What should I do? (Brittany Game)

[Keesinho]

Hey folks,

I'm currently playing my first real campaign on this game, learning the ropes so to say. I've chosen to lead the Duchy of Brittany from 1066 to hopefully the end of the game.

In my game, the year is currently 1146, so I've got a good 80 years under my belt. In that time I've managed to stay independent and proclaim myself King of Brittany, instead of just being the Duke of Brittany. My expansion has also led to conquering Ireland, where I know control about 70% of the Counties. I've just proclaimed myself King of Ireland as well, giving me de Jure claims on the remaining 5 independant counties of Ireland.

All was going fine until I inherited the Duchy of Bedford from France. This resulted in the King of France excersising his claim on that said Duchy and displaying its terrifying power in taking it back from me. Now I'm not that much concerned by losing the Duchy of Bedford, but I was taken aback by the sheer army size that the King of France could muster (he came in with 20k men where the max I could muster was 8k troops (5k + 3k mercs).

So I'm wondering what to do next now...

My current ruler is 43 years old and has 2 sons. Gavelkind succession at the moment. My demesne will be split between them, with the the youngest getting a Duchy and counties in Ireland as a result. Both my sons are nearly of age (15 and 14) so I'm looking to marry them off to either a well-statted wife, or to a wife which gives me an alliance.

From my character's roleplaying point of view - he has a longing for England (which is currently part of the Kingdom of Denmark), but I reckon there is no way I can take on a huge force like that.

Questions that come to me are:

- What is the best way to secure my Kingdom? Swear Fealty to a super power, or try to remain neutral and allied through marriages with France and Denmark?
- I am currently making 5 gold a month or something, somehow I think that's low? Am I right? Wrong? How do I increase my cashflow?
- Should I abandon gavelkind and go to the eldest son gets all model?
- Currently I hold 5 counties as a ruler, 2 duchies and 2 kingdoms. I passed a duchy off to a vassal when I saw the -10 penalty for having too many duchies. Should I do the same with counties?

Probably all newbie questions, but I'm really at a point where I feel I must make some big decisions on the future of my Kingdom, and I would hate to take the wrong ones...

 

[unmerged(26764)]

I have a Brittany game going right now. Here is what I did:

First I secured all the holdings in the Duchy itself. Sounds like you did that. Then I picked off Ireland and Wales. Lots of small counts that are easy to dominate.

Then, when I had all of Ireland and Wales, I pulled off a papal invasion of France. Now it sounds like you're a newer player, so this is probably a little hard to pull off for you. You probably want to go against Scotland first -- with Ireland and Wales and Brittany you should be bigger than they are.

If you do want to take on France, however, Brittany can do it. The key I found is to use your navy. Build the biggest army with mercs you can afford. Put them on boats. When the French doomstacks start forming, land directly on top of the any groups that you can easily take and destroy them. Then get back on the boats. If you do this right, you can eventually destroy most of France's army. France will come for Brittany proper, and it's all coastal. Then you can start siegeing counties. But you have to know the game pretty well to do this sort of thing and it sounds like you're still learning.

Your income does sound low. Did you raise city taxes to harsh? Maybe church taxes too?

Also 5 counties for your demense is also low. If you have too many duchies, you don't have to give them away. You can also destroy the title and keep the counties. Make sure you have as many counties as you have demense slots. Also, early game, I like to train my kings in stewardship for more demense and more cash -- which is very needed at the start.

I would personally abandon gavelkind too. If you hold all the titles in de jure Brittany, you might consider elective. Then you can always pick your best family member as king. If you have all the votes, you can't lose. Brittany is great for this because the whole kingdom is one duchy.

 

[Panzerschiffe]

Raise those city taxes to make money, which also means that building cities in your extra demense slots will be worth it. Build cities in coastal provinces, then build harbours to increase your income.

Duchies - since you get a penalty for holding too many of them beyond the 2nd one, you want to try to manage your duchy titles as much as possible, most likely by simply not creating the duchy title. Destroying it will result in an opinion penalty but it's usually worth it unless you have really bad relations with your vassals already.

