Quote Originally Posted by Bootsiuv
Maybe he means provinces which are too expensive to control i.e. require a large garrison and are constantly attacked, meaning new soldiers must be trained to defend them. If you're spending thousands of mnai every turn in troop retraining and reinforcments for some dinky land-locked town in the mddle of the desert, I would say that settlement would be a drain on your empire.
exactly in my case it is provinces in the heart of germany, whilst my capital is in armenia.
i have been taking a few provinces off the sweboz as part of a "punishment" campaign against the sweboz. (the impudent barbarians joined up with the getai and attacked my black seas ports).
i require a full stack in one of the provinces to defend it and mainitain order.

ideally i could give some german provinces to a docile client state.