User Guide

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the world’s trade centers. Each may attempt to
compete against other nations’ merchants, but
will never attempt to dislodge one another’s
merchants. This can be useful to avoid damag-
ing relationships with another country, or as a
means to avoid being forced to compete with a
nation that is more adept at trade than you are.
Offer Vassalisation/Cancel
Vassalisation
There are two ways that a country may become
a vassal of another: by being forced to become
a vassal as a result of peace negotiations, or
by accepting a diplomatic offer of vassalisa-
tion. This is a special relationship between two
realms whereby one country accepts the other
as its overlord and pays half of its tax revenue
as a tithe.
If you wish to pursue the diplomatic ap-
proach, you may send a diplomat to propose
that a county become your vassal. There are
several prerequisites that must be met before
this option will be available:
• You must have a royal marriage with the
country.
• You must have an alliance with the coun
-
try.
• You must have an extremely high relation
-
ship (+190 or more) with the country.
• You must be part of the same religious
group as the country.
• Both countries must be at peace with all
nations.
Even if you meet all of these requirements, the
likelihood of the country accepting will usual-
ly be extremely low. Your chances will improve
if your monarch has an excellent diplomatic
attribute, your country has very high prestige,
your reputation is good, or you are consider-
ably more powerful than the country. If the
country refuses, your relationship will drop no-
ticeably. If it accepts, the country will become
your vassal.
Once the vassal-overlord relationship has
been established, there are a number of imme-
diate effects:
• The vassal will now pay one half of its tax
revenue to its overlord.
• The overlord automatically gains military
access to any provinces that belong to the
vassal; however, this relationship is not
reciprocal. A vassal must make a separate
diplomatic overture to its overlord to re-
quest military access.
• The vassal and overlord share detailed mil
-
itary information, removing the fog of war
for both nations.
• A vassal cannot enter into an alliance with
any country other than its overlord. Any
existing alliances that a country might
have are immediately cancelled when it be-
comes a vassal.
• Similarly, a vassal cannot enter into a royal
marriage with any country other than its
overlord, and any existing royal marriage
that a country has will be cancelled when
it becomes a vassal.
Once a country has become the vassal of anoth-
er realm, it will remain so, permanently, until
the relationship is voluntarily or forcibly ended.
This may happen in one of three ways: an over-
lord may voluntarily release the vassal from it
service, a vassal may attempt to declare itself
independent, or the overlord can be forced to
release a vassal as a peace term in surrender.
Releasing a vassal voluntarily is considered
an act of kindness, and is done by sending a
diplomat to inform its ruler that you have can-
celled the vassalisation. The country will be
freed from its obligation to pay you a percent-
age of its monthly income and will be free of all
the restriction of being a vassal. Your relation-
ship will show a marked increase and both your
reputation and prestige will also benefit from
this action.
A vassal who wishes to become free of its
servitude may take the risk of declaring its in-
dependence by sending a diplomat to its over-
lord to declare that the vassalisation has been
cancelled. As you might imagine, this ruins any
positive relationship that might exist between
the two countries. It also results in a drop in