Time to get rid of European nation states by 1600

[Mowers]

Summary Effort

OK,

I’ve tried to summerize this thread to collect the rather good points on this issue

I think most of us agree that there is a problem and that it can be fixed but that some caution should exercised:

We agree that vassals should be made more worthwhile.
We note that the problem is particularly prevalent in the HRE and in Italy.
We would like to see the full use of diplomatic tools.
We note that the situation changed over the time period represented in game.

On a personal note I think we should bear in mind Peter E's point that people tend to annex countries so that their opponents arent able to do so. That this problem exists demonstrates to me that vassals are massively underpowered in game currently and that we ought to be looking at a system where one actively looks to create vassals on ones borders as opposed to the other way around.


Suggested Quick fixes

-2 Stability for annexation

Higher income from vassals

Higher Total Manpower upper limit

Automatic entry into your alliance, even if above the alliance limit.

No negative War Score from your little vassals in war

Lower BB (more than the current rate) when releasing vassal states.

More Victory points

European countries should suffer -1 decentralization for each few provinces they grow? (until a certain
infra tech)

Releasing a vassal should result in CENTR+1

Force-vassalising somebody in a peace deal should give STAB+1

The political status of vassals should be reformed, i.e. it should be impossible for others to annex them without getting the approval of their lords

Nationalism should start out at +10 and go down from there ( 3 +eventual culture difference + eventual religion difference)

Vassals should be very, very unlikely to accept annexation, but it should be made a bit easier to acquire vassals in the first place:


More radical fixes

Adding the Leader pool of the vassal state to your Leader Pool

Military control over them like in HOI.

Transfer of vassal status from one suzerain to another in peace agreements.

Nations being unable to make a separate peace agreement with a vassal. This would mean a separate "annexation enemy's vassal" option in peace agreements.

A sliding scale of vassalship, i.e. manpower and income supplied. This would be dependent on relations, centralisation, infra tech along with either badboy or nation size.

Remove the diploannexation option

The penalties for annexing need to be made more tangible; becoming a badboy should hurt more from the very first badboy point earned

What if internal RR, that is RR within a country is tied to infrastructure, common borders, overseas, religion and so on?(better chance of USA etc forming)

Tie BadBoy to RevoltRisk

Link the benefits\penalties of diplomatic annexation to the centralization slider.


Suggested Cautions and notes

However, I think there is a small flaw in your reasoning re. manpower: namely that you will get 100% of province manpower taxworth and so on upon annexation, while you only get relation-related amount of manpower and so on on vassalization.

The BB-factor is to me a "butched" way of representing the legality of an annexation. Without having really bothered to understand the finer points of the BB-system, I think it should be a stronger connection between culture and religion, and the amount BB-points recieved when you annex a country.

It is fundamentally flawed, when the possibility of influencing relations depends on your state-religion as the prime determinant in the number of diplomats for most nations most of the time, except for nations with super-monarchs.

On a more general note, the "make it more profitable to have vassals" is a nice idea, but an important part of annexing one of the small dummy states is to deny an opponent access to its resources - and that works no matter how profitable annexation is.

While the general idea of preventing minors from being gobled up/ made part of the "big blobs" is great, it may further hamper the Ottoman Empire, which already isn't really known for outstanding performance

Nations don’t care about BB when they get to a certain size.

Ensure that the penalty doesn’t necessarily disadvantage minors.

The AI needs to pick its allies more logically; in other words it needs to chose allies that can either a) protect it from larger nations or b) is in the AI's interest to protect

 

[Slargos]

get military access from your vassals. new patches give you domestic support limits.

No. Just increased support limits. Not domestic.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Suggested Quick fixes

-2 Stability for annexation

Erhhm. No. The annexation of a small country is not going to destabilize the entire empire. You can argue that it might, but then again, it might also make for a more stable empire as a whole, as land can be parcelled out to influential noblemen.

Higher income from vassals

Sure, so long as it is not money from heaven.

Higher Total Manpower upper limit

Nice and not gamebreaking.

Automatic entry into your alliance, even if above the alliance limit.

No. Stop thinking in terms of MP only. Massively abusable in SP.

