Returning a city to a Vassal

[ChicagoCubs]

So there I am minding my own business. I am on good terms with Elizabeth who is on the other side of the world, so luckily I won't run into the whole border tension diplomatic penalties.

Ragnar asked me to declare war on Elizabeth, and I tell him to pound sand. He declares war on Elizabeth. The next turn Elizabeth (after losing two cities) comes begging me to takes her as a Vassal. Even knowing this will plunge me into war, I do it anyway.

The next turn Shaka and another civ join Ragnar against me and Elizabeth. I have set up a relatively defensive posture in my kingdom. My three enemies must cross two neutral (friendly towards me) civs to reach me or come by the ocean. Also, access to my territory is limited by a sweet bottleneck that I have defended rather well. The northern ocean approach is a bottleneck with some glaciers, so I have that defended. The southern ocean approach is defended by senties. So I am not concerned with my protection.

Elizabeth, however, is surrounded by the three civs that we are at war with. By the time I am able to get troops to her territory, she has lost three cities (two captured, and one razed). As the war progressed, I was able to take the two cities back, and one of enemies capital (oppurtunity attack since it was horribily lightly defended on the coast).

I want to return the two cities to Elizabeth, but I don't have the option anywhere. Is this because she is my vassal?

When I captured the cities, I didn't have the option in the pop-up window. I can't even "trade" her the cities via the trade screen.

 

[niels251]

i think you should wait till the city's are content. THe AI might also think that right now it is better of with less city's.

 

[freemen]

Just it your domestic advisor, push the hand button at the bottom of the screen, and "liberate" those city. I was on a diplomatic victory setting, and nobodie want to vote for me... so I "persuade" them to become my vassal. To do so, I took their city, and liberate them afterward. Easy as this. It is the same setting than to make a colony.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I believe the cities have to be out of revolt before you can hand them off.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

I believe the new patch will make it so the AI will always accept liberated cities.

 

[freemen]

not necessary... as soon as you made peace (at least for my case) i return them.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I believe the cities have to be out of revolt before you can hand them off.

That's what I thought.

 

[KMadCandy]

I believe the cities have to be out of revolt before you can hand them off.

no, i liberated one to my vassal the turn i captured it and took him as my vassal. it was still in revolt of course.

 

[SwordofStriker]

You should have been prompted to either raze, keep, or to return those re-captured cities at the point in which you re-captured them, so that's an oddity. When you reclaimed your vassals cities were they in disorder at the time?

Regardless, the cities will certainly be able to be returned to your vassal through the normal means:

domestic advisor/liberation

 

[Draknith]

i had a similar problem returning a city to a vassal. I had acquired Greece through capitulation, and after helping them to turn their backwards civilization around we became good friends. However war broke out and Greece's last remaining city was captured. I had turned on elimate entire civ so Greece was still around, just no cities. After I recaptured the Greek capital I wanted to return it to them. I was unable to do this, even though there was 80% Greek culture in the city. Is it just not possible to return cities to capitulated vassals? I even went into the domestic advisor to liberate the city, but Greece wasn't a possible option.

 

[Draknith]

BTW GO CUBBIES!!! National League Central Division Champions

 

[KMadCandy]

I had turned on elimate entire civ so Greece was still around, just no cities. After I recaptured the Greek capital I wanted to return it to them. I was unable to do this, even though there was 80% Greek culture in the city. Is it just not possible to return cities to capitulated vassals? I even went into the domestic advisor to liberate the city, but Greece wasn't a possible option.

that could be because they had no cities, odd situation. comeplete kills can lead to funky situations, since you can't even gift them a settler to make a city ... all gifts have to be given within their cultural borders and your Greece had no borders

i have been able to liberate individual cities to a capitulated vassal, even on the turn i captured the city and then let him capitulate. that city was on the continent with the cities of his i wanted to keep, i didn't have to give him "all or nothing" like i would have if i'd created a brand new colony.

i had a case i can't figure out the other day. i was testing the idea of making a colony on an island with the intent of liberating some but not all of the cities in spain (the spanish war was still going on). i hadn't planned ahead, what i should have done was make a colony in spain after capturing only a few of the worst cities, so that i'd have the option to keep some, rather than giving up that entire continent by making the colony later. i didn't want to be faced with the "liberate all or none" choice because by the time i realized my mistake, i had the best cities.

so i created a new colony on a 2-city island south of spain. the turn i created the colony (turned out to be hatty), i had some really interesting options of cities to give to her, including one city (the only one on its island) almost as far away from her on the map as you can get. another choice was a single city on a big island with 6 other cities that were not on the list, so i don't understand that logic at all. i did not have the option to liberate any of the cities in former spain to her, which was annoying, that was the whole reason i invited her to my game! anyway...

spain still existed when i created hatty as a colony. izzy had one island city that was between the former-spanish continent and hatty's little island empire. when i took the spanish city the next turn, so that isabella was gone and there were no civs and no culture borders between hatty's cities and the spanish continent, at that point i had the option to liberate those cities one-by-one to her. they were still in revolt, so it wasn't a "can't liberate the whiners" situation. my guess would be that seeing somebody else's culture in between that land and hers made her think "no, i don't want that to be my problem" or something. but i'm just guessing, can't read code..