Holding 3 counties? I have tried both ways at this point and the only advantage I see to hanging onto more holdings in a Provence is that your troops don't need to travel to group up. Am I correct?
Which is better a county where you hold 3 castles or...
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If it is your capital county or any county you own.Set your Steward to collect taxes there and or Marshal to train troops.Those missions ONLY effect holdings which you own in province.So more holdings more taxes and more troops.
More counties. I try to build castles when I can in my personal demesne, but more direct vassals means more power in your hands as well.
You might only get the capitol holding in that province but the other holdings will still give you troops, more than you would get if they weren't your direct vassals. Plus, it means more tax.
You might only get the capitol holding in that province but the other holdings will still give you troops, more than you would get if they weren't your direct vassals. Plus, it means more tax.
I try to keep at least 2 holdings in my capital province so I can take full advantage of my steward's tax collection ability and the construction acceleration ability. It's nice to be pumping out quick improvements in a single province.
Interesting. I hadn't thought about the bonus to tax collection. I always thought the boost applied to all holdings in a county, not just yours. So keep multiple holdings in one county if it is your capital for boosted build speed etc? Thanks for the replys 
If I had a choice between a province with 7 castles and one castle in 7 provinces, I'd definitely pick the single province. The bonuses from putting a council member there become very powerful. You can build all your improvements simultaneously and get the bonus from your steward, train troops in many holdings at once, collect taxes more efficiently, etc. When you raise your personal troops they also always start grouped together.
It is all dependent on realm size. If you want to stay at under 30 counties total you might think about placing extra castles in your county.
But for the majority of games it will always be better to have your demesne made up of individual counties.
Ireland is only 13 counties. You could hold all of it yourself and build cities in all of the extra holding slots. Or if you plan on staying a small realm fill them up with castles for barons.
But it isn't wide to waste your demesne in one county.
Take Sicily a 6 county duchy with almost a dozen free holding slots. You wouldn't want to just control Palermo personally you would want that entire duchy.
Why because you are getting more holdings that report directly to you.
But for the majority of games it will always be better to have your demesne made up of individual counties.
Ireland is only 13 counties. You could hold all of it yourself and build cities in all of the extra holding slots. Or if you plan on staying a small realm fill them up with castles for barons.
But it isn't wide to waste your demesne in one county.
Take Sicily a 6 county duchy with almost a dozen free holding slots. You wouldn't want to just control Palermo personally you would want that entire duchy.
Why because you are getting more holdings that report directly to you.
This comes up a lot. There's a lot of threads about it.
The answer is always one castle in each county.
You shouldn't be using the tax collection and troop missions except during the very early part of the game when you are a count or small duke. After that, you should have enough levies spread out that these missions make little difference. And you're mostly relying on realm levies and retinues. When you can call up 100k realm levies and a 50k retinue, whether your personal holdings are calling up 10k or 12k troops doesn't matter.
There are far better missions. They should almost always be researching tech instead.
But here's the real kicker. A castle with no holdings under it using the mission returns about the same that a castle from another county that's collecting taxes from a city and church makes. A castle with multiple cities is far better. So all you're doing with those missions is breaking even to where you would be if you held a castle in a separate county.
Never stack castles. Never. It's never the right choice.
The answer is always one castle in each county.
You shouldn't be using the tax collection and troop missions except during the very early part of the game when you are a count or small duke. After that, you should have enough levies spread out that these missions make little difference. And you're mostly relying on realm levies and retinues. When you can call up 100k realm levies and a 50k retinue, whether your personal holdings are calling up 10k or 12k troops doesn't matter.
There are far better missions. They should almost always be researching tech instead.
But here's the real kicker. A castle with no holdings under it using the mission returns about the same that a castle from another county that's collecting taxes from a city and church makes. A castle with multiple cities is far better. So all you're doing with those missions is breaking even to where you would be if you held a castle in a separate county.
Never stack castles. Never. It's never the right choice.
An amazing response. You should have this ready at all times to answer this question.