No negative War Score from your little vassals in war

No. Massively abusable in SP (and in MP as well: if two countries agree to a vassalage for the duration of a war, then the vassal can keep on fighting and taking casualties without the alliance losing warscore from it)

Lower BB (more than the current rate) when releasing vassal states.

No. Do not reintroduce the BB pump, whereby it was possible to shed BB faster than you acquired it, for an effective low BB throughout the game while continously expanding.

More Victory points

Fair enough. If anybody cares. It is already extremely easy to abuse if you really care enough about VP, so some extra probably will not hurt.

European countries should suffer -1 decentralization for each few provinces they grow? (until a certain
infra tech)

If so, if should be both from colonisation and conquest, I guess.

Releasing a vassal should result in CENTR+1

Massively abusable by the nations that contain a couple of 1 province vassals in poor provinces, to reach CEN=10 from the get-go.

Force-vassalising somebody in a peace deal should give STAB+1

No.

I'll force-vassalise your vassals if you force-vassalise mine, then we can both go from -2 stab to +3 without any problems. (I assume that you want it to be possible to force-vassalise other countries' vassals rather than force them to annex)

That is without the incredibly SP loophole, that goes. Stab=-3. Cancel vassalage of a few 1 province nations. Go to stab -2. Attack. Force-vassalise. Hey, presto, +3 stability again!

DO NOT INTRODUCE ANY MORE STABILITY LOOPHOLES IN YOUR QUEST FOR PERFECTION.

The political status of vassals should be reformed, i.e. it should be impossible for others to annex them without getting the approval of their lords

...Which can be withheld indefinitely, and which means that it is impossible to knock vassals out of a war. That means that a string of 1 province vassals on a common border is a better defense than a string of 2-3 province vassals. There are also other interesting side effects to this.

I am not sure that this "quick fix" does not create more problems than is warranted.

Nationalism should start out at +10 and go down from there ( 3 +eventual culture difference + eventual religion difference)

Do not give even further importance to CB shields. They are already responsible for much of the static nature of gameplay (this nation is always supposed to grow this way).

This slants the game even further in favour of those who have CB shields to spare, and it has the interesting consequence that tax gathering is likely to be 0 for a few decades after conquest of an area that is not same-religion, same-culture. You will find that hard to justify from any historical context.

(It also impacts army recruitment, but that is a separate issue)

Vassals should be very, very unlikely to accept annexation, but it should be made a bit easier to acquire vassals in the first place:

The more unlikely vassals are to accept diplomatic annexation, the more likely they will be annexed by force, unless you introduce arbitrary "haha, you cannot annex me" rules (as suggested earlier).

However, it WOULD be nice if it was easier to acquire vassals in the first place - and if the control of vassals could change.


On the whole, I find the "Quick Fixes" to be more non-fixes and gamebreakers than useful.

More radical fixes

Adding the Leader pool of the vassal state to your Leader Pool

No.

Do not introduce the "Conquer Napoleon's grandma's birthplace" syndrome. Leaders are already arbitrary enough - having people conquer specific provinces in order to release vassals in specific periods of time to get exceptional leaders would be pure madness.

Military control over them like in HOI.

Transfer of vassal status from one suzerain to another in peace agreements.

Yes. These would be nice.

Nations being unable to make a separate peace agreement with a vassal. This would mean a separate "annexation enemy's vassal" option in peace agreements.

No. Despite the best desires of suzerains, they did not have complete control over a vassals diplomatic decisions. Vassals could, and did change side without their suzerains agreement.

A sliding scale of vassalship, i.e. manpower and income supplied. This would be dependent on relations, centralisation, infra tech along with either badboy or nation size.

From a pure game-technical perspective, I am against tying anything more to these factors. They already impact so many aspects of the game, and even worse, they pay best off when the player plays peacefully and invests everything in colonising and the economy. As far as I am concerned - and this is really a MP concern - I do not think we need to make it even more attractive to just stay at peace within our own borders.

Remove the diploannexation option

Erhhmm. Together with your other proposals to make annexation harder, it sounds as if we are reaching a total "no annexation" paradise. Still, I have to agree that as a historical feature.... Diplo-annexation is somewhat lacking..

