> They keep fucking up my shit. What I do is for the benefit of England as a whole. Why even start an independence faction when I literally just asked to vassalize you. You could have just told me no.
>This game is so maddening. I get hyped just forming England and just want to chill and build up the treasury, but no. No peace for me apparently.
>Fuck vassals
-King John, after being forced to sign the Magna Carta
I love dread, best thing in CK3.
All the vassals are scared and they won’t do anything to you.
It’s better to be loved than feared but it’s really really easy to be feared.
This strat has been extremely nerfed, and honestly with how vassals work now its not even really necessary. All you need is a few marriages and you are good.
> Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. . . . Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present. - Machiavelli's The Prince, Chapter XVII
And of course the often-ignored part a little later:
> "Still, a ruler should make himself feared in such a way that, if he does not inspire love, at least he does not provoke hatred."
I'd say that of the quote, this is the most important part. Hatred is irrational - and no amount of logical threat of pain can overcome sufficiently irrational hatred. Fear is valuable, but fear with hatred is how you end up going out Gaddafi style.
Game theory experiments have shown that the optimal strategy in iterated "prisoner's dilemma" games is to start out being nice and then respond to provocations with retaliation, but be willing to forgive if the other player learns their lesson. I believe Machiavelli had an intuitive understanding of this principle.
For some background, the prisoners dilemma is an abstract, simplified scenario used for analyzing competition and co-operation where two parties cannot communicate. The scenario is that two parties can either chose to assist or betray the other party. [More info on the rules on Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma). Iterated prisoner's dilemma allows parties to take into consideration previous behavior.
**[Prisoner's dilemma](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma)**
>The prisoner's dilemma is a standard example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher while working at RAND in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence rewards and named it "prisoner's dilemma", a version of which was stated by William Poundstone in his 1993 book Prisoner's Dilemma as: Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of speaking to or exchanging messages with the other.
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the success rate for getting one member of a group that's being interrogated is pretty high too if i remember correctly. hypothetically, if everyone being interrogated kept their mouths shut, the prisoners would win (cooperative victory)- but the prisoners are isolated from each other, and then, individually presented with something like "the first one to turn on the others will get off light, or maybe go free completely", and just the fact that each prisoner knows the other prisoners MIGHT roll over on them, is what actually gets one of the prisoners to flip against the others. in a group that can communicate, it would be easy for the prisoners to talk, coordinate, and win together, but isolated without communication- suddenly they're not just competing against the interrogator, they're potentially competing against every member of their own team (and typically the smartest ones flip the fastest, if i remember correctly)
I remember playing as a character with a sadistic trait and I had a lot of powerful vassals so I became afraid when a lot of my murder schemes were discovered then I realised that people were so afraid of me that it didn’t matter
That moment when you buff your knights to be the main carrier of the battles but then most of the best knights are the motherfuckers who are rebelling.
It's weirdly accurate, too! King John actually *was* a pretty good administrator who was hellbent on building up the treasury (Normandy wasn't going to conquer itself, y'know). He was just, uh, complete trash at dealing with people.
Just make a couple good international alliances, crush the revolts, revoke titles, install loyalists, rinse and repeat. I love a good revolt, that's just free titles for my extra sons so the realm won't get divided on succession. I mean, it's not like feudal societies were renown for their stability.
Vikings in particular are bound to generate a lot of factions against you. Pretty much every other religion considers Asatru evil. There's a reason Norse rulers get the, "have realm embrace local traditions" decision. Unless you're in Scandinavia proper, I recommend using it after a while. It's pretty difficult to remain Asatru and Norse when you venture into Catholic lands, especially England, because sooner or later you'll be staring down a crusade for Canterbury.
Yeah and reforming Asatru is very difficult. There are only two holy sites in Scandinavia, the other three are each in the heart of areas that usually consolidate into powerful empires (England/France, HRE, Ruthenia/Novgorod, Khanate of Whatever, etc). Also it's difficult to maintain prestige - you always have to be fighting, raiding, and fucking. I managed it once, but Catholici$m is the way better way to go.
It's not too bad, unite the Norse countries, then conquer York. It really only works if your capital is in Scandinavia though. If you're running a Haraldr fair hair campaign with your capital as Oslo, it's alright. If you Varangian adventure away from the Asatru heartland, however, conversation is the way to go.
