Realm Duress

[Worldcrusher]

I've just changed rulers, had a vassal start a civil war, and now I've got Realm Duress. Everything is going south fast - vassals declaring independence, and more often than not declaring war as well.

Is this trait a gamebreaker? Am I pretty much guaranteed to end up with just my personal demense left (if I'm lucky) after a long, expensive war and have to start all over as a minor count? Or is it just a rough patch that will go away after a while? Does the trait ever disappear?

I guess my question is, does Realm Duress = save and reload?

 

[TempestDK]

I've just changed rulers, had a vassal start a civil war, and now I've got Realm Duress. Everything is going south fast - vassals declaring independence, and more often than not declaring war as well.

Is this trait a gamebreaker? Am I pretty much guaranteed to end up with just my personal demense left (if I'm lucky) after a long, expensive war and have to start all over as a minor count? Or is it just a rough patch that will go away after a while? Does the trait ever disappear?

I guess my question is, does Realm Duress = save and reload?

No ofcourse not ... it really really sucks to get that trait, but it can go away, and with a bit of luck and skill you could manage to keep most of your possesions.

There is no trait or event I consider a game breaker .... things went horribly wrong for rulers in history, and so they can for you. But see it as a challenge. Even if you loose 90% of your land, then the mission afterwards would be to get it all back

I can't remember what the triggers are to loose the trait, but it is possible. I am sure one of the old veterans here knows exactly what you must do to get rid of it.

 

[Chipawah]

Don't save and reload!

Realm Duress is one of the parts that makes the game so interesting. It will be a challenge to get through, especially if your ruler has bad traits/prestige/piety, you might have to give up a few distant vassals, but it will pass and you will be able to go on and make your fortune again.

It's not a gamebreaker - it's a gameenhancer, without realm duress you would eventually grow bored of simply expanding all the time and not running into any challenges.

Avoid grabbing provinces from your rebellious vassals, rather force them to become vassals again when signing peace treaties. This prevents your BB from going up while at the same time increasing your prestige making your vassals more loyal to you.

Go on, play through it, it will make the game more fun and interesting once you are through!

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

When your ruler dies always pause the game and check the loyalty of your vassals, bribe the most disloyal ones so that there loyalty is above 60%.

Disloyal vassal are the ones that give you realm duress (though a rival as a vassal can also give it to you).

As the other have said, sit through it and try to hold on then the game feels much more rewarding. In reality the death of a king normally led to unrest in his realm, unless the heir was already well known and prestigious. So realm duress is one of the best additions to the game since the game was released IMHO.

 

[Worldcrusher]

Thanks for all the (amazingly fast!) replies. And I understand how this makes the game more interesting - it certainly has given me something to do.

My ruler's fifteen years old - what's got me concerned is the idea that I might have fifty-odd years of something to do, if the trait doesn't go away after a while.

Again, thanks. Man, you guys are fast.

 

[Chipawah]

The trait goes away as your realm stabilizes. Supress the rebelling vassals and keep an eye on the others, try to avoid being at war for too long (this is where leaving those distant vassals that rebel alone can be a good course of action, it takes so long for your troops to get there and besiege their province(s) that you might be better off letting them stay independent).

Some of my most succesful rulers started off with realm duress before moving on to greater things...

 

[Waffen9999]

It is annoying but definitely a challenge. It can make you pull your hair out sometimes though, especially when you have a king come to power experiencing realm duress, then while trying to siege a rebels castle, he gets killed in battle only to have his successor come to power and get hit with another wave of it. All of which occurred less then 1 year from the time of the first king dying. That's alot of disloyal people >shudders<

 

[unmerged(22430)]

I've had like 3 civil wars in the 300 year history of my dynasty's control of Sweden. I have a huge enough army to put them down now. I had one in the early 12th century, one in the early 13th century, and another one in the late 13th century.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

I used to have civil wars all the time. As long as you have a strong and rich demesne you have not so much to fear... it is annoying to squash rebels all the time, but you should always have a core of 40% diehard loyalists who will not rebel and whose troops you can use to do the squashing whenever someone revolts. You will of course be unable to fight major wars against foreign enemies, since half your vassals will be unreliable and the other half needed at home to keep the revolts in check... which is only a problem if you have strong mean enemies, something I try to take care of as fast as possible

 

[Worldcrusher]

Now that I've lived and learned, I think there's a moral to the story - don't die poor.

