Conquer or PU Provence as France

[Error]

Conquering Provence with the excommunication CB gives you for 10 years -15% AE and subjugation CB on Naples which has cores in Sicily that you can feed to Naples as your jr partner you will have to fight the pope for Avignon or release Provence as a subject so the pope can return Avignon

PUing Provence saves you a war with Provence and the pope as well Provence has cores in Naples but not Sicily you will have to release Naples a OPM vassal in Sicily and reconquer their cores in Sicily you could also transfer Aragon to France to get Sicily and Aragon as well

What should I do?

Edit: both are good options but I would say the Provence PU is more reliable and less rng and ai dependent but the conquering provence and puing naples is still really good arguably a little better but the best case scenario relies on a lot of rng if you don't want to rely on rng given that early game france in ironman is kind of an rng nightmare I would recommend PUing provence and only doing otherwise if burgundy is not rivalled to you other wise I'd say conquer provence and if possible try to find a way to split provence between you and burgundy to lessen ae.

[Marquoz]

I break the alliance on Day 1 as France and conquer them with or without the excommunication CB. I'd much rather eat them directly than tie up yet another relations slot for more than 50 years.

[Gordonov]

I always make them a junior partner. The problem is by the time your truce is up after breaking the alliance, Provence will be completely conquered by Burgundy, the Pope and Brittany.
The cores on Naples are great, low AE in Italy is something you don't get too often.
I just fight Aragon directly and take a single province in Sicily to release them and re-conquer the rest in the next war.
Even with the cores in Naples, Provence is small enough to just inherit them on rulers death, so you don't even have to bother integrating them.

Then again: Whatever the question is, if there is a way with junior partners and one without, I will almost always take the junior partner. I really like this type of subject.

[Kapika96]

IMO PU. Free cores on Naples mean you pretty much double their size fairly easily and with very little AE. You also have a good opportunity to feed them Aragon after that too. Getting them to core stuff for you is much better than doing it yourself.

[Marquoz]

Sure, but you can't route trade from Naples or Aragon to the English Channel, so I don't care about them. I save my AE, GC, and vassal integration for the nodes that feed the Channel. The various nations in Italy and Spain get forced into the HRE after I become Emperor and then they join the vassal swarm when I revoke.

[Dante_Deepdarkness]

Why not both? It is suboptimal but... why not?
Before unpausing you break the alliance with Provence, and as soon as the truce is over, eat those provinces. At some point you will get the subjugation against Napoli, take it, subjugate it and keep them around a bit longer than the usual until you are interested in integreting that land. Most of the AE from Napoli will fall into the italian nations, and you just want to keep the Pope "happy", the rest of your conquer will be elsewhere, so... you can afford it.

[red1]

My two cents, France starts with so many vassals having Provence as a PU is not a big deal. Saves a little on AE in the first 50 years and often France inherits Provence. Also, I usually move my main trading to the English Channel as France, and almost always collect in Genoa eventually. Again, not a big deal to collect in more than one trading node.