The Evil Circle of BB

[noodles]

As Saxony I've gathered some BB-points while uniting Europe under my flag, and to keep my BB low I've forced vassalization upon my enemies instead of pursuing total conquering and annexation. It has worked great, but after diploannexing France my BB reached 59/33 and some of my own vassals (those I've forced it upon, not my allies - of course) are declaring war on me.

I have no serious problem with beating them in another war, at least not yet, but I will now have to completely conquer and annexing them - which gives me (yeah, you guessed it) more BB points. So I will get more BB points as a result of handling my already hard earned BB points and I see no great future in the evil circle that will increase my BB points.

Unless I release a lot of vassals, which we now is not going to happen - I love all my provinces equally and don't want to choose between my babies..

Is there a way of preventing this from happening? The way I see it, I could ally the vassals that I'm not allied to already and that way keeping them from declaring war on me, the only thing is that they don't like me - seeing I kinda destroyed them during wartime and forced vassalization upon them. Gaining good relations would then cost a lot - a lot - of money that I don't have.

 

[Kevyinus]

At this point you could just sign a peace with these rebel vassals and wait for your BB to go down instead of annexing them. Ok that mean they will probably declare war on you a zillion times before you BB goes down enough but that's what you have to be prepared for unless you want to go down the route of annexing them all causing a chain effect with other nations until your too powerful for them all.

 

[unmerged(74575)]

Well... conquer the world or stop annexing thoes that you defeat I think are your options

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Picking up good dip reducing advisors as they become available is a really good idea too. Unless you want BB wars, you should ideally expand at something close to the rate at which you lose BB except for brief growth spurts.

 

[noodles]

I could also mention that the wars are causing high war exhaustion and therefor high revolt risk in my provinces. Which means I have to keep forces spread around my empire rather than focusing on all my front lines against the stupid attacking enemies.

I am afraid I'll have to fight this war forever, or at least the last 100-150 years of the game...

 

[Darkrenown]

That's really the point of BB...

 

[Slyspy]

IMO badboy wars are a terrible mechanism, they cripple the AI and force it into actions which it wouldn't usually take.

 

[noodles]

That's really the point of BB...

That my own vassals will declare war on me? I know that the rest of the world will hate my guts and therefor declare war on me, but my own - and treacherous - vassals? What is the point of vassalization if they doesn't obey me anyway? I'm not treating them bad or anything either. And why accept vassalization if they are about to break the deal a year or two later anyway?

 

[unmerged(40278)]

That my own vassals will declare war on me? I know that the rest of the world will hate my guts and therefor declare war on me, but my own - and treacherous - vassals? What is the point of vassalization if they doesn't obey me anyway? I'm not treating them bad or anything either. And why accept vassalization if they are about to break the deal a year or two later anyway?

1) everyone except your allies hates your guts
2) they accept vassalisation because that's what you demanded for making peace

 

[unmerged(12921)]

I could also mention that the wars are causing high war exhaustion and therefor high revolt risk in my provinces. Which means I have to keep forces spread around my empire rather than focusing on all my front lines against the stupid attacking enemies.

I am afraid I'll have to fight this war forever, or at least the last 100-150 years of the game...

Realistically speaking, trying to conquer even just Europe al la Napoleon SHOULD be an almost impossible task. Far to many nationality and cultural differences (not to mention traditional rivalries and hatreds) to make getting everyone to live together under one (imposed) flag in peace and harmony an easy task... Might be more reasonable in terms of real life and the game to concentrait on uniting one cultural group and just dominating the rest economically and politically.

 

[whosthebestcop]

Make sure once your relations with your vassals reaches +100 that you ally all of them. Allying your Vassals doesn't count against the maximum number of allies one is allowed to have.

Playing as Venice, and creating Italy, France DoWed me and I quickly took their capital and forced vassalization upon them. Bribed my way to +100 relations and allied them.

Funny thing was France was much bigger then my Italy. Once they were my ally I was able to annex the rest of present day Italy and Austria because I really do not like Austria.

Right after that Castille and Arragon DoWed me and with France as my Ally I was able to force vassalization upon both of those countries as well. 20 years later I diplo-annexed France and another 20 after that diplo-annexed Castille and Arragon.

Meanwhile anyone else who DoWed me because of high Badboy I used the same logic on. The important thing is ally all of your vassals they will almost never cancel their vassalization because of the hits their country would take.

In Europe this works well because the beginning of the game almost everyone is Catholic.

 

[naggy]

Meanwhile anyone else who DoWed me because of high Badboy I used the same logic on. The important thing is ally all of your vassals they will almost never cancel their vassalization because of the hits their country would take.

Actually, it's impossible to cancel vassalization if you have an alliance, and impossible to cancel the alliance because of the vassalization. Thus, once you vassalize, get an alliance, and you're set.

As the suzerain, of course, you can dissolve the alliance and vassalization as long as you have the diplomats...for when you're ready to just annex them.

 

[knaak250]

Make sure once your relations with your vassals reaches +100 that you ally all of them. Allying your Vassals doesn't count against the maximum number of allies one is allowed to have.

relations don't have to be at +100 with a vassel for them to accept an alliance, they allready accept it at -100 relations

 

[whosthebestcop]

relations don't have to be at +100 with a vassel for them to accept an alliance, they allready accept it at -100 relations

Thanks for the update. I knew it was 100 just forgot it was -100 and not +100.

When it comes to same religion vassals I would always ally then proceed to diplo annex because it is less BB pts then war force annex.

The only reason to not ally your vassal would be if you would want to conquer it but then why would you make it a vassal in the first place? Just to receive the tax ducat bonus yearly?

 

[knaak250]

i really do not know why anyone would do that. as vassels only declare war on you if you are either weak or in a bb war.

i usually don't vasselize big countries but rather chop them down a bit before vasseling cause i don't like going of my bb limit cause of a diplo-annex

 

[unmerged(73283)]

Is there a way of preventing this from happening? The way I see it, I could ally the vassals that I'm not allied to already and that way keeping them from declaring war on me, the only thing is that they don't like me - seeing I kinda destroyed them during wartime and forced vassalization upon them.

You can release some of your provinces as vassals then diploannex them again when your BB reaches a reasonable level.

 

[whosthebestcop]

Plus I just realized after patch 1.2 once you create a vassal, force a country to release a vassal, or force a country to be your vassal through war your relations are auto improved to +100 which means your alliance request will be auto approved.

 

[Darkrenown]

That my own vassals will declare war on me? I know that the rest of the world will hate my guts and therefor declare war on me, but my own - and treacherous - vassals?

Even without bb wars a vassal who hates you will try to break free if it thinks it can.

 

[unmerged(10773)]

IMO badboy wars are a terrible mechanism, they cripple the AI and force it into actions which it wouldn't usually take.

yes as such bb wars could be seen as breaking the game... however if there
were no bb wars the game would be even easier... me thinks

 

[whosthebestcop]

Usually by the time you reach the point of having a BB war you are at least a good size blob. The BB wars cause weak countries to declare war on you which leads to avoiding the stability hit. Which leads you to just annex them, rinse and repeat.

I mean if you just want to perform a WC crusade then the BB wars actually help you in your quest.