(EU4) Vassals Are More Important Than You Realize

In which I talk about how useful vassals are and how they can improve your gameplay greatly.
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[@Zoomy]

Another fun use for vassals: conversion. Want to conquer a large chunk of heathen land? Vassalise someone nearby with conversion bonuses, feed them a chunk of land and let them do all the conversions.

[@matthewmcneany]

Particularly relevant if they are the correct culture for a large culture group such as Chinese, German or East Slavic. One trick is to take land with cores of the vassal you want to release convert that land without coring it yourself and then release the vassal with your religion -particularly important to avoid the +100% for converting a subject outside your religious group.

[@sotek2784]

If a nation is sufficiently small that vassalization is

[@robertblume2951]

@@Hertugsaft this does seem to be the current case. I almost always have to convert my vassals lands myself.

[@vartosu11]

@@Hertugsaft If they're too small they might refuse to convert land until the province autonomy drops low enough that they can afford the conversions, or might not have the money for conversions in the first place. I've had overall positive results with religious vassals.

[@vlobo24brasil]

Other vassal facts: 1. If you release a vassal with cores on enemy land, you can use their cores to reconquest CB 2. If you get into a war with a small nation in a place outside of your coring range, you can vassalize them in the peace deal and use their land to expand in that area. 3. It's always fun to have a OPM baguette or kebab as your bitch

[@dorinpopa6962]

What I usually do when playing near the Caucasus I attack Georgia or Imereti if Georgia beat Imereti and force vassalage on them and immediately declare a reconquest war to take the rest of the Georgian lands. It's especially useful when playing Muscovy as this way you get a good defensive position against the Ottomans right at their doorstep.

[@tombombadil8142]

4. Bypassing increased corring cost traditions and ideas. Crucial in any north african game. 5. You can use them as a warscore sponge in case you lose a war - If you find yourself losing a war you can release one of your vassals, e.g. an opm locked in your lands and easy to retake. So, you don't have to give up land.(sort of an insurance policy) I havent done this in practice yet, so please consider this a theoretical concept. 6.? Walling off a deus vulut casus belli with a vasal of your oponents religion? Probably only useful in MP in a very specific situation, as they can always go for claims.... Plus, vasals used to be a great way to bypass the overlords aliances back in eu3, im' not shure how this goes in the current patch, I play vanila and I don't remember trying this in the newer game - I lagged of pretty hard on the good ol 3 and I transferred to 4 fairely recently.

[@makaramuss]

you dont bypass incrased coring cost ideas... you gonna pay extra price (as example if you vassalize morocco you pay %50 more diplo point instead)

[@tombombadil8142]

Whoa? Really? Thank you for this correcton, I never noticed. I'll have to pay more attention to that next time.

[@makaramuss]

dont feel bad I thought the way you did very long time too

[@drakan4769]

EoC: oh trust me I know how useful they are Shogun: did someone call? HRE: (laughs in revoked privilegia)

[@Hirohitorunguard]

*N O I C E*

[@spontaneouscombustionman3012]

Why is a Terraria boss playing Eu4?

[@thomasmorris4449]

Shogun: (laughs back with a hundred asian and african daimyos pushing into Europe)

[@samkhodabakhshzadeh7244]

@@thomasmorris4449 Austria: Laughs back with its ming PU(somehow)

[@captinobvious4705]

Up intel you go overboard and spend 1500 birds on annexing Venice

[@NegaRenGenX2gay2lift]

Tiger King thats alot of birbs

[@evanblack7734]

spending 2000 on byzantium now :( estimated completion in 80 years

[@Rahul_G.G.]

YOU FORGOT THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT VASSILZING NATION WITH A LOT CORE GIVE reconquista casus belli ON THE NATION WHO ARE HAVING VASSALS EX LAND.

[@darthmortus5702]

Yeah a huge part of the vassal game is being mindful of who has cores on the land you want so that you can pick optimal vassals for subjugation or for release. DFS really should have spent some time to talk about that.

[@nikolavideomaker]

Darth Mortus doing this with ming right now

[@benderb.rodriguez6220]

This is the sole... Wait a second

[@iSchneeball]

One thing to add: If you want to conquer a nation with 100% warscore cost or less you can vassalise instead of fully take all provinces for lower AE. Good in areas such as the HRE or if you're someone like byzantium and want to expand into sunni land. MIGHT also help with religious conversion.

