Newbie questions about what happens when you conquer a county

[Serenity84]

So as recommended I'm doing the King of Ireland thing and it took two games to get the hang of it. At first I didn't find the well hidden menu that lets you revoke bishop titles.

But now I'm King with my first guy, though I made some bad long term decisions. Instead of marrying my son to that Welsh duke's daughter I married her myself. That always got me 2000-3000 Welsh guys in any war until they decided to join a crusade (then it said they can't join my wars), which made things very easy. Quick wars and hardly needed my vassal levies. Everyone except the towns maybe is very happy. At a feast I made friends with a bishop who now tells the pope to just fuck off when it comes to filing his taxes. So I got the hang of vassal relations I think.
Except my son's wife died (not before producing a son), there are no other good women to marry around, and worst of the worst, my son is possessed. I think I'll scrap this is another learning experience.


Anyways, the actual questions:
1.) When I conquer a county I sometimes get it for myself instead of dealing with a pissed off earl. Is that because I'm the de jure ruler and there are no heirs around?
2.) Sometimes when a siege ended I captured a huge load of people, many of them random nobodies without families. But also some family members. This only happened late in the unification war. Is there a reason for that?
3.) What does creating the actual duchy title do? Can I wait with this until my demesne size gets too big and I need to make someone a duke to slim down my holdings? Should I pick some earl who likes me a lot for that?

 

[Dragatus]

Actually I consider Possessed to be a great trait for a man to have. You do get an attraction penalty, but that's only with women and homosexual men. Most of your vassals will be neither and opinion has no effect on how likely your wife is to produce children so it's a non-issue. In return you get flavor events (possibly resulting in an insanely high boost to your Martial skill) and can use the powerful Religious Fervor combat tactic. And with luck (and the sons of Abraham DLC) one of your children may become devil spawn, which is always fun.

And before you give up on being able to find him any good wives, the marriage button on the character screen doesn't show you all the women you could potentially marry. It only shows the women that the game thinks you might be interested in marrying. Try using the character finder instead. The marirage button doesn't show all the women you could potentially marry. The button for it is under the minimap, on the right. Open the character finder and filter for unmarried adult women from your religious group. That will show you all the women available for marriage, not just those that the game thinks you would be interested in marrying. You can even filter it for women with a specific trait by typing the name of the trait in the filter.

As for your actual questions:
1) It depends on the CB used, whether your rank is higher than the previous owner's rank and whether the previous owner has any other provinces. As a general rule the game will try to make the current owner you vassal, as long as that would't screw over them or their current liege any more than you getting the contested title. You can also check exactly who gets what if you win the war by hovering your mouse over the CB in the CB selection menu. The tooltip will tell you the exact consequences for winning, losing and making white peace. That includes information on whether you get the title or simply become the liege of the title holder.

2) To the best of my knowledge it's completely random whether or not you'll capture any prisoners when you finish a siege. As to who you capture, the family of the holding owner generally tends to live in their capital.

3) Creating a duchy makes all de jure vassals of the duchy in your realm the vassals of the current duke. It's perfectly fine to wait with creating any duchies as long as your vassal limit can handle it. Essentially the main purpose of creating a duchy and handing it out is to reduce the number of vassals you have, albeit at the cost of having a stronger vassal that can cause you more trouble than a count. If you go over your demesne limit, make new earls, not new dukes. Only make dukes if you're at your vassal limit.

 

[Serenity84]

Try using the character finder instead.

Yeah, I tried already that and even then it's almost all courtiers. There are are duchess and countess each with decent steward skills, but both are in hiding for some reason. But I rechecked and now someone was available, though a bit old. Maybe I missed her before, but even so it's very slim pickings. To me it looks like every noble generated at the start married already.


1.) For the cases I mentioned I used one fabricated claim on Tir Chonaill (top left, so I could get the de jure claim on the Duchy of Ulster after I installed a bishop on the two counties in the middle). After that I used my de jure claims on everything as the King of Ireland and got Connachta and Dublin. Though I should have checked more thoroughly if people wanted to become my vassal voluntarily. Another way this game is messed up.

3.) Yeah, I confused the demesne and vassal limit there. Even as a duke I can still hold counties in those duchies.
Also, it turns out that creating duchies makes counts want to be a duke too. Not a good idea when you are still consolidating your hold over them.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

If it is not your primary title:

All counts inside a de jure duchy will desire that duchy.

All dukes in the kingdom will desire said kingdom.

All Kings (and dukes I think) will desire that empire. I dunno about this onesince I never make more than one empire title. Drift into my empire!

 

[josefrees]

If you are really hard up for women to marry you can bring female couriers to court through the decision "present a debutante" in the intrigue tab

A tip for prisoners I didn't find out for a while: any prisoners that are still children you can convert to your religion and culture by putting them in house arrest.

And yeah creating lower titles than your primary is pretty much for when you are reaching your vassal limit and have to start consolidation of vassals.

 

[Serenity84]

There was absolutely no shortage of courtiers. But you get a penalty for marrying beneath you. Still better than nothing I suppose. He already had a son, but having a wive increases your stats. I just figured that with all of Europe available, there'd be more available noblewomen.

 

[Ciniod]

There was absolutely no shortage of courtiers. But you get a penalty for marrying beneath you. Still better than nothing I suppose. He already had a son, but having a wive increases your stats. I just figured that with all of Europe available, there'd be more available noblewomen.

AI is generally more diligent with marrying all close relatives than the player and considering a lot are part of small dynasties a lot of women get married off quick. Try going for bethrodals, AI doesnt do those without player initiation.

 

[StarSword]

AI is generally more diligent with marrying all close relatives than the player and considering a lot are part of small dynasties a lot of women get married off quick. Try going for bethrodals, AI doesnt do those without player initiation.

Actually, they do ask for betrothals since 2.5.

 

[Ciniod]

Actually, they do ask for betrothals since 2.5.

Ah, another thing to look forward to then when I buy my PC and finaly update the game.

 

[Dragatus]

There was absolutely no shortage of courtiers. But you get a penalty for marrying beneath you. Still better than nothing I suppose. He already had a son, but having a wive increases your stats. I just figured that with all of Europe available, there'd be more available noblewomen.

Eh, the Prestige penalty really isn't all that bad because Prestige isn't really all that important. You do need some to perform certain action (like title revocation and holding tournaments), but I don't think any action requires more than 200 of it. Beyond that it increases everyone's opinion, but it's not a huge bonus. 200 Prestige translates into +1 opinion with everyone except priests.

Prestige is more important in Merchant Republics, because it helps you get elected as Doge. But as a feudal character you can usually afford to take the 300 Prestige hit for marrying a lowborn courtier with great stats or good genetic traits.

 

[Serenity84]

Good to know

And yes, they ask for betrothals. After I declared my kingdom, I got several offers on my children.