Vassal States Differences with Vanilla BtS
- Thread starter Llewen
- Start date
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
There isn't really a difference
Well, there is one: You can exploit FfH's spell system to declare war on your vassals (through direct damage spells like tsunami), whereas in BtS only a vassal can end the treaty (still true in FfH through diplomacy alone). I believe it can also be exploited to et around that "10 turn forced peace treaty after any demand or request" rule.
Also, vassals in FfH may be more useful, since their palaces provide mana and they cannot refuse to give you resources (unless prepared to start a war for independance).
Well, there is one: You can exploit FfH's spell system to declare war on your vassals (through direct damage spells like tsunami), whereas in BtS only a vassal can end the treaty (still true in FfH through diplomacy alone). I believe it can also be exploited to et around that "10 turn forced peace treaty after any demand or request" rule.
Also, vassals in FfH may be more useful, since their palaces provide mana and they cannot refuse to give you resources (unless prepared to start a war for independance).
The last big 3 player .30k game we had I was able to win a tower of mastery victory within 50 turns by exploiting the vassal system and slavery civics. It sort of took the fun out of it. Even worse I would have been able to do it within about 9 turns if I wasn't missing one mana type.
I forced Tatsunke, Sandalphon, and Faeryl to all give me all their mana. I got off to an enormous lead due to using Loki to steal 3 of Faeryl's cities (take that Loki needs buffing thread! lol) They all volunteered to vassalize at which point I took every unique resource and mana they had resulting in my cities getting something ilke +9 happy and +18 health per city as well as letting me rush 3/4 towers. After Rites of Ogma finished (Celestial compass didn't halve it maybe because I had already started it?) I built dimensional mana then rushed the Alteration tower and finally the Mastery tower. gg
I forced Tatsunke, Sandalphon, and Faeryl to all give me all their mana. I got off to an enormous lead due to using Loki to steal 3 of Faeryl's cities (take that Loki needs buffing thread! lol) They all volunteered to vassalize at which point I took every unique resource and mana they had resulting in my cities getting something ilke +9 happy and +18 health per city as well as letting me rush 3/4 towers. After Rites of Ogma finished (Celestial compass didn't halve it maybe because I had already started it?) I built dimensional mana then rushed the Alteration tower and finally the Mastery tower. gg
it was a multiplayer game and we were playing against eachother not the AI. My friends like it fairly low so I would guess Prince. The difficulty really has nothing to do with using Loki, being able to demand mana or being able to set research to 0 and then divide that by 10 and that's your bonus hammers all instantly given to one project. It's ridiculously OP.
As far as being able to Vassalize so many AI I would venture to say you can do that on any difficulty level. If you found a religion and spread it to your neighbors and have the same alignment as them its rare that they will attakc you unless you're significantly weak. Top that off with how easy it is to get a runaway score in FFH if you do a few key things and the AI has no ability to catch up thus leading to a score so high they voluntarily vassalize.
I typically get Writing for the sage and great library -> currency for Guild of Nine (if i'm way ahead of tech if not skip this), engineering for Guild of Hammers.
I've yet to have this not result in complete and total score annihilation of anyone who falls behind. The only real weakness of this is if you get attacked early by an AI or Human you typically won't be able to stop them. Starting near Jonas can cause you to be totally screwed as well as a couple other people or of course any human player familiar enough with MP games to force you to keep a bigger standing army before you're able to get around to festivals after snagging the research important techs.
As far as being able to Vassalize so many AI I would venture to say you can do that on any difficulty level. If you found a religion and spread it to your neighbors and have the same alignment as them its rare that they will attakc you unless you're significantly weak. Top that off with how easy it is to get a runaway score in FFH if you do a few key things and the AI has no ability to catch up thus leading to a score so high they voluntarily vassalize.
I typically get Writing for the sage and great library -> currency for Guild of Nine (if i'm way ahead of tech if not skip this), engineering for Guild of Hammers.
I've yet to have this not result in complete and total score annihilation of anyone who falls behind. The only real weakness of this is if you get attacked early by an AI or Human you typically won't be able to stop them. Starting near Jonas can cause you to be totally screwed as well as a couple other people or of course any human player familiar enough with MP games to force you to keep a bigger standing army before you're able to get around to festivals after snagging the research important techs.
