Vassal feeding too easy?

[Demusch]

Hey all,

Is it me, or has vassal feeding become ridiculously easy in 1.8? In my current Byzantium game, the only consideration I've got for when to annex a vassal is when he'd get too big for me to absorb in a reasonable time frame. For example, I'm currently in the process of annexing a 205 basetax Papal State, who I've fed all of northern Italy and southern France. In the east, I've got 2 equal size vassals (Iraq and Persia) taking whatever province I give them from the Mamluks, Timu's, Crimea and generally the Arabic region.

No more issues with vassal overextension, no need for culture or religion. Just change the occupation and that's it. Keep 1 claimable province close by, and you can absorb entire regions into a vassal. As a result, I haven't had to core a single province in the last 50 years, despite being out of war a total of 4 years in that period. I just need to make sure I help my vassals kill the occasional (smallish) rebel stack, while my own economy never even takes a dent.

Is it just me, or has this been going too far? Sure, it makes the game easier, but it also takes the entire planning phase out of the equation. No need to worry about releasing certain nations before 1594, since they'll happily take whatever you decide to give them anyway. The only issue here might be the AE impact, but since nations leave a coalition after having been beaten, you can just keep declaring on groups of 3-4 nations without ever running into a big coalition war, and thus you keep expanding at a reasonable pace.

Does anyone else see any main downsides to this massive vassal feeding?

 

[ChildeR]

It's definitely much easier, though annexing was made more difficult in turn. I don't know how easy it should be, but it makes zero sense that you can give someone a province in a peace deal that they wouldn't buy for 0 gold. The same limitations should hold either way.

 

[Demusch]

I do believe the peace diplomacy should be adjusted a bit for this, and not just for vassal feeding: I recall a player on these forums complaining that, as an ally called into an AI war, he had received over 300% AE worth of provinces in a peace deal, which pretty much tore his empire apart through rebels. he would have loved to say no in that situation, as I guess some of my vassals would when I'm force feeding them this much.

 

[Viperswhip]

There is a cool down on annexations unless you build for it and then you get the provinces in total shit shape, which isn't exactly awesome, so I think it's balanced by LA. Also, it may just be me, I only give them same culture group, or claims and cores, I don't want to have to rebel stomp for them.

 

[artemis667]

It'd need some work, but perhaps you should only be able to transfer occupation to the warleader (who by definition will never be your vassal), or a country who would consider the province to be desirable (e.g. past ownership, same culture, core or claim).

 

[Meridian235]

Vassal feeding is pretty strong.

As Muscovy, you can feed Kazan or whoever the entire Tartar culture group without worrying about them deciding they are better off without you. Sure it's going to cost over 1000DIP once you get around to integrating them, but now there is effectively no curb on Russian expansion into the steppes, even at 1444 with no ability to manage the religious unrest.

Granted, you will have to fight their rebels often, but that's a small price to pay for unchecked expansion accelerated by an all-purpose CB.

 

[Halaberiel]

I've done it a bit, but feeding vassals on a massive scale is just tedious like hell because they cannot cope with overextension at all. You just get massive revolts all over the place.

 

[ErikHeinrichs]

Depends who you play as... vassalfeeding "much" as say Ottoderp is plain dumb especially if you have admin idea and religious or humanism.

I whine a lot about the development decisions Paradox make for EU4 but i must say that 1.8 is by far, like light years, a head of any previous patch when it comes to how fun it is to play and main reasons are changes to coalitions and vassalfeeding.

 

[Grubnessul]

As long as vassals are lobotomised and never rebel against you, vassal feeding is too easy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It'd need some work, but perhaps you should only be able to transfer occupation to the warleader (who by definition will never be your vassal), or a country who would consider the province to be desirable (e.g. past ownership, same culture, core or claim).

Actually, removing a feature people paid to use would have a pretty sour reaction I'd imagine.

