How is aggressive expansion from annexing vassals determined?

[AlricWaskir]

Hi,

Does anybody have some detailed information on how AE is calculated from annexing vassals? In my latest Brandenburg game I annexed Novgorod and aggressive expansion varied a lot. For example i got 25 AE with a neighbouring Hesse but only ~15 for Muscovy.

I assume it is a combination of
-size of your country/number of provinces
-border friction with neighbouring country
-distance between borders
-size of the annexed vassal/number of provinces

Does anybody know the respective formula?

Thx in advance.

 

[unmerged(798670)]

As far as I'm aware this mechanic was stealth added in 1.2 and no one has any idea how it works functionally, I can tell you when you are colossal in size your religion and the AE recipient's religion are the most important factors and that there is apparently an uncapped growth of the AE that scales with your size, I suspect nonlinearly.

As a very large country I was getting 40-50+ AE with every country in europe for annexing tiny vassals in india, which was about the same amount I received for annexing HRE states and for annexing (not integrating) spain. As a catholic only the catholics really cared, most everyone else was negligible.

I don't believe any players can give you more detail unfortunately because to my knowledge the mechanics haven't been around long, addressed by paradox at all, nor tested systematically.

 

[joelzhl]

Diplo annex affects nations near your capital instead of neighboring countries of the annexed vassal. I was an European Ryukyu diplo-annexing some Japanese vassal and only European states care. No one in Asia cared about my diplo-annex.

 

[TheBloke]

Diplo annex affects nations near your capital instead of neighboring countries of the annexed vassal. I was an European Ryukyu diplo-annexing some Japanese vassal and only European states care. No one in Asia cared about my diplo-annex.

Oh, wow.. so you'd moved your capital to Europe I take it?

That's really odd. The opposite of normal AE, then, which is always relative to the target's location.

 

[TheBloke]

Annex AE Test - 2PM

I'm doing a few tests now.

Just integrated Trier, a 2PM. I am Great Britain with integrated France, Münster, bits of Africa, bits of Antwerpen Trade Node.

I have 132 provinces total, so I'm over the max size for normal AE scaling.

As joel described, AE is relative to your capital's location, not the vassal's location!

Integrating Trier gave me a max of 5 AE, with neighbours of my capital in Antwerpen, such as Cleves, Holland, Netherlands, Lorraine.

Hainault got 4 AE. Norway, slightly further away, got 2 AE.

Then I reloaded and moved my capital from Antwerpen, to the furthest northern point I had available, Western Isles in (former) Scotland.

AE was then 1 to Netherlands, Holland, Cleves, etc. To Norway, who had 2 AE when my capital was in Antwerpen, AE was now 4.

This is really interesting. And kind of odd. Capital location, not vassal affects it. Why?

But the other news is that, at least for a little vassal like Trier, AE is really nothing to worry about at all. Maximum 5, for nations bordering my capital. Who cares about 5!

I am also integrating Jolof, who have 6 provinces. Will have AE figures for them, shortly.

 

[TheBloke]

Annex AE Test - 6PM

OK, I finished annexation Jolof, a 6PM.

Before annexation finished, I moved my capital to Trier, to give me the maximum number of neighbouring countries (5).

AE to nations neighbouring my capital increased by either 14 or 16.

E.g. Cleves increased from 5 to 21; Palitanate from 1 to 17; Aachen from 0 to 14; Lorraine from 37 to 51 - and then formed a Coalition!

2PM - raw Base Tax across provinces, 14: up to 5 AE, 2.5 per province
6PM - raw Base Tax across provinces, 29: up to 16 AE, 2.66 per province


So yes, it's clearly relative to the target nation size. Just on Provinces, or Base Tax based, perhaps? I haven't calculated their net base tax, just gross by adding up the Base Tax numbers shown on each province.

I will do more tests later, including dropping the number of provinces I own down below 100, to see if AE is reduced. Though this is only of temporary interest, as we know from 1.4 onwards that won't matter.

But clearly the HUGE takeaway here is that it's relative to Capital. Before any Annexation, move your capital to the area that's furthest away from nations you don't want to incur AE with! Preferably in an area with no nearby neighbours, at all. Such as Western Isles for Great Britain, where it only really affects Norway.

If you have a province that's only bordered by allies/vassals/PUs, that would be even better. In my case, I might move mine down to Labourd, bordering Spain, my PU-minor, with nearest other neighbour being Portugal, also my PU-minor.

Or, I could move capital to Western Isles then ally Norway.

Ideally, time a bunch of annexations to finish roughly at the same time, move capital just before, then afterwards move it back, and break new alliances as necessary.

That costs 400 admin points, but quite likely to be worth it if it avoids too many extra coalitions/bad relations. I wouldn't bother for the 2PM, but I certainly would for a large vassal, or if I was going to annex 2 or 3 in quick succession.

 

[TheBloke]

Diplo-Annexation AE modified by nation size: but more heavily than for normal AE.

OK, next test. I Released 79 provinces As Vassal, taking my nation from 132 down to 53 provinces.

Repeated the Jolof 6PM dip-annex, and those 16 AEs dropped to 3.

That's a 5.33 times lower, which is interesting, because bleakie's work A test on how number of provinces affect AE showed that the maximum multiple for normal AE (incurred in war annexation) was 3.5 times - which was comparing AE incurred by a 100+ province blob versus an OPM.

So it appears different modifiers are used for annexation AE.

But this should not be long-term relevant, due to the expected 1.4 changes removing AE based on province size. (Though given that we can see different multipliers appear to be in use comparing "normal" AE and dip-annexation AE, I do hope they remember to change the dip-annex case as well )

 

[Teije]

Hmm, and here I just assumed it was the neighbours of your annexed vassal. Thanks for testing this out.

The moving capital thing will work, but it just seems so gamey. I hope Paradox changes it to have AE scaled relative to the capital of the annexed vassal. IMO, that would make much more sense.

 

[TheBloke]

The moving capital thing will work, but it just seems so gamey.

This is never a concern for me

I hope Paradox changes it to have AE scaled relative to the capital of the annexed vassal. IMO, that would make much more sense.

But yeah, that is much more logical. It's very strange that this is the opposite of normal war annexation, which is relative to the target.

In fact, the capital thing isn't great even from a gamey perspective. It precludes the normal AE-busting technique of rotating AE-incurring between continents.

It would be more interesting, strategically, if one needed to think about varying dip-annexation timings and locations to adjust AE incurred in different places. It always being relative to capital is a lot simpler, and there's no real strategy there - just move your capital to the furthest location, then back. Boring.

 

[TheBloke]

Raised as a bug/feature change request, here: [1.3.2] AE from diplo-annexation is relative to the location of your capital.

 

[unmerged(798670)]

The capital aspect does line up with my experience as my capital was roughly equidistant to everyone left in Europe, religion still seems to be an important factor based on what I've seen, or it may just be different continent bonuses, my capital was in ottoman land and the more proximal asians didn't seem to care nearly as much.