Vassals, Ceasefire, Reputation

[CountMRVHS]

I figure it's time for a general "How do I make this diplomatic feature work?" thread.

I'm playing M2TW with Kingdoms; no patches beyond that. I'm not sure if recent patches have changed the diplomacy dynamic, but I somewhat doubt it.

Diplomacy has always been iffy in TW games, but I've read several posts where people have claimed to get several vassals in M2. How is this possible? In RTW I think I may have managed to get a Protectorate once, but never in M2. Based on my reading around here there seem to be a few factors:

-your faction's Reputation
-your Relations with the target faction
-throwing large sums of money at the target faction in exchange for their vassalship

Anything else? If you've ever managed to get a Vassal, I'd love to hear how you pulled it off, what the circumstances were, what version you were playing, what difficulty, etc.

Ceasefire is even more baffling. I can get why demanding vassalhood from a faction would be rejected, but a *ceasefire*? Again, what are the requirements for getting this to happen?

Reputation seems to be so important for many aspects of this game, it's too bad it seems so difficult to keep it high enough to be useful. Just being at war with lots of people, through no fault of your own, will tend to get you a lower reputation and lock you out of diplomatic options.

Anyway, any tips on how to make this work would be much appreciated.

CountMRVHS

[FactionHeir]

Ceasefire and alliances can be bought at exorbitant prices even if the AI is told not to accept, usually 10000 florins.
Vassalage the AI will only accept at truly exorbitant conditions (where you give it almost every province you own AND you florins) or if the code that triggers them wanting to be your vassal activates (something like outnumber them 5 times in terms of military power, have 5 times their total power on their land or at their borders, all their regions must border yours, they must be at war with many of your allies etc)

Details in campaign_ai_db.xml

[Must`]

Only time I was able to get someone as vassal was on my spain game in americas campaign when mayans had only 1 province left and no army besides 1 general and 3 units. Even then I was surprised that they agreed to go vassal considering stories that it is almost impossible. But hey, maybe it's just me

[RollingWave]

as the English I had 2 vassal , Milan and Mongols, my rep was pretty good because the only non-excommunicated / crusaded faction i ever went to war against was the Scots very early in the game,

for Milan, they attacked me as the French was dying, as the war dragged on the pope cease fire call camed and they didn't give a damn, causing them to be excommed, I then proceded to push all the way into Milan. I think they had 2-4 Province left at this point. my conditions was basically just giving my Milan.

Against the Mongols I setup a little Crusader kingdom from Jerusalem to Alexendria with the rest of Egypt being ripe for the taking. and they were getting hit hard by Timerlane. I don't think i had much condition outside of a not crazy fee. the Mongols still had most of Anatolia and the Levent at this point, they must have had 10 province or something close, as i had some 30+ province and that put me over the hump immediately.

I think it's probably going to be easier as the Catholics, as you can go to war without losing rep a lot easier. I'm having trouble getting anyone to accept as the Moors right now :P the setting this game is harder though. plus I probably lost a ton of rep that's having a hard time recovering due to my mid game assasin spree.... I hardly used any assasins in my first game.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I've found to get vassals without the need to pay exorbitant prices you need the following

• Have high rep
• They need to be at war with another faction as well as yours.
• It seems the length of time you have been at war may also be important. The shorter the better.
• They approach you for a ceasfire and you counter with vassal (Diplomatic deal shows "Balanced")

...and you do not necessarily need to reduce them to a single settlement, or have particularly high relations, or use a good diplomat, or offer settlements/money. What I do is wait until who I want to vassalage is attacked by someone else. I think the AI is programmed to avoid multiple conflicts so it becomes easier to get ceasfire. But what I've seen is if they are desperate for a ceasefire they will most likely take vassalage particularly if you're a Catholic faction. After they agreeing, don't forget to gift them enough money to improve relations before closing the diplomatic window otherwise they may happen to betray you next turn. Once you got at least Good - V Good there's little chance of betrayal if rep is also high.

[Armenia_Byzantium]

as the English I had 2 vassal , Milan and Mongols, my rep was pretty good because the only non-excommunicated / crusaded faction i ever went to war against was the Scots very early in the game,

for Milan, they attacked me as the French was dying, as the war dragged on the pope cease fire call camed and they didn't give a damn, causing them to be excommed, I then proceded to push all the way into Milan. I think they had 2-4 Province left at this point. my conditions was basically just giving my Milan.

