Client State vs Direct Control Penalties

[Magnar]

The penalty for client state is -10% Political Influence

What is the penalty to direct control? That it may rebel? that chars get more power and cause instability?

Client states were rather common under Rome. If we look at the list of client kingdoms towards the end of the roman republic and beginning of the empire.

Bosporan Kingdom 47BC - 342 AD
Odrysian Kingdom 12 AD - 46 AD
Pontus 37BC -
Mauretania 30 BC? - 25bc
Numidia 30 BC? - 25bc
Armenia 33bc -
Cappadocia 51BC -
Judea 37BC -
probably others

If this historical Rome were in game @ 30BC it would have -70% Political Influence which doesnt seem right.

Are the penalties for client states too great and the penalties for direct control too small?

 

[svalan_i_dalen]

Egypt

 

[juanpacirca]

The penalty for client state is -10% Political Influence

What is the penalty to direct control? That it may rebel? that chars get more power and cause instability?

Client states were rather common under Rome. If we look at the list of client kingdoms towards the end of the roman republic and beginning of the empire.

Bosporan Kingdom 47BC - 342 AD
Odrysian Kingdom 12 AD - 46 AD
Pontus 37BC -
Mauretania 30 BC? - 25bc
Numidia 30 BC? - 25bc
Armenia 33bc -
Cappadocia 51BC -
Judea 37BC -
probably others

If this historical Rome were in game @ 30BC it would have -70% Political Influence which doesnt seem right.

Are the penalties for client states too great and the penalties for direct control too small?

If you choose the proper paths in the tech trees, national ideas and diplo stance you can accumulate many +1 diplo relation slots, so by 30 BC (end game) you might not receive any penalty for having so many client sates.

 

[Nostalgium]

Client States only give 10% Influence malus if you go over diplomatic capacity, at which point it's 10% per state over cap. If your diplo capacity is 0, you should review your strategy.

 

[Bovrick]

While the 10% malus is circumventable (as noted above), I do agree with the broad point that the balance between annexation and subjugation does lean a little too far towards the former still.

 

[Magnar]

Yeah im not saying there shouldnt be a malus to client states but more that annexation needs more malus

 

[r3xm0rt1s]

While the 10% malus is circumventable (as noted above), I do agree with the broad point that the balance between annexation and subjugation does lean a little too far towards the former still.

Taking the other empire's subjects as own subjects in peace deals is far cheaper than annexing their land though. Blob moar and faster! Similarly I could take only maybe half of a major power's land but I was at 101 warscore cost to make a satrapy of them.

 

[Nostalgium]

Yeah im not saying there shouldnt be a malus to client states but more that annexation needs more malus

I agree with this but in reverse. I don't think you need more malus for annexation - this was the era of rapid expansion, not only for Rome, but also for the Parthians, the Indo-Greeks and just a century after game ends, the Kushan Empire. Rather, I think you should be more encouraged towards Client States as a means of expansion in the first place, and as a way to get a foothold in a location where you can use diplomatic shenanigans around your clients as casus belli to properly invade non-clients in the area. This is historically what Rome and others did in both Greece, Gaul and Anatolia, and the game presently does not accurately reflect that. More ways to gain casus belli is absolutely something I'd like to see when the game gets more content. let me believe

 

[r3xm0rt1s]

I agree with this but in reverse. I don't think you need more malus for annexation - this was the era of rapid expansion, not only for Rome, but also for the Parthians, the Indo-Greeks and just a century after game ends, the Kushan Empire. Rather, I think you should be more encouraged towards Client States as a means of expansion in the first place, and as a way to get a foothold in a location where you can use diplomatic shenanigans around your clients as casus belli to properly invade non-clients in the area. This is historically what Rome and others did in both Greece, Gaul and Anatolia, and the game presently does not accurately reflect that. More ways to gain casus belli is absolutely something I'd like to see when the game gets more content. let me believe

Feeding client states to mitigate aggressive expansion is already a thing.

 

[Nostalgium]

Feeding client states to mitigate aggressive expansion is already a thing.

For sure. Not what I'm asking for though. It's not like Rome made a client out of Armenia and fed it all of Persia. They did, however, make a client of Armenia and regularly used the appointed kingship of that client as a justification to declare war on Persia proper, and which side of the war Armenia fell on depended on who was in charge at the time. Likewise, Caesar's justification for invading Gaul was the protection of a Gallic tribe, but he still took all of Gaul's land for Rome - not their client. I want the game to develop more in that direction, and that's what I mean when I say using clients diplomatically as a means to further conquest in the region: A more dynamic and interesting way to get CBs, rather than gamey AE sponges.

 

[Bovrick]

For sure. Not what I'm asking for though. It's not like Rome made a client out of Armenia and fed it all of Persia. They did, however, make a client of Armenia and regularly used the appointed kingship of that client as a justification to declare war on Persia proper, and which side of the war Armenia fell on depended on who was in charge at the time. Likewise, Caesar's justification for invading Gaul was the protection of a Gallic tribe, but he still took all of Gaul's land for Rome - not their client. I want the game to develop more in that direction, and that's what I mean when I say using clients diplomatically as a means to further conquest in the region: A more dynamic and interesting way to get CBs, rather than gamey AE sponges.

