AI breaks vassal agreement out of nowhere, all at the same time

**helmersen** · February 28, 2015, 01:11 PM

I'm playing as the ERE in the year of 415. I'm doing well even though I'm currently going through a rough patch in Persia and Macedonia. However, it's nothing life threatening, and my generals, armies and cities are doing well.

Then it happens. I end turn, and everything is fine. When my next turn begins, I see that my income has been cut by 16000 gold (from having a 10000 surplus). All of my vassals have simultanously broken their vassal aggrement with me. First of all, ouch. Second of all, I am trying to find out why, there is a "puppet state seccedes" noticiation, but why? And why are they all doing it at the same time? My "former" vassals still have very good relations with me, but they wont go back to being my vassals. I am not in a civil war, and my generals are all loyal (5+ loyalty and up), so there is no insentive to rebell against me.

Any help or explanation as to why this might happen?

**Aeratus** · February 28, 2015, 03:33 PM

It's probably because another faction declared war on you. When (1) another faction declares war on you, and (2) your vassal has a higher relationship score with the aggressor faction than with you, then your vassal will declare war on you.

When another faction declares war on you, your vassal cannot remain neutral. Either your vassal joins you in the war, or secedes and declares war on you. When one vassal declares war on you, the same thing cascades into the other vassals, since your second vassal might have a better relationship with your first vassal (which declared war on you), and thus will declare war on you as well. So it is possible to have every single faction declare war on you all at once, if any vassal declares war on you.

That's my observation.

**helmersen** · February 28, 2015, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by Aeratus

It's probably because another faction declared war on you. When (1) another faction declares war on you, and (2) your vassal has a higher relationship score with the aggressor faction than with you, then your vassal will declare war on you.

When another faction declares war on you, your vassal cannot remain neutral. Either your vassal joins you in the war, or secedes and declares war on you. When one vassal declares war on you, the same thing cascades into the other vassals, since your second vassal might have a better relationship with your first vassal (which declared war on you), and thus will declare war on you as well. So it is possible to have every single faction declare war on you all at once, if any vassal declares war on you.

That's my observation.

That's a very clever observation, Aeratus. +rep

**crowe15** · March 01, 2015, 08:47 PM

Post screen shots

**Aeratus** · March 02, 2015, 12:00 AM

What OP says does happen, and I've seen it myself. This type of situation is most likely to occur when your vassals have very high relations with each other (or at least higher relations with each other than with you). In this circumstance, if one vassal secedes, then all of them will.

Personally, I find that the best way to manage vassals relations is to stay permanently at war against a few weak enemy factions. By having a permanent mutual enemy, your relations with vassals will be high in the long run. So, for example, if playing as Sassanids, I think a good idea is to reduce ERE down to one region (but not destroy them completely) while keeping them constantly at war. My vassals love the fact that I'm at war with ERE, and it helps my relations with them immensely.

**crowe15** · March 04, 2015, 09:28 AM

After having more exposure to this, this is a problem. I'il have green relations with my vassals and then they secede and DoW on me even with green relations. CA needs to patch this

**Ritterlichvon86** · March 06, 2015, 03:55 AM

Originally Posted by crowe15

After having more exposure to this, this is a problem. I'il have green relations with my vassals and then they secede and DoW on me even with green relations. CA needs to patch this

No, they do not need to patch it. The solution you seek is in your strategy. You need to keep a sizeable military force around your vassals, especially near those that have the "Opportunist" trait. You can check the faction leaders' / factions' traits via the diplomacy screen.

If you decide not to do that, you have three options: Either go along with it and let them declare independence from you, or give them independence (select "cancel puppet state"), or give them independence and then annex them. For the latter option, you need to check wether they have good relation with your remaining puppet states - if they do, wait 10 turns before you declare war to annex them. If you do not have the military ressources to annex them, you must ask yourself why they will stay as your puppet state anyway if you cannot maintain control over their fate.

**crowe15** · March 07, 2015, 05:27 PM

You don't need an army close to them. The game shows the balance of power between two factions in comparison. Someone like the WRE with 6-8 stacks of Tier 2-3 units compared to the Franks with 1-2 stacks of Tier 1-2 units should, by that argument, deter the AI from attacking you. They should know they can't win, they're out numbered and out matched.

Also, friendly relations should be sufficient to maintain peace, however, peaceful coexistence (lol irony) doesn't work because even factions with friendly relations spontaneously attack you.

We have good relations, I'm way more powerful, and the Greuthungians have multiple directions for expansion. There's no reason for them to attack me except.

1.) For me to Go in there and Raze all their settlements and kill them.

2.) Because CA makes AI factions inclined to attack you.

Click to view content:

I posted these screenshots in a similar thread in the General Discussion but I'll post them here for your convenience .

Click to view content:

**Ritterlichvon86** · March 10, 2015, 03:55 PM

Yes, you do need an army closeby, because the AI chooses targets of opportunity. If your armies are 500km off and far in the distance, they can trigger to attack to annex one of your juicy settlements nearby.

The same applies to when playing as the Huns - the further you are away with your armies, the less important your powerbar becomes.

As I said before, the AI faction's traits are especially important too. If one is branded unreliable, opportunistic, and whatnot, it is way more likely to turn on its masters, even with good relations.

In your case, they probably didn't see your armies near the regions of opportunity to them, which are the regions bordering their own (that includes the regions bordering the black sea). They see juicy stuff along the coast, and attack. Also, I see that you are unreliable. Pretty hefty malus that affects both parties regarding holding diplomatic treaties. Stay at least reliable, if you cannot hold steadfast.

**Aeratus** · March 10, 2015, 08:15 PM

The close proximity of your forces is only relevant in the case of a vassal declaring war on you for the normal reasons of declaring war on you.

In the case of vassals declaring war on you due to to a new declaration of war between you and another faction, the proximity of your force is irrelevant or negligible. Vassals break agreement if their relation to your new enemy is higher than relation to you, and when this difference in relations is not outweighted by any relevant faction leader traits.