New Version - July 27th (7-27)

[Txurce]

It has always been possible.

G

Okay, it's always been possible -- but it's a frequent factor now. I'm doubting the overall value to game play.

 

[CrazyG]

I have a hard time understanding the voluntary vassal thing as well. A vassal loses 20% of its and to its master, right? I cannot see a civ which is already behind, ever catching up with that penalty in play. I know that part of the logic is that they feel threatened, but long term your situation won't improve when you give up that many resources

 

[Dawnpromise]

I have a hard time understanding the voluntary vassal thing as well. A vassal loses 20% of its and to its master, right? I cannot see a civ which is already behind, ever catching up with that penalty in play. I know that part of the logic is that they feel threatened, but long term your situation won't improve when you give up that many resources

Actually I thought the master GAINS 20% of vassal output and the vassal gets what is effectively defensive pact plus.

 

[Gazebo]

I have a hard time understanding the voluntary vassal thing as well. A vassal loses 20% of its and to its master, right? I cannot see a civ which is already behind, ever catching up with that penalty in play. I know that part of the logic is that they feel threatened, but long term your situation won't improve when you give up that many resources

The vassal doesn't actually lose anything except gold IIRC.

G

 

[ashendashin]

Yeah the only negative things are taxes and pushing the master further up. Otherwise Iron Fist would be a terrible policy.

 

[Txurce]

The vassal doesn't actually lose anything except gold IIRC.

G

It effectively loses ground to the master. I've been tracking before-and-afters on this in my games, and the vassal never pullsa gead of the master. What it does seem to do with surprising regularity is DoW the master immediately upon liberation. And this, as you might imagine, generally does not turn out well... especially against masters with DPs.

It would seem to me that raising the bar for peacetime vassalage to occur would generally result in more competitive games.

 

[ashendashin]

It would seem to me that raising the bar for peacetime vassalage to occur would generally result in more competitive games.

I've only seen three voluntary vassals in all of VP. One was to an overpowered me back in the first months I played VP, which was pretty awesome since I didn't have to cripple them for once. The other two were in the middle of a war and already near annihilation.
Considering that most wars are obvious on who's going to get crippled and forced to capitulate, I'm pretty sure that was off. Tweaking in logic would make more sense than going back to that, I think.

 

[Moi Magnus]

What it does seem to do with surprising regularity is DoW the master immediately upon liberation. And this, as you might imagine, generally does not turn out well... especially against masters with DPs.

Automatic : if you ask for liberation, then your master has 2 choice :
1) accept peacefully
2) force you to declare war to him

 

[HalfEmptyMug]

It effectively loses ground to the master. I've been tracking before-and-afters on this in my games, and the vassal never [pulls ahead] of the master. What it does seem to do with surprising regularity is DoW the master immediately upon liberation. And this, as you might imagine, generally does not turn out well... especially against masters with DPs.

When you say "the vassal never pulls ahead of the master" do you mean strictly in demographics or in terms of victory conditions?

I imagine being a vassal could be a viable strategy if you're going for a cultural or scientific victory (diplomatic too in some cases, but it would be more difficult). Say you willingly become the vassal to the warmonger of the land: although you'd give your master a significant buff, it shouldn't be enough to change their grand strategy and you'd have a permanent defensive pact that they can't (or have a low chance of?) backstabbing you over. This would allow you to specialize further without having to look over your shoulder, where technically you could be behind demographically, but still stay on track to victory. I haven't payed too close attention to the peaceful vassals in my games, but the ones I remember tend to be diplomatic (Germany and Austria) where I assume the plan is to focus on alliances and let their master focus on defense, declaring independence when they're sure they can take over the World Congress. If this does result in war then it can work out, but I also imagine it usually turns out like @Txurce described.

Edit: Misunderstood what @Moi Magnus meant.

 

[Txurce]

They're very frequent with the current version: I had two in my last game, and one or two in every game in recent memory.

When you say "the vassal never pulls ahead of the master" do you mean strictly in demographics or in terms of victory conditions?

I mean that not only do they not win the game, they also don't pull ahead of their master in score. But I agree with you that there could be a viable strategy behind the decision, and that winning a agame is hard enough that their total failure so far in my games is an incompete sampling. My basic point is that, regardless of the strategy's effectiveness, it tends to create more of a gap between the leaders/masters and the other civs. I focus on it because runaways are more frequent in continents game, and I'm always looking for ways to minimize that. But I don't think this is a crushing problem, or anything.