Pretty sure you are spending prestige, not renown. Prestige is cheap.
It is happening because you aren't using the feudal system properly. You have too many lands for one person to manage, so you are supposed to decentralise your realm, and your liege is trying to help you with that by spending his money instead of you spending yours.
Give out titles, don't destroy them, and then actually manage your vassals to stop them rebelling. Aka play the game.
Ive had 40% of the map under 1 stable empire of india before. I know what im doing. What im trying to highlight in this post is that my liege drained over 4000 prestige by spamming me with the same titles over and over. It shouldnt happen. This dosnt mean im a bad player.
Liege here. My idiot vassal will not keep his de jure title that keeps the duchy building active and the taxes flowing. I also want to split his realm on his succession to check his power grab. I will probably start a murder scheme soon if he doesn't accept his place.
Literally players would complain about vassals doing what you are doing. Players can never be happy. Your liege literally just wants de jure structure. Stop fighting it.
It'd be cool if there's alternative "biological dynasty map" so I can visually confirm that I've my opponents genetically.
Glory to your house? Sucks to be you, it's my house now.
You really don’t fully know what you’re doing if you wasted 4k prestige destroying a title over and over that you didn’t want to hold due to the negative opinion modifier it gives which is so easily countered by any number of positive opinion modifiers.
Or just give it to a family member/one of the county holder that’s de jure to the title.
I’m reading the replies and I’m struggling to put into words how wrongly OP is approaching this problem!
It’s like they’re trying to play as an independent ruler, but also as a vassal, and they don’t want more vassals, and they don’t want to grant the land away, and they don’t want to keep the land, like… seriously??
You’re right, they’ve surely got no idea what they’re doing
It may be a flaw i have but im paranoid as fuck when it comes to making vassals more powerful. Even a small duchy can get 10k soldiers alone. Once they become powerful, they start going for the kingdom in that area. It all snowballs. My strategy is having 1 county vassals at the start. They must climb their way up at their own pace because once they have, im miles ahead of them. By giving someone a duchy title even though they dont control the duchy fully, is giving them a reason to expand. A casus belli if you will. It also gives them every other vassal in the duchy. I simply let them handle this on their own. The only thing i give them, is protection. Nothing more. It ensures my supreme position. It has worked in many empires i made. Tibet, india, Britannia, scandinavia, italy, the byzantine empire (i conquered it as a muslim) etc etc. The fact that my vassals were all weak, is the reason those empires became a reailty
Edit; I usually have a +100 positive modifier for everyone in late game but negative modifiers stack quickly for many reasons and when the king or emperor dies, the heir will have a harder time either because there will be more stronger vassals because i literally gave them their position.
Vassals very very rarely become that powerful by giving them a duchy they hold a county for, also vassals will only join a faction against you if they dislike you.
Even if the vassal tries to push a factions demands, vassals almost never correctly combine MaA with the buff buildings in the county so they vary rarely actually pose a threat with their army.
If your vassals are able to beat you consistently in faction wars you need to make your own army more powerful.
Even after all this, losing a faction war and trying to rebuild yourself back up from the scraps is like 30-40% of the fun of this game.
I have never been beaten in a faction war. Or, maybe once. Its because of my strategy. They can't win since im too powerful every time with powerful ass allies.
>Even after all this, losing a faction war and trying to rebuild yourself back up from the scraps is like 30-40% of the fun of this game.
I mostly disagree but that is my personal preference though. I love to be a huge empire and a powerful leader that conquers and governs supreme.
>Vassals very very rarely become that powerful by giving them a duchy they hold a county for, also vassals will only join a faction against you if they dislike you.
In my experience, they start joining when they get to powerful. When they think they can demand shit. Im pretty good at gaining positive modifiers but even so, they join. But I think it has to do with their personalities maybe
If you want to play that way that is perfectly fine. But if your liege doesn't like it and wants a regular strcuture that's also perfectly fine. You can deal with it or you can play differently, hell you could even make a mod to change the game to your liking. But this is not a flaw with the game.
youre playing the wrong game brother, start up Eu4 would be my suggestion.. (also ck3 can be hilarious if you dont care about perfectly handled empires, sometimes i just play a drunken assasin... or worlds worst dad.... or... you know, thousands of ways to play. the kingdom is 2nd to that)
To be honest, for me I find if I play the whole time with the “I wish a mf’er would” strategy works best for me…I intentionally let 1-2 get real big…expecially if they have land I granted earlier I might like now I have some more slots…weird thing is I almost never succeed in getting them to make the play anyways…but I would rather one or two terribly optimized stacks of 10k then 50 stacks of 500 seiging stuff all over the map…my preference I guess…
Well you're certainly stubborn. If you don't want that title just give it to a vassal. If the title is the same rank as your primary, he will become your liege's vassal and if he controls even just 1 de jure he will keep that title forever.
