Transitioning from a Feudal Medium Crown Empire to Imperial Administration

[MaryTzu]

Hi everyone. Last time I posted I didn't know how to create an Empire. Since then I learnt that you don't actually need 8000 prestige, 100000 gold etc etc, you can just get ~80% of the de jure empire and voila an empire. Take that, Intrigue "form an empire" event!
I also learnt other wonderful concepts, like giving dukes shitty part-duchies so they get claims against each other and therefore too busy fighting each other to form factions against me XD.
And also things like using title revocation and landing mechanics to make sure that ALL my vassals/nobility are of my dynasty, thereby ensuring that it doesn't matter who they vote for in the elective monarchy, my dynasty will end up on the throne no matter what. Ah good fun.

Unfortunately, I've hit another hump in the learning curve...
So my current game is as the De Cantabria dynasty. I holy warred the muslims out (via marriage alliances + a metric ton of mercs), United Spain under the empire "Hispania", indoctrinated Africa with catholicism, and conquered Aquitaine using vassal claims. But I'm at my vassal limit, and while yes I could start making my dukes super duper, or give my currently weak king vassals more titles, OR decentralize my empire... I really don't want to. I like having a strong desmesne in comparison to my vassals. Which leads me to think that I should transition to Imperial Administration for that sweet +25 vassal limit.

But how on earth would I get there? Absolute Crown Authority is a -30 malus and then Imperial admin is another -10 malus. Currently I have Noble customs at +18 opinion bonus, which is nice but even if I max it out it doesn't completely counter the malus of Absolute Crown Authority. Maybe I could pull it off towards the end of a long reign? But then I can only change it every ten years...

Also... is it even worth it? I've been reading other threads and the consensus seems to be to use viceroys for all direct vassals to avoid the feudal vassal malus, is that right?

So how do I pull this off?

btw: I have charlemagne and way of life, no other dlc.

 

[Alcadizzar19]

Augustus was not popular during the transition period...

You're gonna have to get tyrannical. I would suggest that for doing things best though, you should revoke a ton, ton, ton of counties first. Like, you need to be a super tyrant, and this can be done best by doing stuff in batches. Send out a dozen revocation notices at once or so and raise troops in the mean time so that by the time they say "no" you already have troops raised. Once you've revoked those titles, do it again if possible. Go as long as you can until you have a ton, ton, ton of counties and then generate new courtiers to give those to so that you don't have to deal with tyrant modifiers for them.

 

[Silversweeeper]

If you are powerful enough, a -30 malus is not a big concern. Without LoR, you don't have the advantage of retinues, so you will have to rely on your vassals (which is risky due to them liking you less), your personal levies, and mercs, so you will need a significant war chest (I'd aim for 10k so that you have some money to spare).

Roughly in increasing order of severity, you have the following ways to get people to like you enough for the final law change:
- Bribe everyone you need to bribe, and throw in tournaments, feasts, and other similar stuff. Not guaranteed to work, but likely causes the least amount of bloodshed.
- Conquer more land so that there are more happy vassals that vote your way due to recent grants. Not foolproof, and you will probably need to create superdukes/kings or grant random holdings to vassals so that you don't get too many vassals. Threat will also cause issues, most likely.
- Get a vassal pope or antipope and excommunicate people. Revoke their duchy titles when they revolt due to imprisonment and grant them to people who like you so that they have more votes. This will likely cause MA problems and powerful vassals down the line, so might be dangerous.
- Push through primogeniture. This will make your vassals like you less, but you can then hopefully push them into factions, crush the revolts, and redistribute land so that the right people get more votes.
- Go full tyrant when you have Max CA. Hoard titles and redistribute them once all vassals are gone or you die. Rather drastic, and your kinsmen will likely flee to where they might become a future problem due to foreigners marrying them for claims.
- Grant independence to people outside your de jure area if they don't vote in favour of imperial authority and their removal from the voting process would make a big enough difference. You will have to reconquer them down the line (assuming you want the land again), but by then you will have made the necessary law change.

 

[MaryTzu]

I did it. And thanks btw, both were sound advice but thankfully I didn't have to resort to extreme measures.

