My vassals are not doing anything

[surihtanil]

My counts have conquered lands and pronounced themselves dukes of such-and-such. I have also had a couple dukes attempt to conquer my other dukes and counts and even me... lol so I think its all in the character you have as you vassal. I see some of my vassals are busy while some just sit being slothful doing nothing.

 

[Alerias]

You need to have the crown law down at medium or less to let your vassals declare war and fight each other.

Thats almost never desirable though from the POV of the King. What we like most is obviously when they put down rebellions and attack outside the realm. They can still do that with High authority. Absolute authority doesn't allow them to start any wars tho... which makes me think that more often than not, High might be the ideal setting.

 

[Rambo]

Thats almost never desirable though from the POV of the King. What we like most is obviously when they put down rebellions and attack outside the realm. They can still do that with High authority. Absolute authority doesn't allow them to start any wars tho... which makes me think that more often than not, High might be the ideal setting.

I don't go higher than high authority also. The -30 relations hit for absolute is just too much. Especially when you die and and your heir takes over. I had a really strong heir take over, and still had a civil war with the penalties just from high authority.

 

[louie97]

There's no guarantee they'd be awarded titles. Rulers aren't exactly known for their honesty. If it's a defensive war, all the more reason to keep their troops at home to protect their lands. Finally, it's a court, not a nursery. 100 relations means they might think twice about stabbing you in the back, it doesn't mean they want to take you to the spring formal.

No, but if you promise a duke something, he can make you regret it if you don't pull through.

 

[Poddster]

Just declare war with the game paused and then raise whatever you want while they're frozen. Your vassals will also fight each other if your crown authority is low enough. (Also, at least in the demo, you can hire mercenaries before declaring war. Haven't tried it in the full game yet.)

You're not raising their personal levy, just the levy that you are owed.

 

[Nis Baggesen]

One thing to note is that in CK1 Vassal A in Kingdom AK could declare war directly on Vassal B in Kingdom KB (assuming they had claims etc). In CK2 Vassal A must declare war on the whole of Kingdom KB to enforce his claim on B. This might make vassal less inclined to start these external wars.

 

[Poddster]

One thing to note is that in CK1 Vassal A in Kingdom AK could declare war directly on Vassal B in Kingdom KB (assuming they had claims etc). In CK2 Vassal A must declare war on the whole of Kingdom KB to enforce his claim on B. This might make vassal less inclined to start these external wars.

I could be wrong here, but the King of KB would pretty much always rally to the defense of the vassal, unless he absolutely hated him. And then your King would join. So it amounts to pretty much the same thing.

 

[Darkrenown]

They never raise their levies in a defensive war, which most certainly IS there war as it's their provinces that will be sieged first as they'll be on the border etc.

Unraised levies are added to the garrison in a siege, so it's not like they are not helping.

 

[Finzi]

Whilst playing as the King of Scotland, I've seen my powerful Duke of Lothian declare war on the Kingdom of England in order to enforce his claim on York, and he actually managed to succeed as well.

 

[Nis Baggesen]

I could be wrong here, but the King of KB would pretty much always rally to the defense of the vassal, unless he absolutely hated him. And then your King would join. So it amounts to pretty much the same thing.

To the human player yes, but it might not amount to the same thing for the AI, since the new mechanic might make it more obvious for the AI that as the Count of Blah, it would be stupid to declare war against the entire HRE.

 

[BodyBag]

The AI Count or Duke will eventually raise his personal levy in defense, but they are very slow.
I watched a peasent revolt in one of my duchies, and the duke waited till the first holding had fallen, before interfering and crushing the rebels.
I refuse to interfere if the vassel has enough troops to deal with it himself.

 

[Arizael]

Unraised levies are added to the garrison in a siege, so it's not like they are not helping.

The system was designed and works very well. There are however two flaws I've been able to found playing in Iberia (based on demo).
Example 1 :
- The duke of Portucale(1 province in demense +3 OPM counts hates his liege, King of Galicia (2 provinces demense) so he doesn't provide much levy.
- Castille calls it's ally Galicia to war on eastern side of Iberia.
- Emirate of Bandajoz declares holy war for Portucale. Invading it. King of Galicia immidiately returns home(the ai is actualy smart gj PI), but his allies are occupied and won't help him.
- Weakened Galician army can't beat the muslims so the war is lost.
- Whole Portucale is conquered and all portugese landowners are exiled. Galicia is reduced to 2PM

Now the portugese duke, his counts and their mayors + bishops could together munster an army that woud totaly kick muslim asses. However they don't. And since the game allows you to beat 600 garrison with 610 army without a scratch(not counting events), the levy added to garrison doesn't realy count much. So because they dispise their liege they get themselves owned. Weird isn't it?
Solution: Give a vassal(including barons), who is in danger of loosing land in war, massive temporary bonus to relations. Only usable in defense, so hardly exploitable.

