Vassal -stab spirals.

[TheMeInTeam]

This still happens. Does anybody know how to make it not happen without avoiding feeding vassals?

For example, I will feed a Mexican CN turned into a vassal 80% overextension of stuff. They have an ADM 2 ruler. 30 years later, they have an uncored province still and are at negative stability.

Even if they have no advisors and no focus, they should be getting enough admin power to core 100 development (MUCH more than they have uncored!) and boost stability 7-8 times over if they do so after coring/converting.

But the AI doesn't do it. It sits at negative stability for 30-50 years and only gradually cores anything, yet it also doesn't advance tech or ideas. Where is that ADM going, exactly? Then because of long periods of -stab they get internal conflicts which they can't get out of in any reasonable timeframe.

God help the AI if you give it >100% OE, that's just a vassal-ending mistake. But I'm observing this on a consistent game to game basis at least a few times while a vassal's unrest from OE never reaches 5 (IE always <100% OE). Seeing elite players feeding 300+ development vassals and annexing them pre-1600 suggests to me that something's being done to keep these scrublord vassals afloat that I'm not aware of.

While it's not as bad as in 1.10 and before, this is still a consistent sore area in the game. Subjects just fall into utter uselessness, not coring, advancing in tech, and then getting disasters. If the AI is making 1800-3000 administrative power over a period of time it needs less than 500 to core everything, why is it still uncored 30 years later when I check the province, see no core, and view province history to confirm the timing?

Edit: This occurs even if I supoptimally park a rebel hunting stack in their borders and constantly murder their rebels.

 

[Andredie45]

This is annoying as shit, and needs to be fixed.

 

[andristan]

it sucks on PU's as well, they are also always in debt. . .

 

[doktorstick]

As for the debt... I have found that I need to annex/release when wanting a vassal. After the annex and before the release, I delete all of their forts because a) they often can't afford them; and b) if (and it's a big if) they disable it to save some dosh, they leave it disabled during wartime making it an easy siege target. This doesn't help with PUs though.

 

[Junuxx]

Are you using Enable Scutage to only drag your vassals into wars where you want to give them territory? There are probably some things the AI only does when at peace. On top of that, vassals are very eager to suicide all of their manpower on the closest enemy deathstack, so I think this subject interaction could really help a lot with the problems you're seeing. Sadly, scutage is unavailable for CNs though.

 

[Tweakee]

Are they already Western? I only see serious vassal implosions when they try to westernize. Which they'll do even if OE'd and with a 0/0/0 ruler. Grr.

Otherwise, Scutage, rebel-killing and a huge monthly loan are about the only ways to help rescue them.

 

[Will Steel]

it sucks on PU's as well, they are also always in debt. . .

What's worse, they don't accept loans no matter what. I have this huge pile of cash I am willing to dole out to my subjects in case they need it, but no, they'll refuse loans even if their debt is so huge it will take them decades of trying to get back on their feet. They just don't accept them and all I can do is grant that cash to them for free.

I have never seen AI accept loans from me, ever, vassal or not.

 

[gothos]

What's worse, they don't accept loans no matter what. I have this huge pile of cash I am willing to dole out to my subjects in case they need it, but no, they'll refuse loans even if their debt is so huge it will take them decades of trying to get back on their feet. They just don't accept them and all I can do is grant that cash to them for free.

I have never seen AI accept loans from me, ever, vassal or not.

It used to. But apparently several players were using that for a cheap CB when they didn't pay back so they patched it out.

 

[Will Steel]

It used to. But apparently several players were using that for a cheap CB when they didn't pay back so they patched it out.

Oh, it became an exploit then? I hope it is patched back in at some point, because that feature is totally useless now.

 

[gothos]

Oh, it became an exploit then? I hope it is patched back in at some point, because that feature is totally useless now.

See now what we mean when we say that short-term "fixed" to exploits screw over the 99% while the 1% just finds something new?

 

[Violent AI]

When I'm vassal feeding (not CNs/non western mostly), I always see them coring stuff. Has never been an issue for me. Usually they start coring the next day after the peace deal.

 

[Firehair]

Give your vassal subsidies, not loans. As far as I know loans as such no longer work.

 

[Wizzington]

The AI's absolute #1 priority when >25% OE is always coring, so I think you're probably just feeding them far more land than they have ADM for. If you actually have a case where the AI sits for years not making a single core, file a bug report with a save game.

 

[zsImmortal]

I had that situation with a vassal (fed close to 100% OE) and they cored whenever they got the ADM for it, but they had very low stab, disaster, etc. that I helped them with and no tech. Probably just a bug in your case because I don't ever see it happen.

I do hate how they won't convert provinces when they have high unrest even if they can do it in a timely manner. Not only would that fix the unrest, I have troops in their borders to play whack-a-mole.

 

[gothos]

I had that situation with a vassal (fed close to 100% OE) and they cored whenever they got the ADM for it, but they had very low stab, disaster, etc. that I helped them with and no tech. Probably just a bug in your case because I don't ever see it happen.

I do hate how they won't convert provinces when they have high unrest even if they can do it in a timely manner. Not only would that fix the unrest, I have troops in their borders to play whack-a-mole.

