Are either nomad (Horse Lords) and JD subjugation CBs even worth the effort, especially if your feudal?
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Do you ever use tributaries and why?
- Thread starter Dimitri Cosmos
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Just going to start by saying I rarely if ever play Nomads so I have no idea how their version of tributaries operates.
Similarly, I've only used the tributary system a few times, and the CK2 wiki makes it confusing as to how they work.
As for the JD one, it depends on my borders and the neighbors.
For example, if I'm playing a united British Isles, then I typically won't bother with tributaries since you have so little to make a tributary that's in range.
(NOTE: I think you can make a tribute out of a country that borders your tributary, no matter how far it is away. Not sure if this is accurate though)
If I'm playing something like a fully restored Roman or Persian Empire you can get a bunch of tributaries since you border a whole bunch of stuff. (Imo the Romans have the best deal in terms of tributary opportunities, as a fully restored Roman Empire borders all sorts of stuff)
Hnggg... all those tributary possibilities.
To me, there's very rarely a reason not to make something a tributary if you can. I tend to stop expanding after a while since it's such a hassle sometimes (more vassals to deal with that are acting like idiots, more territory that can rise up in revolt or get raided, etc.) Tributaries kind of work like extremely independent vassals, so you don't have to worry about their stupidity too much, meanwhile they give you some gold (never a bad thing to make too much money imo)
I would advise that you take a look at the neighbors of someone you want to make tributary. If you're bordering an equally strong empire then it's gonna suck big time if you have to rush to your tributaries defense.
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It seems to me that a reason not to make a JD tributary, is that they can call you in defense wars, but they are not obligated to help you.
It seems to me that a reason not to make a HL tributary, is that you lose them after your death.
HL tributary works best for tribal governments, imho. As it is a quick way to gain prestige. Right now at least you can use it to build your tribal standing army and what not so there's always use for more prestige. Something that Nomads can use too.
As a feudal government however I guess it becomes a calculation on how much gold you can get vs how defensible the tributary is.
About the JD. I have no idea. I guess perhaps when you want to take advantage of the 15% extra reinforcements? Maybe?
Personally, I don't use them very often, but sometimes I don't want to conquer a realm, or I just want to see a certain dynasty remain independent. Making them a tributary allows them their freedom while I am still able to protect them in case of a war. If I am playing as Khazaria, I like to keep the Bolghars alive for some reason and just subdue them.
First off, I always try to make a tributary out of Venice and any other MR I can. You get way more money that way, even if you do have to revassalize them with every ruler. They pay you 40 or 50 percent of their income, I forget which, so you would have to have a city tax rate of 80 to 100 percent to match that with a vassal republic. Even if that were possible, you would get no troops, whereas tributaries cannot refuse the call to war.
I haven't played much as a nomad, but I find the Horse Lords tributaries (the ones that leave upon death) + Jade Dragon Force Vassalization CBs to be very useful in 769 Christian feudal starts.
When playing 769 Wessex, you can't just subjugate your way to a kingdom title like some filthy pagan. But those Force Vassalization CBs are very expensive in terms of Prestige, which you have little of at game start.
To give you the prestige you need to use the Force Vassalization CB on surrounding counts, you can declare some quick Tributary wars, then call those realms into your subsequent vassalization wars. Once my ruler dies, I can re-make the break-away realms as new tributaries, to give the new king a nice prestige boost.
Not necessary as a long term strategy, but a great way to get started on your conquests, while you wait for claims to be fabricated and for claimants to foreign titles to appear.
When playing 769 Wessex, you can't just subjugate your way to a kingdom title like some filthy pagan. But those Force Vassalization CBs are very expensive in terms of Prestige, which you have little of at game start.
To give you the prestige you need to use the Force Vassalization CB on surrounding counts, you can declare some quick Tributary wars, then call those realms into your subsequent vassalization wars. Once my ruler dies, I can re-make the break-away realms as new tributaries, to give the new king a nice prestige boost.
Not necessary as a long term strategy, but a great way to get started on your conquests, while you wait for claims to be fabricated and for claimants to foreign titles to appear.
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Besides giving +10 clan opinion making everyone around you tributary is the only way to stop vassal clans from expanding uncontrollably.
Also you can refuse tributary call to arms while they never refuse yours.
