Vassaling your enemies (Current Count = 9) - Parzival vassaled the Pope

[Recluse]

I've noticed the Vassal topics (how, why, become, get, etc) roll through here pretty regularly, so I thought I'd share an interesting screenie of my current English campaign (1.2 vanilla, h/h, 2 yr/turn). Fow is disabled so you can see the world map.



I've got tons of allies, and have been able to vassalize Moors, Spain, and those dirty xbow spamming Milanese.

Portugal, HRE, Milan, Spain, and the Scots have all betrayed alliances with me during this campaign, but it didn't work out well for them.

My global rep is currently "Very Reliable," and in the last several turns I've neutered or re-neutered France and HRE by buying most of their castles from them (Metz and Bern from France, and Staufen, Innsbruck, and Vilnius from HRE).

HRE is getting squeezed militarily right now by Poland and Russia, and getting hosed diplomatically by me, so I suspect they soon won't have much left.

I've also got marriage alliances with France, Scotland, Poland, Milan, and Hungary which are pretty solid. Had one with Denmark but the surprising Scots landed at Arhus and wiped them out about 20 turns ago.

It's been a fun campaign judiciously using battles and crusades, but mainly I've been trying to use diplomacy to acquire new lands and trying to make vassals of my enemies.

Certainly keeps my attention much better than the typical slash and burn approach, and is more challenging trying to keep my Global Reputation high.

[P014K]

Very impressive. Now come the questions....

How did you keep your rep so high and continue to be a conquering nation? And how did you get THREE nations to become your vassals?!

[straig]

im the turks and i havnt declared war on anyone, always been called on me and im deceitful, first time ive ever seen it and it was for me, maybe cos i executed every prisoner from the crusade called against me, pathetic catholic, naffatum > everything

But nice campaign, i hate streching out so far and having people imbetween me, since then they can cut my in half, i prefer to fortify border towns and stay put unless i want something

[Kalos]

This has been gone over dozens of times.

[Ozy]

I think they should make the vassals give you a pension, maybe 10 % of their income? that way they would be useful in the first place.

[Kalos]

You get your vassals money if it goes over a certain amount (Somewhere over 10,000). I noticed because I had below 10,000 for a few turns when I was somebody's vassal and none was taken away. Then I sacked a city and got 15,000 and I checked the diplomacy thing, it said the next turn I would be paying about 5000 florins in tribute.

[AdmiringtheEnemyeh?]

Er, what the, you vassalised MILAN? How? You must've paid them like $50,000! Please tell me how you did it man. I've looked at 8 vassal threads and still cant pull it off. Thanks.

[Recluse]

How did you keep your rep so high and continue to be a conquering nation? And how did you get THREE nations to become your vassals?!

On the Rep thing:

I've never used a spy for anything besides sitting in cities as counterspies. I've never recruited or used an assassin. I've made as many alliances as possible, and as many marriage alliances as possible too. I've never executed prisoners or exterminated a city. I've never betrayed an alliance. I've never made war on a neutral faction except when on a crusade. I've gone on three crusades, called all three myself, and completed all three myself. I immediately seek peace when at war, or immediately following a successful crusade. I restrain myself from demolishing factions that betray me. I follow the Pope's wishes when he says to "cease hostilities." I buy and trade settlements quite a bit (this seems to both depend on and help your global rep).

On the Vassal thing:

First crusade was on Cordoba. Took Cordoba and Granada. Drove the Moors off the penninsula, kept offering ceasefire/trade or attack, my rep suddenly went from "Mixed" to "Reliable" (not sure if it was related) then my offer went from "Very Demanding" to "Very Generous." Decide to try for vassal, added map info, offer was "Very Generous" and they accepted.

Second crusade was on Toledo. Took Toledo, sought ceasefire, was "Very Generous," tried for vassal, added map info, was "Very Generous" and they accepted.

Third crusade was on Milan. Took Milan, they only had Dijon remaining, sought ceasefire multiple times, always "Very Demanding," ended up buying relations up from "Abysmal" to "Reasonable," then the offer went to "Generous," went for vassal, added map info, and they accepted.