I go with 3 counties most of the time, they give more monthly prestige.
But a extra barony in the capital always help.
But a extra barony in the capital always help.
And yet I disagree with you. Baronies outweigh cities in landlocked provinces, as the lack of ports makes their money making potential limited. Meanwhile, an extra barony means more more troops and more cultural buildings, which now also means more retinues.
And money is only so useful. If you're in, say, Scandinavia, or Eastern Africa (even up into Egypt, I'd know, my capital is currently Alexandria), or even some corners of the British Isles, you don't need money for mercenaries because there almost are no mercenaries. Why would I bother buildings cities to generate more cash when at best all it'll be used is to grab a pair of crap mercs that I'd be able to afford anyways? And as a smaller bonus, an upgraded barony is an absolute killer to siege or assault. Cities and bishoprics are comparably cake. If I'm not the world's most disgusting blob in eastern Europe ever, its helpful that the Cumans or the Mongols will have to lose a few more troops when they storm the walls of my inland borderlands.
Cities are king on the coast. But inland? If you're saying it's "never the right choice", then clearly you've only been playing games under the most ideal of circumstances.
Why you ever pick inland counties as your personal demesne? That doesn't make sense at all. Unless you will be land locked the entire game.
Even starting as Axum as soon as I was able to make it to the coast and take over Egypt, I then immediately went for Sicily and at least was able to move 6 demesne slots to Sicily.
The thing is as soon as your able to move coastal you should and when you do keep it for yourself. I've started landlocked but I'm never landlocked for more then 30-50 years.
And Valinn is talking about counties versus extra baronies not baronies versus cities. Counties always win. You still get a castle and usually anywhere from 3 to 5 extra vassal slots under it. Which will always mean more troops and more taxes and more ships.
Even starting as Axum as soon as I was able to make it to the coast and take over Egypt, I then immediately went for Sicily and at least was able to move 6 demesne slots to Sicily.
The thing is as soon as your able to move coastal you should and when you do keep it for yourself. I've started landlocked but I'm never landlocked for more then 30-50 years.
And Valinn is talking about counties versus extra baronies not baronies versus cities. Counties always win. You still get a castle and usually anywhere from 3 to 5 extra vassal slots under it. Which will always mean more troops and more taxes and more ships.
You're splitting hairs here. The assumption is, if you're not building baronies its cause you're using your demesne for more counties. Which I agree with, a county>barony by far.
However, you should still be building baronies in your inland holdings. Just because you're building baronies doesn't mean you should keep them, but go ahead and throw a castle village/town in there and get your cultural buildings rolling, then pass them off to a vassal. It'll still do you more good to have vassals with more troops inland than slightly more cash.
Since this question keeps getting asked, and often with respect to technology, I'd really recommend Valinn's old tech/demense guide be stickied. It's been a massive help in almost every game I've played. I swear this guy is some kind of mystical wise sage who appears at random on the forums and spreads his teachings.
I always build cities in all of my extra demense holding slots. If you're going to give them away (and you should) cities give you money. An extra barony gives you nothing unless you tax nobles. And then you get a little money. The troops you get are no different from the troops you get from an extra vassal anywhere. So build more castles outside your demense if you want, but in your demense it's cities whether coastal or not.
I also really disagree about the use of money now that retinues are active. Retinues are very expensive when they reinforce. In a tough war, they eat money. I never have enough money now in large empires. I actually tax nobles now, when before I never would think to do that, because I really need the cash when 100k heavy infantry retinues are suffering attrition and eating all my gold.
Now that we have retinues, personal levies really just don't matter much any more once you're a king or larger. Your personal power rests in your retinue. Your retinue will far outnumber your personal levies, and they will be of much higher quality. And retinues need money. Lots of money.
Plus there's the issue of technology. Which needs cities pumping out research. But that's another issue.
