Why accept vassals?

[davypi]

To be short and blunt, I'm having a hard time understanding why, from a strategic point of view, taking on a vassal state is a good idea. I've read the technical descriptions of what vassalage does for you, but I've not really seen a good description of why this is necessarily a good (or bad) decision. So if some of the veterans here could please explain the pros and cons of vassalage in pragmatic terms instead of game-rule terms I would be appreciative.



To be verbose about it, I am playing an Epic game, largest map, with 15 AI civs. There is only one other civ on my continent who is extremely pleased with me, so I am not worried about homeland security. The contient to the east has 10 civs on it, including the number 1 and number 3 civs (I'm #2). #1 also has control of the AP and has been using it to coerce his religious allies into war with his neighbors, so I am a bit worried about being on the bad end of a world war if I can't nullify the AP before he builds up a decent navy. I am the only civ with gunpowder, but they aren't that far behind.

The contient to the west has 5 civs and is not a technolgical threat. I already knocked one civ off the continent. I am currently at peace to build some city improvement back home before I gear up to take the next one out. Everybody else there seems to hate Washington for some reason, he seems like the next best target. Taking him out also gets me closer to the Chinese who are my real target. The other civs share my religion and have been friendly enough with me that I don't really fear a sneak attack, so I will deal with them at my leisure.

So, for no reason that I can discern, the Celts have asked for vassalage. They aren't at war. They don't have a huge military, but its strong enough that they can defend themselves. They are the biggest, most advanced, and most well defended civ on the content. We hate the same civs, so any war one of us starts, the other may be likely to join. In short, we would make good allies until there is noone left to conquer. In terms of benefits, he has no resources that I need and I don't need the extra happies. I can't take any techs from him since I'm more advanced. The only real benefit worth considering is the score boost - but then I would get that eventually if I do decide to run over him later. On the minus side, I have to pay more maintenance fees (although I'm not really clear on how much more) and I have to go to war if somebody comes after him. I'm not saying its a bad deal, but I doesn't really seem like a good deal either. So what are the real benefits of taking him in and do they offset the costs?

[wertyu70]

If you are playing BTS with latest patch, there are 2 good reasons to accept vassals:

- You can tell them what to research, so you can direct your research on your primary goals and let your vassals research secondary branches.
Your vassal will be always happy to trade with you.
Give him the right technologies so that he can be usefull.
It's amazing how you can speed up your research rate.

- Espionage points. You can stop spending espionage point on him,
while your enemy will still do it.

And if it is on another continents you are planning to conquer, it is always handy to have a friendly city where park troups before the attack.

[sorinache]

You have to pay more maintenance fees if you have a vassal ? I didn't think so ... Why would you ? IMO, when they offer to become your vassal the only downside is that you won't be easily able to conquer them (I don't actually know if it all - how can you get rid voluntarily of a vassal ?). If they were not your immediate next target, I see no real downside to accepting them as your vassals. They won't be able to DOW on anyone from that point on - and noone will dow on them : every such interaction goes through you : you DOW, they do the same; you make peace, they make peace, automatically

[slnz]

No, you don't pay mainteinance for vassals. The only downsides in taking vassals is that you can't conquer them to extinction later, so any cities you have already conquered from them will get that annoying homeland unhappiness, and you might get diplo penalties from Civs that don't like your vassal. In the case you mentioned neither of these seems to apply.

On the upside, as mentioned you can direct their research, get a happiness point for influencing other Civs, and raise your land area and population by ½ of your vassals (towards the domination limits). Seems like a no-brainer to me. To get more out of the research direction, you can gift them techs to get on-par with you, though I wouldn't necessarily do this to voluntary vassals, just capitulated ones.

People CAN DoW them instead of you (dragging you in the fight), but they're more unlikely to do so because they consider your combined military might instead of theirs alone. And as you said any war would be likely to include you both anyway.

[sorinache]

[QUOTE=slnz;5661149]
People CAN DoW them instead of you (dragging you in the fight) [QUOTE]

Are you sure ? I remember several times I tried to DoW on a computer Civ and it was written "Can't declare war" (in red) - I then each time discovered these were vassal civs so I assumed one cannot declare war directly on a vassal, it has to declare war on the master in order to fight the vassal (and the master at the same time ...)

[wodan11]

Vassals count as foreign but you can still trade with them under mercantilism. (This is actually a very significant benefit.)

[Jeroen Schweitzer]

Also they will reduce micromanagement in pest control. Tossing a vassal a bunch of destroyers and airplanes and such and they'll keep the seas clear, hunt subs (which might have nukes), and shoot down that bomber coming from wherever you didn't expect it.

[rah]

I haven't had much success giving things to vassals. They don't seem to use the assets the same way I would or as I figured they use them. Like I gave a couple of destroyers to help them patrol their sea lanes, but they immediately put them on auto search and were on the other side of the world within a couple of turns.

[wodan11]

I haven't had much success giving things to vassals. They don't seem to use the assets the same way I would or as I figured they use them. Like I gave a couple of destroyers to help them patrol their sea lanes, but they immediately put them on auto search and were on the other side of the world within a couple of turns.

Gifting them the world map (assuming you have revealed it all) might stop that.

[slnz]

Are you sure ? I remember several times I tried to DoW on a computer Civ and it was written "Can't declare war" (in red) - I then each time discovered these were vassal civs so I assumed one cannot declare war directly on a vassal, it has to declare war on the master in order to fight the vassal (and the master at the same time ...)

Yes I'm pretty sure... You probably had a forced 10-turn peace period going on from conducting trades.

[TriMiro]

A vassal is one person who cannot attack you, so you can always get OB and trade (which is powerful if he is on another continent). You can use his land to attack a nearby civ. You can liberate/gift conquered cities to him, so you will not have to micromanage them.

Some mods (such as RFC) have made vassals even more powerful.

[rah]

The wanting to rejoin the fricking motherland is the show stopper for me. If I'm at war, every happiness is big.
If I get the civ down so far that they're willing to concede to me, I might as well finish them off. And if you're that worried about micro management, just automate the city and it will be just like if it was a vassal. As much as I hate automating workers, by this point most are. Either build auto or trade routes. I'll leave a few free for special missions. I wish there was a automate repair sabotage option.

[slnz]

At least on higher difficulties vassals are very useful for the research help, as with their bonuses they can be of significant assistance even with just a few cities, teching maybe 1 tech for each 2-3 you self-tech.

Usually this outweighs the homeland unhappiness since it's not like the conquered cities are useful right off the bat anyway (pillaged improvements, shrinkage due to culture pressure, frequent revolts, buildings blown away etc). After the war the unhappiness can relatively easily be contained.

Not to mention chasing all those faraway ex-barb cities and remote tundra islands is a royal pain.

[ben04]

They are useful as trade partners. I haven't yet tried it but 1 tile island in the middle of the ocean could open some good trade opportunities. Drop a settler, found a city and declare independence. Enjoy the juice intercontinental trade route that provides 3+ commerce.

[Theben]

Vassals count as foreign but you can still trade with them under mercantilism. (This is actually a very significant benefit.)

I didn't know that. That would actually make Mercantilism useful.