It is a little strange how vassals in Stellaris are nothing like vassals in CK2 or EU4.
The only reason to vassalize an empire in Stellaris is to immediately nullify it as a threat, if the empire is too big to conquer normally. As the vassalization war goal is 60 war score regardless of how big the empire is.
The only reason to vassalize an empire in Stellaris is to immediately nullify it as a threat, if the empire is too big to conquer normally. As the vassalization war goal is 60 war score regardless of how big the empire is.
- Vassals have loyalty based on relations - unlike previous PDS games, forced improved relations (embassy) in Stellaris is capped at +100 for everyone, this means that a vassal can never like you any more than if they were independent, in fact because they will like you less initially because of a negative modifier for force vassalization. Ethos and Traits remain the dominant relationship modifiers, so your vassal could always be disloyal and there is nothing you can do about it.
- Vassals don't contribute to your empire - I could be wrong on this, but there doesn't seem to be any contribution to you in the way of resources, they don't benefit your research (they can higher tech than you but you'll never get it from them), they don't increase your relative empire power compared to others either.
- Vassals take influence to integrate - this could be a nice idea, but in reality there are far more important things to be spending influence on. And, at 3 influence a month for the integration it takes a lot out of your monthly income and depending on the size of the vassal can take decades or hundreds of years to integrate.
- Integration counts are Conquering - in addition to the cost, if you integrate a vassal, the population receive the same negative modifiers as if you had conquered them through war. It is quicker and more efficient to release a vassal, declare, conquer and wait for the modifier to go away, than to integrate.
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