Please make vassal limit optional

[Simmy93]

I'm not suggesting count level vassals, in my current Roman Restorian campaign I have duke level vassals and three king level vassals (Georgia, Sicily and Africa). You don't have to be gamey, you just have to play the game and plan the strategy. Yeah we could have an option to turn it off but we'd need options to turn off demense limit, religious marriage etc. Its a core feature which seems to be universally needed.

 

[Myrten]

I'm not suggesting count level vassals, in my current Roman Restorian campaign I have duke level vassals and three king level vassals (Georgia, Sicily and Africa). You don't have to be gamey, you just have to play the game and plan the strategy.

Strategy implies a choice - but what choices do I have here?
a) Have multi-kingdom level vassals\viceroys
b) Stop expanding at all
c) Get killed by vassal limit.

I don't see any place for strategy here...

Yeah we could have an option to turn it off but we'd need options to turn off demense limit, religious marriage etc. Its a core feature which seems to be universally needed.

Somehow this game was fine without this feature for like two years since release... Did some people abused having count level vassals only? Sure but a)it was their problem b)there were many better solutions then arbitrary limit on expansion

 

[PK_AZ]

You get 20 vassal limit for being emperor. 25 more for imperial administration, minus 10 for viceroyalties. It's 35, not counting small diplomacy bonus. And then you can trade off your demense limit for even more vassals. How many kings there are?

It's around 30

 

[Sonmi]

Strategy implies a choice - but what choices do I have here?
a) Have multi-kingdom level vassals\viceroys
b) Stop expanding at all
c) Get killed by vassal limit.

I don't see any place for strategy here...

Lower your centralization, stop using viceroyalties, empower your council, and give a diplomatic education to your heir, giving opinion bonuses to your vassals/upping your vassal limit.

There are alternate strategies, you're just unwilling to give up some of your current power for more capacity for expansion.

 

[Simmy93]

Strategy implies a choice - but what choices do I have here?
a) Have multi-kingdom level vassals\viceroys
b) Stop expanding at all
c) Get killed by vassal limit.

I don't see any place for strategy here...


Somehow this game was fine without this feature for like two years since release... Did some people abused having count level vassals only? Sure but a)it was their problem b)there were many better solutions then arbitrary limit on expansion

With respect, if you think those are your only options you don't sound very good at this game. Kingdom level Viceroys are the price of having an overly large empire, its unrealistic to have you as supreme sovereign seemingly ruling over every edge of Europe in an era where getting a message from London to Orkney took the best part of a month. People didn't abuse the system, the devs simply added a feature they wanted to add earlier in development. If it makes you feel any better, the previous version was incomplete and its ironic im phrasing it this way despite what the latest DD says, this is how the game is meant to be played.

I understand your frustration and your arguement but those aren't your only choices and to say, "what strategy?" and be an Imperial tier title is maddness, it just sounds like you hit your difficulty curve and aren't taking it well.

 

[Myrten]

Lower your centralization, stop using viceroyalties, empower your council, and give a diplomatic education to your heir, giving opinion bonuses to your vassals/upping your vassal limit.

There are alternate strategies, you're just unwilling to give up some of your current power for more capacity for expansion.

They only delay the inevitable - there are 127 kingdoms in the game, maybe I am not aware of it, but there is no way of getting vassal limit to this number, even if I give up all powers and make my ruler a noble's puppet...

With respect, if you think those are your only options you don't sound very good at this game. Kingdom level Viceroys are the price of having an overly large empire, its unrealistic to have you as supreme sovereign seemingly ruling over every edge of Europe in an era where getting a message from London to Orkney took the best part of a month. People didn't abuse the system, the devs simply added a feature they wanted to add earlier in development. If it makes you feel any better, the previous version was incomplete and its ironic im phrasing it this way despite what the latest DD says, this is how the game is meant to be played.

