Volunteer vassalage

[Enginseer]

Except Civ 4 System allowed equally powered nations to create a master-vassal relationship not to mention historical alliances of Greek city-states uniting itself with one being as the master of the alliance and one as a contributor of the alliance.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Except Civ 4 System allowed equally powered nations to create a master-vassal relationship not to mention historical alliances of Greek city-states uniting itself with one being as the master of the alliance and one as a contributor of the alliance.

As I remember correct, in civ4 it was a permanent alliance, and not master-vasall relation. And in this alliance, both were equally treated, the one wasn't paying the other. And additionally, you could have won the game together as alliance. But in civ5, only one can win.

 

[Enginseer]

As I remember correct, in civ4 it was a permanent alliance, and not master-vasall relation. And in this alliance, both were equally treated, the one wasn't paying the other. And additionally, you could have won the game together as alliance. But in civ5, only one can win.

no, you can still establish a master-vassal relation among equal powers.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

no, you can still establish a master-vassal relation among equal powers.

But is that the only justification?
Cause it was in Civ4?
Independent from that, it causes trouble, and unless Gazebo can confirm, volunteer vassals which stayed in vasselage have also won games in his tests, I don't think this is a good idea.

Edit: Have you seen any attempts of vassals to break free in the last patches? I remember one game, but thats around 9 month ago.

 

[matlajs]

Edit: Have you seen any attempts of vassals to break free in the last patches? I remember one game, but thats around 9 month ago.

I have. Arabia ( one of the Ahmads volunteers) broke a deal and Moroco DoWed him. I can not say, if that happened because i took some of the Ahmad cities, or Ahmad was pissing Harum off with continuously stealing cs and ignoring him all the time.

That is the 1 case from 3 when it happened, and yet it seems most likely because of master got weaken. I assume, that this should be the case in the case of conquered vassal, not a volunteer one.

 

[CCruise]

Is that new that the master has to pay vassel upkeep? I never noticed it until last game. Anyway why was that implemented and how realistic is that (just curious)?

 

[Moi Magnus]

But is that the only justification?
Cause it was in Civ4?
Independent from that, it causes trouble, and unless Gazebo can confirm, volunteer vassals which stayed in vasselage have also won games in his tests, I don't think this is a good idea.

Edit: Have you seen any attempts of vassals to break free in the last patches? I remember one game, but thats around 9 month ago.

If I understand correctly the situation:
+ Putmalk wanted to translate Civ 4 diplomatic feature to Civ 5. Voluntary vassalage was one of them, so it is in C4DF.
+ Putmalk no longer maintain C4DF
+ Nobody want to relay Putmalk and rewrite its code
+ The system is not broken, and is considered is an "acceptable situation"
=> Gazebo only deal with bugs associated with C4DF, and tweaks that do not require recoding (like changing the number of yields, ...).

An AI doing a volontary vassalage while it would have better chance of victory by not doing so is considered as a bug, so you can report it, and Gazebo will take a look. But as long as nobody take the succession of Putmalk, no big changes will happen.

 

[Enginseer]

If I understand correctly the situation:
+ Putmalk wanted to translate Civ 4 diplomatic feature to Civ 5. Voluntary vassalage was one of them, so it is in C4DF.
+ Putmalk no longer maintain C4DF
+ Nobody want to relay Putmalk and rewrite its code
+ The system is not broken, and is considered is an "acceptable situation"
=> Gazebo only deal with bugs associated with C4DF, and tweaks that do not require recoding (like changing the number of yields, ...).

An AI doing a volontary vassalage while it would have better chance of victory by not doing so is considered as a bug, so you can report it, and Gazebo will take a look. But as long as nobody take the succession of Putmalk, no big changes will happen.

That's correct, but you can rewrite it that is if you can. Putmalk's code is an insane chunk of code. It'll take Putmalk himself to look into it or a very dedicated person to do so.

 

[TwoPodRay]

I think the only problem is that other Civs declare “Afraid” too easily or not at a proper time (opposite side of the world with no military threat). Voluntary vassalage mechanic in general is perfectly fine otherwise.

 

[matlajs]

I never said, that volunteer vassalage is completely bad mechanic. I said, that in current state of it IT is bad IMO. I havent been here for a year, so i don't know if there were intentional changes into AI, which affected its behaviour regarding vassalage.

