Some newbie questions

[Vluggejapie]

So I've been giving CK2 a go, and I have some questions.
These questions are listed in no sensible order, just so you know

How do I manage and prioritise holdings? When playing as a Sicilian king, i initially tried to get all the counties on the island of Sicily as my personal demesne. I read in an AAR somewhere that a rather successful player advised ppl to get all holdings of Palermo as your own holdings (so not as vassals, but as your personal demesne). He then used his counsel members to raise taxes and max levies. What do you guys think is the best way to go? I find it very difficult to get accurate information on my income. hovering the cursor over your personal wealth gives you your monthly income and expenses, but nothing more specific is available. Any way to get more info? without it, I personally find it difficult to make informed decisions.

Another question is about dynasties. In my first game i had to deal with a rebellion by faction members that supported a pretender to the throne. I think he was of the same dynasty. If i remember correctly, getting defeated by a direct family member (blood drop with a gold edge) is no problem, as you can continue playing as your "brother/mother/any sckr", but getting defeated by a kinsman (i.e. no gold edge around the blood drop icon) is bad. is this correct?

About that rebellion. my heir was a complete disaster. apart from being of the right culture and religion, being my son was his only perk. he might actually have been possessed or a lunatic. The upstart duchies where Walachia, Adrianople, and one or two Anatolian duchies. The majority of my vassals remained loyal. My levies where completely ruined though. i think all my troops combined formed an army of 15k or something (it was early-game). The rebels though, formed a doom stack of over 60k. How was this possible? even after cheating in some cash to hire every mercenary available i was utterly outnumbered. I might add i was playing on easy. Was i outnumbered because the game "decided" i was better off playing as my related pretender? i can;t say for sure the pretender was actually my brother/nephew/cousin. I rage quitted, as coward I am.

As the ERE, do i create kingdom titles? I find that when I keep them for myself, maying a new wife will create problems when I get a new heir born in the pink. He becomes heir to the imperial title, but the old heir remains heir to the kingdom titles. That forces me to assassinate my oldest son, in order to prevent a situation where I am emperor with one big powerful angry vassal.

Or maybe I should hand out all the other kingdom titles except my core ones so I minimise my number of vassals? When I consider this, I begin to doubt whether this will not decrease the number of levies i can raise from these provinces... I wouldn't know where to find this info... Will the (for example) Anatolian duchies combines raise me more troops compared to a situation where I make one of them my vassal Anatolian king?

Any insights would be very welcome.

 

[clykke]

I am no expert, so I will only (try) to answer two of your questions.

Regarding prioritizing holdings, my first rule is to keep the counties with the most "slots" (for cities, castles and churches). They have the most potential, and a county with 6 holdings is much better than one with only 3. Also, take geographic locations into account. Keep your counties as close together as the first rule allows. Rule number 3 and 4 given equality with 1 and 2, would be to keep coastal counties (easy access to naval transport of your armies are a huge plus) and counties that are more "safe", meaning further away from potential enemies (mainly those of a different religion).

Regarding your kingdoms/inheritance question, I think your problem lies with gavelkind, which divides all your holdings between your heirs/sons. Switch to primogeniture (or elective if you can control it) and all your titles should be passed on to the same son. Unless you have done something like handing out a title to your former wife and/or her son, in which case your new son would not inherit, as the land is not longer yours.

Hope it helps.

 

[unmerged(608717)]

Holding all the neighbouring counties in your first two neighbouring duchies is a great tactic. That way you have a strong "core" geographically(regarding rebellions) and economically.

 

[DC123456789]

As the ERE, do i create kingdom titles? I find that when I keep them for myself, maying a new wife will create problems when I get a new heir born in the pink. He becomes heir to the imperial title, but the old heir remains heir to the kingdom titles. That forces me to assassinate my oldest son, in order to prevent a situation where I am emperor with one big powerful angry vassal.

You can if you want. Make sure you always give the Despot honorary title to your oldest son- this basically gives him the "born in the purple" trait for inheritance, thus allowing your empire as well as your kingdoms to go to him.

 

[StephenT]

Point 1: the advantage to holding all the baronies in a specific country is that you can tell your steward to increase taxes, and your marshal to increase levies, in just one county - so you want to apply that bonus to the largest possible number of holdings. Another factor to consider is technology. In the case of the d'Hautevilles your starting counties are very low tech, but if you capture Palermo it's one of the highest tech provinces in the game - and that means its holdings provide more income and can be developed with more advanced buildings. This won't matter so much going forward as your other provinces will slowly catch up, but it's vital in the early game.

Point 2: I'm pretty sure you can continue play as any kinsman, close or not, if your current one is eliminated. However, that doesn't help if your family member takes half your lands rather than all of them!