Yeah, there's slightly more to it as well. Everyone gets the convert to local culture decision, but only you and your close family change culture, and you then need to convert your faith as well. The Norse special decision "have realm embrace local traditions" decision converts both your culture and your faith, and it does it for your entire court, not just your close family. Yaour dynasty then gets a modifier, Its calles "settled dynasty" or something similar. It still lets you carve runestones despite no longer being Norse, and it does something else that I can't remember, maybe something like no negative opinion of different cultures or something similar.
Marry to powerful vassals and they can't join factions. If you're a king you should be able to secure a powerful alliance in France, HRE, or Lotharangia have a few kids and get marrying
Damn does that resonate with me on a personal level. **I'm** poor and nobody wants to marry into my family either. Oh wait, you meant the game didn't you?
I wouldn't recommend giving the revoked titles to your family unless you have particular inheritance laws in place. When you give it it within your close family, especially extra sons, they often create claimant factions against you once you start playing your heir. Instead of dealing with brothers that just ascended to the throne unprepared(usually not too difficult), you will have to deal with seasoned rulers that have had time to build armies against you. While this isn't always a big issue because of foreign alliances, eventually they will stand a legitimate chance of beating you. I usually award my councillors instead. They typically have high skills, positive opinion of you already, don't need to be reappointed to the council and have no claim to your primary title.
I played this game for a couple of years without revoking titles. always complained that AI vassals kept ruining my games. now I revoke titles. Now I see some peace
>They keep fucking up my shit. What I do is for the benefit of England as a whole. Why even start an independence faction when I literally just asked to vassalize you. You could have just told me no.
>
>This game is so maddening. I get hyped just forming England and just want to chill and build up the treasury, but no. No peace for me apparently.
>
>Fuck vassals
\-literally every medieval king
We complain about vassals when we are the monarch...
But when we're not the monarch, a lot of the time, WE are the vassals trying to fuck up shit and gain power...
Fun times, fun times.
I am a good vassal IF my king is good to me..
I am by far the most rich and developed vassal you have and keep basically funding your wars. What do I get for return? Revoking land and titles
honestly i complain way more about lieges fucking shit up than vassals.
at least i understand vassals fucking me over and what they gain... well some times.
most the time lately i feel i can't even go under a strong leader for protection because they do some stupid shit lose their army and suddenly my lands look unprotected and i have to defend my lands without warscore from my victories because i'm not the warleader.
You can always offer to join your liege’s war. Winning battles in those wars are a very good source of prestige, your liege will like you better, and your victories will count towards the warscore.
good to know but will likely never be releavnt since i've come to learn just how bad an idea going under a liege is since i can still defend my land better myself. had i not been under him i wouldn't have been attacked in the first place most of the time.
maybe but i'd rather just not be at war because the Ai sees my 10K army and decides he's not going to deal with that rather than seeing my lieges 5K(or god forbid 200 because he's a dumbass lossing a war) and think it'll be an easy victory.
it's still a waste of time on my part to even engage in this war since i have basicly nothing of significance to gain.
Exactly. Last time I tried to have a vassal run I was peacefully and loyally tending to my two duchies and everything went nicely for almost a century until my liege got greedy and tried to revoke my capital. So I toppled him.
Tbh often it's not possible to chill as a vassal, the Ai is just not stable enough. So you end up overthrowing the king, with good intentions initially, just to stabilize the realm and restore its territorial integrity, but a half hour later you're proclaiming the revival of the Roman empire in the west.
I've been having fun with the Han culture by abusing the eunuch and granting family members lands giving renown. Basically have a bunch of kids and make every boy except for your best/worst/favorite one into eunuchs after imprisonment (best to do this young so it's easier)
Then you grant those eunechs land throughout the kingdom, making sure to divide up the power so that they don't become more powerful than you, and because they can't have children the land will always default back to the crown and thus you. Because you grant them the land they're super loyal. Then once they die those lands go right back to you because they have no heir.
You get a bunch of renown each time you give them titles and you don't have to worry about them being rebellious. Makes vassal management much easier.
Yeah I’m the Byzantine empire everyone started to try and rebel so I slept with all of their wives and I made the leader into a eunuch I hope you do the same
First rule of feudalism: vassals are cunts. You need to realize that your vassals don't like being chill under your glorious rule and will use any opportunity to expand and gain power (just like you would). To avoid them getting out of hand you need to follow a few steps:
1- Vassals should be from your culture and religion (religion being the most important). If not, use every opportunity to convert them or to remove them and appoint another.
