Tips Needed Playing as A Vassal Count

[Chuske]

Hi

I'm fairly inexperienced player and have only done Newbie Ireland so far. I'm now trying a start in 1066 (post-Norman Conquest) as Count Baldwin of Devon (I live in Devon hence the appeal). Problem is I have no idea how to play as vassal.

If I play this start I would be a direct Count Vassal to King William and my de Jure Duchy of Cornwall is uncreated with just 1 other county (Cornwall) needed to create it. Problem is William has Medium Crown authority so I cannot wage war on Cornwall after a fabricate claim to take it and he won't accept a betrothal on his daughters to any of my kids.

Also my character has a strong claim on a county in Normandy, but again medium crown authority prevents a military route to gaining it.

So any tips on strategies to pursue?

In particular:-

1) How best to my spymaster (wife)? I'm not very clear on spymaster use, particularly as a vassal. Who would I best scheme or network against?

2) Should I focus on intrigue, stewardship or diplomacy for my ambitions and way of life Focus?

3) Chancellor. Am I best to improve relations with other vassals of the king or instead with the king? Or sow dissent but against whom?

4) Can I fabricate/invade territory outside my liege's lands? ie Wales?

Basically I'm looking for advice/ideas on some different strategies I can use to do something interesting either to gain, power, land or be involved in interesting plots, but feel a bit lost and struggling to find a good guide to all this. The wiki did have a guide to playing as a vassal but didn't have much detail on the things above.

Thanks in advance for any help

PS DLC Expansions I have installed :- Way of Life, Rome, Republic, Old Gods, Sword of Islam, Charlemagne, Sons of Abraham, Rajas of India & Ruler Designer

 

[WomboCombo]

As a vassal Count, my primary motivation is to overthrow my lieges: first the Duke, then the King, then the Emperor (if one exists).

1) How best to my spymaster (wife)? I'm not very clear on spymaster use, particularly as a vassal. Who would I best scheme or network against?

I would only use your wife as a Spymaster as a last resort. You'll end up with lower total State Intrigue (You + 1/2 Wife + Spymaster) because it only adds your wife once. As a vassal, I typically use my Spymasters to research technology, as you don't generate your own Tech Points yet, and it's important to get a leg up on your neighbors.

2) Should I focus on intrigue, stewardship or diplomacy for my ambitions and way of life Focus?

If I'm young enough, I typically go in this order: Scholarship (until end of Observatory event), Business (until trade route + tower/maze), then Warfare until I turn 45 then switch to Hunting, to ultimately wage civil war to overthrow your Duke.

3) Chancellor. Am I best to improve relations with other vassals of the king or instead with the king? Or sow dissent but against whom?

Fabricate Claims within the De Jure Duchy.

4) Can I fabricate/invade territory outside my liege's lands? ie Wales?

Yep, you'll still be his vassal but the lands will be yours. But if you start taking more and more lands outside your de jure territory, your liege may move to revoke them.

 

[Kumicho]

OK, it sounds like the OP is just playing the base game, so you can ignore suggestions like "build observatory" until after you buy some of the DLC (that's from the Way of Life expansion). What I'd suggest:

1) The king will almost certainly create the duchy of Cornwall at some point, so what you want is to be the strongest character and to have the king like you. This is going to be the primary job for the chancellor, which is to improve relations with your king.
2) There are also other ways of improving relations with the king, including having him tutor your children, not join any factions against him, and even send money (although that's going to be really, REALLY expensive). You can also change your culture to his if you're Welsh and he's Anglo-Saxon. If you're Anglo-Saxon and Cornwall isn't, there's a pretty good chance you'll get the duchy.
3) After the king creates the duchy, if he likes you enough he'll just give it to you. If not, he'll give it to your neighbor and you'll be Cornwall's vassal instead.
4) If you get the duchy, congratulations! If not, you can seek to forge a claim on it. Hopefully people like you better than they do other guy, and they'll join your plot. Bribe anyone necessary to get to the requirements.
5) In order to win the fight for the duchy (or to keep it from that scheming guy over in Cornwall), you'll have to be powerful militarily. Spend gold on beefing up your castle, revoke any other castles in your capital, and use your marshal to train troops. Or even think about building a second (third?) castle in your capital as well. Multiple castles in your capital are absolutely essential for having enough troops to impact the realm.

Once you do all that, then maybe think about what you want to do in the long term. Do you want to become king of England? If so, keep becoming more powerful, arrange a marriage between your heir and one of the king's daughters, form alliances, and then when you have a ruler with a claim on the throne, press it! Do you want to be a loyal vassal, supporting the kind and generous king who gave you your duchy? Then become powerful and support him (or her) in all of his/her wars. Some you can actively join, others you'll just have to raise your troops and follow their troops around (or link them to one of his armies). Maybe you want to be a holy warrior and trash the Muslims in Iberia. In that case, start by fabricating a claim on a single county close by, then use holy wars to spread Christianity by the sword (careful, as you might end up with everyone joining your enemy against you in this case).

