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unmerged(486067)

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May 2, 2012
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  • Crusader Kings II
I was wondering if any of you veterans can give me some pointers on a few matters when it comes to handing out landed titles.

I have recently won a crusade on Jerusalem and after getting about 7 counties, and multiple cities, temples, etc, I was at about 31/10 of my demense size.

My question is what to do next... I have several unlanded brothers/nephews, as well as an two unlanded sons (not of age). I can create the Kingdom of Jerusalem and two duchies, but what is the best way of going about handing out this land? My original thought was to give the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Duchies to my son while holding on to as much as I can so when he inherits, I can still control it all. What should I do about all the counties (20 or so) in my control? It seems boring to have all these counties in the control of just one or two men, but on the other hand, if I hand them out to brothers/cousins/etc, when my next of kin comes, they will likely not be loyal to me.

In general, I'm wondering what the best way is to ensure most if not all of the lands I have controlled stay in my control for the future generations.
 
I was wondering if any of you veterans can give me some pointers on a few matters when it comes to handing out landed titles.

I have recently won a crusade on Jerusalem and after getting about 7 counties, and multiple cities, temples, etc, I was at about 31/10 of my demense size.

My question is what to do next... I have several unlanded brothers/nephews, as well as an two unlanded sons (not of age). I can create the Kingdom of Jerusalem and two duchies, but what is the best way of going about handing out this land? My original thought was to give the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Duchies to my son while holding on to as much as I can so when he inherits, I can still control it all. What should I do about all the counties (20 or so) in my control? It seems boring to have all these counties in the control of just one or two men, but on the other hand, if I hand them out to brothers/cousins/etc, when my next of kin comes, they will likely not be loyal to me.

In general, I'm wondering what the best way is to ensure most if not all of the lands I have controlled stay in my control for the future generations.

Give some counties to your family and the duchies to some content loyal courtiers.
 
The most stable way is to give all the land you don't want, and the duchies, to bishops and thus create prince-archbishoprics. Prince-archbishops are incredibly easy to control. The downside is that the maximum amount of troops you can raise from them is 80% of their levy. Then just keep the King title for yourself. Prince-archbishops do not covet the title of King and will not get the malus "Desires the Kingdom of Jerusalem"; you will get a huge bonus for Free Investiture (which you should have); and you will get bonuses for being a crusader and for every virtue you have. Overall it vastly overwhelms the -30 "wrong government type" modifier.

You can do the above and also hold a couple of the good counties (say, Jerusalem) for yourself without pissing off the Archbishops too much.
 
I've begun to matri-marry my daughters to high stat nobles and then grant land to those nobles. That way the land will be inherited within my dynasty, but the claim will die with my daughter.
 
First thing, you want to do is select each province and then right-click each City, Bishophric and Castle. Three options come up select appoint vassal, the one on the left side. This way, all of the people you appoint will be of your culture and your religion, so that you don't have any hanky panky later on. Now you can start looking for courtiers or create new ones under intrigue. This way your counts are all of your culture and your religion.

Or the alternative is to right click on a Bishophric and create a new bishop and grant him the county. This way the province is a Bishophric. Then you can grant him the other provinces in the Duchy without appointing bishops to it and that way he's in control of all the bishophrics in the Arch Bishophric. Just remember you can right click to create free vassals who will be loyal to you in any province you conquered.
 
One simple trick is to do the mafia thing and try to keep relatives in every position possible. You can even take over your own vassals through well arranged marriages, because if they marry your kids then their kids will be counted as being from your house, so when the vassal dies of old age (or poison... I usually go with poison), your grandkids inherit the territory, bringing it back into direct linkage to your own house yet still counted as a vassal (and thus doesn't cramp your demse size limit). You may have to bump off a few rival brats along the way, but hey, that's just how things work.
 
The most stable way is to give all the land you don't want, and the duchies, to bishops and thus create prince-archbishoprics. Prince-archbishops are incredibly easy to control. The downside is that the maximum amount of troops you can raise from them is 80% of their levy. Then just keep the King title for yourself. Prince-archbishops do not covet the title of King and will not get the malus "Desires the Kingdom of Jerusalem"; you will get a huge bonus for Free Investiture (which you should have); and you will get bonuses for being a crusader and for every virtue you have. Overall it vastly overwhelms the -30 "wrong government type" modifier.

