How to transfer occupied lands to client during peace deal ?

[Molchomor]

Hi not sure if this is possible but googling it tells me it should be possible but I am unable to find out exactly how (as you know the UI is not that user-friendly).

Please see save game as example - the question is how can I transfer occupied land in the peace deal with Thrace to a client of mine and thereby avoiding me getting 80+ AE ?

(How it is even possible to get 80AE from this peace deal, where I had CB when attacking and Thrace was unfriendly so no penalty there, beats me and is just one in a constant row of annoyances with this game sadly. Yes I tried continuing with 100AE but as this is relatively early in the game the stability decrease eventually kills me off when Rome or another power attacks later and I am helpless without being able to enact the law to build legions etc. Not to mention other penalties as research and discontent. As this is early in the game temples/theatres are not build up yet).

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[The_Sound_Of_Violence]

Have you tried transferring the occupation of those provinces to your client before entering the peace deal menu?

 

[Molchomor]

How do I do that ?

 

[The_Sound_Of_Violence]

There should be an icon in the menu of each territory that you occupy, somewhere on the top left, if I remember correctly ( I don't use it very often).

 

[Todie]

if you intend to transfer entire provinces and not just single territories, ceding the occupation of province capitals will do the trick (saving you many clicks)

 

[Torugu]

First of all, here is the button to transfer occupation. It's enough to transfer the capital of each province you want to give to your subjects.

Spoiler

That said, vassal feeding isn't a great way to reduce aggressive expansion in this game.

But since you were kind enough to provide a safe game, let me give you a few pieces of advice:

1) You are annexing extremely wealthy lands - almost 900 pops. And you're doing so with almost no claims. Of course you are going to incur massive AE. Personally I think it's the easiest and most efficient to just manage your AE properly. But if you want to avoid AE altogether you need to fabricate more than one puny claim.

2) You're doing stability wrong. Your stability should be high at the start of the war. That way it doesn't matter if you take a lot of aggressive expansion. Your stability will still be nice and high at the end of the war. Stability is the most important use of PI in Imperator. You should always have one stack of stability increase, and before major wars like your Thracian one you want to stack multiple stab increases so you can get stability up to around 70. (Just remember to only add a stack just before the previous one is about to expire). If you manage your stability properly your AE will be gone by the time stability is back down to 50. [This one is in bold and brightly coloured, because this is the root of your problems. Everything else is just icing on the cake]

3) You are in Mercantile stance. That stance is only useful if you're playing tall. If you're expanding aggressively you want to use Bellicose or Appeasing at all times (Ideally Bellicose while making peace and Appeasing while you are at peace - but switching is expensive so often I just stick to Appeasing permanently).

4) Diplomatic Reputation gives a non insignificant amount of AE decay. I see that you have take a lot of AE reduction techs (which is fine), but you have avoided dip rep tech, many of which are just as good or better for handling AE.

5) Your Tropheus should be your Epiproxenus and your Oratory Research should be your Tropheus. Epiproxenos (AE change) is the most important office and should always be held by your highest oratory*statesmanship character. The other oratory job (Tropheus) is a training ground for your next Epiproxenous. (Technically you could use other government offices or training, but I find it much easier to keep track this way).

6) Your Tyranny is at 0. I know that sounds like a good thing, but Tyranny gives a substantial amount of AE change. At 35 Tyranny you get -0.14 AE per month. That's the same you're getting from your Epiproxenos. And in practice there are very few downsides to a bit of Tyranny. Use Invoke Devotio to get free Tyranny instantly. As an added bonus this will also make your War Exhaustion evaporate.

7) Remember that the main problem with low stability is that it reduces happiness. That means a great way to counter low stability is to invest in things (inventions, buildings, decisions etc.) that increase happiness. (Oh, and one thing that even many more experienced players overlook: Civilisation value is another great way to raise happiness.)

Not directly related to AE/stability:

8) You almost always want to use high army maintenance while at war. The Benefits are well worth the cost.

