Many small vassals, or a few large ones?

[cuendillar]

I'm uncertain what the best approach towards getting and managing vassals is. Is it better to have dozens of small vassals (say 2 to 4 provinces), or to merge them into a handful with a 15+ provinces each - given that their combined province count is the same? My thoughts, such as they are, is as follows:


Small vassals:
+ More provinces affected by tax bonuses for capital and national foci, meaning potentially higher income from vassals.
+ Lots of small stacks to siege enemy lands.
+ Preserves buildings by not diplo-annexing or arranging defections to cause mergers.
- Requires too many diplomats to feasibly restore relations with all after eg diplo-annexations.


Big vassals:
+ Much easier to manage diplomatically, though individually more expensive to bribe.
+ Fields significantly stronger stacks in wartime.
+ Smaller loss in warscore when a vassal's province falls.
- Requires much more effort to set up effectively

I just can't make up my mind, nor really figure out what factor I'm missing here.

 

[Emperor Hans]

I always go for large ones, trying to recreate original countries ( so France, Spain, Portugal as vassals) instead of small ones, they just wont do well in wartime since they dont coordinate and their puny stacks will be wiped by one enemy walking with 15k troops.
Only time I don't do it is when I get all these vassals be being emperor and roleplay.

 

[Thrake]

Big. For help in wars, and because they have good economy, so I colonize provinces with 1 colonist, and then sell it to a vassal for free. Small vassals can't sustain full income, so it takes forever to get to 1000 population. Good to occupy a whole continent, even provinces of low income.

 

[Emeny]

Are you sure this is meant for EU3? Why would you want to change the size of your vassals at all, or even pick up ones that are 1-2 provinces big? I guess the answer to your question really depends on what purpose you want vassals for.

There is also a negative for small vassals in that they each cost a stability point to annex, plus the buildings will be lost anyway if you don't have cores yourself.

 

[cacra]

The main reason you are going to want vassals is to increase your sphere of influence or maybe to increase your force limit (it doesnt change by much). So of course you will get more spheres from having lots of little vassals rather then a few big ones. But some times it is nice to see a big patch of colour instead of little dots and sometimes it is nice to roleplay.

If you are going to optimise your country, lots of vassals is best.




P.S the ai doesnt have a good economy - if you rely on vassals for money you are asking for trouble
the ai is terrible at fighting wars - if you rely on vassals to help you in wars you are asking for trouble

 

[Pewt]

More vassals means more sphere as well as marginally more forcelimit and income. Large vassals confer no advantage (other than pretty borders), and AI is generally too unreliable in its army movement to be trusted unless you're playing flagland ulm style or something.

 

[yequr]

Once I went for large vassals and turned things like Cologne and Anhalt into blobs owning all of GB (this started as a silly zealot defection) and Texas (Texas because everything else was already colonized by AI when i decided I want to have a vassal oversea empire), respectively. Other than letting one big stack sit around and catch attrition, they were useless (well, Anhalt colonized some still free great plains tax 1 backwater provinces... with thousands of ducats of subsidies). I prefer having my earlygame horde of small vassals which I will later slowly clean up.

 

[Phoenix VII]

Since I only have vassals for the purpose of diplo-annexing later on, I prefer large ones since it means taking fewer stability hits.

 

[unmerged(465279)]

Small, don't really see the point of a large vassal. Let him just stay independent to make the game harder nearing endgame.