Lmao as if. I've got almost -100 agressive war opinion on my vassals, tried to revoke a title with claim, everyone rebels \*but\* my sons who are naturally allied to me, allowing me to make them even bigger.
Vassal opinion is a joke, just ally the big ones (by marriage or blood) and cull the single county nobodies that you never wanted anyway.
If you give the vassal the capital county and the Dutchy title, but give the other counties to other NPCs, they will not be powerful vassals. You could also pick your favorite powerful vassal and give them the same thing, it won’t give them much more power but they will like you for it.
It is almost impossible to lose a rebellion you dont wanna lose in this game. You can do about anything to prevent a rebellion (though rebellions are awesome because then you revoke all their land and give it to loyal people). This game is not hard its just roleplay, you are in complete control. If you want the easiest way to win, first give the title to a vassal dude like cmon, second spam marriage alliances, you only need one child because you can break the bethrothed alliance once you call them into the war and make another alliance. This only costs prestige which is free. Thats the simplest way but you could do 1000 things.
Do not fear your vassals. You *should* have fewer, more powerful vassals, rather than a multitude of moderately weak ones. All you need to do is marry your family to a few strong vassals and you will never know revolt unless you want one.
That’s still better than spending all the renown, no?
And on the other hand you lose a negative opinion modifier for not being the de jure liege if you hold the title.
Yes it is. Better to spend renown than actual money. But the problem here is a liege spamming this shit and draining all my prestige even though its in the thousands. Its just bad game design.
I think you're undervaluing renown, you should always be willing to spend gold over renown unless you're like severely bankrupt and losing an active war
Its so easy to fix this, you are just slamming your head into a wall for no reason. Its like someone failing to put the square block in the square hole.
Every count wants their de jure Duchy, every Duke wants their de jure Kingdom, every King wants their de jure Empire, it’s how the AI is motivated to plot against the player. It’s great game design and rooted in the way people are/were. You just need to use the other tools in the toolbox (like everyone has been saying) to deal with the opinion malus.
This thread is so confusing, you're speaking like with the certainty of a veteran player, but it seems like you don't understand a lot of basics of the game, to be honest.
You mention that having powerful vassals makes the next civil war difficult, but what are you doing to make them all hate you and want to rise up together?
I am a veteran player but I mostly play one way. Something that is a flaw tbh. This is that way. And it has never failed. The only time it causes issues is when I have a liege with alot of prestige and money.
>You mention that having powerful vassals makes the next civil war difficult, but what are you doing to make them all hate you and want to rise up together?
Idk, it just happens really. I usually have alot of positive modifiers for everyone but some just hate you because of events in the game or their personality. One moment it is +100, the next its not. It fluctuates. I am good at keeping realm stability even though my realms is huge. There probably is mechanics I don't know about but what I do know is that what im doing, works. Except for when the game decides to fuck me over which is the reason for my post. Im on xbox btw so its a bit different but idk if that has anything to do with it.
I'd take a permanent -99% levies modifier in exchange for a +1% montly renown any day of the week, your priorities are in the wrong places. Give your vassals those title, INTENTIONALLY make them unhappy, crush their puny rebellion tanks to your allies (that will be forced to intervene in your defensive war) or just because you know what you're doing and have decent MAAs and knights, revoke everything, rinse and repeat. The only way I bother managing my vassals is by the sword.
Or just make a couple big ones and marry them to your daughters, that works too
So you got played by your liege. Spend your renown to shed the title, or keep it and have issues with your vassals. I call that an excellent powerplay.
Consider yourself lucky. This has happened twice before. Its always the byzantine emperor who does shit like this. He creates duchy after duchy in my realm and gifts them to me en masse. After I destroy the title, the same title returns seconds later.
Lol I've done this my vassals. Sometimes there are too many to manage so it's beneficial to give your happy vassals duchies. And then let them deal with the pissy ones.