9) You have the religious conversion law, but half of your deities are non-Hellenic. This is a bit like pressing down the gas pedal with the handbreak on. You're getting +30% conversion speed from the law, but -40% from having two mismatched gods. If you're planning to convert most of your empire (usually a good idea), always make sure you only have state religion deities in your pantheon. Or at least don't waste stability and PI on changing to the religious law until you have change your deities.

10) You don't need the law to raise legions. Legions are a bit of a newbie trap in that they are much more of a side grade than you would think. I would even go so far as to say that most of the time no legions or just one legion from Royal Army are the best options, while the ability yo make legions freely is extremely situational. (Mostly useful if you have a populous, integrated area that is very far away from the frontlines - e.g. if you're playing as Kush and you have complete control of Egypt and Arabia.)

11) If you're struggling militarily, there are a ton of non-integrated pops that you could be using for your armies. Median and Aramaic each have 500-600 pops that you're "wasting".

12) Checking only your capital: It has a ton of libraries, but no Academies or Courts of Law. This is just completely backwards: Not only are academies and cours better than libraries; the main usage of libraries is to buff your nobles and citizens. Of which you won't have any if you don't build academies and courts of law first.


Hope that helps, Imperator is an amazing game. But it's quite a handful to learn, so don't be discouraged just because everything doesn't work out right away.

 

[Molchomor]

Thanks!, I found the button to transfer occupation (means maany clicks to do it for all sadly).

But I cannot find the button to "Cede ocupation of province" ? If I transfer the occupation of the capital it will just transfer occupation of that single territory.

 

[Torugu]

Thanks!, I found the button to transfer occupation (means maany clicks to do it for all sadly).

But I cannot find the button to "Cede ocupation of province" ? If I transfer the occupation of the capital it will just transfer occupation of that single territory.

When you're negotiating peace the province goes to whomever controls the province capital. Just make sure you're transferring the entire province rather then the individual territories.

Edit: You'll be able to tell by the colour on the map when you're in the province screen.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Hi not sure if this is possible but googling it tells me it should be possible but I am unable to find out exactly how (as you know the UI is not that user-friendly).

Please see save game as example - the question is how can I transfer occupied land in the peace deal with Thrace to a client of mine and thereby avoiding me getting 80+ AE ?

(How it is even possible to get 80AE from this peace deal, where I had CB when attacking and Thrace was unfriendly so no penalty there, beats me and is just one in a constant row of annoyances with this game sadly. Yes I tried continuing with 100AE but as this is relatively early in the game the stability decrease eventually kills me off when Rome or another power attacks later and I am helpless without being able to enact the law to build legions etc. Not to mention other penalties as research and discontent. As this is early in the game temples/theatres are not build up yet).

Thanks in advance!!!

Click on the provincial capital and then the icon with the arrow on the image below below the word CITY OF...

Spoiler: Transfer Occupation

PS, you should start integration of your client states as you have too many and are getting -80% PI. Click the Influence Actions button & Start Integration.

Spoiler: Integrate

 

[Torugu]

PS, you should start integration of your client states as you have too many and are getting -80% PI. Click the Influence Actions button & Start Integration.

Spoiler: Integrate

View attachment 703262

Holy shit, that's crippling! I completely missed that.

Integration isn't going to save you here. At this point you have to release Gandhara, Adiabene, Ferghana and Tyanitis. Also cancel the guarantee on Armenia of course. That should leave you at -30% PI gain, which will become -10% in 3 years time (once the two countries you are integrating finished). Don't bother finishing the integration of Adiabene, it's gonna take too much time.

You could also swtich to Neutral Stance, but you're gonna appeasing stance to deal with the AE from integrating Thrace.

Alternatively, you could give up on taking Thrace's land (dismantle them instead). Honestly, you were in no position to declare that war to begin with, you needed to fix your domestic situation first. But now that you've already won the war I think it's better to just give up on all those pointless clients and try to deal with the fallout.

