Trying to understand the mechanics of capitulation

[Rocker69]

I've noticed that, starting on Noble I guess, the AI capitulates cities very quickly. They start a war with some other civ and, instead of just ending the war, it ALWAYS makes it his vassal.

Since I've yet to familiarize myself with this thing, I'm constantly having to defend myself from a civ that has sometimes 3 other civ's as it's vassal...which makes it nearly impossible for me to win.

So I wanted to understand how it works. I tried to make a civ my vassal sometimes but they always say that they're doing fine on their own. What scenario is necessary for this to happen? I couldn't find a good article regarding this subject.

 

[kossin]

For a civ to capitulate you need:
-twice their power
-twice their land
-40 more war success against them

Obviously this doesn't work against already vassals.

War success:
4 points for units killed while attacking
3 points for units killed when attacking
10 points for taking cities
1 point for workers/settlers iIrc

Say you take 1 city, kill 10 units and lose 12 units.

That's 10+10*4-12*3 = 14 war success... you need more success.

Being a land neighbor (share 8 tiles in a border) helps too, there's an additional penalty if your land is too far away.

 

[Rocker69]

For a civ to capitulate you need:
-twice their power
-twice their land
-40 more war success against them

Obviously this doesn't work against already vassals.

War success:
4 points for units killed while attacking
3 points for units killed when attacking
10 points for taking cities
1 point for workers/settlers iIrc

Say you take 1 city, kill 10 units and lose 12 units.

That's 10+10*4-12*3 = 14 war success... you need more success.

Being a land neighbor (share 8 tiles in a border) helps too, there's an additional penalty if your land is too far away.

Ok thanks man. But I do think that the AI has an easier way of making a civ their vassal.

 

[kossin]

Technically no, the rules are the same. The only difference is the AI pays less unit upkeep and gets price discounts (on higher levels of course).

Once you've got 1 vassal, part of his land and power is added to your own which makes further capitulations easier, usually called "chain-capitulation" around here.

 

[r_rolo1]

A note : a civ will never surrender to you if you are also warring someone more powerful than them, regardless of fullfilling the minimum obligations for it ( that kossin stated above ).

 

[Rocker69]

A note : a civ will never surrender to you if you are also warring someone more powerful than them, regardless of fullfilling the minimum obligations for it ( that kossin stated above ).

Yeah, I figured that out...who'd want that?

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

One rare reason I have seen for a civ not capitulating is "You have become too powerful for us".



WTH!

Doesn't this miss the whole point of vassals? "You have become too powerful for us" is the very reason too become a vassal, not avoid being one!

A note : a civ will never surrender to you if you are also warring someone more powerful than them, regardless of fullfilling the minimum obligations for it ( that kossin stated above ).

Perhaps this has something to do with that? Or is the above the result of some other mechanic?

NPM

 

[TheMeInTeam]

For a civ to capitulate you need:
-twice their power
-twice their land
-40 more war success against them

Obviously this doesn't work against already vassals.

War success:
4 points for units killed while attacking
3 points for units killed when attacking
10 points for taking cities
1 point for workers/settlers iIrc

Say you take 1 city, kill 10 units and lose 12 units.

That's 10+10*4-12*3 = 14 war success... you need more success.

Being a land neighbor (share 8 tiles in a border) helps too, there's an additional penalty if your land is too far away.

You do not need twice their land and pop. You generally need double in at least ONE category of land or pop unless war success is tremendous.

I routinely capitulate AIs with ~ 80% of my land, as long as they're <50% pop. This is especially common if my cities are heavily coastal and I'm doing naval coastal raids.

Once you've got 1 vassal, part of his land and power is added to your own which makes further capitulations easier, usually called "chain-capitulation" around here.

Pretty sure this is wrong, and that you don't get vassal power (though targets get to consider their own vassal power to block capping).

"chain capitulation" is named for the way vassals trigger the "land target of a war ally" rule for capitulation, such that you just border hop taking a city or two then capitulation.

Final note:

The AI will never vassal if their power is > world's average power, no matter how bad you're bending them over. No matter if you have 6000 war success and 5x their power. No, as long as they are above the AVERAGE power, as long as they're a couple little putzy colonies and 1 city vassals elsewhere, they are still "doing fine on their own". This is true even if those vassals happen to belong to you, by the way, such that LOWERING your average power by world builder deleting your own vassal would ALLOW capitulation when it wouldn't otherwise.

