Better Diplomatic Interactions

There is a major problem with diplomatic interactions that take time. A perfect example can be seen in Europa Universalis V and its hundred years war. Here it is possible for England to rule over France with a personal union. In Europa Universalis IV a personal union was simply a different vassal type. In EU5 it's a bit more complex (but the details don't matter here).

The player wants to later or better sooner integrate these lands into the core territory of England, annexing a vassal. Because of the sheer size of France (France population and economic output will most likely be higher when it recovered from the war) it will take over 300 years to do so. Most players will not even play for so long.

So what is the problem? The problem is not that the integration takes 300 years, even integrating it in 50 years would be incredible OP. The problem is that the player does not get anything from integrating France to 50%. It's an all or nothing scenario.

Long interactions like integration are not inherently terrible, they are only bad if you only get the reward at the end.

A Solution

Instead of integrating the entity of France at the end of the 300 years. Provinces should get integrated over time. So when you integrated 50% of France you actually already have 50% of the provinces. So you could actually stop integrating them and still having 50% of France integrated. This reflects a long and tedious integration process much better.

It gives the player a reward, it's not too OP.