How do you set up your council laws?

[Dahoota]

So far I've been trying to keep the council abolished as long as I can, then once the realm hits about 25-30 counties in size I switch everything except title grants to council approval.

It makes for a pretty stable realm and high vassal limit, usually I can get by with council approval for everything else. The council doesn't like you giving away more than 2-3 titles to someone which can be a pain after a holy war.

Anyone have other strategies? I've seen some pretty tyrannical attempts to keep the council abolished so far.

 

[Mike Louis]

After updating my personal mod to the 2.5.2 patch, I activated my council only giving them the power to declare war. The other powers dealing with executive / judicial matters I kept in my hands (There will no figurehead monarchy here). I'll always keep the power to grant titles in my hands because I modded in 20 Peer / Senator / Elder minor titles with voting power. I have a house rule that when I grant Count level and higher titles to direct vassals, I also grant said vassal the Peer minor title, giving them the right to sit in my Council / Senate. I will never grant the Council / Senate full power since they'll turn my realm into the Middle Eastern version of the Holy Roman Empire.

 

[Bernard95]

L'etat c'est moi, so I make it a point to roll back the laws as far back as I can. Even when my vassals try to rise against me I'll either defeat them outright or I'll just surrender, wait for the cooldown, and use favors to roll it right back. In my experience at least, you can pretty much get away this until you're empire-sized.

 

[Vicodin_Addict]

Empower : Council, War Declaration, Execution Commitee (LOL), and later on Revocation Comitee
Ruler Decision : Granting Titles and the rest

Often times I need absolute decision of which county/duchy should I revoke up until I had solid demesne and most of my vassals are homogenous (at least same culture since religion flip is much easier to be done), once that secure I enabled Revocation Commitee but only after succession to supress early stage of Council Discontent.

That worked for me until now, except If I go from Unreformed pagan tribe to MP/Feudal Reformed pagan.

 

[Strangedane]

Tribal empires with abolished councils get a rocking +11 demesne size from laws and rank with high centralization.
Add your gavelcruel on top of that, and it gets juicy real fast.

Almost all of my games start at count level so I really like fast abolishment of the council.
The extra demesne will help you snowball and then control whatever pathetic lifeforms you pick up.

Elective dukes with no counts are pretty strong, when abolished.
At kingdom tier, you'll see a faction or 2 per ruler.
At empire Rank, you'll have to stack some retinues on top of your personal levy to keep people properly suppressed.
The +9/11 demesne size makes this relatively easy.

 

[dreamer05]

I'm just now gaining experience with this and need a little help. I've kept everything under my control but it always gets to the point of war, and then I just keep most of my vassals imprisoned for life . What I don't understand is, as soon as you enact empowered councils, your revenue immediately drops. What is the reason for that?