You can do the above and also hold a couple of the good counties (say, Jerusalem) for yourself without pissing off the Archbishops too much.

The only problem with this is it makes it much harder for culture conversion, if you care about that.

Culture conversion is tied to Stewardship score. So if you want land to convert, its good to give it people with high stewardship and to educate their heirs with a steward education. You can sort of control this with bishops by appointing their heirs, but its much easier to do with feudal vassals.

If you don't care about that, and you don't care about running up your dynasty score by having more family members hold titles, or care about making more dynasty members, then bishops are a very good choice.
 
The only problem with this is it makes it much harder for culture conversion, if you care about that.

Culture conversion is tied to Stewardship score. So if you want land to convert, its good to give it people with high stewardship and to educate their heirs with a steward education. You can sort of control this with bishops by appointing their heirs, but its much easier to do with feudal vassals.

If you don't care about that, and you don't care about running up your dynasty score by having more family members hold titles, or care about making more dynasty members, then bishops are a very good choice.

I'm not sure how culture conversion matters at all though, except for the 1% peasant rebellion. Changing your entire government setup so that you can somewhat accelerate the process of getting rid of a 1% chance of a rebellion every year... not sure that really makes sense. And what's the % change for cultural conversion, anyway? I actually don't know the formulas involved.

Dynasty score is pretty trivially easy to blow up, so I don't see that as any kind of challenge, either. The bigger issue is not losing 2-3 decades of gameplay when there's a major revolt because of a bad heir or another significant issue. You also don't have to deal with serious ducal mergers, creating a super-duchy underneath you. Obviously the issue can be dealt with in a feudal system, but dealing with it takes time and has its own risks. Straight theocracy just bypasses every conceivable problem.

The only issue is the troop tradeoff. But if you can keep your feudal/city vassals at 80-100 opinion all the time anyway... not sure why we're even discussing because it wouldn't matter, feudal vassals would always be great, and if you didn't care about dynasty prestige, you would do city vassals for everything.
 
I'm not sure how culture conversion matters at all though, except for the 1% peasant rebellion. Changing your entire government setup so that you can somewhat accelerate the process of getting rid of a 1% chance of a rebellion every year... not sure that really makes sense. And what's the % change for cultural conversion, anyway? I actually don't know the formulas involved.

Dynasty score is pretty trivially easy to blow up, so I don't see that as any kind of challenge, either. The bigger issue is not losing 2-3 decades of gameplay when there's a major revolt because of a bad heir or another significant issue. You also don't have to deal with serious ducal mergers, creating a super-duchy underneath you. Obviously the issue can be dealt with in a feudal system, but dealing with it takes time and has its own risks. Straight theocracy just bypasses every conceivable problem.

The only issue is the troop tradeoff. But if you can keep your feudal/city vassals at 80-100 opinion all the time anyway... not sure why we're even discussing because it wouldn't matter, feudal vassals would always be great, and if you didn't care about dynasty prestige, you would do city vassals for everything.

I'm sort of irrationally fond of culturally converting counties -- so take this with that in mind. I just like seeing the map shift to my culture.

The big reason it matters to me is that it stops mayors from the wrong culture getting nominated, and wrong culture courtiers from getting generated. It means I can set up doges later, which I find even better than bishops -- all the benefits but also making a ton of money for you. Never make doges in wrong culture territory because they'll have the nasty foriegner penalty. That plus stopping rebels, which used to be a huge deal but now with the taming of the penalties and the fact that vassals actually fight them much less so.

And if you're working in wrong religion counties, it really matters how fast you convert because once the county changes to your religion you lose the event that allows culture spread anywhere and have to rely on neighbor spread instead.
 
Not so fast!

You didn't say how much gold you had or what your income level was, and my point is to hold onto everything and build it up before granting it away.

The reason for the above is it would take potential vassles many decades to improve the holding, whereas the King could do the same in a matter of a few years.

