Updated for 2.2
Protected by our Lord is now a Policy, instead of a Tradition
Food/Energy/Mineral production from Population reduced to 0%
Production from 'Worker Class' increased to 75%

Note this is essentially a semantic change as far as changelog, since Worker Class generates Food/Energy/Mineral, but before 2.2 there was no Worker Class.

Note 2 - While this may seem like a massive buff, in previous versions "Workers" would provide around 50-80% of your resources, now they provide around 30-50%.

Initial Upload

Initial Upload

Increased AI Weight from 2 to 500...

... yep ... 500
because the AI Weights for other stuff are stupid high and all over the place...

Increased the AI Weight of Protected by our Lord from 1 to 2

Meaning that if you released a Vassal before grabbing Protection Racket, the AI will be more inclined to grab Protected by our Lord.

The goal of this patch is to make Vassals a viable mechanic. Currently in the main game they suffer from several issues, but the majority of it revolves around poor resource as they don't get the AI difficult bonuses. This means that your Vassals are always on 'Ensign' or 'Very Easy' difficulty regardless of the difficulty you're playing on.

Now, we don't want to buff them to the point that your Vassals will be an auto-win situation or the best possible strategy. We just want it to be a viable strategy.

For this initial release I kept it simple.

Vassals will now pay 10% Energy/Mineral to their Overload, this also helps with the Domination Tradition 'Protection Racket' that provides a 12.5% bonus to Vassal Tax.

Protection Racket for Vassals has also been replaced with 'Protected by our Lord' that provides significant bonuses.
+100% Food Production... because AI Starvation Death Spirals are stupid...
+50% Mineral and Energy Production, which should place them at 'Commodore' or 'Hard' difficulty.
-50% Fleet Size, because remember the goal isn't for them to win the game by themselves.

The final adjustment is that Vassals will have a 25% Research Bonus for things that their Lord has Researched.

Note - Protectorates also received these bonuses, except Tax is 15% instead of 10%.