Vassals and War

[truth is life]

So I stumbled across a month-old thread a few minutes ago, and found this:

IMO Fuedal Contract Armies are the best, arguably the best, especially in the early game. With FC you get lots of Knights, and early on Knights are the most powerful battle unit.

Keep in mind that hundreds of the peasants in your example are free. TC and PL have 1,000 troops; RP has 1,100; but FC has 1,300.

That 1,300 total troops has another major plus. In CK siege-speed is a major strategic advantage and 1,300 troops siege a lot faster than 1,100.

If you've got a large country with many vassals there's absolutely no contest. TC provides smaller regiments, and only includes more Pikemen.

PL forces you to have relatively high scutage (50%). Scutage is nice, but it reduces your vassal manpower. You're more dependent on your desmene troops, and being depend on your personal troops is dumb financially. And it pisses your vassals off. Pissed-off vassals are not good when your desmene is 12 provinces, and they've got 50 between them.

RP also pisses your vassals off.

Nick

And I was wondering about the last bit (no, not RP pissing your vassals off). Are vassal troops free for the ruler? I was playing a Norway game the other day, and after Sweden DOWed me at one point and I had mobilized my entire manpower to fight them, I seem to remember me not losing as much money per month as I thought I would.

Also, does not mobilizing your vassals to fight (ie., relying on your personal troops) actually piss them off? If so, then that is going to change my entire approach to war. Previously, I've been avoiding using my vassals' troops, maximizing the size of my demesne to keep everything 'in the family,' and maximizing scutage (all with FC) to maximize my income, but if those things are true it could require a real rethink of how I'm operating.

Finally, are those troop numbers per income unit or something? I know some of my provinces have been able to support only a few hundred troops, while others were able to support 10,000 or more, depending on their income.


Aside from that, another advantage of Feudal Contract that wasn't mentioned there is that it lets you ramp the taxes on burghers and peasants up really high, and since there are more +loyalty peasant and burgher buildings than noble buildings, not to mention the generally higher tax income of those two groups in the first place, it seems a no-brainer to want to maximize those, not noble taxes.

Maybe someone should do something on the inheritance laws? Those are fairly simple, but could still be interesting.

 

[Parsley Magnet]

Vassal's troops are free for the ruler, the vassals pay for upkeep. Consequently, if you play as a vassal and your AI liege mobilizes your forces, you pay for them, which can be a pain.

Leaving your vassals alone during a war does not adversely affect relations with them, on the contrary, mobilizing their armies at their expense brings about a one-time penalty of -10 loyalty and a monthly modifier that negatively impacts their loyalty while you have their armies deployed, which increases with time.

The number of soldiers are determined by the income of the province they come from. Very rich provinces like Venezia and Constantinople can have upwards of 10,000 troops early in the game.

 

[unmerged(175287)]

Vassal's troops are free for the ruler, the vassals pay for upkeep. Consequently, if you play as a vassal and your AI liege mobilizes your forces, you pay for them, which can be a pain.

Not really. IIRC you can put Army upkeep to 0 and your liege will have to pay for it or face attrition.

 

[truth is life]

Vassal's troops are free for the ruler, the vassals pay for upkeep. Consequently, if you play as a vassal and your AI liege mobilizes your forces, you pay for them, which can be a pain.

Woo! Makes life a lot easier for me, the king. Also, that loyalty hit doesn't matter so much when you are mobilizing your vassal's vassal's troops, right?

 

[Snaake]

Woo! Makes life a lot easier for me, the king. Also, that loyalty hit doesn't matter so much when you are mobilizing your vassal's vassal's troops, right?

I've been always been able to mobilise vassals' vassals troops via their province screen automatically, regardless of their loyalty even (using DV, not latest patch though); don't know if this is working as intended. But no, the loyalty hit isn't that bad then, it's the dukes' problem.

And on Nobles taxation: In the 1100s I've got close to +0.7% or more nobles loyalty in several provinces, so I wouldn't say it's that much harder to raise nobles loyalty (remember castles also raise it). Of course, if you know you'll be using FC eventually, you'll probably be pretty safe just skipping doing any noble customs research, and deprioritising any nobles loyalty buildings, which effectively gives you slightly more tech and and improvements in other areas.

