Vassals or integrate?

[Shap111]

is there any reason to keep vassals? I am new and feel like integrating is always a better option. You get 100% of the city income and have total control on their buildings/annexations. They also don't seem to participate in wars much, at least in normal difficulty.

[jagholin]

You have city cap(3 or 4 cities depending on civ), and integrating uses up the slots.

Therefore it's almost always more advantageous to vassalize. You still get a lions share of profit(gold, mana and research) without using the city slots.

[Frienby]

Your city cap is mostly why you want to keep them as vassals. You get to choose the best locations for your cities that you place, but other cities are placed at random. If you have the capacity and like the race/ placement of the city you take, then definitely integrate them. However, if you find that you would rather place your own city some place better, then leave them as a vassal.

There are also builds with Order play style that go all into recruiting units through vassals and boosting vassal income, but that's a very specific type of build you probably won't worry about as someone new.

[Gundalf]

You can only have 3 cities at the start, if you go over you get heavy economic penalties.
You can increase the limit in the neutral empire tree repeadetly for Imperium costing: 200, 500 , 800 etc. (+300 every time).

[.Master Jiren, The Strongest]

I had the opposite question, I dont see a reason to integrate. if you were going to integrate why wouldn't you just conquer them right off the bat, that would save you like, 30-50 turns right? as vassals they can provide like 100 gold and 100 mana, you know, eventually. and that doesnt require you to spend 2000 imperium to do it. i was wondering if there was any benefit to integrating instead of keeping them as vassals.

My thought is maybe you could intergrate them if you have no other options for increasing your number of cities. so like if you dont want to declare war on someone but you still want to get an 8th city, so maybe you choose to integrate instead. thats the only time i can imagine that being useful, but im not sure integrating is clearly better than keeping them as vassals?

[Azunai]

There's not much reason to integrate them, really. Only really makes sense on a very crowded map where you can't found 2 or 3 additional cities for lack of space.

[jagholin]

I think some of the new cultures(harmony?) get bonuses from integrating other races

[✧Starshadow Melody✧]

Originally posted by Azunai:

There's not much reason to integrate them, really. Only really makes sense on a very crowded map where you can't found 2 or 3 additional cities for lack of space.

I usually do it because I like having a diverse range of races to pick my units from. That's kind of it, though, it's just fluff.

[Frienby]

If you can get a majority of another race and apply transformations to them, then it's a lot more fun to have a multi-racial empire. However, it gets a bit annoying when some cities don't get all the buffs the rest of your civilization does.

[Balekai]

Yes.

In many instances you will get more out of having Vassal being independent rather than turning them into integrated Cities. Total Control post integration means that you keep their contributions to Rally of the Lieges, but lose out on the Vassal standing army stack(s) on those cities, in addition to their raiding parties, and Vassal passive income that with a Vassal build, arguable does more for you (bonuses from Order Affinity to income, huge income boosts from Free Trades via Silver Tongue societal trait for like 30-40 in a resource, Covenant of the Faith giving you a free maintenance Free City spell for 15 mana per Vassal/recruited units faithful).

Then there's the offensive side. Keeping them as Vassals means that you can still use cheese spells like Blessed Reinforcements to give Vassal Cities unlimited armies of T3 Blessed Souls without maintenance costs, being a huge power multiplier to Vassal Cities, so they can eat up even Brutal difficulty invasion onslaughts from Enemy Factions. Further more, you can reinforce the defending army with Mythic and Support units from Rally of the Lieges. You can do the same for their Raiding Parties.

Also Raiding parties can be sent to your cities instead, becoming free defensive stacks to roam and patrol their provinces and deal with threats.

Basically, keeping a host of Vassal states means you have a whole host of free Army stacks which you can softly control and manipulate where they go, allowing for massive amounts of standing armies that can eventually swarm AI all by themselves even on Brutal with Rally unit investments. All costing you 0 maintenance and replenish themselvces.

The only time I integrate a Free City is when it's of my own faction race, I need it for extra recruitment or as a satellite recruitment city, and I have like +4 Vassals already.

