What did I mess up?

[Amphibian]

So, I played my first game as the Count of Dubhlinn (1066 start, no DLC). After what felt like a slow-ish start i did finally manage to get all of Ireland united (I'm not entirely sure where to look in the logs, but I want to say it was some time around 1150). It is now 1193, and in the last five-ten years I've had (in order):

*A revolt of roughly half the country about Crown Authority (wanting to go from Low -> Minimal)
*My ruler being assassinated, leaving behind a 4-year-old regent
*In the midst of putting down the rebels, England declares war.
*England rolls in with an army of 16,000 (compared to my ~2,500 which was just barely enough for the rebels). I surrender to them (losing Dubhlinn) to be able to continue putting down the rebellion, and because i have no hope of defeating that monster.
*After defeating the rebels, I turn around and kick the usurper (Queen of England) out of Dubhlinn - she had a surprisingly small army.
*Scotland declares war on me, gunning for a duchy that somehow contains three provinces (even though de jure it should only have two)
*Scotland had about 8,000 men for an army, so i gave them the duchy.

I'm assuming that this clusterfun is the result of a snowball of small decisions that I made (or failed to make) earlier in the game, so, um. Help?

 

[thevmag]

Crown Authority revolt could've been mitigated by keeping your vassals happy, or having one really large vassal that can be kept constantly happy and that no faction can fire without.

Beyond that, just the game ganging up on you. Rotten luck, but for the most part out of your hands.

 

[Balkri]

did you develop your domains?
I failed in doing that in my 1° game and ended similarly...

Build castle walls and towns to get more taxes.

Upgrade keeps, barracks and similar buildings to increase the size of your levy.

Send your steward to collect taxes in your capital, your marshal to train troops... and your spymaster to Constantinople to steal technology, that will allow to increase your tech faster in your own capital and build better things.

Aside from that... try to marry your ruller with scottish or english princesses (see what kingdom is doing better), that can lead to an alliance, and will help to keep your kingdom safe.

Also that can lead to your heir inheriting one of those kingdoms (who know when an accident can happen to your father and brothers in law?... )

Jus that.... Ireland is not a big kingdom, but if you debelop your provinces you can rise way more than 2500 soldiers (also with more soldiers, you will get less rebelions [The AI check your strenght bases on the size of your army and somethimes of your allies])

Good luck

 

[Crenickator]

The revolt left you weak, which England exploited. Warring England left you weak, which Scotland exploited. You really want to avoid those revolts, or you become an easy target and remain so until you can recover. Get some allies with strategic marriages if you can, which can deter other opportunistic rulers.

Also, forgive me for not knowing offhand, are the Irish tribal in the version/date you're playing? You can use prestige to summon tribal armies which may get you past rebellions and larger opponents. If not, mercenaries are always available if you have the gold, and buying them for even a single battle can sometimes be worth it to leave your own levies stronger.

 

[Rascar Capac]

Sounds like you had no non-agression pacts with either of England or Scotland, or failed to re-negotiate them.

You hold Dublin now again, correct? Try to form NAP with England and if possible, upgrade it to alliance. Try to avoid giving them more claims in the process. Their army would be very helpful to reclaim your land from the Scots.

 

[Amphibian]

Thank you all for your thoughts! In order:

thevmag: Towards the beginning of the game my vassals were mostly happy, but as things went on they got less and less so, culminating in the revolt. I was granting titles and land where I could, but it didn't seem to be nearly enough.

Balkri: I was actually doing those things as much as I could - though I hadn't thought to send my Spymaster to Constantinople. They were mostly spying on the high-tech areas in England. I never had enough gold to make any serious improvements, though - and even Dubhlinn never got particularly fancy.

Crenickator: Oh, it was absolutely a deathspiral. I had an alliance with England at one point (mostly by accident), but I guess something in the succession (either mine or theirs) made it drop. Couldn't tell you when or why. The Irish are *not* tribal in 1066 - and I did successfully use some merc contracts prosecuting my wars to claim Ulster, though it's a deeply expensive "solution" - I don't think any of my rulers ever had more than about 600 gold in personal stock.

