Vassal ignoring realm law

[our_man]

Hi all,

I hope someone can answer this question and suggest a solution. My vassal (Viceroyalty King) as you can see from the top right hand corner of the screenshot has just launched a holy war on a ruler to the north of him. However, as you can see from my vassal war declaration wars he should be unable to do so. What is happening to allow him to do so and how do I stop it?

 

[jonjowett]

Daylam is not de jure part of Byzantium, and the kingdom of Daylam exists, so every character in the kingdom of Daylam uses the crown laws of Daylam (not Byzantium). IE: The king of Daylam is not subject to Byzantium's crown laws.

 

[our_man]

Daylam is not de jure part of Byzantium, and the kingdom of Daylam exists, so every character in the kingdom of Daylam uses the crown laws of Daylam (not Byzantium). IE: The king of Daylam is not subject to Byzantium's crown laws.

Thanks for your explanation!

 

[our_man]

Daylam is not de jure part of Byzantium, and the kingdom of Daylam exists, so every character in the kingdom of Daylam uses the crown laws of Daylam (not Byzantium). IE: The king of Daylam is not subject to Byzantium's crown laws.

Hi Jonjowett, it was exactly as you said. once the Viceroyalty title reverted back to me on the previous ruler's death I could change the realm law of that title to disallow vassal war declarations. However, as you can see from this picture once I granted the title to a new vassal they are once again able to declare war! What's happening - are they immediately changing the crown law back to allow themselves to declare external wars once they receive the title? If that's the case, there's really no way to stop vassal kings from declaring external wars, is there?

 

[jhhowell]

The King of Daylam doesn't care what the Kingdom of Daylam's laws say about vassal wars, because he's not a vassal of himself.

How to stop vassals from launching external wars:

1. Only have de jure vassals. Either stay within your de jure borders, or put up with vassals launching external wars during the period in which you're assimilating territory into your de jure realm.
2. Make sure that your vassals who border the outside world are as weak as possible, i.e. not vassal kings, and especially not vassal kings of notably strong kingdoms like Daylam. This won't completely stop external wars, but it will reduce them since the AI does a crude strength calculation (though does not account for co-religionists joining in on defensive holy wars, for example). A related trick is to keep key border provinces in your demesne. For example, if you're trying to take over Persia but don't want your vassals to push on into Arabia, holding Hormuz is very helpful since it keeps the strait border in your hands. And it's a nice Silk Road province.
3. When/if your vassals do win a war, create or usurp the corresponding title before they do, then hand it out to someone irrelevant and grant them independence. That way you have a weak buffer state on your border, of your own religion so your vassals won't have a holy war CB on them. The buffer duchy you just created may well get pounded by AI holy wars from other nearby religions, but if you're concerned about your religion's moral authority you can step in to aid the defense. The failure mode that I've seen is if the buffer state is attacked by two separate holy wars at the same time; you can only intervene in one at a time, and they'll probably be overrun and conquered by the other. Still, no big deal, you didn't want the land anyway, and your moral authority can probably take the hit without any real problem.

In your particular case, there's not a lot you can do. You've got very long borders, far beyond de jure e_byzantium, and already have a k_daylam vassal. So for the time being, vassals gonna vassal. If you don't care about Daylam, you could cut it loose as a particularly large and rich buffer state, but you probably want to keep it.

 

[our_man]

The King of Daylam doesn't care what the Kingdom of Daylam's laws say about vassal wars, because he's not a vassal of himself.

How to stop vassals from launching external wars:

1. Only have de jure vassals. Either stay within your de jure borders, or put up with vassals launching external wars during the period in which you're assimilating territory into your de jure realm.
2. Make sure that your vassals who border the outside world are as weak as possible, i.e. not vassal kings, and especially not vassal kings of notably strong kingdoms like Daylam. This won't completely stop external wars, but it will reduce them since the AI does a crude strength calculation (though does not account for co-religionists joining in on defensive holy wars, for example). A related trick is to keep key border provinces in your demesne. For example, if you're trying to take over Persia but don't want your vassals to push on into Arabia, holding Hormuz is very helpful since it keeps the strait border in your hands. And it's a nice Silk Road province.
3. When/if your vassals do win a war, create or usurp the corresponding title before they do, then hand it out to someone irrelevant and grant them independence. That way you have a weak buffer state on your border, of your own religion so your vassals won't have a holy war CB on them. The buffer duchy you just created may well get pounded by AI holy wars from other nearby religions, but if you're concerned about your religion's moral authority you can step in to aid the defense. The failure mode that I've seen is if the buffer state is attacked by two separate holy wars at the same time; you can only intervene in one at a time, and they'll probably be overrun and conquered by the other. Still, no big deal, you didn't want the land anyway, and your moral authority can probably take the hit without any real problem.

In your particular case, there's not a lot you can do. You've got very long borders, far beyond de jure e_byzantium, and already have a k_daylam vassal. So for the time being, vassals gonna vassal. If you don't care about Daylam, you could cut it loose as a particularly large and rich buffer state, but you probably want to keep it.

Thank you for those tips! Very useful to know for my next playthrough!