So I've been playing for a few hours now and there are a few things I'm finding confusing.
I'm not exactly up on my education of feudalism, so I'm finding the whole liege-lords, vassals thing kind of a head scratcher. So I get that a vassal has a liege who is essentially their master who can collect taxes and levies from them. What I don't get is the system of rank. There seems to be a whole mess of ranks that I'm having trouble getting my head around. So you have an emperor at the top, then under them, kings, then under them, lords, then under them, barons? My head hurts lol.
So the counties I directly control are my demesne, right? Is my demesne size the number of counties I control? Or the number of holdings in those counties? Then, of course, my vassals have their own demesnes. Do I control those? Or do my vassals?
How is it that I can hold a title encompassing counties that aren't a part of my territory? For example, I can create a title which makes me the duke of whatever, and that duchy contains like 3 of my counties plus one of the counties in a neighboring kingdom. How can I be the duke in a county I don't control?
How do I get more troops? Of course I have my own levies, and I can raise the levies of my vassals too depending on my laws, but how do I increase the size of my personal levies and my vassal levies? Also, what's the difference between a levy and a retinue? And how do I get a retinue?
Sorry to dump so many questions here, I'm enjoying the game, I'm just struggling with some of the details :S
I'm not exactly up on my education of feudalism, so I'm finding the whole liege-lords, vassals thing kind of a head scratcher. So I get that a vassal has a liege who is essentially their master who can collect taxes and levies from them. What I don't get is the system of rank. There seems to be a whole mess of ranks that I'm having trouble getting my head around. So you have an emperor at the top, then under them, kings, then under them, lords, then under them, barons? My head hurts lol.
So the counties I directly control are my demesne, right? Is my demesne size the number of counties I control? Or the number of holdings in those counties? Then, of course, my vassals have their own demesnes. Do I control those? Or do my vassals?
How is it that I can hold a title encompassing counties that aren't a part of my territory? For example, I can create a title which makes me the duke of whatever, and that duchy contains like 3 of my counties plus one of the counties in a neighboring kingdom. How can I be the duke in a county I don't control?
How do I get more troops? Of course I have my own levies, and I can raise the levies of my vassals too depending on my laws, but how do I increase the size of my personal levies and my vassal levies? Also, what's the difference between a levy and a retinue? And how do I get a retinue?
Sorry to dump so many questions here, I'm enjoying the game, I'm just struggling with some of the details :S