[@panzerfx3901]

I think it is better just to annex the country you are at war with and release it afterwards, that way you have the same vassal but loyal. Also vassals often have cores on your enemies land and Return Core CB costs less AE. Countries that are released as peace deal can often be vassalize via diplo and can really help with conquering land that you cannot core. Sid that on Mare Nostrum achievement run as Byzantium when I needed to conquer required provinces from Great Britain - asked them to release Wales, dipplo vassalize them and in later wars just fed them with rest of GB.

[@Chironex_Fleckeri]

Yes. The main reason to force vassalize in a treaty is to avoid having to give up provinces you've cored, which is something that happens when you annex -> release.

[@Salacavalini]

Something I like to do when playing as my home nation of Estonia is to vassalize the Teutonic Order and force convert them to Protestant. Prussia is one of like 2 tags in the game that can be switched to even as a subject nation, and having a March with Prussian ideas and the Prussian Monarchy government with the Send Officers March interaction active is absolutely hilarious.

[@ladyd.705]

I love Vassals but I often overdue it with them, so that I can't controll them xD

[@umikousaka8158]

The Reconquest CB can always help, and is easily one of the most visible benefits as to acquiring them. As an example, France can have Catalonia from Aragon (for a nice hold on the Genoa trade node), Leon from Castile (if you don't want to bother with colonization or want a helper in that area), York from England (to gain a foothold with which to eventually conquer the British Isles), and perhaps Burgundy should it fall to the Inheritance. The HRE and Italy tend to always have a country or two that rises and falls as the game proceeds, attempts should be made when possible to use those to acquire a base in those respective regions.

[@tsarcastic3722]

I'm a new player to EU4 (still playing my first game as Castille) and this video illuminated some of the finer details on vassals for me. Keep up the good work.

[@mario23412]

And thank you for releasing so much newbie friendly content! The game still looks very difficult and hard to wrap my head around but guides like yours make it easier to understand bit by bit!

[@raptorcell6633]

Andrew Woodman it really isn't that hard to get into if you start playing it, i highly recommend the Ottomans or Castille for your first run. they make the game far easier.

[@nicolashugli9661]

Andrew Woodman just start by playing the game. If you watched some yt vids you should have a pretty good understanding of the base mechanics. You can then learn stuff run by run. Start with france/ottomans/castille. Do a vassal hesvy run. Play a heavy colonizer. Play in the HRE. Play in the rest of the world. Try some of the more interesting and challenging starts in europe, Burgundy and Hungary were always favorites of mine, even though the latter got a lot easier recently.

[@Jupiter__001_]

Nicolas Hügli Burgundy is really easy now too, what with its mission tree being good. The trick is to just ally France, complete a few missions and then form the Netherlands (to prevent the revolts). I actually managed to take out Provence and Lorraine this way by helping France against the English and then attacking Provence while France was in war exhaustion so he would not join. Tall play is OP this patch, so Hungary and Burgundy are both really powerful.

[@maximaindustria405]

I'm playing my first game as castille and I had to spend a TON of points annexing moroccos provinces. good to know about vassals, keep up the great focus segments!

[@ladyd.705]

I once had in a Korea game the whole coast from Dai Viet. Lan Xang was my March and it was awesome. They had a lot of cores in terretories I wasn't interested in and they gave me up to 25k Troops with always a 3 Star-General and good to defend provinces with forts :D

[@ladyd.705]

When I would play in India i probaply would make Nepal (the prussia from India) into a march

[@KnownNiche1999]

Saenger Fuge You overhype Nepal a lot

[@ladyd.705]

KnownNiche yeah I know. Prussia is still way better. But Nepal Ideas are also pretty good^^

[@exantiuse497]

