Vassal contracts are so absolutely useless

[durbal]

I mean, it's kind of a side effect of domain and stewardship being completely OP and vassals (and levies) kind of useless, but seriously who thought that vassal contracts as implemented were in any way shape or form reasonable or balanced? Oh yeah, sure, let me spend a hook to get -15 opinion for 0.1 or 0.2 gold per month. Really?

I'm not sure what to do with them as they are now. Maybe reduce the opinion penalties? Make the differences between the percentages given by the vassal larger at each level? It just feel so bad to have a hook or something and I don't even want to use it to modify the contract when I have nothing else to do with it because doing so is just a bad idea.

 

[Viktor Vaughn]

idk vassal contract is pretty fun when you're a vassal. change your contract type from generic to march or one of the others for some great perks, give yourself title revocation protection or religious freedom if you're the wrong religion, etc. when you're a liege it's nice to have the hooks to be able to get rid of unfavourable contract obligations and force larger vassals into partition
it's not as fleshed out or as valuable as it could be, probably due to vassals giving almost no contribution to your taxes/levies, but there's more to the contract than just taxes and levies

 

[MR.Finley7]

Forcing partition is great, and removing Council rights is an absolute must.

 

[durbal]

I get the other parts of vassal contracts can be useful, but the levy and tax differences are so minimal that they aren't worth the opinion hit.

 

[Kinkness]

What's annoying about the contracts, is they removed many options from Ck2, for this, yet this is just as pointless, and rarely used...

Sure, there are a few good things to yoink from it, like partition, and what not, but ultimately 90% of it is pointless, especially since the levies and gold you get from vassals are laughably small compared to Ck2.

 

[Magil]

I get the other parts of vassal contracts can be useful, but the levy and tax differences are so minimal that they aren't worth the opinion hit.

That is largely because of the AI's inability to build up its holdings and hold onto a domain approaching its domain limit in any reasonable capacity. It can actually get meaningful very late in the game, like past 1300 or so, but early on it amounts to very little.

 

[JamesTheNew]

With scutage, extraordinary taxes and zero levies, I've gotten single duchy vassals to pay me 10-15 ducets per month for -10 opinion.

 

[Secret Master]

That is largely because of the AI's inability to build up its holdings

I keep seeing this from people on the forum. I don't know why. I see the AI upgrading holdings all the time. It's not as efficient as a human, but within 100 years of game start, I see all kinds of buildings among my vassals holdings that weren't there when the game started.

Contracts are useful now that the AI actually upgrades holdings, but you need to negotiate the right kinds of contracts. There are basically two formats for contracts that I like to use, depending on how far I've progressed technologically.

1) Uber-vassal levy contracts: Once you have march contracts available, I start putting vassals on contracts that reduce taxes and increase levies. Then I also slap a March clause on them. The end result is that the vassal actually has money to do stuff and can upgrade buildings (since march reduces army costs and makes their lands more defensible and their taxes are really low). I get the levies. Sure, someone is about to say, "Levies suck." But why bother forcing a vassal to give me another 0.1 ducats a month when I could get a few hundred levies while they upgrade their holdings. I never have to use those levies if I don't need them, but they add to my visible military strength. That has all kinds of benefits. And if I just need another 5000 levies to throw at a problem, I have them. Meatgrinders do happen.

2) Taxes for everyone!: When I get scutage available, I'm also usually in a position where my MAA costs are really high. That's when I start swapping everyone over to high taxes/low levies contracts with scutage instead of marches. At this point in the game, I'm probably a big empire that doesn't need another 500 levies from a vassal, but I could really use the cash. Furthermore, if they've been sitting on a march contract for a century or so, they've had a chance to upgrade their holdings enough to actually have enough revenue to make taxes worth it.

Most of the clauses are beneficial to vassals and not lieges, but forced partition has its uses. I've also slapped fortification rights clauses on heirs sometimes so that they have an easier time developing their own land, which will get integrated into the crown's lands when they inherit.

 

[alvanio]

Use it primarily to Force Partition, this so that no vassal ever become too strong. And yea, goin from 0.3 to 0.5 gold per month is pretty damn insignificant.

As a vassal yourself, giving more levies or gold for a garantued councilor spot is fantastic (basically broken, probably needs tweaking).

 

[Question]

Yea, theres pretty much no reason to increase the tax/levies from your vassals, its such a minor change, it pisses them off, and it means they can manage their domains less.

There are way easier methods to deal with vassal factions rather than making them weaker via contracts. Maxing out MAA, increasing their opinion, having a good amount of domains yorself, etc.

I never felt like i needed to do anything special to handle vassals. I fought a civil war once which wasnt hard at all because i just hired a few mercs and beat their stacks. All those spread out levies stacks were never a real threat. Holding a feast right after the succession to improve vassal opinion seems to help a lot.

Forced partition is meh. By the time you get primogeniture, vassals are too weak to do anything to you anyway since you have a 10k+ MAA doomstack. Most of the other options are downgrades and i cant imagine ever wanting to nerf my realm to buff a weak and largely useless vassal.

I guess march might be useful if you have a large vassal and want him to expand in a particular direction....but at that point its faster to just use your MAA doomstack and wage wars for duchies/kingdoms yourself...

 

[Magil]

I keep seeing this from people on the forum. I don't know why. I see the AI upgrading holdings all the time. It's not as efficient as a human, but within 100 years of game start, I see all kinds of buildings among my vassals holdings that weren't there when the game started.

They do, just not as well as a human player (or at least not as quickly as I personally do), and they're often pretty slow about it. Also individual vassals rarely hold onto as many holdings as their domain limit allows. I didn't mean to imply they never build anything at all.