Getting Ai to be afraid of you is now a flipp a coin. I wonder, if it is military score or overall score, which affect a vassal AI decision if it can afford to leave a pact or not. If it is a case, then i don't understand how a vassal AI is supposed to do that, when a master AI gets a lead thanks to them.

 

[matlajs]

I am just going to turn it off for good in the next game. It is just boring. A thing, which added some immersion and fun into a game previously, is now completely dull. A thing for which a human player gets attacked(being weak) is a thing, which AI abuse literally every game and cover behind already strong,somewhat runaway civ to make them even more so. I always hated playing against Ethiopia and civs like that, because they inclined to runaway really hard even on their own and most of other AIs treated them friendly, turned on them when it was too late. Now with this behaviour it is just dull, nothing more. I wouldn't be against it, if it would happen just occasionaly under more rarer circumstances, but not this. The game became immensely predictable thanks to that, that i can predict who is going to become a master of whichever civ is going to purposely neglect military / randomly gets Afraid status, which AI happily abuse. But enough of crying, it is just one previously fun feature, which deserve to be turned off. Like others do not like random factor of ruins, i do not like this.

I just wonder, why Gazebo bothered with adjusting a game to lessen a cases of runaway-ing, while not carre about another source of runaway-ing.

 

[CppMaster]

In my current Carthage game at early Renaissance, I become master of every civ. Russia and Egypt capitulated to me, so no issue with that, but top 3 civs other than me agreed to become a vassal to me via demand. Khmer was Afraid, Inca was Neutral and Timur was Guarded for me. Volunteer vassalage is way too easy to achieve.
@Gazebo, could you make AI to be less willing to become a vassal voluntarily? Or add an option in game settings to turn off volunteer vassalage.

 

[CCruise]

In my current Carthage game at early Renaissance, I become master of every civ. Russia and Egypt capitulated to me, so no issue with that, but top 3 civs other than me agreed to become a vassal to me via demand. Khmer was Afraid, Inca was Neutral and Timur was Guarded for me. Volunteer vassalage is way too easy to achieve.
@Gazebo, could you make AI to be less willing to become a vassal voluntarily? Or add an option in game settings to turn off volunteer vassalage.
View attachment 506617

What difficulty?

 

[CppMaster]

What difficulty?

Emperor with modified values of considered options: 2 -> 1 (tech, policy, building). So AI makes as good decisions as on Immortal and Deity.

 

[matlajs]

Another thing i like(irony) is, that i can't enslave a master civ regardless of having appropriate war score, but a peace deal value is mockery. And i don't mind any change, just a contribute with another thing and hope, that a vv get lessen.

 

[Omen of Peace]

In my current Carthage game at early Renaissance, I become master of every civ. Russia and Egypt capitulated to me, so no issue with that, but top 3 civs other than me agreed to become a vassal to me via demand. Khmer was Afraid, Inca was Neutral and Timur was Guarded for me. Volunteer vassalage is way too easy to achieve.
@Gazebo, could you make AI to be less willing to become a vassal voluntarily? Or add an option in game settings to turn off volunteer vassalage.
View attachment 506617

Can you (if not already done) file a report on Github?

This most certainly feels like a bug (we've had more and more mentions of it lately), but I think Gazebo needs concrete stuff (save, logs) to start the hunt.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

If an option were introduced to be able to turn off voluntary vassalage, I'd be very happy and would enjoy the game much more.

 

[CppMaster]

Can you (if not already done) file a report on Github?

Done already https://github.com/LoneGazebo/Community-Patch-DLL/issues/4851

This most certainly feels like a bug (we've had more and more mentions of it lately), but I think Gazebo needs concrete stuff (save, logs) to start the hunt.

@Gazebo are you interested in a save and logs in a modded game? I use 3&4UC mod, civ mods, UI mods and some minor mods, but nothing that changes an AI or vassalage.

 

[mikes61293]

In my Huge Diety Game as Russia, I was able to conquer about half of my continent by the early industrial era. I moved my troops to Japan's borders and demanded vassalage which they agreed to, this made sense. I was then able to demand vassalage from Greece and Denmark who were on my continent, but my army was nowhere near them, Greece I could have conquered but Denmark was on the other side of Greece and I had no navy. I then demanded vassalage of The Huns, Siam, Assyria, The Iroquois all of whom were on on the other continent and definitely out of my reach.

I've been noticing that I've been getting the afraid status far more often in recent patch versions, I think this is the problem.

I'm playing with 3&4 UC, Wonders Expanded, UCS, and some UI mods but nothing that should affect AI behavior.