 

[truth is life]

And on Nobles taxation: In the 1100s I've got close to +0.7% or more nobles loyalty in several provinces, so I wouldn't say it's that much harder to raise nobles loyalty (remember castles also raise it). Of course, if you know you'll be using FC eventually, you'll probably be pretty safe just skipping doing any noble customs research, and deprioritising any nobles loyalty buildings, which effectively gives you slightly more tech and and improvements in other areas.

Well, what I mean is that burgher and peasant loyalty is raised by cheap buildings you really want anyways (royal post for demesne, church for piety), and are available almost from the start of the game, but the noble loyalty requires expensive buildings which are only available later, for the most part. It's not so bad overall due to sharing (the royal post also raises noble loyalty, for example), but the nobles don't seem to pay as much tax anyways, so why not exploit the peasants and burghers for all they've got?

I've been always been able to mobilise vassals' vassals troops via their province screen automatically, regardless of their loyalty even (using DV, not latest patch though); don't know if this is working as intended. But no, the loyalty hit isn't that bad then, it's the dukes' problem.

Well, in DVIP with latest patch (so far as I know) my vassal's vassals will sometimes refuse to allow me to mobilize their troops. Regardless, that is a very valuable thing to know, and I will certainly exploit my vassals more heavily in the future! Hopefully it will save me from things like going into thousands of gold in debt playing as...Norway :rofl: I calculated it would take about 12-14 YEARS to break even after that...even the Estates-General didn't help that much because...you know...Norway! I only got 100-200 gold at a time! And then I couldn't help myself from going crusading against pagans every time I got back to the black...or sometimes before. I think it took around 20-30 years after I started to get it all back together and start improving my lands and creating new titles.

 

[Nick B II]

Also, does not mobilizing your vassals to fight (ie., relying on your personal troops) actually piss them off? If so, then that is going to change my entire approach to war. Previously, I've been avoiding using my vassals' troops, maximizing the size of my demesne to keep everything 'in the family,' and maximizing scutage (all with FC) to maximize my income, but if those things are true it could require a real rethink of how I'm operating.

That's not what I meant.

I meant high scutage pisses your vassals off, and you've got to keep scutage high if you use PL.

Aside from that, another advantage of Feudal Contract that wasn't mentioned there is that it lets you ramp the taxes on burghers and peasants up really high, and since there are more +loyalty peasant and burgher buildings than noble buildings, not to mention the generally higher tax income of those two groups in the first place, it seems a no-brainer to want to maximize those, not noble taxes.

In the long term the high peasant taxes are probably FC's biggest problem. You can jack them up to ridiculous levels, but you can't cut them much. Income is directly tied to stand loyalty, approximately 80% (could be 70%, haven't played in awhile) of your income is tied to peasant and Burgher loyalty, and high taxes reduce stand loyalty. This is especially true if you have to switch to it, which annoys all four stands.

That's not an insurmountable problem with Burghers as you can need Posts and Courts anyway. But peasant loyalty is much harder to get, and with FC you can't simply bribe them with low taxes.

Nick

 

[truth is life]

That's not what I meant.

I meant high scutage pisses your vassals off, and you've got to keep scutage high if you use PL.

Ah. Well, I just misread it then. Not a problem.

In the long term the high peasant taxes are probably FC's biggest problem. You can jack them up to ridiculous levels, but you can't cut them much. Income is directly tied to stand loyalty, approximately 80% (could be 70%, haven't played in awhile) of your income is tied to peasant and Burgher loyalty, and high taxes reduce stand loyalty. This is especially true if you have to switch to it, which annoys all four stands.

That's not an insurmountable problem with Burghers as you can need Posts and Courts anyway. But peasant loyalty is much harder to get, and with FC you can't simply bribe them with low taxes.

Nick

Obviously, I haven't been playing very well. I usually just leave all the taxes (and scutage) at the default level until and unless I get loyalty-increasing research and buildings built, then jack them up so there's no default change. I suppose I'll have to change that up and experiment a bit.