Deliberately playing with a smaller demesne

[Walter Raleigh]

I made a thread around year ago commenting about the small size of demesnes that the AI rulers use. While conventional player wisdom is to maximize one's holdings, the AI appeared to follow the opposite strategy.

Perhaps the game has been modified since then, since there are some rulers in my game that are using larger demesne sizes. It's still no comparison with how human players would probably be playing it. The ruler in my game with prominently the most holdings is the Byzantine emperor, with eight holdings, which is only one more than me and I'm a Duke. A human ruler is conspicuous in his demesne habits compared with all the other rulers in the game.

I play with lots of "house rules" in this game. I am considering a new "house rule" requiring the use of smaller demesne sizes, more in line with how the AI rulers operate. Standard practise for a human player tends to be to control all relevant holdings in one's capital county, all counties in one's home duchy, and all or most in one's second duchy. I am considering a rule that I can only hold the capital county of the second duchy, although this may vary according to the number of counties in my home duchy.

So perhaps something like around six holdings at Duke level, seven at King and eight at Emperor. Excess demesne limit would allow a bit of extra time to hold on to newly-conquered counties if one's desired ruler wasn't ready, such as through not being an adult.

Any thoughts?

 

[HandicapdHippo]

I actually would recommend trying the half defense size rule if you havnt, I have used if for my last three games and found it much better overall. Largest defense size I ever got was 7 even with emperor tier, high centralization and 20 + stewardship. Most of time it was between 2-5 though and as a duke I was usually only at 2-3

 

[Walter Raleigh]

A half demesne rule is an interesting idea.

Does the AI ever hold more than one barony/holding in a county? I can't see any in my current game, so I think I'll add that as a house-rule too. So I'll only be allowed one holding per county, including the the capital county.

I have a large four-county home duchy, so I think I'll keep it that I hold the four capital baronies in my home duchy and the capital barony of the capital county of my second duchy. So that's five holdings. Other holdings will probably be held only as temporary measures, although I may relax the rule if/when I become an emperor. Applying the same rules if one had a small two-county home duchy would produce a demesne of just three holdings, which would be an interesting challenge!

EDIT: The more I look at my game in progress, the more I think a half demesne house-rule is a really good idea and I think I will adopt it for future games. I'm just wondering whether to retrospectively impose it on my current game by losing one of my home counties...

 

[HandicapdHippo]

Does the AI ever hold more than one barony/holding in a county? I can't see any in my current game, so I think I'll add that as a house-rule too. So I'll only be allowed one holding per county, including the the capital county.

They can if granted them, but they pretty much never revoke baron titles and they are always the first to be given away when they are over the limit so it tends to not last long.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Well, I gave away my second home county barony and also one of my home counties, which I'd seized earlier because it was being inherited out of my realm. So I'm following the half demesne house rule now and am down to four holdings. When I'm able to pass the next centralization law I'll plot to take the county back.

I like this rule. Thanks for suggesting it!

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Question: if one chooses the Half Demesne Size option in the game rules at game setup, does the game apply this rule only to the human player/ruler or to AI rulers as well?

 

[Walter Raleigh]

I started a new game to check and the Half Demesne Size game rule applies to the human player and AI rulers. So slightly different to what I was thinking. As long as it levels the playing field a bit, since the issue is that the AI doesn't make as good use of its demesne size than the human player does. Would those that have played with this setting agree that using it makes the game a bit harder than without it (which is what I'm looking for)?

 

[infernalbargain]

Question: if one chooses the Half Demesne Size option in the game rules at game setup, does the game apply this rule only to the human player/ruler or to AI rulers as well?

It's a map wide rule.

 

[Zsrai]

I started a new game to check and the Half Demesne Size game rule applies to the human player and AI rulers. So slightly different to what I was thinking. As long as it levels the playing field a bit, since the issue is that the AI doesn't make as good use of its demesne size than the human player does. Would those that have played with this setting agree that using it makes the game a bit harder than without it (which is what I'm looking for)?

I like it a lot. I don't always use it, but I do always use Half Vassal Limit, which helps keep realms from being giant blobs. Both together tends to balance out the human and the AI because the AI isn't nearly as good at collecting demesne and managing vassal numbers. I wouldn't say the game is technically harder, but I guess it is a little with the lowered income and levy numbers for the player in comparison to the AI.