A few things I think you got wrong: 1. I don't think the vassal fee is based on the total income, only tax income. I've had some HRE OPMs as vassals that get like a dozen ducats in trade income but only pay 0.4 ducats in vassal fee, even though the base should be 50% 2. The modifier for diplo-annexing a nation isn't as straight forward as just 5 times larger, there are many variables like government rank (a kingdom get vassals easier and an empire even easier), your force limit compared to their and your "economic base" (which I guess you were talking about in the video) which is basically depends the ratio of your development and their, but their is counted exponentially (a 20 development nation needs 4 times as much total development as a 10 development one) 3. I don't think the vassal loyalty penalty depends on the total development of all vassals, only force limit and military strength. I'm not 100% sure about this though Also a few more benefits of vassals: 1. less aggressive expansion (only 75% of what you'd get by annexing all their provinces) and none at all if you diplo vassalise 2. If you vassalise an HRE prince you don't get the unlawful territory penalty, so no unrest and no cb for the emperor (although annexing the vassal gives relation penalty). Also you can vassalise an HRE prince as a non-HRE nation without going to war with the emperor 3. Even though administrative efficiency is a thing, vassal feeding and diplo-annexing is still important in the late game, simply because that gives you two resources to core stuff with, which is crucial in clutch world conquest games

[@evanblack7734]

i like vassals late game because i can get 150% overextension and release a vassal to bring bit down a bit

[@DukeofHoth]

Like others have said, releasing a vassal to take the cores from other nations is also a valid strategy. In addition, with whatever DLC it is, you could take a vassal of a different religion and eventually force their religion to your own without too much fear of their liberty desire raising too high, and continue to feed them land of another religion to convert. Or you could leave them as that different religion and keep feeding them land and they'll give you the benefits of having the right religion such as more manpower and taxes than you would be able to get without converting them, similar to the point you made about culture.

[@nicolashugli9661]

DukeofHoth well force-conversion gives a huge liberty desire spike, especially if it is a different religious group. Might sometimes be worth it to convert their provinces yourself, especially with religious ideas. Btw can you convert their provinces(with CoC dlc) even if they are a different religion?

[@EstaviusMarx]

Force conversion has liberty desire increase of 100%. I do it anyway to spread the Holy Word! Then fight them to the death as they rebel and I get curb stomped by France who backs their independence :P

[@DukeofHoth]

I think it's only 50%? Actually I think that may only be the same religious group.. But that's why it's good to convert them early on when they're small enough that they can't oppose you. Or, don't force convert them and convert all their lands once you choose to annex them.

[@AroundTheBest]

Uses for vassals: 1. Taking land that you can't turn into a state. (75% of tax vs 40% of tax). This is a primary reason for early vassals. 2. Taking land that you can't direct trade from. (EG, taking land in the English Channel if you're in Genoa) Collecting in both nodes will cause a collection penalty. 3. Spreading out annex costs. 4. Reducing over-extension and aggressive expansion. You can disregard overextension somewhat if you're willing to make a vassal out of a portion of the territory. 5. When you can't afford to change religion of a providence. When you shouldn't take vassals: 1. When you have excess state slots and can direct the traffic to your home node 2. When the land is in a colonial or trade region.

[@lanelesic]

+1 to force limit can be more than 10% of your overall force limit in earl game. Vassals like Cyprus can have a very good level 3 fort that you do not have to pay maintenance for, and that can win you early wars.

[@Povest1389]

Tips for Russia: vassalize Livonian Order. Управо играм своју најбољу партију од кад имам игрицу, са Московијом>Русијом, ironman mode.. поприлично лако сам изашао на крај са Литванцима, Пољацима и хордама.. и сада ме чека најтежи задатак - крваве Османлије.

[@ReinhardP]

Thank you. I'm new to the game and appreciate your videos!

[@JoViljarHaugstulen]

There are 2 main things that affect a vassals liberty desire when it comes to having large vassals Total units of ALL vassals (+37.5% liberty desire for 50% as many units as you and 70% for 100% as many units as you) Development (0.25 X development) And what you usually use to deal with it is Opinion (+40% to *-20%* from -200 to 200 opinion) Royal Marriage (-5%) Diplomatic reputation Which means that Quantity ideas are often one of the best idea groups for keeping vassals loyal assuming you actually use the higher force limit and cheaper units However one can keep larger vassals at low liberty desire if one use prestige -10% liberty desire for 20 prestige or -5% liberty desire for developing one of the vassals provinces (obviously not something you want to do if you plan on annexing the vassal as it would increase the cost of annexation but it could actually be worth it if the vassal is useful and you keep it around until you get higher Administrative efficiency which lowers the cost of annexation) Requires Rights of Man Oh and one thing that can work is to have a small vassal and force it into debt and then repaying their debt (as the liberty desire reduction is only based on how many loans worth you repaid and loan size is only dependent on development so it is cheap for small vassals) and then after having built up lots of negative liberty desire by paying of small loans you can now grow the vassal more or less as much as you want (but the problem is of course the vassal running out of admin points and so it usually isn't worth it the effort)

[@foxy_bl1784]

Also i find with the reduced AE of force vastlizing them verses just eating them really helps a lot.

