Vassals working against their masters

[LukaSlovenia29]

Having played a warmonger game this weekend, I've been thinking that a big reason why I'd rather destroy a civ instead of taking it as a vassal are:
1.) Vassals can send spies to your cities and harming you via espionage actions.
2.) Vassals compete with you for CS alliances.
3.) Vassals don't want to sell you their techs.
4.) Vassals often request 20 or more gold for a (non-last) copy of their luxury.
5.) Vassals will dig your artifacts if you grant them open borders.
6.) Vassals will sometimes vote against your clear interests, and sometimes you won't be able to pay them to vote a certain way (it will show "impossible").

What are your experiences with this? Would you want this to be changed, if possible? @Gazebo , is it possible to code some limitations/changes to vassal behaviour vis-a-vis the master?

 

[ElliotS]

Vassals are not your slaves. If you manage them correctly they can pay off, otherwise they're going to bite you in the ass. Sometimes it's better just to eat them.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

How do you "manage them correctly"?

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Vassals can harm you indeed. If the yields you get aren't enough to matter and they keep spying on you, they will usually turn out to be a negative.

Basically, keep vassals if you want bonus votes for global hegemony and free yields, but it's best if they're properly weakened. If your capital is strong and they have had an embassy/found it, they might keep doing bad stuff there. Consider giving them gifts. I usually give them spare luxuries I don't care about that I wouldn't be able to do anything else with, and they are less likely to do stuff to me afterwards. The more anti-espionage buildings you have, the better. If you didn't get Mandirs belief or Angkor Wat, you might see them kill 600 Great Person points at once, so it might be advisable to ensure they do not spy on you. Tell them not to once the option appears (either in Discuss or in the pop-up) after they do any damage. If they don't agree and you want Great People, it might be worth ensuring spying on you is completely impossible. To find out how one could utilise superior logic in order to conclude that dead cannot spy and if those frisky vassals do meet their demise you will be far better off. Without Iron Fist their yields are pathetic anyway, and if you have none you can just get another policy instead. Of course if you're in a war, they might have other uses that make even having them break your capital good.

If they plan to vote against your proposal and it's impossible/too irrational, demand they vote the way you want. They will accept impossible stuff most of the time unless you've already demanded anything in a short time span of I-don't-know-how-many turns. Same about luxuries, if you didn't ask for something in a long time and you have a big military, they agree. The diplomatic points for demanding if you have superior strength are tiny, they're always just dark red.

Don't give them open borders, because why? What do you gain? Vassals are typically husks of civilisations, it might make getting them under your Culture faster but they're likely so weak that will happen anyway. It might get their navy or troops through so they fight a bit, but I wouldn't depend on them.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Current design choice (which I disagree with, but its a Civ4 choice, and we're kind of too late in the developpement of VP to change it), is that vassals are still competing for their own victory, and have no benefit in helping their master to win.

There is no "half-victory" for being the vassal of a winner. So unless they like you (true friends don't try stop you from winning), they will do whatever they can to stop you from winning.