Ringtailed
Anthropomorphic Lemur
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2006
- Messages
- 247
It's much harder to gain such a significant lead in score at higher difficulty levels... I've also never seen an AI willing to voluntarily vassalize at Deity, high score or not.
Llewen
Warlord
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2004
- Messages
- 276
I expect also if you turned on aggressive A.I. (if this is available in FfH2), that would also make a significant difference. It would also appear that you are playing people that are far less skilled than you are, so you can't expect anything less than to trounce them... 
The only time I don't turnon Aggressive AI is when we have a no AI map. Even then I leave it on in case people summon Bas/Hyp usually.
As far as Vassalizing on Deity I don't typically play solo games and my friends refuse to play on higher difficulties. The one time I got them to try emperor was us vs 2 teams of 3 ai each and the game repeatedly OOS'd.
As far as their skill level the only reason I'm any good is from reading every post from Daladinn and checking out the manuals. They are doing the same thing so I'm sure they will get better
As far as Vassalizing on Deity I don't typically play solo games and my friends refuse to play on higher difficulties. The one time I got them to try emperor was us vs 2 teams of 3 ai each and the game repeatedly OOS'd.
As far as their skill level the only reason I'm any good is from reading every post from Daladinn and checking out the manuals. They are doing the same thing so I'm sure they will get better
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
... So in 9 turns, you built 5 wonders, and vassalized 3 opponents? I'm just going to assume that isn't what you mean, because that is completely impossible.
I didn't vassalize anyone. They contacted me. What I was trying to say, and it seems i did a poor job of it, was if you eliminate the 25 turn wait for Rites of Ogma to get the last missing mana sphere (since I had only 2 mana nodes in my territory and my AI vassales didn't build on tons of their mana) that it only took about 9-11 turns to get a full tower of mastery victory starting with about 2k ish gold and using slavery on 0 research.
That to me seems OP. granted my research was like 850 a turn which translated into a lot of gold but there should be some kind of limitations on slave purchasing. At the very least purchasing 40 slaves a turn then working them to death should cause some kind of reaction in a city you'd think.
It also seems to me that it's too easy to exploit religions to keep AI from hitting you--agressive AI or not. If you can keep Tatsunke from declaring for 400 turns simply by tributing twice and spreading a religion when he could have crushed you 50k times over and agg ai is on that's an issue. it basically allowed me to peacefully tech up to an enormous score at which point the remaining ai's started asking me to protect them.
That to me seems OP. granted my research was like 850 a turn which translated into a lot of gold but there should be some kind of limitations on slave purchasing. At the very least purchasing 40 slaves a turn then working them to death should cause some kind of reaction in a city you'd think.
It also seems to me that it's too easy to exploit religions to keep AI from hitting you--agressive AI or not. If you can keep Tatsunke from declaring for 400 turns simply by tributing twice and spreading a religion when he could have crushed you 50k times over and agg ai is on that's an issue. it basically allowed me to peacefully tech up to an enormous score at which point the remaining ai's started asking me to protect them.
suedenim
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2008
- Messages
- 58
Can vassals become independent again like they do in BtS? I noticed the (admittedly somewhat confusing) mouseover stuff from BtS about % size in relation to master, etc., don't appear, and wondered if that meant they are no longer relevant.
One vassalized civ in my first game appeared to be recovering rather well, to the point I thought it might become independent again.
BTW, is "Aggressive AI" in FfH similar to that in BtS, where it's really what should've been the "default" AI, as opposed to many games, where "Aggressive" just means endless, ultimately pointless, waves of kamikaze attacks and the like?
One vassalized civ in my first game appeared to be recovering rather well, to the point I thought it might become independent again.
BTW, is "Aggressive AI" in FfH similar to that in BtS, where it's really what should've been the "default" AI, as opposed to many games, where "Aggressive" just means endless, ultimately pointless, waves of kamikaze attacks and the like?
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I'm pretty sure that FfH has not changed Vassalage at all, so they can still become independent. Are you looking at a voluntary vassal or a capitulated one? I'm pretty sure that only capitulation has those requirements in order for the vassal to declare independence. Voluntary vassal can be free whenever they wish (I think there is still a 10 turn minimum though).
By the way, the spells in FfH that cause you to declare war work against vassals and masters, and so can be used to cancel the agreement at any point.
Similar threads
