Quote Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios
That means you became a protectorate. You make money as the protector by 'taxing' the protectorate based on the profit it makes. Likewise you are 'taxed' by your protector when you managed to become a protectorate.

Probably some faction demanded you to become a protectorate and you mistakenly accepted. Now you litterally pay the price.

Wasn't there a bug in the earlier RTW builds that caused this to happen? Perhaps that's what he's referring to...