Spoiler: Antiochos II Seleucid Declares War on Thrace, Seleuceia, 502 AUC

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Holy shit, that's crippling! I completely missed that.

Integration isn't going to save you here. At this point you have to release Gandhara, Adiabene, Ferghana and Tyanitis. Also cancel the guarantee on Armenia of course. That should leave you at -30% PI gain, which will become -10% in 3 years time (once the two countries you are integrating finished). Don't bother finishing the integration of Adiabene, it's gonna take too much time.

You could also swtich to Neutral Stance, but you're gonna appeasing stance to deal with the AE from integrating Thrace.

Alternatively, you could give up on taking Thrace's land (dismantle them instead). Honestly, you were in no position to declare that war to begin with, you needed to fix your domestic situation first. But now that you've already won the war I think it's better to just give up on all those pointless clients and try to deal with the fallout.

I seem to have completely missed your 12 point post as well. I must have been writing mine when yours posted.

In addition to Torugu's points, if I were to offer a root cause analysis for your woes it would not be your reliance on clients, it would be not utilizing them correctly.

In the beginning of the game, set all clients to integration & simultaneously have the clients annex most all the land while they integrate. You'd also want to increase your diplomatic reputation (which increases integration speed by .05 per point), go Domineering Stance (+.25 integration speed), and take the Temple of Zeus (+.5 integration speed). It's a bit late to start this with this game though and you're at the point where you need to deal with the fallout rather than avoid the fallout.

Again, you have the right idea & if you use client states to annex territories you can avoid AE and your stability will naturally gravitate towards 50. You just have too many and need to integrate ASAP (edit: and as Torugu mentioned drop guarantee & release a few small clients). With client states, you don't need to waste PI on multiple claims either. 1 claim, trigger the enemy, and annex with a client state.

In the mid & endgame, once you reach a critical mass (ie. have technologies that will enable you to run a high AE) just go and never stop. The prime tech that will allow unrestricted 90+ AE warring is Militant Epicureanism (+10 stability for desecrating a holy site).

 

[Molchomor]

OK thanks for the tips and game insights (for some I wonder why I never get any prominent warnings in the UI) !

However, I still feel that this is annoying and bad game design if the already huge seleucid empire, from a good position where stability is 50+ at start of war with good economics and other stats, would disintegrate and fail if conquering a quarter of present-day Turkey without the elaborate, super expensive, time-consuming and micormanagement-heavy preparations you describe.... maybe it is just me, I get the feeling I need to do an excel macro to tell me 10+ years in advance what to do and when before starting a comparatively small war...

- Yes I have mercantile mainly to make Maruya, Egypt, Rome, Armenia a bit less inclined to attack me and also to fund building of temples/theaters. It is too expensive to switch around as PI is scarce. But maybe appeasing is the way to go instead, I have used that in previous games as Rome with good result but I was just not prepared for this 80+ AE shock in the peace treaty or I would have changed that already...normally I can lower it pretty good with normal means, when I am stronger and ready to take on the major powers,and have most building built, I planned to change it to Appeasing from Mercantile.

- Yes I have too many clients and am aware of this as the more or less hidden "transfer occupation" option (one of which I still have not found, the one that transfers the occupation of the whole province) was unknown to me. I regularly integrate most of them when I can (need to wait 10 years before the integration can start, then it takes some more years for it to finish). Kept some close to Maruya as a deterrent and rapid-response force though as my levies and legion are all the way to the west. Apart fro mthe delays in integrating I also got alot of new clients that are created when an existing client rebel and I occupy it (but as I know now of the transfer button I will transfer them back to their old master).

- Yes I normally have the guy with the highest stat in the office to reduce AE, at the moment of the save it would not matter to change this at all but as soon as a better one (10 or better stat) apperas then it would be worthwhile to change which I do regularly. Did not help me however I can say for the 100 AE I got, I then had a guy with 11 stat in charge of that.


