Vassalized empires controlled by the AI apparently play the game on the lowest difficulty no matter what, and regardless of whether that's true they are indisputably pathetic at managing their economies and fleets (even relative to other AIs) and largely useless as a result.
Please fix this:
Please fix this:
- If this is intentional, it's quite frankly a dumb idea. Vassals should be balanced through the gameplay systems of vassal limitations and master obligations, and through the loyalty/disloyalty diplomatic relations mechanic, not by rendering their AI brain-dead. In fact, because they play so awful the loyalty mechanic doesn't even really matter, since their ineptitude means that they are usually too outgunned (and too scared) to do anything about it.
- Useless vassals make a lot of interesting RP and/or strategic setups infeasible. Want to conquer the galaxy and turn your enemies into client states fighting alongside you against your remaining opponents? Want to play a Feudal Society tall empire consisting of a well-developed core which eventually lets its outlying sectors go as semi-independent vassals—vassals that might eventually decide that their interests diverge from yours? Want to crank primitive civilizations up to the max and play an empire which uplifts tons of hapless client species to do its nefarious bidding? Too bad, because vassals are garbage!
- Because vassals are useless, the Shared Destiny ascension perk is also...of very limited usefulness.
- Not sure why federation member AIs aren't nerfed but vassal AIs would be; it's not as if earning vassals (through conquest or uplift) is easy to begin with. (Yes, uplift is not all that hard to do, but unless you plan to just integrate the new empire after a decade you'll still be handholding it for a while to even give it a chance, bad AI or not.)
