Emperor's estates

[Deliberus]

The estate system introduced in 1.30 is far better than what we had in 1.29. Previously, you'd raise special units, increase loyalty and take your bonus monarch power every few years. Pretty boring if you ask me. In 1.30 that all changed. With the addition of crownland, loyalty equilibrium, state agendas and privileges it has become a lot more interesting.

So we have the following privileges:

Land Rights (+100 governing capacity) - If you find that you're conquering more than usual due to weak countries or whatever else than this can be usual to overcome low governing capacity in the early game

Primacy of X (+1 monthly monarch power) - By far the most important privilege as monarch power is the most valuable resource.

Advisor Privilege (-25% advisor cost, +10% stability cost) - Probably the worst privilege as the most important factor with expensive advisors is not their base price but their maintenance cost. If you ask me, it should be between -25% to -50% maintenance cost to make it worthwhile

Estate loyalty Privilege (+10% estate loyalty equilibrium, +10% estate influence) - A solid privilege that allows you to take land from the estate in the future without making them mad

Increased Levies (-tax modifier, +manpower modifier) - A solid privilege to grant if you don't want to take quantity ideas at the start.

Supremacy over the crown (+10% loyalty equilibrium, can persue agendas at any time) - Same as estate loyalty privilege but applies it for all estates you have making your life easier.

 

[Siddy00]

Mind you, I haven't actually played with this yet, so I don't know if this approach is practical I'll have to revisit Mewar (or something in the area) sometime soon to try it

To follow up on this: I toyed a bit with this yesterday and I'm quite pleased with the results (screenshots below)
That's 32% special units force limit, which is enough (in my case) to field enough Rajput infantry to fill the combat width (although I haven't done so yet). The screenshots are taken from a Mewar run in 1578, so it took 130 years to get to this point. I goofed up a few times with privileges, which cost me about 15 years, and also turned Sikh, which juggled some estates and slowed me down some more; I think you could reach the same point in 100 years, give or take --- or as little as 70 years if you don't need the +1 adm privilege, don't turn Sikh (or don't re-enable the +1 adm privilege) and don't need the +1 mil one from the start.
In a nutshell: after setting up the privileges I wanted, I spent about 100 years getting crown land up to 100%, and then started revoking and regranting the +1 mil privilege from Rajputs, giving them 10% estate land every time. Getting loyalty back up wasn't too hard, since I tanked their influence to 25% (32 of the 57 in the screenshot is from land share) and got lucky with two +20 loyalty parliament debates and one or two events. I didn't notice until the end that selling titles grants estates land based on the current land distribution and not based on influence, so almost all of that would've gone to Rajputs as well. That would've sped up the process slightly further and granted me some money to boot.

I've attached the save game for those interested. Non-ironman, no lucky nations, slight (temporary) bordergore warning, beware of outraged neighbours. I can go into more detail if anyone wishes, although I suppose it's a bit off-topic at this point so it might be more appropriate to do so in a separate thread.

 

[Skagzill]

Well I just ballooned my force limit to get achievement)) A lot easier in my opinion than messing with estate lands.

 

[Dragonquack]

My favorite part is the monopoly privileges, it’s a nice alternative to loans

 

[watchout86]

Because I enjoy pre-Emperor estate play, I have not yet installed patch 1.30. However, I notice that players seem content with Emperor's estate play. Few players are complaining in the forum, at any rate.

Is Emperor's estate play better in your opinion? If so, why?

For the most part, I like the estates in Emperor better than they were before. I did kind of enjoy specializing provinces based on their trade good and giving them to the estate that encouraged that the most (e.g. give grain province to the nobility and make it a 5-5-11 province to get the most force limit, give coastal fish province to the burghers and make it a 5-11-5 province to get the most sailors, give gems province to clergy and make it a 11-5-5 province to get the most taxes), instead of all provinces being more balanced because you don't need to specialize like that to overcome local autonomy that doesn't apply to certain things. I felt like it added slightly more to developing provinces. However, I don't think it was such an interesting feature that it is better than the estates system in Emperor, and it's not like the Emperor estates don't also force decisions to make other features more interesting.

 

[Thucydides7]

Well I just ballooned my force limit to get achievement)) A lot easier in my opinion than messing with estate lands.

I do not understand players that are happier when the game is easier. To me, easier is usually worse, not better.

 

[makaramus]

I do not understand players that are happier when the game is easier. To me, easier is usually worse, not better.

Its not being easier to play. Its easier to get a specific achivement
getting it "easier" means you will give all your land to nobles for lose of all of your tax money for extra man power which is trash tier idea but if you want an achivement then its worth doing even if resulting with destroying your country

 

[Thucydides7]

Its not being easier to play. Its easier to get a specific achivement
getting it "easier" means you will give all your land to nobles for lose of all of your tax money for extra man power which is trash tier idea but if you want an achivement then its worth doing even if resulting with destroying your country

Okay, I see.

 

[Yolordmcswag]

I really like the new estate system. One of my favorite things about it is that it gives an option to just always maxing absolutism, now there is a trade-off in that most of the good estate priviledges reduce absolutism cap. Also there is a lot less annoying micromanagement.

 

[darth254]

I prefer the current system, the balancing act can be pretty fun, and I much prefer the pie chart abstraction.

old system was kind of just grueling having to assign stuff to the estates, and then try to grab your monarch points and other perks periodically.

 

[Skagzill]

I do not understand players that are happier when the game is easier. To me, easier is usually worse, not better.

I mean when achievement is to have 20 Estate regiments, instead of doing the balancing act the other guy did, I took Quantity and Offensive and took over half of India until force limit grew to 20. It was less easy, and more the thing I was going to do anyway sort of deal.

 

[Siddy00]

I mean when achievement is to have 20 Estate regiments, instead of doing the balancing act the other guy did, I took Quantity and Offensive and took over half of India until force limit grew to 20. It was less easy, and more the thing I was going to do anyway sort of deal.

That's kind of what I did myself when I got the achievement some time ago, and I agree that you'll probably get there anyway (eventually) if you just keep playing or also try for the Mewar mission tree achievement, which requires you to conquer large swaths of India. Although I think you overestimate (or overstate) the hassle of managing your estate land, it might not be worth the trouble solely for the achievement.
At the same time, however, I didn't share this as a how-to for the Rajput achievement (which isn't hard as it is), and more as a showcase for what is actually possible w.r.t. estate land distribution (which is, according to earlier posts). Also, in this case it allowed me to equip my entire infantry line with an additional 5% morale, 5% discipline and 10% fire damage, which I'd argue is pretty nice And barring all that, I'm simply having fun

 

[Battlex]

I wish there was a lot more ties between influence/land-controlled and privileges. Increased levies is nice, it slightly reduces tax income but gives more manpower, but if nobility is not present in the nation anymore it just becomes a needless -5 absolutism.
Interactions before Emperor were weird and didn't quite make sense, but if you wanted 200 points that meant pushing influence dangerously high, now you just give each one a privilege and then gradually reduce them into non existence and the points generation is even stronger.

Breaking the estates into loyal and permanently useful is arguably how centralization works