AI abuse of vassal status

[marvinkosh]

Too often I've got into the position where the Civ I'm at war with doesn't want to negotiate, but on the other hand I'm beating them so badly that the next turn they become a vassal of some other power that is willing to be their mommy and hold their hand. This wouldn't be so bad if the master didn't automatically adopt the same war-peace status as the new vassal.

What's the point of this? If they're going to bow down to anyone it should be me, not some ponce who's been sitting on the sidelines without being involved in any of the major wars.

The reason I feel this is an abuse is that the victimised Civ gets an ally for free instead of having to bribe them.

[MattDoyle]

Its based on your relationship. If for example you have almost zero positive modifiers and then goto war with someone, you will get a you declared war on us modifier, and if you raze cities a razed cities modifier. As the time goes past you will also get "this war does us no good" or whatever it is, giving you about -10 to -15 modifiers. With no positive modifiers, the civ basically hates you, and doesn't want to become your vassal.

The "ponce" sitting on the sidelines however, has none of the negative modifiers you have, possible has some positive ones, and the civ likes them alot more. Once i was the "ponce" and the civ came to me and said "please save us from the xxxxxx, we want to become your vassal".

However, if you do have some positive modifiers, such as you have been trading with them, you have their civic, same religion, supplying them with resources etc. and you declare war and start a beat down and don't raze any cities, the total ends up being about 0 to -5, and when you try to get them to capitulate, they will, because they don't hate you as much.

At least thats my experiences. Someone who knows the in depth nature of the game might be able to explain it a bit better. I think military power might also be a factor, for example they wont go to some pathetic civ and ask to be saved because you will just roll right on through.

Don't worry, until i experienced all sides of it above, i thought it was stupid also.

[Brael]

My absolute favorite vassal abuse was 2 games ago. Elizabeth had been becoming my vassal on and off all game, so she offers it to me and I once again take it. Big mistake. What I was blissfully unaware of since it just occured that turn and I hadn't been informed of it yet was Ghengis (the largest military power in the game at that point... owned roughly 55% of the map compared to my 10%) had declared war on her. So I adopted her as a vassal and got thrown into a huge war.

[Tattila the Hun]

Well, a warning in such situation would be nice. And, a chance to make peace with the vassalizer, ie, "Bubba has vassalized Monty. Do you wish to negotiate peace with Bubba?" Or "Bubba is at war with Monty, whom you are about to vassalize. Would you like to contact Bubba?"

Once, I was lucky, and the vassalizer came and asked me something on the same turn, I believe to stop trading with someone. I declined, and made peace.

I wonder if they have thought to, well, fix this in BTS? Should not be that hard to implement?

[couerdelion]

Re: AI abuse of vassal status

Originally posted by marvinkosh
The reason I feel this is an abuse is that the victimised Civ gets an ally for free instead of having to bribe them.

Becoming a vassal is not free

[Will9]

Civs at war should not be able to pacefully become vassals.

[Jaybe]

Why? Because it's an unexpected challenge to a warmongering player, or because it subjects the new master to being destroyed?

The game would be BORING if there were no surprises -- and a cringing civ asking to be saved by vassalization is definitely a surprise!

[patcon]

Originally posted by Brael
My absolute favorite vassal abuse was 2 games ago. Elizabeth had been becoming my vassal on and off all game, so she offers it to me and I once again take it. Big mistake. What I was blissfully unaware of since it just occured that turn and I hadn't been informed of it yet was Ghengis (the largest military power in the game at that point... owned roughly 55% of the map compared to my 10%) had declared war on her. So I adopted her as a vassal and got thrown into a huge war.

As I posted a while back, I've had the reverse happen to me. I'm at war with X and have a nice force poised to take their last cities. I'm at peace with Y and we have good relations and profitable trades. X becomes the vassal of Y and peaces is declared between X and me and my oh-so-ready-and-willing forces were whisked across the border! Granted, I might have wanted to make peace to preserve my relations with Y, but maybe I was willing to go to war with Y in order to finish off X knowing that I could probably broker a peace with Y quickly. In fact, that is precisely what I did.

