Vassal Annoyance

[sterben]

I'm sure this has been mentioned numerous times, but I had an experience last in my last game I thought I would share and get comments on.

I was playing Hannibal/Prince/Big-small (I always do random leaders heh). I was on a large continent with Cyrus/Qin Shi/Genghis/Shaka/Charlie, and Napolean had a large island empire. Bismark and Breenus were around too.

I had had some long battles with Cyrus who was bottled up in the NE of the continent and had finally vassalized him so I could repair my economy and start worry about the juggernaut Shaka was becoming. I had a pretty good tech lead and after I got tanks I started working toward a space victory. I had one aluminum pop right near the border to Shaka (on my side though) and one smack dab in the middle of what was left of Cyrus's empire.

Well, of course Shaka eventually attacked and threw about a million cannon, calvary and musketmen at me. I had been building up my defense but the sheer numbers overwhelmed my southern city (by the aluminum) and he took it; he also had a spy keep killing my oil well so I couldn't pump out tons of tanks/destroyers (I put a spy of my own on the tile but it didn't seem to do squat. Does this even do anything?)

Anyway, to get to the point, I fought him to a standstill but my aluminum was now quite a bit in his territory. The kicker is, Cyrus was so far behind in tech that he couldn't see the aluminum in his territory and so there it sat unimproved and thus I couldn't demand it for tribute. So, no modern armor for me and twice as long space parts

I ended up winning (I got the space elevator and luckily had some aluminum pop in a mine for me later on) but it was very frustrating having that aluminum just sitting there by cyrus and not being able to get it.

Should I have just given him the techs so he could see it himself? I worry about that wrt to trading to other civs, but I was probably ahead enough at that point to not worry about it. Also, he had some other unimproved things in his territory (like horses) that he never got around to improving. What's up with that? There didn't seem to be an option to break off the vassaling from my side either (so I could go 'acquire' it, so to speak). Is there something I'm missing here?

Oh, and I told him numerous times to help me attack the city that Shaka had taken. I didn't see a single unit attack the whole time even though he had around 10 units in each of his cities.

I think next time I'm just going to bite the bullet and wipe the civ out instead of vassalizing. Too frustrating...

 

[madscientist]

It would have been alot easier to just gift all the techs to Cyrus. That's what I would have done.

 

[sterben]

It would have been alot easier to just gift all the techs to Cyrus. That's what I would have done.

You are probably right. To be honest, I didn't even think about it until I was writing the above post. Still, I hate giving away all those techs; I was the only one with Industrialism for a while and thus the only one with tanks. What are the rules for vassal tech trading to other civs? They trade based on their own relationship and not mine, right?

 

[madscientist]

You are probably right. To be honest, I didn't even think about it until I was writing the above post. Still, I hate giving away all those techs; I was the only one with Industrialism for a while and thus the only one with tanks. What are the rules for vassal tech trading to other civs? They trade based on their own relationship and not mine, right?

vassals can trade with whom they want, so if you vassal someone line Mansa Musa you can bet he'll trade it away.

You can make it a trade, give the techs to Cyrus in return for stopping trading with Shaka. The problem is that may be enough to get Shaka to attack, but then again that would negate any trade between Cyrus and Shaka ans still gets you access to Aluminum.

There is always a slight chance Cyrus would not give you Aluminum and force a fight.

 

[sterben]

There is always a slight chance Cyrus would not give you Aluminum and force a fight.

This more than anything makes it a great idea haha

 

[Bhruic]

vassals can trade with whom they want, so if you vassal someone line Mansa Musa you can bet he'll trade it away.

And that is why I play with Tech Brokering off, so that I can give Techs to my Vassals without worrying about them trading it to my enemies.

Bh

 

[sveint]

I never accept vassals anymore in the early game

Note that you don't have to elmiminate him even if you do not vassalize - it's perfectly ok to leave him around with a few crappy cities

 

[Bhruic]

Depending on your definition of "ok". The cities you took are still going to give you unhappiness for wanting to rejoin their homeland. That's usually why I try to hunt down the last enemy cities instead of just leaving them.

Bh

 

[slobberinbear]

Vassalizing, to me, comes down to your victory condition. If you are going for a diplomatic AP/UN win, vassalizing makes a lot of sense. You get their votes but don't have to conquer them entirely and pay the outrageous maintenance costs. It also works for cultural and space victories.

It is not as effective for domination, because you need all the land mass you can get.

The key in vassalizing is managing it so that the vassal controls as many high maintenance cities as possible and is an effective military partner without becoming so powerful they stop being your vassal.