how exactly are you doing here?
i understand releasing nations but how (and when) do you 'feed' them
i didn't think you could feed them at the same time as releasing them
and by 'feed' do you mean sell
and when you say annex them again do you mean diplomatically
what is the process here?
thanks
There are a couple similar yet marginally different approaches to expanding without spending admin points.
1. Release a vassal in land you control (can be either cored or uncored land) and sell the vassal land as you expand. The vassal will core provinces for you. After you are done with said vassal, diploannex. Note that a vassal, when released will get all of its cores except your capital, if applicable. If there are no dead (nonexistent) nations with cores in your country, you cannot release a vassal.
The methodology goes like this. Say I am Hungary. If I want to expand into the Balkans I would go to war with a Balkan minor (a country the can be force-vassilized in one war) and vassilize them. Say I vassilize Bosnia. Then I would go to war with Serbia, take a couple provinces, and sell them to Bosnia who will core them for me.
It is also possible to diplomatically vassilize a nation and then proceed to "feed them."
If you happen to be in an area without any minors, you should take a province and then release as vassal. For instance, say the ottomans own the Balkans. I go to war with the ottomans, take one province, say Serbia, then release Serbia as a vassal and proceed to feed them.
2. Core return is the most effective albeit limited availability method of conquest. Say I am russia and I want to expand into Lithuania. Attack Lithuania, find a province with a Ukrainian core and then take it. After the war, release as vassal. In the proceeding wars, return cores (option in the peace screen) to Ukraine. The reason this is so effective is you get 0 aggressive expansion for returning cores.
A few things to note:
-The proper strategy combines both of these methods
-important info from a post of mine in another thread:
A vassal will never accept any more provinces after it hits 24% overextension (=6 cumulative base tax). However it will always accept a province (assuming same culture or religion) when it has any less than that. So, say you take 5, 1 base tax provinces and 1 8 base tax province. If you feed it the 8 base tax province first, it will not accept any others. However, if you sell it 5, 1 base tax provinces it will accept and still be under the threshold thus it will accept the 8 base tax province as well.
This extends to any other combination as well. 1 3 tax + 1 2 tax + 1 17 tax = accept (in that order).
1 6 tax + 1 1tax = reject second province due to overextension.
Plan accordingly.
-There's lots to understand about core timers that I don't really want to explain in detail. TheBloke is the defacto forum expert on this topic. There are several threads where he has explained them. If this doesn't seen important, I'll give you an example. It's 1750 and Austria got a PU with Hungary which is now fully integrated. I go to war with Austria, take one province. At this point Hungary has cores on all of de jure Hungary. Release Hungary as a vassal, at the next tick (beginning of next month) ALL of hungary's cores will be gone.
