New System for Vassal-Liege Relations

[iquabakaner]

I think to implement this requires an overhaul to the game, or even changing the core mechanics. But then, it seems to make more sense than the gamey relations in the current game.


Liege Levies:

Currently the liege levies depends solely on the relations with your vassal, regardless of the nature of the war. A defensive war will only boost your relations with them.

But then this is very unrealistic in some cases. Consider when somebody is claiming your vassal's duke title, and that vassal is your rival, plus a whole lot of negative opinion modifiers. What essentially happens is your vassal is not giving you any, or only giving you very few levies to defend his own title because his relations with you is either lower than 0 or barely above.

This is even worse when it comes to revolt wars. You have the leader as the temporary liege. And the "vassals", i.e. other revolting vassals, is holding some of their levies because of the -XX% min levies law, even though they are going to be imprisoned and probably lose titles if they lose.

Civil Wars - Which Side to Join:

And this comes to other problems in a civil war. Let's say a duke of A is revolting against his liege, king of B. And as a vassal of A, the count of C, can only join A's war, and although the consequence is minimal, which at most will have all his demense and vassals ruined for some years, the count of C does not have a choice at all to join the king of B, whom, realistically, has also sworn fealty to, or to just sit out of the war and aid nobody.

Proposal - Participants of a War:

I suggest separating the liege and vassals in any war involving the country, so that if another realm is claiming a vassal title, the default participants would be the attacker, the liege and the vassal involved. Depending on the nature of war (say, a defensive war will have more support from vassals), and relations with both the involved liege and vassal, other vassals may join the war, or even join the other side to their own benefit. But of course, that would have different consequences depending on how the war ended.

Using such a system, in a civil war, you may have many vassals revolting with their full force, but then at the same time, the non-revolting vassals might choose to wait before they choose a side. Or you may have vassals of a revolting vassal not joining the war.

Extension to the Idea - Multiple Lieges:

Extending this idea, this system can allow a lord swearing fealty to multiple lieges, and is only required to break it when the two are fighting each other (or he may decide that he does not join the war). In fact, the original idea already considers a lord to have sworn fealty to both his liege and the liege of his liege.

 

[DeathBurst]

There are interesting points in here, but as you said it yourself this is a very large change. I don't think it will ever be done in vanilla, but maybe you can convince a modder to give it a try?

About the suggestion itself:
-- What happens with taxes if you swear fealty to multiple lieges?
-- Swearing fealty to multiple lieges is a way to implement the first part of your post, but is it worth it? Is there another, possibly simpler, way to implement Liege-vassals relations better? What are the other advantages of multiple oaths, what new dynamics can it create?

 

[Azarias59]

There are interesting points in here, but as you said it yourself this is a very large change. I don't think it will ever be done in vanilla, but maybe you can convince a modder to give it a try?

About the suggestion itself:
-- What happens with taxes if you swear fealty to multiple lieges?
-- Swearing fealty to multiple lieges is a way to implement the first part of your post, but is it worth it? Is there another, possibly simpler, way to implement Liege-vassals relations better? What are the other advantages of multiple oaths, what new dynamics can it create?

1. The taxes on your titles will go to whomever the dejure titleholder is.
2. Yes, it is worth it. At the very least, it should either be included in CK3 as an ingame mechanic/moddable option.

Right now, we get stupid ahistorical wars over some french count inheriting a german duchy. In real-life the french county's taxes and levies would go to the french king, while the duchy's taxes and levies would go to the emperor.

For the longest time, the English Kings had to pay homage to France over the Duchies of Normandy and Aquitaine. Of course, it led to a war in the end, but it did not immediately cause Normandy and Aquitaine to leave the French Realm.

 

[grisamentum]

Much like CK2's vanilla rules, these rules would make sense in some game time periods and places and less so in others (and not at all in others).

Part of the problem is that ideas like "vassalage" and "paying homage" aren't even historical in the first place, so as long as we're stuck with these outdated 19th century ideas of feudalism, we're going to have systems that don't match history anyway.

 

[Azarias59]

Much like CK2's vanilla rules, these rules would make sense in some game time periods and places and less so in others (and not at all in others).

Part of the problem is that ideas like "vassalage" and "paying homage" aren't even historical in the first place, so as long as we're stuck with these outdated 19th century ideas of feudalism, we're going to have systems that don't match history anyway.

There weren't hard rules; they also varied upon culture, religion, and realm. But the principles were quite real.

 

[tywinzo]

There are many records of homage..

 

[Rawrschach]

About the suggestion itself:
-- What happens with taxes if you swear fealty to multiple lieges?
-- Swearing fealty to multiple lieges is a way to implement the first part of your post, but is it worth it? Is there another, possibly simpler, way to implement Liege-vassals relations better? What are the other advantages of multiple oaths, what new dynamics can it create?

The medieval history of England and France was all about who owed fealty to who. The Kings of England were also Dukes in France and some paid homage for that land. Say in CK2, you win the Norman Invasion. If the kingdom of France is invaded, as Duke of Normandy should you be called into the war? Eventually in those cases you'd end up with someone maybe being Duke of Normandy and Count of Oxford with mixed loyalties. What if France invades England? if you have sworn oaths to both Kings you will need to chose a side.


I think on the death of any ruler events should come up to do with oaths and homage. At lower levels on crown authority on the death of the king everyone becomes independent then you get a series of homage events as they formally become vassals of the new king. I think this would only have to count for dukes and independent counts and wouldn't happen inside the duke's duchy when he dies.

 

[grisamentum]

There are many records of homage..

I know. The problem isn't "homage" itself, but the idea that "a lower ranked lord 'payed homage' to a higher ranked lord and that established a vassal-liege relationship between them and instituted a feudal contract."

That's rubbish; it's a mish-mash of five centuries of different customs and law from different places. For example "homage" basically went out of practice in northern Italy in the 11th century and was gone by the 12th and 13th. For another example, there were few if any fiefs in the HRE until the 13th century or later (and even then mostly on the French border); land was owned wholly, not in fief. For yet another example, "vassals" weren't just contractual landholders, and weren't even the same thing in all places. The term never had a uniform legal meaning and could be anything from an unfree servant peasant to a subordinate tenant.

The fact is that we have centuries worth of documents of how medieval people and rulers arranged their lives, bought, sold, traded, and inherited property, and the basic premise of CK2 just isn't accurate for any time and place. It makes a fun game, but it's not historical.

 

[tywinzo]

Ok. I just reacted to the saying that there were no such thing as homeage, because I personally read those written in latin, so it got a bit weird to me.

But yes, from my understanding vassal-liege relationships are not necessarily implied by homage. Various lords/nobility (another two relative and varying concepts which I'll use very freely here) payed homage to several other lords. The word "liege" in those texts I have read are mainly used for vassals as part of the word "liegemen", oftenly also written as "my man".

And yes, vassals were not always landholders. From what I have read, they were more often not landholders (fief rent). I.e. you essentially get an annual salary from your lord (which in practice meant you took it directly from merchants, peasants, etc at toll gates, fares, etc, but "through" your lord). The "military service" is also a bit of an error as most people did not carry it out or were not even aware of it, etc... but anyway, I could go on foreever. CK2 will always be a simplification.

Being able to have multiple overlords would be a good start.

 

[Azarias59]

Let's face it. Anything is better than the current system. CK2 can never capture the intricacies of the different feudal not-systems among different cultures and realms.

Sure, you can say that there was no standard "feudal system" if you want to be politically correct. But for the sake of CK2 representing real history better, there needs to be one or more standard systems implemented for the different wide areas.