when would you not want a vassal?

[FidelZandro]

PS Fidelzandro, your sig should say also: The Dutch, proud owners of the dikes, rulers of archilopegea

Jah =)
Actually the dike is a pretty impressive UB, although i don't see the reason behind the +1 hammer bonus for water tiles. The UU is much more historically accurate...
Not that i'm complaining though, I've won many games with Willem
Funny to see the city where you live irl being founded

 

[Gwynnja]

I don't want vassals until I'm so far ahead that I'm no longer concerned with diplomacy.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Jah =)
Actually the dike is a pretty impressive UB, although i don't see the reason behind the +1 hammer bonus for water tiles. The UU is much more historically accurate...
Not that i'm complaining though, I've won many games with Willem
Funny to see the city where you live irl being founded

Willem on archipelago, lol, just declare "I WIN" and restart.

 

[FidelZandro]

Willem on archipelago, lol, just declare "I WIN" and restart.

It's pretty much unfair
Late game production will be off the charts compared to the AI's

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

I play continents mainly, so on my continent, I NEVER take vassals, I want to control every single little tile. I love the management of all those cities, especially on HUGE maps.

Its just not worth the hassel of spies and homeland longing.

if I'm going for a conquest win, I'll take vassals, but other wise, I like to control my lands, and build what I WANT in MY cities, not having some Dumb A vassal forever making settlers.

 

[King Jason]

The only time I've every seriously had a vassal was in a multiplayer game against a friend of mine. It was on a European map with myself playing Greece and Him playing Rome. As the game progressed, I Vassalized an a country that sat between us (think Austria, location-wise) in order to provide a nuissance for the inevitable war between us.

As I expanded north I'd gift cities to the Vassal simply to create a border where he'd have to Declare war without being able to bring any units close to my actual empire first.

It was fun fighting over the Vassal Territory once we finally went at it.

The territory also gave me an edge when Aircraft came online, as my planes could sit in Vassal territory, and his could only reach a portion of my territory.

(We play longer games, making an effort to get to the industrial era at least before we call it quits)

 

[Gorey]

i've only had the AI ask to be my vassal once. and i accepted it.

Wang Kon and i were really good friends from early on. When i first found him, he had no religion so i sent a missionary over there. we were good trading partners.

but he was on an island with De Gaulle.. and De Gaulle was kicking his arse. Wang Kon was now last in the score and was cornered at the edge of the island with only around 5 cities.

he ended up offering himself as a vassal to me.

i figured what the heck.. de gaulle hates me, so i could use Wang Kon as sort of a "Kuwait" and invade DeGaulle through there without a costly amphibous assault.

worked out nicely.

 

[6K Man]

The problem with vassals:
1. Vassals can still win the game, via space or culture especially. You can always sabotage them with spies or misdirect their research, but your options are limited when compared with dealing with a free nation.
2. Residual culture. If you take over a city in the heart of a vassal's territory, and then vassalize them, your city may go into revolt and even flip if that has been enabled. Yes, you always get to work the BFC at least, but that won't prevent the revolts if you are heavily out-cultured.
3. Residual hatred. If you have friends who hate your vassal, they'll like you less. If your vassal is a former enemy that you bribed a friend to attack, you may lose the friend by vassalizing the enemy. Plus, you'll get a -1 in attitude from everyone else, for every vassal you take.
4. Residual love for the former country. The cities you take from a vassal will forever be clamouring to join the motherland. This sucks when you already have war weariness from another war you started.
5. Lack of coordination in research. Sure, you can direct your vassal, but they may not trade techs with you.
6. Irrevocability. Once you have a vassal, they're very hard to get rid of.

The pluses with vassals:
1. +1 happiness in your cities
2. You aren't at war with them anymore, and you don't need to capture all those crappy 1-tile island cities the AI loves.
3. Vassals count at 1/2 their pop and land towards domination.

IMO, those pluses seldom outweigh the minuses.

 

[IAM]

My problem with vassals is I don't have enough. I play huge maps and almost always go for conquest or domination victory. So it can get tedious having to capture every city of my current victim.

 

[duckstab]

i lost a game recently to mansa via culture. he voluntarily became my vassal because i was kicking butt on our continent and wanted my protection. at the time i figured what the heck as i never had a voluntary vassal before . . . and never will again!!

I once lost a space race to MM, who'd vassalized himself to another AI. Boy, that was embarrassing.

 

[r_rolo1]

Vassals also have a very interesting effect in the diplomacy: the real attitude the AI has vs a master is a average of the attitutes it has vs master and vassals and not the displayed one ( for a example : if the AI is Friendly with the master and Cautious with the vassal ( or the other way around ) the real attitute will be ( Friendly + Cautious )/2 ( yes, attitudes dividing by a number ) = Pleased )

This obviously creates really situations in the games most of the times ( it might make that a AI dows you in spite of being "friendly" if it's pissed with your vassal or make a "friendly" AI to deny tech trades because you're too advanced ( really friendly AI does not deny tech trades because of that ) ) but it can also work the other way around: I already had games where capturing a vassal actually improved my diplo stance with the rest of the AI, because it was a AI that was friendly with everyone.

 

[IAM]

I loved when vassals became part of the game. But the discussion brings a question to mind. I play at prince level and have found vassals to be awesome (if used correctly), but do higher level players vassal or not? Does the level change the dynamics of the situation?