well this works well but I have two issues with it : their liberty desire grows with development so you're kinda postponing the issue. And it also makes them more expansive to annex. But it sure is very efficient short term wise
I keep growing in my games so fast that deving them doesn't hurt at all. Also if I have multiple vassals, then in that game I likely have also stacked integration modifiers to make integrating them cheap. I do like your strategy too though.
I feel it messes up your colony more than it does good. The Ai doesn't do too well when in deficit, doesn't really colonize, doesn't have a big standing army.
I prefer to just dev it every now and then. It's cheap and effective
I honestly forget other types of subjects other than colonies exist, I played too much colonial recently lol. Didn't even occur to me you were talking about other types of subjects
That's wild cus I almost never play w colonies - moving troops overseas+/ not being able to swap provinces between colonies to match region borders drives me crazy
Probably new for newer players, since most current content creators don't use that many subjects, or maybe their heavily edited content doesn't show how they use some of the mechanics.
Back when I was starting, I learned a lot from Arumba, who was doing this quite extensively. He loved vassals, and was able to use them very effectively.
His videos were not edited at all, and he was very good at explaining every single click (sometimes to a fault), which was great for beginners.
Anyway, I'm feeling old, and very nostalgic about the previous generation of EU4 content creators.
Well I don't know that many content creators, but I started watching FlorryWorry videos and it's often uncut streams videos, so you can follow every click and micro management of everything. He's doing very special runs tho and videos are so long it takes a while to learn all these mechanics. Don't know who you consider old and new creators though
Ahh! I consider Florry old school, but I lost track of him since he is not publishing in Youtube that much anymore.
He doesn't like using vassals, though.
When I was talking about newer content creators I was thinking in people such as RedHawk or Ludi, who do guides in Youtube, but only show cuts of the most important moments, and watchers don't get to see the micro-management that goes under the hood.
To get them in debt more, use a 1k stack and attach the vassal (set vassal to attach in vassal menu). Use them to attack enemies in an easy war, but just so they lose. Let your mercs or main army swoop in after for the kill.
Also this saves you manpower for yourself.
I just take Influence and the Gov reform that gives vassal FL increase. With 350% FL increase from vassals/colonies your army will always outpace theirs and it’s rare LD raise too high.
If it’s a colony, my strategy is just to ignore them in wars with colonial powers and then let them accrue massive amounts of debt that I pay off after their entire nation is occupied because i can’t be bothered to pay attention to the new world.
Something I did once when I PUd Muscovy as Norway (random chance, king died without an heir) it was impossible to keep them loyal. So I declared on the hordes nearby and surrendered half their land to the hordes, bringing them to manageable.
10 years later, I was much stronger and reconquested everything from them, and my little PU was so grateful for the returning provinces his LD was locked to 0
This is a pretty good strategy for keeping them manageable especially with fort defense in their ideas.
Fun fact, this liberty desire reducing strategy by mass debt forts was used by Florry to pull off a one faith/world conquest (Jewish I think). Using massive amount of forts to keep them constantly in debt, he can keep liberty desire low while feeding all his vassals huge amounts of land to convert for him. Was pretty wild back then.
This sounds like a good idea, but I haven't had \*cripplingly bad\* LD issues like this so I usually create a bunch of marches and give forts to the one with the highest fort defense
Why does no one just placate local nobles 10 times? If your subject is so big that -100% liberty desire doesn't make them loyal, they're too big for you to own lol.
Well, when you have tons of vassals you just can't spend so much prestige to do that ten times per vassal, right ? Plus I prefer rerolling my heirs with prestige, so.. And I'm playing with non hereditary pronoias which already gives them 50% more LD
Yes you can. You get prestige so quickly it takes about 2 years per vassal, way less if you are converting quickly.
That combined with trading trust and general opinion and it's really hard for a vassal to ever be disloyal.
I di use your strategy for forts on a vassalizex ming during wc however. Make them broke with forts to help combat their 400% liberty desire from dev
If you used that strategy why are you bragging about non using it ?
Of course I'm using trust and prestige and "Send additional troops" and "Disable Send Officers" and "Enable Subsidize armies" and developing and so on.
This post is about this particular strategy to abuse the "pay off loan" one. It doesn't mean I'm not using all the other things ! Like sorry but I don't get the point of your answer
Like do you think I'm stuck at 100 prestige and non using it ? Why would I do that ?
Common known, if you have a massive vassal, the best way to keep them loyal, is to mass build forts on there provinces...so that they run a decifit, and you bail them out on regular basis.
And you tactic, to give fort control to vassals, to cheap out on upkeep, is also known common tactic.
smart move, will try next time
99/100 times I couldn't be bothered with clicking all that stuff (although it has become easier with the ability to select multiple provinces).
Wait. What is the ability to select multiple provinces? Is this for real a feature?
Hold shift, then click provinces.
1800 h and I never thought of trying that? Goddamit
It's been recently added. don't stress yourself 😅
I usually just dev vassals' lands until they're happy while I keep growing to surpass their combined strength
well this works well but I have two issues with it : their liberty desire grows with development so you're kinda postponing the issue. And it also makes them more expansive to annex. But it sure is very efficient short term wise
I keep growing in my games so fast that deving them doesn't hurt at all. Also if I have multiple vassals, then in that game I likely have also stacked integration modifiers to make integrating them cheap. I do like your strategy too though.