I understand your frustration and your arguement but those aren't your only choices and to say, "what strategy?" and be an an Imperial tier title is maddness, it just sounds like you hit your difficulty curve and aren't taking it well.

What are the other options then, aside of 'delayers' about which Sonmi wrote about above?

I'm not saying there shouldn't be any penalties for ruling distant provinces, personally I like very mech EU4's States&Territories mechanic because it only limits efficiency while not putting any arbitrary limits on expansion.

As for what devs wanted to add earlier in development they actually wrote about it here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...usader-kings-ii-post-mortem-dev-diary.591934/ Vassal limit for me seems to be more like an attempt to fix an exploit which was not thought about very well due to limited development time.

 

[PK_AZ]

There's about 1500 provinces in the game.
Every duke can control 8 provinces through his vassals. You need 188 dukes.
Every king can control 15 dukes. You need 12 kings.
You can have 35.

 

[Mike1984]

What would it gain? All it would do would be mean that there was no incentive to ever have a strong vassal - indeed, aside from technology there'd be no point to ever appoint anything above a count. Even with tech taken into account, just appoint single-county dukes, and you can then have as many vassals as you want?

Now, whether the current vassal limit is too low - that's a different matter...

I think it would be a bad idea to remove it. At the same time, though, I can see the logic of adding it as an option (obviously one that disables achievements), if that is how people want to play.

I think you nailed it

In order to work with this arbitrary mechanic we have to do gamey things and the larger the empire becomes the more micromanagement we got to do just to comply with this mechanic...


Point of this new game rules is not having to use mods and since we already have much more unrealistic things, like no provincial rebellions or medieval gender equality I think turning off this ahistorical mechanic would make sense too.

As for limit itself I understand that having only count level vassals was a gamey thing to do and there was a need to do something with it, but this solution creates even a bigger problem which forces players into doing another gamey things in order to couple with it. Sure I can increase the limit with laws etc.. but number of vassals also increases as I expand...

It's impossible to prevent people doing "gamey things". It's also absolutely not "ahistorical" to have a vassal limit. It is, in fact, entirely historical (if somewhat over-simplified), because it was simply impossible for one ruler to maintain hundreds of direct vassals and deal with all of their problems. That's why you ended up with duke-level vassals in the first place. Further, it's the same basic logic underlying the demesne limit (essentially, you can't effectively manage lots of land), so if you can disable one you should be able to disable the other.

 

[Myrten]

There's about 1500 provinces in the game.
Every duke can control 8 provinces through his vassals. You need 188 dukes.
Every king can control 15 dukes. You need 12 kings.
You can have 35.

1) As I've said above - there is no strategy here - appoint multikingdom vassals or stop expanding.
2) That would mean around 12 kingdoms per king, which is more or less two de jure empires per king - I'm pretty sure that each of these kings would like to have emperor titles unless I do some gamey tricks.

 

[StarSword]

1) As I've said above - there is no strategy here - appoint multikingdom vassals or stop expanding.
2) That would mean around 12 kingdoms per king, which is more or less two de jure empires per king - I'm pretty sure that each of these kings would like to have emperor titles unless I do some gamey tricks.

They might like to become emperors, but they mechanically cannot. You cannot be a vassal to a ruler of the same rank, so they would have to declare independence and win before they can found an empire. And as long as YOU don't create the empire, they cannot desire it.

 

[Mike1984]

1) As I've said above - there is no strategy here - appoint multikingdom vassals or stop expanding.
2) That would mean around 12 kingdoms per king, which is more or less two de jure empires per king - I'm pretty sure that each of these kings would like to have emperor titles unless I do some gamey tricks.

The "strategy" is in how you handle the multi-kingdom vassals. Or, indeed, whether you decide to stop expanding at that point.

And, yes, you're correct that the game isn't made to be easy to play with an empire that covers the entire map. This is a good thing, because the alternative is that the game becomes utterly boring once you reach a certain size, because no-one is a threat, either internally (all your vassals are far weaker than you) or externally. Forcing you to divide your empire up between a smaller number of vassals makes those vassals far more of a threat to you and, thus, makes the late game more interesting and strategic to play.