Last point: your relationship with the vassal will determine the size of your levies. If the Anatolian king loves you, he'll provide more troops than the collective dukes would; if he hates you, the opposite. So it's a good move to create the kingdom if you think it'll be easier to keep one man happy (with gifts, honorary titles etc) than a whole bunch of them - but if things go wrong and your vassal king rebels, he'll be much more dangerous to you than a single duke would be. So it's a gamble.

 

[NewbieOne]

So I've been giving CK2 a go, and I have some questions.
These questions are listed in no sensible order, just so you know

How do I manage and prioritise holdings? When playing as a Sicilian king, i initially tried to get all the counties on the island of Sicily as my personal demesne. I read in an AAR somewhere that a rather successful player advised ppl to get all holdings of Palermo as your own holdings (so not as vassals, but as your personal demesne). He then used his counsel members to raise taxes and max levies. What do you guys think is the best way to go? I find it very difficult to get accurate information on my income. hovering the cursor over your personal wealth gives you your monthly income and expenses, but nothing more specific is available. Any way to get more info? without it, I personally find it difficult to make informed decisions.

At least the burgher vassals get bonus to income they generate (supposedly increasing as their rank (tier) increases). With large city taxes they already pay more tax than you would be collecting by directly holding the city with wrong government type penalty. Additionally, a mayor gets the entire rest of the money which is not yours through tax. That money is spent on upgrades. Which means he develops the city to bring even more income, produce even more levies, possibly even the university to help the tech. Don't know how this works for other types of vassals, while obviously bishops are tricky with their opinion, i.e. if they like the Pope more than you, their taxes go there and levies are refused, and barons by default pay no tax (in stark contrast to how much cash you can make if you develop a barony properly with a large city, large wall etc.).

It's really up to your taste. If you pack your capital with baronies, especially held by you, you will be powerful to expand and put down rebellions, plus all your army will start in substantially one place. And you won't have the problem of having more than two ducal titles as king when your demesne limit is 12 (and duchies of six counties are hard to come by).

On the other hand, you can pack your capital with cities, especially if it is a coastal province. Put a university in each of the cities plus a cathedral school in the bishopric. Watch the tech...

However, as far as tech goes, your capital radiates on your surrounding provinces, especially if they are in the same demesne (that being yours), which means that in-land capitals too can benefit from being packed with cities and universities. Or at least with bishoprics for the cheap tech +20% (school costs 200 while a university costs 600 and the effect is the same). Tech does all sorts of things to you but most importantly enables higher-tier buildings. Otherwise it reduces your opinion penalties, helps prestige and piety, increases the size of your demesne.

It does matter whether you're small or big. A small ruler will be more reluctant, perhaps, to give up barony slots he could use on castles... while it could still be a good idea anyway, considering that money and tech offer a synergy based on constructing buildings that increase your income base and troop base and obviously money = mercs.

Right now, in my game, I have plenty of baronies I built when I was small and had little land. I upgraded them far. Gave me a lot of cash and good levies. However, when I need to give them away to vassals, the loss will be awful to take. By contrast, cities would mostly have taken care of themselves in terms of upgrades while providing me with comparable cash anyway (especially if I jump-started them by financing the construction of a money-making building, which you can do by ordering the construction immediately before you appoint a mayor, otherwise you need to wait for a moment when the mayor isn't building another troop-training structure in order to force a port on him, for example). The cash leftover would easily have allowed me mercenaries, or more & quicker upgrades in those baronies I did have. Not to mention much more troops actually.

Also, generally only cities benefit from being located at the coast. Other holdings can train ships (at least baronies can) but only cities have ports. And that does make a difference.

Another question is about dynasties. In my first game i had to deal with a rebellion by faction members that supported a pretender to the throne. I think he was of the same dynasty. If i remember correctly, getting defeated by a direct family member (blood drop with a gold edge) is no problem, as you can continue playing as your "brother/mother/any sckr", but getting defeated by a kinsman (i.e. no gold edge around the blood drop icon) is bad. is this correct?

That's a roleplaying concern. I would be sad. Other people would be happy if the usurper had better stats than the old guy.

About that rebellion. my heir was a complete disaster. apart from being of the right culture and religion, being my son was his only perk. he might actually have been possessed or a lunatic. The upstart duchies where Walachia, Adrianople, and one or two Anatolian duchies. The majority of my vassals remained loyal. My levies where completely ruined though. i think all my troops combined formed an army of 15k or something (it was early-game). The rebels though, formed a doom stack of over 60k. How was this possible? even after cheating in some cash to hire every mercenary available i was utterly outnumbered. I might add i was playing on easy. Was i outnumbered because the game "decided" i was better off playing as my related pretender? i can;t say for sure the pretender was actually my brother/nephew/cousin. I rage quitted, as coward I am.

