I was hoping not to go into the IC presentation too far before the update, but Brazil (and South Africa's) new status vis-a-vis the Atlantic Kingdom certainly isn't vassalhood. No vassalhood. Full integration. Remember, from an in-game perspective, what the partition of Canada must have felt like from the view of the conservative leaders in Rio. From the start, they
were denied admission into the annexationist Treaty of United Americas (I know that the longstanding negative stance was slowly changing, but since no offer had been made, Rio had no way of knowing), while their traditional enemy Patagonia got in. Then came the Marxist rebellion, scaring the Brazilian landowners, who only managed to stabilize the situation with foreign support (as much from the Inca as from the TUA, which wasn't taking a clear stance against the communists). Finally, diplomats from the AK showed up, appealing to a common estate culture, as well as Brazil's need to be a part of something bigger in a very dangerous world. The decision of South Africa (which also wanted to be part of big AK, for much more obvious safety reasons) helped convince Rio that it would be an essential pillar of a triple union.
No doubt from the perspective of Texas and Patagonia, the Treaty of Baltimore would be very startling, so germanicus and merciary, you are playing in character quite well, but IMHO, the tripartite union makes good sense. Given the level of war in the game world, would you really expect Brazil to just sit around and wait to get dogpiled like the Order did?
I sincerely hope Baltimore doesn’t interfere with game immersion for any more people, but I never would have allowed it had it not made good IC sense. I hold the NES to as much realism as I can manage, and I deeply respect player input. The reason for this part of the post was to answer what merciary said about perception of threat.
To the Citizens of Brazil:
To all those who do not wish to live in a non-representative government we shall be streamlining our immigration processes and will allow all law abiding Brazilians to become Patagonians after a short period of time.
To: Union of Patagonia
From: Influential Republicans of Brazil
We thank you for the offer, but we have stratagems to play before any serious consideration of flight.