EMERGENCY SENATE VOTE
This is going to be a very quick, informal Senate vote (anybody reading the thread can vote, parties won’t matter, etc.) since it concerns a set-up thing.
So…
Exhibit A: The Roman Empire
Exhibit B: Our diplomatic relations
Exhibit C: Our vassals
As you can see, the four vassals created by the Imperial Bureaucracy Act take up all four of our diplomatic relation slots. I was going to be mean and just leave that as a delightful surprise in the first update, so then we could spend a highly amusing decade having to go over our relation limit whenever we wanted an ally or military access or whatever, but in the end I decided that’d just feel like a game mechanics gotcha, so I’ll give the Senate a chance to avoid that by cutting one of our vassals loose.
As you can see from our vassal list, Kartli is the least valuable of our vassals. It’s also the most remote of them, barely contiguous with the rest of our territory thanks to a thin strip connecting it to Trebizond (remember that the republics of Abkhazia and Crimea have been independent since Emperor Komitas Branas let them slip away, and unlike Belgorod were never brought back into the empire). Trebizond is also a metropolis (theocracy), unlike any of our other vassals (the republics of Ragusa and Belgorod, and the kingdom of Sicily, which is kind of a special case anyway), and a hotbed of dissent (it was involved in some of those late game independence revolts we had).
So you have two choices:
A: Free Kartli, making it an independent theocratic Orthodox state in the style of the Valerian Order in Egypt. The Roman officials watching the Exarch of Kartli like a hawk will be able to return to Constantinople and be reassigned from the Committee of St. Valeria’s Ministry for Exarchate Relations to the general Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Venetian Committee, giving us a slightly freer hand in foreign relations in places that matter (i.e., western and central Europe, the former Gauhar Ayin Empire, etc.) to the tune of one open diplomatic relation slot.
B: The status quo. Kartli remains an exarchate of Rome (i.e., our vassal) and we’ll be able to diploannex it eventually. We may have some (minor, the 4/4 diplorelation slots are enough of a problem) events related to its relative disloyalty compared to our other vassals, but mostly the disadvantage is just having to keep four vassals around until we can finally start devouring them whole a decade into the game.
For reference, Empress Basillike (who is pretty much on death’s door at this point) is ADM 3 / DIP 2 / MIL 3, and Hugh de Mowbray is ADM 4 / DIP 1 / MIL 3, if you want to get a sense of how many diplo points will be coming in if we feel like eating the penalties for going over our relations limit in the early game.
Sorry I didn’t write a cute little in-character scene with them here, like I usually do for these votes, but this one is all about game mechanics an early modern Roman has no business knowing about.
A: Fuck Kartli
GSD
YF-23
Lord Windy
NewMars
Rejected Fate
Hitlers Gay Secret
Unwise_Cashew
LordGugs
Freudian
Ghetto Prince
Sinner Sandwich
Patter Song
B: Love Kartli
Arglebargle III
nothing to seehere
Cestrian
AJ_Impy
RZApublican
LJN92
TheMcD
BwenGun
Arbite
Shogeton
sniper4625
Blackunknown
ZearothK
occipitallobe
Technowolf
Ethiser
Lord Cyrahzax
ThatBasqueGuy
Vagon
Beerdeer
StrifeHira
Luhood
Duckbag
Jazerus
WeaponGradeSadness
B wins! Not too surprising, but I wanted to give everyone a chance to avoid spending a decade without two diplo points to rub together.
It’s more fun that way, though.