Why can't you give your vassels more than 1 holding?

[Mutineer]

There are disadvantages of vassal having more then one county. If you have counts, then each count will have his own consil memmbers to accelerate that county development. And then you will have duke concil doing same. IN addition, each count has his own chance to convert county to your culture.On other hand if you give all counties id duchy to one person, then there only one consil and only one caracter to do conversion.

Even if that simplify managment to degree, you are loosing in a long run.

 

[unmerged(494787)]

That assumes that A) The vassals use their councilors intelligently, and B) that conversion has a MTTH faster than the "Conquered: Wrong Religion" Penalty. It... doesn't. By the time the county converts, it's probable that that particular penalty will have worn off... and for Christians, a wrong-religion province is at worst a mild annoyance. For Muslims, a wrong-religion province is actually beneficial.

On the other hand, your vassals being at war with each other can be a giant problem when it comes to changing laws, as well as depleting your levies.

 

[Lorehead]

I think the argument is that, if your dukes hold one county and have several vassals as powerful as themselves, they’ll be weaker and less able to rebel. If you’re doing it in conquered territory, that will also convert it to your religion and culture sooner.

I personally like to hand off entire duchies to my relatives and let them subdivide it among their descendants, who will also be of my dynasty. But that might well not be the ideal powergaming strategy.

 

[Mutineer]

That assumes that A) The vassals use their councilors intelligently, and B) that conversion has a MTTH faster than the "Conquered: Wrong Religion" Penalty. It... doesn't. By the time the county converts, it's probable that that particular penalty will have worn off... and for Christians, a wrong-religion province is at worst a mild annoyance. For Muslims, a wrong-religion province is actually beneficial.

On the other hand, your vassals being at war with each other can be a giant problem when it comes to changing laws, as well as depleting your levies.

But religion conversion speed is greatly improve too, with each county hold by separate count. I am sure they do use there religious consul member to convert. When I started to play I did tend to hold as mach land as possible myself, and a few vassals, but later when I switch to give away new land to counts I notised how faster religion and cultural conversion become. That freed me for using my consul in a way most beneficial to me in a long run.

 

[SacredDatura]

If I'm ever lucky enough for my ruler to get depressed, I'll arrest a megaduke, banish them to take all their built up titles... hand them out to individuals and then kill myself to shed the tyranny penalty.

You can choose to kill yourself if you have the depressed trait?

 

[Revshawn]

You can choose to kill yourself if you have the depressed trait?

You can. They added it in at some point.

 

[Battle bunny]

If I'm ever lucky enough for my ruler to get depressed, I'll arrest a megaduke, banish them to take all their built up titles... hand them out to individuals and then kill myself to shed the tyranny penalty.

Nah... kill yourself first, THEN hand out the titles so your new ruler will benefit from the relation bonus.

 

[Kimberly]

Nah... kill yourself first, THEN hand out the titles so your new ruler will benefit from the relation bonus.

The one problem with this strategy is that your other children will get claims on *all* of these titles. That can be an issue, if they're landed in the same realm!

 

[Lorehead]

Oh, and if you’re creating mayor vassals for the income, doges get an economic bonus over lord mayors to their capital cities. So, that could be a reason to give your republic-vassals small coastal duchies, and not just single provinces.

 

[User4035]

I also wanted to mention that the Crusader Kings 2 Wiki is one of the places I saw that it says to never give out more than one county.

http://ckiiwiki.com/The_Feudal_System_(Guide)

 

[Pinstar]

Shen's Let's Play Treviso series (which is what got me into CK2 in the first place) mentioned not handing out more than one county to a character.

 

[Lessing]

Shen's Let's Play Treviso series (which is what got me into CK2 in the first place) mentioned not handing out more than one county to a character.

I also wanted to mention that the Crusader Kings 2 Wiki is one of the places I saw that it says to never give out more than one county.

http://ckiiwiki.com/The_Feudal_System_(Guide)

Well, it's nonsense. Too much micromanagement, too much pain for too little gain. A healthy vassal landscape is one where all de jure counties of a duchy are held by a single duke and/or his vassal counts. Everything else is predilection.

 

[barny]

It really depends on what realm you have. Some regions, like England for example have rather small de jure duchies with only two or three de jure counties. So there you can give out every county to the duke to prevent the never ending infighting between counts and their dukes (even with medium+ CA). Other regions have rather large de jure duchies and there it is often better to have weaker dukes.

 

[unmerged(237533)]

People have mentioned the micro-management downside of the one county-one vassal system, but especially for larger realms their is a new rebellion risk. Whilst having lots of small vassals prevents one abnormally disloyal vassal kick-starting a civil war, it can be deadly if you suddenly become unpopular, due to excommunication, regency etc... If all your vassals are getting the same opinion hit, scores of them will start flocking to a rebellious banner. There will often be too many to bribe, imprison, or warn off using your spymaster. Plus though they represent less of an obvious military threat, it is often longer and harder to deal with scores of little armies and counties all over your realm, than one big doomstack and blob.

 

[Lorehead]

If you create lots of one-province counts, then appoint the best of them dukes, there is the advantage that, if any of them ever revolt, you can just revoke and hand off the title to a different count. Then it won’t matter how much the old duke hates you.