Against the Mongols I setup a little Crusader kingdom from Jerusalem to Alexendria with the rest of Egypt being ripe for the taking. and they were getting hit hard by Timerlane. I don't think i had much condition outside of a not crazy fee. the Mongols still had most of Anatolia and the Levent at this point, they must have had 10 province or something close, as i had some 30+ province and that put me over the hump immediately.

I think it's probably going to be easier as the Catholics, as you can go to war without losing rep a lot easier. I'm having trouble getting anyone to accept as the Moors right now :P the setting this game is harder though. plus I probably lost a ton of rep that's having a hard time recovering due to my mid game assasin spree.... I hardly used any assasins in my first game.

I usually get a vassal agreement from turkey through intimidation. I guess reputation wouldnt count in this case.

[CountMRVHS]

Wow, lots of vassal-takers I see.

What campaign difficulty are you all playing on? I usually play H or VH, so that might have something to do with the rarity of ceasefires or vassals in my games.

It seems you're all getting your vassals well into the game -- not too late, but not too early.

Some good ideas here, and some things I hadn't thought about. Particularly the bit about making sure your target is at war with other factions. Guess I'll have to just play around a bit more...

[El Jojo]

Playing in H/H I also managed to have vassals (max 2). High rep is a condition for most diplomatic activity but it's not enough. The target must be at war with other factions as well. I've noticed that as long as I am their only ennemy, most of the time they don't even accept a ceasefire (except if our relations are very good or higher).
So get them excommunicated, launch a crusade against them, most of their neighbors will dow them, alliances will be broken and so on. They should happily accept. I am not sure if besieging their capital helps but the first time I got a vassal I was besieging it's capital...

[Julius_Nepos]

I've only had one Vassal, in a pre-Kingdoms M2TW game in which I took France to be the dominant power in Europe. Without going into too many details the map had been distilled into the reign of two super powers, myself (France) including the French homeland, England, Scotland, Ireland, all of Spain, Egypt, portions of North Africa, Naples and parts of Germany - arrayed against Hungary (oddly enough), who controlled Eastern Europe, Greece, Asia Minor, parts of the Levant and Russia with vassals in the form of the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire, Poland and the Mongols (if you can believe that).

At any rate late game a mid-sized power in the form of Denmark decided to declare war on me for no reason. Now I usually play on Hard/Hard so this wasn't entirely unexpected but I was up against the wall too, trying to keep Hungary from "winning" before I did. after managing to use my on-site forces to dissect a few Germany territories from Denmark I elected to send about 7 full stacks to deal the death blow, since they were becoming something of an annoyance. They couldn't have been at war with anyone else, our relations were terrible and usually I expect factions to fight to the death no matter what. I this case however once my massive armada of stacks got in the vicinity of Jutland, the Danes accepted vassalization and their five territories were incorporated into my own domain. I've had no problems with them after that.

It was unusual, but it seems like if you have enough boots on the ground you can strong arm much smaller opponents into submission, I don't know how reliable it is but in this one case it did work, and I enjoyed not having to completely annihilate my opponents, that's never been my style in the EU or the TW universe.

[Jason X]

also check out this thread at twc - the bloke got 9 vassals including the papal states

[CountMRVHS]

Success!!!

Thanks to the advice and the twcenter thread Jason X kindly linked, I was just able to vassalize Scotland in Kingdoms: Britannia.

I was playing the Irish, VH/VH, and going slow, taking my time kicking the English out and teching up before I did anything on the big island.

After releasing some prisoners and occupying some settlements, I got my rep up to "Reliable" and then "Very Reliable". Made allies with the Scots, Welsh, and Baron's Alliance, and got peace & trade rights w/ England. No relations at all with Norway.

Scotland had kicked Norway entirely off the mainland, and so I was thinking I'd try to get Norway under my thumb. Rather than declare war on a neutral faction and risk the rep hit, I got military access w/ Scotland (Ireland = cash for diplomacy) and sent an army up near Wick, where some Norwegian armies were milling around waiting to take back the castle from the Scots. I expected they'd attack & I'd reinforce my allies the Scots, and me & Norway would be at war, at which point I could get to work trying to make them my vassal.

Things took a different turn, however, as Scotland betrayed me & attacked my army (guess I made them nervous). I quickly secured an alliance w/ Norway (they were desperate for it) and set about trying to beat back the Scots. They were rated "Supreme" in strength, and had lots of stacks -- indeed, their attack on me wiped out my only army in Scotland.