Lesson learned, 'heir realm stability fund' established.

Again, thanks for all the help.

 

[Chipawah]

Just had a new ruler (aged 2 when inheriting the throne) spend his first 22 years as monarch with realm duress. To make matters worse every conceivable major power with a claim on my provinces declared war on me, it really took a lot to clear that mess up. Had to cede a few distant vassals and provinces and focus on my core region (Adriatic Sea).

In the end I ended up with a few less vassals in the east but more land in my core area and because I struggled so much it feels like much more of an accomplishment than if I had simply crushed my neighbours and grabbed their land.

Now with the kingdom back in stability I can start plotting my revenge on those cowardly opportunists that declared war on me...

 

[OutsiderSubtype]

If I recall correctly, the nastiest part of the Realm Duress trait is that the event for it to end won't fire if you have ANY vassal with the Rebellious trait, even if that vassal is at 100% loyalty. That means that the force-vassalization and give up claims strategy is a bad one unless the lord has lost the Rebellious trait in the meantime.

I don't really like that aspect of the Realm Duress trait. It's not really intuitive to get rid of every vassal who has the Rebellious trait.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

If I recall correctly, the nastiest part of the Realm Duress trait is that the event for it to end won't fire if you have ANY vassal with the Rebellious trait, even if that vassal is at 100% loyalty. That means that the force-vassalization and give up claims strategy is a bad one unless the lord has lost the Rebellious trait in the meantime.

I don't really like that aspect of the Realm Duress trait. It's not really intuitive to get rid of every vassal who has the Rebellious trait.

The event that may end realm duress has just one trigger and that is that you have the 'realm duress' trait.

PHASE SEVEN
# Liege has opportunity to end the threat of civil war, and safty net in case someone gets the trait by mistake.

character_event = {  #It seems that my realm is no longer under direct threat of civil war.
	id = 6459

	picture = "event_claim"

	trigger = {
		condition = { type = trait value = realm_duress }
	}

	mean_time_to_happen = {
		months = 48

Of course if you no longer have rebellious vassals then the MTTH will decrease considerably

 

[unmerged(75409)]

If I recall correctly, the nastiest part of the Realm Duress trait is that the event for it to end won't fire if you have ANY vassal with the Rebellious trait, even if that vassal is at 100% loyalty. That means that the force-vassalization and give up claims strategy is a bad one unless the lord has lost the Rebellious trait in the meantime.

I don't really like that aspect of the Realm Duress trait. It's not really intuitive to get rid of every vassal who has the Rebellious trait.

If that was true, then no player with more than 20 or so vassals would ever get rid of realm duress. I always have a few rebellious vassals, there are simply too many to cull them all.

 

[Worldcrusher]

I can confirm. I had 86 vassals, lots of them with the rebellious trait, and Realm Duress. The trait went away about a year after I got it - I put down the initial rebellion, force-vassalized the guy who started it and honored his title, and hemhorraged gift money to the rest of my rebellious vassals every month until the trait went away.

Rebellious counts don't effect Realm Duress ending one way or the other, in my experience.

 

[OutsiderSubtype]

Ah, my bad, just a modifier and not a condition.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

I can confirm. I had 86 vassals, lots of them with the rebellious trait, and Realm Duress. The trait went away about a year after I got it - I put down the initial rebellion, force-vassalized the guy who started it and honored his title, and hemhorraged gift money to the rest of my rebellious vassals every month until the trait went away.

Rebellious counts don't effect Realm Duress ending one way or the other, in my experience.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that money solves a lot of problems. Keep all the vassals at 50+ loyalty and peace will come a lot faster.

However this requires you to strip your vassals of their gold occasionally, like when they revolt, because otherwise they are too damn expensive to bribe. (The loyalty gain per 100d seems to become less as the vassal becomes richer... greedy bastards )

 

[Worldcrusher]

Rich rebel vassals are definitely a problem. I learned that one the hard way. My fix now is once a rebellious vassal gets above about 1000 gold I bribe him up to Extremely Loyal, mobilize his troops, and march them around for a few months. By the time they get home he's happy to take what I give him. It also keeps his ability to rebel low, since attrition knocks quite a few men from his ranks.

It's gamey, but I rationalize it by pretending that they're parade marches to inspire loyalty in distant counties.