Syrian Liberty Desire - can't get it to lower

[Antiquarianus]

I want to do a Mamluk I have tried giving it land, royal marrying, giving gifts of money, but no matter what I do Syrian liberty desire will not get below 52% before rebounding to 59% or more. How do I get the liberty desire down so I can get to work absorbing Syria?

[Mason]

Could try developing their provinces.

[Antiquarianus]

Originally posted by Mason:

Could try developing their provinces.

Thanks....been a long time since I played and I can't remember everything!

[Narrowmind]

You probably don't want to develop their provinces... The main way to lower it is to grow. You can also placate the rulers, but don't develop unless it's an emergency.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by Narrowmind:

You probably don't want to develop their provinces... The main way to lower it is to grow. You can also placate the rulers, but don't develop unless it's an emergency.

This. Save your precious monarch points for yourself instead. Lower liberty desire by getting huge, both economically and militarily. On top of that, max relations, placate if you're at the prestige cap, annex other vassals that aren't rebellious, pay off their loans, reconquer their cores, and so on. Developing vassals is never necessary--I've done it exactly zero times in 6500+ hours of EU4 play. There are always other, better ways.

[alation13]

Wouldn't developing their provinces actually INCREASE their liberty desire?

[Poil]

Originally posted by alation13:

Wouldn't developing their provinces actually INCREASE their liberty desire?

In the long term, yes. Short term you get a temporary boost to lower liberty desire.

[alation13]

Originally posted by Poil:

Originally posted by alation13:

Wouldn't developing their provinces actually INCREASE their liberty desire?

In the long term, yes. Short term you get a temporary boost to lower liberty desire.

Still not worth the monarch points. You could invest the same number in your own provinces and have the double bonus of having a higher development ratio as well as being able to invest more into a military to increase the military ratio vs the vassal as well.
Both will lower the liberty desire.

Better yet, if you have monarch points to spare, turn the vassal into a march, then take the stability hit when you want to annex the vassal at a later date.

[Damedius]

I haven't played the Mamluks in awhile but you could do it at the start by taking the noble privilege to reduce liberty desire. Just leave the event open when it pops. After the first month, royal marry, complete the mission and then do the event.

This lets you expand where the Ottomans are going to want expand before they do.

[RCMidas]

You don't even need to do that. Before you unpause: hire a Statesman, assign the Strong Duchies (Nobility) and the Religious Diplomats (Clergy) privileges; then Placate Ruler once. If you want positive Prestige after doing this, assign the Patronage of Arts (Burghers) privilege. You'll lose some tax income, but the Mamluks start in a respectable location and at a respectable size for production and trade anyway.

You still have to wait nearly 9 years before you can annex them anyway, which is plenty of time to expand into Arabia, return Rakka to them for extra trust and liberty desire reduction, and so on.

In fact, for bonus points you can nearly always Threaten War for Rakka and then immediately declare an actual war somewhere else - such as Anizah for Fadl's core, or Dulkadir for your Anatolian claims. If Aq Qoyunlu is allied to one of them, they'll automatically get called in despite your truce, and you can grab your claimed province of Urfa from them in the peace also.

[Mr.M]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Developing vassals is never necessary--I've done it exactly zero times in 6500+ hours of EU4 play. There are always other, better ways.

Wait, but how do you annex your 1k Ming vassal with +250% LD from development?

And yes, i will keep pestering you with vassal Ming ;p

[RCMidas]

For something like that, you have to make full use of all the options available to you. That means the Austrian Archduchy Tier 1 reform (Austrian primary culture or be Austria to unlock, and you may choose it again afterwards at any time once you have selected it) for -33% LD from Dev; plus you have Influence ideas for -10%. That alone makes the +250% LD become +142.5%.

You also want to have at least one of the Exploration-Religious Policy (-15%), the Khmer mission reward "Subjugation of Ayuthayya" (-25%), the Neapolitan/Two Sicilies mission reward "Privileged Subjects" (-15%), the Celestial Reform "Elevate Tributary Relations" (-33%), and/or the Age of Revolutions Splendour bonus "Anti-Revolutionary Zeal" (-33%). You could have the Expansion-Naval Policy for another -25%, but the likelihood of picking Naval just for that is...well, anyway.

Note that these modifiers can stack over 100%, resulting in a NEGATIVE LD from Dev if you can stack them high enough. An Austrian Archduchy with Anti-Revolutionary Zeal, Elevated Tributary Relations, and Influence ideas has 109% reduction in LD from Dev, causing all their subjects to have reduced LD the larger they are. I believe this caps at a value of -100% LD for being a big fat vassal.

