How to CK2

Somebody a while ago made a long tutorial that covered all this stuff, but I can't remember who and I don't know how to get to it. Try searching youtube for "Crusader Kings II Vassal Mechanics" or similar stuff. Maybe he'll show up and give you a link. I don't know.

It's basically a system of autonomy.

You play as a count, duke, king, or emperor. Some religions have different names for them like Khan, Kaghan, or Raj and Maharaj, but they're basically the same thing.

Anyways your vassals are basically like puppets. They give you taxes and levies and their territory count as your "realm". You can be a vassal of someone else and still have your own vassals.

For example if you're a count you can still have temple, city or castle vassals, but you could also be a vassal of a duke or higher tier rank. A King can have lower ranked vassals like counts and dukes, etc. An Emperor is the highest rank and you get to have vassal Kings if that's your thing.

Your vassal can have their own vassals and you can also be someone else's vassal. Autonomy is decided by laws and your liege may decide to change it and their vassals might get angry and decide to start a faction to lower it.

Yes, you still own the province, but no, you can't do stuff directly there (other than build entirely new holdings, and vassals will be angry if you don't place those under their control). Basically, as a King, your rule the whole kingdom, but because this is before things like cars, plains, trains, telephones and email, you can't effectively run every city and castle yourself. Heck, even today a nation's government relies on local governments to run the various cities and towns. So, you let the towns select a local noble as their mayor, you or the pope selects the local bishop, and because you need a local military power to protect the are, you build a castle and name a baron to rule over that. In exchange for the right to tax the people living under them and use the local military force, they promise to render loyal service to you, enforce your laws, give military help when asked and help you govern the realm.

But that's still a lot of people to deal with, so you group these vassals into counties, and elevate one of them to be in charge of the rest in that area. Those are the Lord Mayors, Prince Bishops and Counts. The mayors bishops and barons of their county swear service to them, and they swear service to you.

However, that could still be a bunch of people to deal with, or maybe you want to get some extra backing, or maybe one of them just becomes powerful on their own. That leads to Dukes, who serve you, are served by the Counts of their Duchy and those in turn are severed by the Barons of their county.

So, in effect, vassals are essentially autonomous in their own lands, but owe you military support, possibly taxes, and are part of your realm. Of course, due to personality conflicts, ambition and politics, sometimes vassals are disloyal, and plot against you.

If you give a province to somebody else, it's really not yours. You can extract troops from it, collect taxes from it, and stuff. It is part of your realm. However, it's ultimately that other guy's place even though you are in charge of him. The only thing that you can do to modify it is build a completely new holding there and if you do, it will make that particular count, his duke, and his king angry for as long as that castle, city, or temple reports directly to you instead of one of them.