In the early growth phase, I am finding a push to Prince-Bishops helps keep things on an even keel. Key duchies during those early days and then when growth begins to speed up family members get preferential treatment (and a watchful eye).
In the early growth phase, I am finding a push to Prince-Bishops helps keep things on an even keel. Key duchies during those early days and then when growth begins to speed up family members get preferential treatment (and a watchful eye).
Well, it depends game to game, but primarily...
1. Unlanded males of my dynasty get first priority, namely those who already no longer have or won't in a generation any kind of claims on my land. If I'm large enough and it's just a county, even siblings can get some land. Avoiding giving dynasty members land because IF they have poor relations they may cause short term issues is silliness in my book. Once their claims have been either destroyed via them failing to press em' or from time passing by, they become the most loyal vassals you could hope for. That, and the name of the game of CKII is making your dynasty awesome, so working against that as a Christian feels like its working against the spirit of the game.
2. No ambitious people, unless I just happen to have some massive love for the character in question and it's not a major chunk of land.
3. Loyalty. The tie-breaker will be people with awesome stats and traits I might be able to use on the council or mentor future generations, but first and foremost I want people who love me. Odds are, their future generations will be tutored by em' and retain many of those qualities that made them so fiercely loyal to begin with. I do avoid Imbeciles, Lepers, Inbreds and the like. If they're just gonna die without reproducing, then I don't see the point, and the same for those who are so ineffective that they won't be able to keep their own vassals in line. Still, if you want land from me then your best bet is to be a massive suck up... doubly so if I'm Muslim and don't plan on landing relatives (which even then, I do have a single cadet branch in my Muslim game... ample gifts and honorary titles seem to keep their head member happy despite all the sons of his I've thrown into my dungeon).
4. The lulz. Sometimes, even if it isn't the best game play choice (indeed, rarely), I'll grant land to people simply because their dynasty or culture amuses me. I did this with Nubia when all the Pagan Finnish nobles flocked into my lands after they were conquered up north. Figured the Finnish in general were just fleeing to Nubia (really guys, Nubia? I ran the place and even I thought it was a sandy craphole), so I decided it'd be fun to give them a new homeland within my realm. I set up some Finnish nobles, and two even became Dukes. In another of my games as a Norse king of Norway (and several other kingdoms!), I made it one of my missions to keep House Yngling alive after finding a few who were willing to convert to Norse. Additionally, I started to set up some folks of the native culture in their lands, so I'd have Norse Irish and Norse Lettigalian rulers in some parts. Sadly, my attempts at Norse Finns kept failing as the few who remained all kept dying before they'd produce heirs.
5. The proper culture. I don't typically, but sometimes if I've got the proper religion already in the county but it's of a different culture, I'll go ahead and find some loyal member of that culture within my realm to give the land to in order to remove the "recently conquered different culture" malus. But it's a short term solution that, game play wise, will have potentially longer negatives, so I'll only go this way if I feel I need the county producing now. Did this in Mesopotamia as I wanted the rich Baghdad and Mosul emirates producing asap as I worked towards independence, and I even gave a Saxon lord a single county of Cornwall when I took it from England as Wales as it was of Saxon culture, and I needed to milk out its troops incase England came back for it when they were stronger. That, and as Saxon is almost wiped out in my game and that was one of the last four or so counties in the world with the culture, it went back to Reason #4 and I was just amused to have a single Saxon ruler in my otherwise pan-Celtic empire. Guy turned out to be a serious dick though, killing a couple of his wives and even his own daughter. But he was also a military genius, as was his son, both of whom served as my marshall.
What about extra Baronies? What do you do with them?
I like to give the additional cities I build in my counties to the preexisting mayor in the county, because he'll have enough income to develop the new city quickly.
But what about extra Baronies? They're rarely worth holding yourself in the long run, IMO, except perhaps if they're in your capital. But if you just give a barony to a random character, he'll never have enough money develop it well. Would it make sense to give multiple baronies to a single character? For example, in my current game as France I randomly inherited a Barony in the HRE. Would it make sense to give it to the same character who holds the 2nd Barony in Paris?
If it's undeveloped, I'll personally start construction of a castle village before I hand it off to someone. That alone will give them enough cash flow coming in to eventually upgrade it themselves. But, more often than not, the single baronies I'm passing out are a conquered holding and the previous owners already did a good job getting it ready for me.Originally Posted by Jaol
I'll sometimes give these to sons who are low down on the succession list and I'll develop them a little, if only to have spare dynasty members. They will never usually marry off and lose the barony as no one wants to marry a baroness. Only issue will be if someone plots against you and they still have claims, they will join every time, but after thier claims disappear, they will be loyal little dynasty members.
Oh and I occasionaly give baronies to ducal claimants to press thier claims.
Okay, turns out that by now, my dynasty is holding quite a lot of Duchy titles anyway, and I haven't had trouble with them for a long time. So I am changing my doctrine here, and will listen to those who give out holdings preferrably to kinsmen. It's a good time, too, because a whole stable full of dynastic children will come of age soon, so any freed-up county I can pass on the them. A lot of titles in newly-conquered Andalusia already went to kinsmen.
BTW, I try to avoid giving titles to children, unless I absolutely have to for political reasons, because there's no knowing how they will turn out when they grow up.
Dear CK2 team: please implement an Embark All Units button. Mobilizing a sea-kingdom is a bitch. TIA.
I tend to roleplay a lot. Titles are granted to deserving and loyal individuals who have served the crown well. More often than not this means councillors and other characters with high stats. I also often favour loyal dynasties that have been of great service and of which I have grown fond of.
The current traits of my king are also taken into consideration. I would for example, as an arbitrary, greedy and envious ruler, hoard as much power to my own hands as possible. Vassals that still have their head preserved by the time the next king succeeds should consider themselves being lucky. On the other hand, as a muslim ruler, I would grand titles even to my close relatives if the king liked them and was benevolent enough. This leads me to think that I must have ruined a few games by intentionally granting titles to someone I shouldn't have.
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