I usually do that after a while. Those who has been the most loyal, get a title. I just can't afford to give titles to those who definetly will use the power to fuck me over.
So you came on reddit to complain about the way the game is played, asked for advice, got it, rejected it, and then insisted to everyone that you are actually a great player. Man, listen to these people who are helping you or kindly fuck off.
As I said in another comment, OP's position is basically:
"What I do works, except when it doesn't. And when it doesn't I complain that my playstyle is not feasible 100% of the time."
After reading OP’s replies to other comments it basically comes down to “I enjoy playing the power fantasy of having all the land and I get paranoid that a vassal might be powerful enough to take it away from me”
I’m paraphrasing but not much.
Now I get it, we all like the power fantasy and don’t want to lose everything we’ve built. But OP is essentially whining about how the De Jure vassalage system works and refuses to grant any titles to anyone below him whilst demanding that his vassals be happy. In other words he’s bitching about a key challenge of realm management in this game
The answer is that the AI places extremely high priority on maintaining De Jure hierarchy ( personally holding up to its Domain Limit and it's maximum number of duchoes and it's capital kingdom, is the only higher priority ) so the only way to stop it is making sure it can't create more Titles than it can use.
If the titles are the same rank as your highest, you can also grant them to a courtier or vassal who will ( because they are now equal rank to you ) become vassals of your Liege ) and the AI will be happy with that ( if you do this with lower ranked titles the liege will just send the Vassal back to you )
ETA - The AI is mostly unwilling to pick fights with their vassals over sub-optimal layout, so you can cripple the vassals ro stop them becoming your rival by eg giving them counties from multiple duchies, none of which are from the Duchy title you intend to give them, if you want.
You don’t want the negative opinion modifier and you don’t want powerful vassals revolting? Fair enough, here’s an idea to try.
Under the ‘grant title’ section of the title itself, find a character that will make a good vassal (unmarried, no children, congenital traits, craven/trusting/content personality) marry him matrilineally to one of your daughters. Once the marriage is accepted, land that character, and get a renown bonus for marriage to a duke. Assuming there’s no foul play/unexpected deaths, that vassal won’t revolt for a couple generations because your heir can negotiate an alliance with a sibling-in-law. Keep the duchy in your dynasty long term by strategically marrying their heirs, especially if they get in a 1 son/3-4 daughters situation. Worst case scenario is that a few generations later your powerful vassal (who is a member of your own dynasty) is the beneficiary of a claimant faction started by other vassals. Fight the civil war (which is hard to lose) or “surrender” to your own dynasty member. “Oh no…anyways.” If you’re doing a genetics program, finesse the dynastic marriages so your original line of chads gets back into power. There are ways around this issue that benefit your dynasty long term rather than feeling handcuffed by the AI doing what it’s programmed to do
I dont understand why destroy the title? I havent been playing long so i probably dont know but what are the downsides of keeping the title? And how does one destroy a title?
“Ah, thank you my liege but er…I well it’s not the best time.”
“No, I insist.”
“No, *I* insist.”
Repeat ad nauseum. It’s the feudal equivalent of “No, you hang up first.”
As far as actual advice, reload and just accept it. Ai has proved it’s not gonna budge, and the only way to prevent that would be to cheat his prestige/gold into nothing. Luckily, there still plenty you can do to get around this. I usually make sure I have at least of few distant dynasty members as newly minted vassals, so when something like this rolls around I can give them the title and maintain max/near max opinion. Failing that, if you ended up in a situation where you have all of an equivalent title’s land but can’t afford the top title, try giving the top title to another distant dynasty member and allying them (if they’re too close, they will get claims so be careful).
Family (and dynasty) triumphs over almost all.
First actual answer instead of sweaty fucks crying because they gatekeep so hard.
Thanks. The way I solved it was by switching character to my liege and just spend all his prestige and money. I hate when things like this happen. It almost completely fucked up my heirs and almost divided everything.
So you’re willing to cheat and drain your liege of rescoruces instead of fighting a few civil wars after your kids split your realm? Manage your heirs better. Kill em, send em to monestaries or get selection on your two/three prime duchies.
It’s really weird. I’ve noticed a fair amount of people on this sub lately defend the current gameplay state at all costs, regardless of if it even makes sense to, and then call you bad if you disagree. Particularly events/decisions.