[@ArtinJ]

Thanks for this very informative video man!

[@jorymcintosh5849]

Some extra things to consider when cassalizing through peace. You can also send gifts to temporarily improve relations, and offering them military access is +10 relations too. Also, without the DLC, you can still sell provinces you take from wars to your vassals, at the cost of prestige

[@dominickdibart12]

In my Ajjurran "Golden Horn" run I had very few allies near the end. Luckily I was able to release a large Yemen March which really helped me out with wars. There r other obvious advantages to creating vassals, BUT if ur going for a achievement that requires specific provinces I suggest making marches out of some of the land u don't need. It'l help

[@EmilJohanssonEOC]

Personally I would never choose to break vassalization unless I had no other choice. It's too easy to get liberty desire down by spending prestige, developing land or check the options in the subject interface.

[@moredakka5789]

Im always having trouble as brandenburg beating bohemia. This video inspired me to try vassalizing brunswick and pomerania before attempting to fight bohemia again

[@Yui_187]

Dark fire slide and Arumba are my fave eu4 tutors

[@almightyful1]

Thanks for the info man!

[@giancarlogonzalez7415]

I like making my own little HRE with vassals/marches and PU's. If I see 2 strong military NI with a small nation, it is hilarious seeing what they can bring to the table. Vassalizing the Teutons and making them into prussia is so satisfying especially as a march. Reaching tech 10-13 and having a baby prussia march with 100 dev means that they can easily field 13-15 troops with 120% discipline and 40% morale is hilarious. Have them issued to support and you will have the ultimate reinforcements. Have them at aggressive with 2 other vassals at supportive means you have a squad of legendary vanguards leading every charge with an infinite supply of replenishing manpower.

[@zinmoney96]

I remember forming Persia as Taberistan for that achievement and I had to vassalize nations as first to be able to expand to nations since the only ones I could core were the Timurids and QQ

[@magiccarpetmadeofsteel4564]

Good to know. So, could you maybe make like a general "noob I mean beginner's guide"? I've watch your and other vids, so I think I have a good idea about how stuff works and what to do, but it being all in once place would be nice. Also, and the main reason I'm asking, is because right now I'm Muscovy, it's about 1555, I'm well on my way to crushing Novgorod, got two amazing generals, and allied with Denmark (and the rest of Scandinavia by extension). But I still have a few questions: The Ottamans don't like me, even with 100 improved relations. How can I get them to ally, and should I bother? What should my priorities be regarding Lithuania/Siberia? How much of them should I eat (thinking take province to deny them Commenwealth) What in the fuck should I do about trade/colonies? I have this crazy idea about, after killing Novgorod and dealing with Lithuania, and maybe annexing a vassal or two (I.e. OPMs/Perm for more diplo, and maybe getting livonian order instead), then getting military access to Scotland, and having a no CB war with Britain getting them, their development, and their colonies, and moving my home node there. Basically, I know what to do(ish), but could use some guidance on having my priorities straight (i.e. not rushing into hordes trying to get to Caucuses for forts against Ottamans, not good idea), and what to do with bad trade node (I.e. how stupid is my idea, and could it ever work relatively early)

[@makenshao9886]

Would you consider keeping a vassals better that annexing it or taking their land yourself if the vassal is down a trade node that you since you can not collect in that node anyways without changing your trade city or collecting with a merchant anyways?

[@Beatssossick]

I have a question that is off topic. When you give condottieri do you have to max the army maintenence manually to get full morale or does renting out the army automatically raise arny maintenence for that army specifically ?

