Is integrating France a good idea?

[Rubidium]

oh boy... that pretty much determines my second nation to play then *-*bohemia here i coooome

Note that you have to be larger than the country to integrate it. Denmark (my first "serious" game) is fun b/c you start in PU with Sweden and Norway, but are smaller than either, but you have a 2-province vassal you can integrate easily, and then just need to grab a couple more provinces to become larger than Norway. Integrate Norway, and your set to integrate Sweden. At that point you just have to wait for Admin tech to be big enough to form Scandinavia, and you're golden.

If it weren't for the Reformation threatening to wreck your stability, I'd recommend Denmark as the perfect beginner nation; it's very hard to go irretrievably wrong, and your PU/vassals help a lot in wars.

 

[Giskler]

Integrate them right away, you get free cores, accepted culture, massive tax and manpower increase. Releasing them as a vassal is retarded.

 

[mejla]

Integrate them right away, you get free cores, accepted culture, massive tax and manpower increase. Releasing them as a vassal is retarded.

+1

 

[Hitower]

Well, I just integrated France while playing as Portugal. Great I thought, except almost everyone instantly hated me and I now am at war with England, Spain, The Ottomans, Russia, Teutonic Order, The Mamluks, Morroco and about 10 others. England and Spain seem to have super generals which is making life very difficult for me. The integration seems to have suddenly made my aggressive expansion shoot up, it is 222 with Spain for instance. I have been playing Portugal as a trading country and have done very little fighting against the powers. To be honest I would not have integrated France if I had realised what was going to happen. I was comfortably second and France were my PU vassal in first position. I had 80k cash in the bank and was making 100+ a month with no trouble at all. I am not sure if I inherited some aggressive expansion from France.

I am going to lose the war and lose Lisbon. I didn't expect everyone to suddenly attack me to be honest. I had had to disband some French armies when I first got them as my income instantly went to -172 Releasing them as a Vassal is looking tempting to me

 

[LarryLeica]

You get AE from the integration.

Personally, unless I'm wanting to dominate in Europe, then I release France as a vassal after integration. France retains it's NIs etc, meaning you get a super powerful land army to fight your European wars for you, while you as England/GB get to concentrate on the naval, colonisation and trade game. It's a great combo, and if you do want to reintegrate later then you can when the time is ripe. The only issue is losing your French provinces which means you can't fabricate claims on anyone else in Europe unless you have taken some of Burgundy that doesn't have French cores.

 

[unmerged(804580)]

I'd integrate them before they colonize anywhere, and release later after doing a few things...

Once you integrated France, your base tax will increase substantially, so shop around and see if anyone else could be diplovassalized with the added base tax. Get a few, preferrably the electors if you also want the Empire. Otherwise, just diplovassalize a few and release France back.

Assuming you want to take the Empire, add all your territories. That gives quite a lot of imperial authority, and push through the reforms. Release Scotland and France as your vassals - imperial princes. Once you revoke the Privilegia, they do not take up any diplomatic upkeep. I'd personally go as far as releasing other French minors before France so France will be a little weaker.

Scotland and France will colonize, but if they made colonies already, there's a chance they will relocate their capital to one of their colonies upon being released, so if that happens they will permanently take up one of your diplo upkeep... so it's a good idea to integrate them before they hatch colonies, and release after they're imperial princes.

The added sum of liege and overlord is always greater than if the overlord annexed everything. Now, once you have the HRE plus all French minors under your command, there is really nothing that prevents you from declaring a big-ass war, leave it at speed 5, go make some coffee, come back and enjoy the carpet siege. Not only in Europe, but they will walk all the way to China and Africa if that's your war.

 

[m4recky]

I initially thought that releasing them as vassal for their superb land forces is a brilliant idea - retaining them as a bodyguard in continental Europe.
Following this strategy I maintained a rather symbolic land force (~20 units) because I didn't really have the need for more.
Then I went to war with Castile and almost lost it because France decided to siege single province with a stack of 60 while I was fighting for my life with my own small forces rapidly reinforced by gazillion of mercenaries in order to survive.
Few years later it happened again except this time they attacked Castile in the mountains and lost half of their army in single battle.

