Diplomatic Expansion

[Rikeus]

What is the best strategy for diplomatic expansion? Is it best to marry as many countries as you can and hope you happen to get a throne, or is it better to marry just a few at a time and claim thrones when I can (so that I don't take huge relationship/trust hits in lots of countries each time)? I've been doing the former, simply because I got sick of being constantly bombarded with marriage requests as Austria, but it doesn't seem to be working very well. And if the latter is better, is there any way to make countries stop re-sending marriage requests every time you refuse?

 

[Ricox]

Not sure about all the other, but there's no way to stop them re-sending the offers, you just have to keep denying until the relations are so bad that they'll just get off your back (everytime you refuse any treaty offer - you lose relations with that country, just noting).

 

[ATBKING]

I usually go for the Latter. Just asking, do you know how to diplo-vassalize a nation??

 

[Lord Curlyton]

It should say in diplo screen if you hover over the offer vassalization option. Basically: 190+ relations, RM, MA, target nation <4 provinces. So you can't diplo-vassalize republics/theocracies/non-monarchies.

 

[brifbates]

Early in the game you want to spam marriages everywhere unless there is a particular throne you want to immediately claim and go to war for.

There are 2 reasons for this:

1) A lot of nations start without an heir so you have the most opportunities for an easy PU/inheritance
2) Each proposal accepted increases your prestige and the highest prestige nation a country has a marriage with is the only one that can get a PU/inheritance and their prestige must be higher than the target nation

After the initial rush I tend to try and use a more targeted approach to get PUs along with diplo-vassalizing/annexing. To make it work really well you need to set things up so you constantly have high prestige income though. This allows sphere expansion as well as making it more likely you have the necessary prestige to get the random PUs.

 

[Rikeus]

I know about diplo-vassalisation, but Royal Marriages are far more attractive to me for 2 reasons:

1. The likelihood is almost always low that they will accept - and I don't want to have to constantly check every country to find out if they want to be my vassal.

2. Incorporating Vassals takes a long time, usually with repeated requests before they finally accept, and unlike with inheriting a country from a personal union, you don't get core on any of the incorporated provinces, so you end up with a nasty "unlawful imperial territory" infamy hit for 50 years.

Does the spam-first target later approach work even if you don't start on Grand Campaign? I started Austria immediately after they take the lowlands and finish the war of burgundian succession.

 

[brifbates]

Does the spam-first target later approach work even if you don't start on Grand Campaign? I started Austria immediately after they take the lowlands and finish the war of burgundian succession.

I couldn't say, I pretty much stick to the grand campaign. If you look at the list of nations without heirs and it's substantial I'd spam but if it is only like 8-10 then it most likely isn't worth it.