I'm in a game right now where I already have 6 Vassals by mid game turn 40-50, and have given 2 Whispering Stones to my allies' Vassals giving me passive Vassal income/map reveal from them too. Usually 4-6 Vassals + allowing allies to Vassalize 4 Free Cities so I have a place to put Whispering Stones late game for income. You need the Council of Whispers (I think that's the name) Shadow perk from Shadow Tree or form Silver Tongue to do that though.

[Overread]

Great points have already been raised.

Another is the good-evil alignment chart. Depending on your ruler and your faction, simply conquering them might actually result in you getting a negative modifier to your alignment which might contribute to you losing bonuses.

Conquest is also timeconsuming and comes with a risk; plus its very easy to end up fighting on too many fronts at once and suddenly you don't have enough armies to keep everything in check the whole time. Of course there are going to be leader and alignment choices in the game setup for your faction that might flip this head over heels and conquest becomes your best approach toward gaining more settlements. So this one can vary a lot depending on your faction setup.


Furthermore you can give whispering stones without range limits on the map. As a result if you get one or two scouts on auto explore early in the game you can quickly find a lot of independent settlements all over the map. Securing ones near to your boarders helps your local game; but being able to secure them further off can help apply pressure on opponents in those regions and help your expansion. Having them as a Vassal instead of owned means that they can cause all kinds of trouble without it harming your direct income and armies. It's also less of a blow to you if they get taken out.


The settlement limit is the big one; esp since it costs a lot of influence to keep adding more and more cities. That's influence that could be spent on other perks from the tree and also on unlocking more army slots faster to let you get more heroes leading armies. Influence spending is a big thing in how its going to shape your empire and army building.

By the late game there can be quite a lot of neutral settlements around the map; way more than you'll be able to afford both in influence (for more city slots) and in terms of the gold requirement to build them up with upgrades, defences and so forth. More settlements means more income but it also means more outgoing to directly protect and develop.

[Balekai]

One other thing that I just feel like sharing, not well known (I think) and somewhat on topic:

Don't forget that you can cast a whole host of City spells (not all) on your owned Vassal Cities. Not just specific Vassal/Free City Spells. The ones that effect Battles in the domain will effect AI battles.

Some Order/Nature examples that work/don't work:

Work
- Consecrated Domain (Tome of Sanctuary) is good (+2 Resistance, +20 Morale at the start of each battle in domain).
- Cycle of Seasons (Tome of Seasons) All battles that take place in this city's domain gain Cycle of Seasons, granting a different effect each battle turn in the following order:
Winter: All enemies sustain 10 .
Spring: All friendly units become 1 Strengthened.
Summer: All friendly units heal +10 Temporary Hit Points.
Autumn: All enemies become 1 Weakened.


Don't Work
- Fortress of Vines (Tome of Paradise) adds +10 Fortification, +2 per Forest/Mushroom Colony making it harder to siege vassals. Also spawns living Vines next to an enemy for each battle in domain.
- Enchanted Blood (Tome of Paradise) City spell passive terraforming to grassland/minor forest tiles extending 1 tile outside domain, recedes if ended. +2 food, Production and Draft per forest/grassland.
- Blessing of Paradise (Tome of Paradise) +40 City Stability, income from positive stability doubled.

The latter 2 probably because they're more economic and I'm not sure if Vassals use any rules from that. Fortress Vines is probably locked out because it would be too good possibly for Vassal defence, making Vassal sieges long and Vines being deemed too many Living Vine adds making Vassal AI win too much. :p :P

Not forgetting the above will further increase their effectiveness especially forntline Vassals being bombarded with attacks.



Also related to the actual topic: You can integrate Vassal Cities then release them again. This is helpful when you have a stubborn Vassal City that won't upgrade its tier over time, or you want to build some specific buildings within for defence etc. You can integrate it, build it up some including building better Town Halls then release as a Vassal again.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

From my point of view.
There are only two types of cities.
Production(mine) and money(Vassals)

The reason i keep vassal around is because they are self protecting money city.
However is you use:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971174823&searchtext=city+cap
You have 0 reasons to use vassals.

[Shap111]

thank you all!

[Rumors]

There's also some economic incentive. See a free city in a good spot early in the game? Vassalize it and use your other city slots to go claim other juicy spots instead. So while you're building up you three cities, your vassal is building up your fourth city and is paying you for the priviledge of doing so. Then, later on, you integrate it and immediately have a fourth city ready to go that might even be more developed than your second and third.