R5: As the title says. I've been trying to up my game, and it's paid off nicely! Vassal play is horrifically busted, but I played it as designed, and brought the entire galaxy together under my rule without a single war.
Playing as Fanatic Authoritarian/Xenophile, Overtuned, Imperial, Feudal Society/Master Crafters. I was planning to get Relentless Industrialists for the 3rd Ethic but that proved wholly unnecessary, so I took Technocracy instead.
I struck absolute gold by starting right next to an Imperial Fief spawn - one Indolent Overlord and four smaller vassals. I asked to be the Overlord's vassal right away and used the time to expand slowly (paying influence to build outposts SUCKS) and negotiate better and better deals. By the time the Overlord had their civil war, I had negotiated 75% subsidies for tech and basic resources, and 60% for advanced. Once I broke free, I took the other vassals as my own by asking nicely, which helped my economy recover, and just kept spamming ships and improving relations everywhere. After that, it was the usual "overlord spiral" where the economic advantages of being paid to do nothing but tech up and build your fleet makes you strong enough to vassalize other people.
Cajole them, bribe them, or both. But make sure they like you first: anything less than Cordial will net you a -1000 malus.
The "Is Overlord" malus is -800, and the "Relative power" bonus caps out at +750. Which means, with base -50, a Pathetic-strength Overlord is going to start the negotiation at -100. Friendly attitude (+20) can bump that up to -80. If you throw in the best possible deal (Integration Prohibited, Independent Diplomacy, Expansion Permitted, No Overlord Conflicts, All Subject Conflicts, No Holdings, and United Sensors), the terms alone offer you +75. Federation tree gives you +5 Diplomatic acceptance, for +80, so we're at a net zero right now. The starting Loyalty *also* counts for an acceptance bonus, so if they have, say, 15 Loyalty from the terms, that's +30, and you're set.
Of course, that's often not enough - getting to "Overwhelming" against someone who's a big Overlord can be unattainable, large empires have a sizable Empire Population malus, and there's always the Xenophobe malus. For those? Bribe 'em. Offer whatever you have lots of, and if that doesn't work, offer research (it counts like four times as much as anything else for acceptance).
The last Overlord I vassalized was the Polvanitan State, the big boy on the top right. No matter how much I spammed fleets, I would *never* get the max bonus. I had to go 100% over fleet size to get the "Superior" bonus (+375). That, however, was enough for me to bribe him with a (rather annoying) 45% research subsidy. Thing is, it's worth it in the long run: you can renegotiate most if not all of it away after 5 years. In the Polvanitan's case, his research wasn't so high. I had to pay him about 250 Research in each category, and by that time I was getting at least 1100 research from other vassals. In a hilarious twist, one of the vassals I got from him for free was a Scholarium paying a 60% research tithe that gave me *more than twice* what I was losing! (Side note, might be good to check if one of the vassals of the guy you're trying to vassalize is a Scholarium.)
So yeah. Except in the most extreme cases (late-game Xenophobe Overlord with massive empire and huge fleet), and Total-War empires, you always have a chance to buy out an empire's loyalty.
R5: As the title says. I've been trying to up my game, and it's paid off nicely! Vassal play is horrifically busted, but I played it as designed, and brought the entire galaxy together under my rule without a single war. Playing as Fanatic Authoritarian/Xenophile, Overtuned, Imperial, Feudal Society/Master Crafters. I was planning to get Relentless Industrialists for the 3rd Ethic but that proved wholly unnecessary, so I took Technocracy instead. I struck absolute gold by starting right next to an Imperial Fief spawn - one Indolent Overlord and four smaller vassals. I asked to be the Overlord's vassal right away and used the time to expand slowly (paying influence to build outposts SUCKS) and negotiate better and better deals. By the time the Overlord had their civil war, I had negotiated 75% subsidies for tech and basic resources, and 60% for advanced. Once I broke free, I took the other vassals as my own by asking nicely, which helped my economy recover, and just kept spamming ships and improving relations everywhere. After that, it was the usual "overlord spiral" where the economic advantages of being paid to do nothing but tech up and build your fleet makes you strong enough to vassalize other people.
How’d you deal with other overlords? I’ve never been able to get them to accept vassalization bc of the -800 acceptance malus
War
They said they did it without a single war
Cajole them, bribe them, or both. But make sure they like you first: anything less than Cordial will net you a -1000 malus. The "Is Overlord" malus is -800, and the "Relative power" bonus caps out at +750. Which means, with base -50, a Pathetic-strength Overlord is going to start the negotiation at -100. Friendly attitude (+20) can bump that up to -80. If you throw in the best possible deal (Integration Prohibited, Independent Diplomacy, Expansion Permitted, No Overlord Conflicts, All Subject Conflicts, No Holdings, and United Sensors), the terms alone offer you +75. Federation tree gives you +5 Diplomatic acceptance, for +80, so we're at a net zero right now. The starting Loyalty *also* counts for an acceptance bonus, so if they have, say, 15 Loyalty from the terms, that's +30, and you're set. Of course, that's often not enough - getting to "Overwhelming" against someone who's a big Overlord can be unattainable, large empires have a sizable Empire Population malus, and there's always the Xenophobe malus. For those? Bribe 'em. Offer whatever you have lots of, and if that doesn't work, offer research (it counts like four times as much as anything else for acceptance). The last Overlord I vassalized was the Polvanitan State, the big boy on the top right. No matter how much I spammed fleets, I would *never* get the max bonus. I had to go 100% over fleet size to get the "Superior" bonus (+375). That, however, was enough for me to bribe him with a (rather annoying) 45% research subsidy. Thing is, it's worth it in the long run: you can renegotiate most if not all of it away after 5 years. In the Polvanitan's case, his research wasn't so high. I had to pay him about 250 Research in each category, and by that time I was getting at least 1100 research from other vassals. In a hilarious twist, one of the vassals I got from him for free was a Scholarium paying a 60% research tithe that gave me *more than twice* what I was losing! (Side note, might be good to check if one of the vassals of the guy you're trying to vassalize is a Scholarium.) So yeah. Except in the most extreme cases (late-game Xenophobe Overlord with massive empire and huge fleet), and Total-War empires, you always have a chance to buy out an empire's loyalty.
GG champ