Vassals are almost like a snowball effect...

[Yzman]

In my current game, I'm playing the huge 18 civ earth map as Spain, noble, marathon level.

Early on I expanded and took over most of Europe so I could have the room. At that point I had a huge strong military so I decided to see how far I could go. Now I never raze cities. I don't know why, but I like the reward of capturing one. So empire by empire I was destroying them and expanding my empire.

Now instead of destroying China, I made them my vassal because they had some island cities I didn't feel like taking. After that I attacked India and the mongols, took one city and then they were ok with being my vassal too. Then I attacked Greece and Japan at the same time and after taking two cities from both, they both agreed to become my vassals as well.

Do vassals make conquest this much easier? I'm usually not a military player but I know effectively own all of Europe, Africa, Asia and Austrailia with me and my vassals. My power is off the charts. The only ones left not under my control are the Americas. Monty has already effectively made the Americans and Inca his vassals, but he is very behind on tech to me. I think I am just going to try to take him out and "liberate" his vassals if I can then consume them too.

The point is, do you think civs become vassals too easy or do you think it is realistic that they chose that instead of death? I personally like it but wondered what others thought.

 

[Littlelisa]

I find vassals broken, so i turn them off and enjoy watching AIs make defense pacts

You or another AI should have to do a certain amount of damage to an empire before they will become vassals
Like half their power without yours dropping to low, plus a number cities taken, maybe even half.

Or people should be limited to 1-2 vassals

As it is a player or AI gets 2 vassals, attacks a 3rd, their combined power is so much more the AI gives in almost instantly (Ive seen AIs give in without losing cities within 5 turns), snowball effect as you said.

 

[kazapp]

Is it just me being stupid, or are colonies not enabled for the Earth maps (savegames) in BtS?

I know Africa isn't its own continent, but shouldn't you be able to build two cities on Ireland and then spawn them off as a colony?

 

[Yzman]

Colonies aren't enabled because there is 18 civs already.

 

[Hellspark]

Easy to fix - kill a few civilizations - then you should be able to make a few friends.