Oh NO! Not another vassal thread!

[RedFury]

yes ... sorry. but, please bear with me, this is not a whingy, negative thread about how vassals suck because i beat Civ X into submission and now they won't give me everything under the sun. It's more what I hope will be a sensible ideas thread on the refinement of vassals.

I will start by saying that I quite like the vassal system. Yes, it has issues, but i can see what the designers were trying to achieve. The first thing people need to understand clearly is that the vassal system was put into the game as a strategic choice, not a conquest reward (although it can help speed up certain warring related victories.) Just like everything else in the game, there are things to consider when accepting a vassal - you need to weigh up what you lose by acceptin the vassal vs what you gain. Much of the time it won't be worth it, and you should just reject and keep conquering them, but sometimes it is (or should be) worth it.

One thing I won't mention here is the bugs, particularly to do with AI not considering war properly in vassal decisions, and also vassal happiness not working, etc. Everyone is aware of these, they've been posted about a million times and firaxis has stated on more than one occasion that they will be fixed in the patch. enuf said. Instead I'd like to focus on the finer points a bit.

Ok, lets get one thing straight. Game balance is the most important thing here - more important than realism, more important than historical accuracy, last time I looked this is still a game. I don't understand why people expect a capitulated vassal to just hand over everything, this would completely break game balance. Let me see, hmm, you're offering capitulation. Ok, I can accept your offer, and get everything in your empire NOW, including all your techs which I don't have, or I could take the rest of your empire by force which involves:

- Investing more hammers in building more miliitary to conquer the last few cities.
- Suffering through the 6-10 turns of anarchy until you can use the city.
- rebuild all of the important buildings which were destroyed and are providing benefit to the city/empire.
- regrow the population as many citizens may have been lost due to unhappiness/whipping to get buildings back.
- NOT get any techs which you have and I don't.

Hmm, not really much of a choice if you ask me, although I will concede that when you own the city yourself you can usually get a heck of a lot more out of it than the AI. But seriously peoples, of course accepting vassalage is not going to be as good as having the cities yourself, it needs to be that way for balance. Think about it this way, with the extra resources (and turns, lets not forget!) you were going to spend with killing off Civ X, you're now onto Civ Y which means your empire is still getting larger and you're getting fringe benfits from Civ X whilst you go! It's really not as bad as many people make it sound.

However, having said that, I still think that the percentage of time when accepting a vassal is genuinely useful could perhaps be a little higher. Please note in saying this I am disregarding the old 'milk all their gold' scheme which many people say is the main advantage of a vassal currently - because firaxis have said it was bad design and will be fixed in the patch, to what extent I don't know. So, it would appear that vassals are a strategic choice and that you can get the most out of them when your relations with them are still good enuf to get some serious trading/gifting from them. To me this brings up some interesting questions which I would be really interested to hear people 's thoughts on. I'm phrasing them as questions because I haven't made my mind up on them yet and would like some other points of view on the matter.

1) It seems the best target for vassals are other civs that you are on good terms with because you can declare an unexpected war, quickly strike into the heart of their cities, accept vassalage and they will still be on good enuf terms with you to be useful. OTOH, a bitter war enemy who hates your guts is unlikely to be cooperative ever, and makes a poor vassal. This strikes me as interesting because it appears to promote backstabbing your allies. thoughts anyone ?

2) Should it be easier to bring vassals back to decent terms (if you're really trying to) after a capitulation? Currently it just seems to be almost impossible in many cases, especially since those negatives just hang around for so damn long? Suggestions? Maybe negatives should dissappear at twice the rate for vassals? There is also the issue of vassals refusing to talk due to previously cancelled deals, but I believe this is going to be fixed in the patch.

3) One of the big reaons I reject vassals is culture. If you're halfway through an invasion of a really big civ, you can have 4-5 of your newly conquered cities almost unworkable because of pressing culture from the cities you haven't attacked yet. This makes vassalage a lot less desirable here. Also, I am unsure of whether the 'we yearn to join our motherland' unhappiness is reduced at all for vassals? Suggestions? Maybe a masters 'fat cross' is always protected from its vassals culture (the culture is still there, but ignored if it is higher than the master's. That way if the city gets destroyed then the vassals culture will 'pop in'.) Also, maybe there should be a 50% reduction in 'yearn to join motherland' unhappiness with vassals.