- DId not know about diplomatic rep. reducing AE, thanks! I guess this is why appeasing stance is preferable to mercantile then ?

- OK, so you should strive to 70+ stability before war, I normally try to hold it between 50-60 to avoid micromanagement too much and also the 50 PI cost for sacrifice is something that I can in no way affort early game) to but that clearly is not enough.

- OK, so one claim is not enough, but to produce like 10 claims would be a gamebreaker for me as it would take many years with too much PI (100-200) that is very hard to get, and I would frankly fall asleep in the process to prepare for wars. Imagine this, the soldiers are ready to go but they need to wait 10 years to get the PI and claims ? This feels like joke frankly. Also, consider that even the war goal in the save (Mysia Inferiosis) gives 5 AE, so assuming that even if I would have produced a ton of claims I would still get at least 50AE from the peace ? All in all I do not see that this proposal is feasible ?

- Most of the suggestions (e.g. change deity - cost 15 stab, building temples/theatres - lots of money) involve a very high cost and in early game you cannot fulfill them all at the same time (researching diplo bonuses, temples, happiness,....) and also in some cases much more micromanagement, but I guess I will need to have a look...good point about the deities, did not know there is a such a penalty and who knows where the UI informs you on that

- Yes too many libraries and other crap buildings are present in some cities but this was the situation from the start (only libraries that I ever built was for missions) which is part of the reason for mercantile, to fund the good buuildings. I also tried to reach Urban planning so I can build temples/theatres using the added slots instead of tearing down existing building but perhaps that was the wrong way, but maybe I should have tried to get that diplo bonues instead that you suggested....

- Yes I regularly use the "invoke devotio" option to add tyranny to keep the AE down when it is very high, but it is not enough if the peace treaty adds 80 AE of course (I tried that)

- Yes I could integrate more but from start 3 cultures were already integrated and I wanted to convert/assimilate instead of integrating e.g. the two other ones you mention - the penalties would be too high, but maybe I was wrong there. In either case as Seleucid the distances are so large that I feel I need to have legions as the levies have too far to march and I also need to keep them raised alot longer, further reducing the economy.

 

[Molchomor]

When you're negotiating peace the province goes to whomever controls the province capital. Just make sure you're transferring the entire province rather then the individual territories.

Edit: You'll be able to tell by the colour on the map when you're in the province screen.

Aha! OK thanks!!!!!

 

[Molchomor]

I seem to have completely missed your 12 point post as well. I must have been writing mine when yours posted.

In addition to Torugu's points, if I were to offer a root cause analysis for your woes it would not be your reliance on clients, it would be not utilizing them correctly.

In the beginning of the game, set all clients to integration & simultaneously have the clients annex most all the land while they integrate. You'd also want to increase your diplomatic reputation (which increases integration speed by .05 per point), go Domineering Stance (+.25 integration speed), and take the Temple of Zeus (+.5 integration speed). It's a bit late to start this with this game though and you're at the point where you need to deal with the fallout rather than avoid the fallout.

Again, you have the right idea & if you use client states to annex territories you can avoid AE and your stability will naturally gravitate towards 50. You just have too many and need to integrate ASAP (edit: and as Torugu mentioned drop guarantee & release a few small clients). With client states, you don't need to waste PI on multiple claims either. 1 claim, trigger the enemy, and annex with a client state.

In the mid & endgame, once you reach a critical mass (ie. have technologies that will enable you to run a high AE) just go and never stop. The prime tech that will allow unrestricted 90+ AE warring is Militant Epicureanism (+10 stability for desecrating a holy site).

Thanks! Will do this, in fact that is why I asked this question this is what I wanted to do but could not find the option where a client occupies land.