On that note, vassals don't seem to consider their overlord when responding to rebels. I had Galicia regurgitate 5 provinces back to Portugal because they spawned 3 stacks larger than their army that occupied provinces before I moved in, and the vassal just panicked I guess... or is it possible they broke the country without occupying any forts or the capital?

 

[zsImmortal]

On that note, vassals don't seem to consider their overlord when responding to rebels. I had Galicia regurgitate 5 provinces back to Portugal because they spawned 3 stacks larger than their army that occupied provinces before I moved in, and the vassal just panicked I guess... or is it possible they broke the country without occupying any forts or the capital?

Over 50% occupation by rebels is automatic breaking of the country at next monthly tick.

 

[Path]

Vassals with reduced coring costs in their NIs that take administrative and religious/humanism (depending on what you want them for--if you're Abrahamic or feeding them mostly same-faith provinces, humanism is better for stability*)--in fact, reduced coring costs in general are my top priority in vassals, as empirical evidence suggest they are less prone to unfortunate stability spirals of doom where they end up with internal conflicts.

Feeding large vassals (300+ dev) is an excerise in patience, though. Ideally you want them to have the right ideas, the right culture group and the right religion, and even then you have to babysit them to prevent crashes--one of my first experiments ended up going bankrupt due to the high autonomy (frequent rebellions) and absurd number of forts the tag couldn't possibly pay for. These days I avoid feeding vassals if they're below 1 stability (unless they're "trusted" ones, like my Horde pals--they always come good even if they go into negative stability) and subsidize them to prevent an economic meltdown. I've had some success with scrutage too, once I no longer need prestige to keep the vassals in line (since disabling scrutage when you want them to go to war again increases LD, you end up compensating with prestige, so if you're already using prestige to keep LD down due to tanking dip tech, it might be hard to switch it on and off frequently).

A CN unable to core a mere 80% OE after several decades suggests the AI just broke for some reason, though, as I haven't observed any such extreme problems in the last patches.

* If you're Abrahamic, i.e., conversions are a nonissue, I find humanism to be better than religious, as a combination of humanism and NIs with reduced unrest or separatism allows you to keep your vassal at or near 100% OE with little to no unrest anywhere (I've fed Oirat to over 1000 development without ever seeing anything but a few event rebels--they'd just raise autonomy and have 0% revolt chance in conquered provinces).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I annex/release to kill forts too when possible.

The AI's absolute #1 priority when >25% OE is always coring, so I think you're probably just feeding them far more land than they have ADM for. If you actually have a case where the AI sits for years not making a single core, file a bug report with a save game.

There's no way the AI doesn't have enough ADM to core a province for 30 years when I'm not giving it more OE in that timeframe. When I get home I can probably find at least one save showing the province history of exactly this happening off hand. I'm not exaggerating. The AI will just...not core provinces for decades and there's no way this can possibly be ADM shortage unless they're either ignoring coring or bugging out. The math doesn't add up.

Are you using Enable Scutage to only drag your vassals into wars where you want to give them territory?

I'm not talking about 5 years here. I use subject interaction. The AI still ignores that in many cases. Yesterday while streaming my viewers were treated to a vassal with 18 regiments not moving units regardless of what focus I put them on (they weren't in scutage), despite that it was a 3 stack sieging me nearby. It didn't matter which one I picked, no movement. Frozen AI? Nope, they got rebels and moved...or maybe a temp freeze.

I had that situation with a vassal (fed close to 100% OE) and they cored whenever they got the ADM for it, but they had very low stab, disaster, etc. that I helped them with and no tech. Probably just a bug in your case because I don't ever see it happen.

I see this behavior in almost every game I play. Every time I run the math on the coring, something's wrong. It's not every vassal, but it is *unusual* for me not to see it in any one game.

If you're Abrahamic, i.e., conversions are a nonissue, I find humanism to be better than religious, as a combination of humanism and NIs with reduced unrest or separatism allows you to keep your vassal at or near 100% OE with little to no unrest anywhere (I've fed Oirat to over 1000 development without ever seeing anything but a few event rebels--they'd just raise autonomy and have 0% revolt chance in conquered provinces).

That's if you're Abrahamic though :/. As non-Abrahamic it's helpful to have at least some conversion burden shouldered by vassals, but this does seem to increase the prevalence of the AI deciding it should stop playing. Unfortunately humanist AI are pretty rare. Oirat/Mongolia, some of the Indian sultanates, Ottomans come to mind and there are others but not tons.

Over 50% occupation by rebels is automatic breaking of the country at next monthly tick.

Correct but this is only true at peace.

 

[Wizzington]

There's no way the AI doesn't have enough ADM to core a province for 30 years when I'm not giving it more OE in that timeframe. When I get home I can probably find at least one save showing the province history of exactly this happening off hand. I'm not exaggerating. The AI will just...not core provinces for decades and there's no way this can possibly be ADM shortage unless they're either ignoring coring or bugging out. The math doesn't add up.

File a bug report and link me it from here.

 

[Korashy]

It used to. But apparently several players were using that for a cheap CB when they didn't pay back so they patched it out.

Hey, now, this was a time-honored tradition! Banking is a cut throat business!