Integrate Russia?

[AdmRepublic]

Eh, I got huge AE for integrating russia, something like -200, but I was larger than poland.

 

[grisamentum]

From what I've seen in one of my games, becoming a republic doesn't break PUs (even when the senior is a republic). Might have been changed, but I suspect that it can still happen.

Integrate, when you feel they have colonized enough.

Senior noble republics, yeah, it's fine. Juniors it apparently does on elections.

But yeah I'd say just integrate. If you didn't take Expansion you probably should anyway.

 

[dstarsboy]

Is there ever a reason not to integrate a junior partner (excluding HRE electors)? Even if you subsequently decide that you didn't want all that land after all, you can re-release them as a vassal, and AFAIK vassals never break away unless their suzerain is forced to release them by some third party.

I almost never integrate/annex large countries until the very end of the game. You're actually much stronger militarily than if you had all of that land yourself.

I agree, vassals are the way to go if you want more stability in the partnership but when I tried to go this route... I integrated Hungary (they were huge) and then I released them they went from 20+ provinces to 3. It took me 30 years to slowly feed them back to being a worthwhile ally...

 

[wildbillhdmax01]

I guess I'll just Take Russia! Now Russian and Poles will be friends for EVER! We will make Polians or Russlands. But can they into Space?

 

[Jaol]

I almost never integrate/annex large countries until the very end of the game. You're actually much stronger militarily than if you had all of that land yourself.

In general, yes, but Russia may be an exception. You won't get the huge Russian doomstacks without Russia using its NIs, but you as the player will be much better at developing the provinces in Russia than the AI. You'll be swimming in money that you can use far better than the Russian AI

 

[TheBloke]

Eh, I got huge AE for integrating russia, something like -200, but I was larger than poland.

FYI, dip-annexation/integration AE is relative to the location of your capital, not to the location of the nation you're integrating.

Next time, before integrating a nation, move your capital somewhere that's as far away from other nations as possible. In particular, far away from nations that you most don't want to incur AE with.

The ideal location would be somewhere that's far from all nations - example, Western Isles in Northern Scotland or Porto or Alentejo in Portugal.

Or else a province that's only near to your allies and vassals, where AE is much reduced. Note that it appears that AE is not reduced for your PU-minors, unlike for vassals and allies.

 

[hauptman]

By no means should you ever maintain a PU indefinatly, never. It will break sooner or later.

Best bet is integrate then re-release as a vassal, then you still get the Russian Hordes doing your bidding, a huge jump in income, and it will never break.

If you decide to integrate and keep the land, I sure hope you are already Orthodox, because that religious unity is gonna hurt.

 

[Jomini]

In general, yes, but Russia may be an exception. You won't get the huge Russian doomstacks without Russia using its NIs, but you as the player will be much better at developing the provinces in Russia than the AI. You'll be swimming in money that you can use far better than the Russian AI

Money is trivial, ideas are insane. Prussia, Sweden, France, the OE, Persia (though a nice bit of that comes from Shi'ite), and Great Britain can all easily be worth keeping around because they can mass a lot more/crazier troops than you can. Prussia makes a very nice attack dog. GB/England is really good for fielding huge navies to much up enemy trade and get some nice high morale/discipline navies.

In general, most nations are better as your vassals or PU's than as part of your land. They can use a lot more agents than you alone (e.g. Portugal as a vassal = way more colonization), they can provide you with much needed buffers to border friction, and they have their own supply of monarch points (no matter how crappy) that can really allow them to build the place up while you spend all your MP on silly things like killing enemies and taking land.

PUs are dangerous - I've lost a Russian PU by event (and they were freaking huge) and it really hurts. That being said, a lot of PUs are good for actually being able to siege claims so you can expand at 0 DMP/0 AE cost.

 

[mocoman2001]

as every one else said, best bet is to integrate and release as vassal.

 

[AxiomaticTruth]

Doesn't integration + release as vassal get rid of their Lucky modifier? In fact, I'm absolutely sure that it does that. I suppose in the end the Lucky modifier isn't as worthwhile as guaranteed overlord over a vassal instead of a PU, especially since you still get the biggest benefits of the extra agents/monarch points. Russia released as a vassal would only field average generals instead of the godlike ones of Lucky nations. However, if you reduce them to 3 provinces or so and forcibly vassalize them, they still remain Lucky.

 

[LarryLeica]

This is why the vassal income should be a slider, allowing transfer in either direction. So I can give them some amount of money per month (anything up to half my income or so), or no-one gives anyone anything, or they give me money.

Ideally that would go along with increased revolt risk and other downsides the more I take from them. But if it just capped out at 50%, as now, but now also allowing me to take less or give them money instead, that'd still be way better.

We might get that for all vassals eventually, given that new colonial nation vassals will quite likely have some sort of system like that.

I solve this particular issue by gifting them money every year or so... But completely agree on the need for far better representation of the vassal-overlord relationship given that it is absolutely key to the game.

 

[dstarsboy]

By no means should you ever maintain a PU indefinatly, never. It will break sooner or later.

Best bet is integrate then re-release as a vassal, then you still get the Russian Hordes doing your bidding, a huge jump in income, and it will never break.

If you decide to integrate and keep the land, I sure hope you are already Orthodox, because that religious unity is gonna hurt.

I've only ever had one PU break (Brandenburg! Bastards!) since I've been playing the game. I've completed at least 4 games since then without a single PU breaking.

Until they fix the disappearing cores bug, I would strongly recommend against "integrate/release as vassal" strategy. I tried this again on Saturday with Lithuania and sure enough integrated 20+ provinces, released as vassal... 5 provinces... took forever to feed provinces back to normal size. It's simply not worth the time/religious unity hit/etc investment when all you have to do is dump a diplomat on them once every 10 years or so to keep them happy.