First off, let's start by listing the current issues/problems:
- Vassal feeding was the top expansion strategy previosuly, to the degree where it became gamey and highly immersion-breaking/ahistorical. In accordance to this Paradox 'fixed' the issue with the Strategic Interest system, preventing excessive feeding of vassal states.
- Larger nations could diplovassalize large realms to rapidly expand without the cost of admin points. This was adressed by the 30-basetax hard cap, which many players consider to be a 'quickfix' rather then a good way of dealing with the problem.
- Protectorates feel like an unfinished and unpolished design idea, preventing any sort of expansion from sides of the player at the only gain of some trade power after a 100% war.
Next, I'll explain my suggestions to change and resolve these problems:
Paradox tried to fix the expansion issues by making vassals harder to aquire and as well making it harder for vassals to aquire additional territory. Both of these mechanisms are sort of ahistorical and, in my oppinion, bad concepts. A much simpler, yet somewhat more realistic, solution would be to actually target the EXPANSION part that made vassal feeding into an issue: Annexation.
Adding a simple annexation speed penality on the process, based upon the vassal country's base tax will solve all issues: You can still create large vassals and feed them, but doing so will make the annexation progress (much!) longer.
As a base formula, I considered something like -2.00 to +-0 progress per month, scaled linearily along the difference in base tax from 1:1 to 4:1. This means, if you vassal a nation which has one fourth of your basetax or less, it will not incur any penality. However, if the vassal nation has (about) the same basetax as you, you will have a -2 to monthly progress (for those who rarely annex, -2 means pretty much impossible, the highest progress I ever managed to get was something along the lines of 1.2 per month). If you're about twice as large as the vassal, you will still have to deal with a -1.33 penality. Even with 3times the basetax, you get -0.66, making the annexation a long way to go.
This will cause the vassalizaton expansion mechanic to change dramatically: You can still diploannex small states or OPMs with barely any trouble (assuming you are a moderate or major power), but stunts like recreating the byzantine empire and feeding it all it'S cores will be impossible, because feeding your vassal that large will prevent you from annexing him (within the time frame of the game). Effectively, you would have to strike a balance between the amount of provinces you give to your vassal and the time you want to spend annexing. Vassal feeding is solved with a dynamic system that will permit the player to chose his way and additionally feels more realistic (because, seriously, why does it take the same time and effort to integrate a OPM or a kingdom?).
Since vassal annexing is now altered drastically, I would as well like the 30-basetax hardcap gone. Hardcaps are an ugly way to force a player into a certain direction. Instead, add a plain penality to the vassalization offer, in size of -basetax. As well, add a dynamicaly scaling factor if the state in question has more then a x:1 ration in basetax (something similar to the formula above).
This willl still leave mediocre powers inable to diplovassalize their way through other mediocre states (and prevent Austria from expanding diplomatically too harsh), but will resolve the issue that a global 400 basetax empire can't vassalize that 5country 30basetax state. (Which, by all means, should be possible.)
While we're at removing hardcaps, remove the weird 10 year requirement for annexation of vassals. Instead, use the 'long-time vassal' modifier and make it a scaling -2 to 0 penality from 0 to 10 years of vassalage, called 'short-time vassal'. (And then have a minor bonus gradually increase for every further year.) As I mentioned previously, hardcaps are a weak excuse of game design and should be avoided. With this small change you will still prevent 'instant annexation' but, again, give the player the choice when to start annexation, knowing all well that starting earlier then 10 years after the vassalization will consume exponentially more time of a diplomat in exchange for a minorly earlier annexation (See it like this: Starting after only 5 years, will cause the process to take 4 years longer. This means you effectively only save one single year, at the exspense of one diplomat being unavaiable for 5 additional years).
Again, this change would give more options to a player whilst still keeping the original mechanic (prevention of instant annexation) in check.
Now, protectorates. The idea behind protectorates is to prevent the 'ahistorical' vassalization of tribal or just underdeveloped nations. Which makes sense, because it's doubtworthy the Apache would understand the concept of Feudal vassalization right out of the gate. Additionally, Paradox doesn't seem to want people to expand into other tech groups. The result of these concerns was another hardcap, namely the 50% tech difference rule that decides whether a nation can be turned into a vassal or a protectorate.
Let's begin with creating protectorates: It should NOT be possible to instantly protectorate an ifinitely large nation by war. But currently, that's possible and highly likely, simply because western troop types are that much superior. However, with the upcoming change in the DLC, namely the aspect of infinitely lasting Trade Power Transfer (demanding Trade Power Transfer in a peace deal will cause the power transfer to be PERMANENT until the loser nation declared war on the winning one), you can effectively create protectorates with 30% warscore anyways. There's literally no difference, except that you don't need to actually defend the state in question (and that, technically, multiple nations could war the state in question for trade power).