Over the course of several years I grabbed Arran and Dumfries off them, and whittled their armies down a bit (Mounted Calivermen helped immensely here - 8 units of them in an all-cav stack is really all you need). Meanwhile I just kept gifting them cash to get our relations up from "Abysmal" or "Terrible". Also meanwhile, Norway took back Wick and Inverness from the Scots.

An offer of "Ceasefire" was normally considered Very Generous by the Scots, but I was holding out for "Become a Vassal" ("Very Demanding"), so I waited. At one point, I noticed my offer of Ceasefire was considered "Very Demanding", so I gifted some cash to get our relations up a bit. Just on a lark, I tried demanding vassalhood -- "Balanced"! They barely accepted, and I immediately gifted them cash to get our relations up to "Outstanding".

That forced a ceasefire w/ Norway and Scotland. I only directly control 10 regions myself, but with Scotland's territories I "own" 18, which is very nice.

This all happened around turn 100. My rep at the time was "Trustworthy", and when I demanded vassalhood our relations were I think "Terrible". I guess my offers of cash, my decent rep, and getting squeezed from the north by Norway were what did the trick.

Very cool to know this can be done with some reasonable certainty. Now I've got to hope I can *keep* Scotland as my vassal. Problem is, they're allied with England, and I'm allied with Wales and Norway, so that leaves me with no options for expansion. I'm traipsing an army through Wales' territory right now (they own most of England; we have military access), killing rebels and hoping the Welsh betray me. Maybe it's time to make some outrageous demands....

Anyway, sorry for the long post, thanks to all for the advice!

CountMRVHS

[Yezah]

I seem to have just got a vassal in odd circumstances.

I'm playing version 1.03 vanilla on H/H, and Milan just became my Vassal. They only wardecced me a couple of turns ago, sieging one of my castles. I sallied out and destroyed their army, then next turn a diplomat turned up offering a ceasefire. I noticed it said Very Generous so I thought I wonder what I can get off them, clicked Become Vassal and it showed as Balanced. Didn't particularly want them as my vassal but I didn't think they would accept anyway...I kinda wanted to attack them (they keep getting excommed and their cities make great crusade->sack targets) so I might reload, is there much benefit to them being my vassal?

I'm playing as Portugal and I am #1 overall with Milan #3, but Milan is #1 in military (by a big margin) and I'm only #3. Milan had reliable reputation, I have mixed. Reading the posts in this thread it seems this is a pretty strange (and easy) vassaling...

[CountMRVHS]

Actually, I've heard of that sort of thing happening a lot, though it doesn't often happen to me.

Generally, if the AI approaches *you* with a Ceasefire offer, you have them right where you want them, and can get all sorts of goodies (like vassalhood) out of them.

I've heard of Vassals (and Protectorates in RTW) being much easier to get under those circumstances you just described: AI attacks you, you beat them in the field very shortly thereafter, and then they desperately want peace.

The thinking was that the AI faction will have better relations with you after a very short war, whereas if you beat them down to their last city, you'll have made them so angry they'll never consider becoming your Vassal.

This makes me wonder if there was an invisible "Global reputation" score in RTW as well...

[PracticalEnglish]

What goods would a vassel bring?

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Money, tons of money
Allies
Trade
Buffer zone
Counts towards your settlement score.
Improves rep considerably so you can virtually manipulate who, how & when you go to war.
Satisfaction of beating the game playing a chivalrous faction. Much much harder.

[Zaleukos]

It also seems like a vassal wont betray it's overlord. (AI overlords will attack their vassals though, so inter-AI vassalages usually wont last long).

[WarMachine187]

I play on vh/vh and tho normally its extremely hard, i find its farely easy to turn factions with poor starting positions.For example i almost always turn scotland into a vessel when im playing with France or spain.Or when im playing as a catholic faction its farely easy to get the egytians to succumbe to slavery once ive got them down to one city.If i blitz factions that also helps,i guess the ai doesnt anticipate the multitude of a mass and a effective invasion and once youve quickly taking two of their cities,offer them their cities back in exchange for them to be your vassals.

[Jason X]

a word of warning - you can lose your vassal if you attack one of their allies because the game offers them the option of choosing to ally with them. this is a bit of a bug imo.