So here's the deal:
Short: Size 8 duke, demesne size 4, meaning that's 4 baronies (2 counties, 2 baronies), 2 bishoprics, 2 cities. One last expansion slot remains in my duchy. Castle or city?
Long (if you have the attention span to read all of this):
My duke sits on 1 duchy comprising 2 counties with a unique culture in the realm (the rest and the king have a different one):
County 1 (seat): 1 capital castle, 1 bishopric, 1 city, 1 expansion barony, no more slots (3 exp. slots total);
County 2 (subordinate): 1 capital castle, 1 bishopric, 1 city, 1 expansion barony, 1 more slots remaining.
He holds both expansion baronies, bringing his demesne to 4 (out of 8 realm size).
His wife is a countess (dominant culture) with 2 counties that she owns and 1 that she's most likely but not guaranteed to inherit. Each of the three counties is a standard 1 capital, 1 bishopric, 1 city, 1 unbuilt expansion slot, and they are scattered among various de iure duchies of the kingdom.
With Large City Tax, my income is about 10-11 a month, tend to have good stewardship stat and good stewards. I'd prefer to relax the burdens later on. With future counties, I consider bundling cities in 2 in order to give the mayors more cash in hand for the more pricy upgrades.
Spoiler below lists the names if this would make it easier. Spoilerised because it affects a current AAR. The spoiler weight is heavy, although not critical (judging by the current state of the AAR you won't know whom I've married).
Even heavier situational spoiler:
Right now, my cities are fully decked out as far as my tech allows. Both cities are held by the same mayor, which I did to speed up the costlier upgrades. It's similar for temples, actually. But my castles are only barely upgraded beyond the tax-generating city and wall. The problem is that I can't realistically expect to upgrade all of the existing castles and then more of them, while cities are doing a good job upgrading themselves under mayors. With 4 baronies, I have like 300 demesne troops, the two cities and two bishoprics providing about 1100 troops, meaning a rebellion (by vassal or even plain old rebels) would obviously have me hiring mercs. I'm torn. I should be able to turn towards military industry finally and get myself a competent levy force, while this will consume lots of gold that could be used elsewhere or even saved to spend on mercs or have a contingency/opportunity fund to upgrade holdings in counties inherited in the future. Absolute Authority prevents wars inside or outside, so there's not much use of a normal levy. What do you guys think. Do I get myself a city right now or barony? The reason this current last slot is so special to me is that it has my own culture, while acquisitions will be foreign, so I'll care less. Ideally, I wouldn't stay on Large City Taxes forever but might turn down the levy size to minimum since I use them rarely to offset opinion. Obviously, less city tax will mean less income for me from vassal cities as opposed to own-held baronies. On the other hand, like I said, a city takes care of itself and you end up with slightly less income than from an own-held barony that you still need to spend cash upgrading (being even more of a problem when you don't tax the burghers hard to fund it). A fully decked city isn't great for levies, obviously, next to even a mediocre barony (a combination of all the basic troop buildings with those increasing %% levy size tends to produce a nice synergy), problem being how expensive it is to get a barony to be fully upgraded.
I'm not planning on handing out the baronies to my cadets yet, will likely do so when I have more counties. Problem being that without feudal vassal tax I'll suffer from a diminished income base in such a scenario, which makes me think about cities.
An important information perhaps is that the provinces we're talking about are ports. Meaning any city will have a port.
Anyway, what d'you think?
The real reason I worry is on the roleplaying side. Cities tend to imply larger and more advanced populations as opposed to rural castles controlling land. I've actually built universities in my 2 counties, I do want the advancement and am fighting desperately to make sure there even are courties of my own culture, which is damn hard (minority even in my own court). Seems to coincide with making more cities (not to mention synergies from 2 universities in the same province). However, I want my core to be able to defend itself and appropriately developed baronies could produce cost-efficiently (in the long run) a lot of heavy cav and other good troops that mercs just don't have (my cultural building is for knights, as is my retinue, I think, so mercs would be used for numbers mostly).
Recap:
Size 8 duke, demesne size 4, meaning that's 4 baronies (2 counties, 2 baronies), 2 bishoprics, 2 cities. One last expansion slot remains in my duchy. Will have more counties soon, with foreign culture and typical size 4 (capital barony + 3 expansion slots).
Thanks.
Short: Size 8 duke, demesne size 4, meaning that's 4 baronies (2 counties, 2 baronies), 2 bishoprics, 2 cities. One last expansion slot remains in my duchy. Castle or city?
Long (if you have the attention span to read all of this):
My duke sits on 1 duchy comprising 2 counties with a unique culture in the realm (the rest and the king have a different one):
County 1 (seat): 1 capital castle, 1 bishopric, 1 city, 1 expansion barony, no more slots (3 exp. slots total);
County 2 (subordinate): 1 capital castle, 1 bishopric, 1 city, 1 expansion barony, 1 more slots remaining.
