Capitulation and border city

[kiky]

My latest game I am in the southern part of the land mass. North of me is Capac. Catherine is on my west side and she is my vassal through capitulation. I attacked Capac, conquered couple of his cities. Then he offer Capitulation. I accepted.
I sell my extra resources for their resources and gold per turn. That way I'm able to run science at 100%.

Now, I am going further north, attacked Washington. I conquer 2 cities, then Washington offer Capitulation. I accepted.
Then I realise something. My border cities do not have enough working tiles.

Seems now I'm stuck. I cant expand anymore because all my border cities will have no working tiles. I could go further west to conquer Mehmed, but still my new cities would have no working tiles.
I could not trade city with my vassal. No option for cities on diplo screen.

How do you get around this situation?

[Brael]

Build alot of culture and wait? Generate GA's? Declare War on someone and let them wipe your vassals out?

[kiky]

Originally posted by Brael
Build alot of culture and wait? Generate GA's? Declare War on someone and let them wipe your vassals out?

Yeah, that would work, but not practical. It would take ages for those cities to be worthy of keeping.
Also, it would have cost me more than just eliminate them in the first place.

[Jaybe]

Well, they'll just be marginal cities, then. Not the end of the world (your VICTORY will be THAT). I have just had a similar situation, where I was offered a capitulation and accepted it when I shouldn't have.

Remember, you get half their land & population to count towards your score & domination, and your trades with them will line your pocketbooks! I am currently making over 300 gpt from my 3 capit vassals in my huge/marathon game, in the mid 1800's.

In Warlords, I am going to have to add to my standard operating procedure whenever I go to war:
Every turn, before I end it, "would I accept a capitulation at this point," because there ain't no warning it's about to be offered.

[DirtyMartini]

If an AI offers capitulation, be like Nancy Reagan and Just Say No. You can always get them to capitulate later at a time of your choosing. Only risk is that they'll capitulate to someone else in the meantime.

[diemex]

I have a similar issue. Had some cities that I had to invade due to resouce location. OIL.... and it was the only place with it on the map.

Well I nabbed them first... got a capitulation of the host country. But not many workable tiles. I'm trying to get some entertainer great persons to make works of art, thats the only way I can see to get my culture up quick enough to expand my border.

[Blake]

IMO capitulation should only be accepted once a civ has been purged from the mainland - it's a good way to make some slight use of those offshore islands - not worth the investment to capture, so may as well get the vassal bonuses. It's great for conquest on Terra should the AI's have already escaped to the new world.

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
If an AI offers capitulation, be like Nancy Reagan and Just Say No. You can always get them to capitulate later at a time of your choosing. Only risk is that they'll capitulate to someone else in the meantime.

Exactly the problem. I had just taken Frederick's capital and refused his offer of capitulation as I wanted some more of his cities. He promptly ran off and became Mansa's pet. I wasn't really in a position to take on Mansa as well and had to settle for 3 cities. Now two of them have lost several tiles to cultural pressure from the remaining German cities.

For me the rather perverse effect of vassal states being possible is I am more likely to eliminate civs or at least to raze their border cities to avoid cultural pressure later.

[Will9]

I have a trick for making the population les of the formor owners. If you go into the worldbuilder you can only bring a cities culture to 1000. If you put it at 1000 and there are plenty of tiles to work reduce the culture to what it was before. If you reduce the culture and you lose most of the tiles, or 1000 was not enough culture put some great artists in the city. Then have them do great works then reduce the culture to what it was before. You'll notice that the culture in the area is mostly yours, but the culture is the same. You may need to repeat adding great artists the only reson I do this is because I don't think culture should reduce when you captue a city. think about it, it makes no sence. "We are now ruled by different nation we must act like them now" is what the people in a captured city curently say when the city is captured, but they can act the same in real life.

[Prussia]

In Multiplayer I was playing a game with 4 guys on a pangea. I was on the far western side, and the guy right east of me was totally idiotic, had no idea what he was doing, and made a whole lot of mistakes.

So anyways, I was in a perfect spot, I had a nice army, and alot of gold and was extremely close to a win by culture. This guy to my east had settled southward cutting off my expansion without a right of passage, which he didn't give me. No matter, but then he started massing forces on my border, obviously pointing out that he's going to war. I could have taken him on easily, but was soooo close to culture win.

So I offered him a peacful vassal state agreement. He accepted, much to the dismay of the other 2 players, who kept screaming at him that he was making a mistake to be my master and I his vassal, but the idiot wasn't thinking, so I won.

The point is, you have to think about capitulation. If there is no benefit to accepting it, you might as well just blow them off the face of the earth,

[Martinus]

It's best to raze 2-3 border cities of the enemy, surrounding the city (or cities) you wish to keep before accepting his capitulation. That way you are creating some no-man's'-land into which your captured cities can expand.

Then you can open borders to your vassal and let him colonise some pockets of tundra and desert, they are so fond of - they present no risk of culturally threatening you and give you a few more percent of landmass.