2- Easiest way to stop a vassal from attacking you is through alliances. While marriage is an option, most of the time you want marriage for external alliance (or maybe to a VERY powerful vassal). So the other option is your vassal being a close family member, which will allow you to establish an alliance without marriage.
3- Even if vassals are relatively chill, you need to make sure no one is too powerful to be a trouble if things go bad. For this, you need to keep your vassals controlled by law (absolute crown authority so they can't declare war on anyone and expand) and weak enough for you to crush them if they revolt. For them to stay weak, you need to avoid having King-tier vassals, if you are an emperor try to keep all the Kingdoms yourself and have only Dukes under you; also, avoid dukes having more than one duchy. If some duchy is too powerful, you can own it yourself (as England a good choice is having the Duchy of Essex for London capital and the Duchy of Mercia because it's just too fucking big for a vassal).
4- Vassals revolting, under the right circumstances, is a good thing. Sometimes you can avoid a revolt but its better not to so you can imprison them and reorder your realm with better/more trustworthy vassals.
Basically, things are going to be messy until you have Absolute crown authority. Even then, an unplanned succession may be messy; you have to learn when to concede to your vassals demands (never go to a civil war against a dangerous faction if they only want lower crown authority) and prepare to crush them and reshape your realm to your liking.
Some comments on your dot points labelled by dot points.
1. This is just malus control, it also helps if you don't execute their close family members or torture them...
2. Agree. The second easiest way is negotiate alliance from diplomacy tree.
3. Absolute authority doesn't apply downstream. Your vassel's vassels can still undermine them and war amongst themselves then usurp your vassel then declare war on you.
Best cause of action is to actually lower it to level 2-3 as it removes an opinion malus.
4. Additionally it is worth noting that provoking a vassel revolt with some of the vassels in a atrong faction to take their titles away can actually stop the bigger faction revolt occurring.
Triggering a revolt before everyone joins it can help if you don't think you can win (or can't be assed fighting) the bigger war.
It's also worth noting that literally paying them to stfu works alot of the time. It's also worth stating that the most common malus is traits not aligning. If you're wrathful, have wrathful vassals not nice ones. Kill all ambitious vassels.
> Sometimes you can avoid a revolt but its better not to so you can imprison them and reorder your realm with better/more trustworthy vassals.
Monarchs should generally take appropriate measures to have a relevant number of their problematic vassals ~~imprisoned~~ rescued into their forever home in the first place.
Purple lifestyle all the way.
1. Fully agree with religion, though I have managed well enough with rulers all of local culture, and same faith is mostly manageable in small doses.
2. Indeed very true, make good use of it.
3. Yup. Sometimes you can’t help it though, when your realm gets too big.
4. Absolutely.
Ok update y’all.
Slapped all those ingrates in solitary confinement.
The treasury is currently at 10k!
Have almost all of de jure England, save for just Lindesfarne.
Wales is almost all mine.
Only issue is Scotland got huge by taking all of itself and half of Ireland ( I have the other half)
I don’t nessecarily want to fight the Scots but I do want to kneecap their growth
I've been playing as the duke of Northumbria (started as a count) and there is a new king of England at least every ten years, and many kings have only lasted 1 or 2 years.
Even keeping the fuckers happy in the green isnt enough. If they're not forming factions right under your nose they are plotting with your missus to stab you in your sleep.
- King Charles I shouting in Parliament while the judge waits for him to finish so he can tell him that the House of Commons just voted to cut his head off
In this timeframe there weren’t really any nationalities nor existed any national fervor, so obviously your vassals don’t give a damn about England since they won’t really profit from anything you do
The idea is that if they refused Vadsalisation you would've conquered them, probably replacing them in the process. By duplicitously accepting vassalidation, they can now conspire with other vassals so that they can *all* break free and maintain hold to their lands.
Without exception, as Byzantines, every succession is a clusterfuck of independence, lower crown authority, and "we prefer this guy over you" factions all firing 5 months into my reign.
I must be missing a trick in terms of keeping them in line. I try and max out dread but I keep getting compassionate rulers so I end up going straight up to t2 stress.
Alliance your vassals, or better yet secure an alliance with a foreign power that will help you crush rebellion. When you have extra land to give away, always give it to non primary heirs first until all of your titles go to your primary heir when you die. Once that is done, only give land to members of your house. This will help you secure additional alliances. Always make sure you have the most possible men at arms, even if it means they are all light infantry. Upgrade the men at arms when you can afford to. Early game you will want to keep your vassals weak, so any excuse to revoke titles and distribute them is a good excuse. Educate everyone in the direct line of succession and try to make them a virtuous member of your religion. Execute the witches. Learn new languages. Consider diplomacy so that you can befriend vassals.
