Playing whack a mole in your realm is just getting so ridiculously tiring. Allow us to TURN THIS CRAP OFF.
Factions are absolutely awful
- Thread starter icon41gimp
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Perhaps you should delegate: create duchies to reduce your vassals, thereby reducing the amount of whack-a-mole you have to do.
Works pretty well really, except factions can hardly gain any strength in a multi-kingdom king or Emperor since each duke/count often makes up <5% of liege strength.
Here's what I do, I keep an eye on that dangerous factions icon and when they start getting 20%+ I start solving problems. Award honorary titles, give them baronies/counties(being over demense limit is the easiest way to get lots of factions)/duchies they want and boom faction is back under <5%
Here's what I do, I keep an eye on that dangerous factions icon and when they start getting 20%+ I start solving problems. Award honorary titles, give them baronies/counties(being over demense limit is the easiest way to get lots of factions)/duchies they want and boom faction is back under <5%
Yeah, this is why you delegate.
Or use Prince ArchBishops for a few key duchies. They make lovely and stable allies.
Or use Prince ArchBishops for a few key duchies. They make lovely and stable allies.
For nearly 300 years in my recent Byzantine game I haven't had a single revolt, faction or otherwise.
Factions basically replace random revolts. The only other kind of revolt is plot based which almost never happens if you're decent size. If you can keep opinion up you're factions go bye bye.
How do we keep opinion up?
Obey de jure laws. Hand dukes/kings counties that belong to them. Transfer vassals.
Delegate. Make the duchies and hand them out. Make kingdoms that are manageable sized and hand them out. Fewer vassals mean fewer folks to keep happy, and temp bonus with dude you handed the title too.
Spam the hell out of Bishop vassals. They almost never pose a threat, and pay buckets of taxes at max level. Doges seem a bit to troublesome lately.
Gold. Hand out gifts routinely. Neg relations, faction leaders, members of factions get gifts and honorary titles. Relations over 80 mean no faction. The bishops vassals help a lot. Lots of gold mean lots of relations boosts.
Breed for high stats like diplomacy and stewardship (helps keep high demesne with no penalty).
Marry women with good diplomacy stats.
Keep a good chancellor.
Religious and cultural unity. Always force convert vassals if possible. Most of the time a gift or honorary title will convince them to convert willingly. If that still won't work use your chaplain. Always try to keep same culture vassals or at least hide them under same cultured dukes.
Bear in mind that you should have been following this procedure before LOR/1.07. The factions actually reduce rebellions severely. Combined with Retinues, factions make large realms much easier to maintain.
-started as Duke of Achaia.
Factions basically replace random revolts. The only other kind of revolt is plot based which almost never happens if you're decent size. If you can keep opinion up you're factions go bye bye.
How do we keep opinion up?
Obey de jure laws. Hand dukes/kings counties that belong to them. Transfer vassals.
Delegate. Make the duchies and hand them out. Make kingdoms that are manageable sized and hand them out. Fewer vassals mean fewer folks to keep happy, and temp bonus with dude you handed the title too.
Spam the hell out of Bishop vassals. They almost never pose a threat, and pay buckets of taxes at max level. Doges seem a bit to troublesome lately.
Gold. Hand out gifts routinely. Neg relations, faction leaders, members of factions get gifts and honorary titles. Relations over 80 mean no faction. The bishops vassals help a lot. Lots of gold mean lots of relations boosts.
Breed for high stats like diplomacy and stewardship (helps keep high demesne with no penalty).
Marry women with good diplomacy stats.
Keep a good chancellor.
Religious and cultural unity. Always force convert vassals if possible. Most of the time a gift or honorary title will convince them to convert willingly. If that still won't work use your chaplain. Always try to keep same culture vassals or at least hide them under same cultured dukes.
Bear in mind that you should have been following this procedure before LOR/1.07. The factions actually reduce rebellions severely. Combined with Retinues, factions make large realms much easier to maintain.
-started as Duke of Achaia.
Hell, I let them rebel. That way I can spank them back down, revoke their lands and take their money.
It is fun being a duke or count of a kingdom or empire and being allowed to participate in factions. If I want so and so duke or prince to take the throne because we are buddies then I'll join that faction. Before there was no way to lower crown authority but now a bunch of us can band together to lower crown authority as long as we have the strength.
They need to be rebalanced. Right now the AI seems a little too eager to join them (the AI basically never see a reason not to join a faction).
I have noticed this as well. An unimportant character can start a faction (i.e. a count in an Empire) and vassals with 100 relations to their liege will still join. What's really strange is when all these guys create an independence faction, and if you let them go, the majority of them will accept a peaceful offer of vassalization.
Scheme.
Find the faction leader, and send your spymaster to scheme in their province. Ends any faction, guaranteed, if you have a half-decent spymaster.
Find the faction leader, and send your spymaster to scheme in their province. Ends any faction, guaranteed, if you have a half-decent spymaster.
Why wouldn't a duke still want to lower CA? Just because he likes you doesn't mean it instantly eliminates his "desire" for more freedom and less restrictive laws. Now if he were in the "independence" or wanted to murder you that would be a different story.
Personally, I love the faction system especially being in the HRE.... before it was nearly impossible to take on the Emperor even though he was a brutal tyrant but now as a rather larger Duke and ten backers I was able to lead a faction to Lower Crown Authority to Autonomous. It was great instead of being permanently stuck at Medium CA or above and unable to war within the realm.
I personally enjoy the challenge of factions. It was far too easy to annihilate single vassals that wanted independence. If you know how to manage factions, then you will be fine. I like the feeling of empowerment it gives when you play as a vassal. In an MP game I am playing, we forced the King of France to adopt Gavelkind to weaken the realm.
Medieval politics was not ideological. Nobles shouldn't crave more "freedom"; they're not Jacobins. What they should want is more power for themselves. There are many ways to achieve that, and if you're a loyalist, a close friend of the monarch, or a nobody that the king has raised up from obscurity, then it's in your best interest to see the power of the king (i.e. crown authority) increased, not reduced.
I didnt mean "freedom" in an ideological sense, I ment the freedoms enjoyed by dukes in the game at low CA levels.
And why do those freedoms inherently matter more than a close relationship with the king, or the expectation of money/land/titles if you remain loyal?