Its saving grace is that it is immensely fun in SP and MP to simulate the gradual anscluss of neighbouring lands, and I fear that removing it to satisfy those who dislike diplo-annexation for historical reasons will alienate a great many players who have fun planning, setting up, and excuting diplo-annexations over a period of several decades.

A toss-up.

The penalties for annexing need to be made more tangible; becoming a badboy should hurt more from the very first badboy point earned

Static world order. Bad idea.

What if internal RR, that is RR within a country is tied to infrastructure, common borders, overseas, religion and so on?(better chance of USA etc forming)

Interesting. However, RR is already tied to religion and I dislike the infrastructure tie-in for obvious reasons (it is already incredibly important). I like the idea of borders and overseas being relevant.

Tie BadBoy to RevoltRisk

I have seen no argument for this that makes any sort of sense other than the "let us make badboy more punishing", which is not much of an argument. The "Everybody in the world hates us because we annexed Songhai and Mali 100 years ago, so therefore there shall be rioting in the streets of Constantinople" just does not make any sense.

Link the benefits\penalties of diplomatic annexation to the centralization slider.

Interesting idea - so long as it is being DECENTRALISED that has the best benefits and CENTRALISED that has the worst penalties.


Bottom line: Be exceedingly careful about suggestion infrastructure, CB, BB, or stability tie ins. Where they are not abusable, they tend to encourage maintaining the status quo rather than vibrant gameplay, and that is not in anybody's interest.

 

[TheArchduke]

I think the easiest fix would be really military control coupled with your suggestion of overlord changing due to a peace.

Anything else comes as too artificial in my mind.

I Heavily oppose ideas that let us replay history. It should be possible to rampage across the HRE.

However I asked Johan about the mil control and he argued that without a complete rewritting of the code this would be a no-no.

 

[unmerged(25609)]

Fascinating stuff - especially the differences in perspective between MP and SP types.
Random thoughts: -Vassals could be separate from alliances. By all means ally with the major ones, but you wouldn't HAVE to. Give the Suzerain a CB if his vassal is attacked. This would allow you to protect them from others.
- Whatever system you work out, it should make it harder for Catholic countries to annex their brethren, yet still allow the Ottomans / Manchus / Mughals to roll. Yet these empires WERE "hated by the entire world" ... so maybe you CAN let their BB sky-rocket. Just have it come down faster. It shouldn't take 200 years for you to be forgiven for you ancestor's transgressions.
- I still like having the opportunities for diplo-annexation linked to random, sometimes unpredictable succession crises. They would set off lovely wars where not everyone was fully prepared. Still think "inheritance" or "War of succession" are more accurate/effective than diplo-annexation.
-Vassals should be notably unreliable. Refusing to join you in a war, declaring war, but then doing nothing, making an early peace, etc.

 

[unmerged(25696)]

Thanks for your summary, Mowers, it clarifies a bit.

Suggested Quick fixes

-2 Stability for annexation

-2 seems a bit much, but I'd like a -1 coupled with automatic revolts in every province gained. A scaled revolt, like the random event, so it is appropriate to the size of the annexer. It would give faraway provinces the occasion to rebel away or gain independence.

Higher income from vassals
Higher Total Manpower upper limit

Yes, not 100%, but 50% of all income sounds good. And maybe more for the trade tariffs. And if the vassal itself has vassals, transfer a portion of this income too.

Automatic entry into your alliance, even if above the alliance limit.
No negative War Score from your little vassals in war

No, not an automatic alliance. IMO the vassal should go to war only when its overlord gets attacked, not when his allies go to war, willingly or not.

Lower BB (more than the current rate) when releasing vassal states.

What about lowering the BB when you force-vassalize rather than force-annex ? Not much, but one or two points would give a helpful hand, yet not disproportionate.

More Victory points

I never play MP, so I don't know, but in SP it's rare you don't already win by the points. And few cares (the AI less than the players).

European countries should suffer -1 decentralization for each few provinces they grow? (until a certain infra tech)
Releasing a vassal should result in CENTR+1

No, I don't see why colonisation would decrease centralization, or how releasing vassal increase it. On the contrary, releasing vassals is a more radical form of decentralization, so don't tamper it.

