This is,i will admit, brainstorming, but what if, in a multiplayer game you could offer to a defeated player (say, you just took their last city) the chance to be assimilated like a minor faction.



Why this would be good

• Allows players who would otherwise be knocked out of the game entirely a second option
• The Chance for the fallen to rise again if their usurped capital is taken by another side. the new owner could take it for themselves, raze it, or restore a former player, earning a surefire and grateful ally
• more interplayer political intrigue, never a bad thing
  
  

of course, i realize this would be hard to balance, especially the degree of autonomy the assimilated player has in this state. even so, what do people think of the general idea?

We VIP's (mainly Eysteinh and me) had a remotely similar discussion with the devs about war not being about directly conquering and replacing a player, but instead of subduing a player and binding him to the empire as a vassal that needs to be continuously controlled by military or bound into the empire, economically, so that both players "win", in the end. One with more score, one with less. The defeated player could even have raced ahead of the original player having defeated him and try to secede.



In the end, those mechanics would be extremely interesting, I agree, but the devs didn't seem so open about implementing s.th. that is, we have to admit that, lots and lots of work that only MP players would benefit of, unless you put even more work into the AI...

As I said, I like this kind of ideas, but I'm nut sure they'll ever be implemented.

that ould be awsome. like crusader kings 2 multiplayer!!!

I hope the devs will do so because a war must be more that clashing swords, it should be about alliances, money and blood. (now i just need to sit on a throne while being out of focus with the only thing in focus being a blade with the blood of an enemy king while i sit in a cool posture with spread legs, one hand holding my head and the other relaxing on the my throne's arm.)

Well including vassalage as an option for ending a war in the diplomacy menu seems viable even in single player. This could result in tribute in the form of a percentage of their city output. Even if you had to wait X turns for enough tribute to result in a stockplie token that you could then deploy, it seems like this would fit the current economic system fine.



You would need some sort of significant penalty to make it difficult or perhaps undesireable for the vassal to secede from his overlord as soon as the conquering armies have marched elsewhere. I suppose this could be a function of influence points with various modifiers to the cost.