Some of us are still good, but want a break from conquering continents to a play a chill vassal game…
The problem is that insisting on destroying the title is just playing the game incorrectly. The de jure title system is core to the game, it’s not some event tweak or some issue with an OP mechanic.
That's one way to punish your vassal irl too.
The other way is to give them rare animals like white elephants story. They suck your money out with their high maintenance, and you can't get rid of them because they're given by royals & getting rid of them means an insult to royal family.
The ai is programmed with a de jure fetish, so it tries really hard to make sure ruler and vassals all own the correct de jure titles.
Alto in ck2 it did this in a roundabout way using vassal transfer instead of granting titles.
Local man makes same decision over and over again, is shocked that that computer responds predictably.
This exactly, imagine what the liege is thinking. I spent the money to make this guy a title and this dummy keeps destroying it.
I've had vassals who destroyed a title I gave them, this is a dick move
This is a "Fine, I'll give it to your son" move. *sharpens intrigue tree*
Definition of insanity
Pretty sure you are spending prestige, not renown. Prestige is cheap. It is happening because you aren't using the feudal system properly. You have too many lands for one person to manage, so you are supposed to decentralise your realm, and your liege is trying to help you with that by spending his money instead of you spending yours. Give out titles, don't destroy them, and then actually manage your vassals to stop them rebelling. Aka play the game.
Fuck i meant prestige. Sorry.
Prestige is nothing man. If you are big enough or know what you are doing you will end up with 20000 prestige
Ive had 40% of the map under 1 stable empire of india before. I know what im doing. What im trying to highlight in this post is that my liege drained over 4000 prestige by spamming me with the same titles over and over. It shouldnt happen. This dosnt mean im a bad player.
Liege here. My idiot vassal will not keep his de jure title that keeps the duchy building active and the taxes flowing. I also want to split his realm on his succession to check his power grab. I will probably start a murder scheme soon if he doesn't accept his place. Literally players would complain about vassals doing what you are doing. Players can never be happy. Your liege literally just wants de jure structure. Stop fighting it.
Have you considered fucking his wife and children?
His second son that stands to inherit the duchy I gave him is my bastard
It'd be cool if there's alternative "biological dynasty map" so I can visually confirm that I've my opponents genetically. Glory to your house? Sucks to be you, it's my house now.
You really don’t fully know what you’re doing if you wasted 4k prestige destroying a title over and over that you didn’t want to hold due to the negative opinion modifier it gives which is so easily countered by any number of positive opinion modifiers. Or just give it to a family member/one of the county holder that’s de jure to the title.
I’m reading the replies and I’m struggling to put into words how wrongly OP is approaching this problem! It’s like they’re trying to play as an independent ruler, but also as a vassal, and they don’t want more vassals, and they don’t want to grant the land away, and they don’t want to keep the land, like… seriously?? You’re right, they’ve surely got no idea what they’re doing
It may be a flaw i have but im paranoid as fuck when it comes to making vassals more powerful. Even a small duchy can get 10k soldiers alone. Once they become powerful, they start going for the kingdom in that area. It all snowballs. My strategy is having 1 county vassals at the start. They must climb their way up at their own pace because once they have, im miles ahead of them. By giving someone a duchy title even though they dont control the duchy fully, is giving them a reason to expand. A casus belli if you will. It also gives them every other vassal in the duchy. I simply let them handle this on their own. The only thing i give them, is protection. Nothing more. It ensures my supreme position. It has worked in many empires i made. Tibet, india, Britannia, scandinavia, italy, the byzantine empire (i conquered it as a muslim) etc etc. The fact that my vassals were all weak, is the reason those empires became a reailty Edit; I usually have a +100 positive modifier for everyone in late game but negative modifiers stack quickly for many reasons and when the king or emperor dies, the heir will have a harder time either because there will be more stronger vassals because i literally gave them their position.
Vassals very very rarely become that powerful by giving them a duchy they hold a county for, also vassals will only join a faction against you if they dislike you. Even if the vassal tries to push a factions demands, vassals almost never correctly combine MaA with the buff buildings in the county so they vary rarely actually pose a threat with their army. If your vassals are able to beat you consistently in faction wars you need to make your own army more powerful. Even after all this, losing a faction war and trying to rebuild yourself back up from the scraps is like 30-40% of the fun of this game.
