Vassal Republics

[MagnusDux]

Should i have vassal republics as a feudal king? I'm king of england and ireland, and created the republic of meath, but then realised that patricians have -50% tax modifier... Is there any advantage for keeping it? Do the trade posts they build have any benefits for me?

 

[Remke]

They'll still generate a lot of income for you, even with the negative modifier, as they generate a lot of money over time. Plus, the trade posts boost the tax level of the provinces in which they are located.

 

[StarSword]

Because of differing government types, a grand mayor (the title of a non-Italian republic ruler) will have a permanent -20 to their opinion of a feudal liege, so it takes smart diplomacy to maximize tax income from them. But it's well worth it to do so. Enact Large City Tax, sit back, and watch the cash roll in. I financed retinues and a bunch of military improvements to Éire with mine, and I'm about to create a second one to help with the conquest of Mercia.

Side note, I personally prefer Mann over Meath for a British merchant republic: the de jure borders are a single province (good for several reasons), and it's centrally located and an easy sail from everywhere.

 

[gdj]

Vassal merchant republics are great, i always have one once i get king-tier. Expect 100 gold per year over time, once they have built enough trade posts.

Another great boon is that merchant republics will provide you with many, many ships.

There are some caveats though:

+ having more than 1 republic is a question of distance. if they are too close, the will start trade wars with each other.
+ plotting is more rampant there, expect you spymaster to be very busy
+ patricians have by default seniority, so the doge will usually be quite old with a limited liefspan when he gets elected. The AI does not seem to be very smart about campaign funding. For you it means that you will have a new doge vassal every few years, and shift council positions around constantly.
+ it´s probably a bug, but patrician houses dont seem to be physically located anywhere. This is usually irrelevant, but if one of the houses is led by a heretic (via theology focus), then there is no way to convert him back. Putting you court chaplain in the republics capital (or any other county) will not work here, unless the heretic personally owns a county (which is usually not the case).

There ceratinly are many other points to consider too, even so its worthwile to have a vassal republic.

 

[Kapitalisti]

In short: YES! Even with the -50% thing, even with low techs and crappy provinces they'll still generate a boat load of money for you. Also: boats.

 

[HandicapdHippo]

+ it´s probably a bug, but patrician houses dont seem to be physically located anywhere. This is usually irrelevant, but if one of the houses is led by a heretic (via theology focus), then there is no way to convert him back. Putting you court chaplain in the republics capital (or any other county) will not work here, unless the heretic personally owns a county (which is usually not the case).

They are located in the capital, you can see this if you collect taxes with your steward on the republic capital when a landless patrician. The patrician's court is also located there as well.

 

[gdj]

They are located in the capital, you can see this if you collect taxes with your steward on the republic capital when a landless patrician. The patrician's court is also located there as well.

Yes, i know, the ttoltip says so, but the court chaplain will not reach them anyway.

It may be a bug with the current beta though, it worked with 2.4.

 

[Alcadizzar19]

I always have a vassal republic, but there are a couple things you kinda need to do to make it work best.
A small one, you don't want them having a gigantic demesne of large troop generating baronies, you want them hamstrung when it comes to levies, but rolling in dosh. Titular duchies help well with this cause you can create a single county republic even out of a large county duchy.
If you are creating a new one through conquest, set up a family member as the first doge. The kinship modifier will help ease out the wrong vassal demerit plus he's gonna have a bunch of kids for spare heirs (not just for elective succession, those landless males will help keep a hold of your other dynasty's holdings by just being the third cousin heir for it).

 

[PetworthDC]

I always have vassal republics as well. My last playthrough I gave every coastal city to them conquered through holy wars to encourage them to build more posts and earn me more money. They did get quite powerful, but I always have my chancellor improving relations so they never caused problems. Not sure if this is true or not, but I also kept city taxes in the middle so they had enough money to build and upgrade trade posts.

 

[Red Earth]

Here's a trick to get even more from your pet merchant republic. If you plan on taking max levies and low or no taxes from feudal rulers then the money from the cities under those feudal rulers is all kept by them. But you can transfer any vassal mayor that won't be under you to the merchant republic. That way all that money goes to the republic and then to you rather than to the feudal lords alone. The feudals will be mad at the republic rather than you for having their de jure vassal cities. Keep in mind that that merchant republics never give up titles or vassals without a war, so don't give them anything you might want back.
This also works with temple holdings if your religion head is your vassal.

 

[Nerva]

That sounds like a neat trick, but I am curious how it affects Research Points generated by the transferred holdings. It's been a while since I played the game, but I ran some tests as the Byzantine Emperor where I gave temples to my Patriarch, and I seem to recall the RP's not going to the Patriarch or to anywhere (effectively lost). Although that may have been due to the Patriarch not having a county and being a titular king-rank only.

What I had wanted to do was to set up a Merchant Republic in Nicomedia (next to Constantinople) with all my cities attached to it, and attach all my temples to my Patriarch, perhaps by giving him a county next to Constantinople as well, so that all the RP's are funnelled to areas adjacent to my capital.

 

[gdj]

If you are creating a new one through conquest, set up a family member as the first doge. The kinship modifier will help ease out the wrong vassal demerit plus he's gonna have a bunch of kids for spare heirs (not just for elective succession, those landless males will help keep a hold of your other dynasty's holdings by just being the third cousin heir for it).

This strategy can backfire badly if you frequently land your heirs (as i do). Patricians have seniority, so the oldest dynast usually inherits, but the patrician can also designate anyone from the dynasty as an heir. If he designates YOUR heir and inherits, he will become a burgher-character. Likewise if the heir of one of your duchies inherits the patrician title, he becomes a burgher, if he inherits the duchy afterwards it will become yet another republic (merchant or not). Thus you take a significant risk for inheritance problems and get a practically non-existent advantage in return (you will never really run out of dynasty members after 1 or 2 generations in the game).

