Posted November 15, 2020
Vassal states are a feature introduced in the Warlords expansion of Civilization IV. A civilization can become a vassal to another civilization, either by choice or by force. The vassal contracts a series of obligation to its master, in exchange for military protection.
There are three types of vassals:
Peace vassals: one civilization chooses to become a vassal to another voluntarily, as part of a diplomatic exchange. Peace vassals may re-evaluate their decision to become vassals every 10 turns.
Colonies: a sub-type of peace vassals. The difference is how they are generated: the master chooses to “liberate” all their cities in a landmass different than their capital’s, ceding their control to a new leader that starts as a vassal.
Capitulated vassals: they become vassals as the consequence of a peace deal. AIs only capitulate when they are losing a war badly.
Vassals may also break free if they either lose too much territory, or if they grow strong enough to rival their master.
While having vassals is the default option, it is possible to choose to disable them in the Custom game setup. Here’s a list of pros and cons of vassals I have come up with:
Pros:
*Your vassals’ half population and territory partially count for the domination victory limits, making it easier and faster to achieve.
*Capitulated vassals make military games in huge maps a lot less tedious and reduce micromanagement.
*Vassals will always vote for you for a diplomatic victory (“diplomation”) and do not count towards the limit that blocks this victory if you can just elect you yourself, making it easier to achieve. (Note: it could be argued that this makes diplomatic victory less challenging and interesting).
*You can demand resources to your vassals (if they refuse, they auto declare war on you). This is good to get resources you don’t have access to in your territory or to gain extra resources for corporations. However, bleeding them dry will make them useless.
*You can order your vassals what technology to research. If they are not in a bad shape, they will actually finish the research before you do. You can direct them towards certain technologies and acquire them later in trade deals, while you focus on specific branches of the tech tree.
*You will always have full control over disputed tiles that fall under your city big fat cross (the first two rings), no matter what the culture percentages are. A city cannot revolt to join a vassal’s empire.
*Having vassals gives a small happiness bonus in all your cities (your citizens like to feel powerful).
Cons:
*Vassals screw up diplomacy. Despite what the diplomatic screen tells you, the real opinion of the AIs will be an average between their opinion of yours and their opinion of your vassals. It’s already bad that Civ4 has hidden diplomacy modifiers, but this is outright lying.
*It’s almost impossible to get rid of a peace vassal. In many years of playing I only remember one peace vassal becoming free, and it was a colony to another AI player. Some AIs (like Mansa Musa) will actively try to become peace vassals and then achieve peaceful victory conditions (culture or space), and there is very little you can do if you are their master.
*A human player cannot become a vassal. I’m not fond of different rules being applied to human and AI players.
*A vassal is supposed to adopt its master’s diplomatic stances (who they are at wat and at peace), but peace vassals do the exact opposite: if they are at war with another player, then their master also has to declare war upon accepting them as a vassal. There are few things worse in-game than being about to win a war only for your target to become a peace vassal, dragging you to another war with a bigger player with who you had had good a relationship until that point.
*Your vassals’ cities increase your own city maintenance costs.
*If vassals are enabled, cities in a landmass different than your capital get a big “colony maintenance” modifier to encourage eventually releasing them as a colony. This applies to any landmass and becomes ridiculous in archipelago maps.
*A colony is released with the same technology level than their master. The moment this happens you can say goodbye to any tech monopoly you had, as they will start trading techs with the other AIs.
Because of all these reasons, I usually play without vassals, unless it’s a very big map. I would be more inclined to play with vassals if it were possible to enable just capitulated vassals and leave peace vassals out, which in my opinion have the most problematic implementation. Perhaps there’s already a mod for that.
So, what about you? Can you come up with other points, for or against? Do you play with or without vassals?
There are three types of vassals:
Peace vassals: one civilization chooses to become a vassal to another voluntarily, as part of a diplomatic exchange. Peace vassals may re-evaluate their decision to become vassals every 10 turns.
Colonies: a sub-type of peace vassals. The difference is how they are generated: the master chooses to “liberate” all their cities in a landmass different than their capital’s, ceding their control to a new leader that starts as a vassal.
Capitulated vassals: they become vassals as the consequence of a peace deal. AIs only capitulate when they are losing a war badly.
Vassals may also break free if they either lose too much territory, or if they grow strong enough to rival their master.
While having vassals is the default option, it is possible to choose to disable them in the Custom game setup. Here’s a list of pros and cons of vassals I have come up with:
Pros:
*Your vassals’ half population and territory partially count for the domination victory limits, making it easier and faster to achieve.
*Capitulated vassals make military games in huge maps a lot less tedious and reduce micromanagement.
*Vassals will always vote for you for a diplomatic victory (“diplomation”) and do not count towards the limit that blocks this victory if you can just elect you yourself, making it easier to achieve. (Note: it could be argued that this makes diplomatic victory less challenging and interesting).
*You can demand resources to your vassals (if they refuse, they auto declare war on you). This is good to get resources you don’t have access to in your territory or to gain extra resources for corporations. However, bleeding them dry will make them useless.
*You can order your vassals what technology to research. If they are not in a bad shape, they will actually finish the research before you do. You can direct them towards certain technologies and acquire them later in trade deals, while you focus on specific branches of the tech tree.
*You will always have full control over disputed tiles that fall under your city big fat cross (the first two rings), no matter what the culture percentages are. A city cannot revolt to join a vassal’s empire.
*Having vassals gives a small happiness bonus in all your cities (your citizens like to feel powerful).
Cons:
*Vassals screw up diplomacy. Despite what the diplomatic screen tells you, the real opinion of the AIs will be an average between their opinion of yours and their opinion of your vassals. It’s already bad that Civ4 has hidden diplomacy modifiers, but this is outright lying.
*It’s almost impossible to get rid of a peace vassal. In many years of playing I only remember one peace vassal becoming free, and it was a colony to another AI player. Some AIs (like Mansa Musa) will actively try to become peace vassals and then achieve peaceful victory conditions (culture or space), and there is very little you can do if you are their master.
*A human player cannot become a vassal. I’m not fond of different rules being applied to human and AI players.
*A vassal is supposed to adopt its master’s diplomatic stances (who they are at wat and at peace), but peace vassals do the exact opposite: if they are at war with another player, then their master also has to declare war upon accepting them as a vassal. There are few things worse in-game than being about to win a war only for your target to become a peace vassal, dragging you to another war with a bigger player with who you had had good a relationship until that point.
*Your vassals’ cities increase your own city maintenance costs.
*If vassals are enabled, cities in a landmass different than your capital get a big “colony maintenance” modifier to encourage eventually releasing them as a colony. This applies to any landmass and becomes ridiculous in archipelago maps.
*A colony is released with the same technology level than their master. The moment this happens you can say goodbye to any tech monopoly you had, as they will start trading techs with the other AIs.
Because of all these reasons, I usually play without vassals, unless it’s a very big map. I would be more inclined to play with vassals if it were possible to enable just capitulated vassals and leave peace vassals out, which in my opinion have the most problematic implementation. Perhaps there’s already a mod for that.
So, what about you? Can you come up with other points, for or against? Do you play with or without vassals?
Post edited November 15, 2020 by ConsulCaesar