To over-expand or not to over-expand?

[The Blood Eagle]

Playing as Croatia, I start the game with the ability to revoke and hold 10 of my 11 initial counties before I hit the limit. Now if I revoke that last title, am I really worse off than leaving that to a vassal and staying 10/10 demesne? It would seem that owning it wouldn't have any effect on my vassals, as the only ones left are just mayors and bishops. The tax reduction doesn't seem to be very noticeable, either.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up with building infrastructure having to deal with every county personally, but if I left it to vassals, they would be the ones reaping the rewards anyway.

Plus my personal levies are much stronger than the complete weaksauce levies that vassals raise, so what do you think?

 

[Drakken]

CK2 is the kind of game that will punish you if you over-extend too fast. Even if you hold only one more holding than allowed you will start to have unstability events, like roaming bandits pillaging the lands for example, and your vassals will have an opinion penalty on you for holding too many lands. They may not seem like much, but they can be crippling if you are caught in a dragged-out war.

And your vassals can hire mercenaries too if their levies ain't sufficient.

 

[The Blood Eagle]

Right, but if it's 1 over the limit that leave me without any counts to raise armies, are the drawbacks really going to be noticed? So far I've yet to see any of my mayors try to revolt.

 

[Drakken]

Right, but if it's 1 over the limit that leave me without any counts to raise armies, are the drawbacks really going to be noticed? So far I've yet to see any of my mayors try to revolt.

Mayors won't revolt on their own, Baronies and cities are too small. However, they might back a bigger fish's plots against you.