 

[Red Earth]

That sounds like a neat trick, but I am curious how it affects Research Points generated by the transferred holdings. It's been a while since I played the game, but I ran some tests as the Byzantine Emperor where I gave temples to my Patriarch, and I seem to recall the RP's not going to the Patriarch or to anywhere (effectively lost). Although that may have been due to the Patriarch not having a county and being a titular king-rank only.

What I had wanted to do was to set up a Merchant Republic in Nicomedia (next to Constantinople) with all my cities attached to it, and attach all my temples to my Patriarch, perhaps by giving him a county next to Constantinople as well, so that all the RP's are funnelled to areas adjacent to my capital.

I hadn't considered that. I've been wondering if the AI spends tech points at all. I never see capitals become big tech centers. It always looks like the natural spread of technology to me, while my capital eventually passes Constantinople.

This strategy can backfire badly if you frequently land your heirs (as i do). Patricians have seniority, so the oldest dynast usually inherits, but the patrician can also designate anyone from the dynasty as an heir. If he designates YOUR heir and inherits, he will become a burgher-character. Likewise if the heir of one of your duchies inherits the patrician title, he becomes a burgher, if he inherits the duchy afterwards it will become yet another republic (merchant or not). Thus you take a significant risk for inheritance problems and get a practically non-existent advantage in return (you will never really run out of dynasty members after 1 or 2 generations in the game).

My understanding is that merchant republic titles are blocked from going to anyone who already holds a non republic title and feudal titles can't be inherited by patricians. So a vassal merchant republic can't steal territory through inheritance.
Also, I don't think the AI used designated heir to do anything but skip incapable characters. They never use it to pick a young character. So the only likely way they would steal your heir is if you were also using seniority succession. In which case it's not like you groomed them personally to take over. They're just whoever had the good fortune not to die yet.

 

[Less2]

When you create a merchant republic you take one city/county and summon out of thin air 5 new family holdings to tax (each of them essentially a city of their own). On top of this you'll soon have dozens of trade posts that not only give income directly but also make the cities they are in richer. Taking only a -50% hit for this is very light.

 

[Greybeard0815]

Titular duchies help well with this cause you can create a single county republic even out of a large county duchy.

That is actually a not so good strategy. Unless you do that in your own duchy the A.I. ruler will try and get his de-jure land back (especially now with the new and shiny uberaggressive A.I.). So Gotland or Socotra are bad choices for vassal republics.

 

[Kapitalisti]

Also, I don't think the AI used designated heir to do anything but skip incapable characters. They never use it to pick a young character. So the only likely way they would steal your heir is if you were also using seniority succession. In which case it's not like you groomed them personally to take over. They're just whoever had the good fortune not to die yet

Actually I've seen the AI designate heirs and even pick younger characters. Not sure if they've learned to use the campaign fund yet though.

 

[DiscpleOfAkbaa]

I like having a republic vassal who controls all cities in my realm (except for my demesne). That way I can effectively collect a large amount of taxes from all cities by increasing burgher taxes, while simultaneously maximizing feudal levies. The -50% modifier doesn't come close to offsetting this in larger realms, and that's without even considering the tax boost from patrician families and trade posts.

 

[StarSword]

This strategy can backfire badly if you frequently land your heirs (as i do). Patricians have seniority, so the oldest dynast usually inherits, but the patrician can also designate anyone from the dynasty as an heir. If he designates YOUR heir and inherits, he will become a burgher-character. Likewise if the heir of one of your duchies inherits the patrician title, he becomes a burgher, if he inherits the duchy afterwards it will become yet another republic (merchant or not). Thus you take a significant risk for inheritance problems and get a practically non-existent advantage in return (you will never really run out of dynasty members after 1 or 2 generations in the game).

Yeah, what I did for my Republic of Mhannin was hunt around for a landless second or third son of one of my vassals. I ended up using a secondary heir of County Laigin.

Oh, something else interesting about merchant republics: the AI never seems to want to change culture to its capital province. I know they can, the previous Lord Mayor of my Grand City of Briotáine down south went Breton before he died, but the Republic of Mhannin started as and remains an Irish-ruled Welsh province.

Maybe it's just that Welshmen, Bretons, and Irishmen are all grouped as Celts so in my particular case they don't feel they need to? (The aforementioned Lord Mayor started as a Khazar; long story.)

 

[Alcadizzar19]

Yeah, what I did for my Republic of Mhannin was hunt around for a landless second or third son of one of my vassals. I ended up using a secondary heir of County Laigin.

Oh, something else interesting about merchant republics: the AI never seems to want to change culture to its capital province. I know they can, the previous Lord Mayor of my Grand City of Briotáine down south went Breton before he died, but the Republic of Mhannin started as and remains an Irish-ruled Welsh province.

Maybe it's just that Welshmen, Bretons, and Irishmen are all grouped as Celts so in my particular case they don't feel they need to? (The aforementioned Lord Mayor started as a Khazar; long story.)

I occasionally like to set up the second generation offspring of a matrimarried, my religion Ashkenazi character as a doge cause then there's a Christian Jew cadet branch of my house ruling other Christian Jews because of vague reasons having to do with money, but they often county convert and that makes me sad.

 

[StarSword]

I occasionally like to set up the second generation offspring of a matrimarried, my religion Ashkenazi character as a doge cause then there's a Christian Jew cadet branch of my house ruling other Christian Jews because of vague reasons having to do with money, but they often county convert and that makes me sad.

Well, you know, you have to have Jews. You won't succeed in Crusader Kings if you don't have any Jews.

But yeah, that does suggest it's a question of culture groups; I guess Irish is close enough to Welsh and Breton for government work.