal is very important for how much you can get out of them, which actually favors being a backstabber and going after civs which you are on good terms with. Sure, you lose a valuable ally for a while, but if you can get them to capitulate and still have a strong + modifier, you'll get more out of them as a vassal if they still have a reasonable sized empire.

RedFury

 

[MiKa523]

The backstory:
...I declared war on Gandhi and gleefully accepted his capitulation, despite the protestations of my girlfriend, who was watching me play...

..My girlfriend yelled, "Nuke him! Nuke him!"..

This made my day..can't stop laughing

 

[trundle]

Declaring war on Gandhi's neighbor is not only the way to slow down his space race, it's also the quickest method to salvage your diplomatic standing with him.

 

[dragomaster]

To speak truth, Gandhi is a good fellow, easy to be friend with if you never attack him. i started isolated once, became terrible backwards i techs. Gandhi came with his caravel, next turn "HE" contacted me and gifted a tech. I realy started to like Gandhi after that. One thing about Gandhi is that he's easlay concuerd. having him as a neighbourgh is nice and often the first target. barely no defence att all, even the barbs defend there citys better, he often have a shrine or two to aswell making him even more goody.

 

[druidravi]

Let him research Nukes and you will see how much of a peace monger he is .

 

[Mercenary82]

Something I did in a similar situation where I had a vassal getting out of hand was first gift about 10 or more of the best pillaging units to a civ thats much closer to my vassal than to my territory, then declare war on that civ and watch him pillage your vassals economy to hell.

 

[Greencardman]

Vassals have to give you resources (but not techs). I often go after a civ if i know they have a resource that I need, but can't get. Anywho, how this works into your game, destroy all your aluminum mines, and then make Ghandi give you his (or trade yours away). Of course, this only works if he has 1. If he has more than 1, you might need to go the spy route, destroying them.

By the way, why didn't you nuke him? Is it impossible to declare war on a vassal? I guess I've never tried.

 

[binhthuy71]

I tried having a vassal in a few games and the results were not good. In one game, I built the UN and my vassal voted for another civ for Sec General! Vassals seem to yield many of the penalties of straightforward conquest without the benefits and the diplo penalty is a pain that lingers. As for resources, why ask for resources when you can simply finish your conquest and take them?

Vassalage is interesting in that it provides a third way to end a war but I feel that it needs some tweaking to make it an attractive option.

At present, a vassal is a competitor who is also a burden.

 

[Greencardman]

There are lots of good uses. One, you can use them as a buffer to protect you from a nasty civ. Two, you can use their cities later in the game to conduct war from. You can airlift a few mech infantry, and a whole load of stealth bombers to those little cities they have all over the place and bomb the heck out of anyone anywhere.

 

[gettingfat]

I don't see any info re. the size of Ghandi's land. I guess it should be big enough if he can win SS victory. If that's the case, you can whip and draft tons of military units till your population drops below the point when the vassal will automatically break off. I don't know if you can even gift him some border cities to accelerate this process. Park all your military units near the border and immediately finish off the old chap once the capitulation is terminated.

Somebody tell me if this hypothetical strategy may work or not.

 

[SwordofStriker]

I don't see any info re. the size of Ghandi's land. I guess it should be big enough if he can win SS victory. If that's the case, you can whip and draft tons of military units till your population drops below the point when the vassal will automatically break off. I don't know if you can even gift him some border cities to accelerate this process. Park all your military units near the border and immediately finish off the old chap once the capitulation is terminated.

Somebody tell me if this hypothetical strategy may work or not.

I don't think this will work. There are three conditions you have to meet to keep your vassals.

1) Their land can't exceed 50% of your own.
2) Their population can't exceed 50% of your own.
3) Their land can't drop below 50% of whatever it was when you took them on as a vassal.

Here's the thing though. If they capitulated they won't stop being your vassal. I have had nations agree to vassalage with quite a few cities left and they started off with more then 50% of my population or land, yet they remained vassals. I don't think a capitulated vassal can leave you (although I have certainly wished they would sometimes).

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but in my own experience the only vassals who come and go are the ones who voluntarily become vassals, not the ones who capitulated. If anyone has seen AI behavior contradictory to this, I'd sure like to know.

 

[bardolph]

Ever wondered what happens when your vassal launches the SS? You lose.

I HATE GANDHI. AND I HATE VASSALS.

Next time, I'm checking "no vassal states", or I'm going to nuke Gandhi so bad, he'll be begging me to raze his cities.

Well, that was an entertaining rant.

I hate to say it, but you deserved to lose that game. You made a huge strategic blunder, and that was having a superior position and going for a CULTURAL victory.

You must have had 2x the population and 2x the land that Ghandi had (otherwise he could have declared independence), and you allowed him to out-tech you, by turning your tech slider off. Sorry, but that was foolish.

Even then, you could easily have ruined Ghandi by demanding all of his resources, one by one, until you either wrecked his economy (and his chances of victory) or until he declares war, at which time you nuke him to the stone age.

It was a winnable game.

 

[Mutineer]

Actially that was idea behind vassal. Vassal is still independed state which CAN and SHOULD be able to win, theoretically.

 

[Greencardman]

Vassals who have capitulated can declare independence when they reach the thresholds. I happens a lot in my OCC (one city challenge) games, since I practically destroy them, but of course I only have one city, so they eventually outgrow me. I helps keep them in line though

 

[aronnax]

The only real problem I see is production and research speedfrom Ghandi. If he capitulated he must of had very few cities (most AI personalities will capitulatewith only 1-2 cities left, although Ghandi's personality nay capitulate earlier.)

Not really, i played as Memmed II on prince and got monte to be my vassal without even taking one city. I did repel his attack on my empire and take his vassal from him.

 

[sabo]

I guess I don't get it, can't you tell Ghandi to give you the resources needed to build SS parts? Then he can't build them, and if he refuses you're automatically at war with him.

 

[ajw2255]

What i dont understand is, th eonly way a vassal can leave you after capitulation id if he refuses a demand from you, in which case you go to war again.

But why are some techs/resources redded out so cant be ordered off him.

Seems stupid to me