The point is: You really don't want to depend on AI-controlled armies in a war.
Direct control over troops (even if they're weaker) is sooo much better, because it eliminates this let's-do-something-stupid-instead-of-fighting factor.
Not even to mention the economic boost you get after integrating them.

The only drawback is the AE hit which can cause a mega-coalition to form; however in my game integrating them caused only ~40AE so nothing special.
On the other hand when I annexed Portugal 100 years later it caused 100+ AE even though it was considerably smaller than France when it was integrated. Sometimes I don't understand the annex/integrate AE logic.

 

[unmerged(804580)]

I initially thought that releasing them as vassal for their superb land forces is a brilliant idea - retaining them as a bodyguard in continental Europe.
Following this strategy I maintained a rather symbolic land force (~20 units) because I didn't really have the need for more.
Then I went to war with Castile and almost lost it because France decided to siege single province with a stack of 60 while I was fighting for my life with my own small forces rapidly reinforced by gazillion of mercenaries in order to survive.
Few years later it happened again except this time they attacked Castile in the mountains and lost half of their army in single battle.

The point is: You really don't want to depend on AI-controlled armies in a war.
Direct control over troops (even if they're weaker) is sooo much better, because it eliminates this let's-do-something-stupid-instead-of-fighting factor.
Not even to mention the economic boost you get after integrating them.

The only drawback is the AE hit which can cause a mega-coalition to form; however in my game integrating them caused only ~40AE so nothing special.
On the other hand when I annexed Portugal 100 years later it caused 100+ AE even though it was considerably smaller than France when it was integrated. Sometimes I don't understand the annex/integrate AE logic.

True, your vassal AI may do something stupid... but as long as your enemies are also AIs, it's usually fine. Probably less than optimal, but it's always a choice. If you want optimality at the cost of extra micromanagement, integrate France. If you want less micromanagement at the cost of some loss in optimality, then use it as a vassal attack dog.

I personally don't think the EU4 war AIs are stupid, but even if they are stupid, it doesn't matter if the enemy is as stupid as your allies/vassals... And well, your France may have been sieging that province and waiting for the Castilian army to attack them, and wondering why their liege was rushing into Iberian highlands with a puny army. If they feel they're strong enough relative to you (in this case they certainly were) they will be less likely to coordinate with you and more likely to take their own initiative, whatever that is.

And more importantly, if France is your vassal and you let it fight Castile, you might also want to consider that France and Castile are about even matches, even without Aragon - France as a vassal is slightly weaker than an independent France, because they lose some of their income to you which makes it a bit harder for them to finance their military. And much of Iberia is mountainous anyways so the defending Castile already has an edge against France. I wouldn't bet that France will win the war just by themselves. I'd still say it's good to keep France as your personal attack dog, but in this case it sounds like you overrelied on it.

In my game as England > HYW, I used France mostly to fend off the enemy's allies (before revoking the Privilegia, at least). Say, I'm at war with Denmark, and Spain joins on their side. That makes it a two front war, something I cannot really handle very well. (I just suck at multitasking and battles in general) It doesn't really matter how much losses France is incurring around the Pyrennes, as long as they keep Spain busy, and if they win so much the better. In the mean time, I can just focus on one front and be more efficient there, knowing that France will at least hold onto itself. So... while it's up to you, I'd still release France as a vassal, without relying entirely on it.

 

[mocoman2001]

I have to agree, its best to release France as a vassal. It greatly cuts down on your coring time for new conquered land.

 

[grisamentum]

As soon as you can I would recommend.You don´t wanna risk disolution of the personal union because you don´t have an Heir etc.

Actually, not having an heir has no effect on PUs. It's only opinion and prestige.

 

[RobRoy3]

If you release as a vassal, wouldn't France have lost it's lucky nation status?

 

[m4recky]

True, your vassal AI may do something stupid... but as long as your enemies are also AIs, it's usually fine. Probably less than optimal, but it's always a choice. If you want optimality at the cost of extra micromanagement, integrate France. If you want less micromanagement at the cost of some loss in optimality, then use it as a vassal attack dog.

