Is this a good idea to create an Empire ?

[BaronNoir]

County by county, I'm annexating Scotland, and thus getting closer to create the Britannian Empire ! (1)

From a gameplay perspective, is this a good idea however ? Will I get penalties for holding too many kingdoms ? Will I need to delegate my kindgoms to ''trusty'' vassals ?

(I just hope my throne proclamation will be as kick-ass as this other Holy Britannian Emperor...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDuSUDlK2dc


(1) It's pretty sad that subjugating France, liberating Spain, liberating Greece and liberating the Holy Land required significantly less effort than conquering Scotland. One crusade and I get 6 duchies, one war with Scotland and I get a lousy county....

 

[unmerged(35685)]

I think is a great idea to create an empire. For one thing it's simply too easy to be a king and once I become an emperor I get to give my Kingdom titles to my sons..awesome and cut down on vassals nonsense.

 

[justin6477]

For the OP's situation, I prefer drifting all of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales (don't forget to steal the duchy of Orkney from Norway) into England before forming the Empire. It'll make sure that you have the muscle to deal with other Kingdoms that you add to your Empire. That second King title can be titular.

 

[Sqwerlpunk]

I never form Empires, personally.

Kingdoms are much easier to manage, and de jure drift by duchies is preferable.

 

[LordTempest]

Forming the appropriate empire is always one of my main goals in any CKII game. I love being able to do something with those pesky king titles.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

You need to be an empire to gobble up the likes of HRE, ERE, Ilkhanate, and Golden Horde in one scoop. Otherwise, you'd have to eat them up slowly little by little. By the way, the de jure shift as an empire is stupid. You should be able to control how it works at a kingdom level.

 

[justin6477]

You need to be an empire to gobble up the likes of HRE, ERE, Ilkhanate, and Golden Horde in one scoop. Otherwise, you'd have to eat them up slowly little by little. By the way, the de jure shift as an empire is stupid. You should be able to control how it works at a kingdom level.

In a back-handed way, you can. Get yourself a Prince-ArchBischop (Duke tier Bishop for those who don't know), and transfer all the counties to him. Preferably with their own lords. In a weird twist, you can transfer any count of yours to any Duke but you can't transfer Dukes to Kings unless said Duke is part of their de jure Kingdom. To give an example, I have a game where I am currently the King of France, and the King of Italy. I transferred all of my Sicilian counts to the Duke of Spoleto, and I gave the Duchy of Carinthia to the count of Venice. Despite France being my primary Kingdom, those territories will drift into Italy.

The reason I use duke tier Bishops for this is because they stay quiet. Nice and quiet. Never had one revolt unless I was a total a-hole or tried to assassinate them. Once its all drifted, you can easily revoke their Duchy (hopefully they haven't formed more than one more Ducal title) freeing all the count tier titles.

But yes, the drift mechanic is irritating. Theoretically, two titles means two courts and two sets of everything, so we should be able to assign duchies to each title. A real world example of that is the Union of Lublin where several large territories were integrated into Poland and out of Lithuania.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Strange. So how does the drift mechanism work? Why does your method work and not others? I suppose a kingdom only drifts when all the countries is under a duke or king that is de jure to the intended kingdom/empire??

 

[Mutineer]

who cares about drit. Empire mach easier to manage. You can make dejure dukes to join you if you is an emperor, which greatly accelerate absorbtion of any kingdoms.

 

[justin6477]

Strange. So how does the drift mechanism work? Why does your method work and not others? I suppose a kingdom only drifts when all the countries is under a duke or king that is de jure to the intended kingdom/empire??

Basically it alters the way the game looks at the relationship between the titles. Lets say for example that you're the Emperor of Francia, and the only Kingdom title you have is France. The game acts as if Brittany, Aquitaine, and Burgundy exist as Kingdom titles when their territory is under you as the Emperor. However, if you transfer the provinces of ducal Brittany to the Duke of Anjou, it looks at Brittany as subservient to the K_France title and the drift begins on the ducal level. To drift new duchies into a primary Kingdom title as an Emperor, you have to chain that Kingdom's de jure vassals with your new conquests. Do it either by handing out duchies (simple yet risky) or transferring vassals (more tedious, and also somewhat risky).

One of my worst experiences in-game was when I formed the Kingdom of Lotharingia. I planned on integrating Brabant, Holland and Gelre into Lotharingia to form the actual Middle Kingdom. The drift went perfectly for about 15 years, then I was elected Kaiser. As Kaiser, the Dukes of Brabant, Holland and Gelre were under the Imperial Title, not my Kingdom. The drift mechanic flipped back in reverse. Worse yet, when I died my heir was not elected Kaiser (probably because she was a girl and had questionable stats) and those three duchies were now independent of my Kingdom and I had no claims against them.

 

[justin6477]

One slight correction to my initial post, the vassal's primary title MUST be under the desired Kingdom's de jure territory. So my example of the Count of Venezia being granted the Duchy of Carinthia was wrong. Transferring Carinthia's counts manually to the Duke of Venice works, as does giving the Duke of Venice the Duchy of Carinthia.

who cares about drit. Empire mach easier to manage. You can make dejure dukes to join you if you is an emperor, which greatly accelerate absorbtion of any kingdoms.

I dunno, maybe people who like to know how the game works?

 

[Mutineer]

But how it is connected to topic? Dejure drift have very remote connection to topic.

 

[Jeltz]

But how it is connected to topic? Dejure drift have very remote connection to topic.

No, dejure drift is one of the most important factors when deciding to form an empire. If you are a king duchies will drift from other kingdoms into your kingdom. This drift will stop if you form an empire and keep the kingdom title. So it might be worth to delay forming Britannia until Scotland, England, and Wales have drifted into Ireland.

 

[Puritan]

No, dejure drift is one of the most important factors when deciding to form an empire. If you are a king duchies will drift from other kingdoms into your kingdom. This drift will stop if you form an empire and keep the kingdom title. So it might be worth to delay forming Britannia until Scotland, England, and Wales have drifted into Ireland.

I thought.you had to have two king titles to form an empire? Or does it not matter if there is only one kingdom?

 

[NoobRage]

I thought.you had to have two king titles to form an empire? Or does it not matter if there is only one kingdom?

Yes, but its much simpler to create a titular kingdom than to create a normal one and stop drift.

 

[Jeltz]

Indeed, if you control all of the British Islands and wait 100 years so all kingdoms are drifted into your main kingdom you can create the other kingdoms as titular kingdoms. The advantage of titular kingdoms is that they cannot be usurped, and vassals do not desire them. And titular kingdoms count for the requirement when creating empires.