Stewardship effects the money he receives, which effect the taxes he sends to you.Question: Do skills matter at all in terms of your minor vassals? I mean if the mayor of my city has high stewardship do I get more tax? Or anything at all along those lines? More levies from a high marshal baron? etc.
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More of an opinion question I guess:
I've been thinking and my thought is this: As a king of a smallish nation it is more beneficial to you if all of your dukes only control one county and the rest of their counties have individual counts. The reverse being true, that if you are large and have many dukes it's better if they each control all or most of their counties.
Reasoning:
If you're smallish, say just you're king and have one duchy and then you've got 2 other dukes, you want to make sure those dukes don't get too powerful. If they control all the counties directly their levy size is greater, as they don't depend on the opinion of their vassal counts. This helps you maintain more power in relation to your vassals so you're better able to handle rebellion or plots against you.
If you're a large kingdom and your personal demesne is strong enough to protect yourself then letting your dukes control all their counties means you can focus raising relationship with just your dukes to get all their levies rather than having to try to get high opinion out of a plethora of counts.
Thoughts? Ideas? Insults?
There are arguments on both sides for weaker dukes vs stronger dukes. A lot depends on how you play and what you are looking for. Weaker dukes allow more stability, but will often come at some sort of cost, either bad relations, or constant infighting.
I tend to go for strong dukes, having them hold all their de jure lands. Part of the reason being that it looks cleaner on the map. Even going strong dukes though, never allow a duke to get multiple duchies.