Revanchism for huge countries

[Gnostek]

I've come to the conclusion that losing 100 warscore worth of CORES (not territories) in a war for a huge (2.5k+ dev) country is tremendously beneficial.

In exchange for giving up, say, 80-120 development for 15 years(or 5% of your country) you gain, for 20 years, on average:
25% tax modifier.
25% manpower recovery speed
-2.5 unrest
-1 interest
0.5 tradition.

This average takes into account that the full effect is in place at the beginning and decays linearly every month. But as we all know, the average value of a linear progression is the average between the start and the finish.

So, as long as I'm missing something, in a WC context you should always try to lose a war every now and then, and give up cored land (always offer province, never cede core, just like when you take provinces in a peace deal but in reverse) .

All you're losing is
a) milking those provinces for a while
b) the oportunity to attack the guy who caused you that loss, due to truce
c) relative power compared to the agressor

Hence why I suggest doing this at 2k+ dev. At this point, you can beat ANYONE, but you cannot beat EVERYONE; I hope you understand the difference.
So this strengthens you greatly, while strengthening someone that you could already beat in the first place

 

[The_Seraph]

I disagree. Giving up 100% just to have to take it back again sets you back. The limited number of states you can have cored means at high total development, you would have to give away a large portion of your income just for increased tax and manpower recovery. You lose the manpower and production income from those provinces, plus any additional buildings. Then after the 15 year truce, you'd have to get another 15 year truce after fighting the war to take the 100% back. You'll probably spend more money taking the provinces back than you gain from tax income. Perhaps there is a way to min/max it, but it seems overly complicated for hardly any benefit.

 

[alexti]

It is very beneficial for the small nations too - that's why opening BYZ with conceding the land to TUR in the first war works so well. With weak starts on VH conceding land is almost a requirement (typically you concede less than 100%WS though). Besides gaining revanchism it allows to clear our revolt risk at the time where dealing with rebels can be problematic. It also recycles AE which is valuable in the early game. In number of scenarios you can also get AI to spread institutions into your cores. Considering the general uselessness of the recently conquered provinces and that in the early game your income is largely consists of the loot you don't really lose much to gain a lot of benefits.

Regarding the large nations it used to be better to keep few isolating farms not far from the capital (to save on diplomat travel time) and keep cycling provinces with the offset (losing less than 100% WS, but to multiple nations), so that you can have faster turnaround and maintain average revanchism closer to 100%. Not sure if it still works, in combination with the trade company changes that would be very powerful since that devalued the value of the fully cored provinces a lot.

 

[bly08]

Has this been patched or no? If not then what would be the best way to go about it? Give provinces back to a small tag or release vassals/break vassalization. Keep a bunch of them around, give each some WS adding up to 100 every 20 years. Rinse and repeat till the end? Would I even need an army nearby to deliberately lose battles with or can I offer more WS than the enemy has?

 

[durbal]

Revanchism has always been a lame blob protector. It needs to scale relative to total dev and have other factors (accepted culture, religion, etc.).

 

[bbqftw]

It might also be a way to deal with highly distributed AE (across e.g. Sunnibloc) since you can burn a decent amount of AE by ceding land

 

[bly08]

How much AE can you lose from ceding provinces?

 

[alexti]

Has this been patched or no? If not then what would be the best way to go about it? Give provinces back to a small tag or release vassals/break vassalization. Keep a bunch of them around, give each some WS adding up to 100 every 20 years. Rinse and repeat till the end? Would I even need an army nearby to deliberately lose battles with or can I offer more WS than the enemy has?

It was highly hyped feature (I don't remember if it was in DLC or in a free patch), so it's unlikely to go anywhere. There were many threads covering these strategies in details, in a nutshell, you need to have few reasonably isolated areas when you're losing your cored provinces to OPM (you need to get 100%WS vs them to force them to take the land). You need to do it with a decent frequency to replenish revanchism because it's always ticking down and you can't go over 100.

