What are the actual benefits of Vassals?

[Brittanian]

I know they can be used as a buffer between empires and can aid you in battle, but do you get access to any benefits like resources, naval capacity, or any other benefit aside from not having the admin for that sector? I want to use them, but if they don't give anything then isn't it better to just use tributes?

[wolkenwand]

You can find all the subject empire type here:
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Subject_empire

Based on the wiki, vassal will aid you in battle, just it! No other benefit. But they do give you big extra score for victory condition.

[Lexon]

Originally posted by wolkenwand:

You can find all the subject empire type here:
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Subject_empire

Based on the wiki, vassal will aid you in battle, just it! No other benefit. But they do give you big extra score for victory condition.

No more naval capacity boost?
I prefer Tributary

[Benlexlin]

You can eat them in the future (as protectorate)
also, they don't take up your administration space
It's a good way to expand your empire if you choose to go supremacy or diplomacy route

[Zorlond]

As far as I can tell, the only benefit you get from having vassals are:

- You keep your Empire Sprawl down, keeping your research cheap so you can get up the tech tree faster.
- You can fully absorb large empires later instead of taking small bites out of them to take their territory over multiple wars.

And that's it. While, yes, the vassal will fight during a war, the simple act of being a vassal of a player means all the various bonuses the AI receives simply because it's a dumb-ass AI that can't tie it's own shoes to save it's code are completely removed. This means it's production is crippled, it's research is crippled, it's combat is crippled, and it's just utterly useless in an actual war. Seriously, a vassal's only value in a war is to lose ships. And it does this so fast and thoroughly that the player has to panic-rush to victory before it's supposed allies can lose the war for them just from war exhaustion.

So yeah, if you're expecting vassals to help you in war? They're not. They are actively trying to drag you down into lost wars.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

So yeah, if you're expecting vassals to help you in war? They're not. They are actively trying to drag you down into lost wars.

sounds like how a vassal empire would act if they weren't loyal

[Exarch_Alpha]

If it´s large or huge galaxy you need vassals to save on influence costs. Integrating is almost always cheaper than claim spam.

Also the dumb corvette fleets they build will save a LOT of alloys, because you can use them to patrol routes and trade.

If the problem is sprawl you can always destroy pointless outposts in systems with 2 energy.

[Zorlond]

Originally posted by Meewec:

Originally posted by Zorlond:

So yeah, if you're expecting vassals to help you in war? They're not. They are actively trying to drag you down into lost wars.

sounds like how a vassal empire would act if they weren't loyal

Loyalty isn't a factor, or at least, the game-indicated Loyalty stat isn't a factor. The AI is just terribly stupid, and without the boosting stats (which, again, are lost once it becomes the vassal of a player), the AI just can't win.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

Originally posted by Meewec:

sounds like how a vassal empire would act if they weren't loyal

Loyalty isn't a factor, or at least, the game-indicated Loyalty stat isn't a factor. The AI is just terribly stupid, and without the boosting stats (which, again, are lost once it becomes the vassal of a player), the AI just can't win.

i know, i was just making a wisecrack at how i'd behave if i was a vassal

[vkobe]

Originally posted by Brittanian:

I know they can be used as a buffer between empires and can aid you in battle, but do you get access to any benefits like resources, naval capacity, or any other benefit aside from not having the admin for that sector? I want to use them, but if they don't give anything then isn't it better to just use tributes?

with luck they can build dyson sphere and matter decompressor, but you really need a lot luck :^)

so in theory your empire and vassal could have several matter decompressor and dyson sphere if your vassal do what do you want from them ;^)

[Exarch_Alpha]

It isn´t worth it. Integrate and build it yourself.

[Gafwmn]

Does this mean that the vassal no longer adds to the fleet capacity based on population ?
That was the biggest draw for me to vassalize instead of integrate.

[vkobe]

Originally posted by Exarch_Alpha:

It isn´t worth it. Integrate and build it yourself.

but we can only build one of each :^(

[Exarch_Alpha]

Even then. With the amount of alloys needed you are better of integrating and using the resources to build a fleet and beat the aliens. It´s too boring otherwise.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by vkobe:

with luck they can build dyson sphere and matter decompressor, but you really need a lot luck :^)

No need for luck, really: start building -> give to to vassal -> repeat until satisfied