How big a vassal should be?

[zePa]

I'm going to DOW Ardabil (guaranteed by Fars) to take all Fars territories in the Arabian Peninsula.
The question is, how many territories should I give to Iraq (my vassal)? Can I give to it all Fars provinces and maybe a part of Mamluks and Yemen in Arabia before integration? I don't want to make Iraq too big to be annexed (or reaching improbabile integration time). How do you usually manage Vassals?

My goal in this run is to conquer the whole Arabian Peninsula, Horn of Africa, the whole North Africa and color the Sahara wasteland with my color (I don't even know if I'm still in time).
I've more than 300hrs but I never blobbed like this and I never relied that much on vassals (always integrated asap without feeding).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bibor]

The modifiers to your vassals loyalty can be seen in the subject interaction tab, but in a nutshell, your legitimacy, army strenght, diplomatic reputation and diplomatic tech parity are the most important bonuses, while development of vassal and the total power (units) of vassals are the most important maluses.

Even Russia with 1500 development can be integrated in a reasonably short period, the question is whether you have the required bonuses to do so.

If you want to focus on conquest and vassal integration, there are three things that make integrations much cheaper:
your own Core creation cost -20 % affects integration costs fully.
- the 4th influence idea reduces it by 20 %
- 2nd administrative idea -25 % core creation cost reduces it as well.
- vassal integration act (full administrative/influence policy) reduces it by... 20 or 25% i forgot)
- your absolutism and administrative efficiency levels

As you can see, you can get so many discounts on vassal integration that it's not even funny. Your biggest bottleneck will be not diplomatic points, but required (high) levels of of diplomatic reputation and keeping your vassals loyalty in check.

 

[Mr. G]

The 4th influence idea reduces it by 25 %. Are you sure that CCR reduces integration cost too? Isn't it just admin efficiency?

 

[Ironside121]

CCR has no impact on vassal integration.

 

[Bibor]

CCC has no impact on vassal integration.

The formula on the wiki says that "local coring cost modifiers" is taken into consideration. I have to check if this applies.

EDIT: You're right, Reduced Coring Cost has no effect on vassal integration, only admin. efficiency.

 

[bly08]

"local coring cost modifiers" does not include CCR

 

[zePa]

So, for a quick integration, I've to keep an eye at my diplo rep, subject development, subject army strength, and loyalty.
The better the development and army strength (of vassals) are, the slower the integration will be... and the worse my diplo rep is, the harder the integration will be. Am I right?


In my case:
Iraq development is 119, mine is 1298
Iraq has a 5k army on a FL of 11
my diplo rep is +4 (due to: legitimacy, influence idea, and diplo advisor)

..I think I can still feed Iraq with a big chunk of Arabian peninsula..

Is there a cap for subjects' development beyond which it is better not to go?

 

[Olterin]

Here's the thing - if you manage absolutism right and get it all the way to 100, you're eventually going to have 70% admin efficiency, meaning, coring land and integrating vassals is going to take 30% of the expected cost without admin efficiency. This bonus, unlike most others, is multiplicative. Baseline, integrating a vassal requires 8 DIP per development point, so at 65% admin efficiency that's only 3 DIP per development point ... ish. Vassal integration speed has a baseline of 2 dip/month spent, increased by dip reputation (iirc each point of diplo rep increases the integration speed by the amount of diplo rep), and being same religion adds +1, and same culture group another +1. Not entirely sure, this is probably on the wiki.

Long story short - by the time you hit 1700 you'll have no trouble integrating a vassal that has 500 dev if you maxed absolutism and went with admin-influence for the extra 45% cost reduction (influence ideas + admin-influence policy). Main "problem" is keeping the vassal loyal - the baseline liberty desire is a quarter of the vassal's development. Better relations help reduce it, so does positive diplomatic reputation, so does having a royal marriage (which they will break the moment they get disloyal, so be careful). Main way I keep big vassals nice and happy is developing provinces and feeding them land - or burn prestige if you get too much of it and don't know what to do with it. Oh, and having trust above 50 helps as well - using your great power interaction to influence nation on your vassals that you intend to feed helps keep their liberty desire down. If memory serves, every 5 trust above 5 reduces liberty desire by 1% (conversely, going below 50 trust massively increases liberty desire).

Just a quick calculation for the 500 dev vassal when you're at 70% admin efficiency and have diplo, influence and admin filled and the policy active.
Total bonuses: +4 diplo rep, -45% integration cost, 0.3x integration cost (admin efficiency).
Total cost = 500*8*0.55*0.3 = 660 DIP
Total time = 660/(2+1+1+4) = 82.5 months (83 rounding up). A whopping 83 months. That's less than 7 years.

Someone please correct my math if I'm wrong here.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

The better the development and army strength (of vassals) are, the slower the integration will be... and the worse my diplo rep is, the harder the integration will be. Am I right?

Not quite. Dip rep is one of the factors determining the speed. You integrate at 2 points per month base, + or - modifiers from dip rep and a few other things. So having a high dip rep speeds it up, having a low dip rep slows it down, or can even pause it entirely. 0 points per month means 0 progress.

The cost is set based on the development of your vassal. The higher the development, the more points it requires to integrate. The cost is further modified by a number of factors. You can see the total cost in the confirmation box when you click "annex vassal."

Army, development, opinion, dip rep, among other things, also contribute to vassal liberty desire. In this case, it's a simple yes/no check. Under 50% liberty desire, integration progresses at full speed, as determined by dip rep, etc. Above 50% liberty desire, progress is 0 monthly, no matter your dip rep.

So a hard cap for development for any subject you want to integrate would be the point at which the integration would take longer than the amount of time you have left in the game. However, it's also important not to feed a subject to the point where your subject's total power (fl, and I think standing army as well - not sure though) becomes a significant fraction of your own. The larger your own force limit, the larger the subject's force limit for the same amount of liberty desire.

Edit: note that for vassals, it's power of /all/ vassals, not each one individually. 5 small vassals can cause the same problem as one large one.

 

[zePa]

So, vassal's development affects integration cost, and diplo rep affects integration speed based on cost. Liberty desire is a keystone.

it's also important not to feed a subject to the point where your subject's total power (fl, and I think standing army as well - not sure though) becomes a significant fraction of your own

something like.. 1/3 of your total power?

 

[I_am_Nemo]

something like.. 1/3 of your total power?

That'd probably be pretty safe, yeah. If you hover over their liberty desire in the subjects screen, it'll show what their LD is from power, as well as development, and the other modifiers as well.