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I just started a new 72 campaign as Sweden and within 3 years all the european minors were gobbled up by the AI, turning Europe into a crazy patchwork quilt.

Every turn I would see one of the major powers take one or more minors, and I wouldn't even have a clue as to why. Even Batavia, which I assidiously courted with diplomats and money, became British at the drop of a hat. This is a minor with whom I had relations of +750 and who loved no one else but me. I had no wars going, no treaties prohibiting me from being a protector, all settings at normal, just spending mad money on the Batavians for nothing. I was waiting for someone to aggro on them so I could become their loving protector and all I see is Britain forms a protectorate with Batavia.

Why do the AI powers gobble up the minors so fast and why did the Brits steal my Batavians?

It's hard for me to say what happened in your game without knowing any of the particular circumstances.

AI players also tend to spend a lot of money to form protectorates.

If the "All of Europe is alarmed" is activated against you, then it becomes much harder to get protectorates on your side, and countries will begin spontaneously asking for the protectorship of nations opposed to the nation that is alarming all of Europe...

Lol, well I guess my main complaint is that I also do not know and will not know what happened in each case because I received no information besides "So and so forms a protectorate with so and so" in the Events Log. So I don't know if the minor asked for protection as a result of war or was it the money or bad boy or what.

Also specifically in Batavia's case, I wasn't at war with anybody, I had no enforced peace, and I didn't have any rivals for their affection. I was giving them 60 dollars each turn and no one else was ever. There weren't any sneaky diplomats running around either. Batavia was solidly mine and then one turn it just turns British (who by the way had the bad boy going).

Now it's possible that the French declared on Batavia, and since Britain was at war with France they turned to Britain as a protector, but I don't have any of that information displayed anywhere that I can find, and so I'm confused why a minor who was solidly for me just went up and gave itself to the Brits. I hope you can understand why I'm frustrated that I wined and dined the stupid Batavians for three years only to have them turn stripey red for no apparent reason.

That's what happened to all the European minors in my game. Three years and they are all taken by one major power or another, and meanwhile I have absolutely no clue as to why.

In my several games I played Britain, minors tended to flock to my embrace and rapidly sent me to the baddie status, with it came a larger number of troops than I (or at least my food-producing capacity) could cope with. In this light, is there any implicit value to sway a minor to a major's side? Or (persistent) war with France - the baddie before unseated by me - a big positive to win lesser powers over?