Lastly, don't be afraid to "reroll" a character when you're starting out if he has terrible stats. Playing some idiot with a 0 marshal and a 1 Stewardship isn't much fun, at least at the beginning.

 

[Serenity84]

OK, it sounds like the OP is just playing the base game, so you can ignore suggestions like "build observatory" until after you buy some of the DLC (that's from the Way of Life expansion).

Nope. Read the last line. And look at his icons under the name

Of the main gameplay DLCs he just doesn't have Conclave

 

[daisha]

1) How best to my spymaster (wife)? I'm not very clear on spymaster use, particularly as a vassal. Who would I best scheme or network against?

For one thing, you often don't want your wife on the council. Off the council, she provides half of her attributes to your respective state attribute. On the council, she provides her full attribute, but you don't have a separate spymaster providing his full attribute.

State attribute = Ruler's attribute + (0.5 x Spouse's attribute) + Councilor's attribute

Basically, you only want your wife on the council if her key attribute is double that of your best alternative. And if you have children from a prior wife you definitely don't want your wife for a spymaster. Unless you'd like to see them dead.

Usually, you want your spymaster scheming in your home province for plot protection. However, if you're working on a major plot and your spymaster is very good you might send them to the capital of the person against whom you're plotting for a small bonus to plot power. Also, if you're gearing up for war against someone you can send your spymaster to sabotage their provinces. You should focus on their richest provinces (use the tax income map mode.) If you can cripple someone's income before you even go to war with them things can be measurably easier. Sabotaging their vassals doesn't help much, make sure they actually personally hold the counties you're sabotaging.

You probably don't want to plot against your liege, the exception being when your state intrigue is very high and theirs is very low. Your liege will usually let you get away with plotting outside the realm, and often even inside the realm, but if he catches you plotting on him he's going to try to imprison you. Relative intrigue determines whether he'll succeed. Even if he doesn't succeed, you'll be thrown into a war for independence which, as a count vs. a king, you are quite unlikely to win.

2) Should I focus on intrigue, stewardship or diplomacy for my ambitions and way of life Focus?

It really depends on what you're doing. As top liege I most often choose family focus, as it gives you events that increase your dynasty members' opinions of each other, keeping familial intrigue to a minimum. It's still useful for playing vassals, but not quite as much. Business focus used to give free cities, but not anymore, I guess. If your liege has a low opinion of you, and most especially if you only rule a single county, carousing focus can enable you to befriend your liege, minimizing the risk that he'll revoke your title. If you're plotting to overthrow your liege, you certainly want intrigue focus. By spying on your liege (unlocked by intrigue focus) you get opportunities to apply general opinion maluses to him, which can cause people to join your factions. Spending some years carousing with your fellow vassals before switching to intrigue is even better.

3) Chancellor. Am I best to improve relations with other vassals of the king or instead with the king? Or sow dissent but against whom?

Perform statecraft is a good default action for the chancellor, but note that even with a good chancellor claim fabrication can take many years, so if that's how you plan to expand you'll want to get an early start on it. Sow dissent is good against your liege for encouraging factionalism. It's also good against anyone you're planning to go to war with, since lowered vassal opinion means lesser vassal levies.

4) Can I fabricate/invade territory outside my liege's lands? ie Wales?

You 100% can, and indeed this is the safest way to expand. Expansion within the realm can be more threatening to your liege than expansion outside it.

 

[Chuske]

Thanks for the replies. Yes I have the DLC listed in OP ie missing Conclave from main DLC (my next purchase next time there is a sale) plus several of the minor ones

My wife comes as spymaster with the character at the start so it wasn't a choice I made. I could find one via invite to court but worried to upset my wife (by firing her from council) who has high intrigue and slightly negative opinion.

 

[daisha]

I think you read my post before I edited it, so I just want to mention that business focus no longer gives free cities, that was outdated intel. You'd think I'd have discovered that before now since it was so overpowered it would be foolish not to take it often, but I'm not a shrewd ruler.

 

[Serenity84]

I agree that stealing tech is best as a small ruler. Especially as a count. Plots against you aren't usually that much of an issue. At least if people like you enough. But you only get tech points as a duke and above and even then not many to begin with. If you are stuck on gavelkind, the spymaster is the only reasonably quick way to level up Legalism

Though that changes a bit without Conclave too. Without it you can get ultimogeniture at Legalism 1 already, which is a pretty good succession law.
But even so, other tech is good too