Managing other countries' cores

[Odie_]

With the most recent version of the game, what do people think is the best approach to handling regions that have another country's cores but not your own core? In ye olden times, when populations would assimilate to your culture regardless of core, I could see the benefit to keeping direct ownership of the regions, but with the non-assimilation of cultures where their core is present, does it make more sense to release as puppet/dominion/satellite (or DOW to take as puppet if not already owned)? I know the answer will probably be, "It depends," but I was just curious what people's thoughts on this were generally.

The biggest downsides I could think of if keeping them as a puppet are that you might lose them from your sphere of influence and the loss of manpower for troops, but with the influence bonuses from puppet-master relationship, losing them from your sphere seems very unlikely and a few national foci can make up for the troops.

For example, I'm playing as Japan and I successfully annexed Korea. If I release them as a dominion, my average literacy will go up, I'll still enjoy the benefits of their marketplace since I'm a GP and they are in my sphere, and I won't have to deal with the liberation movements and the militancy issues of being an occupying power.

 

[Mikalos]

japan is tricky, but i feel owning korea is superior to dealing with them as a seperate country

it just looks better for a GP japan to control korea

 

[maxirage]

It's always better to own territory directly. That will allow faster literacy growth by keeping your education slider maxed (which the AI does not do), give the pops the full benefits of your social policies (like health care), and RGOs will get all the bonuses from your techs and infrastructure. The AI is simply not as good at managing territory as a player as, so you should avoid giving it to them if you can.

 

[El Jojo]

It depends, as you said. One important distinction is if it will be released as an unciv or a civ. Korea will be released as an unciv, with terrible techs, low demand as a market etc. so Japan loses a lot.
With Korea directly owned, you get the taxes, the resources, the demand, pops can migrate, which means Korean pops moving out of Korea to Japanese provinces and assimilating there. You also have the possibilities to build factories in Korea, which are very useful for cash and industrial score, there's not that many states with iron/coal.
Literacy does take a hit but it's possible to come back from it since Japan's population is high enough (try annexing Korea (as full states) with Colombia and your literacy just disappears).
In fact there's not that many situations when it's interesting to release nations as puppets, it can be a strategy as Ottoman empire to avoid trouble in the balkans, so if there's a place with high unrest, a strong demography dragging you down and they'll be released civilized, it can be worth it.