Vassalize militarily or annex/release

[unmerged(177849)]

Assuming nearby neighbors are your concern, which is cheaper in terms of AE - vassalize militarily or annex/release? If equal, I assume annex/release is better, at least for nations with a different religion.

Any other concerns/factors in making the decision?

 

[Lakedaimon]

for OPM annex release is cheaper in terms of AE, while for anything over 1 province it is cheaper to force vassalization in terms of AE. If you care a lot about religion then yea u can annex release but they won't really be able to convert provinces for you anyway untill late in the game.

 

[grommile]

Military vassalization costs 15 base AE regardless of size (as long as they're poor enough to vassalize by force).

Annex/release costs 15 base AE/province and returns something like a flat 2 AE/province.

So, if they have more than one province, you should almost always force-vassalize rather than doing annex/release.

 

[unmerged(177849)]

Thanks.

 

[Yenzen]

Also, if they are only OPM's or low tax two-three province minors, consider the chances of being able to simply diplo vassalize them after making the host nation release them - 0 AE!

 

[Pilot00]

Anex release all the way. No overextension, free corring, and unlike what I read on the fora, most of the provinces I take back after intergration are religiously flipped. I dont know if I am lucky or not, but my vassals after finishing the corring process they religiously flip most if not all their provinces.
The only down is you need minimum a decade to achieve all this.

 

[TheBloke]

So, if they have more than one province, you should almost always force-vassalize rather than doing annex/release.

The only exceptin being if you don't care much about AE locally, eg it's in Africa. In this case, you actually profit on AE to Europe. Eg you annex 16 provinces (multiple wars) and that incurs hundreds of AE to Mali, Songhai, etc, but only 1 or 2 to Europe. Then you Release as Vassal. This drops AE to the world by 32, 16 * 2, so your AE to europe has dropped by 29 or so.

Note that this is likely a bug and will almost certainly change when all AE modifiers change in 1.4.

Though it's a bug I like it and use it, because it still adds to overall strategy - using wars in Africa to mitigate AE in Europe, and you do still need to diplomatically handle some of the resulting African AE, eg by allying Morocco, Algiers.

Note that it doesn't work for New World nations like creek. Not sure if it's specific to Africa, ive not been able to test Asia yet.

 

[hauptman]

The only time you should ever annex/release is in asia with the expansion CB. The discount to annexation does not apply to vassalizing, so a semi large nation such as tibet could be annexable in one war. Then you can release as a vassal.

 

[grisamentum]

The only time you should ever annex/release is in asia with the expansion CB. The discount to annexation does not apply to vassalizing, so a semi large nation such as tibet could be annexable in one war. Then you can release as a vassal.

? I think it does, doesn't? Or am I getting confused by the pagan CB at the end of Exploration?

 

[unmerged(177849)]

As I learn more about the game, I can see more reasons to (sometimes) prefer annex/release. Not so much for AE reasons - as others have correctly stated, the circumstances where it helps you with AE are limited. But religion is key at times when a different religious group. Also significant is that the new vassal does not inherit the original nation's negative modifiers for, e.g., AE. I've found it difficult to annex some vassals that were annexed militarily - impossible to get the relations to 190. (Current game vassals Nogai, Crimea and Lithuania all are going to be difficult or impossible to annex for various reasons. Some of those negative modifiers decay very slowly.) Annex/release pretty much eliminates this problem.

Of course it is situational. Just thinking that annex/release is a tool in the tool box.

 

[Schmoekoeksklok]

As I learn more about the game, I can see more reasons to (sometimes) prefer annex/release. Not so much for AE reasons - as others have correctly stated, the circumstances where it helps you with AE are limited. But religion is key at times when a different religious group. Also significant is that the new vassal does not inherit the original nation's negative modifiers for, e.g., AE. I've found it difficult to annex some vassals that were annexed militarily - impossible to get the relations to 190. (Current game vassals Nogai, Crimea and Lithuania all are going to be difficult or impossible to annex for various reasons. Some of those negative modifiers decay very slowly.) Annex/release pretty much eliminates this problem.

Of course it is situational. Just thinking that annex/release is a tool in the tool box.

My annexed/released vassals always have their AE very much intact

 

[TheBloke]

My annexed/released vassals always have their AE very much intact

I just tested because I was pretty sure I'd never seen AE left on a annex/release vassal. I annexed Shawnee over the course of two wars (I wanted to build up loads of AE first), and then Release as Vassal from my Diplomacy screen.

AE was removed in my test, and vast amounts of it. Vassals receive no AE towards their masters once they are vassals, so it does make sense that all AE would be removed when they become a vassal.

Note that some other modifiers are not removed - is it possible it's those you're remembering, not AE?

Shawnee have a suspicion that I'm a teensy bit aggressive

Oh no wait, they were thinking of the OTHER Great Britain. These vassal overlord guys are OK! ish.

