Vassals of your Merchant Republic

[Walkaboutout]

So, I love playing merchant republics. Up until now I've always made my landed vassals feudal in nature. That is to say I form my MR from a ducal title I own (starting as a tribal government type). Then, usually after I form a custom kingdom off of the ducal title once I have the money/prestige/titles, I start considering landing my family members. Once I have spare land (I like getting it in dukedom sized chunks) I then grant it over to my family member like I would if I were a feudal lord. I usually, out of habit, make the castles in the counties the capitals before I hand it out. This results in me playing as my MR, and having some landed feudal family members. This does result in a "wrong government type" opinion modifier, but I've always just lived with that. Ultimately it's not that big of an issue, but it can be troublesome.

It just occurred to me that, perhaps, I should instead try making my landed family members burghers (have I been doing this wrong?). If I holy war a duchy then I can, in theory, take that duchy and its counties in full. All titles are stripped of people not my religion and become mine to hold or dole out.

So let's assume we have a county with three holdings (1 castle, 1 city, 1 church) that I own personally. What if I dole out the city to my family member first, leaving it as the capital of the county, THEN grant him the castle/county title? We assign a different vassal to the church because of the separate government type there.

This should make him a republic government type (not merchant republic) who also owns the castle barony and county title as well. Provided this doesn't force him to be feudal, I wouldn't have to deal with the "wrong government type" modifier, right?

Provided that works as expected, what would be the drawbacks?

- Do mayors elevated to counts, and given all the de-jure land of a dukedom, desire the dukedom title from you if you have it, like a feudal lord would?

- Could they create a ducal title themselves if you don't hold it (destroyed it or whatever)?

- Being a republic (again not a merchant republic), how would succession then work for them? Random new vassal every time the old one dies, or do non-city succession laws come in to play for a mayor who has been granted a county?

- Does a mayor whose been elevated to count level have wrong holding penalties on castles, I wonder?

I can't believe it's never occurred to me to at least try this and see how well (or how bad) it works. I'm working right now and can't try it, but there must be lots of you who have fiddled around with this!

 

[szmik]

If you grant your city count duchy title he will become another merchant republic.

 

[Walkaboutout]

If you grant your city count duchy title he will become another merchant republic.

Yeah, that I know. That's why I would only grant the county level titles to him since, as I understand it, a Merchant Republic can't have another MR as a vassal under it in the game. Like you mentioned, if I gave him a ducal title he would hit MR status and I guess the game would handle it by making him independent.

 

[Ribbon]

I'm fairly certain (haven't played MR since before they introduced government change) that they would just become a Republic, since they can't be an MR vassal beneath you. That is, if you gave them a Duchy and were of higher rank. Which means that they would likely immediately pass the Castle/etc off to a created vassal Baron. Then they'd have normal city succession (i.e. random Lowborns etc).

I was recently playing a game with Tribal to Iqta, and when I'd spin off a new vassal and give them all the lands within a county, or they Feudalized a Tribal county, they would often spin off the temple holdings to a new vassal even if they hadn't hit their holding limit. So the AI may just have a hard-coded preference as to what they want to hold, even if they're technically able to hold different holding types.

 

[MrParadux]

If you grant your city count duchy title he will become another merchant republic.

That is only true if you are not already a merchant republic. If you are one already they will be regular duchy level republics

 

[Walkaboutout]

That is only true if you are not already a merchant republic. If you are one already they will be regular duchy level republics

Weeeeelllll now! I just figured they'd get handled by being forced independent. If this is the case, then shoot, I may have well been landing vassals under me, as an MR, wrong!

Although, that said, I still wonder how succession is handled. Do I still, like a mayor dying in a normal city, end up with a random new vassal in his place? Even that might be useful.

I say the random inheritance would be useful to my style because, as Ribbon said, if they tend to just spin off their other minor barony level holdings anyways, then I could manually assign some family members to castles as barons. Let a random, sometimes perhaps dangerous if I'm unlucky, vassal run the overall duchy/county level (as a republic), and put family in their own places below that.

That would satisfy my urge to feel like I've given my family good chances to have their own lives! Yeah I know MR's benefit from huge dynasties that remain in your court with you, and I do that, it's just that sometimes I feel like, from an RP perspective, family members or vassals/courtiers who have been of great service deserve their own little piece of property to call home. And when I'm trying to play a tall merchant game, rather than a wide conquest oriented game, there never seems to be enough land to go around.

Of course that might leave my family barons at the mercy of a nasty vassal trying to revoke them or do other bad things, but what's life without a little spice?

Hmmm. Definitely will have to try this out and see how things play out!

 

[CoSMoS]

MRs can't have other MRs as vassals, but there is no problem in having republics as vassals as an MR, they dont go independent from that. But if you land a family member as a mayor be aware that that doesn't ensure that the present republic stay in your dynasty, as their succesion is open. So it just makes sense to do that if you wanna get rid of somebody because of family dues or have other reasons as for him being unwanted at your court. But no worries about creating republics as vassals when you are MR, that is the way to go in the majority of situations.

 

[Ribbon]

I say the random inheritance would be useful to my style because, as Ribbon said, if they tend to just spin off their other minor barony level holdings anyways, then I could manually assign some family members to castles as barons.

