(P)REVIEWS - Civilization IV: Warlords Review by Solver
Vassal of My Vassal is My Vassal
Vassal states are the other big feature of Warlords. In fact, it’s
probably the main addition in this expansion. Vassal states enable you to
subjugate beaten civilizations to your rule, or become the protector of other
civs during peacetime.
The basics are as follows. Once you discover Feudalism, vassal states
get enabled. There are two types of vassal state agreements – peaceful and
capitulation. Capitulation, as the name implies, is possible when you’ve beaten
someone in a war big time. Peaceful agreements will usually happen between good
friends. Both of them result in creation of a vassal state.
Vassal states have no diplomatic independency. Their peace/war status
will always reflect that of their master. If the master declares war or is
declared against, the vassal is obliged to also declare. On the other hand, if
someone declares war on the vassal, then the master also declares war
automatically. The master experiences a slight happiness bonus, and the vassal
a slight hit in this regard. Also, the master can demand tribute in the form of
any of vassal’s resources – these demands will usually be granted. If not,
however, it automatically means war. Also, masters can demand gold or
technologies from their vassals, and the chances of these demands being
successful are also higher than outside a vassal relationship.
Vassals won’t just automatically love their masters though. If you make
someone capitulate, they will probably still hate you. You can build up your
relationship and get better relations, but this mechanic is, in all honesty,
rather useless. I failed to notice a significant increase in the vassal’s
willingness to cave in to your demands if they’re Pleased. My vassals usually
stay Annoyed, and give me what I ask for most of the time.
If you want to, you can gift the vassal your technologies. Then he might
research techs that you don’t research and give them to you, but there’s also
the danger of your vassal selling these techs to your enemies. They do not seem
to particularly care if the civ they trade with happens to be your enemy.
To make someone capitulate, you have to be in a real position to
exterminate them completely. Civs won’t surrender if you just have the upper
hand in a war, although they’re now smarter about giving you techs in return
for peace. They will not refuse point-blank to do that peace, as they often
would in vanilla. Once you are really in a clear position to eliminate the civ
completely, maybe with them down to two cities, they’ll be willing to
capitulate if you ask them to, or even offer to do so themselves.
Whether you accept capitulation is up to you. It has two significant
downsides. First, you’ll pay increased maintenance, as your maintenance costs
increase with the number of vassal cities. If you are finishing a war that has
nearly wrecked your economy, accepting surrender may just kill that economy
off, and that’s not a good idea. Second, as the master, you have no way of
breaking vassalage. A capitulated vassal may not break it either. The culture
from vassal’s remaining cities will still remain, and, if you took some cities
from him, it’s likely that they will fall under the cultural influence of one
of the remaining cities – which you can never dispose of. Or the vassal might
decide to occupy some “holes” that have formed by building new cities, denying
you any chance to do anything about it, and increasing your maintenance costs
at that. [ ... Previous Page | Next Page ... ]
