Way to make reputation not matter - gamey?

[Lamprey]

So this is something I've been using in pretty much all my games to make reputation ('badboy') not matter. Very simple approach:

1. Run up a bad reputation, to the point where one or two vassals' loyalty is decreasing while everyone else's is still increasing. The bigger the rebellious vassal, the better.
2. Revoke some of their titles to force a rebellion. This gives you claims on all their titles.
3. Use vassal troops to conquer the rebel, when making peace go for the following terms:
- They become your vassal
- Recognize their claims on all their titles
4. Result is a small prestige hit for you, a large reputation improvement for dropping all those claims. And since it was done with vassal troops, it didn't even cost you gold.

Using the strategy above I've done things like having Leon conquer ALL of Iberia (incl. the Christians) in under 10 years and come out with a honorable reputation and tons of prestige/gold (the trick is to vassalize the muslims and use their troops to conquer more muslims, if you do it fast enough you control is all by the time the first muslims start to rebel - then you use strategy above to restore your rep).

It's perfectly legal within the game mechanics, but it seems gamey - what do you guys think?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

It is one of the biggest exploits in the game.

You don't even have to revoke the titles, just wait till one of them rebels, then you automatically get claims on their titles, which you then can give up when you vassalize them again.

 

[Lamprey]

Yup, the idea with revoking the title is to make them rebel sooner, that's all. Why wait 10 months when you can have your rep fixed in 2?

So yeah, it's considered an exploit. I figured it would be I suppose

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Yup, the idea with revoking the title is to make them rebel sooner, that's all. Why wait 10 months when you can have your rep fixed in 2?

So yeah, it's considered an exploit. I figured it would be I suppose

Yes, an exploit but still one I sometimes use (though it feels like cheating )

 

[Yakman]

if you want to make it even gamier, use your vassals' vassals' soldiers. that way you don't even take the relations hit.

 

[Erudit]

I find it even easier but a bit cheesier to do it with an isolated independant heathen province, declaring war and making peace as many times as needed with a massive army. At the expense of some prestige (and piety?) though!