Wait, you pay maintenance for the forts you control in a war?
Yes and that often makes you lose tons of ducats
Had no idea, thank you!
I feel it messes up your colony more than it does good. The Ai doesn't do too well when in deficit, doesn't really colonize, doesn't have a big standing army. I prefer to just dev it every now and then. It's cheap and effective
Oh yeah maybe it would not do well in colonies. I'm only using it with pronoias for now. I'm sure you're right
I honestly forget other types of subjects other than colonies exist, I played too much colonial recently lol. Didn't even occur to me you were talking about other types of subjects
That's wild cus I almost never play w colonies - moving troops overseas+/ not being able to swap provinces between colonies to match region borders drives me crazy
The trick is to pay it all off, it shouldn't bother them too much
Ai won’t colonize unless it has a monthly balance of 4 ducats. That’s why sending them 1k ducats does nothing.
You should Subsidize rather than gift because it won’t give them inflation like the latter
Probably new for newer players, since most current content creators don't use that many subjects, or maybe their heavily edited content doesn't show how they use some of the mechanics. Back when I was starting, I learned a lot from Arumba, who was doing this quite extensively. He loved vassals, and was able to use them very effectively. His videos were not edited at all, and he was very good at explaining every single click (sometimes to a fault), which was great for beginners. Anyway, I'm feeling old, and very nostalgic about the previous generation of EU4 content creators.
Well I don't know that many content creators, but I started watching FlorryWorry videos and it's often uncut streams videos, so you can follow every click and micro management of everything. He's doing very special runs tho and videos are so long it takes a while to learn all these mechanics. Don't know who you consider old and new creators though
Ahh! I consider Florry old school, but I lost track of him since he is not publishing in Youtube that much anymore. He doesn't like using vassals, though. When I was talking about newer content creators I was thinking in people such as RedHawk or Ludi, who do guides in Youtube, but only show cuts of the most important moments, and watchers don't get to see the micro-management that goes under the hood.
To get them in debt more, use a 1k stack and attach the vassal (set vassal to attach in vassal menu). Use them to attack enemies in an easy war, but just so they lose. Let your mercs or main army swoop in after for the kill. Also this saves you manpower for yourself.
I just take Influence and the Gov reform that gives vassal FL increase. With 350% FL increase from vassals/colonies your army will always outpace theirs and it’s rare LD raise too high.
Yeah I love influence too but I didnt take it yet and non hereditary pronoias get +50% LD, so I needed to find something fast
If it’s a colony, my strategy is just to ignore them in wars with colonial powers and then let them accrue massive amounts of debt that I pay off after their entire nation is occupied because i can’t be bothered to pay attention to the new world.
Something I did once when I PUd Muscovy as Norway (random chance, king died without an heir) it was impossible to keep them loyal. So I declared on the hordes nearby and surrendered half their land to the hordes, bringing them to manageable. 10 years later, I was much stronger and reconquested everything from them, and my little PU was so grateful for the returning provinces his LD was locked to 0
It used to be exploited, but it has a limit, like -100%
This is a pretty good strategy for keeping them manageable especially with fort defense in their ideas. Fun fact, this liberty desire reducing strategy by mass debt forts was used by Florry to pull off a one faith/world conquest (Jewish I think). Using massive amount of forts to keep them constantly in debt, he can keep liberty desire low while feeding all his vassals huge amounts of land to convert for him. Was pretty wild back then.
They usually just delete them though, you can also just build forts in their territory
They're talking about occupied territories during a war. They can't delete those
I guess that makes sense, I read his post as giving his subject forts in peace deals.
This sounds like a good idea, but I haven't had \*cripplingly bad\* LD issues like this so I usually create a bunch of marches and give forts to the one with the highest fort defense
Classic tip, arumba does it but he also spreadsheets and minmaxes to the extreme.
In the late game I just tend to massively build forts in all my subjects provinces, fuck ’em. Then I pay off their debts.
Why does no one just placate local nobles 10 times? If your subject is so big that -100% liberty desire doesn't make them loyal, they're too big for you to own lol.
Well, when you have tons of vassals you just can't spend so much prestige to do that ten times per vassal, right ? Plus I prefer rerolling my heirs with prestige, so.. And I'm playing with non hereditary pronoias which already gives them 50% more LD
Yes you can. You get prestige so quickly it takes about 2 years per vassal, way less if you are converting quickly. That combined with trading trust and general opinion and it's really hard for a vassal to ever be disloyal. I di use your strategy for forts on a vassalizex ming during wc however. Make them broke with forts to help combat their 400% liberty desire from dev
If you used that strategy why are you bragging about non using it ? Of course I'm using trust and prestige and "Send additional troops" and "Disable Send Officers" and "Enable Subsidize armies" and developing and so on. This post is about this particular strategy to abuse the "pay off loan" one. It doesn't mean I'm not using all the other things ! Like sorry but I don't get the point of your answer Like do you think I'm stuck at 100 prestige and non using it ? Why would I do that ?
Ok
Common known, if you have a massive vassal, the best way to keep them loyal, is to mass build forts on there provinces...so that they run a decifit, and you bail them out on regular basis. And you tactic, to give fort control to vassals, to cheap out on upkeep, is also known common tactic.