Force-vassalising somebody in a peace deal should give STAB+1

I follow Peter E here, it would be abusable and get abused. But making a peace which put an end to the last war should increase your stability : after all, your citizens (or subjects) would be happy they are now finally fully at peace.

The political status of vassals should be reformed, i.e. it should be impossible for others to annex them without getting the approval of their lords

No, it should still be possible, as should be the possibility of force-changing vassalization. Sometimes, you can't vassalize the province you absolutely NEED for something.

Nationalism should start out at +10 and go down from there ( 3 +eventual culture difference + eventual religion difference)

Hehe, I prefer the latter of course. But remember culture and religion difference should only apply once, not twice.

Vassals should be very, very unlikely to accept annexation, but it should be made a bit easier to acquire vassals in the first place:

If you are much bigger than the next-to-be vassal, it's already easy to diplo-vassalize, so it doesn't need more help, but increasing the difficulty of the diplo-annexation is good IMO. Could begin by increasing the minimum duration of the vassalship before opening the option to annex.

More radical fixes

Adding the Leader pool of the vassal state to your Leader Pool
Military control over them like in HOI.

No. They have their leaders, you have yours. But I suggested to tie leaders to key provinces, so a right culture owner would get it, not only the original country.
For the military control, it sounds like a permanent richelieu, and with the extrabig armies of the AI nations, it's too much advantageous for players. Vassals sometimes did stupid thing, didn't they ?

Transfer of vassal status from one suzerain to another in peace agreements.

Yes, useful, very useful. Wars could be foughts just over suzerainty.

Nations being unable to make a separate peace agreement with a vassal. This would mean a separate "annexation enemy's vassal" option in peace agreements.

No, I'm opposed to it, but a vassal making a separate peace should get penalties... especially if accepting to change of suzerain.

A sliding scale of vassalship, i.e. manpower and income supplied. This would be dependent on relations, centralisation, infra tech along with either badboy or nation size.

Depend on relations, yes, definitely, but not the others, as Peter E said.

Remove the diploannexation option

No, it should still be possible, but with disadvantages, and a less diploannexing AI.

The penalties for annexing need to be made more tangible; becoming a badboy should hurt more from the very first badboy point earned

Actually, I think BB should rise faster, but also decrease faster, just to dodge the problem pointed by the professor. So, in this case, yes increasing the penalty should be a good response.

What if internal RR, that is RR within a country is tied to infrastructure, common borders, overseas, religion and so on?(better chance of USA etc forming)

Infrastructure, if it means increasing the BB, is highly debatable. I'm against, but open to debate. If it's decreasing, I'm against too.
Common borders, overseas, yes it sounds like a good idea, perhaps modulated by the land/naval slider like the income penalty.
For religion, it's already implemented AFAIK.

Tie BadBoy to RevoltRisk

No way. BB is the international reputation, while RR is the domestic security and peace. No evident link, except by random events.

Link the benefits\penalties of diplomatic annexation to the centralization slider.

It would seem logical to link benefits to decentralization, but as many players tend to play centralized (who does'nt ?), I'm afraid that it would instead discourage keeping vassals.

Suggested Cautions and notes

However, I think there is a small flaw in your reasoning re. manpower: namely that you will get 100% of province manpower taxworth and so on upon annexation, while you only get relation-related amount of manpower and so on on vassalization.

The BB-factor is to me a "butched" way of representing the legality of an annexation. Without having really bothered to understand the finer points of the BB-system, I think it should be a stronger connection between culture and religion, and the amount BB-points recieved when you annex a country.

Yes, linking the BB to the culture, could be OK, but it can be on both edges : less hatred from the different-culture nations, but more hatred from same-culture nations, fearing they could be next.

It is fundamentally flawed, when the possibility of influencing relations depends on your state-religion as the prime determinant in the number of diplomats for most nations most of the time, except for nations with super-monarchs.

But the aristocratic slider lets you increase your DIP skill. And since vassalization is more akin to a feudal process, it sounds logical that more aristocratic nations get more vassals.

On a more general note, the "make it more profitable to have vassals" is a nice idea, but an important part of annexing one of the small dummy states is to deny an opponent access to its resources - and that works no matter how profitable annexation is.