[@jjohansen86]

Somebody else noted the power of taking land and immediately releasing as a vassal, and a couple people have noted the power of vassals for the reconquest CB, but it's worth noting the power of putting these two ideas together: attack someone big who has cores of a smaller nation within them, take a bunch of land including one or two provinces of the smaller nation, release the small nation, and then you'll have the reconquest CB against the big nation with a vassal with low liberty desire. I especially like to use this tactic against huge powers like the Ottomans (release Byzantium if you do it quickly enough and you can get a reconquest CB on Constantinople along with the rest of Greece and the southern Balkans... later in the game they've eaten up enough places that there are vassals to release basically everywhere) and Ming (all those states that used to pop out with the Mingsplosion give you some good cores). On top of that, you can use this to get well over 100% overextension worth of land in a peace deal without actually having the crazy high overextension. It means taking a little more time to think about the peace deal you want, but I've taken peace deals that gave me something like 250% overextension, released a vassal or two, fed them until I'm down to 90% overextension (and maybe my vassals are at 80% as well), and avoided nasty events while taking huge tracts of land. I remember a discussion of whether to avoid going over 100% overextension and slow down your growth or just take as much land as you can... but with vassals you can get the best of both worlds! Also, for this reason I disagree with the statement that vassals are more useful in the early game than in the late game. In the early game the roadblocks to expansion are often money and manpower, and vassals help with that (especially as they prevent rebellions, as you note), but the late game roadblocks of overextension and admin points are just as big, and in some ways more insurmountable. Ok, as you say, administrative efficiency helps, but that does help with vassal annexation as well, and really the pace at which you need to take land for a world conquest or other achievement accelerates to match the gain in administrative efficiency. Because of admin efficiency you end up taking the majority of the world in the last hundred years, but that means you need to be moving super fast and any roadblock is a big issue.

[@JoViljarHaugstulen]

1:00 Ehh I am pretty sure that's incorrect as it is a % of TAX income not other forms of income (Though you can take their trade income with divert trade but that increases liberty desire by 30%) so even with 100% you still don't get everything the vassal makes

[@Donlot_]

Jo Viljar I've heard before that while you for example get 10% of your vassals income and he makes 1D a Month that basically means you get 0.10D from him while he still makes 1D a month

[@wickedAberration]

Alex Walter you heard wrong. That only applies for tariffs with colonial nations.

[@user-sl6fg7pi6u]

Actually iirc Colonial nation lose only half of what u get from them. ie. with 10% tariff the colonial nation only lose 0.05D while u get 0.10D.

[@ragefacememeaholic5366]

Let me clear some things up here. Point number 1 its called hyperbole, Darkfireslide was making the point that you shouldn't go overboard on vassal income efficiency. Point number 2, Tariff efficiency only increases the amount of money you make, Your colony doesn't lose more money. Your colony only loses more money when yo you increase tariff rate.

[@benrlego]

Very good video, glad someone finally brought this up. I know some people will not take vassals or will swallow them quickly even if it leads to problems

[@wickedAberration]

Vassal income only gives you their tax income: they keep their production and trade by default, but you can force their trade out, leaving them with just production Base cost to Diplo annex Vassals is 8 Diplo per development. I also think that, because Vassals lose liberty desire from gaining provinces, that there's diminishing returns on liberty desire as a nation grows larger, and that you can focus your reduction to liberty desire with development, and the huge -3 dip rep penalty for years after annexing a vassal, feeding a single vassal to notably large size before annexing is preferable to multiple smaller vassals. I'm also fairly sure admin efficiency applies to Vassal annexation.

[@bigworm3886]

Another use for vassal I found was to increase the chance of a new heir through royal marriages with your vassals. This decreases the chance of not having an heir and being in regency for too long.