Gavelkind isn't too good, although some people seem to manage it well, but I personally don't like it. Elective is one of the most powerful choices. In big kingdoms/empires, you can create prince bishops (bishops with a duke title) and they will vote for your preferred heir almost 100% of the time, so that makes the voting process easier.

Your demense seems small, you should consider educating your heirs with stewardship (like midas touched) it will allow for a bigger demense. Diplomacy (Grey eminence) is also a good choice to keep better relations with your vassals.

 

[Anthropoid]

I'm no expert at the game, but here is the strategy I'm following as Duke of Toulouse & Burgundy:

1. Build a strong court = high ranking councillors and well built up holdings which then = more and more powerful troops and more taxes
2. Get relations with all vassals as close to 100 as possible
3. Grow my prestige
(some of these goals cannot be fully achieved at the level of one leader, and carry over from generation to generation.
4. Expand my number of capable adult dynasty members (which depends on intermarriages)
5. Always be shopping for good claims/marriages that can lead to acquisition of a good (I much prefer close or ideally adjacent counties or duchies) holdings
6. Once I'm at or near my personal demesne limit, land sons, cousins, and other close dynasty members
7. Don't fight people bigger than me
8. Take it slow and easy and get more powerful than my liege
9. At some point, challenge his authority to the Kingdom

 

[Keesinho]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

I have done nothing with city and church taxes so far, so that's something I'm going to experiment with.

So what exactly is the deal with Duchies then? Its better to destroy them than to give them away?

Also, I had been watching some lets-plays on utube, and people on those videos purely focussed on upgrading their personal County - not the cities and bishopries. And not at all other counties. From what I hear here, I should..but that would require money.

Hopefully increasing tax will get my money flow up!

 

[Berkis]

I am currently playing Brittany as well. It is 1138, but I'am not as far as you are. I secured the Duchy itself, but with two powerful adversaries just next to my door, I am quite cautious about a quick expansion. English king has possesions in Normandy and due to English war of succession, I managed to use a window of opportunity to grab a county there. As the income base is very thin, I look that my relations with all the bishops are good and they like me more than the Pope, thus increasing my income. Then I married my daughters to get some good allies, not very far from me - Kings of Norway and Scotland. And then I pay quite an attention to all possible claims for whether Brittany or any of my counties. With so little gold, those are diificult choices whether to try assasinate the claimants or to invest in your holdings. But to avoid unneccesary wars, you, probäbly have to invest in the former, because with 6k troops I dont see the way to stand against English or French claims, if my allies dont rescue me

 

[SlyEcho]

Also, I had been watching some lets-plays on utube, and people on those videos purely focussed on upgrading their personal County - not the cities and bishopries. And not at all other counties. From what I hear here, I should..but that would require money.

My advice to increase income is:
1. Find a county that has a lot of castles, or empty slots to build them.
2. Own all those castles.
3. Make that your capital.
4. Send your Steward to collect taxes in that county.
5. Build cities in your other counties, especially coastal counties.
6. Build improvements that increase taxes first.
7. Raise taxes on cities, bishoprics.

If you raise feudal taxes you can become filthy rich, but your vassals will hate you. To compensate for the negative opinion, you can lower levies. In the late game though you may want to reverse this as levies are more important.

If you play as a Muslim, build mosques instead of castles.

 

[Heartsbane]

