Some questions about vassal management

[Pewt]

Hey; just started playing CK2 again after playing back in 1.0, and a lot's different.

I'm playing as the King of Sicily right now, and own Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and most of Iberia.

1) I sometimes see warnings that inheritance might cause a realm to pass outside my control. Since I have high crown authority, this is supposedly impossible. Does the warning just appear anyways?

2) My vassals don't seem to respect the fact that high crown authority means no infighting. What's up with this? Am I missing something?

3) How do I keep factions under control? Last I played they didn't exist, and I had to deal with the usual plots to muck with the realm, but these seem notably different in that I can't find out how I'm supposed to get them to screw off. The same few vassals (regardless of rulers; it's been nearly 100 years of this) keep trying to fight for independence, even though they have as much as +100 relations with me at times, and nothing I do seems to dissuade them. Since it isn't a plot, I can't imprison them without making the situation worse. How do I get them to calm down?

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Playing Sword of Islam v1.08.

 

[Djieh]

Hey; just started playing CK2 again after playing back in 1.0, and a lot's different.

I'm playing as the King of Sicily right now, and own Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and most of Iberia.

1) I sometimes see warnings that inheritance might cause a realm to pass outside my control. Since I have high crown authority, this is supposedly impossible. Does the warning just appear anyways?

It seems to me this message is also delivered if somebody within your realm currently has an heir that doesn't belong to his dynasty, at least that's what I suspect.

2) My vassals don't seem to respect the fact that high crown authority means no infighting. What's up with this? Am I missing something?

The "no infighting" rule only applies for declared wars, I think. Plot- and faction-based wars still are allowed.

3) How do I keep factions under control? Last I played they didn't exist, and I had to deal with the usual plots to muck with the realm, but these seem notably different in that I can't find out how I'm supposed to get them to screw off. The same few vassals (regardless of rulers; it's been nearly 100 years of this) keep trying to fight for independence, even though they have as much as +100 relations with me at times, and nothing I do seems to dissuade them. Since it isn't a plot, I can't imprison them without making the situation worse. How do I get them to calm down?

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Playing Sword of Islam v1.08.

You can try to dissuade vassals from leading/joining factions by sending your spymaster to scheme in their capital, although this sometimes only worsens the situation, as well. Some facts seem to be hard to avoid; I think vassals that don't belong to your de jure will often join the independence faction; if somebody profits from a certain succession law, he more likely than not will try to implement it; the same is true for the support factions for claimants. I generally try to have very good relations to the most powerful vassals, but sometimes conflict seems to be unavoidable.

 

[Puritan]

Are you seeing the warning about strong factions? If not, don't worry, you will always have a few hanging around. Watch out once you see that flag appear on top of the screen, and try to boost relations above 80 with as many members of that faction, or at least the strongest. They will usually leave, or at least not revolt with the others.

If you white peace, or enforce demands on revolters you get a 25 relations boost with all your vassals for a while.

 

[Chaotix]

Hey; just started playing CK2 again after playing back in 1.0, and a lot's different.

I'm playing as the King of Sicily right now, and own Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and most of Iberia.

1) I sometimes see warnings that inheritance might cause a realm to pass outside my control. Since I have high crown authority, this is supposedly impossible. Does the warning just appear anyways?

2) My vassals don't seem to respect the fact that high crown authority means no infighting. What's up with this? Am I missing something?

3) How do I keep factions under control? Last I played they didn't exist, and I had to deal with the usual plots to muck with the realm, but these seem notably different in that I can't find out how I'm supposed to get them to screw off. The same few vassals (regardless of rulers; it's been nearly 100 years of this) keep trying to fight for independence, even though they have as much as +100 relations with me at times, and nothing I do seems to dissuade them. Since it isn't a plot, I can't imprison them without making the situation worse. How do I get them to calm down?

--

Playing Sword of Islam v1.08.

Questions 1 and 2 can both be answered in the same way:

Simply put, your crown laws only affect vassals who hold titles that are de jure part of that kingdom. You say you also have Sardinia and parts of Spain in addition to Sicily - if you've acquired these recently (less than 100 years ago), they have probably not yet shifted from their own de jure kingdom to yours. So titles held by your vassals in de jure Italy or Aragon or Andalusia CAN pass out of your realm. Vassals in those lands ARE allowed to fight each other as well, depending on the crown laws of that de jure area. In addition, even if you were to own both the Kingdoms of Sicily and say, Aragon, and had both at High Crown Authority, vassals from Sicily would still be able to declare war on vassals from Aragon, and vice-versa.

