Vassal Question

[ManiacalLlama]

Had a quick question in regards to warring and vassals. Often when I have a civilization I've almost wiped out I prefer to just kill them completely rather than vassalize. Mostly I hate dealing with the negative happiness from cities wanting to return to their home land (or whatever the modifier is called). However I notice that often when I'm about to finish off a civ, another will go ahead and vassalize them. At that point it auto declares war with whoever my enemy capitulated to--often a civ I'm friendly with. Then not only do I have to deal with a new war on my hands, but also it sometimes screws me diplomatically.

Should I just start vassalizing civs instead of completely wiping them out or is there someway to know when this is going to happen. If that's the case at what point should I take them as my vassal. I want the maximum amount of land I can get but don't want to end up screwed with someone else stealing my victim.

If it matters this is on monarch/emperor level.

 

[z0wb13]

i'd say that vassalizing an ai is usually easier. you can even gift back some of their crap cities.

 

[RIcs]

Turn off vassal states....

In fact.. I'd rather quickly vassal the crippled AI, and use the military advantages to hit on someone else before too late.
(not sure if you have enough time to completely kill all of rivals on non-single-continental map, .....)
(added: before modern armor vs modern armor.)