4) The AI giving reasons for not trading with you other than disliking you. For example, I don't think a vassal of yours should say 'we aren't ready to trade this technology just yet' or 'we fear you are becoming too advanced' etc. One of the things you can do is direct a vassals research, now the only possible advantage I can think of for this is multiple paths of research. So chances are you are getting the vassal to research something which NOBODY has, which is nice. But the whole thing becomes quite pointless if they won't give it to you because the standard 'we're the only one who knows it so we won't trade it' rule is still in force. thoughts ?

Anyways, thats quite enough for one post I think! Again I'll reiterate that I do like that the current vassal system aims to give the player an interesting, strategic choice - as opposed to a conquest 'reward' which just tips warring even more in the overpowered direction. Once the bugs are fixed it will be a reasonably good system, however there is always room for some refinement

Cheers,
RedFury

 

[AnsarWarrior]

Well said RedFury, for me I think the vassal system on the game is totally logical except some minor details you mentioned such as ex-culture and not having clear reasons for trade refusal and yeah, its a great strategic option in some cases.

 

[zyphyr]

I mostly like the vassal system (other than the well known to-be-fixed bugs). That being said, it definitely needs some improvement.

1)Backstabing to get good vassals - Yup, that is a potential problem, and the only way I can think of at the moment to deal with it is to have the "You started a war with us" diplo penalty scale acording to what your standing was with them prior to the attack - Attacking a close friend with a +10 should give a much bigger penalty than attacking a -6 who was probably going to jump you soon anyway.

2)Arguements on this could be made in either direction based on real world situations.
In favor : US occupation of Japan at the end of WWII. There was some serious hating going on there from the war, but that faded quickly due to the relatively positive treatment.
In opposition : See the former Warsaw Pact.
Perhaps instead of faster fading of negatives, make a bonus to newly aquired positives. Perhaps a "Good Vassal Treatment" bonus that increases by 50% of any bonus increase that occurs during the vassalage, and slowly fades if the vassalage ends for whatever reason.
Treat them poorly, and they will give grudging support only. Treat them well, and they will support you wholeheartedly.

3)There definitely needs to be some sort of cultural protection to those captured cities in this situation. Maybe not protecting the whole fat cross, but the immediately adjacent tiles at least.

4)IMO, the only criterion for a vassal deciding to trade a tech with its master should be "is the offer a fair value". Tech exclusivity, master tech lead, and attitude should be ignored. Or, refusal should be grounds to terminate the relationship and resume the conquest of the vassal.

 

[Chrono285]

I think a problem with vassals is how very permanent they are. There should be a way to eventually voluntarily cancel the vassal deal, maybe after a set time of 20-30 turns. Maybe it could catapult you into a 10 turn peace treaty, so you couldn't just bring the hammer down on your former vassal.

 

[JimT]

Just a couple of thoughts.

The Vassal status does seem to reward good treatment,as mentioned they wont give techs for free if they dislike you, and why should they.

The idea of deciding tech research means you can pick their choice, something you want but is not that valuable and then use it to supplement your own research. Yes they can refuse to trade it but they probably won't unless it is extremely valuable.

Back stabbing your friends and imposing vassal status seems to fit with precendents or so I thought until I realised I couldn't name one . Still would maintain, despite my ignorance, that it rings true. Imagine the following

An erstwhile ally reacts poorly to trade between its longtime friend and an enemy. It quickly invades and crowns a puppet from the royal family, granting vassal status. The population seem more likely to be obliging then the Scottish reaction to the demands of 'the old enemy' under Edward II.

I would suggest that there should be a greater reward for vassals then there is at present but the idea seems to have been developed with the intention of giving further strategic choices. It seems people want "this war is getting boring and its not worth getting his capital so i want him to give me everything for free".

My one proviso would be why can't you declare war on your vassal, that seems to have no basis in history.

Hope your not too bored

 

[wioneo]

I completely and totally agree with everything that you said. At present, their are only trhee reasons to accept vassals:
A - You are losing a lot of money and need to extort it from someone
B - You want a Domination/Conquest victory faster.
C - You are just sadistic and want to watch them SUFFER!!!