Now, since Marquoz is Marquoz, having Ming as a vassal means that he is probably Catholic Austria, definitely has Influence ideas, and has made use of every other base form of LD reduction. That would include the Expansion-Influence Policy (-15%, and another -15% from Influence ideas), the Strong Duchies privilege (-10%), the same dynasty and a royal marriage (-10%), Alhambra and Imperial City of Tokyo (-20%), full trust and relations (-40%); and because Ming is on a different continent to him, his Expansion ideas give a further -5% LD, for a grand total of -115% LD.

His military, naval, and economic strength will all sufficiently outclass Ming's own to leave them with maybe, maybe, 30% LD due to their own strength. So, add that to their 142.5% LD from Dev (let's round to a clean 175%) and then take off his other reductions, you're left with a paltry 60% LD to overcome.

You get 3% off per Diplomatic Reputation, which is effortless at this stage. He obviously has Diplomatic ideas as well, so he's getting +4 DipRep just from them and Influence, providing -12% LD to Ming and getting them to 48% - enough to start annexing.

Not, of course, that he'll have stopped there. He'll have hired a Statesman for +1, his Austrian ideas give +2, he'll have the Pope's blessing through Catholicism influence mechanic for +1, likely to have taken the Diplomatic-Expansion Policy for +1, maybe the Humanist-Influence Policy for +1 too (unless he chose Religious ideas), assigned the Religious Diplomats privilege for +1, the Institute Reichsregiment and Enact Gemeiner Pfennig HRE Reforms give +2, and his various Great Projects will give +6 (Alhambra, Golestan Palace, Kanbawzathadi Palace, Petra). That totals another -45% LD.

With all of those things under his belt, a 1K Dev Ming will have a pathetic 3% LD.

And I'm probably forgetting a few things as well, excluding random events and ruler personalities.

EDIT: Austrian mission reward "Ottomans Vanquished" gives +1 DipRep permanently, and several long-term (25-30 years) rewards for the same. Even with bad luck on events like -1 DipRep or a bad ruler, and Ming is still a very long way off from being rebellious.

[Mr.M]

I mean - you basically just listed all (or most) possibilities for lowering LD, which requires you to have access to all of them (rarely the case). It was more meant to be a meme question to stirr him up a bit... but since we are talking now:

The more common and reasonable way that is accessible to ALL nations and even without using policies would be to get -100% from prestige, you already have -100% from returning cores and lastly you just spam forts in their provinces to force them to take loans you can pay off for another -100% over time. This only requires you to have a good amount of money.

[Puffin]

I have similar problem with England pu France. I boosted it to 200 relations, however Castille started to support France independency, from that point France liberty desire remained 100, even if I supported loyalist.
So I see some options, but most are locked with France, no placate ruler or anything to lower the liberty desire.
You say I am supposed to get stronger, but how I am supposed to do it with England in a short period of time? I can conquer Ireland or Scotland, but it won't make me much stronger, I think. So as England I have rather limited option to get stronger, or should I try to attack Castille as I am strong enough to beat them together with France?
If I beat Castille or anybody who supports independency it also means they won't support idependence anymore?
If I help France to get back its cores, it lowers the libery desire? But it it also means France get just even stronger, doesn't?

[Octopuses]

Originally posted by Puffin:

I have similar problem with England pu France. I boosted it to 200 relations, however Castille started to support France independency, from that point France liberty desire remained 100, even if I supported loyalist.
So I see some options, but most are locked with France, no placate ruler or anything to lower the liberty desire.
You say I am supposed to get stronger, but how I am supposed to do it with England in a short period of time? I can conquer Ireland or Scotland, but it won't make me much stronger, I think. So as England I have rather limited option to get stronger, or should I try to attack Castille as I am strong enough to beat them together with France?
If I beat Castille or anybody who supports independency it also means they won't support idependence anymore?
If I help France to get back its cores, it lowers the libery desire? But it it also means France get just even stronger, doesn't?

Just attack Castille. It will instantly end independence support.

[Sharpie The Dragon]

Originally posted by alation13:

Originally posted by Poil:

In the long term, yes. Short term you get a temporary boost to lower liberty desire.

Still not worth the monarch points. You could invest the same number in your own provinces and have the double bonus of having a higher development ratio as well as being able to invest more into a military to increase the military ratio vs the vassal as well.
Both will lower the liberty desire.

Better yet, if you have monarch points to spare, turn the vassal into a march, then take the stability hit when you want to annex the vassal at a later date.

No, it is worth the monarch points. Because the moment the liberty desire goes above 50%, you can have large nations supporting their independence; Effectively making integration impossible.

This always seem to happen, like in my last game as Savoy; France, Burgundy Switzerland and Milan supported the independence of Geneva. Granted this isn't a problem for me, but it took several decades to finally integrate them because I didn't develop a couple of times. Even if you manage to kick one supporter out, another one comes in.

You should always be expanding faster, so the short term gain here is always more significant than the long term gain the vassal would ever get. So 2 development for them while you've already taken 100 development is effectively meaningless.

Also don't make vassals into a March. They're almost worthless.