This means protectorates need to change:
First off, the Protectorate demand in peace deals should have a warscore requirement scaling with the provinces the nation owns. Albeit, it should be much smaller then the vassalization/annexation, permitting players to instantly protectorate larger nations, albeit not local superpowers. I would again suggest a dynamic multiplier instead of a static one, based upon basetax difference: The larger your own nation is, the smaller the warscore needed to protectorate the nation X (which as well means the larger you are, the larger the nations you can protectorate with the max 100% warscore can be).
However, this still leaves the issue that Paradox strictly enforces any nation below techlevel X to become protectorates. This can be resolves as following:
Protectorates are an OPTIONAL way of dealing with nations which have a lower tech level and are overseas. Vassalization remains an option for all nations you encounter.
However, there is an additional modifier for both of the diplomatic options, based upon tech level difference.
If the tech difference is less then 50%, there is a negative modifier towards asking nations to become protectorates (namely, 'we are too technologically advanced'). Vice versa, a tech difference above 150% will give a positive modifier ('we seek your technological guidance').
If the tech difference is above 50%, there will be a negative modifier added upon the vassalization diplomatic options, labbeled 'we don't understand your advanced customs').
Voila, -1000 hardcaps removed and replaced with a dynamic system that will still roughly follow the previous concepts.
Now, that vassalizing of 'techlow' nations is possible again (and even if they don't like your customs, you can still war them into vassalage), won't that pose that an exploitable expansion problem again? It would, that's why we add a nice penality to annexation speed, based upon - techdifference*0.01. This means, f.e., annexing a native american tribe as a western will yield a -2.5 progress boost. Aka, impossibru. BUT it removes the idea of hardcapping vassalage options and permits players to vassal something, if they so desire.
Additionally, you can ask protectorates to become your vassal, foregoing the requirement of royal marriage or similar. Of course the penalitys mentioned above still apply, so it may be impossible to vassal them as long as they belong into a lower tech group... but
But why would they do this? They only use up one DR and still can't vassalize the native tribes!
Of course, we now need to add an incentive mechanic to make the vassalization a legit tactic: Developement Aid.
If a technologically inferior nation is your vassal or protectorate, you gain the economy-tab diplomatic option 'Developement Aid'. Here you can (similar to war subsidies) assign an amount of wealth to be transferred monthly to the nation in question. However, this money is not actually given to them, but instead they gain 50% tech cost reduction per monthly income given as Developement Aid (As in, a nation earning 10 ducats per month will receive a 100% boost if you give them 20 ducats per month. Or 200% for 50 ducats. Or 50% for 10 ducats).
This boost, of course, cannot grant a higher boost then to the tech level you are yourself on (F.e. if you are a nation with +50% tech cost, you can only boost the Aztecs by 100% (from their 150 to your 50%)).
Additionally, if you provide the maximum possible of developement aid, the inferior nation instantly gets the possibility of westernizing regardless of whether they have bordering cores (If you are in western techgroup, of course. Maybe there should be options to muslimize etc, too). In case of natives and horders, it as well unlocks the reformation of government. Additionally, the inferior nation will have regular events trigger, which will run along the lines of 'With our overlords funding, we should definitely be able to westernize!' with the option of either starting to westernize (with added +1 stability and +x00 monarch points) or receiving a monarch power loss, coercing the AI into starting as soon as possible.
During the westernization, the monthly westernization progress is changed by half the tech modifier granted by developement aid, speeding up this process, too.
Once the process is complete, the inferior nation is at your tech level... what does that do? Of course they now lost their main oppinion penality towards being vassalized! This means you can now diplovassalize them (as mentioned in last paragraph).
And here you can instantly see the difference between protectorating and vassalizing a tribal nation: If you only protectorated them (easy, cheap (no DR cost)), you will now have to wait for the 'short-time vassal' modifier to go down. If you already had them as a vassal (more difficult to get against larger nations, costs 1 DR), the timer is probably already down by the time they finish westernizing, permitting you to proceed with annexation right away (assuming they aren't too large and you can overcome the overseas modifier).
This concept change will permit players to expand by diplomatic annexation into low-tech terriotories... but at a much slower rate and an additionally expanse of ducats. But again, that is a dynmic option, instead of a hardcapped nuisance.
If you read to this point, thanks for your patience. Please feel free to add comments, constructive critic or just bumping post to this thread, in an efford to give Paradox some inspiration on how to possibly improve our beloved EU IV.