I also really disagree about the use of money now that retinues are active. Retinues are very expensive when they reinforce. In a tough war, they eat money. I never have enough money now in large empires. I actually tax nobles now, when before I never would think to do that, because I really need the cash when 100k heavy infantry retinues are suffering attrition and eating all my gold.
Now that we have retinues, personal levies really just don't matter much any more once you're a king or larger. Your personal power rests in your retinue. Your retinue will far outnumber your personal levies, and they will be of much higher quality. And retinues need money. Lots of money.
Plus there's the issue of technology. Which needs cities pumping out research. But that's another issue.
If you're playing in Russia, Cumania, or Persia, you're essentially limited to a landlocked demense only, save for a few alternatives with wrong culture/religion penalties for years. In Russia, the only coastal options are 1-2 counties of Novgorod, parts of Lithuania (if you can conquer it before Poland, Denmark, or the HRE get there), and possibly eastern Finland and Northern Rus, both of which are terrible due to having very few holdings, 0 technology and wrong culture/religion penalties. Cumania's only coastal option is to get abkhazia, Korchev, Alania, or Georgia, but again none of these are exactly ideal, and usually these will end up in the hands of vassals before you can get your hands on them, and Persia, well really only has Anatolia to rely on, and that's only if they win the jihad/invasion.
But I guess the counter to all of this is simply, "why would anyone play in any of these areas?" and that's perhaps a more difficult question to answer, aside from wanting a challenge.
I've been playing a great game in Russia, and this is exactly correct. Russia has a lot of great high slot counties, but they're all landlocked. The best move is to set up shop around Polotsk, Moskva, or Kiev. You can get a cluster of counties with stacks of cities pumping out research, which you desperately need in Russia. If you're willing to destroy Prince titles and split up duchies (kill the Duke title and make the bad counties independent bishops) you can get an amazing demense around Moskva. By the late 1200s, I was the tech leader of Europe -- although I also held Thrace in my demense to pump Greek tech up north.
I would have preferred coastal counties. But I would almost always take more total cities than fewer coastal cities even if it means less money because that means more universities, which I believe are more important. Especially in your capital.
I have to disagree.If you are a King/Emperor and want to not piss off ANY of your vassals.(with new faction system you need alot of pluses to keep everyone +80+) Never hold counties outside of the 2 duchies you hold.(you can hold counties in other duchies if ducal title doesn't exist)That being said filling the extra slots with Castles helps for when with factions.Your fighting all/most of your vassals in a Faction War.Retinues are great, but 13-15k personal levies to supplement to retinue should not be missed.Cities are great for income and tech, but after a while you have more money than you ever need.(I never change the tax laws and in my current game as HRE Emperor my Desmesne income from 7 castles/counties is 60/gold amonth.With a few Doge income in 100/gold month when they like me.)
I might try the tech missions more in next game.
I might try the tech missions more in next game.
I prefer cities over castles, this is even more important with new retinues mechanics, castle is extra 200-1500 troops which you have to feed besides investing a lot of money, while city under hight tax can supply 2000-3000 retunues, which are superior in all ways to levies. And on top of it all, due to retunie size is decided by number of troops not their quality, city with its light infantry is better at this point of view as well.
Retinues get a lot bigger, particularly as your tech increases. In my current game my cap is over 200k -- that's a big empire but it grew a lot just due to tech. You need to buy it also, because faction revolts are now getting over 200k free troops. To fund something like that, you really need to tax feudal vassals unfortunately. There is just no demense big enough to make that kind of cash. I'm taking in about 300g a month from taxes and it's not nearly enough when the retinue is taking damage. Doges can help, but they revolt a lot and with the faction system I'm leaning against them now. Before retinues I never taxed feudal vassals for the reason you mention. But the game has changed.
And you can break up duchies for your demense, but yes make sure the title doesn't exist and that no one can form it. Which is why you make stable one county bishops for duchies of 3 counties or more. No one can form the title that way. In fact, with destroying titles I've become a big fan of cherry picking the best counties and spreading them around several duchies, none of which exist. I like a compact demense with all high-slot counties.