The only thing that I don't like about them is the fact that one they become your tributary, their territory is counted as part of your empire (I don't like seeing empty nameless realms).
I actually use both "extort tribute" and "establish tributary state" a lot as feudal.
In an white hun run, after breaking free and carving my own kingdom, i extorted tribute from all the neighbouring kingdoms. As soon as they lost i made them join a new war to extort some more. My ruler started out very young when he was 16, and by the time he was 60 he drove a massive army against Abbasid Persia, on my way to conquer all of Khorasan and Sistan.
In a normal game, as soon as i get the required technology, i tend to establish tributaries all the micro states, or single kingdoms bordering my own. It's a really good for money, while you can just focus running your own kingdom, managing your neighbours if you so will. And it's a great way to stay in shape.
In an white hun run, after breaking free and carving my own kingdom, i extorted tribute from all the neighbouring kingdoms. As soon as they lost i made them join a new war to extort some more. My ruler started out very young when he was 16, and by the time he was 60 he drove a massive army against Abbasid Persia, on my way to conquer all of Khorasan and Sistan.
In a normal game, as soon as i get the required technology, i tend to establish tributaries all the micro states, or single kingdoms bordering my own. It's a really good for money, while you can just focus running your own kingdom, managing your neighbours if you so will. And it's a great way to stay in shape.
i sometimes use Tributaries to increase the amount of troops i get by calling tributaries to war
you can get more.money off them by stacking city tax bloodlines, but not troops.
do tribal tributaries call in their vassal tribals or do they need to be the primary participant?
you can get more.money off them by stacking city tax bloodlines, but not troops.
do tribal tributaries call in their vassal tribals or do they need to be the primary participant?
An extorted tributary is kind of like a vassal that won't join factions, won't require me to put down their provincial revolts, and won't need guarding from raiders. So yes, I use them.
If the tributary owns a silk road trade post do you get to interact with China?
That might be a shortcut when you play with restricted enclaves.
That might be a shortcut when you play with restricted enclaves.
Good golly, yes, I use tributaries all the time.
In the early game, you're effectively getting free alliances with standard tributaries (Horse Lords CB), meaning more armies with no maintenance. If you play it like medieval Katamari Damacy (roll up the small Counts first, then the slightly bigger ones, then the bigger ones, and so on), you can carve out a sizable chunk of temporary territory while farming no small amount of prestige in the process.
There is the minor inconvenience of the tributaries becoming free after your death, though I would argue that's less an inconvenience and more an ideal time for your successor to snap up the newly-freed territories permanently before resuming Feudalmari Damacy.
As the game progresses, having a buffer zone of tributaries is nice not only to keep your realm protected from invaders but, again, it provides a bit of troops, cash and prestige -- all nice things to have, especially if you're close to religious adversaries.
Tributary states (Jade Dragon CB) are much more valuable late-game when you need some extra income to pay for things like, say, a larger retinue, bribes, hospital upgrades, and so forth. I also found it amusing to use tributary states on surrounded minor realms as a "zoo" of sorts -- for example, in my almost-complete 769 Holy Fury run, I have a one-province Slavic state and four-province Germanic state purely as remnants of their dying religions. Hey, why not, I am the Wendish-Germanic-Scandanavian-Carpathian-Russian empress after all...
In the early game, you're effectively getting free alliances with standard tributaries (Horse Lords CB), meaning more armies with no maintenance. If you play it like medieval Katamari Damacy (roll up the small Counts first, then the slightly bigger ones, then the bigger ones, and so on), you can carve out a sizable chunk of temporary territory while farming no small amount of prestige in the process.
There is the minor inconvenience of the tributaries becoming free after your death, though I would argue that's less an inconvenience and more an ideal time for your successor to snap up the newly-freed territories permanently before resuming Feudalmari Damacy.
As the game progresses, having a buffer zone of tributaries is nice not only to keep your realm protected from invaders but, again, it provides a bit of troops, cash and prestige -- all nice things to have, especially if you're close to religious adversaries.
