how reliable is vassalizing conquered cities?

[rumpelstiltskin]

i've seen them rebel and declare war against you; roughly how likely is that, based on your relations? my relations with the conquered faction were at rock bottom, obviously. i assume absorbing and then releasing is much safer? but it costs imperium, of course.
i also tried giving it to a friendly ai (well, technically selling, but they only had 250 gold to offer, while its trade value was estimated close to 4k). other ai, who was at war with them (but not with me - yet) immediately rushed to pillage it. i was hoping the friendly ai would do the famous "brutal ai conjures stacks out of thin air", but no, it only produced a single low tier unit after 2 or 3 turns, and didn't even bother to buy a hero.
i guess a more general version of the question is - what's the best thing to do with conquered cities once you are past the city limit?

[Motherball]

I’ve only ever had cities rebel as an evil ruler. As a good ruler, I’ve never had issues with vassals. If you are evil, just raze or absorb, imo.

[MadDjinn]

If the city is the same alignment, then you can vassal if you want easily. Ofc, that assumes you picked up extra whispering stones to run a vassal empire.

Else, burn and purge for money.

You can migrate and then release, and that at least will make them a friendly same culture/aligned/racial trait city. The side benefit there is that the rally units will be the same as yours, and they'll always have whatever traits you give the race. If you need a blocking city, then this option can work.

[Motherball]

Being evil gives players a relations penalty to all free cities and vassals, even if they are also evil. A good alignment gives relation bonuses to all free cities and vassals, even if they are evil.

[Dumah]

Originally posted by Motherball:

Being evil gives players a relations penalty to all free cities and vassals, even if they are also evil. A good alignment gives relation bonuses to all free cities and vassals, even if they are evil.

- this is not true.

[joel.west]

I have had vassals rebel for seemingly no reason, even at a very high level of allegiance. of course I tend towards very evil alignment since I sell heroes for money, leading in most cases for me to kill heroes in the prison

morale of that story of rebellious vassals is to bump up city cap (easy with the mod that fixes adding to city cap at 200 imperium) and eventually integrate all vassals as they lose their whispering stones for having max allegiance. once a vassal is part of your empire I have never seen any of them rebel

[Motherball]

Originally posted by Dumah:

Originally posted by Motherball:

Being evil gives players a relations penalty to all free cities and vassals, even if they are also evil. A good alignment gives relation bonuses to all free cities and vassals, even if they are evil.

- this is not true.

Then please correct me. I do not wish to spread false information, but I can only speak of my own experience. Are you saying the whole thing is false, or only a specific part?

[rumpelstiltskin]

hmm maybe i can scrape together 500 imperium to support a 6th city. it's a pretty nice city.
interestingly, migration to different races takes different time. for instance, absorbing takes 2 turns, migration to my race takes 3 turns, and migration to some other race i have a city of - a whopping 6 turns. i'm guessing migration time might depend on the ratio of populations on the city and the race you migrate it to?

[Motherball]

Is it only 500 imperium for the sixth city?

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by Motherball:

Is it only 500 imperium for the sixth city?

i mean with adept settlers, yes

[Dumah]

Originally posted by Motherball:

Then please correct me. I do not wish to spread false information, but I can only speak of my own experience. Are you saying the whole thing is false, or only a specific part?

- pretty much whole. In AoW4 evil likes evil and good likes good, this appleis to both empires and free cities. If you hover cursor over a relations you would see something like same alignment +whatever number.

[Pyro Penguin]

Originally posted by Dumah:

Originally posted by Motherball:

Then please correct me. I do not wish to spread false information, but I can only speak of my own experience. Are you saying the whole thing is false, or only a specific part?

- pretty much whole. In AoW4 evil likes evil and good likes good, this appleis to both empires and free cities. If you hover cursor over a relations you would see something like same alignment +whatever number.

neutral also likes good

[Dumah]

Originally posted by Pyro Penguin:

neutral also likes good

- maybe. Probably they also dont mind evil much. I just have not seen enough "true" neutrals in game, typically everyone is just some variation of good or evil.

[Motherball]

Originally posted by Dumah:

Originally posted by Motherball:

Then please correct me. I do not wish to spread false information, but I can only speak of my own experience. Are you saying the whole thing is false, or only a specific part?

- pretty much whole. In AoW4 evil likes evil and good likes good, this appleis to both empires and free cities. If you hover cursor over a relations you would see something like same alignment +whatever number.

Ah ok, I see the alignment tooltip shows +100 relations with similar alignment. I seem to remember having issues getting evil allies as an evil ruler and it was explained that evil has inherent deficiencies when it comes to diplomacy, even with other evil rulers.

[Dumah]

Originally posted by Motherball:

Ah ok, I see the alignment tooltip shows +100 relations with similar alignment. I seem to remember having issues getting evil allies as an evil ruler and it was explained that evil has inherent deficiencies when it comes to diplomacy, even with other evil rulers.

- in my experience allignment is pretty incosequential in AoW4 ( maybe even more so than in AoW3 ), good rulers and free cities can still build more or less stable relations with evil rulers. And cities rebellions are based entirelly on events.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

They can rebel?
I never noticed.

Free cities rarely declare war on me.
And even then dont send anything.

I pretty much stop using vassals there useless.