Vassalage vs Hegemony

[SievertChaser]

Stellaris is getting so many supra-national forms of governance, I'm getting a little confused. I used to treat Feudal empires and their vassals as an ersatz-Hegemony before the Hegemony became an option. Now, with origins, you can jump into Hegemonic gameplay straight away.

So, does Hegemony make feudalism obsolete? Does the Hegemony act as a feudal empire's friendzone? If I wanted a "velvet glove over a mailed fist"-style xenophile empire, should I go for Hegemony or Feudalism?

[pete3great]

I often combine them, forming a hegemony that my vassals are also part of.

[Danny]

Hedgemony allows your AI empire subjects to keep their bonuses from the difficulty setting.

Vassals do not.

[Wokelander]

(Feudal) vassals are mostly useless due to not getting the AI bonuses, hegemonic clients can be somewhat useful due to still receiving them.
The Feudalism civic has been obsolete for a long time, which is a shame because I love the idea of having vassals with agency but in practice it's a chore because you have to spoonfed them everything due to them not being able to compete with other AI states

[SievertChaser]

These complaints assume I'm not a pansy who plays at low difficulties, where the AI might as well have maluses.

[mortache]

The point of vassalage is integrating them really cheap after 10 years.

[ScreamCon]

With vassalisation the empire doesn't vote normally or try to resist your power other than the loyalty bar. I normally consider it superior in the sense that its better at keeping the other empire under your thumb. Max you have to put one diplomat into. When your done with them you can assimilate to get all territory and free up your diplomat, that is so long as not megacorp.

However if you plan on getting two vassals or more the ratio of needed diplomat versus that needed for federation, it might be better to form hedgemony. But still you will need to compete a bit for fleet dominance. You can dictate wars and like.

The hedgemon start is strong in that you get an alliance right off bat, but its weak in the sense you lose territory you normally would have had. Although due to having more empire are able to grow more competitively into surrounding region and war members for territory later on.

Traits that allow you to abduct pops are really good for federation fleets last time I checked. A federation fleet can do so if the leader has the bonus. Allowing the leader to use other* empire ships for own direct gain.

Also having an alliance gives you access to build a second Juggernaut or colosus unit from my understanding.

[mss73055]

Hegemony is a federation. Its members are free. It's much like the Howling Roman Empire.

Subsidiaries are subject, free to expand, cannot be annexed.
Vassals and protectorates are subject, cannot expand, can be annexed.

[SievertChaser]

Wait, aren't vassals supposed to be free to expand, and that is their chief advantage, the whole reason to take the civic?

[Dialtone]

If you take Feudal Society subjects are free to expand.

[ScreamCon]

Yea letting them expand saves on alloy cost of bases they build to integrate its pretty good for that.

[NixBoxDone]

Originally posted by dennis.danilov:

Wait, aren't vassals supposed to be free to expand, and that is their chief advantage, the whole reason to take the civic?

They're free to expand, but they still count as your lickspittles where AI empire bonus is concerned.

So while they CAN expand, in practice they're punching way under their weight when it comes to AI vs AI combat, meaning you'd need to hold their hand and spoonfeed them victories and territory.

[Journeyman Prime]

Originally posted by Khorvale:

(Feudal) vassals are mostly useless due to not getting the AI bonuses, hegemonic clients can be somewhat useful due to still receiving them.
The Feudalism civic has been obsolete for a long time, which is a shame because I love the idea of having vassals with agency but in practice it's a chore because you have to spoonfed them everything due to them not being able to compete with other AI states

There are mods which let them keep the AI bonuses, and I run a mod which empowers Feudal by having it unlock free use of 8 different vassal types which the mod adds. You can make your vassals tribute pops, unity, alloys, CGs, strategic resources, naval cap, any number of things really. The mod locks each vassal type to a specific ethic, but the Feudal civic lets you use all of them. Even egalitarians have a vassal type called "Sister Republic" which is just a vassal in name only.

But Vanilla Feudal definitely needs a buff badly. I personally would like to see it get some interplay/synergy with the Hegemony federation. Maybe have it increase the likelihood that another nation will opt to form a Hegemony with you and throw some additional Federation XP gain for Hegemonies on top?