 

[Choorus]

Being given how unuseful the levies are, it's scutage ASAP and highest taxation with no levies at all, which is rather historical. What is not historical at all is that vassals always send the crap peasants with pitchforks rather than any reasonably good troops. The reason to land people was to get their armed host's service in return. Host comprised of knights, bowmen and infantrymen, all armed and trained in fighting. Not just some randos with sticks.

 

[Secret Master]

Being given how unuseful the levies are, it's scutage ASAP and highest taxation with no levies at all

I'll get right on that when I start as Wessex in 867. We'll have scutage implemented in no time! Who needs "useless" levies when the Vikings are on your doorstep?

What is not historical at all is that vassals always send the crap peasants with pitchforks rather than any reasonably good troops.

Is that what you think levies are?

We can debate the relative merits of levies in CK3 as a troop type, but levies sure as Hell aren't "guys with pitchforks." The fyrd that Byrhtnoth commanded at the Battle of Maldon would be horrified at your description of them as just randos with pitchforks.

 

[Magil]

Is that what you think levies are?

We can debate the relative merits of levies in CK3 as a troop type, but levies sure as Hell aren't "guys with pitchforks." The fyrd that Byrhtnoth commanded at the Battle of Maldon would be horrified at your description of them as just randos with pitchforks.

This is the description given for levies ingame:

So not exclusively peasant rabble, but distinct from a professional army as well. The "wielding pitchforks" part at least seems accurate.

 

[Secret Master]

This is the description given for levies ingame:

So not exclusively peasant rabble, but distinct from a professional army as well. The "wielding pitchforks" part at least seems accurate.

I guess I don't see destitute nobles or local sellswords using pitchforks. I suppose you could see it that way given the "motely tools" description, but I see them more as freemen with requirements for part-time military service.

They are distinct from a professional standing army, but they wouldn't be farmers just grabbing random stuff on the farm and going to war. They'd have some training and some implements for fighting.

This is also closer to how some "levies" worked in the period covered by the game, too. A lot of cultures in the period had what we call "peasants" today as part of the army, but they weren't randos who just wandered off the farm and were pressed into service. They were often closer to how the US implements the National Guard. Part time military service, limited sometimes by geography or mission limitations, not always equipped with the good stuff, and the folks who are in it have civilian jobs.

 

[Zhetone]

idk how you can claim you see people upgrading holdings when even late game most holdings have max 4k supply. do you just not play the game with eyes?

 

[Magil]

I guess I don't see destitute nobles or local sellswords using pitchforks. I suppose you could see it that way given the "motely tools" description, but I see them more as freemen with requirements for part-time military service.

They are distinct from a professional standing army, but they wouldn't be farmers just grabbing random stuff on the farm and going to war. They'd have some training and some implements for fighting.

This is also closer to how some "levies" worked in the period covered by the game, too. A lot of cultures in the period had what we call "peasants" today as part of the army, but they weren't randos who just wandered off the farm and were pressed into service. They were often closer to how the US implements the National Guard. Part time military service, limited sometimes by geography or mission limitations, not always equipped with the good stuff, and the folks who are in it have civilian jobs.

I'll concede the point, though I can understand how the perception of them as "peasants" emerges in the forum given how quickly they become outclassed by men-at-arms as the game progresses, even if it's not wholly accurate historically (or even going by the description).

 

[KipperUK]

I'll get right on that when I start as Wessex in 867. We'll have scutage implemented in no time! Who needs "useless" levies when the Vikings are on your doorstep?

It's really not as bad as it should be, in fact the Vikings are very helpful. They'll take the other duchies in the De Jure Kingdom of Wessex, which in turn allows you to holy war them immediately afterwards and add them to your domain. Saves a lot of time spent trying to fabricate claims.

 

[Zhetone]

for what it's worth levies were stated to be peasants in the dev diaries pre-release and plenty of people pointed out how dumb it is because that isn't how medieval armies worked

 

[TravlingCanuck]

I mean, it's kind of a side effect of domain and stewardship being completely OP and vassals (and levies) kind of useless, but seriously who thought that vassal contracts as implemented were in any way shape or form reasonable or balanced? Oh yeah, sure, let me spend a hook to get -15 opinion for 0.1 or 0.2 gold per month. Really?

I'm not sure what to do with them as they are now. Maybe reduce the opinion penalties? Make the differences between the percentages given by the vassal larger at each level? It just feel so bad to have a hook or something and I don't even want to use it to modify the contract when I have nothing else to do with it because doing so is just a bad idea.

If all you'd get is 0.1 extra gold per month, then I'd agree it's a bad idea to waste a hook on that. But that doesn't make the mechanic itself bad. The mechanic works fine, in my opinion, it's just in this case you're considering using the hook on something unimportant.

Personally, I'll usually only use a hook to modify a vassal contract if it increases monthly income by at least 0.5. It's your rich vassals , you want to get hooks on, if you can. The ones who aren't contributing much anyway I'll typically ignore. Maybe they'll reinvest in their holdings and I can get a more productive hook on one of their future heirs.

idk how you can claim you see people upgrading holdings when even late game most holdings have max 4k supply. do you just not play the game with eyes?

It's 1354 in my current game, which was a 1067 start. I just scrolled across Europe and holdings supply limits range from 8k to 14k. Zooming in, pretty much every AI castle is level 3 or 4, and their buildings have generally been maxed out to their castle level.

I don't know what's going on with your game, but when people say they see the AI upgrading holdings, its probably because in the games they're playing the AI is upgrading holdings. I know in my case the AI certainly is.

Also, the Byzantine Empire fragmented and fell apart in my game, something I've seen people post elsewhere as "never happening". I suspect the range of outcomes in the game for the AI-controlled territories is wider than some people speculate based on their initial observations. I'm certainly not going to suggest that the experience in my game is typical, but its part of the set of possibilities.