I'm emperor. Should I delegate kingdoms to vassals or not?

[unmerged(394433)]

Just an update.
I'm playing as the Persian Emperor. So far I gave away just one kingdom to a vassal, Mesopotamia to the sunni caliph, to keep him happy.
Though I'm wildly successful as a conqueror, my vassal is outdoing me: he has conquered all of Cumania, most of Rus, parts of Hungary; and he doesn't seem to be slowing down...

He scares me.

 

[Accrsd]

I truly find that having an empire full of counts, at medium authority, with elective monarchy, in an empire is really the best way to go! it gives your vassal states the illusion of fairness from the elective and prevents any one of them from holding more then a single county. Of course the most important part of this is controlling the smaller 2 county duchies for yourself. It's nice as an elective because it basically makes succession "Selective" since only dukes get a vote. Allthough that may only work for kingdoms, I have an elective monarchy in kingdoms of Egypt and Abyssinia and no ducal vassals.. it seems i'm the only one who gets a vote.

 

[icedt729]

On the one hand, kingdoms streamline management and bring you more prestige (especially if you hand them out to members of your dynasty). On the other hand, it means factions only need a few members to become a serious problem. I recommend kings, as long as you have a good demesne and strong retinues to keep them in line.

 

[JMensch]

On the one hand, kingdoms streamline management and bring you more prestige (especially if you hand them out to members of your dynasty). On the other hand, it means factions only need a few members to become a serious problem. I recommend kings, as long as you have a good demesne and strong retinues to keep them in line.

Handing out kingdom titles to family can backfire in a big way too. They are more likely to accept each others requests due to that family bonus.

 

[Naldiin]

There's one more pro/con no one seems to have mentioned: Revocation.

If we're talking about the Byzies, Imperial Administration lets them revoke Duchies without penalty. That means you can effectively 'hide' trouble-some vassals under less trouble-some counts, by revoking the doux title, and handing it to one of the former-doux's counts. Only your direct vassals can form factions against you, and only the opinion of your direct vassals now impacts tax and levy size. So this simple switch (which makes the count-now-doux very happy) solves your rebellious doux problem.

But you cannot revoke a vassal kingdom without penalty. So if you end up, after a generation or two, with a deceitful, ambitious, zealous heretic king (with his own autocephalous patriarch so you can't simply excommunicate him), there's nothing you can do about it except take the (is it -40? I thought it was -40) realm-wide 10year penalty to opinion by revoking. You might get lucky and get to imprison-rebel-revoke, but then you have to fight that entire kingdom.

So I stick with duchies. Sure it means more vassals to deal with. But it also means you can have a rolling duchy revocation and reassignment program (I call it 'revokapalooza') to deal with problem areas.

 

[Lwantssugar]

How about in the case of AI formed king vassals? As Basilious Georgia and Syria formed without any of my intervention. Georgia recently gained independence from me, only because I was at war with the Ilkhanate already and couldn't deal with them at the moment

 

[Alerias]

This is one of the few real strategic choices in Ck2. Keeping the king-level titles vs giving them away vs destroying them outright. Personally I play for high score so I dont consider destroying them an option. After doing a map conquest with dukes only (300 vassals) and another with Kings-vassals, I prefer giving kingdoms away. I only start when my empire is large, though, and I always keep a couple kingdoms for myself (the places I have demesne in, generally Greece and Sicily). This is a tradeoff as to an extent itll lessen your overall taxation level, albeith less than it used to.

AI formed king vassals; sometimes this can be a really good thing. I know the kingdom trigger conditions and will usually try to satisfy them to see kingdoms I couldnt form, form on their own. For instance, if you give Wallachia and Moldau to a Vlach character with some piety and hand him 200 gold, he'll almost immediately create the Kingdom of Wallachia; but that title couldnt be created by a Greek.

 

[XRW]

Castille, Leon, Portugal, Navarra, Brittany, and similar size yes.
France = Heck no.

 

[Tirunus]

Both have their downsides.

In the case of having more dukes, it is much harder to organize large rebellions and can become very difficult to manage them all.

Having more kings gives you more prestige and makes the land easier to manage. But makes it easier for people to rebel and kings can start to easily gain more power. For example as Emperor, the despot of Croatia increased his domain and inherited a large Russian kingdom and started a civil war that lasted twenty years.

 

[icedt729]

There's one more pro/con no one seems to have mentioned: Revocation.

If we're talking about the Byzies, Imperial Administration lets them revoke Duchies without penalty. That means you can effectively 'hide' trouble-some vassals under less trouble-some counts, by revoking the doux title, and handing it to one of the former-doux's counts. Only your direct vassals can form factions against you, and only the opinion of your direct vassals now impacts tax and levy size. So this simple switch (which makes the count-now-doux very happy) solves your rebellious doux problem.

But you cannot revoke a vassal kingdom without penalty. So if you end up, after a generation or two, with a deceitful, ambitious, zealous heretic king (with his own autocephalous patriarch so you can't simply excommunicate him), there's nothing you can do about it except take the (is it -40? I thought it was -40) realm-wide 10year penalty to opinion by revoking. You might get lucky and get to imprison-rebel-revoke, but then you have to fight that entire kingdom.

