Favourite crown, levies and tax laws in 1.07b?

[minke19104]

I find myself leaning towards being an absolute monarch in my recent games. With retinues you need a lot of money. So i use: high/max, papal investiture, all low levies, and harsh taxes, running primogeniture succession.

I also try to destroy all ducal titles beyond my allowed two.

With this setting you're bound to get faction revolts after every succession. But hey, they revolt anyways even with high relations to you. I actually like to get a revolt early, this way i get to revoke all offending counts' titles, disburse them, and have a stable reign afterwards.

What do u think?

 

[unmerged(68578)]

I doubt it's optimal, but I do lowest levies and max taxes on my churches and towns. I also never raise their armies. However, I do no taxes on my nobles and max levies. I end up with plenty of money and a lot of troops.

 

[Cymsdale]

I find that vassals will construct things more if I use lower tax settings, so near the beginning of the game I favor those. I'll adjust levy sizes based around my needs and relations at the time.

 

[Dracko81]

The only adjustment I make is raising CA to medium. I don't want my vassals to have primo, so I don't raise to a point where the can have it.

 

[whosthebestcop]

I find myself leaning towards being an absolute monarch in my recent games. With retinues you need a lot of money. So i use: high/max, papal investiture, all low levies, and harsh taxes, running primogeniture succession.

I also try to destroy all ducal titles beyond my allowed two.

With this setting you're bound to get faction revolts after every succession. But hey, they revolt anyways even with high relations to you. I actually like to get a revolt early, this way i get to revoke all offending counts' titles, disburse them, and have a stable reign afterwards.

What do u think?

Sounds awful. It is totally possible to play the entire game under 1.07 without ever having a rebellion or faction war.

If I'm catholic I would say elective and free investiture. You are now looking at +30 to all non dynasty vassals and a +25 to all clergy.

Stay at low or medium CA and just set feudal levies to Max it is only -5 opinion.

Then increase city tax to harsh. They will never rebel if they are just simple mayors. You can even increase church tax because they are getting positive opinion from free investiture.

Then I usually set Feudal tax to large 20%.

Some positive traits and grey eminence and there will be no factions if you don't act like a tyrant.

More then 1 de jure kingdom title, more then 2 duchies etc. Those 2 things cause the biggest vassal opinion hits.

If you are a king then you want all dukes as vassals. If you are an emperor then you want kings.

That's if you want a peaceful realm with no factions and no rebellions against you.

I've already completed 2 games under 1.07. 1100 and 1200 starts. No faction wars or rebellions in both games.

 

[Cojack]

With seniority, I have just one vassal, my heir, I give/transfer him EVERYTHING I win, he's always happy.
Best C-A for this is autonomous vassals/papal investiture => My heir can't revoke things (nor his vassals) and I can campaign heathens/invade kingdoms (No tax because ships aren't cheap, 100% levy). And every 5-6 rulers(approx 30 years), if my (old) character is maimed or something, I emprison/execute strong vassals of my heir. This strategy is very bad if you want to let your vassal improve their holding.

 

[Heartsbane]

I tend not to go above medium crown authority, implement elective succession, and I gouge the burghers for all they are worth.:laugh:

 

[unmerged(275616)]

One thing I have noticed is that the boosts to the higher levels of crown authority can cause levy laws to become unnecessary. For example, if you have absolute crown authority, then it is highly likely that you are getting 80% of your vassal's levies regardless of your crown authority laws. The only vassals who would possibly give more than that are the ones that worship the ground you walk on. In that situation it is best to set your levy laws as low as possible in order to reap the vassal relation boost.

This assumes, of course, that you can maintain absolute authority. Maintaining absolute authority is really easy for the ERE; however it might be tougher for some other nations.

 

[Blond_Knight]

I always stick to low crown authority and primogeniture succession. Revolts are rare since vassals are spending most of the time fighting each other. Don't have issues with dukes getting too powerful either.