Turn your neighbor into an early powerful vassal

I did notice one very interesting item when I tried this a few times.

Even though you are missing the pottery tech, you can use (and grow) cottages built by your neighbors. So, the good enemy cities you take over should pay for themselves if you have the citizens work the existing cottages, which should net 2-4 commerce per tile by this point.
 
Trying this a second time. BTW I'm playing Prince/Epic/Pangea with the 12-12 Better AI build. This time, I managed to Vassal my nearest neighbor, who happened to be Shaka.

It took two wars with him to get this to happen. I took a couple cities in the first war and got Feudalism with just about the right timing. I actually used my second GE to get Feudalism, the first I used to complete the Pyramids (already had Great Wall).

But Shaka wouldn't Capitulate. Worse, he had a big stack of stuff in the third city; I wasn't going to beat it and it threatened to wipe my invaders. I sued for peace. I came for the second war when I had a few catapults rolling. Took the third city. He wouldn't Capitulate until I was standing outside city number four.

Since then, I've been trying to get him Pleased with me. He's on the good side of Cautious right now, but I have to overcome -6 for declaring war on him twice. As you might guess, he won't trade techs with me, but I'm working on it.
 
Sounds like it might be better to start the first war post-construction ending it with feudalism and capitulation?
 
I haven't had a problem using this strategy without construction. In fact, I wouldn't delay that long because then you might be facing longbowmen.

I think the key is to scout your target's entire territory to identify all his resource. If you have an enemy without horses or metal, go for him first. Archers don't stand a chance against city raider swordsmen. If your enemy does have the resources, position groups of chariots before declaring war to eliminate those strategic resources immediately once you declare war. Also, start with the capital if at all possible to eliminate their highest product city.

I had great success last night on monarch playing as Rams. I had stone so I built the pyramids planning on getting feudalism that way, but suddenly I noticed that nobody built the oracle and I was about to finish with monarchy. So I tree chopped the oracle on the same turn I finished monarchy and got feudalism.

I was a little late starting my war because I ended up building both wonders. My capital was up to 11 at this point, so I whipped a swordsman every other turn until my capital was down to five. Combining those with my other troops, I geared up to get some vassals!

I positioned my chariots to pillage Carthage's only strategic resources. I noticed his cities were weakly defending with 2-3 archers per, so I positioned my melee troops to take his 2nd and 3rd largest cities right away, then to combine those and take his capital.

I took his top three cities quickly, leaving him with three scrubs. He capitulated. Sadly, and coincidently for him, he got longbowmen the turn or so after he lost his capital and capitulated. This shows that the delay in my war almost made me miss out as he would have ruined me had he gotten longbowmen. Plus, this shows that if I would not have had feudalism to vassalize him, I would have had a bit of a tough time finishing him off.

Next, I made the same preparations against Cyress. Fortunately, I was able to take his capital first due to the shape of his empire, which really knocked the wind out of him. Plus, almost at the same time I took his second largest production city. The next two I took sequentially as I was wearing a little thinner by this time (some of my troops hadn't even fully healed from my first war).

I took his top four cities quickly (including his capital of course), leaving him with four scrubs. He capitulated.

Now I have two vassals with seven cities between them and lots of so-so extra land for them to grow back. They still have a bunch of tech I don't have, and they are willing to trade with me. This is great as compared to wiping them out (where you can't get their tech). This is also great as compared to not finishing them off and only suing for a couple techs and then having them not trade with you. Plus, I now have happiness bonuses in all my cities which address war weariness for my next war.

I noticed that Spain and America still don't have feudalism so I am going to move my troops out and try to make one of them vassals, or at the minimum raze some of their cities and pillage everywhere :)

By the way, I was last in score before I attacked Carthage and first in score with a 20% lead after I finished with Persia :) So chalk this one up as a success.
 
Still playing the same game I wrote about above. Have now vassal'd Kublai Kahn and Mansa Musa. At war with Ramses now, who is bordered by me and two of my three client civs.

I'm still having trouble getting techs from my vassals. Had them all convert to the same religion, and had Shaka friendly for a while, but I did something to drop him back to Pleased. Monty is in this game and he's Pleased. Brennus is annoyed and will be my next target after Ramses is finished.

If I vassal the whole world, do I win? I don't think so. I might have to wait for someone to build the UN and get Diplomatic victory.
 
If you vassal the whole world you will certainly win, probably before that. I believe 50% of vassalized empire size counts towards domination victory.
 
Okay, to follow up my post where I had cyress as a vassal with four cities and carthage as a vassal with four cities...

I noticed that spain (2nd in score) still didn't have longbow, so I launched my attack on two of her larger cities. At the same time, I bribed alexander to declare war on her other side, and both of my vassals declared war on her. A nice four way war.

I quickly took the two cities, then I congregated my forces to take her second largest city (size 12). Then, a razed a size three city and started towards her capital.