At least pre-Conclave, I actually had success doing that. When you take land, change capital to city, grant any decent castles to young dynasty members after tossing them a fertile wife, then give the county-level republic to any courtier with good Stewardship. That way, the barons sit back and spit out families of their own, and after a few generations you could invite all of their non-heir children and brothers back into your court. I usually got pretty good boost that way. Maybe not the most efficient, but I like the idea of settling your family down as minor nobility in your Republic state, and calling those distant members back to run your sprawling trade empire.

 

[Talq]

Yes, they will be republics (provided they stay your vassals).

Main thing to be concerned about (leaving aside the issues with having cities as top-level holdings) is that succession in cities can be a bit unpredictable (also, they stay in your line of succession)

 

[Walkaboutout]

So, for those interested, here's what I've gathered from messing with this for only an hour or so lastnight.

It works. As mentioned by others, your republic vassal does not go independent at duke level, and remains your vassal, as a merchant republic. There is no opinion penalty for the new Lord Mayor and yourself.

It creates a pretty weak vassal, in terms of levy numbers, just as one would expect it to do. That in and of itself is useful as a liege who wants no internal threats. It does, as Talq pointed out, make towns the primary holdings in the duchy that the Lord Mayor owns, which you need to keep in mind. If you get into a war, that means the first thing sieged is a juicy easy town. Personally I can live with dealing with that as long as I'm aware of the weakness.

The mayor does indeed retain Agnatic Open Election as a succession type. However, it picks from eligible characters within the new Lord Mayor's court of peoples, from what I can tell. I experimented with landing a dynasty member, and he had a 1 year old son. That son did not show up in the possible successor list (the hover tooltip on the duchy coat of arms when inspecting either the Lord Mayor or his capital).

I don't know if that son would become eligible and in the running for inheriting the titles when he became an adult or not. I didn't play long enough for the kid to grow up, or for the dynasty member to die, so that I could see how the inheritance actually worked.

So, as a way to land a dynasty member, it has plenty of pit falls. Lots of unknowns about whether or not it would stay in your family, or even what happens to the current Lord Mayor's courtiers when he dies, etc.

But, at least for me, it would still be awesome. The new Lord Mayor has very little in the way of levies compared to a feudal lord, but he, as expected, makes lots of money, entirely taxable of course. Also, doing things this way, whether you land a non dynasty member or not, means you can have baronies free to be given to your other dynasty members, just as Ribbon mentioned in his posts above.

All in all, a great tool to have available in your merchant republic toolbox as long as you are aware that it's definitely a bit different than handling a traditional feudal vassal. Definitely a different, and fun, experience (what little I've messed with it so far at least)!

 

[indika_tates]

My suggestion for merchant republics and feudal lords. Don't give ever land to your possible heirs. Specially when playing as merchant republic. Why? There are a lot of reasons to avoid it. The first one is that you lose control over your heir. He can be imprisoned, executed, get lots of bad traits, maimed, get incapable who knows what can happen in RNGesus hands. The second one is that is you lose the election automatically it will move your capital where you have a county. For example, playing as Venice you conquer the duchy of Serbia. Then, you lose the election and your new capital will be Sejm. This is the second reason.

The third one that may happen is that your heir converts himself to a feudal lord. How? It's difficult but it can happen under certain cirscunstances and this is a automatic gameover, be careful.

Another suggestion is to never land your patricians. The best patrician is the weak one. Losing a election is not a gameover but being under AI control during 30 years can hurt. Even more if your Doge decides to steal some of your trade posts. So it's a no-no. Unless you start from patrician which is good to steal some trade ports from other patricians. The other reason is that patricians have -50% tax penalty. And the richer they become the harder the elections will be. If you manage carefully the merchant republic without savescumming is possible not to lose a single election in the game. Seniority sucession is awesome for merchant republics because choosing old heirs allow you to spam observatories (a necronomicon on 60 years old doge doesn't hurt). So it's a good idea to have a lot of people of your dynasty in your court but if family members start to drain your income change your focus to intrigue and spy-on the ones with poor stats. Imprison and banish them from the realm (no tyranny for banishment of non-landed members).

And my last suggestion is how to expand. This is simple. Merchant republics need holy war. By default every county you conquer have wrong government type. And you can't revoke titles without having a reason. So there is only two options. The first one is to have a pope in your pocket (vassal) and claiming what you want and the second one is going holy war with your neighbours. The standard strategy of two wars for conquering a county is a waste of time and resources.

 

[Red Earth]

I have granted dynasty members cities and had it go to one of their sons on succession. You have to land them before tried sons turn 16 or they won't move with them. So you can land family members as republics but you have to set up marriages to be sure they populate the court enough for them to keep the title in the dynasty.

Here's a warning about succession in merchant republics. I was a Muslim merchant republic, and I lost the election. Before I could be elected again my new character died and my heir was a landed iqta character. That took me out of the running for the election permanently as the house title was with someone else. I can't remember if I had picked that character as a designated heir or if open succession did it, but just remember not to land someone in a feudal title that you want to he heir to the republic.