For this reason, the best way to deal with this is not to create the extra kingdoms, but to let them instead de jure shift to Sicily. Then, once you have assimilated all of the land in that kingdom, you can create it as a titular title instead for the same prestige bonus. The downside is you have to deal with this for 100 years before everything de jure shifts.

Question 3:

The best way to keep factions under control is generally to 1) send your spymaster to scheme in their provinces and 2) send your chancellor to improve relations. Happy vassals will usually leave factions sooner or later (usually if they are not leaving the faction, it is because they are both foreign culture and not a de jure vassal. Try to avoid that.). If you can't make them happy, you can persuade them to stop instead. If your spymaster is scheming in the region, he will usually come up with an event sooner or later to persuade a vassal to stop associating with factions. The "obligate" option almost always works, but I find that the "threaten" tends to just piss them off more so I avoid it. If all else fails and you know you can't stop a civil war, try to avoid external wars and either build up your retinue or save up for some mercenaries. Even forcing the rebels into a white peace will result in the ringleader being thrown into jail and everyone else given a +25 relation boost due to "crushing the revolt". You can usually get them to agree to the peace just by taking an entire capital holding or two. The most dangerous thing about revolts is usually not the revolt itself, but your opportunistic neighbors who might jump in for a piece of the pie while you're unable to defend yourself adequately.

 

[Pewt]

Are you seeing the warning about strong factions? If not, don't worry, you will always have a few hanging around. Watch out once you see that flag appear on top of the screen, and try to boost relations above 80 with as many members of that faction, or at least the strongest. They will usually leave, or at least not revolt with the others.

If you white peace, or enforce demands on revolters you get a 25 relations boost with all your vassals for a while.

Yes, they're getting strong (and actually revolting, in fact). Mostly just independence; the others are useless. Not being part of the De Jure realm might be the problem: I just noticed there seems to be a new "coring" mechanism where territories join your De Jure kingdom after 100 years, so I deleted my secondary titles and now they're revolting too. The revolts aren't a huge issue, they're just a bit annoying.

Simply put, your crown laws only affect vassals who hold titles that are de jure part of that kingdom. You say you also have Sardinia and parts of Spain in addition to Sicily - if you've acquired these recently (less than 100 years ago), they have probably not yet shifted from their own de jure kingdom to yours. So titles held by your vassals in de jure Italy or Aragon or Andalusia CAN pass out of your realm. Vassals in those lands ARE allowed to fight each other as well, depending on the crown laws of that de jure area. In addition, even if you were to own both the Kingdoms of Sicily and say, Aragon, and had both at High Crown Authority, vassals from Sicily would still be able to declare war on vassals from Aragon, and vice-versa.

For this reason, the best way to deal with this is not to create the extra kingdoms, but to let them instead de jure shift to Sicily. Then, once you have assimilated all of the land in that kingdom, you can create it as a titular title instead for the same prestige bonus. The downside is you have to deal with this for 100 years before everything de jure shifts.

This isn't the issue; there's been constant infighting in Naples as well.

Question 3:

The best way to keep factions under control is generally to 1) send your spymaster to scheme in their provinces and 2) send your chancellor to improve relations. Happy vassals will usually leave factions sooner or later (usually if they are not leaving the faction, it is because they are both foreign culture and not a de jure vassal. Try to avoid that.). If you can't make them happy, you can persuade them to stop instead. If your spymaster is scheming in the region, he will usually come up with an event sooner or later to persuade a vassal to stop associating with factions. The "obligate" option almost always works, but I find that the "threaten" tends to just piss them off more so I avoid it. If all else fails and you know you can't stop a civil war, try to avoid external wars and either build up your retinue or save up for some mercenaries. Even forcing the rebels into a white peace will result in the ringleader being thrown into jail and everyone else given a +25 relation boost due to "crushing the revolt". You can usually get them to agree to the peace just by taking an entire capital holding or two. The most dangerous thing about revolts is usually not the revolt itself, but your opportunistic neighbors who might jump in for a piece of the pie while you're unable to defend yourself adequately.

The revolts haven't really been dangerous so much as tedious after the nth time. Sounds like I should look into the spymaster though.

 

[Chaotix]

This isn't the issue; there's been constant infighting in Naples as well.

If it's the Duke of Naples at war with his own vassals, then that's a faction war within Naples that indeed you can't stop. I believe normal rebellions of Counts against their Dukes would be allowed as well, except the AI avoids those now and goes for faction wars instead.

Now if it's the Duke of Naples fighting the Duke of Capua, and both are de jure part of Sicily, and they don't have any secondary titles in other areas, then I'm not sure what to tell you. Seems more like a bug than anything in that case.

