Empire Management Strategies?

[RaubritterAK]

Just wanted to get a few opinions on how best to go about this. I'm currently emperor of Scandinavia as the Swedes. My empire now contains 8 kingdoms; Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Scotland, Leon, and Galicia. I'm currently king of all 8. I've thought about passing some of them out to loyal dynasty members or vassals but I know all too well they could be friends today rivals tomorrow and I'm nervous about handing over an entire kingdom. At the same time it's becoming a real pain micromanaging all these premadonna dukes that never shut up. What say you guys? Is it worth handing these out or should I keep hoarding crowns? I'm about to add Poland and Castille too.

 

[monsterfurby]

Back before factions were introduced, I had a pretty good game going with the HRE, owning Scandinavia, Britain and holding on to all of Italy in addition to most of Germany. Kingdoms helped keep the distance modifier to rebellions low and while that isn't a factor anymore, the key principle for distributing kingdoms remains the game: keep them in balance.

Basically, what I did was try and keep them all at around the same level of power (keep an eye on troops and lands via the realm tree) - four kings at about 24% of liege's troops are basically the optimal structure for a 4-kingdom-empire. You can have a number of smaller kingdoms, too - if you're really good though, you'll ensure that they are allied (via family unions or such) to either you directly or to the larger kings in equal number.

The major breaking point for an empire that's set up like this comes when one major kingdom inherits another. This is the point where you have to step in immediately. Murder, bribe, banish, attaint - whatever is needed to keep two Kingdoms from uniting. Even if the one who stands to inherit is your best buddy, you need to get rid of them. Fighting down a rebellion by a single king is still better than one staged by a king who controls two kingdoms already.

Edit: Oh, and also don't worry about kingdoms fighting each other UNLESS they are going for each other's crowns. Having them beat each other up for control of de jure lands keeps them busy.

 

[Lessing]

People here will never stop telling you that its much easier placating 4 vassals than 40. But the truth is that you lose a lot of income when you hand out kingdoms, and with factions you'll get into trouble if more than one king enters a faction against you. There are some nice things though as well. With the new levy system, you can raise all of a vassal's troops - say France's - with a single click in a single stack if you gave somebody the kingdom of France. Ideally the king reigns from a coastal province, and then boom, you get 30k+ vassal stack that you can employ anywhere within days.

I just recently became emperor of Britannia, and handed out the kingdoms of Wales, Ireland, Scotland. I kept England and Brittany, and so far it's ok. The taxes from the kings are awful though (on small feudal tax setting).

 

[RaubritterAK]

I hadn't considered the tax hit... hmm. Maybe I'll just keep them all. I do like the new levy system though and mobilizing would be much easier. My empire is all over the place, takes over a month to fully mobilize, especially when some of my duchies don't have enough ships.

 

[monsterfurby]

I just recently became emperor of Britannia, and handed out the kingdoms of Wales, Ireland, Scotland. I kept England and Brittany, and so far it's ok. The taxes from the kings are awful though (on small feudal tax setting).

It's true that giving out kingdoms has become a lot more pointless since factions were introduced. Still, it does help manage rebellions.

Lots of cash does, too. Really a matter of personal preference now.

 

[nestorius]

Should point out that if you dont create vassal kingdoms the game slows down like crazy. I would create some kingdoms ideally though they should be Dejure part of the empire, or at least small like the spanish ones.

 

[Accrsd]

may favorite strategy for this case is to have a realm of counts on high crown authority. while holding max, or near max what you can personaly own. if you do everything in your power to prevent powerblocks from forming then they normaly don't. just make sure to have the festivals feasts and hunts flowing to keep people fat and happy. also the fact that i tend to only play as a grey eminence helps out tremendously too

 

[Yenzen]

People here will never stop telling you that its much easier placating 4 vassals than 40. But the truth is that you lose a lot of income when you hand out kingdoms, and with factions you'll get into trouble if more than one king enters a faction against you. There are some nice things though as well. With the new levy system, you can raise all of a vassal's troops - say France's - with a single click in a single stack if you gave somebody the kingdom of France. Ideally the king reigns from a coastal province, and then boom, you get 30k+ vassal stack that you can employ anywhere within days.

I just recently became emperor of Britannia, and handed out the kingdoms of Wales, Ireland, Scotland. I kept England and Brittany, and so far it's ok. The taxes from the kings are awful though (on small feudal tax setting).

Then again, why tax feudal vassals? It just doesn't seem worth the opinion hit and your barons/counts/dukes/kings tend to spend the cash on building improvements anyway.

Anyway, the problems with many many small vassals, though the downsides of constant small rebellions has been stopped, is the sheer amount of plotting these guys can do against you. It's the same reason having a 80-man court is a bad idea.

 

[MasterOfGrey]

Personally I find taxing feudal vassals is more trouble than it's worth, so I don't. Saves you an opinion penalty too (albeit a small one).

