Understanding Increased Coring Costs

[Cuenca Guy]

So I got some advice on a world conquest, but there was talk of increased coring costs and diplomatic annexation. I'm moving into India and want to understand this concept fully. As I understand it, if I vassalize a nation with Rajput traditions (for example Marwar), it will cost extra diplo to annex the vassal. If I feed it provinces, each province will also inherit the ICC?

What about if I vassalize a nation with Indian Sultanate traditions such as Nagaur and feed it the provinces from Marwar and other nations with ICC. Will those provinces still have ICC or do they go away when Nagaur cores them? In other words, is there a way to diplo annex the Marwar provinces without the ICC? And does that ICC also apply to me coring it myself?

 

[bly08]

I believe as long as the province remains a core of an ICC tag, it will cost extra to diplo annex or to core. So even if you feed a Marwar core to Nagaur the province itself will still cost extra to diplo annex. If the Marwar province is primary culture then the core will never expire.

 

[rinehime]

ICC is province-based. If a country with ICC in their ideas/traditions has a core on that province, it will cost more to core. This applies when you core the province yourself or when you annex/integrate the country.

The reason you don't have vassels with ICC is that they when they core a province, they spread the ICC to that province, making annexation more costly for you.

For countries with ICC as a tradition, the extra cost only appears if they unlock the tradition. Also, it was reported that in 1.23, if the country no longer exists, the ICC goes away, but I can't confirm this. That seems like a bug, but maybe not considering they removed ICC from the Caucasian countries...

 

[qwertzuiop]

For countries with ICC as a tradition, the extra cost only appears if they unlock the tradition. Also, it was reported that in 1.23, if the country no longer exists, the ICC goes away, but I can't confirm this. That seems like a bug, but maybe not considering they removed ICC from the Caucasian countries...

I can definitely confirm this, in the new patch ICC disappears if the country in question does not exist anymore. Not sure if it's working as intended, maybe it will get changed, but that's how it is.

 

[Incompetent]

I can definitely confirm this, in the new patch ICC disappears if the country in question does not exist anymore. Not sure if it's working as intended, maybe it will get changed, but that's how it is.

So now if your country has ICC, it gives your enemies an incentive to full-annex you instead of just taking a province or two? If that's WAD, I don't think the devs have thought it through.

Maybe it's better to get rid of ICC entirely and replace it with some other 'unappealing to conquer' modifier, such as increased separatism.

 

[rinehime]

So now if your country has ICC, it gives your enemies an incentive to full-annex you instead of just taking a province or two? If that's WAD, I don't think the devs have thought it through.

In SP, that's assuming the AI has actually been programmed to consider that. Given Pdox's history with AI improvements to account for new mechanics in DLCs, I highly doubt that's the case...

Maybe it's better to get rid of ICC entirely and replace it with some other 'unappealing to conquer' modifier, such as increased separatism.

The AI would have to weight the increased separatism pretty high to overcome the fact that by removing ICC, they're a lot easier to full-annex.

 

[rinehime]

TL;DR version: Don't create vassals with ICC; Either territorial core ICC yourself or feed to a vassal, depending on your RCC vs. Annex Cost reduction and how you value 5 ADM vs 8 DIP. Waiting till high Adm Eff to core ICC reduces the penalty.

In other words, is there a way to diplo annex the Marwar provinces without the ICC? And does that ICC also apply to me coring it myself?

If the Marwar province is primary culture then the core will never expire.

To expand on this, at least prior to 1.23, you have to eliminate the ICC tag's core somehow to get rid of the extra cost. To do that, your options are:

• Province culture in different culture group as ICC Country: Feed to vassal, wait 50 years for core to expire before integrating OR use Revoke Core in a peace deal in a subsequent war.
• Province culture in same culture group as ICC Country: Feed to vassal, wait 150 years for core to expire before integrating. I'm not sure if you can use Revoke Core in this case.
• Province culture is same as ICC Country: The core will never expire (w/o changing province culture). In theory, you could feed to a vassal and hope they culture-convert the province then wait to integrate. This would probably take quite awhile (20-30 years for separatism decay, then the conversion) and I don't know if there are any vassal which will reliably culture-convert provinces, but presumably.

Frankly, the only method above I really find viable is Revoking Cores, but that's usually a pretty rare occurrence. It's usually better to just let ICC countries hang out (if you can) till you get high Adm. Eff. from Absolutism which reduces both the base cost and the impact from the ICC penalty. For example, prior to Adm. Eff, the coring cost per development would by 5 ADM * (1 + 0.5 ICC - RCC). With 50% AdmEff, it's reduced to 0.5 AdmEff * (5 ADM * (1 + 0.5 ICC-RCC) or 5 ADM * (0.5 + 0.25 ICC - 0.5(RCC)), effectively reducing the effects of the ICC by half. In other words, AdmEff "saves" you significantly more mana (= ICC%) when coring ICC provinces than when coring normal provinces.

As for feeding ICC to vassls vs. coring yourself, it depends on how you value DIP vs ADM. Integrating costs 8 DIP/dev while territorial cores cost 5 ADM/dev. Then you have to consider your RCC (normally -25% - 55% or even higher) vs. your Dip Annex reduction (-40% with Influence and Infl+Adm policy). e.g. for Ottos you'll have -45% RCC and -40% DipAnnex and with giving 5.25 ADM/ dev and 8.8 DIP/dev with +50% ICC. So that's a DIP/ADM ratio of 1.67. You have to ask, "is 1 ADM worth more than 1.67 DIP?" Maybe it is if you have a 3/5/3 and are filling out ADM ideas. Maybe not if you have a 6/3/4 and are filling DIP ideas and integrating other nations.

 

[Incompetent]

The AI would have to weight the increased separatism pretty high to overcome the fact that by removing ICC, they're a lot easier to full-annex.

I'd actually say increased separatism is more unappealing from the perspective of a typical AI country than ICC is. The AI doesn't blob at full tilt like players do, so it can usually handle the coring costs, but it can't always handle the rebels. Another option to make the country hard to full-annex would be increased warscore cost of provinces.

I don't know if the AI takes these things into account, but from a design perspective, 'unappealing to conquer' modifiers ought to actually make it unappealing, rather than just arbitrarily telling the AI to stay away. Modifiers that are designed to tilt the AI's behaviour in your favour without any 'physical' effects should be confined to the diplomatic sphere (diprep, improved relations, reduced AE impact and so on).