should i have dukes?

**Heinz Guderian** · August 07, 2012, 01:58 PM

What are the advantages of creating a duchy and giving that title out? i understand i can only have two before my vassals start getting upset so as i progress i get the option to usurp/create a duchy and then i give them to a nice guy. 10 years down the road mr. nice guy is leading a war of independence against me. should i not create them? what are the advantages of having 3 or 4 dukes in your kingdom compared to having all one-county vassals?

**General Brewster** · August 07, 2012, 02:13 PM

I wish to know this too

**Cúchulainn** · August 07, 2012, 03:11 PM

It's the divisions of power that allow greater simplicity.

If you only have counties then they will over time create their own duchy.
They will then have -25 relations for every de jure county that is not under their control either directly or through vassalage. It's best if you give them the duchy for the relation bonus.

Now if after 10 years you're having rebellions every time make sure that each duchy contains it's de jure counties, and don't give duchies to family members unless they don't have a claim on your title.

Every duchy should belong to only one noble.

**Ishoss** · August 07, 2012, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by Heinz Guderian

What are the advantages of creating a duchy and giving that title out? i understand i can only have two before my vassals start getting upset so as i progress i get the option to usurp/create a duchy and then i give them to a nice guy. 10 years down the road mr. nice guy is leading a war of independence against me. should i not create them? what are the advantages of having 3 or 4 dukes in your kingdom compared to having all one-county vassals?

If I have few counties in the realm then I like to control them all myself. If I start as a Duke the first thing I do is to get direct control of my Duchy, i.e grabbing all the counties. It's easy if you're aggresive. The first 10-12 counties should be administrated by you. Anways, answering your question:

One county vassals bites you in the ass down the line. Essentially, the fewer direct vassals you have to keep in line the better! Throughout a century that nice little dynasty you gave one small holding could have been up to all kind of mischiefs. They could have conquered other counties, inherited some, created their own fricking Ducal title and so on. Essentially having a lot of weak vassals gives oppurtunity for everyone to upset the power balance of your kingdom. This should happen fairly often, so you would have to take offensive actions against a lot of counts during your reign. This will cost you your reputation and lead to further revolts.

You can say 1 duke can hold 5 counties. This means that in order to keep 5 counties in line you have to manipulate 1 man instead of 5. This is easier and cheaper.

Edit: And I forgot to mention the relation hit you get for holding territory your vassals wants to hold...

**ccllnply** · August 07, 2012, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by Ishoss

If I have few counties in the realm then I like to control them all myself. If I start as a Duke the first thing I do is to get direct control of my Duchy, i.e grabbing all the counties. It's easy if you're aggresive. The first 10-12 counties should be administrated by you. Anways, answering your question:

One county vassals bites you in the ass down the line. Essentially, the fewer direct vassals you have to keep in line the better! Throughout a century that nice little dynasty you gave one small holding could have been up to all kind of mischiefs. They could have conquered other counties, inherited some, created their own fricking Ducal title and so on. Essentially having a lot of weak vassals gives oppurtunity for everyone to upset the power balance of your kingdom. This should happen fairly often, so you would have to take offensive actions against a lot of counts during your reign. This will cost you your reputation and lead to further revolts.

You can say 1 duke can hold 5 counties. This means that in order to keep 5 counties in line you have to manipulate 1 man instead of 5. This is easier and cheaper.

Edit: And I forgot to mention the relation hit you get for holding territory your vassals wants to hold...

Although one might argue that having a lot of weak vassals is better than having a few strong ones

**Ishoss** · August 09, 2012, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by ccllnply

Although one might argue that having a lot of weak vassals is better than having a few strong ones

I find it a lot easier to hinder large power blocs forming if I have few, strong vassals. Just got to make sure to have a majority of friends amongst them. It's also important to keep in mind that at some point you'll have to smack 'em down, for example if they're starting to inherit titles they should not be inheriting.

