When you conquer an empire's home system, it would be cool to be able to make them your vassal. Vassals would give the conqueror a percentage of their production and profits each turn. In return, the conqueror provides the vassal with protection. They would not be allowed to start war with a faction they are not already at war with. They could be allowed to trade, but you could make it so they are more dependent on you and force them to only trade with you and the factions you are allied with.



In time, vassals could even rebel. This could depend on many factors. Maybe the conqueror is demanding too much profit for protection, similar to a tax system. I'm not really a fan of how Shogun 2 has their vassal system. They use a point system and after so many turns, they will eventually backstab you. The only means to help prevent this is to keep giving them money. This seems very backwards to me. If anything, it should be the conqueror demanding more money from the vassal. If the amount is too great, then the vassal would be unhappy and lead towards rebellion.

We'd need more than 8 races at a time to do this.



And actually I'd love to do a 16 race game. I wonder if there are any mods for that.

it's spelled "vassal" but anyway I like your idea. I always felt like there should be a similar relationship in Civ V, with city-states and hostile nations alike. Which is another thing that would be fun to see in Endless space- Single-star Nations!



Anyway, I'd love to be able to roll through and conquer a civ without having to actually bother running the joint. Plus, this could be fun from the victim's perspective too, because then you could set up such relationships in the game setup screen... and start the game as a vassal to, say, the UEE... and then split off in a brutal civil war that consumes the galaxy! And, yknow, if you get conquered early on, you still have a chance to bide your time and overthrow your oppressors later on. They could implement a sort of "secret diplomacy" where you make deals with other factions that your conqueror doesn't know about. So you get a bunch of tech and ships from, say, the Sophon and the Pilgrims, and then you make a deal with the Hissho that when you rise up, they'll declare war on the UEE to help you out.



Now that I think about it, though, I don't think they'll do this. It would be a TON of work to really make it worth doing, and the only way I could see them rationalizing it would be as a new expansion. Which I suppose is possible, but unlikely. Be fun if they did!

Vassal, ooops, sorry. I'm usually conscious about spelling.

the game whose diplomacy and government and state systems i most like to steal wholesale is crusader kings 2. That game would be entertaining even with out battle. The weakest part of that game is actually land development and management. Which is the strongest part of Endless Space

I like this idea. Could have loads of generic names and visuals and traits. Not playable races but you could have like 10 races that's just own one or two systems and go about their business. You could leave them be, make them vassals, conquer them or ally / trade with them etc. Anything to avoid the boredom of seeing the entire galaxy owned late game. Something to hopefully keep some space and intrigue late game between factions.

And perhaps some of the vassals could be a call back to some of the minor factions, like the virus, plocynos, deuyivans (their home system turns out to be all gas giants lol), and that one unknown race.

This needs a poll....