 

[Dragatus]

I started a new game to check and the Half Demesne Size game rule applies to the human player and AI rulers. So slightly different to what I was thinking. As long as it levels the playing field a bit, since the issue is that the AI doesn't make as good use of its demesne size than the human player does. Would those that have played with this setting agree that using it makes the game a bit harder than without it (which is what I'm looking for)?

It does indeed make it harder as it levels the playing field between human and AI to a degree. The human still has an edge because the AI is bad at strategic title revocation and places too little value on baronies in the capital, but it's more even that by default.

You could even try going a step further and playing with 1/4 demesne size which essentially limits almost everyone to 1 personal holding. A powerful ruler (kingr with high centralization and solid Stewardship) might have 2 holdings and an exceptional ruler (emperor with maxed centralization and great Stewardship) might get 3. Having 4 holdings is nearly impossible (would require something like 50 Stewardship).

Another game rule you might want to look into is reduced vassal limit, which helps to level the playing field between small and big realms. I find the 1/4 vassal limit to be too extreme, but 1/2 vassal limit is decent. It's just about big enough to support the biggest existing realms but it will hold them back from blobbing much further than that.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Thanks. The main intention for using a half demesne limit would be to bring the demesne strategy of the human player more in line with that of the the AI rulers' behaviour. So hopefully, with this rule on, the AI rulers won't just halve the amount of demesne they currently use, and instead will use a higher proportion of their demesne limit than without the rule.

EDIT: I was also going to play with half vassal limit.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Any thoughts as to whether half demesne limit and half vassal limit can work well together or whether to only use half demesne limit?

 

[Dragatus]

The AI will indeed use a higher proportion of it's limit and the two rules do work well together. It maintains the default balance of the centralization laws too.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

The AI will indeed use a higher proportion of it's limit and the two rules do work well together. It maintains the default balance of the centralization laws too.

I'm testing it on a 1066 start. I am seeing that the high-ranking rulers tend to be over both their demesne limit and vassal limit, leading to big penalties and revolts. How does an AI ruler try to compensate if over both these limits? It's 1070 in my test and the only titles the Byzantine Emperor has are the Kingdom title and three counties - so no duchy titles. I'm concerned that if the demesne and vassal limits are both too low then the AI rulers will become too weak.

 

[Dragatus]

The AI will transfer vassalage of counts to dukes. Though I suppose it is true that the AI does not utilize vassal kings, so that puts it to a disadvantage. I didn't think of that.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

So, on second thoughts, is half vassals a good idea with half demesne then? One could argue that if demesne is halved then number of vassals should be doubled to compensate. If the AI won't create vassal kings (which I didn't know), then I don't know how large realms can well manage a large number of vassals without going over their vassal limit.

 

[Zsrai]

Nah, it's a good thing. It keeps realms from being giant blobs. If they can't manage their vassals then some will break off on succession, it's not a bad thing. I actually like it.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Here's the demesne/vassal stats for 1066 Holy Roman and Byzantine Empires with half demesne and then default vassals and half vassals compared:

Holy Roman Empire:

Demesne: 4/2
Vassals (default): 32/45
Vassals (half): 32/22

Byzantine Empire:

Demesne: 3/4
Vassals (default): 29/31
Vassals (half): 29/15

The default values look a better fit and the AI ruler does not have to do a lot to get both demesne and vassal levels within their limits. I don't see how the AI ruler can easily reduce their number of vassals by half to meet the vassal limit if it's reduced.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

I did a couple of tests with half vassals. Both times the Byzantine Emperor lost, or got rid of, both his duchy titles after a short time. I then tested a couple of times with default vassals and both times the Emperor kept his duchy titles.

So that surely demonstrates that halving vassals as well as halving demesne is too much for empires, unless one wants empires to inevitably fail, perhaps.

 

[Zsrai]

How is does that "surely demonstrate" that it's too much? The ERE gave away ducal titles... that's supposed to happen. The ERE has 42 de jure duchies, so it's bound to run into problems even with normal vassal limits. And that's if each duke only has one duke title, and there are no king titles. The HRE actually has 22 de jure duchies in 1066, so it won't technically have any problems if it just gives away duchies. Persia is 22, Arabia is 29 and so on. You can get 24 or 25 just from laws (+25 Imperial Admin, +10 Decentralized, +14 from fully empowered council [which may be a bad idea] x0.5 = 24.5). Even if you only do War Dec, that's still 18 or 19 vassal limit, plus your diplomacy and title rank modifiers. The AI can pretty much hold any Empire besides the ERE without straining it's vassal limit, even on half limit. And that's not including multi-dukes in the mix.