OP is overblowing vassal feed power. While it's true you can rapidly feed them, you are deferring the monarch point cost rather than removing it. You are also taking over land with 75% LA when you finally annex it, which means that compared to coring a province with a claim (40% LA) you are delaying income, FL, manpower by potentially decades in exchange for not using ADM and less unrest. There is a big difference between 40% LA available instantly and 75% LA available many years from now in terms of utility; the latter *should* be less costly.

 

[Ricox]

Just change the occupation and that's it

That can be done without cheating using the console?

 

[Demusch]

Actually, removing a feature people paid to use would have a pretty sour reaction I'd imagine.

OP is overblowing vassal feed power. While it's true you can rapidly feed them, you are deferring the monarch point cost rather than removing it. You are also taking over land with 75% LA when you finally annex it, which means that compared to coring a province with a claim (40% LA) you are delaying income, FL, manpower by potentially decades in exchange for not using ADM and less unrest. There is a big difference between 40% LA available instantly and 75% LA available many years from now in terms of utility; the latter *should* be less costly.

I agree that the LA is higher in the vassal feeding situation, however it's not 75% but 50% since you can afford to immediately decrease it, since no nationalism (well, it's 50% after you've done any potentially necessary conversions). Also, the speed at which you can keep warring is higher (for me), since I never get stuck with high OE. The chronical process of rebellions in contrast with the odds of appearance also means that you can time your troop rotations around your empire.
I'm not saying it's brutally overpowered or anything like that, just that it struck me as odd that I could feed such large vassals in so short a time. And I'd rather have all the nationalism and overextension provinces in a vassal with a separate economy than have the revolt risk in my main empire.

I'm not saying get rid of the features all together, definitely not. Just, maybe, that the party receiving the provinces gets a say in whether they want them or not? So long as they keep claiming neighbors (could use a bit higher focus on claiming non-rival/neutral neighbors, but still) there'd be no complete stop to expansion anyway.

That can be done without cheating using the console?

Yes. When you occupy a province, there'll be a shield with your flag on it in the right side of the province overview. Click on that and you can transfer occupation to another country in the war (does require AoW I think).

 

[ErikHeinrichs]

I agree that the LA is higher in the vassal feeding situation, however it's not 75% but 50% since you can afford to immediately decrease it, since no nationalism (well, it's 50% after you've done any potentially necessary conversions). Also, the speed at which you can keep warring is higher (for me), since I never get stuck with high OE. The chronical process of rebellions in contrast with the odds of appearance also means that you can time your troop rotations around your empire.
I'm not saying it's brutally overpowered or anything like that, just that it struck me as odd that I could feed such large vassals in so short a time. And I'd rather have all the nationalism and overextension provinces in a vassal with a separate economy than have the revolt risk in my main empire.

I'm not saying get rid of the features all together, definitely not. Just, maybe, that the party receiving the provinces gets a say in whether they want them or not? So long as they keep claiming neighbors (could use a bit higher focus on claiming non-rival/neutral neighbors, but still) there'd be no complete stop to expansion anyway.

My vassal does what i say to it. Except when i tell it to either siege or attach to my troops, then he doesn't give a ****.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not saying get rid of the features all together, definitely not. Just, maybe, that the party receiving the provinces gets a say in whether they want them or not? So long as they keep claiming neighbors (could use a bit higher focus on claiming non-rival/neutral neighbors, but still) there'd be no complete stop to expansion anyway.

Transfer occupation to vassals is a paid feature and an important part of making this particular route viable. You are forgetting that to take full advantage of such a strategy (as in, not spend 5+ decades without being able to annex vassals of increasing size that are not sure bets to become part of your empire if you lose a war, IE a human player could force you to release your giant vassal), you need both influence and diplomatic, or you won't have enough diprep to sustain multiple annexations with the penalty from annexing subjects, creating situations where you can grow subjects faster than you can annex.