- Vassal feeding was the top expansion strategy previosuly, to the degree where it became gamey and highly immersion-breaking/ahistorical. In accordance to this Paradox 'fixed' the issue with the Strategic Interest system, preventing excessive feeding of vassal states.
- Larger nations could diplovassalize large realms to rapidly expand without the cost of admin points. This was adressed by the 30-basetax hard cap, which many players consider to be a 'quickfix' rather then a good way of dealing with the problem.
- Protectorates feel like an unfinished and unpolished design idea, preventing any sort of expansion from sides of the player at the only gain of some trade power after a 100% war.
Next, I'll explain my suggestions to change and resolve these problems:
Paradox tried to fix the expansion issues by making vassals harder to aquire and as well making it harder for vassals to aquire additional territory. Both of these mechanisms are sort of ahistorical and, in my oppinion, bad concepts. A much simpler, yet somewhat more realistic, solution would be to actually target the EXPANSION part that made vassal feeding into an issue: Annexation.
Adding a simple annexation speed penality on the process, based upon the vassal country's base tax will solve all issues: You can still create large vassals and feed them, but doing so will make the annexation progress (much!) longer.
As a base formula, I considered something like -2.00 to +-0 progress per month, scaled linearily along the difference in base tax from 1:1 to 4:1. This means, if you vassal a nation which has one fourth of your basetax or less, it will not incur any penality. However, if the vassal nation has (about) the same basetax as you, you will have a -2 to monthly progress (for those who rarely annex, -2 means pretty much impossible, the highest progress I ever managed to get was something along the lines of 1.2 per month). If you're about twice as large as the vassal, you will still have to deal with a -1.33 penality. Even with 3times the basetax, you get -0.66, making the annexation a long way to go.
This will cause the vassalizaton expansion mechanic to change dramatically: You can still diploannex small states or OPMs with barely any trouble (assuming you are a moderate or major power), but stunts like recreating the byzantine empire and feeding it all it'S cores will be impossible, because feeding your vassal that large will prevent you from annexing him (within the time frame of the game). Effectively, you would have to strike a balance between the amount of provinces you give to your vassal and the time you want to spend annexing. Vassal feeding is solved with a dynamic system that will permit the player to chose his way and additionally feels more realistic (because, seriously, why does it take the same time and effort to integrate a OPM or a kingdom?).
Since vassal annexing is now altered drastically, I would as well like the 30-basetax hardcap gone. Hardcaps are an ugly way to force a player into a certain direction. Instead, add a plain penality to the vassalization offer, in size of -basetax. As well, add a dynamicaly scaling factor if the state in question has more then a x:1 ration in basetax (something similar to the formula above).
This willl still leave mediocre powers inable to diplovassalize their way through other mediocre states (and prevent Austria from expanding diplomatically too harsh), but will resolve the issue that a global 400 basetax empire can't vassalize that 5country 30basetax state. (Which, by all means, should be possible.)
While we're at removing hardcaps, remove the weird 10 year requirement for annexation of vassals. Instead, use the 'long-time vassal' modifier and make it a scaling -2 to 0 penality from 0 to 10 years of vassalage, called 'short-time vassal'. (And then have a minor bonus gradually increase for every further year.) As I mentioned previously, hardcaps are a weak excuse of game design and should be avoided. With this small change you will still prevent 'instant annexation' but, again, give the player the choice when to start annexation, knowing all well that starting earlier then 10 years after the vassalization will consume exponentially more time of a diplomat in exchange for a minorly earlier annexation (See it like this: Starting after only 5 years, will cause the process to take 4 years longer. This means you effectively only save one single year, at the exspense of one diplomat being unavaiable for 5 additional years).
Again, this change would give more options to a player whilst still keeping the original mechanic (prevention of instant annexation) in check.
Now, protectorates. The idea behind protectorates is to prevent the 'ahistorical' vassalization of tribal or just underdeveloped nations. Which makes sense, because it's doubtworthy the Apache would understand the concept of Feudal vassalization right out of the gate. Additionally, Paradox doesn't seem to want people to expand into other tech groups. The result of these concerns was another hardcap, namely the 50% tech difference rule that decides whether a nation can be turned into a vassal or a protectorate.
Let's begin with creating protectorates: It should NOT be possible to instantly protectorate an ifinitely large nation by war. But currently, that's possible and highly likely, simply because western troop types are that much superior. However, with the upcoming change in the DLC, namely the aspect of infinitely lasting Trade Power Transfer (demanding Trade Power Transfer in a peace deal will cause the power transfer to be PERMANENT until the loser nation declared war on the winning one), you can effectively create protectorates with 30% warscore anyways. There's literally no difference, except that you don't need to actually defend the state in question (and that, technically, multiple nations could war the state in question for trade power).