If you're playing with LoR you can develop a proportionally huge retinue which can be quite useful for maintaining stability. The best way to keep an Empire stable though is to set up your kings all in different dynasties. Sure putting your own kinsmen on the thrones is nice for dynastic prestige, but separate dynastic kings are less likely to marry in such a way that they'll become one kingdom which saves you a bit of effort. Of course you want to make sure it stays this way so each "King" should personally control 2 duchies in his kingdom. The number of other dukes you have under a king comes down to personal preference then. I'm about to form the Empire of Hispania in my game and my vassal Aragon will be quite powerful (almost as large a kingdom as my expanded Leon), but the other kings are all going to have only 1 duke beneath them (or two small ones as the case may be).

By the time you're an empire though you can field a sizeable retinue. If you're relatively safe from invasion (read: not next to mongols) you can split your retinue into 12-15k stacks and position them in the capitals of your strongest kings. This will let you react quickly to any rebels which gets you opinion bonuses, but also means you can decimate their armies when they're newly raised if a flag is raised in some sort of rebellion.

Additionally, be liberal with honorary titles, but only to kings not dukes, and every time a king dies, pause that very day and send a gift to his successor, income wont be calculated yet so it's only 20 gold for full opinion bonus. Don't be afraid to use your spymaster to discourage factionalism, if you've got good diplomacy skill and the kind trait you can "ask them nicely" when the popup appears and that's a guaranteed success. Also, your chancellors improve diplomatic relations quest is unimaginably helpful.

Your personal kingdom should be twice the size of any vassal kingdoms if you don't really know what you're doing. I tend to play a little closer to the edge now but it's a fine line to draw. Lastly as has been said, do the tournaments and fairs, and keep a barony around to give your heir. This will keep your heir from leaving the country or anything unexpected, and improves his chances of producing heirs. When you die you just hand that barony on to the next heir again. It's great in that you also get a small cash boost when you inherit each time as well.

 

[Isaios]

The reason you tax Feudal vassals is SO THAT you can have a ridiculously large retinue. All the money always to centralise the power. Power is good.

 

[FabiusBile]

The reason you tax Feudal vassals is SO THAT you can have a ridiculously large retinue. All the money always to centralise the power. Power is good.

Ehrm, no? You hit your retinue limits incredibly easy. Money is not the Issue anyway; its getting enough soldiers in your realm and getting the tech.

Also, Feudal Tax does not seem such a good idea in my book. Especially at Medium CA you want good opinions in for vassal troops. Feudal tax pisses off your feudal vassals even more (in addition to CA), it is easier just to raise city taxes or church taxes if you really need the additional money at the beginning, but generally money matters less in the midgame and manpower become much more important, especially as factions start to form.

 

[Mutineer]

I personally in favor in giving away Small kingdoms. Keep 2 biggest one's. As managment idea i would suggest to change succession low of this kingdoms to gavekin befor giving them away. Reason? Gavekin devide holdings on each generation, preventing creation of supper kings. Really, you do not have to manage vassals any longer and you can arrest and ransom THERE vassals for plottting and other reasons, giving you some additional money. If you do not intend to change succession lows, fact they hate you does not matter, as they are not your direct vassals. Feadal taxes are usefull only temporally, when you want to go on Holding building spree, basically early- midddle of the game. Later you wll find that you do not have money problems.

 

[Isaios]

Ehrm, no? You hit your retinue limits incredibly easy. Money is not the Issue anyway; its getting enough soldiers in your realm and getting the tech.

Also, Feudal Tax does not seem such a good idea in my book. Especially at Medium CA you want good opinions in for vassal troops.

Let's say that's a question of when in the game you are. With high-ish Military Organisation tech, you can get more retinue than you can easily pay upkeep for. I'm not talking about when they sit around looking pretty, but rather when they've actually been in use. Suddenly you're losing stupid amounts of cash. And THEN it's really quite nice having Feudal Tax. I stick to the lowest setting, but that measly 10% still is what carries me through the lean times.

 

[NewbieOne]

Just wanted to get a few opinions on how best to go about this. I'm currently emperor of Scandinavia as the Swedes. My empire now contains 8 kingdoms; Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Scotland, Leon, and Galicia. I'm currently king of all 8. I've thought about passing some of them out to loyal dynasty members or vassals but I know all too well they could be friends today rivals tomorrow and I'm nervous about handing over an entire kingdom. At the same time it's becoming a real pain micromanaging all these premadonna dukes that never shut up. What say you guys? Is it worth handing these out or should I keep hoarding crowns? I'm about to add Poland and Castille too.

I strongly suggest learning by experience instead of theorising (note, I'm not trying to be negative, just posting in a hurry because work's calling, so sorry if I sound the wrong way ). Basically, if you think about it, dissect it mentally, wait for answers etc., you end up tired, exhausted intellectually or emotionally or both, the game feels less 'yours' than if you just went on experimenting etc. So just find out! Hover over your vassals' opinion indicators, find out how that is. See how they behave given how much land they have, see what's best for you. This said, the experience of others is extremely worthwhile in that it takes much less to tell than to play.

My experience managing large blobs has only been with dukes so far. Sometimes multidukes but not really kings. I'd always watch their opinions, make sure they didn't have valid reasons to be agitated, made sure not to appoint ambitious people to new fiefs (maybe unless I really could handle it, or maybe as barons).