After you take Ireland I would wait until your ruler is close to death and destroy the liege title. You will be further ahead letting them de jure drift into Brittany and you probably don`t need the prestige bonus. Make sure you have direct control over all of the counties within Brittany and if demesnes is a problem just marry whoever has the highest stewardship stat. You might want to switch out of gavel-kind (unless you are really hurting for the added demesnes bonus) and go to something that will consolidate holdings realm into a single heir. Elective may be the best or you could work towards getting primo. Or you could keep Ireland make it your primary title as they get primo IIRC. Focus on building towns and harbours (since you have so many coastal provinces) and up your city taxes to harsh. A gamey thing you can do with small states is to imprison and banish your mayors since they often have over 100 gold. If you are a small state with few county level vassals you can do this with all your mayors and priests if you like, but if you have a few direct vassals already it may be best to wait until your king is on his death bed (if he gets pneumonic he will die within a month or 2). In your case this may not be possible so you could always imprison each county or ducal level vassal one by one, banish them, and hold onto the counties and ducal titles until your ruler dies. Either way, secure as much money as possible and secure as many holdings as possible into an heir with high stewardship and a wife with high stewardship and the money should eventually start pouring in. Granted this may take a generation or 2 but keep in mind that your enemies can only attack you with valid CBs, so as long as you don`t expand into a bigger Kingdoms de jure territory (like you found out with France), you only have to worry about excommunication CBs and forged claims which the AI never seems to use.

I would probably go for Wales right now if the individual counties and duchies are still independent from England. They aren`t exactly rich but they are easy to swipe with a few fabricated CBs and a well placed ducal usurpation. If you have good relations with the pope you can request an invasion on England or France and get a Kingdom level strong claim. You are a small Kingdom so you will not be able to compete with them in terms of manpower so you have to be strategic. Either wait for them to get a child ruler (or assassinate their kings until this happens) and wait for a civil war or wait for them to go off on campaign If the Normans won England (they usually do) they will be pushing for the de jure claim on Vexin sooner or later. Excommunicate them if you can and use your cash you got from maintaining a strong economy (or banishing your mayors)to begin the invasion, you will probably need 500+ gold. Hire mercenaries and your retinues and start invading their weak counties. Take the primary holding in each county and you will get the entire county when you enforce demands. Take as many as you can using mercenaries and strategic use of your boats and sue for peace. England is the softer target but I was able to successfuly invade France as Brittany.

 

[_krampe_]

Well my general behavior in any game is to search for a good personal demesne. As King you can have 7 Countys easily, maybe up to 11 with high Stewardship (non gavelkind).
You want to own the duchy title and every county in your demesne, look for countys with many upgrade slots which become important later in the game when you have enough gold to build new cities.

In your actual situation i would advice the duchy of brittany ( 4 Countys i think) and the duchy in the lower west corner of ireland (forgot it's name sorry) which consists of 3 countys.
Revoke and/or plot to get your hands on every county if your ruler is young/middle aged (the opinion penaly of revoking stays 10 years), if you're already old and will probably die in the next five years (yeah i know you can never be sure) you might consider banishing the lords which give you a nice gold boost (you take everything they possess, but i don't know how long the tyrany penaly stays since i rarely do it).
Otherwise you can use your chancellor to forge claims on those countys and then revoke them without a penalty. The forging costs gold though but its a % of your annual income and i guess you can afford that at the moment.

Then build castle cities up to level 2 in your capital, then in every other county you hold personally (Level 2 is that for 120 Gold).
It's better to hold a whole county with a vassal city and/or bishoric then to own two castles in one county! Only do that if you already own every county in your realm.

 

[Heartsbane]

Well my general behavior in any game is to search for a good personal demesne. As King you can have 7 Countys easily, maybe up to 11 with high Stewardship (non gavelkind).
You want to own the duchy title and every county in your demesne, look for countys with many upgrade slots which become important later in the game when you have enough gold to build new cities.

In your actual situation i would advice the duchy of brittany ( 4 Countys i think) and the duchy in the lower west corner of ireland (forgot it's name sorry) which consists of 3 countys.
Revoke and/or plot to get your hands on every county if your ruler is young/middle aged (the opinion penaly of revoking stays 10 years), if you're already old and will probably die in the next five years (yeah i know you can never be sure) you might consider banishing the lords which give you a nice gold boost (you take everything they possess, but i don't know how long the tyrany penaly stays since i rarely do it).
Otherwise you can use your chancellor to forge claims on those countys and then revoke them without a penalty. The forging costs gold though but its a % of your annual income and i guess you can afford that at the moment.

Then build castle cities up to level 2 in your capital, then in every other county you hold personally (Level 2 is that for 120 Gold).
It's better to hold a whole county with a vassal city and/or bishoric then to own two castles in one county! Only do that if you already own every county in your realm.