I tried to vassalize the Scots, but the best I could do was get a ceasfire/trade agreement. Then I allied with them, then I married off a princess to them for good measure.

HRE wouldn't become a vassal either, they were too powerful. Best I could get was ceasefire/trade agreement.

This has been gone over dozens of times.

True. The last time or so was by you IIRC.

I think they should make the vassals give you a pension, maybe 10 % of their income? that way they would be useful in the first place.

With three vassals I've gotten between 400-3000 florins every turn in income from them, plus I control their territories. Seems useful to me. Even if they weren't useful, it's refreshing and enjoyable to play a different style of campaign.

[The Mongol]

Vassaline your enemies? Dude, that sounds kinda gay.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(I have nothing against gay people!)

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

Vassaline your enemies? Dude, that sounds kinda gay.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(I have nothing against gay people!)

Haha +rep

[Kalos]

True. The last time or so was by you IIRC.

So?

[UhOhIt'sAnArrow]

This has been gone over dozens of times.

Yeah you've been known to do this also, and he just wants to show everyone an example and make this like the "official thread". Which is very nice with those screenshots.

Also on a previous thread about this they suggested that any money that the vassal faction doesn't use that turn they give to you. I don't know if this is true or not but whatever.

But still, why do you ahve them vassaled? Do you really make more money by allowing them to live than just taking the settlement? It just doesn't seem to have any benefit by keeping them alive where they can someday betray you and take land.

[Recluse]

Also on a previous thread about this they suggested that any money that the vassal faction doesn't use that turn they give to you. I don't know if this is true or not but whatever.

But still, why do you ahve them vassaled? Do you really make more money by allowing them to live than just taking the settlement? It just doesn't seem to have any benefit by keeping them alive where they can someday betray you and take land.

I do receive an income from my vassals. It isn't much since they don't have much, but 400-3000 a turn is useful. I know I would make more by controlling 5 more settlements, but I'm making enough cash already to be able to buy settlements, build in all my settlements, and support a bunch of armies.

I bought both castles, Bern and Metz, off the French (who had 4 total settlements at the time) for 10,000 florins plus 5000/turn for three turns, and next turn bought Vilnius from HRE for 6000 florins cash, so money hasn't been a problem.

Plus, I don't want to destroy factions since Sapi said it would lower your global rep and I'm trying to keep my global rep as high as possible.

Moors have been my vassal without problem for almost 40 turns, Spain almost 30 turns. Milan, less than ten turns, but I made a marriage alliance with them after making them my vassal so hopefully that will help keep them loyal.

This is just the style I chose to play on this campaign since I typically get bored with my usual campaign about the time I establish myself as the dominant faction, and end up starting a new campaign.

[Kip]

Most vassals I've ever seen at once...+Rep!

I've held one vassal plenty of times, under varying circumstances...not sure if I've ever had two though.

Five is right out! (sorry, couldn't resist a Holy Grail quote!)

[Kalos]

I'm always someone elses vassal. You get great of stuff in return (i.e. a settlement or two, and they break the vassalage in a few turns anyway.

[Recluse]

Funny thing was, you know how Milan just makes war on everyone right?

Well, when they agreed to be my vassal like 10 separate notification things dropped down the left side of the screen since vassalization imposed peace with Milan on all my allies, plus imposed peace with me on the HRE (allied with Milan), who were being stubborn.

[Lumberjack]

I recommend Ultimate AI, I'll never play the game with vanilla campaign ai again. For one it makes vassalship reasonable to obtain, you dont have to play mr.nice guy the whole game, you can actually strong arm nations into submission.

[Recluse]

I played UAI mod as the English. Although I really like what GrandViz has done with balancing and with the AI interactions, there's a realistic building tree included in UAI 1.5 that made it so I was able to achieve my winning conditions as England before I ever got the chance to recruit a single longbowman.

That was sort of discouraging.

[EDIT] : Here's a screenie of my typical UAI English stack:



Also had some levy spearmen and one armoured sgt, but they all died heroically during the bridge defense.

[Kalos]

I use RealCombat in combination with Road to Jerusalem (Which has Ultimate AI... I think.)

[SlothBear]

And with UAI alliances actually work... impressive! How many of them have betrayed you so far, if any?