Hiring every merc on the map, which I think I once did as an OPM (one province minor), produces at best some 25K troops. Against muslims, pagans or heretics, holy orders combine to 21-23K. Retinues aren't huge. You need levies for the rest. That means keeping your vassals happy. You'd do well to visit the Vassals tab on your ruler's character screen: opinions are shown there. Another good place (and more vassals showing at the same time) is the vassals tab on the Military tab (where you get your levies from). This way you can also avoid raising the levies of vassals who already hate you and only raise the levies of vassals who will still like you even if you run up to -20 or -30 opinion penalty for "levies raised too long".

Hand out honorary titles, they cost no money. You can use them on guys who are too rich for you to afford a gift. Go to the succession guide in my sig (sorry, it's a messy wall of text but the tips are useful) for some ideas.

Now as for putting down faction rebellions specifically:

1. And most important. You don't actually need to fight every single rebel. Just go to the ringleader's holdings and capture them. Even assault them if you have at least 10 times the number of troops as his garrisons. You will lose some men but a protracted war would claim more. And who knows who else would declare war on you if you were long-embroiled with your rebelling vassals (the Fatimids come to mind).
2. The difference between making somebody surrender and softening him up enough to get a white peace is huge. A white peace disbands the faction, gets you a truce with the leader, buys you time in which your short reign penalty reduces or your long reign bonus grows. And a white peace gives you an opinion bonus being "spared in a rebellion" or something along those lines. Remember that wars are expensive and dangerous, especially if many neighbours have claims on you or stuff like kingdom-level invasion CBs. A quick white peace may be more advantageous in the larger perspective than a long war. And certainly safer.
3. In connection with #2: If you doubt your ability to take the war to a conclusion without serious problems (further rebels can join, somebody can marry an external ruler, including the HRE, France etc.), just go for white peace.

However, if you do commit to warfare:
1. Sieging/assaulting the holdings of the ringleader until he agrees to surrender will put the other rebels in your jail as traitors, I believe (it does so for the AI at least). Means you can revoke their titles without anybody else complaining about it (you still get an opinion hit from the person whose title you take away).

If you play as the Byzzies or related culture, you have free revocation of duchies (within that culture, not your far off lands somewhere else). This means that once you get the rebels in jail you can strip and reassign their duchies. Whoever gets a duchy from you will have a +60 modifier to his opinion of you and you get to select people with the Content trait (+50 to their opinion of you as their liege, which is massive).

Also, if you take all duchies away from a liege, he will lose the ability to have counts as vassals. His counts will go free and become your own direct vassals. A crowd of them but not so powerful individually. (By the way, if you usurp Egypt from the Fatimids, which is not that hard, all of their emirs will go free.) So if you have someone in jail as a traitor, you can take all his duchies away, and then 1 county or barony. Or if you have a king vassal, you can take his kingdom for the traitor thing (which allows you to take one title only without the -20 penalty with all your vassals) to set his dukes free (because he will be a duke himself), after which you can take all of his duchies away, setting his counts free.

Summary: If you take someone one tier down, all his previous vassals who are now his equals in rank will be set free.

As the ERE, do i create kingdom titles? I find that when I keep them for myself, maying a new wife will create problems when I get a new heir born in the pink. He becomes heir to the imperial title, but the old heir remains heir to the kingdom titles. That forces me to assassinate my oldest son, in order to prevent a situation where I am emperor with one big powerful angry vassal.

Having large vassals is not bad per se and can be a life-saver if you keep them appeased. This means not holding titles which are in their de iure counties, duchies or kingdoms.

Also, you can make your non-purpleborn son heir by granting him the despot title (the honorary title, not a king-level title from the Byzantine culture). Alternatively, you can experiment with elective succession law in your kingdoms.

All in all, however, while kingdom titles do give you some prestige, they are problematic in their own right and you may be better off without them.

Or maybe I should hand out all the other kingdom titles except my core ones so I minimise my number of vassals?

Feudal (castle) vassals pay no tax by default. This means that if you make a king somewhere, you'll lose the taxes from church or city vassals because the new king will not hand a portion to you (much less the whole).

On the other hand, if you feel adventurous, you could perhaps create kingdom-level city vassals and see how much tax you can get that way (in addition to them building new holdings and upgrading old ones with all their cash). But be prepared for them having boatloads of gold to buy mercenaries for.

 

[nyah]

How do I manage and prioritise holdings? When playing as a Sicilian king, i initially tried to get all the counties on the island of Sicily as my personal demesne. I read in an AAR somewhere that a rather successful player advised ppl to get all holdings of Palermo as your own holdings .

I'd agree with the first part, getting all of the counties in Sicily is a good move, they're all rich and high-tech and have multiple spare holdings to build in. Personally I wouldn't bother holding the cities and churches yourself, just build a couple of extra baronies in Palermo and stick with that. There's nothing wrong with holding everything yourself, apart from the wrong type of holding penalty, but it just seems a bit gamey to me.

One thing to check before you move everything to the island of Sicily is that the recently conquered and wrong religion penalties have dropped off, which will take a few years. Use your court chaplain to convert them. Keep some other counties in the meantime so your income doesn't drop off too much.