As a puppet, can I break up my pro-overlord lobby?

[BanDHMO]

Playing as Cuba, just barely managed to finally move to dominion status with Spain, and when I did, I got a pro-Spain lobby comprised of my biggest ruling faction. Now there's a massive malus to my Liberty Desire, which is quickly draining and will allow Spain to return me to Puppet level. And that's fine, I'll take that setback, but if the same malus persists when I'm a Puppet, it will drop me to Annexation and game over.

1. Will the LD just keep dropping like that even in Puppet stage, and will the overlord eventually annex me for a game over?

2. Is there any way to break such lobbies up? I know they're supposed to break up if the faction becomes marginalized, but it's the landowners who win elections with 75% and have clout in the 30s, so good luck with that.

3. Generally, how do I avoid being annexed here? Spain has no natural superpower enemies, only rivals with New Grenada, so rebelling is not an option.

[Jason]

So far, I am not particularly a fan of the Lobbies mechanic in the game. I have seen events that will make IGs leave the lobby (or stay, if you want to keep the lobby) and, if all the IGs leave, it will go away, but it is not very common. I think I have played 4 full games since SoI came out and most lobbies tend to last the majority of the game. Even when I have done the exact opposite of what the lobby wants, it still hangs around making my IGs unhappy for decades sometimes. If a country loses a revolution, the lobby will go away (it's a "different" government/country).
That being said, I did get a very early alliance with France when I played a Brazil game and it allowed me to mop up south america very quickly so, I have had a few of the lobbies that were doing good things for me.
I do understand the catalysts concept and that the player can try to "influence" which lobbies form but it still seems difficult to affect and takes too long to remove lobbies that you don't want.

I would like to see a mechanic like the exile/invite agitator mechanic whereby, every 5-10 years, we can convince an IG to leave or join a lobby that we want to get rid of or strengthen.

To try to answer some of your questions....
You can try to get the liberty desire going in the other direction by damaging relations, growing your prestige so that you are within a set percentage of theirs for your subject type. For example, a protectorate's overlord should be at least 1.5x the subject. I think it is 2.0x for dominion, etc. (the tooltips tell you). You can also get "chunks" of LD by asking for things that they will deny you. Ask them for states, to support your gov, for knowledge sharing, your own market, etc. (take note of the tool tip that tells you if they will accept or not first).

I have never played Cuba so I don't have any good advice. Spain will eventually have some GP enemies. You can oppose them as a protectorate but I don't think you can as a dominion (not exactly sure about that though).

[BanDHMO]

"If a country loses a revolution, the lobby will go away (it's a "different" government/country)."

Do you mean my country or the overlord? I'm guessing the overlord, but if it's mine, then I'll happily go stir things up with the landowners. I've been looking to change some of the messed up policies of theirs that the country started with, like slavery.

Also, it sounds like the malus size depends on the clout of the lobby, so if I can weaken the landowners enough, that might be enough.

And, yeah, all the things you laid out is what I have been doing to get from Puppet to Protectorate. At Puppet level, the prestige multiplier is even 3x. But even that is difficult for me as a small island, who has to shell out a third of income to pay for Spain's troops and ships instead of my own. The lobby malus to LD is too big to overcome with just the flat-rate +10 every 5 years on one or two requests I'm eligible for. State Demand doesn't do anything if refused, unlike the other requests, BTW.

Relationship is a big one. I need to get back down from Amicable that I got to because I raised it to ask for a Puppet->Dominion promotion, but now it's playing against me.

There's also the trade integration thing, so I'll keep working on getting completely self-sufficient and then flooding their market. Just hope I have enough time.

TBC, I'm fine being a Puppet, I just need some sort of a defense against LD dropping to zero at Puppet level and getting annexed. Hopefully there's a decent bonus in the last stages from having LD be very low. There is for a Dominion, but even that is not enough right now.

[Jason]

I mean a country in general. The lobby is in country A, targeting country B. If either of those two countries become C or D, the lobby is no longer valid. In your case, I am not sure that helps because if you have a revolution, and lose, your game is over AND Spain loses control. So Spain will probably not let that happen anyway.

Although…. You can switch sides now in a revolt. So, if you switch sides and win (probably have to hold your capital against Spain) then maybe you become independent? I haven’t tried it so honestly not sure.

[Jason]

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

I know they're supposed to break up if the faction becomes marginalized...,

I was just wondering where you saw this information. The reason I ask is that I have a lobby with a marginalized IG in it in my game and I didn't see anything about the IGs leaving the lobby if marginalized in the Wiki.
i have been doing some more research of the lobby mechanic and I may have misunderstood. I said that if a country loses a revolution the lobby goes away but I am not so sure now. I THINK the reason I have seen the lobbies go away in these cases is because the IGs are influenced by the laws and type of government. So maybe when a country loses a revolution, the laws or government type trigger a big enough change in the IGs favoring or not favoring the lobby.

I still think that the lobby mechanic needs some improvement. The tool-tips for the IGs support for the lobby, for example, might say "-25 France laws" but it doesn't break it down. Also, I assume that this is based on the IG preference for laws compared to the target country and not the players country laws compared to the lobby target.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by jlane0710:

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

I know they're supposed to break up if the faction becomes marginalized...,

I was just wondering where you saw this information.

I didn't say that if any faction is marginalized it will leave the lobby. My lobby only had one faction. If that faction becomes marginalized, then according to wiki the lobby should disband.

"Additionally, a lobby disbands if it has no non-marginalized interest group members. "

https://vic3.paradoxwikis.com/Political_lobby

[Jason]

Ahh, I see it now. My lobby has a marginalized group but another group that is not.