Client Kingdoms: confused by the concept.

[Kobal2fr]

That idea doesn't actually make much sense in terms of the definition of vassalage or in defining a distinction between Vassal and Ally in terms of game mechanic's.

A vassal as I understand it only retains his right to hold office and land on sufferance of his lord, and that only in return for providing the agreed payments and services demanded by that lord.

If that is the accepted then a vassal cannot merely decide he doesn't want to be a vassal to that Lord anymore without abandoning all the rights he has been granted in return. In the case of a client state which has surrendered its sovereignty in return for the overlords protection that would mean in effect the ruling house would lose its right to rule.

So, the only way a vassal state could achieve independence and retain its right to rule would be to rebel against its overlord and win. However, that doesn't seem to be the method adopted in the game. It seems that in the game there is little difference between a vassalage and an alliance, and little point in granting your protection to a vassal state rather than just annexing it outright.

Which ever way I look at it, it seems to be a broken concept. I was surprised to discover that allies are not required to support each other, but its even more bizarre that vassals can ignore their Lords policies.

Agreed, but that's because you don't look at the vassal's "well, we thought about it and hmmm... OK, we're not your vassals anymore. Yeah. OK ? Zat cool ?" as open rebellion. But I do, and if they think they can get away with it, they've got another thing coming. Throw my tea in the harbour, will they ?!

With that said, I think the term "vassalage" as used in game is poorly chosen, because of the weight the term carries. Heck, age old oaths of fealty not being properly respected was what caused the Hundred Years War in the first place. They were, I agree with you, not just an alliance of convenience with a little money thrown in for good measure as the "leave us ALONE" factor. They were final and supposed to last for the proverbial thousand years.

But CA took it's old "temporary Roman protectorate" system, and the brainstorm must have looked like :
"do we want to rewrite that ?"
"naaaah, it's good, gamewise"
"ok... but it needs another name. Protectorate doesn't fit"
"ooooh how about vassals ? That's properly medieval right ?"
"get Tom a coffee, he earned it. OK, next issue..."

As I figure it, proper vassalage would be kind of like the 3 Roman factions in RTW (no fog of war, unbreakable alliance that auto-DoWs enemies of each other, and perma-mil rights unless you screw up) only unilateraly : the liege gets all the benefits, the vassal gets none. That would be "vassalage" proper. What we've got in the game is just military blackmail.

[alpaca]

Well diplomacy in general is not that exciting in all TW games so far. I don't think anyone ever properly designed it, it has that definite "let's make it up as we go along" feel to it that I in fact get about the whole strategy layer (I don't know if you ever noticed rounding errors in the trade income for example when moving your governor in and out of a settlement can make a difference in your income)

Anyways, the vassal system in Civ4 is a bit better but in fact I think there you don't get enough from it because you have no financial benefits. Quite on the contrary, you even have to pay higher maintenance for your cities if you have a vassal. Nonetheless, some points about it are good, for example that you actually protect them: If somebody goes to war with either you or your vassal, they'll go to war with you and all your vassals which is a very strong diminutive to any military planning. In TW it's mainly a tributary and should be called that to be honest. You don't have much of a military cooperation except for the automatic rights of passage, alliance and trade agreements which, let's face it, mean as much as a steaming heap of llama dung on a hot afternoon.

[andrewt]

Well, Civ 4's vassal system is more of a gameplay device than something that is supposedly realistic. It lessens the tedious late game activity of having to hunt down every single city of an AI faction to destroy it.

[Didz]

Well neither game provides a realistic model of feudalism, in fact if one beleives certain American historians feudalism never existed and Europe in the middle ages was nothing more than one big federal republic

However, purely from game play point of view I would have liked vassalage to involve a bit more commitment and conformance from the vassal. At the moment it hardly seems worth the effort compared with the standard 'slash and burn' conquest technique.