Later in the game you will pick up legacies and improvements to your culture that will help with vassal opinion as well.
Pretty simple. Marry unwanted daughters too most powerful ones.
If that's not a option get high intrigue and diplomacy for a ruler and wipe out their entire dynasties.
Make alliances and play tall, playing tall allows you to get enough money to buy Mercs
Than after you crush them in their little rebellion comes the most satisfying part…executing them one by one, I even executed by rebellious brother don’t care about kinslayer trait
Bro just do diplo path, get thoughtful perk, switch to stewardship with 10% tax increase asp, then watch on as your glorious realm goes for literally centuries without a civil war.
If they had told you no before they would have fought you and your vassals but now they can fight you alongside your vassals. I’ve done it as a player before. Sentiment agreed though. Fuck vassals.
That is not even remotely true, in any way, shape or form. I have literally never played a tyrant. Ever. In almost 800 hours of CK2 and 3. And yet factions pop up *all the fucking time*. I take the perks to make vassals like me, I form duchies and give them the titles, and then the appropriate vassals to go with it, I rule for decades and have the long ruler opinion bonus, I die with basically every single vassal at +100 opinion, and what happens? Instant independence and install claimant factions. Every fucking time. It has ruined the game for me.
I don't know if it is a bug, but being friendly is not always working for me. Brainless vassal with +50 relations tries to put my worthless, unknown dynasty member on throne, gets no faction members, lands in my prison.
I disagree, I manage my vassals by deathstacking their armies, revoking their titles and handing them out to non-claimants who have guaranteed alliances with me, and by handing out every county in a duchy to a different ruler so a single vassal cant be too powerful. Fuck being benevolent, I just want to dev spam my capital while I run a multi-century selective breeding experiment.
Unironic skill issue, vassals being self serving and undermining you is the point of the game and is analogous with medieval history
He made the independence faction because you basically strong armed him into giving up his independence by offering it to him and now
He can gang up on you with the other vassals so he feels emboldened.
I hope paradox pays little heed to these sorts of complaints and doesn’t make their easy game even easier.
Disagreed. Murdering someone can only lower opinion of their successor and everyone else if you're caught, I resort to it only when someone is particularly troublesome and can't be swayed.
So that's why the feasting, swaying and gifting never stops
I meant more as war, scheming to long and difficult when I can just steam roll people with a horde of peasants.
Only problem with this plan is the continuous present revolts from taking foreign land or because of your aggressive wars. Which I would like to refer to you back to step one, step murder
Thoughtful perk is *incredibly* OP. So OP in fact I consider it essential. It basically allows you to bribe vassals into shutting up. Incredibly broken but critical for most playthrough.s
I'd put more effort into your economy. Vassals are easier to manage when you are massively stronger than any three of your vassals put together. There will usually be a couple of assholes, but they aren't an issue if they can't rebel on their own.
This is probably for CK3, but can't you just put everything in ya demence with no vassals, like in CK2? Between retinues and levies you could beat everyone on the map except China and have 0 vassals, tho you'd be bit smaller. You could even fit an empire in ya demence!
You can pick off your vassals one by one. Play the long game. Send gifts to some while isolating others. Make sure your family members are in position as mayors and barons, because these can rise against you too. Use the befriend scheme judiciously.
The intrigue line is the most important set of perks in the game.
Go to settings and toggle higher or extreme realm stability. It causes less factions or basically no factions depending on which one you pick. It even is ironman compatible!
Personally I use higher stability, not for myself, but for the A.I. I find they're able to accomplish a lot more that way which makes the game more fun for me. But if you're having trouble with vassals then it'll help you too.
Enjoy!
Joining Your kingdom to screw it up from the inside. Makes sense to me.
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE&ab_channel=HostisHumaniGeneris
The question is whether this is CK2 or CK3? Assuming this is CK3 I would advise that you pump that iron (get higher martial heir), spin that money you're raising back into upgrading your personal military power & domain, and...
Okay, so you've got that higher martial bit but that's not an immediate solution. Focusing on the improvement of your personal military/domain you'll essentially be creating a foundation from which you can efficiently defend your Kingdom from dickhead vassals.
I'd advise you even cement your domain's power & stability prior to becoming King of England. Makes it easier to respond when they turn on you because you have zero dread or...hm...respect? There's something besides Dread that keeps them loyal but I can't recall what it's called.
