Napolean crushed me using the leftovers of my wars.

[Bleser]

Well, I'm either taking a long time to adjust to Civ IV playing style or Monarch is just plain harder in Civ IV versus Civ III.

In a recent game I did my best to fight the "expansion urge" (see my other post here) that I'm so used to with Civ III - that is, attack attack attack until you're the biggest empire in the world and then dominate the rest in any way you can. Civ IV is different. Big = expensive.

So I merely weakened my immediate neighbors with a few wars, razing cities and capturing one or two from both. Both were in turn reduced to three or four cities. Within a few hundred years after my wars ended, they both became Vassal states of Napolean to my north... a large empire who hates me. And then he attacked... and since both of my smaller neighbors were Vassals, they attacked too. Three on one is not fun! I was fighting a two-front war and have to admit I was defeated within ten turns. Both of my outlaying armies held up for a bit but were eventually crushed and then the soft-inner core of my empire was easily destroyed.

So should I have made these smaller guys my Vassal states? Have any general "rule of thumb" scenarios become known about Vassal States? I need to read more about them... just wasn't sure if anyone had a similar fate because of them.

 

[scherbchen]

i totally understand where you are coming from. i had the same thing happen to me over and over again. not only that but enemies in a current war signing a vassal agreement not with me but with another civ on the same continent who in turn of course declared war on me even though we had been best pals so far. and let´s not forget those fun times where other civs declare war on your vassal and hence on you as well.

i really like the warlords expansion but i dislike everything about the vassal system (they won´t even give you techs sometimes! nor do they count towards domination wins).

so i started every game with the vassal option turned off (custom game) and never looked back since.

 

[Killroyan]

Well in a realistic perspective, this souds logical. They got beaten by a superior force so they sought out an allie that could withstand that enemy. That allie became Napoleon. It sucked that both became a vassal and they attacked you all at once. Hard to fight against. 2 things you can do:
1. As Schergchen said turn of vassal system
2. Annihilate the civ completely. Raze every city of them so they can't become vassals.

 

[voek]

Never leave weakenend civs around. Either destroy them in (2 or 3 steps capturing and/or razing) or vazal them. But before you go to war look at the relationships between the AI's. If they are on good terms with a powerfull AI, then you can bet they will ask for his protection, so be prepared. If they aint got powerfull friends, no one is gona help them... hehe

 

[Winston]

Civ 4 monarch does seem tougher than Civ 3 monarch - I've played monarch on 4 twice now and on both occasions lost due to technologically advanced civs invading in the early industrial period (combustion seems to be a green light tech for the AI to invade - I guess they want to monopolise the oil) - can keep up with most rivals but on both occasions one civ seems to just run away from the others and gets a massive tech advantage - got no idea how they pull it off. I don't know what you can do in this version to get a tech lead in monarch but it seems absolutely crucial to keep parity in military tech but then other areas lag behind.
I know what you mean about vassals - I beat up Kublai Khan and later on he becomes the vassal of the celts & Persians (perm alliance) - they became a triple entente that hated my guts - its around this time that things went badly wrong for me.

 

[gdgrimm]

Diplomacy seems to be much more important in Civ4 compared to other Civs.

I'm starting to play with the mind set of 'Always be able to bring more friends to the party than your enemy'.

So when you start sensing a block of Civs forming against you, you need to start forming a block of your own (though they need not be vassals). In your situation, as soon as Nappy picked up a vassal, you'd work the diplomacy game to ensure that some other Civ liked you, but hated Nappy. That way, if/when Nappy goes to war with you, you can immediately bring your ally into the war.

Of course, Nappy and friends might still primarily focus on you, and things could be really tough. But your ally (hopefully) will be at least harassing them some, and might keep the heat off you enough to keep you in the game.

 

[aelf]

I think Napoleon became a monster in Warlords. I liked Aggressive/Industrious, but after trying him out in Warlords, I found that Charismatic/Organized is even better. I haven't seen how the AI plays him now (it was quite good in vanilla), but I suspect he's one of the better performing leaders, and I wouldn't wonder that he was so strong in your game even on his own.

 

[Bleser]

Thanks for the insight everyone.

Diplomacy does seem to be key... I have yet to be able to get ANY civ to join a war with me... but I always refuse tribute and all that garbage, so that is probably part of my problem. I then become a state religion different from others which only elevates the situation. In my next game I will work on these areas.

If a civ is friendly with me, sometimes they say "We would have nothing to gain." How do you overcome this and get them to fight anyway? Or is it even possible?

This is my first game with Napolean and he was behind in tech for the majority of the game but then started to gain power & territory after beating up on the same guy (Mehmed II) that I initially beat up on (whom he later vassalized). The problem only esclated as he vassalized Catherine of Russia (after I picked her to pieces) and then it just felt like "I got what was coming to me."

