diplo annex or long term vassal?

[hirsaer]

hello.

actually i play a hamburg -> germany game.
by chance i vassalized tunis and am pretty active in the mediterrian sea.
in the beginning i didnt want to annex them but put all the berber nation (+50% coring cost) into them with the intention to not deal with this burden... out of stupidity tunis growed pretty big by me and is now always on the edge (50%+ liberty desire). obviously they are not a big help in wartime due to this.

do you recommend to diplo annex them or just ignore them for the last 140 years (it is 1700 and my other diplo slots are client nations; interestingly i only diplo annex with 3 points per month [don't know why] which means that i am more or less in the situation that all annexation takes a long time (beside the increased coring cost one reason why i might start to annex the first client nation in 1702 instead)...

 

[Jorlaan]

Making them a March will reduce LD by 10% I believe, but there is a development cap on Marches that you may have let them pass.
Otherwise I'd diplo-annex at that point. If a vassal of mine grows to the point where they are powerful enough to always be teetering on the 50% mark and are my only vassal, I usually integrate and start feeding a new vassal.

 

[Aythne]

interestingly i only diplo annex with 3 points per month [don't know why]

To clear this up for you, Diploannexation speed is based on a few factors:

+1 - Base speed
+1 - Same religion
+1 - Same culture group
+/- X - Diplomatic reputation

Given that *any* nation can gain up to ~9 dip rep without any crazy effort, annexation speed is almost always going to follow your Diplomatic Reputation.

Influence and Diplomatic ideas are great if you have a lot of vassals, as each provides +2.

Getting into the Zanzibar trade node is an easy way to get the Ivory bonus, for another +2.

Keep in mind that Low Legitimacy and High Overextension can lose you significant DipRep (up to -1 for Legitimacy, -2 per 100% OE), easily stopping annexation progress entirely if you don't have much positive sources.

 

[Kergan]

Maghreb has a bunch of low development garbage land. Develop it from time to time for -5% LD that ticks up very slowly.

Aside: a side effect of having a vassal in that area is that it'll pirate the Mediterranean coasts - which will annoy your enemies by giving them near constant devastation.

 

[Kergan]

Also, if it really is 1700-ish, you'll soon be in the Age of Revolutions which adds two bonuses to keep large subjects - one for everywhere, the other for same continent subjects. Point being, you'll soon have the beast under control.

 

[PhoenixG]

Making them a March will reduce LD by 10% I believe, but there is a development cap on Marches that you may have let them pass.
Otherwise I'd diplo-annex at that point. If a vassal of mine grows to the point where they are powerful enough to always be teetering on the 50% mark and are my only vassal, I usually integrate and start feeding a new vassal.

The dev cap only applies to the marches bonus. The march can be as big as you want.