Work on one county at a time, assign your Steward to oversee construction and build key installations like harbors and cities to improve income, then training grounds, barracks, etc. to improve levies.

While this is happening, start searching among all characters in the game for the best possible vassles within your religion and culture. Look for potential chancellors, stewards, etc. Good generals are also very useful. The content trait is a good one to look for, but not a deal buster. Do, however, avoid the ambitious trait as that will spell trouble.

Take your time, invite the above to your court then grant them a title once the holding is ready. If they don't accept your invitation and you still want them badly, then grant them a title on the spot.

By building-up your kingdom responsibly, it will become more productive sooner, and will create more opportunities down the road for the next conquest.
 
Just make sure to give each title to a different person -- make sure a duke only has one county alongside his duchy, and each of his vassals only one county each. Damage limitation. :D

Also I tend to give at least one or two duchies to the Church: better religious relations plus you don't have to worry about over-mighty dukes as you'll get a new random bishop who you can give cash and a title to for better relations. I've yet to have any problems with this, though I have no idea how it works out in terms of tax benefits.
 
I like to turn recently conquered Holy War holdings into Archbishophrics. Has a nice symmetry to it, as well as being easy to manage. I prefer to have my personal levies and mercs do all the heavy lifting in wars, and keep my vassal levies at home for the majority of the battles. Also, granting Archbishophrics positively increases your final score. The only other method described that would do that is granting land to your dynasty members, and that only bears fruit later on. (Granted, I like that option as well, but prefer to do that a bit more organically).

Also, for the symmetry described above: Raise Holy Order(s) (-Piety) -> Win Holy War (+Piety, +Prestige) -> Grant New Territory to a Bishop (+Piety). Repeat!
 
I like to turn recently conquered Holy War holdings into Archbishophrics. Has a nice symmetry to it, as well as being easy to manage. I prefer to have my personal levies and mercs do all the heavy lifting in wars, and keep my vassal levies at home for the majority of the battles. Also, granting Archbishophrics positively increases your final score. The only other method described that would do that is granting land to your dynasty members, and that only bears fruit later on. (Granted, I like that option as well, but prefer to do that a bit more organically).

Also, for the symmetry described above: Raise Holy Order(s) (-Piety) -> Win Holy War (+Piety, +Prestige) -> Grant New Territory to a Bishop (+Piety). Repeat!

And if you want to raise your dynasty prestige too: Install Free Investiture -> Nominate married males of your dynasty to inherit bishoprics -> Grant counties to bishops of your dynasty

Bishops can't marry, but married men can be appointed as a bishop. This is a rule in the Catholic church to this very day. So long as the guy marries before he inherits the bishopric, he will keep his wife and can produce offspring. Imagine having an entire kingdom of Prince Archbishoprics, all run by your kinsmen. You'd be a piety machine, and your dynasty prestige score would get pretty hefty after a while.

Edit: Just be sure not to nominate your heir or any possible heirs to bishop positions. They will be automatically disqualified from succession.
 
I'm sort of irrationally fond of culturally converting counties -- so take this with that in mind. I just like seeing the map shift to my culture.

The big reason it matters to me is that it stops mayors from the wrong culture getting nominated, and wrong culture courtiers from getting generated. It means I can set up doges later, which I find even better than bishops -- all the benefits but also making a ton of money for you. Never make doges in wrong culture territory because they'll have the nasty foriegner penalty. That plus stopping rebels, which used to be a huge deal but now with the taming of the penalties and the fact that vassals actually fight them much less so.

And if you're working in wrong religion counties, it really matters how fast you convert because once the county changes to your religion you lose the event that allows culture spread anywhere and have to rely on neighbor spread instead.

Gotcha. As far as the non-culture mayors things goes, if you "create a new vassal" on a city, the new mayor/bishop will be of your culture and religion regardless of the holding. It makes it really easy to use archbishops/lord mayors in crusade/holy war capturings, which is what the OP was asking about.

It is annoying when you claim a wholly new place, though, yeah... like you press your own claim on a foreign country, all the old vassals are still in place, and you have to either spend a lot of time rooting them out, or just deal with them until they rebel. Both are annoying, but then again, so is the 30+ years of "wrong culture/religion/recently conquered".