 

[Quagga]

1. As Schergchen said turn of vassal system
2. Annihilate the civ completely. Raze every city of them so they can't become vassals.

1 works better than 2.

The problem with 2 is that the civ can vassal to somebody else whilst you're in the process of destroying him. Suddenly you find yourself at peace with the guy you were obliterating because he has become a vassal of somebody who is friendly with you. Maybe the two friendly parties have to both be at war with the soon-to-be-destroyed-or-vassal civ, but it has happened to me too many times.

 

[asabahi]

I think the best thing to do is to either destroy a civ or accept capitualation if there are a few cities that you just do not want (in the pole are or tundra) and the culture of the new capital of the civ will not interefer or threaten any of your resources or cities. But as soon as the AI starts to ask for captualitaion he is probably asking the other civs for help also. You probably should have attacked Nappy when you were stronger and he was weaker and have a war on your terms not his.

 

[wioneo]

Recently, I've noticed that if I don't have a huge tech lead, then someone else does. I also noticed that whenever I get the Great Library, I don't see any run-away AI. Is there an obvious connection between the two? How much difference can six beakers make...

On a completely unrelated note, I don't think that vassal culture should be able to overtake mine. I was nice enough to let them live, and then they go and steal my bananas!

 

[scherbchen]

I was nice enough to let them live, and then they go and steal my bananas!

ok, that made my morning

 

[Gen.Rommel]

The problem with 2 is that the civ can vassal to somebody else whilst you're in the process of destroying him. Suddenly you find yourself at peace with the guy you were obliterating because he has become a vassal of somebody who is friendly with you. Maybe the two friendly parties have to both be at war with the soon-to-be-destroyed-or-vassal civ, but it has happened to me too many times.

I agree with this, it has happened to me quite a few times so far, im almost done with an enemy, and on the verge of wiping him/her out, then all of a sudden, theyre vassals of another country, and im automatically at war with the new civ. Never-ending war...

 

[pigswill]

Recently, I've noticed that if I don't have a huge tech lead, then someone else does. I also noticed that whenever I get the Great Library, I don't see any run-away AI. Is there an obvious connection between the two? How much difference can six beakers make...

Its not the 6 beakers , its the additional Great Scientists.

 

[Bleser]

I guess the only reason why I don't want to turn-off vassal states is that it somewhat reflects real-life. I don't want to get in some huge debate here, but if you think about it, Kuwait became a vassal state of the US after Iraq invaded back in 1991. Iraq would have had no problem with Kuwait, but when Kuwait seeked the protection of other countries like the US, then Iraq had a real problem on its hands.

Agree/disagree?

 

[Winston]

@ wioneo - I wnet into the world builder for the two games I lost to see it the runaway civs had the great library and sure enough they did - I'm definitely making a beeline for the great library in my next game and I'm going to be using GPs to lightbulb the techs more often (normally use specialists) - if its the reason the civs get the tech lead then I think its the best wonder in the game.

@ Bleser - I think there's lots of cases throughout history of vassalage - I like the idea of vassalage & perm alliances because they make the diplomacy side of the game alot more interesting

 

[wioneo]

So I was right about the Library... now that I've started using it, I hate the scientific method even more, and not just because I almost failed biology. Why do they have to take away monasteries! That, is the reason that I think Taoism and Islam never spread. Christianity is given a reasonable chance.

 

[Reprisal]

Wouldn't Taoism and Islam tend to be founded by use of Great Prophets? I know that I've often missed out on the early religions when I'm playing the Mongols (or whatever) and used my Great Prophet to found Islam on several occasions. I know it's easier to just take a holy city, but it always seems "better" to found at least one yourself -- if only to deny it to others.

 

[Antilogic]

If you don't like vassals, there's an option to turn them off. However, keeping them on can give you an advantage. People have talked here about some AI they were pounding ran for another to help them. I've done the reverse--I'm the guy everybody loves, and when Monty makes his rounds, I provide some much needed assistance.

And as for monasteries becoming obsolete at the scientific method...well, it makes sense, doesn't it? Run Organized Religion if you want those religions to spread by your missionaries.

And half of your vassals' land and population count for your domination win. That's in the Civilopedia, methinks, if you don't believe me.

On one game, I fought a massive war against Shaka and the Zulu Empire as Carthage. However, not a single battle took place on either of our country's soils--it was a massive conflict where I came to the rescue of Korea and recaptured about 4 of his cities and liberated them. These kinds of proxy wars can be fun, especially when it's your "religious alliance" against another.

However, to play the diplomacy game well, I would consider staying pagan (I do in over half of my games). It gives you a lot of awesome trading opportunities that state religion negates half the time...