How much expansion is still playing tall?

[ProgramTheta]

Ik you can either play wide(expansionist) or tall but, how small is still tall? Do you still expand continuously over the course of the game when playing tall, just way less and more focused on devving, or do you expand like almost not at all?

[Azunai]

there is no clear line between "tall" and "wide". in my book any country that fully consists of states (no territories / trade companies) can still be considered "tall". but that's just my private definition, not a general consensus

[Tasty Bunny]

Actually it seems like developers themselves are about to defining(sorta) how much wide is still "tall" in next patch. According to what is known looks like it will be somewhere around 5~6 states nation at maximum.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

It mostly comes down to subjects.


Do you integrate subjects or keep them?

Tall generally only expands a small amount (if at all) before they switch to subjects for spreading influence that they never integrate.

Wide typically just uses subjects as a tool for balancing expansion costs but plans to eventually integrate as many as possible.


In the past, the two "tall" governments were typically around 20 or so provinces before they started throwing on penalties.

[Medicles]

I would say up to 1000 dev to still be able to become an empire, but nothing more.

[pmpdadypenguinmn]

This was my last "tall" game. I played as Ulm. Stayed an opm and expanded with vassals only. No hre, regular vassals. In my opinion if you own less than the land I took with my vassals, you are playing tall.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2033324991

[KernelPopcorn]

Originally posted by pmpdadypenguinmn:

This was my last "tall" game. I played as Ulm. Stayed an opm and expanded with vassals only. No hre, regular vassals. In my opinion if you own less than the land I took with my vassals, you are playing tall.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2033324991

How did you keep them all loyal?

[pmpdadypenguinmn]

Originally posted by Big Chinggis:

Originally posted by pmpdadypenguinmn:

This was my last "tall" game. I played as Ulm. Stayed an opm and expanded with vassals only. No hre, regular vassals. In my opinion if you own less than the land I took with my vassals, you are playing tall.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2033324991

How did you keep them all loyal?

Stacked liberty desire modifiers. I even took expansion and naval ideas even though I couldnt colonize or have a navy because it gave a lib desire policy. There was a period of time of like 50 years where I couldnt expand at all and spend the entire time just fighting humiliate rival wars so my vassals would lose troops just to help keep them loyal. The hardest part was relative force limit of the vassals compared to my own. As an opm even with 100+ dev my manpower gain was only like 300 a month. So shortly into the run I couldn't actually fight in the wars myself because I needed every ounce of manpower to keep building troops and constantly slacken standards for infantry just to keep building troops. In the end I had roughly a million soldiers just sitting around while my vassals fought the wars.

[Razor Feather]

Tall is a very nebulous term, with no clear, consistently agreed upon definition. Ultimately it tends to just come down to “are you intentionally limiting your direct expansion in some way”, be it by trying to stay below a certain province count, trying to keep everythig states, staying below an amount of dev, using loads and loads of vassals, etc. If you consider whatever you are doing to be “tall” play, it probably counts.

[Mr.M]

Originally posted by Big Chinggis:

Originally posted by pmpdadypenguinmn:

This was my last "tall" game. I played as Ulm. Stayed an opm and expanded with vassals only. No hre, regular vassals. In my opinion if you own less than the land I took with my vassals, you are playing tall.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2033324991

How did you keep them all loyal?

...shouldnt be too hard.

-100% from Spamming Prestige, -100% from developing provinces, -100% from paying loans and you are good to go.

Stack vassal tax modifiers and they will barely make any money;

[Donathan Cheadledge]

if you've not turned into a behemothic mess that makes the world map look cursed then it's still tall

[somethingoffensive]

Originally posted by pmpdadypenguinmn:

Originally posted by Big Chinggis:

How did you keep them all loyal?