Very well said. BTW TS, what does your current demesnes consist of?

 

[Spartanlemur]

Wait for a Crusade and secure a place in the sun. No, but seriously, some of those cities grant plenty of troops when developed (North Africa in particular).

 

[unmerged(457738)]

Switch your succession law in Brittany to elective, and then nominate your oldest son (only one vote is cast for Brittany, so you're guaranteed to win it) then make king of ireland your primary title. Your oldest son will then get both king titles.

As to expansion, focus on whoever is weakest first. Normally both France and England suffer from regular civil wars and that's when you want to attack them, not when they're united. Save your gold for mercenaries when that time comes.

 

[Heartsbane]

Another thing you can do is try your hand at Holy Wars. The Iberian Kingdoms will probably lose some if not all of their territory and the recently conquered penalties will ensure small garrisons. Take a couple Holy orders and try to take some land, preferably Barcelona. It's pretty much a free for all once the Muslims steamroll a few of the Iberian Kingdoms, plus you will get a good amount of money from your conquests.

 

[NewbieOne]

- What is the best way to secure my Kingdom? Swear Fealty to a super power, or try to remain neutral and allied through marriages with France and Denmark?

Pick what you like, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. But I'd try to gain a kingdom or some duchies from the outside via marriage. As a rule it tends to be safe to marry (betroth) your son or brother one rank below what you want to give him. Betrothal is good in that it keeps the man in your court for the time being so that you can give him land after acceptance. But AI does sometimes break betrothals.[/quote]

- I am currently making 5 gold a month or something, somehow I think that's low? Am I right? Wrong? How do I increase my cashflow?

It's hard for me to assess how much you should be making, while 5 gold a month does seem low for your situation. Your problems may lie in lack of development (need to upgrade the holdings, the sooner the better, starting with buildings that increase tax income in whatever baronies you intend to hold on to, especially the capital), cultural difference (with Ireland but you're both Celtic, so this shouldn't be a big issue), perhaps something with Stewardship stats (you, spouse, Steward).

- Should I abandon gavelkind and go to the eldest son gets all model?

Depends how you want to play. Remember that gavelkind increases your demesne limit and removes the unlanded sons penalty. On the other hand, you might end up splitting the kingdoms of Brittany and Ireland depending on the laws and you probably want to avoid that. One good thing about primo is that a chunk of your kingdom will not be going away if you marry your younger son to an umarried reigning queen. In my first game I played as Poland and married my third or so regularly to a queen of Finland. Those guys ended up ruling Norway later and then Sweden and while I never managed to inherit them, I still had a permanent alliance. I think they were larger than I was.

- Currently I hold 5 counties as a ruler, 2 duchies and 2 kingdoms. I passed a duchy off to a vassal when I saw the -10 penalty for having too many duchies. Should I do the same with counties?

-10 is not a biggie unless your kingdom is going through a difficult period. I'd try to use the heir to hold the excessive holdings or titles.

Probably all newbie questions, but I'm really at a point where I feel I must make some big decisions on the future of my Kingdom, and I would hate to take the wrong ones...

Well, you always learn something and you can put it to use in future games. Doing things imperfectly tends to result in interesting games and sometimes blunders ultimately result in opportunities.

 

[Keesinho]

Thanks for all the advice guys!

I didn't read up on all this when playing so I managed to get myself into a lot of trouble lol. Got the title King of Ireland, only to die before I could set the heritance to primo or elective >.< So currently I'm fighting against my brother who has inherited Ireland whereas I'm back to owning only the kingdom of Brittany. *facepalm*

The good news is, I'm winning the war with Ireland, managed to kill my brother in battle and slowly occupying county by county in Ireland. Warscore 34% and ticking.. Still it was a hard lesson to learn.

This game is so strangely addictive and frustrating at times lol. I want to keep track of all my family members but the dynasty tree just explodes and your wondering who's who after a while! Still I shall go on as my current character, King Leri of Brittany, a quite incompetent ruler with the ambition to make right what his father did wrong....