Why accept vassals?

[Hauptman]

Hahah, another thread got me pokin through screenshots and I found this gem. Exactly what I was talking about....

Friendly civ I had been workin on, got a negative for something, prolly refusing to stop trading with another friend and his outlook got rather confusing. He declared war a few turn later.

[Blaupanzer]

That screenshot isfor a Defensive Pact. I see them almost every game I'm a power/tech leader. However, from Fascism you get permanent alliance.

The problem with a defensive pact is two-fold. 1) The AI will accept these even if he is building up to attack me at the moment. All that has happened is the attack initiation is delayed 10 turns. This is a "backstab" in which you let your "friend get close enough to hurt. 2) As when paying for a declaration, your new "ally" may only go to war in name only, then make peace early, ESPECIALLY if he asked you for the pact. IOW he has hired you as his mercenary for a fight he sees coming, then jumps out as quick as he can. I have been backstabbed twice in my current game. It happens all the time, so maintain strategic depth.

The Permanent Alliance is just that, permanent. Once in, the only way out is if enemies kill or capture every single city of your new ally. I strongly suspect if that happens, you are screwed in this game. That permanent alliance can NOT be cancelled nor can the AI cancel it once in.

[slnz]

Not sure if what I'm writing was exactly your point, but...

Justinian appears to have vassals in that screenshot. Vassals totally screw the printed attitude (Friendly in this case), because the real attitude is averaged over the master and the vassals. An example of the hidden diplo pitfalls in relying on the UI to tell you things as they really are. Single negatives have no effect, only the (real) attitude, which is not Friendly in this case.

[rah]

If they're you're neighbor it's hard to not have the -1 our close borders spark tension.
If you don't have that one, just wait, they'll build a stupid city up against your border, so I think it's silly to put a lot of effort into keeping perfect with someone.

[Blaupanzer]

I did not know they "averaged" their attitudes. I notice a drop in the extreme cases once the number of vassals go up, but some variation usually remains between master's and vassal's attitudes on both the main diplomatic and glance screens. Makes sense they would influence each other.

[slnz]

Hmm now I'm not actually sure if I was talking out of my a** there. I know for sure that if you have vassals then foreign relations towards you is averaged over their relations with you and your vassals, respectively. Not sure if it works the other way around.

[Blaupanzer]

In the Glance screen, the human player does not have a column (only a row) for a reason. For the AI programming, this can be interpreted as the human feels the same way about them that they feel about the player. So that screen can show that Monty hates Willem while Willem is pretty neutral about Monty. However, if I as the human am involved, then when Monty is -16 to me, he acts as if I am also -16 to him. This is true for each AI in the game.

I have seen indirect effects that indicate my vassals become included in representing my face [column effect] to the world. The AI's attitude about me + my vassal's attitudes toward the AI appear to be blended in some way. With most AIs, this takes the edge off the extremes in trade, borders, undsoweiter. Similarly I can see that one "Master" and his many vassals do tend to drift toward each other in attitude over time. Also, each vassal becomes more positive to their master as the game progresses.

I'm especially alert to this interplay as I have played with diplomacy and vassals off in BTS until recently. These programming effects are subtle but something is going on.

[Hauptman]

Well mutual defense pacts are pretty equal on accemptance terms as a permanent alliance. As an alliance requires either shared war or mutual protection just to become available.

The best part about that screenshot is not that he rejects, but the reason he gives. "We will never trade with you, our worst enemy!" even though he's friendly. Classic humor in my book.

Also on a side note, notice the proliferation of confucionism. I had founded that via oracle and it pushed hinduism off the map darn near. thats just in rebuttle to somone calling later religions "useless".

[rah]

Due to the early building of ORACLE, I don't classify CON as a later religion.
Since I build Oracle early, I usually get the shrine up before the others, and that really speeds up spreading it, so it's not uncommon for CON to be the dominant religion on my landmass. Agreed if the ai missionary spams they can get a good leap, but those civs are typically easy to steal their shrine from.

[Ming]

I also never consider confucionism to be a later religion.
IMHO only Taoism and Islam are really later religions. Christianity is kind of borderline since some of the more militrary civs race to it, and plus, it leads to the AP.

Unless everybody is spread out on different islands, I usually see any of the Big Four (Bud, Con, Jew, Hind) take over the world. Even though Bud and Hind come earliest, Con or Jew can take over if the owner is aggressive.
And because of this, I don't consider them "later religions"

Rarely have I ever seen Taoism or Islam amount to anything... unless it's an island type of map, or a duel continent map where the early religions are all started on the other continent.

[SpencerH]

One thing that seems to be happening in my last two games is that vassals appear to effect the attitude of their master toward me which causes them to declare war at strange times. In my current game I've had two occasions where a "pleased" vassal carrier state has attacked me for no reason. Both times I was at war with a third party who had attacked me so its possible they were bribed (but it seems weird since I was a +9 with England before it attacked me out of the blue). OTOH, my vassals despise everyone and they are both despised by either the 'master' nations or by their vassals. I think there is a possibility that their attitudes toward my vassals is triggering the sudden attacks especially during war time.

[Blaupanzer]

Especially if your vassals are close to them and you are percieved to be tied up in another war. Welcome to the sort of "backstab" that makes the game so exciting. A nastier backstab occurs when a civ with whom you have a defense pact attacks you out of the blue, your only warning being his snatching your workers along the border as the war begins.