Keeping vs Giving Duchies

[Soulstrider]

As most of you know, managing a large kingdom is a pain in the ass, since it seems everyone is plotting( I have pretty much half of my vassals in jail at any given time) against you and soon as king dies it seems half of the realm erupts in civil war.

To keep your vassals more loyal you can give away you Duchy titles, so to remove the too many duchies modifier, however is this really worth it? Is it really a good stategy giving away your duchies under the risk of making your vassals stronger in case of revolt?

The revolts really take the fun out of the late game, I want to crusade and can't because I know I will need every troop available at home just in case.

 

[Bertouch]

As most of you know, managing a large kingdom is a pain in the ass, since it seems everyone is plotting( I have pretty much half of my vassals in jail at any given time) against you and soon as king dies it seems half of the realm erupts in civil war.

That's not necessarily a given. As long as you keep your demesne no larger than allowed while studying the correct cultural technology to increase it, you should be able to manage the maximum easily enough. If you want more, just wait until your ruler has the long reign trait, plus a good chancellor, and a lot of accumulated prestige.

So it's not either/or. And if you do anger one or two important vassals, you can always imprison them and install more amiable replacements whose traits you look for. Getting rid of somebody who is ambitious, envious, or paranoid is a good thing.

 

[Fjoelsvider]

try setting up new duchies favorably.

for example if you gained lots of territory with holy wars give every county to one individual, and one of them the duchy. the duke then has 3-4 counts under him, which all want the duchy title of his so they dont like him much, so he doesnt get many taxes and troops.

sometimes i even try to give one of the counties to someone ambitious, to make the hatred even stronger heh but its just for lolz...


this way you can mange to only have dukes as direct vassals, except for the mayors and bishops in the ocunties you personally hold (which should be two complete duchies). and you can dish out all additional duchies and dont worry about the opinion penalty.

this way its fairly easy to keep 7-9 kingdom titles all together. my queen of castille (leon, galicia, portugal, england, scotland, wales and scotland as well) has only one duke with lower than 0 opinion, and thats because i got discovered at an assasination. and i have high crown auth...

 

[GAGA Extrem]

The "too many duchies" penalty has been added to make duchy hoarding less desireable.
If it it wasn't there, you could keep all the titles for yourself and set up single province counts to dominate the whole realm with a small personal demesne. :>

That said, give away ducal titles, but keep the biggest duchies for yourself (and, ofc., all the counties within them).

 

[IlyaZ]

My strategy is to keep the strongest provinces (usually starting county + ones with a mix of cities and castles) so that I aim to get the biggest individual share of troops under my direct command in a country. 50% is desireable. Then I give away the rest to other people with as big split as possible. Pretty much similar to the strategy of how the empire rules the world