 

[Pewt]

If it's the Duke of Naples at war with his own vassals, then that's a faction war within Naples that indeed you can't stop. I believe normal rebellions of Counts against their Dukes would be allowed as well, except the AI avoids those now and goes for faction wars instead.

Now if it's the Duke of Naples fighting the Duke of Capua, and both are de jure part of Sicily, and they don't have any secondary titles in other areas, then I'm not sure what to tell you. Seems more like a bug than anything in that case.

I haven't been paying strict attention to it since 200 years of inheritances has inevitably left that area a complete mess in terms of who owns what, but I'm pretty sure it's between dukes (I've seen it between dukes once or twice, but I'm not sure if it was a plot or something). I can't help but wonder if something weird/buggy is going on for other reasons too, though:

-I was told that I left the Byzantine Empire's De Jure land quite a while ago, but I still show up as part of their De Jure Empire on the appropriate mapmode and at one point they declared war to attempt to press their claim to apulia.

-I see Sicily as coring in 50 years for me, which is obviously weird given that I've not only owned it as a Kingdom for 4x that long, but it is by default de Jure part of its respective kingdom anyways.

 

[JonStryker]

I haven't been paying strict attention to it since 200 years of inheritances has inevitably left that area a complete mess in terms of who owns what, but I'm pretty sure it's between dukes (I've seen it between dukes once or twice, but I'm not sure if it was a plot or something). I can't help but wonder if something weird/buggy is going on for other reasons too, though:

-I was told that I left the Byzantine Empire's De Jure land quite a while ago, but I still show up as part of their De Jure Empire on the appropriate mapmode and at one point they declared war to attempt to press their claim to apulia.

-I see Sicily as coring in 50 years for me, which is obviously weird given that I've not only owned it as a Kingdom for 4x that long, but it is by default de Jure part of its respective kingdom anyways.

The passing out of an empire / drifting into another is sadly very bugged. One of the bugs is that even after the popup says you passed out of an empire, you are still in it.
What do you mean with "coring"? This EU3 mechanic does not exist in CK2!

 

[Pewt]

The passing out of an empire / drifting into another is sadly very bugged. One of the bugs is that even after the popup says you passed out of an empire, you are still in it.
What do you mean with "coring"? This EU3 mechanic does not exist in CK2!

Becoming de Jure.

 

[JonStryker]

Becoming de Jure.

You mean, in the de jure kingdoms view it says that that land is now drifting for 50 years into Sicily? That would be very odd. Could you provide a screenshot?

 

[Pewt]

Here we go:

(That said, I see in that same screenshot that part of Italy has instead become de Jure Lotharingia--not mine, but the mechanic working nonetheless--so hopefully my Spanish territory will work that way too... some of it is almost there, although Aragon will be ages since I only just deleted the Kingdom recently).

Edit: I see coring/shifting/whatever you want to call it only seems to happen on a duchy-wide basis when you control the entire duchy? Sardinia is only at 5/100 years, and while I only acquired Cagliari 5 years ago I've owned Corsica and Arborea for over 100.

 

[shypixel]

I see coring/shifting/whatever you want to call it only seems to happen on a duchy-wide basis when you control the entire duchy? Sardinia is only at 5/100 years, and while I only acquired Cagliari 5 years ago I've owned Corsica and Arborea for over 100.

Yes.

Once you have the entire duchy, it starts drifting into your kingdom.

Works the same way for kingdoms, you must own the whole thing to drift it into an empire.

 

[Djieh]

Is the number of years that is displayed for Salerno growing or shrinking over time? Maybe for some reason it had been shifting towards Aragon before you destroyed the kingdom!? The shifting of kingdoms still confuses me time after time, especially if you control multiple titles at the same time.

It is correct, though, that you need to hold the entire de jure territory of a duchy for the shifting effect to start. Additionally, I learned that, after the shift is stopped, it will start "shifting back", meaning the number of years towards the shift into the new kingdom reduce (at double speed).

I think that wasn't really comprehensible, here's an example:

Let's say you are king of Sicily and you conquer the entire duchy of Tuscany. It will start shifting towards Sicily as soon as you conquer the entire duchy. Now imagine the king of Italy manages to re-capture one county after 50 years. From that point on, every year you should lose two years of progress towards incorporation into Sicily. So five years later it will be 40/100 years. If now you reconquer the lost duchy, it will again start to shift towards your kingdom.
At least that's what I read at one point not too long ago.

If that was the case with Salerno, it should say Aragon instead of Sicily, though ...

Hope I didn't add to any existing confusion.