So I waited until noble customs was maxxed (which wasn't long since I spammed research and building observatories), and then I had a genius with good stats on the throne, used family focus (because all my vassals are kinsmen) and carousing, waited until the long reign bonus kicked it, bribed half the empire and then I got absolute crown authority and imperial administration in quick succession. And everyone is still happy with me too due to tech, good stats and prestige. Not by a huge margin mind you, but things are stable for now.

What should I do now? Should I let things stay the way they are? Only grant viceroyalties as they crop up? Or should I go full tyrant until there's all my direct vassals are viceroys?

 

[StarSword]

Here's one useful trick with succession. Make your top title, Hispania in this case, gavelkind, and your held kingdoms primogeniture. This gives you all the advantages of gavelkind (bigger demesne, no prestige penalty for unlanded sons) without the problem of title loss on succession.

And yeah, parcel out a couple smaller kingdoms, e.g. Asturias, as viceroyalties so they can't be inherited, just enough to get you under the vassal cap.

 

[MaryTzu]

Here's one useful trick with succession. Make your top title, Hispania in this case, gavelkind, and your held kingdoms primogeniture. This gives you all the advantages of gavelkind (bigger demesne, no prestige penalty for unlanded sons) without the problem of title loss on succession.
.

Does that work with titular titles too or only if the the counties are a de jure part of the kingdom?

 

[vitalstatistix]

Here's one useful trick with succession. Make your top title, Hispania in this case, gavelkind, and your held kingdoms primogeniture. This gives you all the advantages of gavelkind (bigger demesne, no prestige penalty for unlanded sons) without the problem of title loss on succession.

I tried this approach. Had exactly that structure. Empire of Hispania gavelkind, Kingdoms of Leon, Castile, Galicia as primogeniture.
Then a strange thing happened.
My heir pre-deceased me and when I looked at the new heir for the kingdoms they all switched to a kinsman, even though I still had another few sons.
I thought it might just be an error on the display, but no. A few years later I finally died at about age 82 and my then oldest son got the empire but this other bloke got all the kingdoms and duchies. The empire completely imploded, my demense went to zero, my vassal had about 500% relative strength. Boom.

Not sure if it was a bug or just a pure lack of understanding of the succession mechanics on my part. I took a screenshot which I would post if I could figure out how to get it from Steam to here.

 

[BD13]

I tried this approach. Had exactly that structure. Empire of Hispania gavelkind, Kingdoms of Leon, Castile, Galicia as primogeniture.
Then a strange thing happened.
My heir pre-deceased me and when I looked at the new heir for the kingdoms they all switched to a kinsman, even though I still had another few sons.
I thought it might just be an error on the display, but no. A few years later I finally died at about age 82 and my then oldest son got the empire but this other bloke got all the kingdoms and duchies. The empire completely imploded, my demense went to zero, my vassal had about 500% relative strength. Boom.

Not sure if it was a bug or just a pure lack of understanding of the succession mechanics on my part. I took a screenshot which I would post if I could figure out how to get it from Steam to here.

Need to be very careful with that approach. The tooltip needs a little work. In primo if your deceased eldest son had children the titles would pass on to them instead of the rulers next oldest child.

 

[vitalstatistix]

Need to be very careful with that approach. The tooltip needs a little work. In primo if your deceased eldest son had children the titles would pass on to them instead of the rulers next oldest child.

Pretty sure the new heir wasn't "your grandson", but either way, did not realise it worked like that. That's a major negative to primo.
So what's the solution?
Gavelkind for the Empire, elective for all the Kingdoms and then try to keep all the voting dukes on side?

 

[StarSword]

Does that work with titular titles too or only if the the counties are a de jure part of the kingdom?

I have no idea. I know it works with de jure titles but I don't know about titular ones or titles that are outside your de jure kingdoms. In my case, my eldest and heir is currently the Duke of Essex on completely the other end of Britain from my primary holdings in Scotland (one duchy still in k_scotland, the other de jure-drifted into k_ireland). I'll have to see when he inherits whether the gavelkind or primogeniture applies to Essex. Currently have no way to test titular titles.

Need to be very careful with that approach. The tooltip needs a little work. In primo if your deceased eldest son had children the titles would pass on to them instead of the rulers next oldest child.

This I did not know; I was under the impression that gavelkind and primo used the same logic for inheritance priority. Few kings back I had a string of heirs die on me, all of whom had children. I think I was gavelkind at the time.

So I guess the solution is maybe to kill your eldest son's heirs if he pre-deceases you?