How to make a vassal

[The_Notorious_P]

I've only been able to get a a vassal one time. Playing with VH/VH vanilla 1.1 as Portugal. My goal the entire game was to get Spain as a vassal, so I was doing everything I have read in this thread and thought of myself to prepare for this. As we all know it is only a matter of time before the best of allies will attack you on VH. But it was the French who attacked first. It was rather early in the campaign and my reputation was only up to Reliable. I was allied through marraige (Have to go with the best princess for Alffonso right away, Constance o_O) and had perfect relations, but they decided to seige Pamplona. Next turn they attacked and I successfully defended the castle. Their despicable actions earned them an excommunication, which allowed me to call for a crusade on Paris. So, I moved my stack through their territory avoiding any battles until I got to Paris and seiged it. I actually got the Crown of Thorns relic when I took it, but back to the point. Occupied Paris, then used a lowly diplomat to initiate diplomacy. Yes I initiated!!

It turned out they accepted vassalage for the return of Paris, and nothing more.

Woot, I had made my first vassal! I was really surprised. So, why did they accept it? They had all of their other starting cities still and maybe more. Stacks walking around aimlessly all over,so they were still very powerful. I've tried to set up the situation for you guys as best as I can, but there were undoubtably other things that played into it. But definately a big part of the puzzle was that my relations with them were still at a very high level. An enemy won't get angry and lower relations if you fight a defensive seige (not sallying). It's only when you attack their armies that they get mad. So besides the one battle to take Paris, the only other thing that could have reduced relations was walking through their lands. Perhaps calling the crusade was a factor, because it made other catholics declare war on them...Maybe even me stealing their Crown of Thorns, LoL. Unfortunately though this vassalage agreement was not meant to be, for they were allied with the Moors. As Portugal, I was planning on fighting them and that would have broken the vassalage. I only played on a little bit more, as the point of the game was to get a vassal, something I'd never done in the game before and I'd done it. It turned out I never got any tributes from France. The Moors didn't attack me either, so I didn't find out if an ally of my vassal declared war on me would break the vassalage or not. So, I hope my experience can help you guys get more vassals. I'll definatley share again once we get the official 1.2 patch. Until then... I'm screwing around with mods.

[crpcarrot]

@ the notorious p

diplomacy is a bit screwed up in VH difficutly so if u want to play a diplomatic game that will make sense you should play m/vh

[Tran]

Has someone tested whether or not with patch 1.2 making vassal is relatively easier (and more logical) out of almost-defeated AI faction? Any significant differences?

[WhiskeyGhost]

I have noticed that some of the AI factions seem to take vassalage as apposed to wiping out a faction now. I was playing as Sicily, and i had a real good long term alliance with England/Denmark/etc, and Milan had gotten itself excommed attacking me again, so i called a Crusade on Paris (yeah, they stole it). Before i could get there, i managed to take Genoa/Milan from them and started towards the target, only to have my English Allies beat me to it. Well, they were sieging it, and a Milanese diplo comes up and talks to him, and he calls it off in exchange for Milan becoming a Vassal. The downside to this, is that in the process of doing so, it auto-broke my alliance with England, and lowered my reputation (for some reason. Pope missions to break alliances seem to do this as well). Shortly after, my Dane friends attack, and take the city without contest, and end up at war with England despite it being a Crusade target.


The odd thing is, for some reason, the AI seems more likely to take a Vassalage when another one does it. The Byzantines did the same thing a turn or two later after laying seige (but not taking) Iconium from the Turks. The odd thing about that one, is that they still had most of the eastern map when they did it.

Now to my point.....Is it at all possible that maybe because its their Capital City being sieged, that it may make them more likely to vassal, as apposed to another one in their empire?

[Moah]

Quite likely - as the traditional method of getting them down to their last city, it will always be their capital...

I have managed to make vassals when they had 2 cities left (they approached me for ceasefire) but it seems to be harder to raise their relations with me thatn the others.

Presently playing Turks. Mongols, Russians, Poles and Ventetians are vassals. Spanish and Scots are allies.

Pope and Moors were once allies but have both attacked me after I wiped out Milan (who refused to be Vassals, and I couldn't be bothered waiting 2 turns to send reinforcements to outnumber them more locally). Even stranger is the two of them are at war with each other too.

I'm a little worried that fighting the pope may piss off venetians and/or Poland but they're not allied so we'll see...

[Magraev]

My early experience is that it is much easier getting vassals in 1.2.

As England I got Scotland as a vassal after besieging edinborough. They came and offered ceasefire and I countered with vassal - no money, no land -and they accepted. They already had Ireland when I struck, so a 2-province land vassal to a 5-province land (Rennes, Caen, London, Nottingham and York).

This wouldn't have happened before 1.2.

[darth_napo]

try to beat me in vassalage thhis was done in 1.1 with at that time SW Diplomacy mod 1.4

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...42&postcount=3





I got >300,000 florins

THAT was 'unofficially' ended that campaign since with those amount of money I could pretty much bought everything and I lost my desire to continue that campaign.

hahahah