So I stick with duchies. Sure it means more vassals to deal with. But it also means you can have a rolling duchy revocation and reassignment program (I call it 'revokapalooza') to deal with problem areas.

I actually completely forgot about this angle, and I'm currently playing as the Byzantines o_o

 

[Malibu Stacey]

This. When conquering new areas I never even create duchies, just on count per one province and leave it at that. The more tiers of taxation and levies you create - say count->duke->king->you - the less of them you get and the more civil wars both you and your vassals will be fighting. And heaven forbid if two of your three Kingdom vassals revolt against your rule! If your ruler dies and leaves an infant on the throne, prepare to lose half your Empire in just a few days, and the rest of it by Sunday.

I never even thought of not creating Duchy titles. I might try this in my current game (aiming to create Empire of Brittannia starting as King of Scotland) when the next round of faction stomping starts & I get to revoke a load of titles from the now imprisoned traitors. As I've now got both Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland the increase in income should be pretty useful if the only duchies left existing are the 2 I hold (which I also hold all the counties of anyway).

 

[unmerged(68578)]

With the new patch, and how vassal's armies spawn at their capital, I love kingdoms. Before I'd have likely argued against them, but what I've been able to do is keep all their capitals on the coast, and anytime I go to war, I simply spawn their armies, their navies and then embark. I can respond to any situation in 1/5th the time it used to take.

I also don't have any issues with money, so while I suppose I'd rather have more than not, it wouldn't give me much of a bonus. As an Empire, for example, I rarely raise my personal levies, so outside of the increased tax upgrades, I don't even see the point in upgrading the military buildings of my castles. Retinues also reduced the need for those upgrades by a large amount and are way cheaper. The best use for money would be gifting your kings, but I have plenty for that. Mercenaries can be useful at times, but as your armies grow, they'll play less of a roll. Still, I can afford them easily.

Either way, dealing with a huge amount of vassals is a huge pain. Thus, as you grow, you'll almost be forced into creating kingdoms unless you enjoy your games lasting months.

 

[Faarenough]

So a question about being the one true emperor. Can I hand out the kingdom of Crimea to a burgher? He is my vassal and he holds two duchy level titles and all of their counties. I have tried but see no option available to do so. Does he need to have more duchies or is it because it is a kingdom title and not a serene republic? Or is because im black? I mean Emperor. Or is it because (please say it isnt so) that it is the only kingdom in my empire and I can not give away my only king teir title even though im Emperor and being king is so beneth me?

Any help and tips on this would be very much apreciated.

 

[Alerias]

I believe king-tier titles cannot be granted to Republics, they either have them / get them on their own (like Venice) or they dont. At least not without the console...

 

[EmperorBobman]

As a lazy man, the only reason I hand out kingdom titles is to deal with peasant revolts. The peasants rise up against their count in some backwater part of my empire that I only conquered to make my borders pretty? Well, there are two liege levels between me and him (his duke, the duke's king) with the resources to deal with it.

 

[JonStryker]

With the new patch, and how vassal's armies spawn at their capital, I love kingdoms. Before I'd have likely argued against them, but what I've been able to do is keep all their capitals on the coast, and anytime I go to war, I simply spawn their armies, their navies and then embark. I can respond to any situation in 1/5th the time it used to take.

I also don't have any issues with money, so while I suppose I'd rather have more than not, it wouldn't give me much of a bonus. As an Empire, for example, I rarely raise my personal levies, so outside of the increased tax upgrades, I don't even see the point in upgrading the military buildings of my castles. Retinues also reduced the need for those upgrades by a large amount and are way cheaper. The best use for money would be gifting your kings, but I have plenty for that. Mercenaries can be useful at times, but as your armies grow, they'll play less of a roll. Still, I can afford them easily.

Either way, dealing with a huge amount of vassals is a huge pain. Thus, as you grow, you'll almost be forced into creating kingdoms unless you enjoy your games lasting months.

+1

 

[Alerias]

As a lazy man, the only reason I hand out kingdom titles is to deal with peasant revolts. The peasants rise up against their count in some backwater part of my empire that I only conquered to make my borders pretty? Well, there are two liege levels between me and him (his duke, the duke's king) with the resources to deal with it.

Is that just me or does that phrase immediately conjures Alania to mind for everyone?

 

[brxbrx]

It's risky. Kings will take themselves far more seriously than dukes and counts. They'll be less likely to submit to your demands and more likely to want independence.
On the other hand, it makes things a hell of a lot easier to manage. Instead of having 60 vassals, you only have five or six.

 

[brxbrx]

Actually, in a game I'm playing as Byzantium now, I destroy kingdom titles upon acquiring them, so I can keep a tighter grip on my vassals and so they won't be yearning to usurp my title

 

[Unready]

With new faction system I prefer to destroy all kingdom titles where it possible and keep by myself all the rest.
If you lose of surrender to independence faction you can next day ask all dukes of you de-jure kingdoms of just you religion and culture to return to your empire.
And you cannot ask kings.