 

[Daelix]

In addition to the benefits of keeping your vassals weak against you as well as generating more councillors who they tend to assign to various beneficial jobs (these are the least important reasons IMO), the point must be made that every layer of government (dukes over your counts, kings over your dukes - heck, counts over your baronies) slashes the income that finds its way into your pockets from all of those holdings. Count-level vassals collect percentage taxes from the baronies based on tax laws. If there's a duke above them, they pay the duke a percentage of that percentage. If there's a king between the duke and you, the king gets paid a percentage of that percentage, before paying you a percentage of what he gets from the duke. So unless you keep your doge small enough that all of the holdings in his duchy can remain in his demesne (resulting in a huge holding income penalty), you're talking about at most 45% of the taxes you would get from those counties actually reaching your pocket.

So even though it results in an increase in overall money generation, the boost in taxes -you- get from the doge's capital city will very likely be less money than the loss of taxes you get from the doge gobbling up at -least- 55% of all the taxes from the counties that used to pay you directly. All for the benefit of extra (empire) income in one city. Very likely, it'll make Doge Shövenstüff richer and you slightly poorer. And just as a proponent of duchies mentioned about vassals using their councillors unwisely, I don't really look at Doge Shövenstüff having more money being a good thing - he may build more improvements, or spend it on stuff like Decisions for his own benefit, assassinating your other vassals, your kids, you, fabricating claims he'll never have the military backing to push, or revolting against you because he's stupid.

The same huge tax penalty applies to dukes (worse!). And even with a -30(!!!) opinion hit to dukes to max feudal taxes, you're only getting 30% of those counties' tax obligations to their direct liege (who used to be you) instead of 100%. Oh, and did I mention the AI will often do odd things like lower taxes for their subordinates to the lowest level possible? Just so Count A'I can feel important like a human player by wasting his extra money trying to kill his way to power.

There are reasons to go either route, but there are some very good reasons people have for the '1 county' philosophy. While this is just too damn much micromanagement for me, I go for a middle-ground - avoiding layers of government between me and my vassals, but giving vassals a couple of counties (but never a majority within a duchy).

 

[Kimberly]

In addition to the benefits of keeping your vassals weak against you as well as generating more councillors who they tend to assign to various beneficial jobs (these are the least important reasons IMO), the point must be made that every layer of government (dukes over your counts, kings over your dukes - heck, counts over your baronies) slashes the income that finds its way into your pockets from all of those holdings. Count-level vassals collect percentage taxes from the baronies based on tax laws. If there's a duke above them, they pay the duke a percentage of that percentage. If there's a king between the duke and you, the king gets paid a percentage of that percentage, before paying you a percentage of what he gets from the duke. So unless you keep your doge small enough that all of the holdings in his duchy can remain in his demesne (resulting in a huge holding income penalty), you're talking about at most 45% of the taxes you would get from those counties actually reaching your pocket.

So even though it results in an increase in overall money generation, the boost in taxes -you- get from the doge's capital city will very likely be less money than the loss of taxes you get from the doge gobbling up at -least- 55% of all the taxes from the counties that used to pay you directly. All for the benefit of extra (empire) income in one city. Very likely, it'll make Doge Shövenstüff richer and you slightly poorer. And just as a proponent of duchies mentioned about vassals using their councillors unwisely, I don't really look at Doge Shövenstüff having more money being a good thing - he may build more improvements, or spend it on stuff like Decisions for his own benefit, assassinating your other vassals, your kids, you, fabricating claims he'll never have the military backing to push, or revolting against you because he's stupid.

The same huge tax penalty applies to dukes (worse!). And even with a -30(!!!) opinion hit to dukes to max feudal taxes, you're only getting 30% of those counties' tax obligations to their direct liege (who used to be you) instead of 100%. Oh, and did I mention the AI will often do odd things like lower taxes for their subordinates to the lowest level possible? Just so Count A'I can feel important like a human player by wasting his extra money trying to kill his way to power.

There are reasons to go either route, but there are some very good reasons people have for the '1 county' philosophy. While this is just too damn much micromanagement for me, I go for a middle-ground - avoiding layers of government between me and my vassals, but giving vassals a couple of counties (but never a majority within a duchy).

I was under the impression that taxes weren't paid on income from vassals of vassals, i.e. you tax the income a duke receives from their personal demesne, but not their counts. I could be wrong about this, though.

 

[SacredDatura]

You can. They added it in at some point.

That is brilliant. Though oddly 'depressed' now becomes a desirable trait, especially in older rulers, since you can just off yourself without cheating when you've settled all your affairs and have a good heir.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

I was under the impression that taxes weren't paid on income from vassals of vassals, i.e. you tax the income a duke receives from their personal demesne, but not their counts. I could be wrong about this, though.

You are sort of correct/incorrect. You tax your vassal´s full income which include the taxes he raise from his own vassals. However a duke (or any ai ruler for that matter) will never tax a feudal vassal (count).

You do however get a cut from the taxes your duke raise from his vassal mayors and bishops.

 

[ASPGolan]

I prefer to give counties of a single duchy to different persons that don't have other holding and then the duchy to the member of a renown house that doesn't have any other big titles. That way you have few direct vassals and their land is divided and well segmented. This will keep them in check since he will have to be careful to keep them peaceful. IF they don't do well and allow revolts I revoke them the duchies as soon as conditions allow it. But most of the times I try to maintain good relations with vassals and avoid taking important decision if it will push relations with too many people to a too lower level. And because of this the realm stays relatively stable and they don't revolt until they form big factions - which I also try my best to undermine.

The idea is the same: try to keep as few direct vassals as possible and reduce their power through divide-and-conquer (or rule in this case).

Also I try to keep cities in other people's counties so that I collect the tax money. No money for them will mean they'll be less likely to try to revolt or maintain large forces.