But people still like telling me that this mechanic is fine.

 

[Rocker69]

I may be saying it because I suck at it (as of this moment) but I hate this vassal thing. It cheapens the game and the AI is completely obsessed with it, I've seen it capitulates even 4 civ's in one game! When I wage war I like to eliminate the civ, not make it my b***.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Every time I play I get closer to never playing with vassal states on again. I would think otherwise if there was enough spawn + expansion balance, but it seems every game I play lately one AI implodes at the start, sometimes two, allowing others to get roughly double the land a civ should have on average on the map. That turns into lots of vassals and gets really piss-ant annoying.

 

[noto2]

Every time I play I get closer to never playing with vassal states on again. I would think otherwise if there was enough spawn + expansion balance, but it seems every game I play lately one AI implodes at the start, sometimes two, allowing others to get roughly double the land a civ should have on average on the map. That turns into lots of vassals and gets really piss-ant annoying.

I'm going to necro this thread because Civ4 is still the best Civ game ever made and I came back to it after all these years. I do find the AI capitulates rather quickly, which means that AI's can start to become superpowers, but I'm hesitant to turn this off because I find it makes the game more engaging and requires me to be more active. It punishes the player who sits back and builds away, ignoring all global wars. It forces you to be able to intervene and play a more active role. Let's say your military is strong enough to repel an attack but not launch an invasion. Normally you could just sit there and go for a space win, ignoring everyone else because it would take far too long for another empire to conquer the world. But with capitulation on, you've got to actually sit up and notice when someone has 2+ vassals. If you just ignore global affairs, next thing you know you are being attacked by 4 civs at once.

In order to prevent this you're forced to be active and defend weaker civs or use diplomacy to get their bully to back off. I like that. Of course, if you're the one who is the bully it also makes warfare and conquest a bit faster and offers you, the player, some interesting choices. Other things to consider are that vassal cities count as foreign trade routes and you can dictate their civics, allowing you to get foreign trade route bonuses while running mercantilism, for example. They will also provide resources for your corporation.

 

[drewisfat]

Heh funny you necroed this thread. I stumbled upon it yesterday looking for a more precise answer on when the AI will capitulate. Only found this and a complicated thread of Dan mentioning average AI power. Vassals are kind of like tech trading, in that they're grossly unbalancing but the game feels empty without them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Cap vassals are nicer than diplomatic vassals too. Though the islandtarget stuff and evaluation of who is "winning the war more" can lead to the occasional frustrating outcome.

 

[ArchGhost]

Vassals are kind of like tech trading, in that they're grossly unbalancing but the game feels empty without them.

Surely not because the player can abuse these mechanics as well?

Chain cap still one of the most ridiculous ways to win a game via Domination. Leave your vassals mostly intact, and/or strategically take them to acts as buffers/trade partners, and they will help win the game for you despite only ever having to reach as little as one tech plateau on your own.

I do find it super frustrating when an AI won't cap but will talk peace despite losing something ridiculous like 12+ cities just because they have a huge navy or a stack I haven't wiped out yet twiddling around somewhere. A lot of times they give up far beyond the point of being useful anymore because of it; and yet if you don't take them as a useless crappy hanger-on that drives your diplo all screwy, they'll artificially inflate the power of whoever they do latch onto when you come for that guy later. Ugh.

 

[Snowbird]

I think Civ5 is a good sample of simplified Civ. The bad thing is that after simplification it is very clear that the game does not have much to offer - especially in AI behavior department.

Well again, it is actually rather common in 4x games, that dealing with the adversity (random events, AI to AI behavior, etc) might be the main challenge. Overall Civ4 is actually good at least at imitating AI behavior (AI cultural/diplo wins, early game warmongers, etc).

Removing vassals, tech trading, espionage actively limits whatever AI imitation does, which does not lead to good gaming experience in the long term, at least in my opinion.

 

[Lennier]

I'm going to necro this thread because...

Cap vassals are nicer than diplomatic vassals too. Though the islandtarget stuff and evaluation of who is "winning the war more" can lead to the occasional frustrating outcome.

noto2, you also managed to summon TMIT, so the necro is OK.