Vassal Schmassal!

[gdijedi7]

Does having a colony/vassal exclude a conquest victory?

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by realpolitic


Declaring war on your enemy, not declaring war on you. I've also taken cities that had mediocreh land, (too much tundra). I had the most territory of anyone, size 1, so I "liberated" those cities to Greece, which instantly got 2 phalanxes each (in the early game), freeing up my troops there. My new vassal is next to my main rival, who would have otherwise irly earlbeen too dangerous to attack until much later. Because my enemy capitulated fairly early, we now have plenty of units to attack with.

Vassalage is one of the changes in civ4 that keeps it from being as repetitive as civ3. Just be opportunistic.

Ah vassals...how do I love thee? Let me count the ways....

* You can get all their stuff (resources, luxuries) either for free, or via a very favorable trade terms (1 unit of your own resources/luxuries : several units of theirs.)

* The territory they occupy is effectively under your control without you having to pay much in the way of maintenance or micromanagement.

* At the same time, whatever territory they control also is NOT controlled by one of your rivals. You know, the ones that have a serious shot at winning?

* With the rules changes in 3.13, vassals are now the ONLY way to win a "diplomacy-via-conquest" win. You can still declare war and conquer people at will, as long as you turn your victims into vassals...who will then vote for you in the AP or UN.

* There truly is little that is more satisfying to me than declaring war on a huge power (like Ragnar), seizing only one or two of his cities with nukes, marines, and tanks, forcing him to capitulate, and making him vote you into office....keeping him cowed into vassalage by military force alone because his population/territory remained well over the 50% mark. Other times, if I'm invading another continent and don't really need the land, I will gift back most of not all of the cities I conquered (sparing me the cost of running them myself.)

* They're great for corporation spamming for extra income.

* Each vassal gives you extra happiness in your cities.

* Each vassal is considered "conquered" for conquest purposes.

* "Liberating" a city to a vassal (or granting independence to a colony) is a great way to reduce costs AND get two free 'friendly' defensive units in a city.

* Imperalism is so passe. Let the poor suckers keep their flag.

[Yosho]

(shrug) If it wasn't for the diplomatic -1, I wouldn't mind so much. But as it is, I'd rather just take everything I want and then make peace with whatever's left. That way, the minor kingdom with a couple of islands and some tundra left is still holding that land so none of your serious rivals can get it, he's not costing you a penny, he will never again be a threat to you, and when your economy expands some more and you want to pick up some more cities you can just finish him off with no real hassle whenever you want. If you make him your vassal instead, he just costs you money and hurts your diplomacy with other powers; and in return you get, what, a minor ally in your next war with incredibly antiquated technology and next to no industrial base? What, he's going to send a few ironclads to die against my enemy's battleships to give them more exp? Piffle.

[jnh140]

Originally posted by Yosho
What, he's going to send a few ironclads to die against my enemy's battleships to give them more exp? Piffle.

Ironclads? Those take coal. Which my vassals don't have

Ragnar is really funny, he will capitulate at the drop of a hat

[Yosho]

Ok, so he'll throw frigates or something at the enemy's battleships. How useful is that really going to be?

[HaplessHorde]

re: vassal or city

assuming your home-grown civ is powerful enough to defeat another and force capitulation, the score boost of having a vassal is vastly superior to what you could get by capturing every last city. And you'll have already captured/destroyed a good handful of enemy cities before you get them to capitulate anyway.

[Yosho]

I don't care about "score bonus". I care about winning, and vassals make winning harder, by costing me money, making other people mad at me and getting me into wars I'd rather avoid, and all that slows down my winning and thus lowers my score.

I mean, sure, after you've already basically all but won and it dosn't matter anymore, taking vassels might speed up the end a bit, but earlier in the game, like as you're winning your first local war early on, it's not worth it.

[Asmodeous]

Costing you money? You earn half their income and I believe the maint costs are FAR lower than owning those cities yourself.

Plus if you spam them with corporations you have with all the income things, you're swimming in gold for next to nothing.

Me.

[Blake]

The biggest reason to not create vassals is (or at least was) the fact that their culture remained behind, causing your cities to be less happy than if you'd nuked their culture.

But that's not such a big problem now, with the rules change a while ago where masters always get a full city radius regardless of culture strength, AND you can just gift cities back to the vassal! You don't have the frustration of dead cities.

[HaplessHorde]

I should add that I'm playing Warlords, not BtS. Maybe there are some significant changes. But I don't see how having a vassal impedes victory, unless you're planning on being the only civ left on the map. Name another way you can get a 3000 point score boost that easily.

If your civ is stong enough to force somebody to capitulate, the economic drag shouldn't hurt much. But maybe there are a lot of variables, such as whether or not you raze a bunch of his/her marginal cities during the war, what civ you're playing, etc.

[gdijedi7]

Eh...Corporation spamming only works until the vassal decides to go Commie or Mercantilist.

Which mine always do for some reason.