Inviting to Court claimants and giving titles for fealty

[JK47]

Hello!

In my most recent game I've taken to a new strategy that I can't believe I'd been missing before. However, based on some forum posts I've seen, not everyone is in favor of this strategy - what is your opinion or what facts should I be aware of that would make this a bad idea?

When playing a Christian Duke, King, or Emperor, I regularly go across the map and search out claimants who are willing to accept an invitation to my court. When I find willing claimants who are young heirs of an older title holder, I will often give them a title, anything from a city, bishophric, or county, so that if they inherit any titles those titles enter into my Dukedom/Kingdom/Empire.

If I am preparing to press a claim of someone who I've invited to my court, I will do the same, so that the claim enters my realm if I'm successful in the conflict.

Thoughts? Thanks! ~JK47

 

[yezhanquan]

I personally use this, but do be aware that it does not work for characters with different religions and ladies (if your laws don't allow women to be landed). Also, most claims are weak and require the right conditions to be pressed.

 

[JK47]

Thanks yezhanquan. I have found that to be the case as well. I also invite everyone I can to my court because I like to have lots of options for council members, and because it seems like it can generally only be an asset to have lots of claimants in your kingdom - it doesn't seem like there is any downside built into the game for this. I regularly try to keep my court at or above a certain number of members that scales based on the size of my realm. If it drops below that threashold I pause the game or slow it down and start fishing for claimants, clicking on county after county/dukedom after dukedom looking for green thumbs up. I find that I don't press nearly as many claims as individuals I invite to court; its just nice to have the option and keeps the game fresh/moving.

It seems like there should be some negative side effects built into this in the game - for example, if you invite a title claimant to your court and they accept, the holder of the title should lose 5 relation with both of you, something like that. Perhaps even add a criterion where if a character invites some arbitrary threashold, like 10 or 15, number of claimants to their realm they are labelled as a backhanded usurper and earn a -5 relation to all other rulers of the same rank or lower for a certain number of years, or until the claimants move on. Don't know how you would build that into the code though.

Then again, this may be an important strategic element of the game, and adding these negative relation effects may be too strong - ie, it would nerf this option too much, make gameplay less fun, too much religious infighting, etc.

 

[yezhanquan]

Keeping your court too tightly packed does affect your birth rate. Now, I just click on my neighbours at the Diplomacy screen and see what wars I can declare. If I like the duchy (or kingdom as an emperor) on display, I land the fellow and proceed to press it. Bonus points if the fellow is already landed.

 

[Pode]

There's an indirect but very powerful downside. After your court has more than 30 characters in it IIRC, then couples in your court can have only 1 or 2 more children (to keep the total number of characters in game manageable). This can really put a crimp in your ability to have grandkids.

 

[JK47]

Thanks yezhanquan and Pode - I was unaware of that downside! I will definitely keep that in mind if my direct heir is in my court going forward.

Just curious - how often do you grant your direct heir titles? I do fairly often, do you not?

If I do grant my heir titles, then they aren't in my court, so they wouldn't be impacted by the child birthrate, right?

Thanks, ~jk47

 

[Kimberly]

Thanks yezhanquan and Pode - I was unaware of that downside! I will definitely keep that in mind if my direct heir is in my court going forward.

Just curious - how often do you grant your direct heir titles? I do fairly often, do you not?

If I do grant my heir titles, then they aren't in my court, so they wouldn't be impacted by the child birthrate, right?

Thanks, ~jk47

All landed characters are unaffected by the fertility limiter.

 

[Avicenna]

It's a method I use, but I don't 'farm' them, so to speak.

In my Hispania game, I had just taken France with my weak claim off of a boy-king. I noticed a courtier had a claim to the Duchy of Brittany, and kin with a claim on Denmark - so I pressed both.

Medieval courts were always full of claimants looking for handouts and invasions, and not only that, but claimants that the game wouldn't even consider claimants. Wasn't it the grandchild of the usurped Latin Empire who was still going around, cap-in-hand? I think it is a real shame titular kingdoms were taken out of the game [by that I mean specifically titular, not ones you can make so].

I think it's the same as any game mechanism, if you start farming, it's bad. But medieval courts were always rotating usurped nobles and adventurers. I think the problem is that the game doesn't represent the situation as well as it could, or as fully as was the situation in real life.

Farming claimants is bad for your court, as already mentioned. Just make sure you don't have an army of them at court all at the same time! Press their claims ASAP.