Thus, the ability to change vassalization through war (at least) is a couterweigth to this practice, since you don't need to annex it. Just make it more easy to keep a vassal than a difficult province.

While the general idea of preventing minors from being gobled up/ made part of the "big blobs" is great, it may further hamper the Ottoman Empire, which already isn't really known for outstanding performance

Just make for inheritance events. My point is : it would be IN GENERAL more profitable to make vassals rather than annexing, but IN PARTICULAR CASES, it should be more profitable to annex. Or just devise the AI so some will annex while others will vassalize. If it is possible.

Nations don’t care about BB when they get to a certain size.
Ensure that the penalty doesn’t necessarily disadvantage minors.

Maybe scaling the penalties on the size of the annexer would be fine (like the revolts).

The AI needs to pick its allies more logically; in other words it needs to chose allies that can either a) protect it from larger nations or b) is in the AI's interest to protect

A better AI ? No comment. Not the place.

 

[unmerged(24379)]

The game needs to be structured such that annexation has a real negative effect and that vassalisation has more of a positive effect, and that over time or through a particular time or event trigger this changes.

Bad suggestion :wacko:

My suggestion would be that we give an (improved) manpower bonus for each vassal that is tied to one’s relations with the vassal (similar to the HRE effect).

Very good suggestion

That annexation should cost stability and a general increased RR across one’s country. (Nobles concerned that if someone else’s land can be taken then so can theirs!)

Very bad suggestion

 

[unmerged(25696)]

- I still like having the opportunities for diplo-annexation linked to random, sometimes unpredictable succession crises. They would set off lovely wars where not everyone was fully prepared. Still think "inheritance" or "War of succession" are more accurate/effective than diplo-annexation.
-Vassals should be notably unreliable. Refusing to join you in a war, declaring war, but then doing nothing, making an early peace, etc.

Posting while I write, right ?
I like your idea of unpredictable succession crises, I don't know if we can devise an event linked on the death of a vassal monarch that could give you an inheritance.
As of unreliable vassals, oh yes, it sounds interesting. But actually, I find them TOO unreliable.

 

[Mowers]

Perhaps we ought to work it this way, the simplest way (ie the only way we are realistically going to hope Johan will code something):

A combination of the following 3 options:

You receive more manpower from vassal states than you would get from “most” annexed states until around 1750 in the short term.

You receive more money from “most” vassal states than you would get from annexed states until around 1700 in the short term.

Peter,

Automatic entry into your alliance, even if above the alliance limit. Would this be massively abuseble in SP if all alliance related vassals had to have relations of +100 with the leader of the alliance? (and that vassals will decline a conflict if they have over +100 relations with a proposed enemy). I think there is room for maneuver here to make vassals viable and alliance limit is a real problem with regards to the vassal problem.

 

[saskganesh]

No. Just increased support limits. Not domestic.

what is the increase? +10?

 

[unmerged(5161)]

I think a more serious issue, however, is how to make Austria viable without expansion. If Austria has a hard time expanding in the HRE, then France and the OE will wipe it out pronto. The same applies in Italy (usually Austrian). Any fix you make has to enable Austria in particular to be viable by mainly vassalage instead of actual expansion. Austria has a really hard time fighting France and the OE without actual control over that territory and we have to consider that.

Auto-join alliance is a terrible idea because of the potential abuses (especially in SP).

 

[saskganesh]

Ah, that debate was conclusively proved otherwise sometime ago and specifically with evidence from France. In the nicest possible way you couldnt be more wrong!

Relevatively perhaps you have a point but even then France in that period demonstates the failings of the system.

damn. missed a memo.

Ok... So the French crown magaed to centralisecontrol because of their increased power, prestige and weath gained from land won from the English, and later, seized from the Burgundians. The independent duchies were absorbed by inheritance events(thinking Provence/Brittany) and diploannex (Auverenge, Bourbonais). Right? In other words, they weren't conquered, but brought in by other means. np.

So how about in the case of Muscovy, trying to form Russia? It seems counterintuitive that annexing cores would cause decentralisation.

 

[Mowers]

Auto-join alliance is a terrible idea because of the potential abuses (especially in SP).

