Suddenly I became the King of Andalusia... help?

[MalRL]

So I just decided to get into the game again (I don't even have 100 hours in-game) after a few months. It's the first time I get out of Ireland and... this happened.



I mean... f*ck. I don't even know how to process this. It's amazing.

Having said that... I'm completely out of my league. I have no idea what to do. I gained 100 counties, I can make duchies, I can be King... twice! I never thought this could happen with 3000 troops. I did even better than the historical Afonso! But... what do I do now?

1) I assume I have to give the counties to someone. And duchies. To whom do I give it to? I just started the game. My dynasty is really small. It's me, my sisters, only one of them is in matrilineal marriage and my son. I simply don't have enough family members. And I don't want them to get claims. Should I give it to anyone that appears with the trait content? Should I take culture into account because I want them to be / turn Portuguese (my culture)?

2) Should I change my capital? I would prefer it to be Porto but I've heard it's better for the capital to be in the center of the Kingdom.

3) Literally anything else you remember than can help me in this situation!

I love this game.

 

[xXConquerorXx]

1 - Only make duchies if you get too close to the vassal limit, better hand out counties, 2, maybe 3 to people who you want to be in the council and 1 each for the rest. Hand the baronies first though, right click on them and create new vassal.

2 - Doesn't really matter where the capital is, unless you have gavelkind and more than 1 legitimate son, then change to historical capital, while also making sure to hold all, or most, of the capital duchy's counties.

 

[dragoon9105]

Your fine just follow these steps to successfull benefit from your crusade winnings.

1. Stay Paused

2. Move to Sevilla, its better in every way. Keep every county and castle in that duchy.

3. For counties that arent in the duchy of Sevilla right click on every low holding and assign new vassal. Do this for every, single county you just took.

4. Now open up the intrigue tab, hit the Holy Man and Steward buttons a few times each. Then give those blokes land one by one, dont give them multiple counties. If you run out of randoms use some family members or just make more randoms to give land. You can also give away your old land as well Sevilla is a better duchy than Portua.

5. Your probably over your vassal limit now so create duke titles and give them away to a vassal in the proper duchy, One at a time. Once your below the vassal limit again stop.

6. Now assign random vassals in the duchy of Sevilla for lower holdings until your under demense, If you still arent under demense dont panic, Try to raise centralization, if you cant then make some more randoms and give them counties in the duchy of sevilla with the lowest amount of holdings first. (So If one county only has a castle, city and temple that one first and all of those like it, the the ones with 4 and 5) until your under the limit. You can unpause after this and you should be fine.

All of your new vassals should love you, so in 10 years you can put in and succession law you want.

 

[Ultima_Ratio]

Character finder --> My Realm --> Men --> Ruler = No --> My Culture --> My Religion --> Great House = No

Everyone gets one county, duchies go to content characters.

For your personal demesne you should fully control either 1 or 2 duchies, put your capital in the county that has the most holding slots and fill it with castles until you're up to your demesne limit.

 

[Bernard95]

You have Rajas of India, which unlocks the ability to switch to the culture of your capital. If you want to be Portuguese, this would be your golden opportunity. Change your primary title to Andalusia then move your capital to Porto (or anything Portuguese). Take the decision to change cultures there and then, before you hand out titles. Now any generated courtiers will be Portuguese. Since your primary title is Andalusia, you'll be able to move your capital to the de jure for free (believe it's Cordoba).

Now you can hand out titles- you can start with your existing courtiers if you feel inclined to, but to get Portuguese courtiers start hiring holy men and nobles. Go through all of the baronies and simply click the create new vassal button, then give out one county each to your courtiers (two perhaps for the future duke if you like) so you keep them as weak as possible. From there, start making some of the larger duchy titles before you run into problems with the vassal limit.

 

[MalRL]

Thank you all for your answers!

dragoon9105, your tutorial is going to be very useful! I have some questions though...

For counties that arent in the duchy of Sevilla right click on every low holding and assign new vassal. Do this for every, single county you just took.

If I give a county and all its holdings to a vassal, won't they give their holdings to other vassals?

I read this:

"You then give that person a single county with all its holdings (if applicable). The new count will then soon make the holdings in the county into vassals, and will be of no threat to you."
- http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Distribution_of_power_guide​

They get the county so they get the capital holding. Is there a possibility that they keep the extra holdings for themselves hence why I need to give away the holdings before giving the county away? I want to make sure they only get the capital holding so they're not as powerful.

Now assign random vassals in the duchy of Sevilla for lower holdings until your under demense, If you still arent under demense dont panic, Try to raise centralization, if you cant then make some more randoms and give them counties in the duchy of sevilla with the lowest amount of holdings first.

So, you're saying it's better to have a county than a holding? I read somewhere that's better to have a holding, specifically a castle, in your capital than a county. It was a long time ago though. What do you think?

 

[Thrake]

"You then give that person a single county with all its holdings (if applicable). The new count will then soon make the holdings in the county into vassals, and will be of no threat to you."
- http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Distribution_of_power_guide

They will give cities and bishoprics but keep castles (unless they are over demesne limit; if so they will give out baronies too). That's a cheap way to do it with little hassle (in one click you give the county and all holdings). If succession is gavelkind anyway they will loose the barony to a brother when the ruler die so splitting will happen on its own.

So, you're saying it's better to have a county than a holding? I read somewhere that's better to have a holding, specifically a castle, in your capital than a county. It was a long time ago though. What do you think?

1. All castles you own in your capital county have extra levies (depending on the tier of your top title; king should be +50%)
2. All castles you own in your capital duchy have 25% extra levies if you are duke or above
3. When your marshal increase levies in a county, it applies to all baronies you own in that county. Same for steward collecting taxes.

