Protectorates Becoming Tributaries Instead of Normal Vassals is Very Frustrating (2024)

It is very frustrating after vassalizing a protectorate with restricted voting to ensure their votes in the Galactic Community, to then have them change into a Tributary with totally independent diplomacy, rather than a normal vassal under all the contract constraints previously agreed upon.

I lost my unified sensors, I lost all 4 of my holdings, I lost the ability to integrate. Who thought this was a good idea? Just because their tech is no longer pathetic, suddenly they become fully independent and I lost all the reasons to vassalize them in the first place. Terrible, terrible, terrible design choice.

This should be changed ASAP.

MarkDey said:

I’m not sure why that happened in your game, but one of my protectorates just turned into a regular vassal and not a tributary.

Click to expand...

Hmm. Interesting. Thank you for replying, I appreciate the info.

Strangedane said:

Are you by any chance a megacorp?

Click to expand...

Nope. Regular mortal empire.

I run a lot of mods, so that's probably it, I've just used the same mods (updated of course) for years now, and never seen this, so I assumed it was a base game issue. Seems like it wasn't though.

Unless it was, and then it should get fixed.

For a regular empire, it can happen the other way too -- you start with a Tributary, then it auto-switches to a Protectorate, and then later it auto-switches to a Vassal -- losing your Tributary resource contract entirely, you have to spend Influence to re-negotiate, and whatever you negotiate is thrown away if it swaps into Protectorate again.

It's very lazy to always use defaults and the patch should not have shipped like that.

The standard case is:

normal empire = vassal
megacorp = Subsidary

Like you said you have a lot of mods. Deactivate them and make a try (if that doesn't break your game of course).
The only not mod related reason i can imagine is that you run the merchant guild civic. But thats a guess and no proof, just an idea.

The wiki says nothing about it too.

Wiki: Vassal types

A2ch0n said:

The standard case is:

normal empire = vassal
megacorp = Subsidary

Like you said you have a lot of mods. Deactivate them and make a try (if that doesn't break your game of course).
The only not mod related reason i can imagine is that you run the merchant guild civic. But thats a guess and no proof, just an idea.

The wiki says nothing about it too.

Wiki: Vassal types

Click to expand...

I am in fact running the merchant guild civic.

I haven't had any problems with a normal vassal, but all empires at protectorate level can only be protectorate or tributary--no option for regular vassals.

Turning off mods is not an option XD The game file would be dead. But I have used my current mod configuration since around 2.5, so it seems an unlikely culprit, but certainly always a possibility.

Bankipriel said:

I am in fact running the merchant guild civic.

Click to expand...

Make a try without. Maybe thats the reason.

Strangedane said:

Are you by any chance a megacorp?

Click to expand...

No, but some Empires seem to solely and exclusively turn into Tributaries. I've got one Vassal in my current game that has NO other option aside from Tributary/Protectorate. And I'm not a Megacorp and do have other vassals.

-Marauder- said:

No, but some Empires seem to solely and exclusively turn into Tributaries. I've got one Vassal in my current game that has NO other option aside from Tributary/Protectorate. And I'm not a Megacorp and do have other vassals.

Click to expand...

This sounds like what I encountered, as I have other vassals in the same game that have dropped into protectorate status and then turned back into vassals with their agreements intact.

Bankipriel said:

I am in fact running the merchant guild civic.

I haven't had any problems with a normal vassal, but all empires at protectorate level can only be protectorate or tributary--no option for regular vassals.

Turning off mods is not an option XD The game file would be dead. But I have used my current mod configuration since around 2.5, so it seems an unlikely culprit, but certainly always a possibility.

Click to expand...

Idk which mods you are using, but keep in my mind that not all of them have been updated for the latest patch. Unupdated mods can work, but Can also create weirds interactions like this one.

I'm pretty sure your subject is an inward perfectionist empire. They can only be tributaries or protectorates, with protectorates automatically turning into tributaries once they've caught up, and there's nothing you can do about it as long as they have the inward perfectionist civic.

You might manage to disable the civic by shifting them away from pacifist or xenophobe with the GC issue, maybe, or try to integrate them as long as they're a protectorate.

namewhichisnottakenyet said:

I'm pretty sure your subject is an inward perfectionist empire. They can only be tributaries or protectorates, with protectorates automatically turning into tributaries once they've caught up, and there's nothing you can do about it as long as they have the inward perfectionist civic.

You might manage to disable the civic by shifting them away from pacifist or xenophobe with the GC issue, maybe, or try to integrate them as long as they're a protectorate.

Click to expand...

Yes! They do in fact have Inward Perfection.

Thank you for the insight. I did not know that about that civic, and I am very glad to understand what happened in my game.

I still think it's a bad mechanic, but at least now I am aware of it and can avoid it. Thanks again.