Rascar: As mentioned above, I had a mostly-accidental alliance with England. I am somewhat unclear on how to make sure it keeps happening (if I'm understanding correctly it probably dropped when one or the other of the folks that were married-for-alliance died) - and I suspect inappropriate spreading of claims is what got me into the hot water (with them) to begin with.

 

[thevmag]

That's the good thing about fewer, larger vassals. If half your realm is unhappy with you, it's much easier to manage if it's just one guy.
If you've got the latest expansions/patches, you could marry your family into that of your vassals. Non-aggression pact confirmed by either marriage or betrothal (so, technically don't have to see it through) prevents them from joining factions, and kids/kin can also be used to gain the same from threatening neighbours.

 

[Amphibian]

That's the good thing about fewer, larger vassals. If half your realm is unhappy with you, it's much easier to manage if it's just one guy.
If you've got the latest expansions/patches, you could marry your family into that of your vassals. Non-aggression pact confirmed by either marriage or betrothal (so, technically don't have to see it through) prevents them from joining factions, and kids/kin can also be used to gain the same from threatening neighbours.

Huh. I had read something that was explicitly recommending keeping a bunch of small vassals - but i can certainly see the appeal in only needing to keep One Guy happy. I've not bought DLC - the game screen says 2.6.1.1, though, and I feel like marrying my kin into realm-internal dynasties was a possibility (though i didn't pay too much attention - hadn't quite realized how important the Game Of Alliances was.)

 

[Shebaloso]

So, I played my first game as the Count of Dubhlinn (1066 start, no DLC). After what felt like a slow-ish start i did finally manage to get all of Ireland united (I'm not entirely sure where to look in the logs, but I want to say it was some time around 1150). It is now 1193, and in the last five-ten years I've had (in order):

*A revolt of roughly half the country about Crown Authority (wanting to go from Low -> Minimal)
*My ruler being assassinated, leaving behind a 4-year-old regent
*In the midst of putting down the rebels, England declares war.
*England rolls in with an army of 16,000 (compared to my ~2,500 which was just barely enough for the rebels). I surrender to them (losing Dubhlinn) to be able to continue putting down the rebellion, and because i have no hope of defeating that monster.
*After defeating the rebels, I turn around and kick the usurper (Queen of England) out of Dubhlinn - she had a surprisingly small army.
*Scotland declares war on me, gunning for a duchy that somehow contains three provinces (even though de jure it should only have two)
*Scotland had about 8,000 men for an army, so i gave them the duchy.

I'm assuming that this clusterfun is the result of a snowball of small decisions that I made (or failed to make) earlier in the game, so, um. Help?

Just a heads up. Your army (as in YOUR) are the soldiers of your demesne. Think of your vassals as random dudes you meet throughout the game who can either do you favors and help you with wars and tax or shit on you. If it comes to the latter, your toilet paper will be your demesne soldiers. Not other vassals, not mercenaries, your DEMESNE soliders. They will never defect or revolt and their numbers are steady.

The first thing you should do as a king (or any other rank, really) is to secure a strong and solid powerbase in the form of a full demesne. Now, the kingdom of ireland is small enough that you can easily hold half of it yourself, minimizing the power of your vassals. Just to ilustrate, If you have the whole duchy of mumu (the duchy of ulster would be even better) and any other of those two county duchies, your level of power would be unmatched by any vassal even if he controlled all the rest of Ireland. And if you do it right and really focus on stewardship, you can have the ENTIRE irish islands under your personal control.

Summarizing, your decisive mistake in my opinion was to rely too much on your vassals. Get that demesne by any means necessary. Fabricate claims on neighbouring duchies, provoke a rebellion, use intrigue focus etc. Even if you revoke the titles you want outright, it's better to fight a predicted and manageable revolt than to have your vassals withhold troops and tax from you or even revolt in a grisly situation.

 

[Amphibian]

Just a heads up. Your army (as in YOUR) are the soldiers of your demesne. Think of your vassals as random dudes you meet throughout the game who can either do you favors and help you with wars and tax or shit on you. If it comes to the latter, your toilet paper will be your demesne soldiers. Not other vassals, not mercenaries, your DEMESNE soliders. They will never defect or revolt and their numbers are steady.