Bearing below in mind, can you explain further?

Automatic entry into your alliance, even if above the alliance limit. Would this be massively abuseble in SP if all alliance related vassals had to have relations of +100 with the leader of the alliance? (and that vassals will decline a conflict if they have over +100 relations with a proposed enemy). I think there is room for maneuver here to make vassals viable and alliance limit is a real problem with regards to the vassal problem.

RE- Austria

In one way Austria will always be disadvantaged due to the model of the game. Realistically Austria and Spain ought to be one country during the early stages of the GC.

Johan has already built in some HRE advantages and the proposed changes would _not_ effect the key annexations of Bohemia and Hungary. If anything Austria would benefit _most_ as it wouldnt have to go on a BB spree to bulk size wise to compete with France; whilst France would suffer as it would find that it cant roll all over the HRE without significant downsides. This is perhaps the most pro-austria change that might ever been suggested!

 

[LouisSteColombe]

I like the many good ideas in this topic. I am also a little disappointed by the little impact vassalization had.

I'd like to see;

1/ more money going to the overlord.

2/ longer period for diploannexion... or a way that vassal consider long term relation for that, not a temporary bribery spike at +190 (ie you average 190 for 10 years....)

3/ higher support limit

The whole alliance / vassalization thing is a little bit annoying. We can end up in strange situation when Vassal and Lord are not in the same alliance.

The easy solution is to get them in the same alliance automatically. I can see how that would make some WC / uberalliance with ubervassal even easier to perform. :wacko:

If not in the same alliance, it get much tougher for the overlord to defend the vassal against a potential aggressor (of the kind PE describes; willing to stop you from making profit on a province even if it gets nothing for him).
I got to check if attacking a vassal change anything in the relation with the overlord, if the overlord is not in the same alliance as its vassal...
Maybe something around the line of; anyone who attacks a vassal also break all relation with overlord + overlord got a free CB against attacker.
Maybe a free guarantee of independence for the overlord would also helps?

I like the idea of transfering vassalization a lot. I got only one problem with it; the vassalization transfer might be gained without the vassal getting involved at all.
For example, if I am Austria, with Lorraine as a Vassal, and France want to become overlord or Lorraine. I do not have alliance with Lorraine. France DOWS Austria, but does France got to DOW Lorraine too? Or shall we handle that like asking for core province which are not occupied? (ie double the % requirement to get it)
Devil might be in the detail.

Louis,

 

[Mowers]

damn. missed a memo.

Ok... So the French crown magaed to centralisecontrol because of their increased power, prestige and weath gained from land won from the English, and later, seized from the Burgundians. The independent duchies were absorbed by inheritance events(thinking Provence/Brittany) and diploannex (Auverenge, Bourbonais). Right? In other words, they weren't conquered, but brought in by other means. np.

So how about in the case of Muscovy, trying to form Russia? It seems counterintuitive that annexing cores would cause decentralisation.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not disputing that France was centralised relative to its neighbours but the level of centralisation in France was extremely low in the manner in which we previously understood it. Unfortunately the model we have doesn’t account for this. The only way to actually represent this was found to be to create a series of vassales within France. Even Spain was really three countries right up into the late 17th Century and they were cores. However, to me, the debate is almost pointless as in Eu2, we cant use vassals to effectively represent that because vassals are so massively underpowered.

However, can we make a rule where land growth causes decentralization/ centralization? It seems unrelated. I think you might be able to generalize and say that sustained as opposed to local land growth would inevitably can decentralization but this is difficult to model.

Either way I don’t really support a decrease in centralisation due to annexation, unless decentralisation is notably less desirable than centralisation. Its also difficult to judge and would be another break on expansion which I don’t think is necessary, rather that the value of vassalisation and the emphasis on annexation over spheres of influence is deeply incorrect atm. And as we have the diplomatic tools and model in place it would be a missed opportunity to take advantage of it.

 

[Duuk]

And here I think the problem is more to do with the BB system...

Once a nation gets moderate BB (France in the GC) relations plunge with the whole world. Which causes the hated nation to be at war more often with AI powers... which causes the hated nation to annex more nations...

Vicious cycle, yes?