 

[douglas_21]

I get A, B, and C a lot in my war games.

 

[eric_]

I think a problem with vassals is how very permanent they are. There should be a way to eventually voluntarily cancel the vassal deal, maybe after a set time of 20-30 turns. Maybe it could catapult you into a 10 turn peace treaty, so you couldn't just bring the hammer down on your former vassal.

I agree 100%. I think the master should be able to cut the vassal loose at some point.

B - You want a Domination/Conquest victory faster.

Domination, yes, conquest, NO! It is literally impossible to win a conquest victory with a vassal who is significantly weaker than you and is therefore willing to give you anything you want to avoid war (or just doesn't have anything to offer in the first place). I *really* wanted a conquest victory in my last game and that was how I found out that it is impossible to cut loose a seriously weak vassal.

[EDIT]I do have to say, though, that I think they were right to err on the side of caution in this regard. It's easy to see how vassalage could have seriously overpowered an already powerful player. I just think they could trim back this one drag a little bit...[/EDIT]

 

[Upstart1]

The vassal concept has been well discussed and I agree with almost all of the points raised. It is a wild card in the game that in my opinion enhances and detracts.

I am fairly new to Civ IV, so this question might be answered somewhere else, but it is related in a way to the vassal question. Why, when you are at war with someone, do you have to capture all of their cities? It seems to me that there could be a formula for victory over a country like a percent of destroyed army, resources, cities captured, etc. that would signal victory and instead of becoming a vassal it simply becomes a part of your territory. Maybe for a period of time it is not as productive, etc., but in the long run it is your territory and eventually becomes a productive part of your society.

The only problem I have with having to conquer every city is the length of game time it takes. I don't think every war should be a hundred year war. Like I said, I'm new so maybe this is a dead point.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

I'm not a master in world politics so correct me if I'm wrong but aren't vassal states kind of obsolete in the modern world, and I'd imagine frowned upon by the UN, so why not(this has probably been suggested before) be able to enforce the breakup of Master-Vassal relationships with the United Nations?

 

[Powerslave]

Ehh, I'd say the feature is essentially useless. I don't see what was so broken about capitulation in SMAC. Oh well; just goes to show what a good game designer can do with the same ideas that an average game designer has.

 

[JimT]

I'm not a master in world politics so correct me if I'm wrong but aren't vassal states kind of obsolete in the modern world, and I'd imagine frowned upon by the UN, so why not(this has probably been suggested before) be able to enforce the breakup of Master-Vassal relationships with the United Nations?

Depends in what sense,

The EU countries largely dictates trading terms to its Eastern Europe neighbours and the US could be said to do similar with Mexico.

Russia has an effective vassal of the break away republic in Georgia (I think it is called South Ossetia.

Plus Civ is partly about adapting history just because there aren't major vassals since the collapse of the Warsaw pact doesn't mean that there shouldn't be in the game.

 

[eric_]

I'm not a master in world politics so correct me if I'm wrong but aren't vassal states kind of obsolete in the modern world, and I'd imagine frowned upon by the UN

You might say that Lebanon was Syria's vassal until the "cedar" revolution.

 

[majk-iii]

There should definitely be some sort of "attitude-discount" as long as you treat your vassals decently, also you shouldn't get the -1 ("...our enemies being...") with the all of the rest of your "allies" if they and your vassals are on friendy terms.

If i'd have any hope of patching up the relationship with a buffer-state, at least somewhat, i'd be much more willing to bolster them by giving them tech's, money, units... and so on.

As it is now; i mostly only accept capitulation when they're as good as done for... just to get some use for their last units, or even to let my enemies do the job of mopping them up while i'm watching. (Waiting to counter, without using my own units as bait.) ...that gets kinda boring after a while.

By the way; i often play with the "require complete kill"(?)-button checked.
It felt kinda cool the first time a city-less civ with a pretty hefty stack surrendered to me... so that i could speak to their "general" about where to go next.
As far as i know, it's only a vassals cities, not units, that costs you anything... right? Well, thats a couple of free ai-led units right there. Unupgradable, but still... Either they die or you give them a little horsehockey-city and some cash. (EDIT; Later on , that is.)

