Vassal or Conqueror?

[Largefry07]

Would you rather have a vassal or have the land to yourself? Or if tell us what you would do in certain situtations.

[Dobber]

With me it depends upon the situation, personally I see no benefit having a vassal. I have never received any income from my vassal, eventhough they may be showing income, none of it ever shows up on my Kingdom wealth screen.
Usually if I have war going on more than one front, I will accept an offer of vassalage from someone that has more than one or two provinces left in their kingdom. I can always deal with them later when they decide they don't want to be a vassal any longer.

[Kuno of Gersenau]

As soon as I have a certain size which allows me to have a very good army and a good basic income I usually accept or even try to force my enemies to become vassals. As a matter of fact they usually have to be weakend quiet a lot to accept vassalage, so I get some land anyway.
The benefit of the tributes Is usually higher as if I would conquer the provinces. And If I'm able to make my vassal to an ally I try to improve his situation, so he will be able to vote if there is an election.

@Dobber: This sounds somehow strange to me, I usually get quiet a lot of money from my vassals....:scratch:

[Angryminer]

Depends on wether the provinces are worth the additional work. If my empire is big enough I don't want to adopt the whole mpopulation or convert them to my religion. Then I make them my vasalls and usually arrange a royal marriage and an alliance pact.

Angryminer

[Elvain]

Unless I'm very small state with low resources (in such cases I prefere territorial expansion to have more resources) I mostly prefere making vasals.

Though there is always a risk of vasal declaring independence (and decrease of kingdom power), I prefere to force my enemies either to accept royal marriage or - mostly - become my vasal.

I mostly try to fight on no more than one or two fronts, but sometimes it's hard (especialy when you get really large). Ideal peace for me is when the enemy, specialy if he is powerfull) accepts both wedding and vasalage.

When a medium power becomes my vasal I usualy try to improve y relations with them and support them in their wars, sign agreements to:
1) avoid the risk they declare independence
2) increase the posibility of my vasal becoming major power sna finaly give me vote in emperor election (sometimes it leads to ceasing provinces to them if necessary)
3) enforce my influence in Europe: vasal-ally is the best instrument in wars, especialy if they are kin! They mostly support you in your wars and making them stronger (support them in their wars) actualy improves your international position

The last positive of vasals - which I mostly use in case of smaller states where the chance of them becoming major power is very low - is that you can annex their kingdom through spies. With those small vasals I usualy send there a spy and offer them trade agreement and give them gold gift to increase the chance of my spy becoming their knight, especialy merchant who can annex the kingdom.

Expansion of my territory is positive only untill I have all resources to get kingdom advantages, then the positives of vasals are much higher than of territorial expansion. Though I know that if a province is under my rule, it lives in peace, butI try to ensure that it will happen also to my vasal's provinces :wink:
this is description of Pax Elvainiana :angel:

[knez]

if you have all buildings province can give you a lot of gold (50 personal record)
vassals - no thanks, they will declare independence anyway:sad:

[Elvain]

if you have all buildings province can give you a lot of gold (50 personal record)
vassals - no thanks, they will declare independence anyway:sad:
50 gold from province? I think it's a bit too much. If the kingdom is larger, the income from vasal tribute could be higher than 100 (considering if you sign a trade agreement with them and trade + improve your relations with them = lower the risk of declaration of independence, the income will be much higher.
The positives of vasalage are IMO incomparably higher than from conquest (once you are large enough of course)

I personaly prefere to use diferent policy towards diferent religion.
Pagans(I hardly play them) - eliminate them
the same religion - make them my vasals
other religion - eliminate them and convert their lands, in the name of cross or jihad :knight:

PS: One thing I miss is that through plundering you cannot cause so big damage to the enemy to force him to sign a peace (which is unrealistic. To plunder 1-2 provinces should cause famine in the kingdom so they will rather pay you some tribute than have famine and lose population, income and possible the entire province)

[knez]

it's possible to get 50+ gold, i had in Dalmatia admirality, merchants guild, tackling + age od discoveries = 50 gold
any costal village will give you at least 20+ gold with admirality and market

plundering sometimes also causes big damage, I hate when someone comes to plunder my costal village (10-15 gold) or villages (gold + hammers)

anyway, I like develop my economy so I'm not depending on merchants, after all, all you need for defending cities is town guard, moat and upgraded palisade + some decent units in town also (and a marshal with army of knights so he can pretty much defend 1/5 of the map)
and so, there is nothing betwean you and war with entire world :mosher:

[kiri_hacker]

hmmm I actually prefer to be a vassal myself :cheers:

[Largefry07]

I too like to have vassals for the elections, but also I enjoy having many different kingdoms during the later parts of the game to give you more diveristy. In fact I set up my own little "code of vassals" that I follow.

1. Never declare war on your vassal via the demands of another kingdom.
2. Give aid (usaully money) when your vassal is at war.
3. Always side with your vassal during the war. This could only mean giving money to them.
4. When your vassal only has one more provence, you declare war on their greatest enemy(s) and defend them as best as you can. If you conquorer land that was their you cede it back to them. However if their greatest enemy happens to be another vassal of yours then you do nothing.

[Elvain]

If you want to see how good vasalage is, look at this my post:
http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?p=272626#post272626

I have just won my game as Cordoba.
Somewhen during first hour I won a game against unimportant tiny kingdom of Zirids and then planned to annex their lands through my spy. I failed, but my financial suport enforced their army (although half of their marshals were my spies in certain period)
I also fought with my faithfull ally of Fatimids against the last of caliphs - Abbasids. When Fatimids broke up I decided to make Abbasids my vasals (after victorious conquest of course)
Norway, being mostly the 2nd-3rd most powerfull kingdom agreed to become my vasal after I captured their marshals one after another and released them. I didn't even need to invade their lands! (teir army was strong, but my defense even stronger) Then I supported their war against Sweden (saw they have really strong army with many marshals so they have chance to win and they took most of Scandinavia pushing the Swedes eastwards)