I do agree that the limit is maybe a little too harsh (I'd prefer a penalty more in line with what you get from being over your demesne limit, rather than "if you're over your vassal limit, a bunch of vassals will declare independence when you die") so that it's possible to go over that limit if you're OK with the penalty (but generally not worth doing so on a permanent basis), but I think the basic concept is right.

 

[Sonmi]

They only delay the inevitable - there are 127 kingdoms in the game, maybe I am not aware of it, but there is no way of getting vassal limit to this number, even if I give up all powers and make my ruler a noble's puppet...

Have some of your vassals rule over more than a single kingdom.

And yes, the bigger your empire becomes, the more you'll have to concede power to your vassals, the supposed challenge from having a gigantic empire is keeping it together, the main threat coming from within the empire rather than outside of it. If you keep your vassals content, you won't have anything to fear, but at one point, your vassals will be more powerful than you are, especially if you wish to cover the entire map.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Bear in mind that your kings don't actually have to own adjacent kingdoms - you can give one of them Scotland and an Indian title if you want.... It might make it difficult for them to rebel swat, but you can help with that by raising other vassal's troops in the area.

But yeah, controlling the entire map is going to be difficult or nearly impossible. That's quite deliberate. Who in history ever came close to controlling the area the map shows? Even Rome at its greatest didn't have Scandinavia, half of Brittania, Russia, any of the steppes, India, large swathes of the Middle East... Alexander the Great only got as far as the edge of India before dying, and didn't hold anything in Western Europe. You'd have to be holding an Empire more than twice as large as Rome at it's height (at the point they had 4 (!) effective Emperors running the Empire.

 

[Zsrai]

Wouldn't I get a relations penalty for them desiring the king titles? Also what if I would want to add few kingdoms more to my empire - I would hit the limit again....

That's kind of the danger of playing a ginormous blob. If they want the King titles, bribe them and use your Chancellor. Also just put them on your council so they can't revolt. There is plenty you can do to manage them all.

They only delay the inevitable - there are 127 kingdoms in the game, maybe I am not aware of it, but there is no way of getting vassal limit to this number, even if I give up all powers and make my ruler a noble's puppet...

Yeah, that's the ENTIRE POINT of the vassal limit: You're not supposed to paint the entire map WITHOUT completely decentralizing your realm. It really sounds like you are refusing to adjust your strategy to the game rules, and that is silly. You can't play as a map spanning Empire the same way that you did as a small Kingdom.

 

[Myrten]

It's impossible to prevent people doing "gamey things". It's also absolutely not "ahistorical" to have a vassal limit. It is, in fact, entirely historical (if somewhat over-simplified), because it was simply impossible for one ruler to maintain hundreds of direct vassals and deal with all of their problems. That's why you ended up with duke-level vassals in the first place. Further, it's the same basic logic underlying the demesne limit (essentially, you can't effectively manage lots of land), so if you can disable one you should be able to disable the other.

I can't call it historical because even countries which are within a game are above the limit, few examples:

769: Abbasids
1187: England
1337: Golden Horde

I agree that there was a historical problem with managing many lands\vassals but CK2 simplifies that in a very wrong way - it puts arbitrary limits instead of making it about efficiency, pretty much like EU1-3 had a badboy system with everyone stupidly declaring war on you after crossing the limit. EU IV introduced much more complex and realistic system which makes sense for me.

They might like to become emperors, but they mechanically cannot. You cannot be a vassal to a ruler of the same rank, so they would have to declare independence and win before they can found an empire. And as long as YOU don't create the empire, they cannot desire it.

Can't they create empire titles and become independent this way? I haven't played for a long time and don't remember this.

