Annexing & Completely conquer a country

**Arakorn** · May 29, 2007, 10:50 AM

Playing with Denmark since start of the game (1453), I've now completely conquered Sweden. Norway had one province but fortunately it rebelled and I sieged it before they could, so now I got all of theirs. (I've also annexed Bremen; they declared war on me so I had temporary Casus Belli).

Now, if I sue for peace with Sweden, the "annex"-option is greyed out. How come I can't annex them? Also forcing vassaliation plus a few provinces etc (quite many actually

) are rejected.

What options do I have besides annexing/how can I annex them??

**Seleucus I Nicator** · May 29, 2007, 11:38 AM

I also wonder how to annex when it is greyed out. I have in my Russian campaign completely conquered Kazan, and when I try to turn them into a vassal and have all of their provinces but Kazan they keep rejecting it. So it would be great to figure out if there's any way I can completely annex their lands.

**Arakorn** · May 29, 2007, 12:13 PM

Read on the official forums that in order to be able to annex a country (when at war), the other faction can only have one province (eg Bremen in my example). So, what I need to do is take a few of the Swedish settlements in a truce (warscore 100%), then get Casus Belli or them to attack me (they don't even have an army!), then truce again at which point they have only Stockholm left, then when I get casus belli/they declare war, I invade stockholm and annex Sweden! Simple? Would be, except for declaring war without losing stability by 6 points!

**Carach** · May 29, 2007, 12:19 PM

u can only fully annex the native americans, pretty much everyone else that i know of require u to grind them down bit by bit to the point thatthey are 1 province (at which point u can annex)

u can speed this process up by turbo-annexing land (taking every province bar their capital, then sending spies into it and getting/waiting for it to rebel etc, when it does it signs a truce automatically and u gain all their provinces bar that capital)

**Spart** · May 29, 2007, 01:42 PM

Or get them to accept vassalage at truce. Then ally, get a royal marriage, wait for the relations to improve, and diplo-annex.

**Francisco Montana** · May 30, 2007, 08:48 AM

Originally Posted by Spart

Or get them to accept vassalage at truce. Then ally, get a royal marriage, wait for the relations to improve, and diplo-annex.

But if they are vassaled they can't enter royal marriages. At least that's one problem I ran into.

**Arakorn** · May 30, 2007, 08:32 AM

Meh...

I was told the diplomacy in EU3 > diplomacy in M2TW but apparently I can't see much difference...

I mean what is the point in not being able to annex a country when you fully occupy it and have every single of their cities?

I don't have spies either (how do I get them? Am at year 1460 BTW), and I don't want to have too much peace/alliance with them!

Meh, how can I get casus belli with them or get them to attack me? It seems like the only option I've got...

**Spart** · May 30, 2007, 08:56 AM

Dang, I was wrong. You'll only need to have a vassal for 10 years and have great relations, then you can ask for annexation.

**John I Tzimisces** · May 30, 2007, 10:31 AM

You don't need a royal marriage to annex a vassal. You just need them in a royal marriage to *ask* them to be your vassal (aka bring them under your dependence). If you cannot send a royal marriage you must force them to be your vassal, which is admittedly a lot more satisfying at times. Merchant republics must do that, they don't have a monarchy to speak of.

As for the slow annexation progress, well, you're only at 1460. The way annexation and diplomacy is set up keeps the ottomans or french from conquering the entire map. At least the way the ottoman AI is set up (albeit annoyingly), it'd be going for germany first, after it's through with poor feeble austria (though admittedly austria gets uber too sometimes...).

**Arakorn** · May 30, 2007, 10:47 AM

I finally got Casus Belli against Sweden (an event popped up about the difficult in defining borders. I had 2 options, 1: Push the matter, which leads to me gaining Österbotten as a Core province, but relations with Sweden decrease, and 2: Leave it and suffer a -1 penalty to reputation. Needless to say I chose option 1.

) But now when declaring war I get a -5 Balance because of "breaking the truce". Will it ever stop, or will it always be there (eg after 10 years or so)??

Oh and another thing about trade: Why do my merchants always fade away from the CoT's (Lybeck and Novgorod)? I'd understand it if they'd be compted away but 1) there's no message telling about this and 2) even if I have 2 or 3 merchants there they always disappear!

Damn, this trading system is also worse than in M2TW!

Meh, I'll just try a mod then, any recommendations? At this point I'm leaning towards Magna Mundi...

**Spart** · May 30, 2007, 10:56 AM

Trade system is pretty annoying. Don't bother with it, unless you have lots of extra merchants, a fairly empty center of trade or a CoT of your own. Merchants really should be automated..

And about your war.. Wait for the truce to expire, it shouldn't take that long. Your core will stay there for a while. Is it 10 or 20 years..?

**Carach** · May 30, 2007, 01:03 PM

the expansion sorts out merchants soon. best thing to do is go for production rather than trade - i gear my countries far more towards production than trade. Once you become all powerful (controlling more cots etc) and have far more cash than anyone else to invest in research u can just blitzreig the trade tech up and then spam merchants at the cots one by one, taking them over.

**scottishranger** · May 30, 2007, 01:55 PM

The truce stays in place for 2 year, mainly to prevent you from reattacking a country just after a war was concluded. Most of the time a core will stay in a foreign land for 30 years of undisputed control.

**John I Tzimisces** · May 30, 2007, 05:01 PM

50 years. This however is moddable.

**Arakorn** · May 31, 2007, 12:35 AM

The truce stays for 50 years!?

Meh... If I mod the game, I gotta start a new game, right? Are there any good tutorials then?

**Francisco Montana** · May 31, 2007, 12:58 AM

Yea, I agree 50 years is excessive. But, considering the dude who made the mod has played the game 1000X longer than I have, well, I'm going to trust him on this one for now.

**John I Tzimisces** · May 31, 2007, 01:11 AM

Cores, not truces! They stay 50 in vanilla and 100 in ID!

**Arakorn** · May 31, 2007, 04:50 AM

Ah, OK. But what about truces then?

**John I Tzimisces** · May 31, 2007, 05:42 AM

I'm actually unsure. I think they're 2 years, but I'm not really sure. It might be as long as five, but I could be confusing various games.

**Arakorn** · May 31, 2007, 07:44 AM

Well, the truce expired apparently (only suffered a -1 stability penalty because of same religion), and I took every city but their capital. Next time I get casus belli/they attack me it's annexation time!