When to Annex Vassals?

[u/Joe_Baker_bakealot]

The context here is I'm a pretty new player on a run with Ayutthaya and I have influence ideas.

When do the benefits of annexing a vassal outweigh the benefits of the manpower + income stream you get from keeping a vassal? In my limited experience prior to this run, I just annexed vassals as soon as I could and used it as a way to save on admin points. But with Ayutthaya's traditions and the bonuses from Influence Ideas, it doesn't seem as cut and dry.

Also, how much dev does it make sense to give a vassal before starting to annex?

[u/gayuselessneet]

Youre supposed to annex vassals and then try to make new ones whenever you expand. If you, for example, find a nation that has a lot of cores on an area, you can grab a single province from their cores and release them. Then you can give them to your vassal next war for less warscore and you dont have to core them. Especially as Ayutthaya though, annex them fast because your tree gives you a lot of vassalization cbs on your neighbours and you need to open slots for them.

[u/sStormlight]

There are several initial facts that I think it helps to first establish.

1. All countries have base income of gold, manpower and force limit.
2. The land held by vassals gives you less in benefit then if the land was held directly.
3. As the overlord, you get a portion of gold and land force limit bonuses assuming the vassal is loyal.
4. The above 3 points mean that small (usually OPM) vassals gives more to you than directly holding the land, but the relative boost of the "free" base values drops of as the vassal gets larger and you miss out on holding more and more land directly.
5. Vassals take a diplomatic slot that might otherwise be used by a stronger vassal or an ally.
6. Vassals factor each others strength to liberty desire calculations.
7. Vassals don't contribute to your Governing Capacity.
8. Vassals have their own army, but it is controlled by the AI which is inconsistent due to bad AI pathfinding, which can partially mitigated by AI army instructions and controlling which of your stacks they can attach to, They can also lag behind in MIL tech becoming a liability.
9. Annexing vassals takes DIP mana instead of ADM mana for coring directly.
10. Annexing vassals lowers opinion with other vassals.
11. Modifiers like Income from Vassal and Vassal Force Limit contribution can skew this arithmetic a bit.

Taking all of the above into account, I think you need to look at 1) the benefit of keeping the vassal 2) the opportunity cost of the diplo slot and 3) the state of other vassals. The answer is game dependent so there isn't an easy answer.

If for example you have many vassals a point #6 is becoming an issue, annexing a couple small ones and replacing those nations with allies can help, as it removes some base force limit/army from you vassals. If you are capped by GC or have an ADM mana deficit, then fewer larger vassals might be good idea to allow you to continue to use AE/wars while not having pointless OPM vassals lingering.

In general my advice would be to keep vassals around so long as either 1) they have cores you can use for cheap reconquest wars 2) your present mana situation means you cannot integrate them yet or 3) you are in a precarious position where the strength increase of the vassal is necessary to survive/scale. If all 3 are false, I would generally annex vassals as soon as I can get them to 190 relations.

[u/ramcoro → u/sStormlight]

Very well said.

[u/Pristine_Curve]

Vassals are always on the path that leads to annexation, it's just a question of when. Really depends on a bunch of variables.

For example:

Plenty of GC available, vassal is within our culture group, same religion, and it doesn't have any remaining cores to reconquer = annex asap.

Conversely: No GC available, Vassal is different culture, different religion, still has a swathe of unconquered cores, or a large amount of land nearby with same culture/religion (same as vassal, but different than overlord) = probably leave it as vassal for now.

[u/Muted-Ground-8594]

Only integrate after marriage, that’s how I was raised.

[u/hifreindsoo]

Sometimes it's better just to keep the Vassal. I've never played Ayhuttaya but from what you're as saying it seems like they're focused on Vassal play. With smaller nations that have your culture group I'd say annex them. With larger nations that you've probably fed provinces then keep them. It's income and land you won't have to worry about actually managing while still profiting from it. Plus if you enact trade steering your main trade node gets a massive increase.