Just as I was preparing to take down her size 17 capital, she got feudalism and upgraded to longbowmen :sad: I decided I had better sue for peace to avoid heavy losses...

BUT!!!

Much to my suprize, when I went to talk to her she was willing to capitulate!!! Yes, she still had a size 17 capital, a size 7 commerce city, another size 5 city and a size 1 city. So basically, she had eight cities before the war and I took the 2nd, 3rd and 4th largest and burned down one scrub and she capitulated.

Now I have three vassals :king:

Also, both cyress and carthage will trade their tech with me, but like all civs, they won't share it for a while (until it is more commonly known). E.g. after they keep the monopoly the tech turns from red to white indicating that they will trade.

I have cyress researching paper (60 turns), carthage researching compass (18 turns), and my strongest vassal spain researching civil service (15 turns or so).


Greece and america remain. At this point, I could just consolidate my empire and let my vassals fill in all the spaces. I have a decently healthy SE economy where my research is at 0% due to maintance costs but the scientists in each city are netting me a new tech every 10 turns or so on epic.

Maybe I'll just build catipults and vassalize greece and america too despite their longbowmen. They are pretty small as they were the weakest civs before I started my wars. Should only need to take 2-3 cities for each to get them to capitulate.
 
I've been testing this strategy on Monarch with a few different leaders. I must say that the oracle/feudalism slingshot on Monarch is pretty unreliable (I'm getting it about 1 in 5 tries with the oracle built around 1200 BC). Even if I do manage the slingshot the effort will lead to me being underpowered and hence by the time I've built up an army capable of wiping my nearest opponent there is a good risk that they will get feudalism during the war (of course, twice my target was Mansa Musa and he techs like crazy).

Hence I'd say that on Monarch the best strategy is indeed the philosophical/great wall/engineer slingshot, and since one is avoiding pottery the pyramids should be the wonder of choice to get those GE points (its faster anyway with double the GP points)...

I'm working on rushing the pyramids in my capital while expanding as fast as I can and then starting the war as quickly as possible well before I have feudalism, getting it towards the end of the war and then vassalizing my opponent. Unfortunately this strategy is pretty much stone dependent...

On prince this strategy is very nice indeed, though.. the oracle slingshot is almost 100% reliable with the added bonus that bureaucracy is much cheaper if one has both code of laws AND feudalism...

Without wonders/slingshots this whole thing is kind of iffy (since the whole map will be filled under normal circumstances, giving the vassal no room to recover). Perhaps a modification to whole thing is expanding as normal, then take a vassal and then declare war on a neighbor to you and your vassal, razing all small cities close by to the vassal, giving them room to expand...
 
Just to conclude my saga... Had intended to go after Brennus once I finished Ramses, but Monty got unfriendly and attacked as soon as he had Infantry. He got pretty far ahead of me in tech, my vassals not being amenable to trading techs with me.

I held him off, got some nice GG points (due to Great Wall), got peace and worked on Assembly Line and Artillery. That was a bit of a pause in the game, one where Mansa started going toward Space Race. I redirected him along a line that would get him to Mass Media/UN, while I started a city on Apollo, just in case.

My vassals and I wiped out Monty in a few turns, though by then he had Marines, but no Tanks. Meanwhile, I realized that Brennus was going for a Cultural Victory as his cultural boundaries were getting huge. Check of the graph confirmed he was way off the chart. Declared war on him as soon as Monty went to zero. Took a couple of cities and got a Domination Victory in 1914.

The vassals were pretty helpful. Shaka lagged way behind in tech. I kept feeding him some, but not all, in the hopes he'd trade when he got one I didn't have, but that never worked. Mansa and Kublai were more powerful, being able to nearly keep pace tech-wise. They built units like Frigates and Destroyers that I wouldn't have bothered with, then softened up some coastal cities just in time for my forces to arrive. So friendly.

Maybe Vassal States isn't so bad after all. ;)
 
civzombie said:
I have cyress researching paper (60 turns), carthage researching compass (18 turns), and my strongest vassal spain researching civil service (15 turns or so).
Click to expand...

This is what aggravates me, I can pull off the war effort etc etc but when I read statements like that, it just shows me I could be doing way way more. Could you post a save of this? I'd like to examine how you have the specialists set up and so forth.

Regardless of how, very nice.
 
civzombie said:
Greece and america remain. At this point, I could just consolidate my empire and let my vassals fill in all the spaces. I have a decently healthy SE economy where my research is at 0% due to maintance costs but the scientists in each city are netting me a new tech every 10 turns or so on epic.

Maybe I'll just build catipults and vassalize greece and america too despite their longbowmen. They are pretty small as they were the weakest civs before I started my wars. Should only need to take 2-3 cities for each to get them to capitulate.
Click to expand...

It's my belief that it's easier to capitulate a civ when you already have 1 or 2 vassals. I have the feeling that your power and your vassals power add to frighten your opponent. Since you already have 3, it should be easy to finish the weaklings.
 
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