I personally don't think the EU4 war AIs are stupid, but even if they are stupid, it doesn't matter if the enemy is as stupid as your allies/vassals... And well, your France may have been sieging that province and waiting for the Castilian army to attack them, and wondering why their liege was rushing into Iberian highlands with a puny army. If they feel they're strong enough relative to you (in this case they certainly were) they will be less likely to coordinate with you and more likely to take their own initiative, whatever that is.

And more importantly, if France is your vassal and you let it fight Castile, you might also want to consider that France and Castile are about even matches, even without Aragon - France as a vassal is slightly weaker than an independent France, because they lose some of their income to you which makes it a bit harder for them to finance their military. And much of Iberia is mountainous anyways so the defending Castile already has an edge against France. I wouldn't bet that France will win the war just by themselves. I'd still say it's good to keep France as your personal attack dog, but in this case it sounds like you overrelied on it.

I'm not saying the AI is stupid; in fact it's quite the opposite - most of the time they act surprisingly good.
You simply can't rely on AI-controlled armies as your main force, because they can.. surprise you at some point.
So in fact you're right about me over-relying on their armies - lesson learned!

We've already beaten Castile twice before and also had two successful wars against burgundy.
Basing on previous wars and on the fact that Castile was already weakened I didn't have any reasons to suspect that they will start acting unreasonably.

Obviously I wouldn't ever let them handle a 1:1 situation, because that would probably fail due to the thing you mentioned - France being a vassal and passing a significant chunk of its income to the liege.

I guess it's all a matter of personal preference. I like having full control on the situation.

 

[LarryLeica]

I'm not saying the AI is stupid; in fact it's quite the opposite - most of the time they act surprisingly good.
You simply can't rely on AI-controlled armies as your main force, because they can.. surprise you at some point.
So in fact you're right about me over-relying on their armies - lesson learned!

We've already beaten Castile twice before and also had two successful wars against burgundy.
Basing on previous wars and on the fact that Castile was already weakened I didn't have any reasons to suspect that they will start acting unreasonably.

Obviously I wouldn't ever let them handle a 1:1 situation, because that would probably fail due to the thing you mentioned - France being a vassal and passing a significant chunk of its income to the liege.

I guess it's all a matter of personal preference. I like having full control on the situation.

Put a couple of single units of infantry in France. The French stacks will join with them and you get to control them as you see fit.

 

[gaius valerius]

Integrate France asap. You'll get cores, and will probably end up having Cosmopolitaine as a second accepted culture. Also, even if France's provinces did NOT give you the additional force limit to sustain its big armies (possible if France has ideas/advisors to increase force limit), why do you fret so much? Just disband those armies if you dont want them. It's super easy.

I cannot fathom why people would want to make France a vassal, wtf? To just throw away 80% of the power you got from integrating it? Seriously?

Why not? They host their own armies, build their own fleets, expand their own colonies, build their own buildings, at the same time they have superior ideas for land-based warfare, they'll fight all your wars for you and can hardly fail at it since they are France not some 3rd rate small German princeling... and they'll pay you an enormous income from vassalage.

What really are the cons here UNLESS (which I find really silly, but that is your own preferential playstyle) you want to paint the entire map in your colour?

Yes you'll get more income if you integrate it, yes you'll push your forcelimits, but in return you must micromanage everything yourself, every building you make or every army or fleet you move from a to b. So rather than throwing away 80% of the power (a doubtful figure of course) you'd actually spare a lot of expenses on your part, get a stronger allied army in return and only have less revenue for it, and still with France as a vassal you'll be boasting more than enough money. The argument that the AI is 'derp derp stupid derp' doesn't make much sense either, I'd like to see the day come when the power of AI France backed by a human overlord will be undone by the AI enemy...

And did I mention you'll be skipping out on monstrous coalitions? Unless that's your thing of cours.

So here is something to try to fathom.

 

[Xara]

I cannot fathom why people would want to make France a vassal, wtf? To just throw away 80% of the power you got from integrating it? Seriously?

The same reason you would release any colonizing nation as a vassal.

You would be receiving half their income as tribute, higher force limit and manpower. You don't get those things from a union. They'll manage their own territory, they'll colonize - doubling your rate of potential colonial expansion - and they can never break a vassalization.