[@sergeydoronin1579]

A few other points: 1) By annexing vassals you get their units, icluding naval ones. It's very useful, considering how expensive ships are; 2) If the terrain is high hills or some other territory with high DEV. cost, it makes sense to give this territory to your vassals, as they can spend their monarch points to develop the land, while you don't have to waste your points; 3) A system of vassals is more efficient than just a unified empire in terms of insitutions. First of all, your main land is small, so you wouldn't waste a lot of time and money on embracing institutions. Secondly, unlike your ordinary provinces, vassals can sometimes make a "share institutions" deal with their overlord. And finally, you can prevent your institutions from spreading across the region while contunuing the expansion using vassals. Let's say you play as Ternate and want to conquer Buton or Makassar. Direct conquest would cause the institutions to be spread to the Kutai, but it wouldn't happen if you just vassalise Makassar or Buton. 4) With "vassal Force limit contribution" bonuses vassals give more Force limit than your normal provinces do. 5) You can use vassals to abuse culture or capital city mechanic; 6) Colonization. You can vassalise countries that have colonial bonuses. The difference is, a single colonial nation that has explore. and expansion. ideas would have just 3 colonists, but the overlord and vassal both of which have the proper ideas would have 6 colonists overall. You can also vassalise colonial empires during war. If you diplomatically annex Portugal, you automaticall get all portugal colonial subjects.

[@rin99o]

Really got new infos from youu......much thks brother.. Can u ask u 1 question. What do you mean bout "abuse cultre" in point 5?

[@sergeydoronin1579]

@@rin99o If you want to change your primary culture, you can assign provinces of your culture to your vassal. That way you will lower the % of your primary culture and increase the % of other cultures, making it easier to choose another culture as primary.

[@RULERofSTARS]

You can also use vassals to blob more blobbily. I'm doing a Kongo playthrough and already own the whole of the Kongo trade area, and plan to invade Kilwa next - who are almost as big as me - to take their gold mines. I only have Inovative Ideas so far and it'll be a while before i can colonise. So when I took the last provinces of Luba vassalised their ally Tumbuka and will annex ASAP :)

[@martinaustin6230]

Pro tip. No CB Vandalize Byzantium at the start. This will significantly make Ottomans weaker and you have a lot of cores. Also after mamluks have kebab eaten them is a great reconquer vassal. They will usually have 300+ development to take in cores.

[@mattpealer9067]

What map settings do you use? I like it more than the standard

[@Hilja1suus]

I would quite like a singleplayer recap of this game, if you still do those

[@lakhee8248]

Your videos are very freaking helpful and awesome! Id love to see some letsplays made by you. If you edited some of videos. Your channel would blow with subs. But hey its good this way too. Stay awesome!

[@BorusinskiTomasz]

Vassals are very imporant if you play Very hard as marches, give you boost to force limit a lot

[@astral9138]

don't mind me i'm just taking notes I'm new to the game

[@Jupiter__001_]

Alken Lion Try "tall" play, i.e. developing provinces and trade opportunities, and focusing on the diplomatic game. It is easier than "wide" play (mass conquest), and also tends to yield better results than it as well.

[@Povest1389]

Try both, combine military with diplo auctions and that's the combo.

[@StalwartShadow]

You should make a beginner video about the HRE mechanics if you haven't. I feel that may give some players more incentive to try HRE minors faster.

[@nittecera3780]

The best feeling is when you can afk a war because your vassals will fight it for you

[@thedeadcannotdie]

I take vassals to keep my borders pretty and because I'm too lazy to carpet siege. I usually take the forts and wait for my vasals and marches to take everything else.

[@MerdoKhan1905]

@darkfireslide i would not say that diplomatic point are the last points you need for warfare. Overall maybe you want diplo points as last or if you dont own any sea port cities yes you are right. But for example if u play Ottoman empire and have territory in North Africa, Anatolia, Caucasus etc you really need a strong navy to dominate the Black sea and Mediterranean sea. Otherwisel with revolts and multiple wars you cant use your transport ships. If you play any nation with a decent amount of sea port cities. You will always need the diplomatic points for a good navy. You do need more admin for the coring and admin ideas indeed. But in terms of technology. Its better to have more diplo points then admin points in term of technology and warfare. But in terms of points in need. Probably admin -> military -> diplomatic indeed. Just to make a point. Goods video thx

[@Eliges]

The reason why i like vassals in the late game is that they conquer and reconquer provinces in a war. Especially when those pesky 1 army big unites get into your terretory and start sieging everything and running away when you chase them with your army.

[@luckas1234321]

Small correction, annexing a vassal is the not the same point for point cost as coring. 8 diplo per development is spent when diplomatic annexing. 10 admin per development is spent when coring. Which makes Diplo annexing 20% cheaper prior to ideas.