I think that a bloc is a bloc. What amount of vassals it consists of is irrelevant. It's strength that matters. A bloc consisting of 20 counts is harder to weaken than a bloc consisting of 5 dukes. 1 duke = 4 counts in strength (In my example). So what's easiest, keeping one duke happy or four counts?

**Heinz Guderian** · August 09, 2012, 01:35 PM

thanks for the info guys. i think its easier to manage the empire with several county dukes compared to one county lords. it takes alot more gold to influence them, but you have other ways such as council positions, guardianship, honorary titles which gives more bang for your buck when you give it to a duke cos its spread over several counties.

**Ciabhán** · August 09, 2012, 09:08 PM

First play through I actually usurped/revoked or in some way took every title in my entire realm. Had no vassals and a massive personal levy but it took a lot of micromanagement and I had a lot of commoner revolts. Lot of angry but mostly powerless courtiers and every one of my rulers got himself assassinated pretty quickly too.

Now I tend to save a powerful duchy for my heir. Give out counties to dynastic relatives and baronies at most to anyone else.

**Border Patrol** · August 10, 2012, 05:43 AM

My first playthrough I got stompied by some Jihadists in about ten years, so you've done a deal better than me I'd say. Still working on that intrigue thing, I mostly just go total war on the map still. As for that duchies dilemma I usually pick the king of a nonexistant kingdom like Navarre or Africa and usually build up from there so I can divy up the land as I see fit and only give out a handful of duchies to families I foresee having my back and bringing pie to our PTA meetings. Seriously

those guys that don't bring noms.

**Rinan** · August 11, 2012, 11:47 AM

Sorry if I hijack the thread: I'm playing the Byzantine Emperor myself and I'm considering whether I should create kingdoms and hand them out to vassals. Right now I have like.... More than 15 dukes and some counts to take care of, so having some kings to take care of them would be handy. On the other hand, kings can become quite powerful. Say the king of Bulgaria would posses about 1/5 of my empire. I'm considering to do it anyway just for roleplaying reasons. Besides, might spice my game up a little, my difficulty is 0%: 'pointless'

**Cúchulainn** · August 12, 2012, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by Rinan

Sorry if I hijack the thread: I'm playing the Byzantine Emperor myself and I'm considering whether I should create kingdoms and hand them out to vassals. Right now I have like.... More than 15 dukes and some counts to take care of, so having some kings to take care of them would be handy. On the other hand, kings can become quite powerful. Say the king of Bulgaria would posses about 1/5 of my empire. I'm considering to do it anyway just for roleplaying reasons. Besides, might spice my game up a little, my difficulty is 0%: 'pointless'

Never EVER hand out kingdoms when emperor.

One they will declare war on you at every opportunity and you will never be able to change any laws especially crown court, they stand to lose the most.

Your difficulty is 0% because your emperor is alive, wait till that changes, dukes will openly revolt and will probably get invaded by your neighbours who will win and steal that land from you, or you will win the rebellions and then get invaded and have no one to stop it.

Look forwarded to it.

Historically if I'm right there were never any kingdoms within Byzantium.

**Rinan** · August 13, 2012, 05:04 PM

^There indeed weren't any kingdoms historically in the Byzantine Empire. I decided to do it anyway in my game. And here's why:

At one point my old ruler died, and my heir was my son who had resided his whole life at the Hungarian court. As a consequence, his culture was Hungarian and his religion catholic. When he came to power, pretty much everyone hated me. And before I knew it, half the country was in revolt against me. More would have revolted against me, had I not established two kingdoms with my available piety. By establishing the Bulgarian kingdom and the Anatolian kingdom I had two vassals, the kings, really liking me, and all the angry dukes now firm under their vassalage, so they would not rebel against me. It effectively saved my empire. Right now it consists of the kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Anatolia and Sicily. Needless to say, I'm not giving the kingdom of Greece away!

By the way, 50 years later and the difficulty is still "pointless".

The next succession should be flawless. Only the four kings and a few Greek dukes form any threat, and only if they rebel at the same time. And I have enough money to bribe them.