This means protectorates need to change:
First off, the Protectorate demand in peace deals should have a warscore requirement scaling with the provinces the nation owns. Albeit, it should be much smaller then the vassalization/annexation, permitting players to instantly protectorate larger nations, albeit not local superpowers. I would again suggest a dynamic multiplier instead of a static one, based upon basetax difference: The larger your own nation is, the smaller the warscore needed to protectorate the nation X (which as well means the larger you are, the larger the nations you can protectorate with the max 100% warscore can be).
However, this still leaves the issue that Paradox strictly enforces any nation below techlevel X to become protectorates. This can be resolves as following:
Protectorates are an OPTIONAL way of dealing with nations which have a lower tech level and are overseas. Vassalization remains an option for all nations you encounter.
However, there is an additional modifier for both of the diplomatic options, based upon tech level difference.
If the tech difference is less then 50%, there is a negative modifier towards asking nations to become protectorates (namely, 'we are too technologically advanced'). Vice versa, a tech difference above 150% will give a positive modifier ('we seek your technological guidance').
If the tech difference is above 50%, there will be a negative modifier added upon the vassalization diplomatic options, labbeled 'we don't understand your advanced customs').
Voila, -1000 hardcaps removed and replaced with a dynamic system that will still roughly follow the previous concepts.
Now, that vassalizing of 'techlow' nations is possible again (and even if they don't like your customs, you can still war them into vassalage), won't that pose that an exploitable expansion problem again? It would, that's why we add a nice penality to annexation speed, based upon - techdifference*0.01. This means, f.e., annexing a native american tribe as a western will yield a -2.5 progress boost. Aka, impossibru. BUT it removes the idea of hardcapping vassalage options and permits players to vassal something, if they so desire.
Additionally, you can ask protectorates to become your vassal, foregoing the requirement of royal marriage or similar. Of course the penalitys mentioned above still apply, so it may be impossible to vassal them as long as they belong into a lower tech group... but
But why would they do this? They only use up one DR and still can't vassalize the native tribes!
Of course, we now need to add an incentive mechanic to make the vassalization a legit tactic: Developement Aid.
If a technologically inferior nation is your vassal or protectorate, you gain the economy-tab diplomatic option 'Developement Aid'. Here you can (similar to war subsidies) assign an amount of wealth to be transferred monthly to the nation in question. However, this money is not actually given to them, but instead they gain 50% tech cost reduction per monthly income given as Developement Aid (As in, a nation earning 10 ducats per month will receive a 100% boost if you give them 20 ducats per month. Or 200% for 50 ducats. Or 50% for 10 ducats).
This boost, of course, cannot grant a higher boost then to the tech level you are yourself on (F.e. if you are a nation with +50% tech cost, you can only boost the Aztecs by 100% (from their 150 to your 50%)).
Additionally, if you provide the maximum possible of developement aid, the inferior nation instantly gets the possibility of westernizing regardless of whether they have bordering cores (If you are in western techgroup, of course. Maybe there should be options to muslimize etc, too). In case of natives and horders, it as well unlocks the reformation of government. Additionally, the inferior nation will have regular events trigger, which will run along the lines of 'With our overlords funding, we should definitely be able to westernize!' with the option of either starting to westernize (with added +1 stability and +x00 monarch points) or receiving a monarch power loss, coercing the AI into starting as soon as possible.
During the westernization, the monthly westernization progress is changed by half the tech modifier granted by developement aid, speeding up this process, too.
Once the process is complete, the inferior nation is at your tech level... what does that do? Of course they now lost their main oppinion penality towards being vassalized! This means you can now diplovassalize them (as mentioned in last paragraph).
And here you can instantly see the difference between protectorating and vassalizing a tribal nation: If you only protectorated them (easy, cheap (no DR cost)), you will now have to wait for the 'short-time vassal' modifier to go down. If you already had them as a vassal (more difficult to get against larger nations, costs 1 DR), the timer is probably already down by the time they finish westernizing, permitting you to proceed with annexation right away (assuming they aren't too large and you can overcome the overseas modifier).
This concept change will permit players to expand by diplomatic annexation into low-tech terriotories... but at a much slower rate and an additionally expanse of ducats. But again, that is a dynmic option, instead of a hardcapped nuisance.
If you read to this point, thanks for your patience. Please feel free to add comments, constructive critic or just bumping post to this thread, in an efford to give Paradox some inspiration on how to possibly improve our beloved EU IV.
