Vassals regularly collapse into revolts

[Calvax]

This is an issue that has existed before 3.8.3, but I'm not sure if it's worse. In my current game I had a neighbour that was doing fairly well. They had the rest of the spiral arm to themselves and were lucky with planets. We were friendly and had a defense pact and I'd planned on making a federation with them. Typical for the AI at the moment they proposed to become my subject instead. I said yes and made them a prospectorium with the minimal taxes possible. A few decades later my economy suddenly drops, I zoom out and see my neighbour's territory has shrunk by half and they've changed governments.

I reloaded a save and tag swapped over to see what was happening. Despite having double the amount of planets I did their economy was in shambles. Food, energy, and consumer goods shortages along with a revolt on one of their worlds that was nearly complete. All over were stability issues. Inevitably their entire empire had a revolution.

Anyone know what's causing this kind of thing because I see it a lot? I assume that the default minimum taxes are too high (this is a game on captain incidentally, mostly to check out the Under One rule origin, usually I play on commodore/admiral). It's annoying that overlords have no prewarning and don't even get a pop up when their vassal suffers a total revolution and breaks away. They're not fully hostile to me as well.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

The AI on lower difficulties can't deal with sudden shocks, and if they become a prospectorium all of a sudden, they don't have the smarts to close their metallurgists before hitting 0 to give them the minerals they need to rebuild for extra mineral/energy/food production. Mineral shortage means they can't build more mining districts, which means they collapse.

Imagine you're running a well oiled economy, keeping food basically right at what you need and keeping minerals with a modest surplus... and suddenly 30% of your production needs to be diverted. It can be rough.

 

[sillyrobot]

It's made worse by the restriction preventing you from trading basic resources with them which also blocks you from seeing their stockpiles.

I have a scholarium that I regularly ship strategic resources to because they have some advanced buildings and I just know at some point they'll run out and their economy will explode.

 

[Calvax]

The AI on lower difficulties can't deal with sudden shocks, and if they become a prospectorium all of a sudden, they don't have the smarts to close their metallurgists before hitting 0 to give them the minerals they need to rebuild for extra mineral/energy/food production. Mineral shortage means they can't build more mining districts, which means they collapse.

Imagine you're running a well oiled economy, keeping food basically right at what you need and keeping minerals with a modest surplus... and suddenly 30% of your production needs to be diverted. It can be rough.

They’d been a prospectorium for a while, enough to level up, and it was the AI that proposed it (facepalm)

 

[Abdulijubjub]

They’d been a prospectorium for a while, enough to level up, and it was the AI that proposed it (facepalm)

That's very odd, then. I don't know why they would suddenly crater like that.

 

[sillyrobot]

That's very odd, then. I don't know why they would suddenly crater like that.

They were getting by on their AI bonus. That got reduced (eliminated?) when they became a vassal. The stockpile eventually drained and... boom. Or they built an advanced building they don't have the strategic resources to support and... boom.

 

[MAWofdoom]

They were getting by on their AI bonus. That got reduced (eliminated?) when they became a vassal. The stockpile eventually drained and... boom. Or they built an advanced building they don't have the strategic resources to support and... boom.

On captain difficulty they shouldn't have any kind of AI bonus though, right? Or am I getting my difficulties wrong?

 

[sillyrobot]

On captain difficulty they shouldn't have any kind of AI bonus though, right? Or am I getting my difficulties wrong?

I thought ensign had no bonuses? I'm probably wrong though.

 

[MAWofdoom]

I thought ensign had no bonuses? I'm probably wrong though.

Yeah I thought about it again, and you're probably right. Captain might be the first with bonuses, so I probably just got confused.

 

[-Marauder-]

That's very odd, then. I don't know why they would suddenly crater like that.

Several reasons. Slavery Vassals are more likely. Many of them invade Primitives within their Empires, then enslave them all and don't migrate main species pops over. This often times leads to a weird doom spiral. Same might happen on other worlds. Where they have too many slaves. When they then ran into ANY kind of shortage in any kind of way shape or form, as they regularly struggle with amenities...