It might also be a way to deal with highly distributed AE (across e.g. Sunnibloc) since you can burn a decent amount of AE by ceding land

You do lose some AE when you cede for revanchism, but it's a relatively small amount. The main AE burn will still be coming from losing [recently conquered] uncored land in remote areas.

How much AE can you lose from ceding provinces?

As much as you have - but you can't go below zero.

 

[FleetingRain]

I'd rather it gave flat bonuses instead of modifiers.

 

[Foefaller]

I disagree. Giving up 100% just to have to take it back again sets you back. The limited number of states you can have cored means at high total development, you would have to give away a large portion of your income just for increased tax and manpower recovery. You lose the manpower and production income from those provinces, plus any additional buildings. Then after the 15 year truce, you'd have to get another 15 year truce after fighting the war to take the 100% back. You'll probably spend more money taking the provinces back than you gain from tax income. Perhaps there is a way to min/max it, but it seems overly complicated for hardly any benefit.

You have to remember that Absolutism is a thing and most AI nations won't have anywhere close to as much Absolutism (or rather, the Administrative Efficiency absolutism gives) that a player nation would. 100% warscore in provinces for your enemy might be only about 75% warscore when you take it all back, giving you another 25% to take, or maybe that's enough to vassalize and you can diplo-annex afterwards once it finishes coring everything you feed into it your next war.

 

[PhoenixG]

You have to remember that Absolutism is a thing and most AI nations won't have anywhere close to as much Absolutism (or rather, the Administrative Efficiency absolutism gives) that a player nation would. 100% warscore in provinces for your enemy might be only about 75% warscore when you take it all back, giving you another 25% to take, or maybe that's enough to vassalize and you can diplo-annex afterwards once it finishes coring everything you feed into it your next war.

I don't know in the latest patch AI do use do Absolutism. Last time I fight Ming he had around 70 absolutism, and that is almost his max he can get. Maybe this is also because the AI is quite gun happy in decreasing autonomy instead increasing it.

 

[Sfan]

You can have a pretty good look at absolutism by checking the foreign cores in enemy country. It says "a foreign core disappear after X year" when you look at it, and (1-X/150)*200 is their absolutism. AI has around 30-40 absolutism from what I usually see, because foreign cores expire after about 125-130 years.

 

[bly08]

Towards the end of my WC I suddenly notice that 100 revanchism actually ticks down at 10/year, or from 100 to 0 in 10 years. Unless Gnostek didn't test this on 1.22 which I doubt, the length of revanchism has been stealth nerfed.

 

[Gnostek]

Yes, I'd like to adress this issue. Revanchism for players ticks 1% a month, or gone in 8 years 4 months. When was this change made?
@bly08 i'll try datamine revanchism in the files later today

 

[bly08]

are you sure it's 1% a month? I compared the amount at the start of every year and it always went down by 10%.

 

[StealthBomber]

"REVANCHISM_MONTHLY_DECAY = 0.833, -- about 20 years to decay all of it." This was in the defines file. Doesn't seem to last as long as it says.

 

[YuriiH]

I disagree. Giving up 100% just to have to take it back again sets you back.

0. Wait for administrative efficiency, but don't get the technology yet.
1. Find a republic or someone with low absolutism government.
2. DoW, win 100%
3. Give them lands, which will be based on their absolutism and administrative efficiency.
4. Embrace administrative efficiency.
5. Conquer more lands somewhere else with extreme bonuses and get a discount when you reconquer your lands.

So, no. Revanchism is an acceleration lane.
(I don't even mention the decreased interest rate stacking and building manufacturies for enormous trade.)

 

[ahyangyi]

"REVANCHISM_MONTHLY_DECAY = 0.833, -- about 20 years to decay all of it." This was in the defines file. Doesn't seem to last as long as it says.

0.833 is 10/12 however. If it is a percentage it would mean 120 months, or 10 years. I think the comment lies here.