Tributary states (Jade Dragon CB) are much more valuable late-game when you need some extra income to pay for things like, say, a larger retinue, bribes, hospital upgrades, and so forth. I also found it amusing to use tributary states on surrounded minor realms as a "zoo" of sorts -- for example, in my almost-complete 769 Holy Fury run, I have a one-province Slavic state and four-province Germanic state purely as remnants of their dying religions. Hey, why not, I am the Wendish-Germanic-Scandanavian-Carpathian-Russian empress after all...
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As a Feudal ruler, I love the "Extort Tribute" CB to get a Tributary paying me 40% of their income. LOVE IT.
As mentioned above, getting Tributary Merchant Republics is a wonderful money-maker. They are easy to smack around and then you just roll in cash afterwards.
In the early game when you haven't stabilized your realm, expanded the number of available vassals, and otherwise gotten your laws/obligations where you want them, a few Tributaries are a great way to circumvent vassal/holding limits, as well as political volatility, and basically hit "pause" until the next generation. By then you will very likely have better capacity to absorb them as vassals, if you so choose.
I also like to block rival kingdoms from expanding into soft targets. For example, as England in 1066, this can mean turning Brittany into a Tribute quickly so France doesn't devour them. Then focus your early reign on dealing with all the irascible vassals you inherit, and you won't need to worry about a fast-expanding France knocking on your door.
The extra troops from Tributaries are also great to have. Even a 2-county Petty King is going to have at least 1,000 troops or so to contribute during a war, which adds up fast if you have a few Tributaries. You can also control whether they attack enemies, siege specific provinces, attach to your armies, etc, so they actually do contribute. A swarm of Tributaries has a lot of wartime value.
Also, each time you win a war using to establish a new Tributary, you get 200 Prestige, which is a nice boost to a new ruler.
Finally, every war to establish a Tributary counts as a foreign war. If you are trying to forge one of the Conquest-related Bloodlines, you need to win 15 foreign wars. Turning a bunch of small counties and duchies into Tributaries is one of the easiest ways I have found in CK2 to hit that target.
So again, yes, I love Tributaries.
As mentioned above, getting Tributary Merchant Republics is a wonderful money-maker. They are easy to smack around and then you just roll in cash afterwards.
In the early game when you haven't stabilized your realm, expanded the number of available vassals, and otherwise gotten your laws/obligations where you want them, a few Tributaries are a great way to circumvent vassal/holding limits, as well as political volatility, and basically hit "pause" until the next generation. By then you will very likely have better capacity to absorb them as vassals, if you so choose.
I also like to block rival kingdoms from expanding into soft targets. For example, as England in 1066, this can mean turning Brittany into a Tribute quickly so France doesn't devour them. Then focus your early reign on dealing with all the irascible vassals you inherit, and you won't need to worry about a fast-expanding France knocking on your door.
The extra troops from Tributaries are also great to have. Even a 2-county Petty King is going to have at least 1,000 troops or so to contribute during a war, which adds up fast if you have a few Tributaries. You can also control whether they attack enemies, siege specific provinces, attach to your armies, etc, so they actually do contribute. A swarm of Tributaries has a lot of wartime value.
Also, each time you win a war using to establish a new Tributary, you get 200 Prestige, which is a nice boost to a new ruler.
Finally, every war to establish a Tributary counts as a foreign war. If you are trying to forge one of the Conquest-related Bloodlines, you need to win 15 foreign wars. Turning a bunch of small counties and duchies into Tributaries is one of the easiest ways I have found in CK2 to hit that target.
So again, yes, I love Tributaries.
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That's pretty similar to what I do--make bordering realms I don't have any other CB on into tributaries, and use the returns from them to fund and provide extra troops for wars against realms I have CBs on that let me conquer them. It's largely an early-game strategy for me--later on, it's usually fairly easy to get other CBs--and I don't think I've ever made the kind of tributary that's permanent.
With the introduction of demesne, vassal limits and defensive pacts,, the metagame shifted from landgrabbing to organizing realm and managing threat (not necessarily a bad thing in my eyes, I've played again with the latest patch).
Specially as younger feudal ruler that might go on a conquest spree throughout his life, it is crucial to have the imminent neighbours out of defensive pacts, so you can lead your armies to foreign wars without having to protect your capital. A defensive pact infront the doorstep prevents you from going on the offense, tributaries might even do the work for you instead.
A practical example, let's look at a 867 Byzantium start with Basil Makedon:
Starting out with a defensive war, you was safe from a faction for the start, and got whopping levies on day 1 as you are defending versus infidels.