Yes as I expanded fast (racing for Greece before Rome gets there to get those macedonian pops) and there is a huge delay in integrating clients, and also wanting to keep some close to Maryua, and due to them multiplying when they rebel as I did not know about the button to transfer occupation, the situation got a bit out of hand. But I am integrating them continously to get more PIs.

I'll try to save the situation from the point of the savegame, should be easy peasy from this point as the AE will go to the clients I am already integrating So the plan is to, as the Stability will not take a huge hit from the AE anymore, to reasearch diplo bonuses after I get Urban planning and also to kick out the deities that are not Hellenic cost for that is 2x -15 stab penalty) .To start with.

 

[Torugu]

OK thanks for the tips and game insights (for some I wonder why I never get any prominent warnings in the UI) !

However, I still feel that this is annoying and bad game design if the already huge seleucid empire, from a good position where stability is 50+ at start of war with good economics and other stats, would disintegrate and fail if conquering a quarter of present-day Turkey without the elaborate, super expensive, time-consuming and micormanagement-heavy preparations you describe.... maybe it is just me, I get the feeling I need to do an excel macro to tell me 10+ years in advance what to do and when before starting a comparatively small war...

- Yes I have mercantile mainly to make Maruya, Egypt, Rome, Armenia a bit less inclined to attack me and also to fund building of temples/theaters. It is too expensive to switch around as PI is scarce. But maybe appeasing is the way to go instead.

- Yes I have too many clients and am aware of this as the more or less hidden "transfer occupation" option (one of which I still have not found, the one that transfers the occupation of the whole province) was unknown to me. I regularly integrate most of them when I can (need to wait 10 years before the integration can start, then it kaes some more years for it to finish). Kept some close to Maruya as a deterrent and rapid-response force though as my levies and legion are all the way to the west. Apart fro mthe delays in integrating I also got alot of new clients that are created when an existing client rebel and I occupy it (but as I know now of the transfer button I will transfer them nack to their old master).

- Yes I normally have the guy with the highest stat in the office to reduce AE, at the moment of the save it would not matter to change this at all but as soon as a better one (10 or better stat) apperas then it would be worthwhile to change which I do regularly. Did not help me however I can say for the 100 AE I got, I then had a guy with 11 stat in charge of that.


- DId not know about diplomatic rep. reducing AE, thanks! I guess this is why appeasing stance is preferable to mercantile then ?

- OK, so you should strive to 70+ stability before war, I normally try to hold it between 50-60 to avoid micromanagement too much and also the 50 PI cost for sacrifice is something that I can in no way affort early game) to but that clearly is not enough.

- OK, so one claim is not enough, but to produce like 10 claims would be a gamebreaker for me as it would take many years with too much PI (100-200) that is very hard to get, and I would frankly fall asleep in the process to prepare for wars. Imagine this, the soldiers are ready to go but they need to wait 10 years to get the PI and claims ? This feels like joke frankly. Also, consider that even the war goal in the save (Mysia Inferiosis) gives 5 AE, so assuming that even if I would have produced a ton of claims I would still get at least 50AE from the peace ? All in all I do not see that this proposal is feasible ?

- Most of the suggestions (e.g. change deity - cost 15 stab, building temples/theatres - lots of money) involve a very high cost and in early game you cannot fulfill them all at the same time (researching diplo bonuses, temples, happiness,....) and also in some cases much more micromanagement, but I guess I will need to have a look...good point about the deities, did not know there is a such a penalty and who knows where the UI informs you on that

- Yes too many libraries and other crap buildings are present in some cities but this was the situation from the start (only libraries that I ever built was for missions) which is part of the reason for mercantile, to fund the good buuildings. I also tried to reach Urban planning so I can build temples/theatres using the added slots instead of tearing down existing building but perhaps that was the wrong way, but maybe I should have tried to get that diplo bonues instead....