Example: 2
-After a while I became the duke of Portucale and gained my independence on Galicia. The evil emirate of Bandajoz meanwhile got owned by Leon. However due to some weirdness they only lost 1 province to catholics and the rest (8 provinces total) became vassal of Leon under muslim rule.
-Now the emir, his counts and other emirate of Sevilla constatly dows me, using well prepared armies containing these pesky muslim horse mercs (again briliant ai). They are realy working in turns, so I beat one and other one dows etc.
-Since I have 4 provinces in demense and decent income I can defend myself, but at great cost.

The problem is I can't do anything to fight back. If I beat them they loose some prestige and piety,but that has very specific usage so they don't care at all. I can't invade, since I am constantly at war. But even if I could no cb vs muslims in Leon + it would be suicide(powerful allies all bigger then me). Conquering Seville wouldn't help either(unconnected wrong religion provinces and more muslims enemies).
My example is extreme, but basicaly any vassal can attack without much external danger. Playing Bohemia? You can attack Poland with ease, if you loose no big deal.
Solution: Loosing offensive war should hurt MUCH more than it does now and heathen vassals shouldn't get holy war cb.

 

[telegraph]

As a grandson of Harald Godwinson I decided to press some of my vassals claims on Scottish lands. While doing so I managed to descend Scottland into a civil war an unpopular Dunkeld and even more unpopular pretender duke "the Cruel" started to continuously take the Crown of Scottland from each other. It was fun to see how capital jumps back and forth every few years as those wars were progressing.
So my Saxon Vassals, which received some scottish ducal titles decided to take a moment to press their ducal and otherwise claims too.
I have also seen my vassals crusading independently.
And sometimes I see them fighting each other.
I have never seen them helping me in my wars though. Only their own wars.

 

[Arimahn]

Since this fits the thread: I'm Emperor and my vassals seem to never kill off rebels on their own. Instead it's me who does all the rebel-whacking in the realm and this gets a tad annoying after a while. Is this intentional?

 

[pewpewlasers]

Whilst playing as the King of Scotland, I've seen my powerful Duke of Lothian declare war on the Kingdom of England in order to enforce his claim on York, and he actually managed to succeed as well.

Same here, and worse(better?) actually. My Duke of Lothian is on a land grab in northern England. I'd like some way to pressure him to stop, actually. If England ever gets it's stuff together, that Duke has set me up for a series of wars that I don't want.

I can also confirm that vassals will raise armies and fight if they are involved in a conflict that you're not directly involved in. It seems that they only fail to raise armies if you're leading the war, in which case you're raising their armies manually. Which is fine by me.

 

[Dragnar]

Since this fits the thread: I'm Emperor and my vassals seem to never kill off rebels on their own. Instead it's me who does all the rebel-whacking in the realm and this gets a tad annoying after a while. Is this intentional?

At the beginning of the game, that's sadly the norm. The amount of troops a count could raise is smaller than the rebel stack, so he rather keeps his men in the castle to defend. Dukes do raise troops and hunt rebels in their direclty controlled provinces on their own, but they're too timid in helping their own counts.
That means until the counties are build up enough for the counts to raise enough troops himself, the task of beating rebel stacks mostly falls to you.

The AI needs to be more agressive about raising troops to fight rebels in their direct vassals lands.

 

[Poddster]

Unraised levies are added to the garrison in a siege, so it's not like they are not helping.

True. But 1000 men split into 5 garrisons is not much. However a 1000 men strong stack is a very solid boost to the battlefield.

 

[Poddster]

I can also confirm that vassals will raise armies and fight if they are involved in a conflict that you're not directly involved in. It seems that they only fail to raise armies if you're leading the war, in which case you're raising their armies manually. Which is fine by me.

A liege, even a player controlled one, can't raise all of his vassal's army. Only the %age which he's owed by law.

 

[Raczynski]

Since this fits the thread: I'm Emperor and my vassals seem to never kill off rebels on their own. Instead it's me who does all the rebel-whacking in the realm and this gets a tad annoying after a while. Is this intentional?

I've seen vassals go against rebels after they captured primary holding of a province. Seems unoptimal?