 

[JonStryker]

Here we go:

(That said, I see in that same screenshot that part of Italy has instead become de Jure Lotharingia--not mine, but the mechanic working nonetheless--so hopefully my Spanish territory will work that way too... some of it is almost there, although Aragon will be ages since I only just deleted the Kingdom recently).
If something is drifting from kingdom to kingdom than

Edit: I see coring/shifting/whatever you want to call it only seems to happen on a duchy-wide basis when you control the entire duchy? Sardinia is only at 5/100 years, and while I only acquired Cagliari 5 years ago I've owned Corsica and Arborea for over 100.

This timer shows you when your kingdom will drift out of the Byzantine Empire. It starts counting up as soon as someone holds the king-title and all the land. If it reaches 100 years the kingdom will leave the Byzantine Empire. If something is drifting between kingdoms it is shown further up in the list in that box and the map is shaded in the corresponding area.

Being incorporated for 52 years into Sicily basically means "This kingdom now exists for 52 years outside of the de jure Empire and will leave its de jure Empire in 48 years".

P.S. Keep in mind that the whole "drift out of/into an empire"-mechanic is pretty bugged. Even if the timer reacheas 100 years you're not guarenteed to *really* leave an empire. Furthermore you can never drift an existing kingdom from one empire to another.
I hope they fix this in 1.09!

 

[Pewt]

This timer shows you when your kingdom will drift out of the Byzantine Empire. It starts counting up as soon as someone holds the king-title and all the land. If it reaches 100 years the kingdom will leave the Byzantine Empire. If something is drifting between kingdoms it is shown further up in the list in that box and the map is shaded in the corresponding area.

Being incorporated for 52 years into Sicily basically means "This kingdom now exists for 52 years outside of the de jure Empire and will leave its de jure Empire in 48 years".

Oh okay, so that has to do with leaving the de Jure empire being bugged and not happening.

Edit: This is totally unrelated, but while I'm asking questions... Genoa conquered a bunch of counties and converted their county capitals to Towns rather than Baronies. I then proceeded to take them. How do I change them back to Baronies?

 

[Djieh]

You can change the main holding of a county by granting the county title to one of the barons in that county. The baron will then become a count and gives the city to some random new mayor. I don't know of any way that changes the main holding without giving it away first, though.

 

[Pode]

If you take both the city/church barony and the castle barony at the same time (i.e. holy war), it should automatically switch to make the castle the capital

 

[Pewt]

Continuing with the questions (thanks for the help so far, by the way!):

1) Is there any way to give France back the two counties I randomly inherited in the middle of them? I'm quite happy with my current (Spanish+Neapolitan+Sardinian) borders.

2) Is there any way to make baronies less annoying? It's gotten tedious to declare war for some counties, then have to come back in 10 years (and fight France again!) to pick up a baron who, due to some weird vassal hierarchy, didn't come along the first time, missing out on coring into my Kingdom the full time since I don't own the full duchy.

3) Crusades seem a little strong with the new Kingdom coring mechanic. Is this just the exception?:

(That was the result of a single successful crusade, before which the Sultanate of Egypt was a serious challenger to the giant Byzantine Empire and Christian Europe in general.

 

[JonStryker]

1) That's not all that easy. There's no way to just give them back. I usually hold on to them and eventually conquer the kingdom around it at some point
If you want to get rid of them you can give it to the pope or to the holy orders. Or let them go independent in a revolt.

2) Baronies are sometimes pretty annoying. You can a) war for every single on of them or b) destroy the baronies' lieges and make them independent. And then either war them or hope they join you voluntarily. Btw holding all baronies is not necessary for de-jure drifting. Only for the Roman restoration and mending the schism it is sometimes necessary to hold everything down to barony level.

3) Yes, this is an exception. I've never seen the AI destroy the Egyptians all by themselves. Usually the pope fails with most crusades (when the player does not intervene). Personally I've never even seen a crusade for Egypt at all ... and trust me I've seen many crusades.
The really overpowered religious war is the Muslim Invasion. Don't be surprised if in on of your games the Byzantine Empire loses 3/4 of its land by 1100.

 

[Pewt]

Hmm, the Ilkhanate seems to be destroying Denmark and the Byzantines (although the Golden Horde is useless since it converted to Orthodox almost instantly and stopped expanding). Vassals drifting into my kingdom also seem to have gotten over the whole constant independence wars thing (most of Andalucia is in it by this point), but that may also be because my king has been reigning for quite some time. Just noticed how good plots are, and I've been murdering lots of rulers for fun and to install my relatives on foreign thrones for the glory of House d'Hauteville. Is there any real downside to them? I only seem to get a relations hit with the person I'm plotting against, and I don't really mind that.