- Yes I regularly use the "invoke devotio" option to add tyranny to keep the AE down when it is very high, but it is not enough if the peace treaty adds 80 AE of course (I tried that)

- Yes I could integrate more but from start 3 cultures were already integrated and I wanted to convert/assimilate instead of integrating e.g. the two other ones you mention - the penalties would be too high, but maybe I was wrong there. In either case as Seleucid the distances are so large that I feel I need to have legions as the levies have too far to march and I also need to keep them raised alot longer, further reducing the economy.

I really need to get back to work, so excuse me if I'm not replying to each point individually. Here are a few overall comments though:

Your biggest mistake BY FAR is that -80% penalty on PI gain. When I wrote my original response I was actually wondering why you said you were struggling so much with the 100 AE. That amount of AE should be managable on 45 stability. It won't be pretty, and I wouldn't advice it. But it shouldn't be campaign ending. But 100 AE, 45 stability AND -80% PI GAIN. Yeah, I don't think there is a way out of that. Without PI there is no way to get your stability back up, so you end up stuck at zero for a looong time.

On a more general level: PI is the most valuable resource in this game. And the primary use of PI is to raise your stability. The 50 PI for the basic stability increase is something that you should always budget for. The 100 for the next stack is more situational, but worth using before major wars. Here is post on reddit that I wrote a while ago on how to manage PI. (Of course not all of this will apply to you, because I didn't write it with your save in mind):

Spoiler: PI

PI is the most valuable resource in the game.

You can give all your office holders free hands which tends to bumb up your PI gain at relatively little cost. And you're going to want to focus PI gain techs in tech tree - basically all of them are worth going for. Ultimately you should be able to get around 2.5 PI per month,

On the other hand, you can keep your PI spending down:

• Get PI cost reduction techs before you found cities and don't change governour policies unnecessarily.
• Never stab up more than once - if you are going for more than one stack of stability increase wait until just before the first stab increase modifier runs out before you stab up again. This way you get the most stability for your PI investment.
• Don't waste PI on overpriced, useless bonuses. Government interactions are a waste unless absolutely necessary (say to prevent a civil war). Metropolis status and deification are way overpriced and for RP purposes only (except maybe one metro in your capital).
• Obviously always pick decisions that let you save PI or stability at the cost of money etc.
• Often sticking with the laws you have is better than switching, simply because the cost of changing to an only marginally better law is too high.
• Don't waste PI on claims. Claims are obviously necessary for expansion, but often you can go to war with 5 or more countries using a single claim if you pick the right target. Also, remember that claims can be reused to declare war on a large country multiple times, as long as you don't actually take the claimed province. Take free claims wherever you can find them (especially from the government interaction and the "Matter of" missions.

There is more, but by now you should get the drift.

Also, taking most of Asia minor is not a "relatively small war". You're taking an area almost 1/6th of your entire, already very large empire (by population, which is what matters). I think the trap here is that Western Asia minor is quite highly developed, so it's easy to underestimate how populous it is. You don't need to prepare for the war for decades, but you do need to keep up with your stability etc. while you are doing other things. Imperator is a game in which you need to think ahead quite a bit because decision that you make take effect slowly over time.

Feel free to drop another save here when you continue the campaign, it was actually pretty fun to look at.


Edit: Just for clarification: I don't recommend integrating more pop right now. I pretty much agree with your logic why you didn't. But you mentioned that you were losing wars to Rome later on, so I wanted to point out that if you need more soldiers, you can probably almost double the number of soldiers you have if you integrate the right cultures.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

So the plan is to, as the Stability will not take a huge hit from the AE anymore, to reasearch diplo bonuses after I get Urban planning and also to kick out the deities that are not Hellenic cost for that is 2x -15 stab penalty) .To start with.

I just finished a wide Seleukid campaign myself and was never able to properly build out my cities due to lack of gold. A foundry, temple & theater was about all I could afford (and this only in selected large pop cap cities I would manually move slaves into).

Summary: If your campaign progresses is anything like mine relative to gold (specifically lack thereof), Urban Planning may not be quite as useful in practice as it may sound on paper.