Destroying/not creating empire titles to avoid vassals desiring them seems a bit gamey to me but thanks for a tip

Have some of your vassals rule over more than a single kingdom.

And yes, the bigger your empire becomes, the more you'll have to concede power to your vassals, the supposed challenge from having a gigantic empire is keeping it together, the main threat coming from within the empire rather than outside of it. If you keep your vassals content, you won't have anything to fear, but at one point, your vassals will be more powerful than you are, especially if you wish to cover the entire map.

Bear in mind that your kings don't actually have to own adjacent kingdoms - you can give one of them Scotland and an Indian title if you want.... It might make it difficult for them to rebel swat, but you can help with that by raising other vassal's troops in the area.

But yeah, controlling the entire map is going to be difficult or nearly impossible. That's quite deliberate. Who in history ever came close to controlling the area the map shows? Even Rome at its greatest didn't have Scandinavia, half of Brittania, Russia, any of the steppes, India, large swathes of the Middle East... Alexander the Great only got as far as the edge of India before dying, and didn't hold anything in Western Europe. You'd have to be holding an Empire more than twice as large as Rome at it's height (at the point they had 4 (!) effective Emperors running the Empire.

That's kind of the danger of playing a ginormous blob. If they want the King titles, bribe them and use your Chancellor. Also just put them on your council so they can't revolt. There is plenty you can do to manage them all.



Yeah, that's the ENTIRE POINT of the vassal limit: You're not supposed to paint the entire map WITHOUT completely decentralizing your realm. It really sounds like you are refusing to adjust your strategy to the game rules, and that is silly. You can't play as a map spanning Empire the same way that you did as a small Kingdom.

I think that main issue here is a belief that large empire should be either decentralized or break apart, what's the historical basis for this? Pretty much all successful big non-colonial empires were centralized at the time of their greatest power and struggle for power in them was not about central government(emperor) vs provincial governments (vassal) but about who get's to be the emperor. Byzantine Empire was all about palace intrigues for the crown, not vassals demanding their rights. Pretty much the same thing happened in Ottoman Empire and later in Russia.

For me CK2 should be about a ruler(s) trying to a)install absolutism b) expand while vassals should aim for the opposite and I don't say turning let's say HRE into absolute monarchy should be easy - I'm fine if that would be nearly impossible, but once it's done the empire should function much better then it did as a decentralized state.

 

[Simmy93]

For me CK2 should be...

I think this is the crux of the matter, this is what you want CKII to be and for those who wish a feature to be changed like this, it involves mods.

 

[Zsrai]

I think that main issue here is a belief that large empire should be either decentralized or break apart, what's the historical basis for this?

Pretty much every single historical empire in the world? All of those examples you gave were of fairly decentralized realms. The ERE was NOT an absolute realm.

 

[Myrten]

I think this is the crux of the matter, this is what you want CKII to be and for those who wish a feature to be changed like this, it involves mods.

That's why devs are adding game rules system, besides it's not a very good argument - let's say the game would be like I would want it to be and you would think that something doesn't makes any sense - if I had said that you should mod it for yourself would it make me right and you wrong? I don't think so.

Pretty much every single historical empire in the world? All of those examples you gave were of fairly decentralized realms. The ERE was NOT an absolute realm.

If provinces are ruled not by hereditary rulers, but officials (for whom ruling a province is just a step in their career) appointed and dismissed at emperor's will how can you call such empire decentralized?

 

[Dr Gonzo]

@Myrten is right about everything! I want this so badly! I hate the silly limit on vassals. I understand why it's been put in place but I really hate having to mess about with viceroy kings instead of just having 300 dukes like back in the old days. I do get the balance issue, but I'd love to have the option added in the custom rules.

No kings

 

[Simmy93]

My point is that even if that option was added, it wouldn't allow you to play ironman, so why wouldn't you just go on the steam workshop and download the vassal limit remover mod? I'm not putting down your idea, I'm just saying that the same result is available now.