That's what the description of it says - that raising crown authority usurps the control of the state from the aristocracy to bureaucrats under the authority of the monarch.
But we don't ever see it in game. I have suggestions as to that affect:
But we don't ever see it in game. I have suggestions as to that affect:
- Your councilors gain a staff, allowing them to undertake multiple missions simultaneously in different Counties. Medium CA gives two envoys, High CA gives three envoys, and Abs CA gives four envoys. Later in the game, when you would have higher CA and you win four or five Counties in a big war against (for example) a Muslim power, your government feels weak when you can only deploy your Chaplain to convert the heathens one County at a time. As your CA rises, why do your powers stay the same? Shouldn't they grow with your regime?
- A Duchy/County management box, appearing at Med CA, allowing you to customize how heavy the laws fall on that Duchy/County. When you click on the County, you see a status box open on the bottom left - you could add a new button adjacent to the "Raise Levies" buttons opening a new box on the screen listing the owner of that County, their feelings towards you, the feelings of the peasants, some other information, and then at the bottom, a cluster of checkable boxes where you could select alternative laws for this County to follow. If you have Medium Church Taxes, you can check that this County only pays Small Church Taxes. The purpose of this is, in a Kingdom where you have higher CA but less ability to enforce the rules (distant armies), you can say that this Duchy/County is more-or-less exempt, just as a means of keeping the peace. De Facto rulers without a De Jure claim are pretty well handicapped in this regard, and if there was a way my ruler could tell those vassals, "Yes, I know you're unhappy, here, have a discount on taxes and levies so long as you don't revolt," then that would be pretty sweet.
- A new option under Papal Investiture, "Ethnic Homogeneity," which would apply to how your regime responds to character ethnicity. Just like Papal Investiture, there are two options: Homogeneity and Heterogeneity. The way it would work is this: Homo Ethnicity would give a bonus (+20) to loyalty in Vassals who're the same race as their Liege. Vassals of a different ethnicity receive a penalty (-10). The idea is, your regime values ethnicity and prefers to rule by it, giving the ruler a sizable bonus for following it, making the extra legwork of filling your Irish government with more Irish worth it.
- Hetero Ethnicity instead would transfer the emphasis from race to government. Are you a loyal citizen? The regime doesn't care what you look like, so long as you pay your taxes. Having a diverse and tolerant government gives every vassal who is different from their liege's race a cultural bonus (+5), and removes entirely the stigma of being the "wrong" race.
- Not to add a third bullet-point to this topic, but it just makes sense that as Crown Authority rises and the monarch usurps more control of the state, and as the Empire becomes further flung, the regime will have come to discover that it is no longer practical to exclude based on race. That maybe smaller countries can get away with it, but once you have colonies and remote provinces seized by inheritance and via Crusade - you need to open your doors a bit. This is one of those things that only larger powers come to discover, and a concept they intuitively grasp in their pursuit to hold their power, that after a threshold, discrimination stops paying off when you can't make it work. And that's a concept only a High CA monarch would grasp.