Remove the BB for annexing a nation that you have a CB on their capital. (Well, remove the +5, keep the 1/province to prevent the annex/release/repeat cheat to reduce BB).

This will allow Austria and France to maintain good relations with their neighbors, which will hopefully alter their overall performance.

Ok, I'll also support a change...

Give Italian and German cultures higher RR and make sure all the German/Italian minors can revolt from 1419-1819. The main complaint seems to be about the HRE/Italy. So why not include a game tweak for them alone?

Perhaps they need a nationalism of 10? 20?

This should keep Germany and Italy free while not gamebreaking the rest of the world.

Make the AI aware of the issue so it tries to only vassalize Germans and Italians.

Also... you should not get control of your vassals forces, but you should have a perm CB against anyone at war with them. After all, the Balkan vassals of the Ottomans fought on both sides of several wars.

Being able to demand vassalage of a country that is already a vassal would be nice. After all, if you don't defend your vassal from being flattened that's your issue, not mine.

Also, while we're on the issue ( ), can we *please* have a "release vassal" peace option so I can force my enemy to release vassals instead of having to take the provinces and release them myself? That's a nasty way to wrack up some BB.

 

[unmerged(25696)]

And here I think the problem is more to do with the BB system...

Once a nation gets moderate BB (France in the GC) relations plunge with the whole world. Which causes the hated nation to be at war more often with AI powers... which causes the hated nation to annex more nations...

Vicious cycle, yes?

Remove the BB for annexing a nation that you have a CB on their capital. (Well, remove the +5, keep the 1/province to prevent the annex/release/repeat cheat to reduce BB).

This will allow Austria and France to maintain good relations with their neighbors, which will hopefully alter their overall performance.

Hmmm, it's not going to discourage annexing, what you propose. This is more like lessening the penalties for force-annexation.

Ok, I'll also support a change...

Give Italian and German cultures higher RR and make sure all the German/Italian minors can revolt from 1419-1819. The main complaint seems to be about the HRE/Italy. So why not include a game tweak for them alone?

Perhaps they need a nationalism of 10? 20?

This should keep Germany and Italy free while not gamebreaking the rest of the world.

Make the AI aware of the issue so it tries to only vassalize Germans and Italians.

Not so easy or straightforward. A nationalism of 10 is not so much, and many would endure it for the rich italian provinces. And 20 seems too much, too big, too unbalanced.
We must remember that other nations often conquered/controlled/annexed italian and german provinces. If the French were expelled of Italy, what to say from the Spanish-Austrian imperials ? They kept huge amounts of Italy under their dominion. France expanded through Alsace-Lorraine, which were german, yet I don't think they were more welcome than in Italy or Brittany.

Also... you should not get control of your vassals forces, but you should have a perm CB against anyone at war with them. After all, the Balkan vassals of the Ottomans fought on both sides of several wars.

Being able to demand vassalage of a country that is already a vassal would be nice. After all, if you don't defend your vassal from being flattened that's your issue, not mine.

Also, while we're on the issue ( ), can we *please* have a "release vassal" peace option so I can force my enemy to release vassals instead of having to take the provinces and release them myself? That's a nasty way to wrack up some BB.

The free guarantee of independence sounds nice to me, but it still leaves the penalties for same religion, relations and RM, and the increased BB for DoWing. It would be best if the overlord had the option to join war, but not having to start a war.
The release vassal is also a good option.

As of the automatic alliance, in addition to needing +100 relations for the vassal to join the war, we could have the other allies, those not vassalized, dishonoring more often the alliance. The more allies you have, the less you need their help. Or, in their minds "they don't trust us because they keep searching vassals, so why would we help them ?"

 

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, next comes a suggestion to give every german province a lvl 6 fortress. I think you guys overdo it here..

 

[Pleonast]

How about this to encourage taking vassals instead of annexing:

Give a bonus +0.5 diplomats/year for each vassal. (Or maybe +0.25 is better.)

This will make it easier to maintain relations with your vassals. It will give a diplomatically inclined player more diplomats.

 

[Owen]

Hmm, next comes a suggestion to give every german province a lvl 6 fortress. I think you guys overdo it here..

Pah. In that case I demand you give Venice a level 9 fortress.