Generally, remember that handing out kingdoms reduces the tax you get. Basically, every layer in the feudal structure does this, which does mean you live mostly off your demesne and the rest is mostly for levies and prestige farming and so on. Which does mean you can lower the taxes if you don't see much of them anyway (just multiply 0.1 times 0.1 times 0.1 to see how 'much' you get in the end from a baron's tax as an emperor (example numbers)).

What else? Kings may want independence more (but I'm not certain here in general, I do know there are some conditions when this happens), while lesser vassals may want your other kingdoms. If you delegate, keeping several vassals at the top tier happy may be easier than keeping happy a whole throng of them, especially allied to each other. On the other hand, megavassals are more dangerous when they do turn rebel. And they may require much more expensive gifts (on the other hand, personal buffs, like Chancellor's Improved Relations or the award of an honorary title or a kid to tutor or some such apply the same to a count as they do to a king).

 

[FabiusBile]

Let's say that's a question of when in the game you are. With high-ish Military Organisation tech, you can get more retinue than you can easily pay upkeep for. I'm not talking about when they sit around looking pretty, but rather when they've actually been in use. Suddenly you're losing stupid amounts of cash. And THEN it's really quite nice having Feudal Tax. I stick to the lowest setting, but that measly 10% still is what carries me through the lean times.

I've never had that happen in my game, even as Byzantium and some 40k retinues (I did go in the negative in 1.07, but it turns out that this is not a problem at all, the malus is very small). It is safer anyway to have cash lying around or simply manually stop the reinforcements. I honestly do not see your point . Most of the time the richest people in my realms are the city owerns anyway, easier just to tax them.

 

[MasterOfGrey]

Let's say that's a question of when in the game you are. With high-ish Military Organisation tech, you can get more retinue than you can easily pay upkeep for. I'm not talking about when they sit around looking pretty, but rather when they've actually been in use. Suddenly you're losing stupid amounts of cash. And THEN it's really quite nice having Feudal Tax. I stick to the lowest setting, but that measly 10% still is what carries me through the lean times.

I've never had that happen in my game, even as Byzantium and some 40k retinues (I did go in the negative in 1.07, but it turns out that this is not a problem at all, the malus is very small). It is safer anyway to have cash lying around or simply manually stop the reinforcements. I honestly do not see your point . Most of the time the richest people in my realms are the city owerns anyway, easier just to tax them.

Fabius Bile pretty much has it here. If you always keep a couple hundred gold in reserve and you're not spending it on anything except retinue upkeep once you go to war then it's really not a problem. By the time you've mustered and started sieging you can pick up an extra couple of hundred quite easily as a large realm, so by the time battle start wearing you down you've got a lot to go through. But as said, the malus isn't even that big if you go below anyway.

Edit: In fact I usually have minimum or no taxes for everyone in my kingdom practically from day 1, by 1150 I can usually support a very decent retinue which can entirely reinforce off my monthly income with enough left over for mercs if I get in a bind.

 

[Jamey]

Personally I find taxing feudal vassals is more trouble than it's worth, so I don't. Saves you an opinion penalty too (albeit a small one).

I'd generally agree here, but that might vary based on where you start (e.g. landlocked in Russia). I try to set up some small (2-3 province) duchies as Doges reporting directly to me. In my current game, as the ERE, I set up all of Sicily as Doges and never created the kingdom (due to complications from Born i n the Purple and inheritance). 75 years later, it's my little cash farm that feeds my treasury.

Your personal kingdom should be twice the size of any vassal kingdoms if you don't really know what you're doing. I tend to play a little closer to the edge now but it's a fine line to draw. Lastly as has been said, do the tournaments and fairs, and keep a barony around to give your heir. This will keep your heir from leaving the country or anything unexpected, and improves his chances of producing heirs. When you die you just hand that barony on to the next heir again. It's great in that you also get a small cash boost when you inherit each time as well.

I normally keep a barony in my capital for my heir. It works out nicely for keeping him in my domain, even if his wife is landed elsewhere.

In general, I'm in the camp that once you have an Empire, it's good to give out Kingdoms. I've generally given mine out to Dynasty members, and that hasn't bitten me too hard so far (that may be due to my high diplomacy and good trait breeding/training program - I have yet to have a truly bad Emperor). Managing 10 direct vassals rather than 50 makes the game drastically more fun for me.

 

[nestorius]

Tax income from your vassals starts to be a major element in large empires. If you are small it doesnt matte but if you are large then really you will need it.
Especially if you plan to fully upgrade all your 9 or so castle holdings.

 

[Tokie]

I like to turn coastal kingdoms into republics so I can tax the Doge. Remember republic duchies gets a 100% income bonus and another bonus if their capital is a coastal city.

Your vassals won't like it if you keep kingdom titles when playing as emperor, but you can keep 1 kingdom title(depends where your capital is). Either destroy the rest or hand them out will save you lots of trouble in the future. I usually hand mine out to dynasty members so my house would be much more prestigious in the long run.

 

[Lord Finnish]

1. Have lots of weak vassals (only counts and dukes)
2. Each person in your realm should control only one holding.
3. Have lots of money.