Any way to annex a country without going to war?

[Highlander]

Im guessing through royal marriage but how exactly?

[Supplican]

Vassalise then diplo-annex.
http://eu4wiki.com/Diplomacy#Annex_vassal

[Deathstar]

There is two ways - For very small countries bordering you, vassalising them is the way to go. If you are able or not depends greatly on your own size (number of provinces) and on theirs, as well as on the difference between your tax-base. Then, all you need is for them to like you a lot (190 opinion), so designate a rival of theirs as yours, send your diplomat to improve relations and hope for the best. This obviously works best if they have the same religion as you.

The second way, the one you mentioned, is to claim their throne. If you enter a royal marriage with another country, given time you'll share the same dynasty (you can see that by hovering over your king). If that happens, and the marriage has been stable for 50 years, you have a chance to inherit the whole country. This is somewhat rare, though. You may also claim their throne by force - if their king is without an heir and your prestige is higher than theirs, you will get a diplo-option to claim the throne. This should give you a causus belli to take their capital. Go to war, occupy, then demand they enter a personal union with you. This will make them your lesser partner (your king will rule over them as well), which is basically a vassal forced to help you out no matter what. Very useful. Then, after another 50 or so years you will get the diplo-option to annex them. This will take a long time, depending on their size, but can basically be done with any nation (I annexed both Great Britain and France in a Spain game). After this process is done, you will have complete control over the entire country, as if it has always been yours.

Note that for any kind of diplo-annex, you will get cores on ALL their provinces after the process is done, though the culture will not change.

[Hewlett]

You can diplo-vassalise them or force-vassalise them. Unless you have a claim, then just take over the provinces, since it gives less aggresive expansion. :)

[MP]

You can't really vassalize countries that view you as rivals and bordering countries always turn their eyes on you...

[Pippin123]

Originally posted by Deathstar:

Note that for any kind of diplo-annex, you will get cores on ALL their provinces after the process is done, though the culture will not change.

This has been patched I think. You now only get cores where they have cores

[Deathstar]

^ True that

[Xara]

Originally posted by Pippin123:

Originally posted by Deathstar:

Note that for any kind of diplo-annex, you will get cores on ALL their provinces after the process is done, though the culture will not change.

This has been patched I think. You now only get cores where they have cores

I've never annexed a union or vassal and not had every single province I received be a core. Even when I sold them other conquered provinces. And this is post-patch, where I've been dismantling France entirely via releasing vassals from them.

[[SOTR] CK2 Roy]

Deathstar's comment pretty much sums it up. What he didn't mention though is that even in a Personal Union after 50 years you have a chance to automatically annex them, but it is very slim the biggest ive seen is about 0.02% then it went down back to 0. Getting the diplomatic advisor to get +5 diplomatic reputation will cut the time to diplo annex by about 50%. that one is a very good advisor to have, especially if you are trying to annex.

[Highlander]

im trying to annex novgorod, they only have one province left (novgorod), ive taken their other provinces as muscovy. so they kinda not like me at the moment, or my other neighbours for that matter because of the aggressive expansion. So i cant just declare war on them without having this 5 nation alliance against me