 

[eric_]

It felt kinda cool the first time a city-less civ with a pretty hefty stack surrendered to me... so that i could speak to their "general" about where to go next.

They surrender, as in you aquire the stack?

 

[majk-iii]

No... (well, sort of) the ai becomes a free/minor vassal (having only units, no cities) and i'll ask him to attack this or that city with the rest of his units. Then i'll sit back and watch him/her weaken the defences before moving in myself.

 

[Crighton]

My $.02,

I like the vassal system and yes I think it could be improved, I'd really like to see the math on it (if vassal has x cities what is the maintenance burden in my empire going to be), & I'd like to be able to cut them loose at some point.

I am however dismayed at the almost constant guiltmongering I find popping up in this forum, "aawww I feel bad about stabbing my ally in the back" blah blah blah. Allies make the best targets, typically they share the same religion, tend to be geographically close, and best of all aren't usually preppared for your invasions. And depending on the vassal situation may make for good little workdogs after capitualation, they can even lower their science spending to trade scads of $$$ to you in exchange for resources (particularly happiness resources since they'll probably be in desperate need to appease their people after losing a war).

but back to my main point, there are many paths to victory but there can be only one winner, and if it's not you then . . . anyway as long as the eventual outcome benefits you're empire you should feel NO remorse about expanding your sphere of influence by whatever means.

~Crighton

 

[phr0ze]

You should be able to demand that a vassal (through capitulation) gives you a City, TEch, or what ever. If they don't then war.

You should be able to take up to 30% of the vassalage's income via a slider. This would directly feed into your income which can be translated to science or culture.

You should not be able to gain gold from a vassalage in any other way to simply keep things balanced.

The way you treat your vassals should then reflect the likelyhood the vassal will drop the agreement once time is up or possibly go to war instead of giving into demands. I also think this should get out to other Civs and affect the likelyhood of their willingness to become a vassal state.

Finally if there should always be a risk of revolt/terrorism. The worse you treat them, the more likely it'll happen. This can be something as simple as tile being pillaged, a population drop in a city, or a unit becoming damaged or killed. I think this should be a risk if you capture cities as well, not just vassal states.

 

[eric_]

You should be able to take up to 30% of the vassalage's income via a slider. This would directly feed into your income which can be translated to science or culture.

Wouldn't that totally undermine the city maintenance cost increase that comes with having a vassal?

The way you treat your vassals should then reflect the likelyhood the vassal will drop the agreement once time is up or possibly go to war instead of giving into demands. I also think this should get out to other Civs and affect the likelyhood of their willingness to become a vassal state.

Good idea.

Finally if there should always be a risk of revolt/terrorism. The worse you treat them, the more likely it'll happen. This can be something as simple as tile being pillaged, a population drop in a city, or a unit becoming damaged or killed. I think this should be a risk if you capture cities as well, not just vassal states.

REALLY good idea. I like this one a lot. Maybe there could even be a chance that one of those "partisans" would pop out (like the ones that used to appear in Civ II when you captured a city) for a certain number of turns after the city rebellion is calmed. The likelyhood of this happening would depend on the amount of culture a city was producing before it was attacked.

Also, I have seen it implied that a master can "direct" what the vassal researches. Is that right?

 

[WuphonsReach]

Vassals are an interesting game mechanic. They definitely make it easier to domino your way towards a domination victory.

They make great buffers. Good border security (I don't have to chase down every marauding unit, let the vassal AI chase those down). It's basically an independent army that I don't have to babysit but who can still put pressure on the next civilization that I'm trying to bring to heel.

Usually, once I take my first vassal, my goal is to continously conquer all of my neighbors, one after the other with minor breaks for rest and refitting. So at that point in the game, the diplomatic war is pretty much over and I'm not going to stop until I've dominated the world.

As for the newly captured cities getting crushed by the vassal's culture... that can be mitigated a lot by including that factor into your war plans. Go after border cities or try and tackle cities in a triangle shape. That way they can support each other and the area between the cities will be under your control. I have one city that I conquered back in the stone ages that still is in a state of revolt more often then not. I've basically abandoned it, with only 2 units defending it.