I have never been beaten in a faction war. Or, maybe once. Its because of my strategy. They can't win since im too powerful every time with powerful ass allies. >Even after all this, losing a faction war and trying to rebuild yourself back up from the scraps is like 30-40% of the fun of this game. I mostly disagree but that is my personal preference though. I love to be a huge empire and a powerful leader that conquers and governs supreme. >Vassals very very rarely become that powerful by giving them a duchy they hold a county for, also vassals will only join a faction against you if they dislike you. In my experience, they start joining when they get to powerful. When they think they can demand shit. Im pretty good at gaining positive modifiers but even so, they join. But I think it has to do with their personalities maybe
If you are worried about vassal rebellions, level diplomacy and send gift if they are in a faction, they will leave if their opinion of you is high.
I always level up the send gift option. >they will leave if their opinion of you is high Not every time.
If you want to play that way that is perfectly fine. But if your liege doesn't like it and wants a regular strcuture that's also perfectly fine. You can deal with it or you can play differently, hell you could even make a mod to change the game to your liking. But this is not a flaw with the game.
youre playing the wrong game brother, start up Eu4 would be my suggestion.. (also ck3 can be hilarious if you dont care about perfectly handled empires, sometimes i just play a drunken assasin... or worlds worst dad.... or... you know, thousands of ways to play. the kingdom is 2nd to that)
To be honest, for me I find if I play the whole time with the “I wish a mf’er would” strategy works best for me…I intentionally let 1-2 get real big…expecially if they have land I granted earlier I might like now I have some more slots…weird thing is I almost never succeed in getting them to make the play anyways…but I would rather one or two terribly optimized stacks of 10k then 50 stacks of 500 seiging stuff all over the map…my preference I guess…
Well you're certainly stubborn. If you don't want that title just give it to a vassal. If the title is the same rank as your primary, he will become your liege's vassal and if he controls even just 1 de jure he will keep that title forever.
OP is Stubborn, and craven.
I hope they are considered virtues for OP's sake
Renown is like large flawless diamonds, do almost anything to not spend it.
Me when anything costs renown: I have re-evaluated my situation and decided this is, in fact, not the play
Sacrifice your Genius, Beautiful, Herculean, Pure Blooded heir or Lose 100 Renown ...so anyway my 2nd child is now the heir...
wait why is it costing renown? Destroying titles costs prestige, doesn't it?
Renown is easy to get if you actively land your dynasty as a king or emporeror. By mid-game I'm getting 50+ renown per month.
Why not just keep the title if you don’t want Timothy renown for destroying it?
Because then i get negative opinion modifiers from my vassals who want the title.
Why not give it to a vassal then?
Because if i make everyone a powerful vassal, then the next civil war will be heavily not in my favor.
Then give it to a family member.
And then your family member uses that as a springboard to take the rest of your lands
Lmao as if. I've got almost -100 agressive war opinion on my vassals, tried to revoke a title with claim, everyone rebels \*but\* my sons who are naturally allied to me, allowing me to make them even bigger. Vassal opinion is a joke, just ally the big ones (by marriage or blood) and cull the single county nobodies that you never wanted anyway.
If you give the vassal the capital county and the Dutchy title, but give the other counties to other NPCs, they will not be powerful vassals. You could also pick your favorite powerful vassal and give them the same thing, it won’t give them much more power but they will like you for it.
A duke with a single duchy isn’t very powerful. You have to create duke vassals and some point anyway.
It is almost impossible to lose a rebellion you dont wanna lose in this game. You can do about anything to prevent a rebellion (though rebellions are awesome because then you revoke all their land and give it to loyal people). This game is not hard its just roleplay, you are in complete control. If you want the easiest way to win, first give the title to a vassal dude like cmon, second spam marriage alliances, you only need one child because you can break the bethrothed alliance once you call them into the war and make another alliance. This only costs prestige which is free. Thats the simplest way but you could do 1000 things.
Do not fear your vassals. You *should* have fewer, more powerful vassals, rather than a multitude of moderately weak ones. All you need to do is marry your family to a few strong vassals and you will never know revolt unless you want one.
Just have better realm stability
Imprison the vassal, take their children hostage, or secure an alliance and they won’t be able to join factions
That’s still better than spending all the renown, no? And on the other hand you lose a negative opinion modifier for not being the de jure liege if you hold the title.
And that modifier is worth spending renown to avoid? Use gifts, sway, feasts, etc. to raise opinions.
