As England, How do YOU unite the British Isles?

[Dean3000]

I thought it would be interesting to gather opinions and various strategies other players implement as England to unite the British Isles under English rule. How do you do it?

Personally I choose to elect warfare. Because it's easy to do so and i find that Diplomacy is both risky, expensive and boring (I've sat for 50 years waiting for Ireland to be able to Integrate with me, all the time it failed.)

But for you guys, do you prefer other methods?

Also this brings me to another question - regarding Scotland. I tried to be a good ol' chap and try for peaceful diplomacy by expanding my influence into Scotland, but according to the game Scotland bugs out of my sphere because 'their military is too powerful' despite me having more of an army and territory! What gives?!

 

[Shiranui]

I usually vassalize through warfare and later annex. IMO the best way to do it however is through PU + inherit so that you get instant cores, but it's harder.
And not to be mean or anything but I think your problem is that you're doing it wrong... first, don't integrate personal unions, wait to inherit so you can get 0 infamy and possible cores if it's the right culture. Second, expanding influence won't help you annex. All it does is give you a casus belli on nations that fiddle with them and increase your diplomatic power. Third, it's very hard to be able to expand only using diplomacy. Anything bigger than 3 (4?) provinces will never accept peaceful vassalization and you have to be very very lucky to get a PU with just a royal marriage. If you claim their throne (which you rarely have the opportunity to do) you will usually end up going to war over it anyway.

 

[unmerged(605863)]

Best way

You have a mission that gives cores on all of Ireland, so that isnt a problem

The problem is Scotland, and the fastest way to do it is to check every year or so if you can claim their throne
When you finally claim it, boost your relations with them and hope that you can INHERIT them, not integrate them. This way, you get cores and can form GB faster

 

[unmerged(37198)]

take the irish provinces when you get the core mission, then vassal scotland ether when you get the mission or by dowing france to drag scotland into the same war

 

[grommile]

I follow the missions. Any other approach ties up brainpower that I could be using to eat France.

 

[Ricox]

You don't need to use the "integrate" option on PUs, just keep relations at 200, have an alliance and all other possible relation-raising treaties (so the relations don't steadily go down due to infamy etc.) and when your King dies, you have a chance to inherit the junior partner in an union (higher chances if there's high trust & high relations). Also, don't garuantee their independence, not sure if it really does that, but whenever I've done it - I instantly lose the possibility to inherit until the garuantee expires (ex. it was showing I'd inherit them and the moment I garuanteed independence - it showed the PU will just continue).

 

[sdiff]

Ireland is simple enough, use the mission.

For Scotland I usually use the vassal mission as soon as practical, be wary of that magically appearing army in highlands, and annex Aberdeen as well as annexing, so if I get the annex mission which gains core of Lothian I can form GB earlier.

If I want to be really gamy I could start at about 1402 (not sure exact date - when the king of Scotland changes and they have no heir), form a personal union and hopefully inherit pretty quick. I guess using this method forming GB by 1420 or earlier if lucky is plausible. You could also wait for technology to advance, that way you get to keep the economic investments scotland made and further develop England.