 

[Laurwin]

the best ever tactic= cede one province

peace and manually release opm vassal

dow second time, return remaining cores to vassal

once cores are in the right hands, diploannex

You get like, negligeble AE (only for the one cede province in first war)

I did it to Nogai and golden horde in my own Russia game a while ago. The new vassal friend must ideally, be a country who has had a rough time against some evil agressor country, losing many cores to that evil agressor. Nogai was the pretty much downtrodden country and I decided to help Nogai, but only after force-vassalize war. (religious cb)

Then I simply dow golden horde aggressor, and once at 100 warscore, return cores to Nogai. Golden horde will likely be partitioned though, in its state of weakness in the aftermath of this disasterous war for him, but it is to whom it may concern... Nogai on the other hand, my trusty vassal, was successfully diploannexed some time after, I was able to convert all the islamics easily (I had full patriarchy + inquisitor + act of uniformity + act of true religion + something other missionary act I think). It took like 17-19 months to convert a province.

I wonder though if this could be applied further to the Russian conquests with other hordes. I don't think you can apply it to some hordes easily. This is, because the golden horde area, is hotly contested battleground always between Nogai, Kazan, and golden horde.

The tactic does work well vs Lithuania too, cede province with ukraine core. Then second dow is still necessary, and you simply cede a WHOLE bunch of Ukranian cores to your opm vassal ukraine.
Key to this tactic, you need to be able to beat Lithuania in a war. Which is sometimes harder, sometiems easier, depending on luck sometimes (like lithuania collapsing to rebels), sometimes Lithuania has strong allies, in which case I would perhaps delay the war for a while.

It's like the other hordes are way more peaceful, or something. there is no big rivalries to exploit this way sometimes the Asian hordes just ally with each other or soemthing.
Although to be fair, the Asian hordes are cheaper to just annex outright with the expansion idea cb. You still better have some good missionary percentage bonuses though, at the ready I should say...

 

[Schmoekoeksklok]

I just tested because I was pretty sure I'd never seen AE left on a annex/release vassal. I annexed Shawnee over the course of two wars (I wanted to build up loads of AE first), and then Release as Vassal from my Diplomacy screen.

AE was removed in my test, and vast amounts of it. Vassals receive no AE towards their masters once they are vassals, so it does make sense that all AE would be removed when they become a vassal.

Note that some other modifiers are not removed - is it possible it's those you're remembering, not AE?

Shawnee have a suspicion that I'm a teensy bit aggressive

Oh no wait, they were thinking of the OTHER Great Britain. These vassal overlord guys are OK! ish.

Well, it's a little bit inconsistent. To show what I'm talking about, I started a game of Portugal in about 1500-ish and attacked the Maya (who were allied to the Aztecs) and Zapotec.

I sieged them all and annexed the Aztecs and Zapotec at the same time. Then I annexed the Maya, and released them all at the same time.

After this, the Aztecs and Zapotec have 0 AE, but the Maya...

 

[TheBloke]

Well, it's a little bit inconsistent. To show what I'm talking about, I started a game of Portugal in about 1500-ish and attacked the Maya (who were allied to the Aztecs) and Zapotec.

I sieged them all and annexed the Aztecs and Zapotec at the same time. Then I annexed the Maya, and released them all at the same time.

After this, the Aztecs and Zapotec have 0 AE, but the Maya...

Hmm OK, very interesting. Could it be the alliance I wonder?

I was thinking maybe a factor might be whether the AE is incurred as a result of actions to other nations, or as a result of actions to that nation itself. Such that annex/release clears all the AE incurred as a result of actions done directly to that nation, but not AE incurred as a result of actions done to neighbours.

But that's not the case.

To test this, I repeated my Shawnee tests. This time I first DOW'd Creek, Aztec, Zapotek. I DOW'd without CBs and with Military Access. I annexed most of Creek. I vassalised Aztec and Zapotek. At the end of all this, Shawnee had -317 AE towards me, before I Full Annexed them. After annexation it would have been 700 or 800 or so.

Anyway, same result, they lost all the AE after release.

So the only obvious difference in your test versus mine is that Maya was allied to one of the other nations you annexed. I wonder if that impacts it somehow. I also wonder if that might be a bug - it doesn't feel right that there's a couple of niche cases that don't clear the AE when the general case does. Too unpredictable and difficult to prepare for.

Edit: I did one more test. In the test described above, I ended up with Creek force-vassalised. As my vassal, they had 720 AE towards me; because it was a force-vassalisation. I DOW'd them again as my vassal, and Full Annexed their one remaining province. Didn't check what the AE was before annex, must have been even higher given the DOW on a vassal, break truce, no CB. Annexed & released. All AE gone. This doesn't add any more information really.

 

[unmerged(177849)]

Thanks guys.

One thing that has worked well for me on one recent occasion - not so much from an AE perspective, but in terms of getting a large, friendly vassal - was to take provinces in a war, then release a new vassal from the annexed provinces (in this case, Mogal Khanate from Manchu - also in a good position to be fed provinces from the Uzeks). And it even did help AE in Europe, though most of Asia is now in a coalition against me.

Obviously situational though.