It used to be the best (or one valid) option, to not just fend off the Muslims, but instead, declare war on all these little sicilian counties and dukes for a de jure county as well, given you had to move your army there anyway and you have all the de jure claims.
With the introduction of threat and defensive pacts, however, such a move will simply render your early game hopeless now, as it will raise your threat to somewhere beyond the 20 percent, and with your big size allow all neighbouring realms sans the Caliph and Karling Kingdoms to gang up on you right away- needless to point out you will best small defensive pacts in a war as Basil, but that will only make them grow further.
Tribute, as mentioned already initially, is a comfortable way to handle this issue, as tributaries will stay out of defensive pacts.
As this half lengthy essay already hints at, I'm still toying around with the mechanic and can't explicitly say wether Tributary states or normal feudal tribute is better, but both have their uses, that I can conclude already. To stick with the Byzantium example, it's also much more useful to extort tribute from Georgia early game, as smashing them for a de jure county will only cripple them, making them fall to muslims or a horde, effectively weakening your eastern border etc. etc., while as suzerain you can get cheap shots to smash muslim armies, or even occupy territory you mean to seize, on behalf of your tributaries.
Desband the levy in time to declare war on your own once the defensive war is out, and the varangian guard and retinue will do the sieging job on their own, being in spot already.
tl;dr,
Income is nice but what really matters to me is that tributaries can't join the defensive pact.
Specially as younger feudal ruler that might go on a conquest spree throughout his life, it is crucial to have the imminent neighbours out of defensive pacts, so you can lead your armies to foreign wars without having to protect your capital. A defensive pact infront the doorstep prevents you from going on the offense, tributaries might even do the work for you instead.
A practical example, let's look at a 867 Byzantium start with Basil Makedon:
Starting out with a defensive war, you was safe from a faction for the start, and got whopping levies on day 1 as you are defending versus infidels.
It used to be the best (or one valid) option, to not just fend off the Muslims, but instead, declare war on all these little sicilian counties and dukes for a de jure county as well, given you had to move your army there anyway and you have all the de jure claims.
With the introduction of threat and defensive pacts, however, such a move will simply render your early game hopeless now, as it will raise your threat to somewhere beyond the 20 percent, and with your big size allow all neighbouring realms sans the Caliph and Karling Kingdoms to gang up on you right away- needless to point out you will best small defensive pacts in a war as Basil, but that will only make them grow further.
Tribute, as mentioned already initially, is a comfortable way to handle this issue, as tributaries will stay out of defensive pacts.
As this half lengthy essay already hints at, I'm still toying around with the mechanic and can't explicitly say wether Tributary states or normal feudal tribute is better, but both have their uses, that I can conclude already. To stick with the Byzantium example, it's also much more useful to extort tribute from Georgia early game, as smashing them for a de jure county will only cripple them, making them fall to muslims or a horde, effectively weakening your eastern border etc. etc., while as suzerain you can get cheap shots to smash muslim armies, or even occupy territory you mean to seize, on behalf of your tributaries.
Desband the levy in time to declare war on your own once the defensive war is out, and the varangian guard and retinue will do the sieging job on their own, being in spot already.
tl;dr,
Income is nice but what really matters to me is that tributaries can't join the defensive pact.
In my current game as Emperor of Britannia I've extorted tribute from Lombardy and It's giving me a solid 10 gold a month and they give me an extra 14k worth of troops in war. I'm thinking of making them a tributary state of my next ruler since it'll give me troop replenishment and 5 gold per month with a much lower chance of them breaking free.
Tribals and nomads get an opinion modifier for winning a tribute war. They also provide prestige.
Also the extra troops from them really helps early in the game.
I find them mandatory honestly.
I use the permanentish tributaries to form buffer around my current country once its reached the borders I want and I body jump through a crusade
Also the extra troops from them really helps early in the game.
I find them mandatory honestly.
I use the permanentish tributaries to form buffer around my current country once its reached the borders I want and I body jump through a crusade
I love tributaries. Find the biggest guy on the map and save up all your cash to tributise them then use them as your new permanent ally on everything else.
If you have four directions to expand tributise at least one.
If you have four directions to expand tributise at least one.