Marches

[Viperswhip]

Marches are horrible. There is no way, unless you are going to skip right out of your area of influence that they are a good idea, like say you vassalized France as England and decided to skip out on Europe altogether to party in the rest of the world, but even then...you really want to shoot yourself in the foot, hard, just to to get a few minor benefits?

In my Byz game, mostly to test it out, but also because I thought Muscovy might expand into Horde territory more quickly, I turned Circassia into a March. Now, 10 years later, Muscovy is nowhere in sight, I can easily get a border to Nogai and the diplo slot, I cancelled the March, stab hit, -200 relations. No problem I thought, 125 admin, and I could still get to 190 relations...nope it's not done, here's the real fun

2x the cost to annex...so 25 base tax Circassia would cost a wopping 500 diplo points to annex, thanks to diplo ideas and an advisor just 100 months or so of time.

Ouch.

Basically, Marches are a really, really bad idea, I could make my peace with them if there was not the annexation penalty, but that's way too high and I will never again make a Marche.

I don't mind the idea, but the implementation is really quite bad.

Other than that, I kind of really love Art of War.

 

[hajutze]

What does the x2 cost from Circassia itself has to do with the marches ?

 

[cleef]

Since I'm waiting for a bugfix patch on AoW, if you cancel a march does it become an independent nation ? Does it revert to a vassal or a simple ally ?

 

[Prom_STar]

Since I'm waiting for a bugfix patch on AoW, if you cancel a march does it become an independent nation ? Does it revert to a vassal or a simple ally ?

It becomes a regular vassal and gets a -200 relations penalty that degrades over time.

 

[Demetrios]

The 2x annexation isn't from being a march at an earlier point, but from the Circassian NIs. You're mixing up two separate issues.

 

[ThuderLizard2]

Marches are just another option. I like using it for vassals I don't intend to annex for a long time. The feature can be ignored if it causes a problem for your game.

 

[Viperswhip]

The 2x annexation isn't from being a march at an earlier point, but from the Circassian NIs. You're mixing up two separate issues.

Oh thank you, so that even applies to dipo annexing...annoying as hell. Is it worth it? 100 months... Shouldn't have given them any land. It's a mistake I won't repeat.

 

[Denjell]

Wait, the annexing increase applies to diploannexing?

 

[CommunistCookie]

There is no way, unless you are going to skip right out of your area of influence that they are a good idea

Well there you go. If you're not looking to be constantly expanding, then they serve their purpose. You're example doesn't really say much. Sure, Muscovy wasn't the threat you though they were, but what if they had been?

 

[Viperswhip]

Well there you go. If you're not looking to be constantly expanding, then they serve their purpose. You're example doesn't really say much. Sure, Muscovy wasn't the threat you though they were, but what if they had been?

I still think they are not worth it, the bonuses can maybe stand up to scrutiny, but are you seriously never going to expand? I second guessed myself. If Muscovy had shown up there? Well, you have to step on Russia in this game before they step on you, unless you are playing in Western Europe.

At this stage, if I kept them as a Marche, they would just be sitting in the middle of my territory. Now that I know they have ideas that keep them from being annexed, I think I will cancel their vassalization, annex them, create Crimea, feed them all of the territory and annex Crimea, or start a new game.