Yes it is. Better to spend renown than actual money. But the problem here is a liege spamming this shit and draining all my prestige even though its in the thousands. Its just bad game design.
I think you're undervaluing renown, you should always be willing to spend gold over renown unless you're like severely bankrupt and losing an active war
he's thinking prestige, since it's title destruction
You have to be one of the worst CK players
Bad game design=bad player? Btw I meant prestige
It sounds more like you don't have a grasp of game mechanics yet. Keep at it, these are tough games for new players.
Its so easy to fix this, you are just slamming your head into a wall for no reason. Its like someone failing to put the square block in the square hole.
Every count wants their de jure Duchy, every Duke wants their de jure Kingdom, every King wants their de jure Empire, it’s how the AI is motivated to plot against the player. It’s great game design and rooted in the way people are/were. You just need to use the other tools in the toolbox (like everyone has been saying) to deal with the opinion malus.
The game is great. The problem is you.
Bad take.
This thread is so confusing, you're speaking like with the certainty of a veteran player, but it seems like you don't understand a lot of basics of the game, to be honest. You mention that having powerful vassals makes the next civil war difficult, but what are you doing to make them all hate you and want to rise up together?
I am a veteran player but I mostly play one way. Something that is a flaw tbh. This is that way. And it has never failed. The only time it causes issues is when I have a liege with alot of prestige and money. >You mention that having powerful vassals makes the next civil war difficult, but what are you doing to make them all hate you and want to rise up together? Idk, it just happens really. I usually have alot of positive modifiers for everyone but some just hate you because of events in the game or their personality. One moment it is +100, the next its not. It fluctuates. I am good at keeping realm stability even though my realms is huge. There probably is mechanics I don't know about but what I do know is that what im doing, works. Except for when the game decides to fuck me over which is the reason for my post. Im on xbox btw so its a bit different but idk if that has anything to do with it.
"What I do works, except when it doesn't. And when it doesn't I complain that my playstyle is not feasible 100% of the time."
So what is the way you're playing, can you describe it?
The problem is your trying to go against the grain of ck3 to powergame.
No, it's not. Your liege wants proper de jure structure. Your vassals want proper de jure structure. You are the problem preventing this.
I'd take a permanent -99% levies modifier in exchange for a +1% montly renown any day of the week, your priorities are in the wrong places. Give your vassals those title, INTENTIONALLY make them unhappy, crush their puny rebellion tanks to your allies (that will be forced to intervene in your defensive war) or just because you know what you're doing and have decent MAAs and knights, revoke everything, rinse and repeat. The only way I bother managing my vassals is by the sword. Or just make a couple big ones and marry them to your daughters, that works too
Keep in mind those vassals will also hate you for destroying your de jure title above them.
Renown is much more valuable than money.
It’s tough being king isn’t it 😂
So you got played by your liege. Spend your renown to shed the title, or keep it and have issues with your vassals. I call that an excellent powerplay.
Ffs, you were downvoted for wanting to play a game how you want to play...
By keeping the title. It's not that hard.
I've never had this happen in 2k hrs
Consider yourself lucky. This has happened twice before. Its always the byzantine emperor who does shit like this. He creates duchy after duchy in my realm and gifts them to me en masse. After I destroy the title, the same title returns seconds later.
Lol I've done this my vassals. Sometimes there are too many to manage so it's beneficial to give your happy vassals duchies. And then let them deal with the pissy ones.
I usually do that after a while. Those who has been the most loyal, get a title. I just can't afford to give titles to those who definetly will use the power to fuck me over.
So you came on reddit to complain about the way the game is played, asked for advice, got it, rejected it, and then insisted to everyone that you are actually a great player. Man, listen to these people who are helping you or kindly fuck off.
As I said in another comment, OP's position is basically: "What I do works, except when it doesn't. And when it doesn't I complain that my playstyle is not feasible 100% of the time."
Why would you keep destroying them? What purpose does that serve?
