Managing AE when trying to unite India

[Gogels]

Am I understanding it correctly that you releasing Hindu countries in peace deals to force-vassalise them to integrate them later? It’s seems pointless to me if your main concern is AE. If they are Hindu you should conquer them directly because as you notice - conquering Hindu cost little AE in comparison to Sunni in your case.
Of course using theirs Reconquest CB is good thing, but if you don’t use it then it’s not worth hassle.
I don’t like to integrate small vassals also because it cost dip rep every time you finish process. -3 dip rep is a lot especially when you want integrate another vassal in the same time. Feed them a bit before integrating. How much dip points you pay every month to integrate vassal? Who is your vassal btw?

 

[Quantum_AI]

Am I understanding it correctly that you releasing Hindu countries in peace deals to force-vassalise them to integrate them later?

No. I am peacefully vassalizing and diplo-annexing them. I ask them to be my vassals and they agree. Sometimes, I release them in a war and other times they just get released as a result of me cutting off enemy access to parts of their empire and they are born of rebellion.

I do feed them a bit but annexing cost is based on their development. Its like 8 diplo per development plus/ minus any modifiers. Essentially, this allows me to split my conquests between ADMIN and DIPLO points.

If they are Hindu you should conquer them directly because as you notice - conquering Hindu cost little AE in comparison to Sunni in your case.

Like I said, "I can be a bit cheesy and just declare war on all these freshly released Hindu Kingdoms since no one will get AE for them. But that seems a bit cheesy. I think this mechanic needs to be looked at. Attacking a Heathen religion is dangerous but attacking your own has little consequence?"

How much dip points you pay every month to integrate vassal? Who is your vassal btw?

Base cost is 2 per month. +1 for same religion. +1 for same culture group. +1 for diplomatic reputation. So I usually pay between 3 to 5 per month but that only increases/ decreases annexation speed. The total diplo points you have to pay is the same and based on their development plus modifiers.

I have/ had many vassals. Probably 15-20 so far.

Corruption is beginning to be an issue since my ADMIN and DIPLO tech is lower while my MIL tech is on par with the West. That gives me the unbalanced research corruption modifier. I have Level 3 advisers for that and just powering through to conquer what little is left before consolidating my enormous realm. India has really got quite big in Dharma it seems (which is good).

 

[Gogels]

Why do you feel cheesy about this? It’s works as intended. AE is supposed to represent what other countries think about your conquests. For me it’s quite logical that Sunni are more angry when you conquer their breathen. No one cares about your conquests of Hindu because: 1. You are Hindu and 2. There is no other Hindu countries because you kill them all already
That’s why Morocco and Brunei are angry when you beat Delhi and Ava or Nepal not so much.

 

[Gogels]

You already almost unite India - good work What are you planning next? I believe you should consider expanding into Buddhists lands in upstream nodes. Since Sunni don’t care about them you get much less AE for conquering them. Pegu for example has great provinces and they steal your trade in Bengal. That cannot be

In general you should diverse a bit AE between different religions. You can for example ally Nepal and call them to war against Delhi if they want theirs land. And give it to them. Then break alliance and 5 years later you can conquer those provinces from non-Muslim country for much less AE.

 

[Gogels]

I believe also it would be very beneficial for you to conquer mountainous forts on your western border. You don’t need to push into Persia, but those forts should be yours. India has so great natural protection so use it! Coalitions will be much easier to handle if you can just wait in your own land and beat them with those nice +2 dice roll modifiers of your forts

 

[Quantum_AI]

The thing is every major power in north India is Sunni. The Hindu kingdoms were too small and got taken out or I diplo-vassalised them. Had I conquered them instead, I would have lost the opportunity to use diplo points to expand instead of admin points which I was already running short on.

Yup, I have almost united India. Only Malwa is left plus my vassals to annex. Already started colonizing Indonesia!

I MOST DEFINITELY am making full use of those Western mountain ranges. I have Star Forts there and those mountains helped me take out ~200K stacks that the Sunni coalition was throwing at me.

 

[Gogels]

I’m aware there are only Muslims left in India. That’s why you should consider taking help of Nepal. In the same manner Ayuthaya can help you with Malacca and fetisists with Kilwa

And fix this corruption ASAP. Otherwise this will ruin you.

 

[JohnC14]

Hey guys,

So I booted up EU4 after a long long while. Figured I'd start by trying to unite India since they got a lot of flavour for their DLC.

As you can see in this screenshot, I beelined to get all the provinces to form Bharat to get free permanent claims on everything. I actually managed to do this by 1550 but diplo-annexing one of my vassals which held one of the required provinces took 35 years!!

Now the thing is even with permanent claims, taking any more than 3-4 of those super juicy north Indian provinces gets me enough AE to get coalitions going as far as North Africa. And diplo-annexing even small vassals is taking forever. I cant even annex existing vassals fast enough, let alone get my enemies to release more.

What's the play here? It just feels like a forced waiting game. I don't mind being punished with coalitions for expansion, but all the way to bloody North Africa? I am just spamming relations with everyone in the Middle East and Central Asia but there is only so much you can do.

AE is just a number.