anyone keep PU's and/or vassles permanently? n help w/ russia game.

[solidprice]

Topic.
Around 1.3 first serious game as ottomans and read fourms and watching arumba and shen of the bipolar alliances,
I decided that a vassle is always loyal friend.so I allied Austria and made a super Tunisia w/Morocco and Algerian lands.
Also made a super Serbia vassle to not have a touching border w/Europe.
because I wasn't going to touch Europe with a ten foot stick. ...and strong units are fun to have even if they take a year to get to india.
I was too busy having fun roflstomping inda/asia and cockblocking Portugal at the cape.
No asia 4 u Portugal ;-)

Then 1.4 broke it :-(

So now in nerfed vassles of 1.5, im playing a muscovy/russia game.
Its 1492 and I have full Finland,perm w/perm, a golden horde vassle,and ryazan.(annexed kazan to get to first colony in tura.)

Thinking about what to do next.
Portgual is just starting up its brazil colony
Thinking about westernizing soon.tanked dip because no navy excluding light ships.
Have expansion 6 and religious 1. Im 5 behind the Swedes. Current tech is 7/3/7.
Lithuania is a free state which sucks because im allied to poland.
Thinking about keeping findland as a permanent western ally.
And ripping Lithuania and Crimea to shreds to cripple ottomans while eating my way through hordes and china/japan to have a colony in alaska/California .
Any pointers?

Sorry for the messy topic n typos done on a phone. :-\
Tl,dr=
Anyone keep pu/vassles all game?
And how can I russia into san Francisco?

 

[MadDjinn]

if you're in a worse tech group, then yes, keeping some western vassals can be a good thing.

In that case though, you're going to have to feed them cored provinces so that they can get big enough to be useful.

I would likely soak in Finland (after using it to take all cores away from Sweden) and then try to get Sweden as a vassal over multiple wars.

Given them all cores back and then all of Norway/etc. They'll make great cannon fodder for your wars.

 

[LarryLeica]

I tend to keep two good sized vassals around on each end of my territory. As for feeding them, I annex what remains of a nation, then assuming they are different religion and I have decent missionary strength I will suck up the OE for a year or two while I convert their cores, release them as a same religion vassal once finished, then DoW whoever has any of their cores to feed them back to them. This works very well with nations like the Mamluks, Aragon, Timurids etc... as these nations all have a habit of disappearing or splintering into smaller states.

As for tech group, I'd stay Eastern until you reach the Pacific, and grab as many vassals as you can before westernising, as you'll find you won't be vassalising many Asian nations when you are in the western tech group.

 

[solidprice]

Thanks for the help now I have a clear goal.
So sweden and norway to the west for norways colonies and navy and sweden for their supermen n ok navy.
Just 2 questions.
1.
But when I hit the Pacific, to grab my vassle who should be my Pacific vassle? Maybe Zhou so I can get more money from California n Nippon?
However a full ming would help out aginst the super collations of late game for 100 year war like grinds vs. Europe....
2
Im not sure If the aztec cores would last long enough even with 4 colonists grinding towards California. Think I could get to the aztecs or at the very least rip their cores from spain n portgual before its too late?

 

[MadDjinn]

there's no one in asia you should keep.

wipe out all of the hordes, core the areas (or vassal/annex if big enough) and just protectorate everything else. Just ensure that you have the merchants point everything up to you, rather than going into the Middle East or around africa.

I'd say pick Sweden or Norway, not both. The reason for that is you will need allies and/or vassal options. You don't need Norway to colonize for you. Let Sweden have everything and watch their supermen wipe the HRE once they get going. Add your own super cheap volume based army and no one in Europe will be able to hurt you.

Though, if you beat down the Ottomans enough to vassal them, it can be nice to give all cores back for yet another major player to defend a border.