Vassals also get rebels because the AI will never raise LA, and while this is easier to deal with than your own, they are also more inept at it.

Of course, in ADDITION to influence and diplomatic, if you want to transfer occupation without paying DIP out the nose to give them the provinces, you also have to take religious or wait until a bit before 1700 or you can't transfer anything but claims.

It's a worthy blobbing investment potentially, but you can see the preclusion of trade, colonization, and stronger military required to attain it. I find myself directly coring with some frequency, just to get better income and advisors sooner and limit the idea group pressure.

 

[Pornek]

Imo it has the right balance. That didnt really change much to the previous patch it just got much less of a hassle. Before I cored a province and sold it to my vassal until it would take them without coring. In the end you still pay the cost in monarchpower and with the change to revolts taking big swaths of land directly is Imo more attractive now.
Without inherent diplorep annexing big vassals can take painfully long. Which in hindsight lead me to the above conclusion.

What I really consider "easy" this patch is the complete lack of coalitions, but thats another story...

 

[Freudia]

Seems fine to me. The notion that I can give vassals provinces through war but not those same provinces through peace, even if I don't want anything in return, is stupid though; who would turn down free land ever?

This is much in the same vein as nations refusing to leave the war even if you're willing to pay them a ridiculous sum of ducats that would fund their army for decades; who would turn down 6500 free ducats?

Really. The limitations that get imposed don't really make sense, and I'd hate to see vassals get limited by another ridiculous limitation added to the game's AI just to prevent 'abuse' by players.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Actually, removing a feature people paid to use would have a pretty sour reaction I'd imagine.

OP is overblowing vassal feed power. While it's true you can rapidly feed them, you are deferring the monarch point cost rather than removing it. You are also taking over land with 75% LA when you finally annex it, which means that compared to coring a province with a claim (40% LA) you are delaying income, FL, manpower by potentially decades in exchange for not using ADM and less unrest. There is a big difference between 40% LA available instantly and 75% LA available many years from now in terms of utility; the latter *should* be less costly.

Very much this.

I agree that the LA is higher in the vassal feeding situation, however it's not 75% but 50% since you can afford to immediately decrease it, since no nationalism

Unless that vassal is wrong religion and culture and is big enough to force you to increase LA to 100% because you can´t fight the rebellions; not all people play exclusively in conquer happy Europe. In fact in some starts doing unrestricted vassal feeding is so not worth it to the point of being stupid.

 

[Meridian235]

OP is overblowing vassal feed power. While it's true you can rapidly feed them, you are deferring the monarch point cost rather than removing it. You are also taking over land with 75% LA when you finally annex it, which means that compared to coring a province with a claim (40% LA) you are delaying income, FL, manpower by potentially decades in exchange for not using ADM and less unrest. There is a big difference between 40% LA available instantly and 75% LA available many years from now in terms of utility; the latter *should* be less costly.

There's a few benefits that you aren't mentioning. During that delay of decades, your little buddy is contributing free troops, in fact more troops than you would yourself be able to build. When you finally do annex them, you get their troops and boats free of charge. This does come at the cost of one of the most valuable resources in the game, a diplomatic relations slot.

I tend to annex same-culture/religion provinces that I have claims on. Everything else I feed, unless I am playing Italy/Muscovy/Ottomans with their core reduction techs online and stacked with Administrative. Influence is a great group. Dip points are cheaper than Adm points. Everything points to vassalization, as far as I am concerned.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

When you finally do annex them, you get their troops and boats free of charge.

That you usually have to disband because now that you directly control the land you have less force limit than before (because of the 50-100 LA). lol

 

[Meridian235]

That you usually have to disband because now that you directly control the land you have less force limit than before (because of the 50-100 LA). lol

Planning, grasshopper. If you are planning on integrating vassals soon, use about as many mercs in your army as your vassal has troops.

Fleets I generally just carry, since the over-limit penalty isn't as severe.