Empire Expansion @ 1.5.1

[loveslater]

My thoughts and experience with Expansion on 1.5.1:

-Aggressive Expansion takes a loooooooong time to go away

-It can quickly spiral out of control. Especially in sensitive regions such as Italy and Germany.

-Coalitions won't go away like they used to once you brought your relations with the aggravated nations above the positive threshold

-There's a huge disparity between the aggro expansion you get when acquiring provinces vs. vassalizing

-Once again, Vassal Feeding is superior to coring

-Coring times are still scaling ridiculously


yup, 1.6 here i come :rofl:

 

[unmerged(65679)]

Italy god yes. I vassalized........repeat VASSALIZED not annexed OPM Tuscany and I copped -50 AE from that...........

30 odd for vassalized I'm onboard with. -50 for annex ok. But -50 for just vassalization? Doesn't AE starting getting worrysome once you breach the 50 AE area?

For one province thats a bit rich.

 

[rmax92]

My thoughts and experience with Expansion on 1.5.1:


-There's a huge disparity between the aggro expansion you get when acquiring provinces vs. vassalizing

-Once again, Vassal Feeding is superior to coring

It makes sense. Leaving the provinces with a (subjugated) party is a slower way of expanding and is therefore less aggressive.

 

[balmung60]

My thoughts and experience with Expansion on 1.5.1:

-Aggressive Expansion takes a loooooooong time to go away

-It can quickly spiral out of control. Especially in sensitive regions such as Italy and Germany.

-Coalitions won't go away like they used to once you brought your relations with the aggravated nations above the positive threshold

-There's a huge disparity between the aggro expansion you get when acquiring provinces vs. vassalizing

-Once again, Vassal Feeding is superior to coring

-Coring times are still scaling ridiculously


yup, 1.6 here i come :rofl:

If you're willing to mod, you can easily alter the rate of decay of AE. Multiply it by 3x or 5x and it'll decay much faster.

And that's exacerbated by the HRE. As I see it, if you want to blob in Germany or Italy, you're best off dismantling the HRE. The AI also sees the expansion potential from this and the former HRE seems to fill pretty quickly with medium nations.

Nope, now it seems to rely more on losing that AE, regardless of relations. Or just ally them, as that will make them instantly leave the coalition.

Yep.

Yep, but if you don't like it, it's pretty trivial to mod.

Yep, but again, if you don't like it, it's trivial to mod.

Now, if you want to play ironman or something, then you have a bigger problem.

 

[StatikShocker]

so far in 1.5, I've played russia, britain, and brandenburg. for the first two, I made empires like twice that of history, and never got coalitions. brandenburg, I lost but I got to about 15 provinces before getting betrayed by every ai, but never had a coalition. I think it can be a little silly sometimes, like when getting caught fabricating a claim (which there might be some evidence that the percentages are off) creates an HRE coalition with no ae prior.

I think a coalition forming from taking or vassalizing one province, with no AE prior, is broken. but generally, ae is ok.

 

[aurelplouf]

I don't know if the AI is subject to the same penalties? I saw the Ottomans taking 6 provinces at once on Hungary, and had Hungary and poland enter a coalition but nobody else (fear the giant turkish army! )

 

[StatikShocker]

I don't know if the AI is subject to the same penalties? I saw the Ottomans taking 6 provinces at once on Hungary, and had Hungary and poland enter a coalition but nobody else (fear the giant turkish army! )

I don't believe that is the case. I check the coalition mapmode for each country when I see them take land. they get big time AE and coalitions.

 

[Thund91]

There should be an option where you can spend diplomatic power to lower AE. Either that or nerf the multipliers. The base AE isnt bad but the numerous multipliers make it crazy.

 

[unmerged(811747)]

I think its a shame that you cant feed a province of the same culture and religion to a vassal.

I can understand if it was in the same culture group but not the same culture, but any vassal should gladly accept a province with their own people, regardless of cores/claims/previous ownership.

HRE is no longer fun. Dont know why they bothered reducing BROT - makes the game even slower. Its more fun when HRE countries are constantly battling each other for claims and cores.

 

[Westysnipes]

I haven't seen a single major coalition in my current England game. Now Spain and Austria are becoming really big because of it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The mechanic does not behave in a sensible way.

You can bypass it almost entirely by ripping out Styria, using alliance with Bavaria to grab lots of land off of Bohemia, only to take Bohemia as a vassal and feed cores back...all while expanding elsewhere in between.

Coalitions are lame. You can avoid them, THE strategy is to avoid them for most of the game, and then when you do take them on it's optional and is mainly used to break truces w/o penalty by declaring on new members. Rather than an engaging mechanic that takes strategy to overcome, you instead get release core vassal feed ---> now you're huge and can coalition chain the region.

 

[GunslingerV]

Learn to expand more cautiously, opportunistically, slowly. Or go play easy setting where AI does not react as aggressively to player expansion. As a Magna Mundi (EU3) veteran I find nothing wrong with any of the issues you've outlined. Just use common historical sense.

 

[StatikShocker]

look at ai austria. I started this game 30 seconds ago.

 

[delpiero1234]

-Once again, Vassal Feeding is superior to coring
:rofl:

Does the Vassal Feeders Party still exist? I haven't heard from them in a very long time!

 

[MiniaAr]

look at ai austria. I started this game 30 seconds ago.

Spoiler

What's wrong with that? They jumped on Bohemia and took 2 provinces, probably without proper CB and/or claims, which angered their neighbour enough so that they formed a coalition. They need to cool down a bit and expend diplomatically now. How is that not exactly what Austria should do?:huh:

 

[Comradebot]

Right? Austria probably used the "revoke electorate" CB and promptly two two provinces without a claim, nor a CB that gives any reduction to AE. Everyone should be pissed that they took land they have zero right to in a war where expansion wasn't the expressed purpose.

 

[StatikShocker]

lol guys I'm NOT complaining!!! someone said that ai's don't get coalitions. I was showing proof to the contrary.

 

[Comradebot]

lol guys I'm NOT complaining!!! someone said that ai's don't get coalitions. I was showing proof to the contrary.

My bad o

But yes, the AI absolutely gets coalitions. Its just that the AI knows to constantly spam its diplomats to improve relations with everyone around, something I don't think a lot of players will do.

 

[Katakakes]

Right? Austria probably used the "revoke electorate" CB and promptly two two provinces without a claim, nor a CB that gives any reduction to AE. Everyone should be pissed that they took land they have zero right to in a war where expansion wasn't the expressed purpose.

Not only that but we also have to take into account that base province tax is very important to AE.

Taking 10 provinces with 1 base tax might be just the same as taking 1 province with 10 base tax. This is partially why AE is very difficult to manage in Italy and Germany, as their lands are filthy rich in base tax.

That's also why when expanding I prefer taking lands with valuable trade goods, like gold, salt, wine, instead of lands with high base tax.

 

[Korsan82]

Oh God please let them make ONE version which I can enjoy playing. This is really getting out of control... Every version is a different game, like i am a freaking beta tester. I bought a full price game and I still cannot enjoy it!