The first thing you should do as a king (or any other rank, really) is to secure a strong and solid powerbase in the form of a full demesne. Now, the kingdom of ireland is small enough that you can easily hold half of it yourself, minimizing the power of your vassals. Just to ilustrate, If you have the whole duchy of mumu (the duchy of ulster would be even better) and any other of those two county duchies, your level of power would be unmatched by any vassal even if he controlled all the rest of Ireland. And if you do it right and really focus on stewardship, you can have the ENTIRE irish islands under your personal control.

Summarizing, your decisive mistake in my opinion was to rely too much on your vassals. Get that demesne by any means necessary. Fabricate claims on neighbouring duchies, provoke a rebellion, use intrigue focus etc. Even if you revoke the titles you want outright, it's better to fight a predicted and manageable revolt than to have your vassals withhold troops and tax from you or even revolt in a grisly situation.

My kings (once I got to that level) tended to have personal control over a full six-holding demesne (I made a fairly concerted effort to have decent Stewardship scores). The fact that I could still only raise a bare handful of troops is somewhat of an embarassment - I'm guessing that i just wasn't developing the holdings enough? But that circles back around to problems with income (or lack thereof).

 

[Bernard95]

Huh. I had read something that was explicitly recommending keeping a bunch of small vassals - but i can certainly see the appeal in only needing to keep One Guy happy. I've not bought DLC - the game screen says 2.6.1.1, though, and I feel like marrying my kin into realm-internal dynasties was a possibility (though i didn't pay too much attention - hadn't quite realized how important the Game Of Alliances was.)

Whatever you read wasn't exactly right. The old rule of thumb as always been "the fewer vassals you have, the easier it is to control them". Picture this- you have a choice of having a dozen counts or making a few duchy titles to have some dukes. Sure the dukes have more power than a few angry counts, but would you rather have to bribe and keep track of say four people or the dozen? Odds are you can keep at least two of them on your good side (if not all four) and the other two wouldn't be strong enough to cause a problem. Now picture one better- you're the Emperor of Britannia. You've got say two dozen dukes under you with the option to create the four de jure kingdom titles. That's when you may have to ask yourself if it's worth having a few really powerful vassals versus the ease of management. Even then though, you're probably still better off with the fewer higher-tier vassals.

On a related note just like Shelbaloso is saying, if you want to stay in power you need to actually have power. Back then land was the prime source of power, and likewise it is in the game. But it's not just land in general- it's the land you personally own (your demense) that makes the difference. The land you own you will always provide you with the full levy and tax, whereas your vassals only give a certain cut based on laws modified by their opinion. Best thing you can do is to always be at your demense limit if you can help it as a result. One better if you can control a complete, large duchy (you get a bonus to tax and levy in your capital duchy) and If you have to get a little tyrannical, then so be it.

Granted, Ireland doesn't really have built up land nor does it have any larger duchies you would want as a capital. Next time try somewhere that's a bit more prosperous such as Italy and you'll see how much power a duke with high martial score can wield (note that martial score influences your levy; terrible martial score is going mean no troops).

 

[Amphibian]

...Martial Score. *facepalm* That explains so much. Mine tended towards the...less than awesome. Lesson learned.

(also i went back and reread the relevant passage from the http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Beginner's_guide and realized i was misreading. "don't give your dukes more than one duchy" is...not the same thing. I maaay have been holding all five Irish duchies personally. Oops.)

 

[Bernard95]

...Martial Score. *facepalm* That explains so much. Mine tended towards the...less than awesome. Lesson learned.

(also i went back and reread the relevant passage from the http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Beginner's_guide and realized i was misreading. "don't give your dukes more than one duchy" is...not the same thing. I maaay have been holding all five Irish duchies personally. Oops.)

Good to see you figured out part of your problem. Also, holding all of the duchies would mean your vassals would hate your guts to say the least. You might notice that one of the opinion modifiers on your vassals will say something like "too many titles -X" and that would be where that's coming from.