[@CricketStyleJ]

If you vassalize a nation that is already at war with a third nation, you will join their war as the new leader. This can be beneficial if you want to fight someone but don't have a CB, or if you want to break a truce without incurring the usual penalty. Vassals also get their own merchants, missionaries, diplomats, and colonists, and you can use all of these to your advantage.

[@numega7323]

If you release a vassal, for example, Gascony, and then it is occupied by France in a war, does that affect your warscore? Edit: I am stupid, I didn't have any DLCs at that point and I must have seen a tutorial that scutages a vassal, which confused me.

[@jacobstormann4452]

1. You get less AE for vassalizing someone as opposed to annexing them. 2. Vassalage is a great way of not having to deal with unlawful territory if the Emperor hates you.

[@ceiling_cat]

>keebab in technology Ah, wait, i mysheard this to keep up of course

[@Winchestro]

A tiny correction, you get a fraction of vassal tax income, not their total income. Tarifs from colonies are from total income.

[@richardbraakman7469]

Another use of vassals in late game is to soak up overextension for you. Take 200% worth of land, give half of it to your vassal, let them digest it

[@italianpc4119]

8:56 moment of instability

[@psychofury6485]

Annexing costs 8 per development , and coring costs 10 (full core) at base. So annexing is always cheaper, if you want to full core the land too.

[@felixd.5876]

What‘s up with your ottoman vanilla game?

[@makaramuss]

vassals are also great to sacrifice... if you are gonna lose a war give up lands of your vassal instead since you didnt pay points to core them yet

[@sik3xploit]

For me vassals were good for going through the terra incognita, because there is nothing more annoying than going to war with someone who has an ally that you cannot directly reach.

[@moremoor8295]

I think you forgot something very important midgame: Cores. If you manage to get a previously big but now beaten up nation, feeding them their cores is a HUGE CHEAP way of quickly growing. Especially in Iran and India area (but also if places like France should blow up). Growing into an area with cores is way easier than having to fabricate or no CBing.

[@FatheredPuma81]

You should realistically only be taking vassals that have tons of cores they don't own. Such as the Mamlukes or Timmy. Then you pour tons of Prestige into keeping them loyal until you can annex them. Just vassalizing random countries you own tons of land from such as Pegu in this case isn't a great idea as they'll hate you for it. Also it's best to release vassals (annex and release in many cases) or get them diplomatically if you want one than just outright vassalizing them militarily. Also a good idea to if you do this for an OPM to feed them at least 3 or so provinces so they can field a decent army to help you until you annex them as they have their own manpower pool which isn't effected by the fact they're a vassal.

[@pseudoproak]

FatheredPuma81 I like vassalizing to expand in the Hre because of less ae

[@climax050]

I’ve never been so disappointed in my life I vassalised and was hyped to designate a March cause I wasn’t expanding that way.... PSA you need the dlc to make marches 😖

[@RuneR96]

Does a size of the vassal influence how much forcelimit you gain from them?

[@cihannos06]

RuneR96 no you get +1 force limit for each vassal

[@RuneR96]

Cihan Yok oh, ok, thanks!

[@LiezAllLiez]

Vassals are okay but client states are better. Even though CS' dont convert land, theyre the best defense dog you can get when you turn them into a march. Fiercely loyal and packing a ridiculous forcelimit, if you feed them around 200 points worth of development. Theyre great in both distracting the enemy state and keeping your lands nice and clean of besieged provinces (if you set them to defensive). Just make sure to influence your subjects. The additional -20% liberty desire is really worth it. Its a shame client states become available at diplo tech 24...

[@MDP1702]

I don't agree that it's mostly an early game mechanic. In late game vassals are really helpfull if you consistently can get land in peace deals that would normally overextend you. And even with huge administrative efficiency you still burn through administative points in this case. And in the beginning your vassals usually are much smaller than possible allies and with a very limited amount of relation slots this plays an important role early game. It ofcourse always depends on your starting position.

[@Cannonfodder69]

So do colonial nations use the same mechanics as vassals when it comes to determining their liberty desire and possibly declaring independence? I'm doing a Great Britain game right now, and two of my colonial nations have about one-fifth the level of development I do (roughly 300 vs my 1600) and despite the mission bonuses and deliberately keeping my merchantialsim and tariffs low, their liberty desire always stays around 25-30%.

