Noob questions on Annex, Vassalize, etc

[naa123]

Trying to learn EU4 via Castille - looked at a bunch of threads, youtube videos, etc.
Currently working through the vassalizing mechanic.

Colonizing carribean but trying to grab inca, aztec, maya through annex or vassalizing then annexing as there seems to be some benefits to that if I understand what I have seen/ read.

what am I supposed to do
1. Conquer country (aztec) and annex all provinces
2. release as vassal
3. annex in 10 years
or
1. Conquer country (aztec) and force vassalize
2. annex in 10 years

what are the benefits, what are the specific steps... do i convert each province or is there a way to mass convert? I have seen threads that seem to contradict each other on conversion, cores, etc... was there a change due to patch?

one specific question - releasing as a vassal was supposed to convert it to my religion, (according to http://www.eu4wiki.com/Vassal) but didn't happen in my game...
I'm playing 1.3.2
thanks all

 

[Schmoekoeksklok]

Either way works fine, I prefer to force vassalize them if I don't have enough spare troops to help them with rebels. Otherwise annex and release is generally better, because they do get your religion (so long as they're in a different religious group, so not christian in this case). All their provinces will still keep their old religion though, so they have to manually convert those, which causes a lot of revolts that they'll need some help with for a while.

You could also convert all their land yourself first if you have ridiculous missionary strength, then you get a bunch of papal influence for it.

 

[-Malovane-]

One of the benefits of releasing a country is that you install a ruler with your own religion. Given that you are Catholic, you would end up with a Catholic Aztec nation underling, which would convert all those territories for you. So, once you annex, you get a fully cored and fully Catholic territory (probably).

There are a couple downsides, though. One is that it can take much longer to diplo-annex overseas vassals. So, this will tie up a diplomat for a long time. Also, you lose out on all the papal points you get for converting directly. So if you like to play the papal game, you'll be missing out.

As for why your vassal was not converted to your religion.. is this the Aztec? They should (and in fact, I'm looking at an Orthodox Aztec vassal right now - conquered as Russia). If a nation is outside your religious group, releasing as a vassal should always yield your precise religious type. If, however, you release someone that has a capital within your religious group, but not your specific religion - they will be converted to that religion. For instance, if you annexed an Orthodox Bosnia, with a Protestant capital - the vassal would become protestant. Odd, but the way it seems to work. To mitigate that, you would have to know their original capital, and convert it before release.

 

[Arfa]

If you convert the provinces yourself you get loads of papal influence for basically nothing. If you can spare the couple of hundred admin points I'd just annex them straight up as you don't get any overextension for provinces with pagan cores and it's dirt cheap to core them.

 

[naa123]

starting to make sense. thanks for the replies