Vassels

[ASPER THE GREAT]

I went back about 5 or 6 pages and found a few post on it "BUT" it was not very clear????? What are the benefits I get from making a country be my "Vas"? I understand from reading a few post anything over 15k fl. is mine ok but with only 1 or 4 countries I will be getting sqwat from them. Boarder control without paying for upkeep cool! But what else???? Oh yea and they can attack me next turn, or me them that is just not right. Come on Sapi/Foz/Mussi sorry "Muss" (not sure about the spelling) or is no one doing it? Help PLZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. I just love the smiley face's.

[zstajerski]

Their territorys also count to yours for the victory condition

[Ethelred Unread]

..and if you offer them, say 50k florins to be a vassal, they give it you back next turn.

[TevashSzat]

I do not remember there being any confirmed thing that the faction that is your vassal will give you money once they are over some limit. 15K was the limit for RTW, but not necessarily M2TW

[sapi]

I believe that the 15k limit is still in place (i've certainly lost money after sacking a huge city while someone else's vassal) but the ai's inablility to save and plan ahead means that you'll be seeing very little of it.

The main value of a vassal as the game stands, imo, is as a much stronger form of an alliance (i've never heard of a vassal betraying you except in the case of bugs, where they keep their old alliances and stay faithful to them).

The role playing aspect, as well as territories that count as 'yours' is pretty neat too.

[KHPike]

Was playing yesterday and 'found out' that vassals DO betray you. Not directly, but if you attack an ally of theirs they will cancel their alliance, after which they will attack you a few turns later.

[Whacker]

KHPike, that behavior you mentioned was rather hotly debated in an old bug thread. The general consensus coming out of it seemed to be that this was a bug, with some caveats. Logically a vassal is beholden to it's liege state, and the liege should be able to essentially dictate vassal policy and direction, though there's nothing to approximate this in the TW series. Part of this includes the idea that once a state becomes a vassal, their alliances, enemies, and general political stances should mirror that of the parent state. This is akin to the roman factions in RTW mirroring that of the Senate, even thought it wasn't a true vassal/liege relationship. I haven't seen anything else on that subject since that thread disappeared into org limbo.

Cheers

[dumas]

I've also noticed that when you open up a diplomat window with your vassal, there's a chance that they'll say something like(not verbatim) "we no longer wanna be your bitch" and become an independant state again.

[KHPike]

Like Whacker said, it's bugged diplomacy behaviour. It has a chance of happening when you offer a 'balanced' deal which the AI will irrationally reject. This is so as in conducting wars the AI does not consider alliances and relations and will blatantly disregard you (right???). Characteristic of total war games also is that the whole map goes bonkers on you once you exceed a certain threshold of power.

In case you haven't seen it, you can check out this thread and apply some temporary fixes to make the AI less volatile in diplomacy (from my observation), although it does not nullify alliance cancellation due to wars on allies.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75496

And Whacker, you gave me an interesting idea. When a faction becomes your vassal you should be able to order it around like the Senate and Pope.

[Whacker]

And Whacker, you gave me an interesting idea. When a faction becomes your vassal you should be able to order it around like the Senate and Pope.

Feature wishlist is thataways https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75475 my friend (if this hasn't already been posted). That's be awesome to be able to at least direct you vassal(s) as to their status of war or not with various other factions. I can already hear the screams of "EXPLOIT" though.

[IrishArmenian]

Whacker, it is incredibly hard to get a vassal (for me at least...damnable English!) so I don't think it will be exploited to much.

[Whacker]

Whacker, it is incredibly hard to get a vassal (for me at least...damnable English!) so I don't think it will be exploited to much.

Your eastern buddies giving you trouble? That's not what I intended with my tongue in cheek statement, but yeah I agree, I only ever managed to land one vassal state and that was in RTW 1.5, a single province remaining state and me with 6 full stacks parked on the front door.

The "exploit" as I could see it would be to force someone into vassalage, then force them to declare war and basically do your dirty work for you. In the end, provided they start to win, all you have to do to make a nice quick and easy grab for their land is park a reasonable amount of troops outside of every city (military access rights) and at the right moment, blitz. You could instantly have as many of their provinces as you wanted to, while their main stacks are, theoretically at least, marching around fighting whomever you set them on. The AI would have no way of knowing if you were going to backstab them given what we've currently seen the AI capable of, and given military access, you marching around their lands wouldn't be seen as a big deal, at least I think that's right.

Cheers!