[@jordanbey2546]

As long as its below 50% you're fine, they can't do anything against you without that

[@PinacoladaMatthew]

i just like being the boss with my minions

[@tobynelson2729]

I think vassals have become less popular with lvl 5 advisors, admin efficiency from absolutism. They used to be very popular before because it let you spread coring cost over diplo and admin mana, that is less important now if you aren't trying to WC. In addition they can hurt you during war time, especially in multiplayer where they feed warscore.

[@evanblack7734]

darkfireslide +15 loyalty from noobility

[@Mrpokpokza]

You are alive??

[@historycenter4011]

I love vassals.

[@MrCr1spy1]

I know you're quite busy but if you could release a video once a week that'd be great. Like, if you could make a routine, let's say, saturday morning and make a video on an interesting EU4 topic, it would be amazing. I'm sure subscribers could give you tons of ideas if you asked.

[@Xanous]

One more important thing: Vassals have their own monarch points and can spend them on improving development!

[@wickedAberration]

Xanous Vassals do get a significant cost to each point of development, though, with a +50% extra cost to the base, I believe?

[@ypsilondaone]

Please come back to eu4 vids :o

[@troysmith4086]

Test playing making Venice a scutage they are only giving me 15 ducuts while they earn 50ish. My income from vassals modifier is over 100%. I assume that means the income from vassals modifier is effecting the 10% base from vassals? Therefore you cannot take 100% of your scutage/vassal income?

[@pic4315]

They and my colonies win the wars for me 😂

[@evanblack7734]

ive never had colonies participate if its across an ocean

[@TheMelnTeam]

4000-6000 of your late-game one tag development can come from chained client states, so it's a bit silly so say it's less helpful in the late game. Not only does that push some point usage into DIP, it also lowers the amount of OE you need to sit on in the last 100 years of a run.

[@mikesnow285]

Vassals are the best. You could probably have 3x or more your army with them and it costs you nothing, even makes you money.

[@lostinnepal7897]

I'm still here dark ;) and good points in this video

[@Beachdudeca]

An advantage of vassals not mentioned , Trade , if u lack the merchants to take advantage of a Trade Node its not a bad thing to setup a Vassal to deny other Counties of Income , and for Trade nodes u never have a plan to use make a March in that area

[@oilbucket]

Even after 1000 hours I still hate vassels, this video might have changed that

[@teddys5775]

I thought increasing vassal income increased the amount of ducats you receive but didnt increase the ducates they pay. am i wrong?

[@TheShadowWolfie]

To be honest its military points that are least used in warfare. Admin points are used to integrate and diplo points are used to make peace deals. Military points are really only used to tech up.

[@kotzpenner]

What I don't like about marches is that you have to wait to make them a vassal back and eat them up. Otherwise I would use it more.

[@maltvinegar436]

As muscovy in my current game I don't have enough diplo points and I'm swimming in admin points

[@aguyfromnz537]

I get vassals because my allies are always fucking useless

[@Stefano-dd2sf]

Face reveal?

[@angryman132]

Also an important note, your vassals will Dev up there land sometimes, saving your mana and using theirs

[@Giganfan2k1]

Another perk I think. You can use them as buffer states. I have noticed I can't fabricate on vassles on my boarder. So: Be me. Teutonic order vassalizes Lithuania. Now Muscovy can't claim on my Eastern side. So, better relations over all. Prussia now is best of friends with Russia.

[@ceiling_cat]

4:30 4:45 maybe you just need to CUT OFF this part?

[@aarohalme1020]

Ashikaga has vassal force limit contribution national ideas.0

[@madchessLeviathan]

To bad they stopped making troops, crimea march revoke I then decided it was time to integrate them as they still did not make troops, then atleast I can build forts so the lands won't get sieged so often.

[@swetcan9268]

why you should take vassals 1. so you don't ruin your pretty borders

[@ForeverDayGreen]

Whenever i watch your videos i cannot help but feel they are poorly structured. It sometimes just sounds like you come up with points as you go along. Don't get me wrong the pure information is good and valuable but the lacking structure just makes it significantly harder for me to stay focused on them