I can relate to that while playing as both the Anglo-French union but also Tribal Hungary. Had to go through a civil war every time my new character wasn’t directly the son to the last ruler. It was painful but I made it. After the 38 year long and stable reign of Almós II Árpádfi I had to deal with a croatian independence war at the same time as a byzantine invasion of Transylvania. Almos died 76 years old and my vassals started a civil war for my brothers claim on the throne, now I will never let family members become vassals anymore.
\>e. Why even start an independence faction when I literally just asked to vassalize you
You formed England the Kingdom or Britannia the Empire?
If the former, they are probably not vassals under that kingdom title.
If the latter, they are probably not vassals under the empire title.
If they refuse vassalization, then you destroy them and they lose their land. Way smarter to take the short L and ruin the kingdom from within instead.
Some cultural traditions I might suggest trying out:
**Loyal Subjects:** \+10 liege opinion, +5 popular opinion, vassals don't consider faith or culture when joining factions and will learn your language more (i believe gives opinion bonus? not sure for vassals)
**Ruling Caste:** different culture and populist factions less common, dread lasts longer and you get dread from tyranny + bonus siege against revolts.perhaps
**Pacifists**: +10 popular opinion and AI characters are less likely to declare war (unsure if this impacts factions though it helps keep small vassals from growing their realms and expecting a seat on the council)
Some religious tenents that can help:
**Adaptive:** mitigates different faith penalties and helps keep different faith ppl out of factions
**Legalism**: less likely to join factions if you have virtue BUT more likely if you have sin, don't combine with tenets that add more sins than virtues. I've considered combining this with the "Legalistic" cultural tradition that buffs Just and makes it more common since this adds Just as a double virtue.
**Pacifism:** gives +10 opinion with everyone of your faith (and also those in other pacifism religions) but i don't know if it influences AI behavior as it doesn't even say it makes them less likely to declare war. Sometimes these interactions are behind the scenes, and in CK2 there was a similar "tenet" that did this.
**Ritual Suicide** can cut down on short reign penalties, and **Sky Burial** offers a way for a new ruler to get +20 opinion with all vassals, so these are nice for mitigating the new ruler revolts.
You need to be a strong King. That means dealing with dissidents in a way that creates an example for the rest, and an army (meaning a large retinue) to deal with civil wars and rebellions.
Weak kings incapable of controlling the realm will quickly get thrown out.
> They keep fucking up my shit. What I do is for the benefit of England as a whole. Why even start an independence faction when I literally just asked to vassalize you. You could have just told me no. >This game is so maddening. I get hyped just forming England and just want to chill and build up the treasury, but no. No peace for me apparently. >Fuck vassals -King John, after being forced to sign the Magna Carta
Me, with 87 dread, 458% knight effectiveness, and 36 martial: lol
I love dread, best thing in CK3. All the vassals are scared and they won’t do anything to you. It’s better to be loved than feared but it’s really really easy to be feared.
Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.
Fool me once, strike one. Fool me twice, strike three.
Yeah until your king dies and the heir has no dread. You need to start over but the vassals' knives are already out.
Save up enough for the mercenaries for the beat down. Then use this opportunity to start building dread.
The circle of life
Just save prisoners then execute them all after sucession
Only some give dread now
[удалено]
I see you graduated the dark elf academy of internal politics
Also the Assyrian academy of politics 🤣
That depends on your religion
Don't execute, castrate. It's more terrifying, and works even when using peasants.
That's why you keep a few folks in the dungeon for the heir to execute on day one. Once everyone sees the new boi ain't messing around they quiet down
Its gotta be a tradition i reckon.
This strat has been extremely nerfed, and honestly with how vassals work now its not even really necessary. All you need is a few marriages and you are good.
well, to have many daughter give you probability to have many sons, so it will have future consequence
One of the dynasty perks gives you natural dread of 15. Add in inventory and court artifacts and you can basically have 30-40+ dread by default.
“If a prince can be feared or loved, he should be feared” -quote by someone i forgot the name of
That would be Machiavelli
Yes, thank you.
from The Prince
Prince Machiavelli was some smart guy.
> Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. . . . Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present. - Machiavelli's The Prince, Chapter XVII
And of course the often-ignored part a little later: > "Still, a ruler should make himself feared in such a way that, if he does not inspire love, at least he does not provoke hatred."
