I don't get why people who believe the cost of coring and diplomatic annexation is too high don't mod the cost. I'm serious, you can change the cost, so find a level that you like and the problem is solved, no? Feel the problem is the number of diplomats you get? Add an additional diplomat, either to the base, or tied to something else. Unless you're tied to achievements I don't see why simple modding is a non-starter for some.
Personally, I mod the game slightly, to suit my tastes (for example, I've halved the amount of tech cost reduction from neighbours being ahead of you, boosted the started tech level of tech types like Chinese, as well as slightly reduced their tech malus and have slightly modified the ideas of certain countries to make them stronger, such as Morocco). It took me all of seven minutes to do this once I figured out what areas of vanilla I wanted to alter. I also play Ironman, albeit a self-enforced form (which I would do regardless because I don't trust games to not crash or screw up a save and cost me an entire play-through).
Paradox cannot, and should not, even attempt to cater to the many crowds of EU4 fans. You have people who despise blobbing, people who play the game solely for the blobbing and various degrees of both. They cannot cater to just those groups with the vanilla game; thankfully the game is easily moddable. Paradox chose their design for the game, and it is perfectly valid. I'm currently playing a vanilla version (wanted to suss out if I wanted to change the costs) with Muscovy and invading various places whenever possible. Coring and diplomatic annexation are costly, so I've altered my playstyle a touch (primarily in the ideas I'd choose) to compensate, albeit primarily in that I'm taking Influence as my second idea group where normally I'd never touch it in a Muscovy/Russia game, and I always take Administration first anyways for the reduced coring cost as the idea group easily pays for itself. I'll probably go Religious or Expansion third, and so far I'm not too hurting for monarch points. Granted, I've only developed one province once, and that just to notch it up for an additional building spot I wanted. I've managed to take out Novgorod, take a small bite out of Lithuania (which was hard, due to it being under Poland.. who also has Bohemia under a PU and neither Austria nor Hungary would join wars due to debt), eat into the Golden Horde and Kazan, while getting Tver and Ryazan as vassals diplomatically. I'm on pace for slightly slower expansion than under pre 1.12 where my Russia ends up with all Russian lands, Greece, the Balkans, Scandinavia, Italy, Anatolia, Egypt, Persia, Japan, Manchuria and chunks of India, China and Central Europe.