Stacked liberty desire modifiers. I even took expansion and naval ideas even though I couldnt colonize or have a navy because it gave a lib desire policy. There was a period of time of like 50 years where I couldnt expand at all and spend the entire time just fighting humiliate rival wars so my vassals would lose troops just to help keep them loyal. The hardest part was relative force limit of the vassals compared to my own. As an opm even with 100+ dev my manpower gain was only like 300 a month. So shortly into the run I couldn't actually fight in the wars myself because I needed every ounce of manpower to keep building troops and constantly slacken standards for infantry just to keep building troops. In the end I had roughly a million soldiers just sitting around while my vassals fought the wars.

Lmao that's awesome. It looks like you have ~20 vassals how did you have enough diplo points? Would making your vassals marches have eased your manpower issues?

[Turenne]

The nuance between the two is difficult to establish in reality and it is more the way a players do it rather than a general definition, for me anything is "tall" when the country is developed (30 dev, 10/10/10 for each provinces) and has sort of a "historical vibe", for exemple playing Japan, develop it and never expand outside the archipelago is tall or playing the Netherlands, develop the low lands region and never expand outiside it aswell as conquering Indonesia (you will not develop Indonesia of course, only the mainland) is still tall because you have that historic "thing" even if theses islands are just trade companies, not your religion, your culture etc...

[pmpdadypenguinmn]

Originally posted by col.s.ward:

Originally posted by pmpdadypenguinmn:

Stacked liberty desire modifiers. I even took expansion and naval ideas even though I couldnt colonize or have a navy because it gave a lib desire policy. There was a period of time of like 50 years where I couldnt expand at all and spend the entire time just fighting humiliate rival wars so my vassals would lose troops just to help keep them loyal. The hardest part was relative force limit of the vassals compared to my own. As an opm even with 100+ dev my manpower gain was only like 300 a month. So shortly into the run I couldn't actually fight in the wars myself because I needed every ounce of manpower to keep building troops and constantly slacken standards for infantry just to keep building troops. In the end I had roughly a million soldiers just sitting around while my vassals fought the wars.

Lmao that's awesome. It looks like you have ~20 vassals how did you have enough diplo points? Would making your vassals marches have eased your manpower issues?

Part of the challenge I set for myself was I had to stay a free city republic, meaning I couldn't take any land for myself in a peace deal even if I was handing it directly off since I would lose my free city status. Also meaning I had to stay republic so I couldn't be tempted with PU's. Since I was a republic I never had less than 4 diplo and when I did have a ruler with 4 in dip it only lasted 3 years. Then just diplo focus with a rank 5 advisor.

And no I couldn't make them marches. It wouldn't have helped my manpower at all but it would've been a massive loss of income and the marches would field more troops which would have given everyone more lib desire. I needed the income to pay for my own troops and the money to build barracks, temples and manufactories in the vassals so they had the manpower and money to keep going. Also needed the money to constantly pay off their debt since you can't ever let them go into a debt spiral

I initially intended to try to just conquer the HRE since that's all I thought I would be able to, but I took so much more. Right now I'm trying a custom nation opm and trying to do a world conquest while staying an opm.

[Mr.M]

Originally posted by pmpdadypenguinmn:

...

I am trying it myself right now and you can actually take provinces in peace deals for yourself.

Since peace is instant now you just need to pause and release/give away the provinces instantly and you keep Free City status.

I am trying on top to make every vassal a republic ;p

[pmpdadypenguinmn]

Originally posted by MrMonokel2000:

Originally posted by pmpdadypenguinmn:

...

I am trying it myself right now and you can actually take provinces in peace deals for yourself.

Since peace is instant now you just need to pause and release/give away the provinces instantly and you keep Free City status.

I am trying on top to make every vassal a republic ;p

That's good to know, but that run was done on the previous patch. If I had done it on this patch I would've been able to take alot more since you can take the strong dutchies policy and vassals get lib desire reduction from being handed off provinces in a peace deal. Theoretically in this patch you can take twice as much land as I did in that run if you are able to keep the lib desire reduction from being given provinces high