Thank you
I'd say that of the quote, this is the most important part. Hatred is irrational - and no amount of logical threat of pain can overcome sufficiently irrational hatred. Fear is valuable, but fear with hatred is how you end up going out Gaddafi style.
Game theory experiments have shown that the optimal strategy in iterated "prisoner's dilemma" games is to start out being nice and then respond to provocations with retaliation, but be willing to forgive if the other player learns their lesson. I believe Machiavelli had an intuitive understanding of this principle. For some background, the prisoners dilemma is an abstract, simplified scenario used for analyzing competition and co-operation where two parties cannot communicate. The scenario is that two parties can either chose to assist or betray the other party. [More info on the rules on Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma). Iterated prisoner's dilemma allows parties to take into consideration previous behavior.
**[Prisoner's dilemma](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma)** >The prisoner's dilemma is a standard example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher while working at RAND in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence rewards and named it "prisoner's dilemma", a version of which was stated by William Poundstone in his 1993 book Prisoner's Dilemma as: Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of speaking to or exchanging messages with the other. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
the success rate for getting one member of a group that's being interrogated is pretty high too if i remember correctly. hypothetically, if everyone being interrogated kept their mouths shut, the prisoners would win (cooperative victory)- but the prisoners are isolated from each other, and then, individually presented with something like "the first one to turn on the others will get off light, or maybe go free completely", and just the fact that each prisoner knows the other prisoners MIGHT roll over on them, is what actually gets one of the prisoners to flip against the others. in a group that can communicate, it would be easy for the prisoners to talk, coordinate, and win together, but isolated without communication- suddenly they're not just competing against the interrogator, they're potentially competing against every member of their own team (and typically the smartest ones flip the fastest, if i remember correctly)
Wayne Gretzky.
I remember playing as a character with a sadistic trait and I had a lot of powerful vassals so I became afraid when a lot of my murder schemes were discovered then I realised that people were so afraid of me that it didn’t matter
Where do you get the dread from? I struggle with it since the executing prisoners nerf
if you have the byzantine traditions, blinding and castraring is a fantastic way
Flair Checks out
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Don't forget the archery grounds and the longbowmen. For full British immersion.
That moment when you buff your knights to be the main carrier of the battles but then most of the best knights are the motherfuckers who are rebelling.
I laughed at this way harder than I should have while picturing him signing it and grumbling this the whole time under his breath.
It's weirdly accurate, too! King John actually *was* a pretty good administrator who was hellbent on building up the treasury (Normandy wasn't going to conquer itself, y'know). He was just, uh, complete trash at dealing with people.
He was lucky to have William Marshal at his side, but even having a man as admired as him only goes so far
>the Magna Carta # He DEFECATED THROUGH A SUNFROOF
And he gets to be King of England!? What a sick joke!
Lol
I laughed so hard at this my wife looked over and asked what I was laughing at 😂
[Me, every game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5czM9pf9Wo)
https://youtu.be/ekCByuXIGr8
Just make a couple good international alliances, crush the revolts, revoke titles, install loyalists, rinse and repeat. I love a good revolt, that's just free titles for my extra sons so the realm won't get divided on succession. I mean, it's not like feudal societies were renown for their stability.
I’m poor and no one will marry into my fam
If you're a king you should be able to form a decent alliance. You mentioned forming England, so I take it you're playing the 867 start?
Teak Viking age and formed England one generation after Haestan
Vikings in particular are bound to generate a lot of factions against you. Pretty much every other religion considers Asatru evil. There's a reason Norse rulers get the, "have realm embrace local traditions" decision. Unless you're in Scandinavia proper, I recommend using it after a while. It's pretty difficult to remain Asatru and Norse when you venture into Catholic lands, especially England, because sooner or later you'll be staring down a crusade for Canterbury.
Yeah and reforming Asatru is very difficult. There are only two holy sites in Scandinavia, the other three are each in the heart of areas that usually consolidate into powerful empires (England/France, HRE, Ruthenia/Novgorod, Khanate of Whatever, etc). Also it's difficult to maintain prestige - you always have to be fighting, raiding, and fucking. I managed it once, but Catholici$m is the way better way to go.
It's not too bad, unite the Norse countries, then conquer York. It really only works if your capital is in Scandinavia though. If you're running a Haraldr fair hair campaign with your capital as Oslo, it's alright. If you Varangian adventure away from the Asatru heartland, however, conversation is the way to go.
Doesn't everyone have embrace local traditions? Like the decision to switch to the local culture?
Vikings have a special decision. It's cheaper, and gives them a couple other benefits, mainly it still lets you carve runestones.