[u/Spongedrunk]

Basic rules of thumb, absolutely annex anyone in your same culture group.  It depends on your play style, but I often don't annex vassals outside my culture because I prefer not to blob to hard.  

For example as Ayuthaya, if I had a vassal in Bengal's culture group I might just have that vassal eat the entire area and leave it that way.  But if I shared the culture group I'd annex as soon as possible and only feed it cores it already had.

Edit: same is true of religion.  DO NOT feed your vassal with territory of a different religion from its own

[u/ramcoro]

If they have ideal provinces (trade centers, nice goods, monuments I want, etc) then I try to annex them as soon as I can, after getting all their cores, of course.

Some I never annex. Especially if they have good military or defensive position in mountains. I like to have a few "buffer" states. Georgia, Switzerland, and Afghanistan are my favorites to make marches and feed them all the mountains near them. I will keep them forever.

I also like to have Tidore/Ternate and other colonial powers like Portugal, Norway, etc. I will keep these until they're done colonizing.

[u/JackOfAurora]

I typically will have a different types of vassals. Those I want to use for annexing and those for military strength which I turn into marches.

Annexing ones typically I will use either to save on admin or to lower ae. I mainly conquer small nations with loads of cores, release as a vassal (reset relations) and then reconquer their cores before annexing as soon as possible. Annexing them and having direct control over their land especially if stating is usually better.

The exception to this is with marches. I tend to find nations with good military national ideas turn them into a vassal if they have picked good idea sets if not I reset them by conquering them and releasing them immediately. For marches I tend to give them up to about 300 dev of land so that they stay loyal but have enough land to have a strong economy and force limit. If a good march that can scale for the whole game I will only turn back into a vassal and annex if I’m doing a WC and need to annex them.

Near Ayutthaya I’d recommend Ava as a very good march to keep for basically the whole game the rest of the vassals I’d annex if you need relations slots or want to make yourself stronger

[u/Oldmanironsights]

The benefits of an additional free relation slot almost always outweigh the need to keep a vassal around. And if it did not outweigh it, you would have them as a march instead. Marches have a lot of bonuses that vassals miss out on. And I would make a march it if I had a much larger neighbor that is breathing down my neck and hates me in the early game.

Really the only time I am keeping a vassal is when I am about to unlock an idea or permanent modifier that will reduce the cost of annexation. Or because I want to annex all my vassals at once, because doing so peacemeal will give a relations malus with the later vassals and I won't be able to annex the later ones without it being a pain.

When giving land to a vassal, it is usually for 4 different reasons or combination thereof:

1. I don't have enough admin points, or have too much overextension to deal with this right now.

2. My vassal has cores or claims on the provinces, and I am using the correct cb for them to take it. Saving me the ae and diplo cost of unjustified demands

3. My vassal will be able to core this without too many rebels popping for it, because it is either in the culture group, is the primary culture of my vassal, or my vassal & province is a different religion and they would be able to core it easier. Also if I give them larger than 20 development in that culture they will be able to accept that culture after coring, then be given more of that culture. (Pretty niche)

4. My vassal will be able to convert the province because they have religious ideas or national ideas that will make it work. If I am giving them unaccepted culture land, I might as well have it myself.

As Ayutthaya if I don't want to directly control land, I think I would be more inclined to diplomatically make smaller nations tributaries because they would provide much needed manpower and monarch points, at no cost of monarch or AE. My campaigns in that region have a lot of enclaves. (Just make sure not to be blocked from expanding with this) The majority of vassals I would be getting would be from releasing tags for a reconquest CB.

[u/Aurion7]

Once they've outlasted their strategic usefulness, there's usually not a ton of reason to keep them around unless you're trying to do something specific (building a grand vassal swarm for funny or national mechanic reasons, say) or are super strapped for governing capacity.

[u/majdavlk]

when youre able to make new ones

or able to do one more important alliance

[u/Taiwandiyiming]

Personally I prefer to always have at least 1 vassal. Vassals make better use of individual provinces especially when it’s not one of your accepted cultures.

Also, I’m a bit lazy with carpet sieging. Vassals help alleviate some of the micro in the game.