He holds both expansion baronies, bringing his demesne to 4 (out of 8 realm size).
His wife is a countess (dominant culture) with 2 counties that she owns and 1 that she's most likely but not guaranteed to inherit. Each of the three counties is a standard 1 capital, 1 bishopric, 1 city, 1 unbuilt expansion slot, and they are scattered among various de iure duchies of the kingdom.
With Large City Tax, my income is about 10-11 a month, tend to have good stewardship stat and good stewards. I'd prefer to relax the burdens later on. With future counties, I consider bundling cities in 2 in order to give the mayors more cash in hand for the more pricy upgrades.
Spoiler below lists the names if this would make it easier. Spoilerised because it affects a current AAR. The spoiler weight is heavy, although not critical (judging by the current state of the AAR you won't know whom I've married).
Duchy is Cornwall. Capital county is Cornwall, the other (larger) is Devon. I've built a barony in each (Ristormel in C. and Dartmouth in D.), which leaves Devon with 1 more slot.
Wife is Countess of Surrey and Northumberland, pretty much a sure-fire to inherit Suffolk. Surrey is right south of Middlesex, that being the king's capital. Kent should be with my surname in the next generation, will try to inherit it too.
Wife is Countess of Surrey and Northumberland, pretty much a sure-fire to inherit Suffolk. Surrey is right south of Middlesex, that being the king's capital. Kent should be with my surname in the next generation, will try to inherit it too.
Even heavier situational spoiler:
Year is 1204. I'm already de iure drifted into England. Gwynedd conquered Ulster or some other duchy in Ireland, got inherited by an Irishman, formed Ireland and vassalised all of the Island, Gwynedd is drifting into Ireland, who is currently pushing Deheubarth for the County of Dyfedd. But they're already capable of forming Wales, which they aren't doing. I'm basically planning for a future independence war, getting allies and all.
Right now, my cities are fully decked out as far as my tech allows. Both cities are held by the same mayor, which I did to speed up the costlier upgrades. It's similar for temples, actually. But my castles are only barely upgraded beyond the tax-generating city and wall. The problem is that I can't realistically expect to upgrade all of the existing castles and then more of them, while cities are doing a good job upgrading themselves under mayors. With 4 baronies, I have like 300 demesne troops, the two cities and two bishoprics providing about 1100 troops, meaning a rebellion (by vassal or even plain old rebels) would obviously have me hiring mercs. I'm torn. I should be able to turn towards military industry finally and get myself a competent levy force, while this will consume lots of gold that could be used elsewhere or even saved to spend on mercs or have a contingency/opportunity fund to upgrade holdings in counties inherited in the future. Absolute Authority prevents wars inside or outside, so there's not much use of a normal levy. What do you guys think. Do I get myself a city right now or barony? The reason this current last slot is so special to me is that it has my own culture, while acquisitions will be foreign, so I'll care less. Ideally, I wouldn't stay on Large City Taxes forever but might turn down the levy size to minimum since I use them rarely to offset opinion. Obviously, less city tax will mean less income for me from vassal cities as opposed to own-held baronies. On the other hand, like I said, a city takes care of itself and you end up with slightly less income than from an own-held barony that you still need to spend cash upgrading (being even more of a problem when you don't tax the burghers hard to fund it). A fully decked city isn't great for levies, obviously, next to even a mediocre barony (a combination of all the basic troop buildings with those increasing %% levy size tends to produce a nice synergy), problem being how expensive it is to get a barony to be fully upgraded.
I'm not planning on handing out the baronies to my cadets yet, will likely do so when I have more counties. Problem being that without feudal vassal tax I'll suffer from a diminished income base in such a scenario, which makes me think about cities.
An important information perhaps is that the provinces we're talking about are ports. Meaning any city will have a port.
Anyway, what d'you think?
The real reason I worry is on the roleplaying side. Cities tend to imply larger and more advanced populations as opposed to rural castles controlling land. I've actually built universities in my 2 counties, I do want the advancement and am fighting desperately to make sure there even are courties of my own culture, which is damn hard (minority even in my own court). Seems to coincide with making more cities (not to mention synergies from 2 universities in the same province). However, I want my core to be able to defend itself and appropriately developed baronies could produce cost-efficiently (in the long run) a lot of heavy cav and other good troops that mercs just don't have (my cultural building is for knights, as is my retinue, I think, so mercs would be used for numbers mostly).
Recap:
Size 8 duke, demesne size 4, meaning that's 4 baronies (2 counties, 2 baronies), 2 bishoprics, 2 cities. One last expansion slot remains in my duchy. Will have more counties soon, with foreign culture and typical size 4 (capital barony + 3 expansion slots).
Thanks.