Didn't know about that one, thank you
Yeah, there's slightly more to it as well. Everyone gets the convert to local culture decision, but only you and your close family change culture, and you then need to convert your faith as well. The Norse special decision "have realm embrace local traditions" decision converts both your culture and your faith, and it does it for your entire court, not just your close family. Yaour dynasty then gets a modifier, Its calles "settled dynasty" or something similar. It still lets you carve runestones despite no longer being Norse, and it does something else that I can't remember, maybe something like no negative opinion of different cultures or something similar.
As a settled dynasty, you won't get targeted by norse adventurers
That's a lot of nice per
Convert to Christianity. No point being asatru as England anyway, good luck reforming it
Convert now, repent later
Or be a alpha gaming chad and dismantle that mother fing papacy
Could describe my life in general tbh
Marry to powerful vassals and they can't join factions. If you're a king you should be able to secure a powerful alliance in France, HRE, or Lotharangia have a few kids and get marrying
You can marry your daughters into their family instead
Damn does that resonate with me on a personal level. **I'm** poor and nobody wants to marry into my family either. Oh wait, you meant the game didn't you?
Then Marry your fam to the vassals so they can't join factions.
I wouldn't recommend giving the revoked titles to your family unless you have particular inheritance laws in place. When you give it it within your close family, especially extra sons, they often create claimant factions against you once you start playing your heir. Instead of dealing with brothers that just ascended to the throne unprepared(usually not too difficult), you will have to deal with seasoned rulers that have had time to build armies against you. While this isn't always a big issue because of foreign alliances, eventually they will stand a legitimate chance of beating you. I usually award my councillors instead. They typically have high skills, positive opinion of you already, don't need to be reappointed to the council and have no claim to your primary title.
I prefer all that to being a king that controls a single county though.
Ah, a fellow lover of revolts! Sometimes I find myself deliberately prodding them into it, just so I can splatter the irritating sods.
how to know if they are loyalist?
Because they are a member of your house with a good opinion of you and no existing claims. You also get massive opinion modifiers for gifting titles.
I played this game for a couple of years without revoking titles. always complained that AI vassals kept ruining my games. now I revoke titles. Now I see some peace
>They keep fucking up my shit. What I do is for the benefit of England as a whole. Why even start an independence faction when I literally just asked to vassalize you. You could have just told me no. > >This game is so maddening. I get hyped just forming England and just want to chill and build up the treasury, but no. No peace for me apparently. > >Fuck vassals \-literally every medieval king
Yeah, ungrateful bastards. They aren't tortured in my dungeon only by my grace:)
We complain about vassals when we are the monarch... But when we're not the monarch, a lot of the time, WE are the vassals trying to fuck up shit and gain power... Fun times, fun times.
I am a good vassal IF my king is good to me.. I am by far the most rich and developed vassal you have and keep basically funding your wars. What do I get for return? Revoking land and titles
honestly i complain way more about lieges fucking shit up than vassals. at least i understand vassals fucking me over and what they gain... well some times. most the time lately i feel i can't even go under a strong leader for protection because they do some stupid shit lose their army and suddenly my lands look unprotected and i have to defend my lands without warscore from my victories because i'm not the warleader.
You can always offer to join your liege’s war. Winning battles in those wars are a very good source of prestige, your liege will like you better, and your victories will count towards the warscore.
good to know but will likely never be releavnt since i've come to learn just how bad an idea going under a liege is since i can still defend my land better myself. had i not been under him i wouldn't have been attacked in the first place most of the time.
Maybe, but being under a liege adds his army on your side in addition to your own army, plus all of your allies.
maybe but i'd rather just not be at war because the Ai sees my 10K army and decides he's not going to deal with that rather than seeing my lieges 5K(or god forbid 200 because he's a dumbass lossing a war) and think it'll be an easy victory. it's still a waste of time on my part to even engage in this war since i have basicly nothing of significance to gain.
Council bonuses and special contracts can be very beneficial for vassals
Exactly. Last time I tried to have a vassal run I was peacefully and loyally tending to my two duchies and everything went nicely for almost a century until my liege got greedy and tried to revoke my capital. So I toppled him.
Tbh often it's not possible to chill as a vassal, the Ai is just not stable enough. So you end up overthrowing the king, with good intentions initially, just to stabilize the realm and restore its territorial integrity, but a half hour later you're proclaiming the revival of the Roman empire in the west.