So, it is certainly a good idea to have 2 or 3 extra castles in your capital county and park your steward and marshal there. You will also want to own counties in that capital duchy. The rest depends on your stewardship and size of your counties: if you have two small duchies you can get multiple baronies in those, otherwise you might want to own a 2nd duchy but give away bad counties (2 to 4 total holdings). I personnaly evolve during a playthrough and slowly give holdings away as I decentralize my realm to stay under vassal limit (thus decreasing my demesne limit, or depending on the current stewardship with new rulers, sometimes ploting to revoke and sometimes giving away holdings).

 

[dragoon9105]

The reason why I suggested to give away castle baronies first is very, very often barons cant find a suitable marriage anyway so you will inherit them back (and the gold they make) over time as your demense goes up.

You will generally make more money and have more levies to play with by holding the entire duchy at first since the AI barons will develop thier castles for you giving you a bit more cash to play with at the cost of levies since you have more city and temple vassals with counties as opposed to baronies.

When you have open demense space and the entire capital duchy then you can wait until your ruler gets old and revoke a few castles inside it to top up demense size.

 

[Olligarchy]

Welcome to Kingship, young Spaniard.

Now the fun part where you try to keep the crown starts.

You'll soon find it's much, much harder to keep than attain!

 

[MalRL]

Thanks guys. Those were really good answers!

The reason why I suggested to give away castle baronies first is very, very often barons cant find a suitable marriage anyway so you will inherit them back (and the gold they make) over time as your demense goes up.

So in that case it would be a good idea to give a castle to a Celibate guy without family or a Chaste guy and pair him with an old woman?

 

[Gnostiko]

That depends how much micro-managing you want to do: it's a common enough occurrence to suddenly, randomly inherit a vassal barony, but that usually takes you over your demesne limit, so you'll just have to give it away again. Also, keep in mind that if you inherit a barony in a county/duchy you don't hold directly, this will create a negative opinion modifier with whoever owns the county/duchy.

 

[ninoallen]

either Seville or Barcelona

 

[MalRL]

I'm trying to give away counties to distant relatives in other courts and I can't. I didn't know about this. Is there any way to give landed titles to people in other courts?

 

[Rubidium]

You can only give counties to people under you (either in your court, or the courts of your vassals, or their vassals...). If you invite them to your court they may be willing to move (if they like you significantly more than they like their own liege), otherwise you are out of luck.

 

[Gurkhal]

I understand you panic and pain as this happened to me once when I was playing as the Saxons. Took part in a crusade against Iberia and ended getting "rewarded" with Andalusia. Due to a lack of money I couldn't create enough duchies and get enough new courtiers, or available relatives, to hand the titles over to, so I ended up giving the entire kingdom over to some relative and sent him down south to sort things out as well as he could.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

One thing you can do if create a new vassal baron or Bishop and then give them the county. You can also create a vassal Mayor in a coastal province and give them the county, if you then give them a Duchy they will found a vassal Merchant Republic, which will net you a tidy income. If you do this it should be with a Dynasty member so that you at least have the possibility of the Republic being ruled by your Dynasty.

If you're giving land to a courtier or family member you should give them a blank county if they're of your Culture - they will then be especially grateful and create their own vassals. The same goes for created vassals - all created vassals will be of your culture and religion, so you should let them create their own vassals.

If your son is a married adult give him a Duchy. You'll be playing as him later so there's no reason not to give him land now.

One final thing -

If you have Legacy of Rome be mindful of your retinue cap, you'll want to start establishing new retinue units as a buffer against future unrest in your new Kingdom.

 

[MalRL]

If you're giving land to a courtier or family member you should give them a blank county if they're of your Culture - they will then be especially grateful and create their own vassals. The same goes for created vassals - all created vassals will be of your culture and religion, so you should let them create their own vassals.

By especially grateful you mean the opinion modifier is bigger if I give them a land with blank holdings?

 

[SigurdStormhand]

By especially grateful you mean the opinion modifier is bigger if I give them a land with blank holdings?

Yes - you get an opinion modifier for passing on the extra holdings directly to your new vassal.

You want to make sure all your counties are fully "integrated". So the Count should be the liege of every mayor and bishop below him, easiest way to do that is just assign the county completely. As I said though, even better to create a new baron and assign him the county as count, or a new bishop etc. All your new vassals will be unmarried, they won't have sisters or daughters so it will take at least 16 years before any of them can form an alliance within your realm, though some of them may marry into families with holdings in another Kingdom.

Assigning a county and Duchy to your Matri-married sister's husband isn't a bad idea, but only if they already have children. Assigning land to your son is definitely a good idea if you're in Gavelkind and he's currently your only heir. That way, even if you have another son just before you die your firstborn will be powerful when he inherits.

You've been handed a golden opportunity, set this up right and your grandson will be Emperor of Hispania.

 

[MalRL]

Right now I have 34 counties, 7 of them are mine and the other 27 are from my vassals. I have the Kingdom and the Dutchy of Portucale. What are the advantages and disadvantages of making Duchy titles - one for me and others to give to my vassals? I don't see why I should. That would only make them stronger. I'm bellow the vassal limit.

 

[Bernard95]

Right now I have 34 counties, 7 of them are mine and the other 27 are from my vassals. I have the Kingdom and the Dutchy of Portucale. What are the advantages and disadvantages of making Duchy titles - one for me and others to give to my vassals? I don't see why I should. That would only make them stronger. I'm bellow the vassal limit.

If you're below the limit there's not exactly a rush, but one very simple rule of thumb to keep in mind always is that it's easier to manage a few vassals rather than many. Would you rather have to bribe and manage the opinion of a dozen individual counts or a couple of dukes? It's sort of a trade-off between power and ease of management, but it's a trade-off you'll have to make sooner or later as you expand.