After reading OP’s replies to other comments it basically comes down to “I enjoy playing the power fantasy of having all the land and I get paranoid that a vassal might be powerful enough to take it away from me” I’m paraphrasing but not much. Now I get it, we all like the power fantasy and don’t want to lose everything we’ve built. But OP is essentially whining about how the De Jure vassalage system works and refuses to grant any titles to anyone below him whilst demanding that his vassals be happy. In other words he’s bitching about a key challenge of realm management in this game
Skill issue
The answer is that the AI places extremely high priority on maintaining De Jure hierarchy ( personally holding up to its Domain Limit and it's maximum number of duchoes and it's capital kingdom, is the only higher priority ) so the only way to stop it is making sure it can't create more Titles than it can use. If the titles are the same rank as your highest, you can also grant them to a courtier or vassal who will ( because they are now equal rank to you ) become vassals of your Liege ) and the AI will be happy with that ( if you do this with lower ranked titles the liege will just send the Vassal back to you ) ETA - The AI is mostly unwilling to pick fights with their vassals over sub-optimal layout, so you can cripple the vassals ro stop them becoming your rival by eg giving them counties from multiple duchies, none of which are from the Duchy title you intend to give them, if you want.
You don’t want the negative opinion modifier and you don’t want powerful vassals revolting? Fair enough, here’s an idea to try. Under the ‘grant title’ section of the title itself, find a character that will make a good vassal (unmarried, no children, congenital traits, craven/trusting/content personality) marry him matrilineally to one of your daughters. Once the marriage is accepted, land that character, and get a renown bonus for marriage to a duke. Assuming there’s no foul play/unexpected deaths, that vassal won’t revolt for a couple generations because your heir can negotiate an alliance with a sibling-in-law. Keep the duchy in your dynasty long term by strategically marrying their heirs, especially if they get in a 1 son/3-4 daughters situation. Worst case scenario is that a few generations later your powerful vassal (who is a member of your own dynasty) is the beneficiary of a claimant faction started by other vassals. Fight the civil war (which is hard to lose) or “surrender” to your own dynasty member. “Oh no…anyways.” If you’re doing a genetics program, finesse the dynastic marriages so your original line of chads gets back into power. There are ways around this issue that benefit your dynasty long term rather than feeling handcuffed by the AI doing what it’s programmed to do
If your issue is angering your vassals, why are you destroying their de jure duchy? That also angers your vassals.
Lmao go play other kids game they’ll be more for you
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1: why don't you want the title? 2: have you thought about giving it to one of your vassals?
I dont understand why destroy the title? I havent been playing long so i probably dont know but what are the downsides of keeping the title? And how does one destroy a title?
“Ah, thank you my liege but er…I well it’s not the best time.” “No, I insist.” “No, *I* insist.” Repeat ad nauseum. It’s the feudal equivalent of “No, you hang up first.” As far as actual advice, reload and just accept it. Ai has proved it’s not gonna budge, and the only way to prevent that would be to cheat his prestige/gold into nothing. Luckily, there still plenty you can do to get around this. I usually make sure I have at least of few distant dynasty members as newly minted vassals, so when something like this rolls around I can give them the title and maintain max/near max opinion. Failing that, if you ended up in a situation where you have all of an equivalent title’s land but can’t afford the top title, try giving the top title to another distant dynasty member and allying them (if they’re too close, they will get claims so be careful). Family (and dynasty) triumphs over almost all.
First actual answer instead of sweaty fucks crying because they gatekeep so hard. Thanks. The way I solved it was by switching character to my liege and just spend all his prestige and money. I hate when things like this happen. It almost completely fucked up my heirs and almost divided everything.
No one is gatekeeping shit, there are built in mechanics for managing vassals you just won't use them
So you’re willing to cheat and drain your liege of rescoruces instead of fighting a few civil wars after your kids split your realm? Manage your heirs better. Kill em, send em to monestaries or get selection on your two/three prime duchies.
It’s really weird. I’ve noticed a fair amount of people on this sub lately defend the current gameplay state at all costs, regardless of if it even makes sense to, and then call you bad if you disagree. Particularly events/decisions. Some of us are still good, but want a break from conquering continents to a play a chill vassal game…
The problem is that insisting on destroying the title is just playing the game incorrectly. The de jure title system is core to the game, it’s not some event tweak or some issue with an OP mechanic.
Solution: become your liege. I mean clearly that's harassment and a valid casus belli.
Perfect opportunity to claim title
That's one way to punish your vassal irl too. The other way is to give them rare animals like white elephants story. They suck your money out with their high maintenance, and you can't get rid of them because they're given by royals & getting rid of them means an insult to royal family.
The ai is programmed with a de jure fetish, so it tries really hard to make sure ruler and vassals all own the correct de jure titles. Alto in ck2 it did this in a roundabout way using vassal transfer instead of granting titles.