How much aggressive expansion is too much?

[PuttBlug]

I've started a war against Macedon as Epirus twice now, having taken Thessaly and Aetolia from them in a previous war and my aggressive expansion is around 15, so Rome and its allies declared a separate war on me shortly after causing me to divert my attention to them and bled my manpower dry in a 2 front war.

So my guess is that I should until my A.E. drops but the question is how much?

[rpc]

less then 20 is manageable under 10 is optimal

[Rynkk]

depending on your country you might go easily up to 50 AE and not even realize it.

Up to 50 only different culture+culture groups are affected
after that it rises from 0 to high for same culture group+ culture, you need to be cautious with AE at that point

The resulting lack of happiness can very quickly reduce your income and decrease province loyalty, so keep that in mind.

For a culturally homogenous country you should be able get to 50 AE without problems, and 60 AE may introduce happiness/output problems, 80+ is hard to stay at for long

For a culturally diverse country you just substract ~40 from the upper formula.


I didnt take in consideration how your nieghbours will hate you for AE because that really never bothers me anyways. So maybe tone the AE down a bit if you feel intimated.

[Crim]

"Under 10" hahah, what are you conquering 1 province at a time?

As you get more AE, you lose AE faster and you get less AE.

If you conquer at the rate of 10 AE, stop to clear, 10 AE, stop to clear... You will conquer barely anything

50 AE or under barely affects you, and around upto 80 AE is fully manageable. Once you're at around 80 AE, you will notice that you're able to conquer massive amounts of territory while barely gaining any more AE.

What I recommend is conquer huge areas at a time, let that AE rack up. Make allies whenever possible to protect your expansion. Then settle for a little while. Let your culture spread and use your military to control the regions. Then start expanding again at 80 AE at a time.