Personal Union with Muscovy - is it worth it?

[Qwerthas]

Hello. I was just playing my game as Bohemia, on my attempt to get The Bohemians achievement and I was trying to ally Muscovy by RMing them and suddenly a Personal Union window appeared. It's 1560s. I had to fight Poland and Denmark over it and won, getting Krakow and Faroe Islands which I find kind of useful for my invasion of GB. I also own Silesia, Saxony, about a half of Slovakia/Nitra and some other lands in Westphalia. I've got about 30k soldiers (planning to increase the number as soon as my manpower recovers), their development is like 720 or so and they already own some Kazakh and Siberian land. But then there is the problem - their liberty desire is 80-90% and I can't decrease it whatsoever. Is it worth keeping the union? If so, how would I decrease their LD (I am already supporting loyalists and improving relations)?

 

[Dman1791]

You could spend MP developing their provinces. IIRC it's -5% LD per development point.

 

[Sfan]

The number still seems really high. Are you perchance behind in miltech or diptech? Is your diplomatic reputation really low? Do they have a lot more troops than you do? Do you lack trust?
I think you should keep it, but I'm really surprised it's not more manageable. Noone is supporting them, right?
Boost your diprep, influence them, get ahead of them in mil and at least even in dip, get a stronger army and have 200 opinion on top of the loyalists you already support. If that's not enough you can always tune it down regularly by developping, placating or granting them provinces (but that's more something you do later on, when you can conquer massive amounts of land and that still gives the same reduction which is a bit silly, early on you probably won't conquer enough development per year for it to be worth it).

Edit: In last resort, there is the Influence/Offensive policy, as both of these groups fit your plan anyway.

 

[Gouda_boy]

Prestige also plays a large role in Liberty Desire (for PUs) also. Do you have negative prestige? (I doubt you do, considering all your conquering) and how does your legitimacy look?

Their development has nothing to do with liberty desire since it's a PU.

 

[Bibor]

Increase legitimacy, increase prestige, careful with integrating vassals because they can dip your diplomatic reputation, increase your army size. Other than that, Russia is relatively easy to outgrow in development. Although it's huge, its lands are pretty crap.

 

[atwix]

slap diplomat improve relations on them. get dip tech up. max diplo reputation with advisors. max legitimacy and spend mil points if needed.

farm prestige, as PU subjects get 1% ld for each point overlord is in negative prestige. -100 prestige is 100 LD in PU subject, so farm that prestige!

be at war constantly, and never be at peace for a day. Unions get -50 malus to declare independence if overlord (and them) are in a war.

If you own Cossacks dlc, you can conquer provinces near them, and then you can grant the conquered provinces with the subject window option. If the conquered provinces border them by land or sea zone, you can grant those provinces to them.
It will lower their liberty desire, and THEY got to attack the rebels that follow. Its a great way to weaken subjects.

And constant warfare (leading their armies around with 1k stack with attach on) will lower their army strength, which will all in all result in docile PU subjects.

If one of them goes above 50+% ld, then enable loyalist faction. You have to prevent PU subjects from allying, which they will do if one goes above 50%.

If someone supports their independence, then rival them and crush them with humiliate rival cb.
That's the best thing to do in 1.17. Keeping free rival slot for nations that support subject independence guarantees a CB to stomp those supporters the minute they support your PU subject independence.

tl; dr: don't set them free, in the end they will go loyal.

 

[Qwerthas]

Thanks for your replies.

The number still seems really high. Are you perchance behind in miltech or diptech? Is your diplomatic reputation really low? Do they have a lot more troops than you do? Do you lack trust?
I think you should keep it, but I'm really surprised it's not more manageable. Noone is supporting them, right?
Boost your diprep, influence them, get ahead of them in mil and at least even in dip, get a stronger army and have 200 opinion on top of the loyalists you already support. If that's not enough you can always tune it down regularly by developping, placating or granting them provinces (but that's more something you do later on, when you can conquer massive amounts of land and that still gives the same reduction which is a bit silly, early on you probably won't conquer enough development per year for it to be worth it).

Edit: In last resort, there is the Influence/Offensive policy, as both of these groups fit your plan anyway.

No. My tech is rather average, so is theirs. Maybe even ahead a bit when it comes to military since my king is 4/4/5 or something like that. My diplomatic reputation is +1.02 and yes, this is probably the worst; I only have 30k troops right now, but I am going to expand to 46, which would be my force limit. They've got over 60 troops, giving them +134% of relative strength towards me and I only discovered it a while ago because they were stationed in some place I couldn't see. Besides, my trust is at a normal rate as I have never interacted with them before anyhow. The relations are already capped, and I am supporting the loyalists, costs over 5 ducats per month but thanks to my gold mines in Eger and Hont, money isn't that much of a problem.

Prestige also plays a large role in Liberty Desire (for PUs) also. Do you have negative prestige? (I doubt you do, considering all your conquering) and how does your legitimacy look?

Their development has nothing to do with liberty desire since it's a PU.

My prestige is not negative, though it's only 10 or so (I converted to Protestant because it fits Bohemia and also gives me some sweet bonuses) but I think I can increase it fairly easily.

slap diplomat improve relations on them. get dip tech up. max diplo reputation with advisors. max legitimacy and spend mil points if needed.

farm prestige, as PU subjects get 1% ld for each point overlord is in negative prestige. -100 prestige is 100 LD in PU subject, so farm that prestige!

be at war constantly, and never be at peace for a day. Unions get -50 malus to declare independence if overlord (and them) are in a war.

If you own Cossacks dlc, you can conquer provinces near them, and then you can grant the conquered provinces with the subject window option. If the conquered provinces border them by land or sea zone, you can grant those provinces to them.
It will lower their liberty desire, and THEY got to attack the rebels that follow. Its a great way to weaken subjects.

And constant warfare (leading their armies around with 1k stack with attach on) will lower their army strength, which will all in all result in docile PU subjects.

If one of them goes above 50+% ld, then enable loyalist faction. You have to prevent PU subjects from allying, which they will do if one goes above 50%.

If someone supports their independence, then rival them and crush them with humiliate rival cb.
That's the best thing to do in 1.17. Keeping free rival slot for nations that support subject independence guarantees a CB to stomp those supporters the minute they support your PU subject independence.

tl; dr: don't set them free, in the end they will go loyal.

I was actually planning to give them some Finnish lands, I will take a look.

 

[holyvigil]

While you are at war and while they have a truce with you they cannot declare war on you so you can at least keep them that long.

 

[Qwerthas]

While you are at war and while they have a truce with you they cannot declare war on you so you can at least keep them that long.

Yes, I've found a way to keep their LD small enough for them not to turn disloyal and I've also managed to get the achievement. GB and their navy really was a pain though.