If you're curious about other stats, diplomacy gives an opinion buff, stewardship controls your demense limit and how fast your culture will spread, intrigue determines base plot power, and finally learning controls the rate you tech up. The ones you can ignore to a degree are intrigue and learning. Martial, diplomacy, and stewardship are the most important by far with martial being greatest out of them all. You can be hated to a certain extent, but if you have really high martial your vassals won't be able to do much about it.

 

[Amphibian]

Eurgh, I didn't realize that was even a penalty. -20 overall for Too Many, plus another -20 for the folks that wanted a certain one.

I'm going to start a new game, and hopefully have better things to report.

 

[Rascar Capac]

As mentioned above, I had a mostly-accidental alliance with England. I am somewhat unclear on how to make sure it keeps happening (if I'm understanding correctly it probably dropped when one or the other of the folks that were married-for-alliance died) - and I suspect inappropriate spreading of claims is what got me into the hot water (with them) to begin with.

Yeah, NAPs - and thus alliances - usually have to be sealed by either marriage or kinship. So your understanding is probably right.

When I talk about not giving claims, it's all about who marries who and how. When you play marriage game, it's good idea to marry their women in your family or try matrilinear marriage to keep claims in dynasty.

 

[Amphibian]

I'm doing much better this game - have managed unification of Ireland in ~1105, and my king personally holds a six-castle demesne. Thanks to distributed duchies, even though i forcefully reclaimed some of my holdings my vassals are not too unhappy with me (the three dukes are at -2, +14, and +27, and all but the last are still burning through a -45 Revoked Vassal Titles).

Still trying to wrap my head around Foreign Diplomacy, though. I'm attempting to marry off my daughter to the King of England's son, and he says no, with the overriding reason being "Political Concerns" (it's displaying as -9 in the mouseover). I have a NAP with Scotland, but he's unwilling to bump it up to a proper Alliance (+1 opinion of me, -3 base, -4 Political Concerns). Will it help me at all to get a second marriage into the Scottish house?

 

[Susanna]

Have you tried sending your diplomat to one of their courts, or flat-out bribery ("give gift")?

 

[nyah]

It might not have been impossible to fend off the English and Scots in their attacks. If you're outnumbered then you can avoid combat unless the circumstances favour you and their forces will wear down with attrition if they're attacking your territory. Pick your terrain, hills or mountains and rivers to defend, and make them come to you. Make sure you've got your highest martial characters as commanders and check them after each battle as some may die. Also, in Ireland it's worth attacking the enemy as soon as they land as morale of any army is reduced by half when leaving ships (unless they've used the sea-crossing from Ulster).

Also, you don't have to force a surrender. A white peace will do.

 

[Gans]

...Martial Score. *facepalm* That explains so much. Mine tended towards the...less than awesome. Lesson learned.

(also i went back and reread the relevant passage from the http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Beginner's_guide and realized i was misreading. "don't give your dukes more than one duchy" is...not the same thing. I maaay have been holding all five Irish duchies personally. Oops.)

Your capital county gives 50% more levies, even more so if you use your marshal to train troops there. If you have empty slots and build castles there you can have more levies from one county then a smaller kingdom can raise. The only problem is how to fund it

 

[DPS]

Balkri: I was actually doing those things as much as I could - though I hadn't thought to send my Spymaster to Constantinople.

Don't do that if you're having trouble with factions! Instead, it usually pays to send the spymaster to scheme in the capital county of the leader of the most powerful faction against you. And keep track of the factions; don't wait till you get the tab notifying you that there's dangerous faction (which is when the faction is at 70% of your strength). By that point, your spymaster might not have enough time to scheme before the faction gets powerful enough to actually revolt. Try to use your spymaster against a faction starting no later than when it gets to about 30% of your strength. Of course, if there are multiple factions that are at 30% or more, you generally need to target the strongest one. Also, keep an eye on who is in each faction; sometimes a vassal will be in multiple factions, sometimes even leading more than one. In those cases, you might want to target the rulers who are in several factions, even if he's not the leader of any of them, because successful scheming by your spymaster might cripple 2 or more factions a once.