Vassel Questions/advice

**strife1013** · August 24, 2010, 12:16 AM

So after playing this game for like 4 years (in general) I finally got Venice as a vassal and I'm The Roman Empire/Byz's anyways they have one settlement (Venice) and I get about 4000 per turn on avg. from them give or take. Anyways I was thinking about taking a few small settlements in Italy and gift them to Venice. My question is is this a good idea? Should I get more income or will they perhaps get the notion that they want freedom and attack me? Can vassal's break their ties? Just some general info would be helpful too. Not sure what too do with them..keep em for awhile and gift them a few settlements or wipe em out all together.

**Alpha Zeke** · August 24, 2010, 01:12 AM

I say gift Italy to them, since they will get the ai bonus of money and give half of it too you
Plus I don't like eliminating factions altogether since they cant come back.

They most likely wont rebel I think, but they could. They might also conquer the byzantines for you with your help, you never know!

**strife1013** · August 24, 2010, 01:18 AM

I am the Byzantines lol!

**Alpha Zeke** · August 24, 2010, 01:25 AM

OOOOOOOOOOH I for some reason inserted HOLY roman empire in there

oh the mind plays tricks. that actually confused me what you meant by hre/byz, but now i understand

Yeah gift them italy anyway, they hate the germans enough to fight em

**preachercheeze** · August 24, 2010, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by Historydude

OOOOOOOOOOH I for some reason inserted HOLY roman empire in there

oh the mind plays tricks. that actually confused me what you meant by hre/byz, but now i understand

Yeah gift them italy anyway, they hate the germans enough to fight em

this is just the reason why I voted for the Byz name...

nice to see my suspicions where correct then...

**strife1013** · August 24, 2010, 01:27 AM

Ha ha, well I called them The Roman Empire because of the poll we just had about a week ago :-P

**Fair Prince** · August 25, 2010, 11:46 AM

Originally Posted by strife1013

Ha ha, well I called them The Roman Empire because of the poll we just had about a week ago :-P

Man, looks like that poll will live long in the memory...

**Irishpsycho** · August 25, 2010, 07:41 PM

As the byzantines (VH-VH, Savage AI, no BGR) I made the crusaders my vassal. I had made them my ally and revived them from their certain doom by giving them back all the territories they had lost to the fatimids (minus Jerusalem), but then they got too big for their briches and betrayed me by seiging Jerusalem. After 10 turns of being bludgeoned into submission they only had kerak which was seiged by fatimids and tortosa which was seiged by me. I offered vassilage and it was generous

. I used them as a buffer against the fatimids in mecca and medina by giving them alaquaba to make them stable but not strong.

So my advice is put your allies on a hostile frontier so they have something to do other than contemplate trechary. Just make sure they don't get killed as even a weak normal faction can usually beat a vassal.

**Alpha Zeke** · August 24, 2010, 01:45 AM

I think I might just refer to them in the future as "Purple".

**philipjd** · August 24, 2010, 07:46 AM

Vassals - are 'secure' except as follows - if they are allied with any other nation and they have to make a choice between your alliance with them and the other, that if they chose to break yours, then vassalage ends, also jihad and crusade calls will also end the vassalage (assuming that they respond).
Gifting them provinces wil help them survive and also the cash they pay you.

**Alavaria** · August 24, 2010, 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by philipjd

Vassals - are 'secure' except as follows - if they are allied with any other nation and they have to make a choice between your alliance with them and the other, that if they chose to break yours, then vassalage ends

Hmm, on higher difficulty levels, will the AI pretty much always resolve an alliance issue by choosing to break with you?

It's good if vassals can't/don't just randomly blockade your port to free themselves from you ...

**YourOnlineHero** · August 25, 2010, 05:38 AM

Vassels aren't as fun as I thought they would be.

Ruler: Attack HRE, everyone is at war with them in europe, they are weaker than us and there is even a crusade on them. You have 4 full stacks.

Vassel: No, this is very demanding. I will continue to eat up money by keeping my armies in my only province.

Ruler: Ok, attack HRE and we'll give you 40000 coins.

Vassel: No, this is very demanding.

**strife1013** · August 24, 2010, 10:45 AM

Thanks guys!

**bɑne** · August 25, 2010, 05:53 AM

Yup its pretty obvious that diplomacy has no place in the total war series. A neglected feature.

**elich** · August 25, 2010, 06:05 AM

In my current campaign SS6.3 VH/VH Savage AI playing as Kingdom of Leon I got Moors for my vassal for over 40 years(I had fort with 20 units outside their capital for almost 35 years dunno if it helps but seemed necessary and also my rep is Immaculate almost all the time) but things just got interesting my first and oldest ally Kingdom of Portugal declared war on Moors and I chose to protect Moors few turns later I declared war on Portugal and my 2nd oldest alliance with Kingdom of Aragon was over the thing is having faction as an vassal is not all that good they seem to recruit armies all the time and the florins they used to pay me each turn stopped because they went bankrupt with 7 stacks patrolling around 2 regions.

**strife1013** · August 25, 2010, 11:25 AM

Ya I noticed that my vassal kingdom doesn't do anything but sit there. They won't fight anyone or anything like that...Hmmmm maybe I should release them sometime.