What I would like to see if a more robust diplomacy in this situation and others.
1) When X went to Y offering to become a vassal, Y should have the option (depending on the state of relations) to come to me and ask for a counter-offer. "X has asked to become my vassal. If I leave him to you, what will you give me?" or perhaps a more direct request for certain things, "Will you give me Theology to deny X my protection as a vassal?" You could then essentially pay Y to stay out of it by offering gold, resources, technology, or even cities captured from X. It would be even cooler if you could counter with "Why back a loser? Join me in wiping X off the face of the planet."
2) There should also be opportunities to negotiate when the AI makes requests to stop trade, to go to war, or to accede to a demand for technology or gold. I hate it when X asks me to stop trading with Y (who is my source of coal) and offers nothing in return, particularly when my relations with Y are far superior to those with X. Now if X said, "Stop trading with Y and I'll trade coal to you," that would be a different story.

[OliverFA]

Re: AI abuse of vassal status

Originally posted by marvinkosh
Too often I've got into the position where the Civ I'm at war with doesn't want to negotiate, but on the other hand I'm beating them so badly that the next turn they become a vassal of some other power that is willing to be their mommy and hold their hand. This wouldn't be so bad if the master didn't automatically adopt the same war-peace status as the new vassal.

What's the point of this? If they're going to bow down to anyone it should be me, not some ponce who's been sitting on the sidelines without being involved in any of the major wars.

The reason I feel this is an abuse is that the victimised Civ gets an ally for free instead of having to bribe them.

Are you sure that is an abuse? It is not very different from what happens in other similar games (i.e. GalCiv 2) when an AI knows it can't win and surrenders to your enemy.

In fact, I am sure that happens pretty often in many different games. Some players when they see that cannot win choose to surrender (or ally) with the worst enemy of the player that defeated them. It even happened in real life many times. Think about Second World War. UK and the USSR didn't like each other much. Did they? However they choose to ally with each other. If one of them had been less powerful, that would have been a master-vassal relationship.

The Punic Wars started when two minor states became vassals of Rome and Carthage, and the Spanish rebels became vassals of the UK when Napoleon conquered them (and later regained their independency). There are many examples in real life.

The only case in which I would consider that an abuse was if the vassal and its new master where in very bad relations. But if their relations are ok or even a bit bad, why not?

[Henrik]

I don't see how this is unrealistic at all actually
Why shouldn't a great power be able to intervene in a minor war somewhere on the losing parts side in (which would effectively make the state that's saved a satelite state if it survives the war).

[Wiglaf]

Vassals don't provide significant benefits to the master civ. That's why this is sort of an AI abuse.

[OliverFA]

That's a good point Wiglaf. But that's more a mistake in the vassals system.

[eris]

I support the idea of having a choice. If you are beating up Mansa Musa and he vassalizes himself to Ghandi you should get a choice dialogue box

Mansa Musa has just become a vassal of Ghandi. Do you want to continue this senseless destruction?

Choice 1: "Fine, we'll take them all on!" (Declares War on Ghandi on all other vassals. Transports units out of Ghandi and other Vassal territories. Does not transport units out of Mansa Musa territory.)

Choice 2: "On second thought, let's be friends." (Peace is declared between yourself and Ghandi and all his Vassals. Since you probably do NOT have Open Borders with Mansa Musa, troops are transported out of his territory.)

Note: If you are already at war with Ghandi, this choice is moot and the dialogue box does not appear. No troops are transported. Fighting and senseless destruction and the screaming of victims continues as before.

[marvinkosh]

It is indeed much better to have a choice. In the scenario I described, I had deliberately tripped a Defensive pact arrangement to avoid a political stalemate. Now if the Civ in question didn't want to get into a costly war at some point, it shouldn't have signed the pact.

Signing a vassal agreement with another Civ wouldn't have saved them though. My army had become so vast because I was gearing up to defend against an attack, so all that happens is that there's another long series of turns where my main opponent refuses to negotiate, and I gain even more ground in the meantime.

Rather than having a world war kick off though (which is a pain because a hundred or more AI units wake up, brush off their cobwebs and actually start to earn their keep, appearing anywhere that there is a border to hop across) I jumped into the WB for a second to force an end to the war. The next turn the vassal agreement went through just as before, but there's no world war although such a conflict is still possible.

[Shrapnel12]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Vassals don't provide significant benefits to the master civ. That's why this is sort of an AI abuse.

Would anyone have any ideas on how to mod better benefits from vassals?