Indeed, if they can tilt the balance towards Clients being useful for other purposes (Diplomacy, interacting with the Culture mechanics, efficiency of extracting resources), then you can remove Client feeding too - which is frankly a bit of an illogical exploit. If Rome is doing the heavy lifting in conquests, even if the territory goes to a subject of Rome, everyone should know who the true threat is.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

I'd like a soldi rework of the whole wargoal/warscore/client states system.

Getting wargoals should be easier, but they should be more restrictive, and setting up client states in different culture/religion areas should be more efficient than direct annexation.

I plan to mod the whole shebang this way, roughly:
- if Country X has pops of your primary culture, you get a wargoal to annex those provinces (is it possible? unlikely)
- if Country X has pops of your primary culture GROUP, you get a wargoal to annex those provinces (is it possible? unlikely), but you have to be a Regional Power at least
- if Country X's primary culture is outside your culture group, you need to be a Major Power or upward to get claims on its territory
- if Country X has a puppet on your border, you get a wargoal to make it cancel it and/or make it yours.
- "liberate country" wargoal should be always available against same-rank or higher-rank opponents, but should cost more

Every request out of the wargoal would cost +200% warscore at least.

Pop happiness malus for wrong religion and culture should be way higher. Wrong culture GROUP even higher. This would make creating client states in poorer provinces a more sensible choice. Right now you can eat the loyalty malus and convert/assimilate/build enough buildings to offset it way before the province loyalty gets too low.


Country ranks (local, regional, major, great power) shouldn't be related to just territory number, that's silly. Number of innovations, pops, ships, legion and levy size should count, too. Client states should add a fraction of those numbers to their overlord's score.

 

[Nostalgium]

Country ranks (local, regional, major, great power) shouldn't be related to just territory number, that's silly. Number of innovations, pops, ships, legion and levy size should count, too. Client states should add a fraction of those numbers to their overlord's score.

Especially pops. I honestly don't get why pops weren't the basis for the system to begin with, since pops decide the output of a nation to a much greater degree than territory does.

 

[Jarolleon]

The penalty for client state is -10% Political Influence

What is the penalty to direct control? That it may rebel? that chars get more power and cause instability?

Client states were rather common under Rome. If we look at the list of client kingdoms towards the end of the roman republic and beginning of the empire.

Bosporan Kingdom 47BC - 342 AD
Odrysian Kingdom 12 AD - 46 AD
Pontus 37BC -
Mauretania 30 BC? - 25bc
Numidia 30 BC? - 25bc
Armenia 33bc -
Cappadocia 51BC -
Judea 37BC -
probably others

If this historical Rome were in game @ 30BC it would have -70% Political Influence which doesnt seem right.

Are the penalties for client states too great and the penalties for direct control too small?

CS are militarily stronger than direct possession because of cultural integration and province improvements, unless all their pops belong to cultures you have integrated. It takes less AE to make a client state than full annexation, and you can get a client state peacefully by improving relations if you're strong enough. They have access to an additional character pool, which means the average skill of their governors will be higher, and if your forces fight with theirs there's a chance they have higher martial characters which will take precedent when calculating battle rolls.

Also when your client state gets invaded it's not your own pops that are getting enslaved, and their provinces getting occupied does not contribute to your war exhaustion. This is why Rome is so strong from the very beginning, all the little Feudatories add up to the same strength and then some, despite occupying less land than Rome proper.

 

[Ixtli613]

CS are militarily stronger than direct possession because of cultural integration and province improvements, unless all their pops belong to cultures you have integrated. It takes less AE to make a client state than full annexation, and you can get a client state peacefully by improving relations if you're strong enough. They have access to an additional character pool, which means the average skill of their governors will be higher, and if your forces fight with theirs there's a chance they have higher martial characters which will take precedent when calculating battle rolls.

Also when your client state gets invaded it's not your own pops that are getting enslaved, and their provinces getting occupied does not contribute to your war exhaustion. This is why Rome is so strong from the very beginning, all the little Feudatories add up to the same strength and then some, despite occupying less land than Rome proper.

Not to mention the meta benefit of less micro for the player. But yeah, I love using subjects as is even if it's not optimal for the reasons above. Though better governors on average is one I hadn't thought of yet

 

[Von Consul]

I was playing a game as Gaul feudatories only to discover that there is a fundamental flaw. If your minions are tribes they will not fight very well, which will give your enemy a lot of war score as they clean up. So I would only recommend client states that are civilized and pretty advanced.

Unless anyone else has any suggestions.

 

[Godd_Howard]

Client States only give 10% Influence malus if you go over diplomatic capacity, at which point it's 10% per state over cap. If your diplo capacity is 0, you should review your strategy.

If you choose the proper paths in the tech trees, national ideas and diplo stance you can accumulate many +1 diplo relation slots, so by 30 BC (end game) you might not receive any penalty for having so many client sates.

Exactly. You are not supposed to have many powerful vassals in early game, but you also shouldn't be able to blob as fast as you can right now. With the AI that issue is 10 times worse since they have hidden buffs to keep them from collapsing.