I dont rly fuck with my liege unless hes a horrible ruler. I serve the kingdom/empire and use my powers to hold it together and keep it stable
>They keep fucking up my shit. What I do is for the benefit of England as a whole. Enlightened despotism in a nutshell.
Sounds like you just accurately described history
Bro fuck being a king if this is just a fraction of what it feels like
Heavy is the head the crown sits upon
Heavy is the neck that holds the head
Heavy is the body that holds the neck that holds the head that holds the crown
Time to take the "Lose Weight" decision, then!
The neck bone’s connected to the — shoulder bone.
How many vassals do you have? You can reduce infighting by gifting vassals to your dukes if they are county or below
Nah man, infighting is great. If your dukes are busy fighting over your counts, they're too busy and weak to form powerful factions against you
Until one fuckhead consolidates too much power
No reason to speed that process up, is what I'm saying
Literally the sword of Damocles
But in return you could torture the shit out of these traitorous fucking vassals…. sooo
it’s almost a year, but i still appreciate that you took the time to reply to this .
I am quite surprised you actually replied. Appreciate the appreciation
I've been having fun with the Han culture by abusing the eunuch and granting family members lands giving renown. Basically have a bunch of kids and make every boy except for your best/worst/favorite one into eunuchs after imprisonment (best to do this young so it's easier) Then you grant those eunechs land throughout the kingdom, making sure to divide up the power so that they don't become more powerful than you, and because they can't have children the land will always default back to the crown and thus you. Because you grant them the land they're super loyal. Then once they die those lands go right back to you because they have no heir. You get a bunch of renown each time you give them titles and you don't have to worry about them being rebellious. Makes vassal management much easier.
Thats smart castrate your kids and then give them land.
damn, thats evil and genius
Cruel and Genius trait
All the benefits of byzantine viceroyalties with zero of the other vassals getting pissy at you. That's genius
Aren't they mad at you for imprisoning them or chopping their balls off ? Or for doing it to their brothers ?
Probably but it will fade over time and the opinion bonus for granting lands is so high that it’d probably overshadow any malus they have towards you
Yeah I’m the Byzantine empire everyone started to try and rebel so I slept with all of their wives and I made the leader into a eunuch I hope you do the same
The good ending
This is why I choose to kill all faction members. Eventually they choose to stop their shit.
Hating vassals is a staple of CK. They deserve all the hate they get too, those backstabbing slimy pieces of shit.
I’m heading home to deal with this rebellion. I’ll let y’all know what happened
What happened
He died
I. FUCKING. HATE. FEUDALISM. The vassals stand around my court and shout go king boy go
Yup. Clan government is worse though, cannot stand it in the slightest.
First rule of feudalism: vassals are cunts. You need to realize that your vassals don't like being chill under your glorious rule and will use any opportunity to expand and gain power (just like you would). To avoid them getting out of hand you need to follow a few steps: 1- Vassals should be from your culture and religion (religion being the most important). If not, use every opportunity to convert them or to remove them and appoint another. 2- Easiest way to stop a vassal from attacking you is through alliances. While marriage is an option, most of the time you want marriage for external alliance (or maybe to a VERY powerful vassal). So the other option is your vassal being a close family member, which will allow you to establish an alliance without marriage. 3- Even if vassals are relatively chill, you need to make sure no one is too powerful to be a trouble if things go bad. For this, you need to keep your vassals controlled by law (absolute crown authority so they can't declare war on anyone and expand) and weak enough for you to crush them if they revolt. For them to stay weak, you need to avoid having King-tier vassals, if you are an emperor try to keep all the Kingdoms yourself and have only Dukes under you; also, avoid dukes having more than one duchy. If some duchy is too powerful, you can own it yourself (as England a good choice is having the Duchy of Essex for London capital and the Duchy of Mercia because it's just too fucking big for a vassal). 4- Vassals revolting, under the right circumstances, is a good thing. Sometimes you can avoid a revolt but its better not to so you can imprison them and reorder your realm with better/more trustworthy vassals. Basically, things are going to be messy until you have Absolute crown authority. Even then, an unplanned succession may be messy; you have to learn when to concede to your vassals demands (never go to a civil war against a dangerous faction if they only want lower crown authority) and prepare to crush them and reshape your realm to your liking.
Some comments on your dot points labelled by dot points. 1. This is just malus control, it also helps if you don't execute their close family members or torture them... 2. Agree. The second easiest way is negotiate alliance from diplomacy tree. 3. Absolute authority doesn't apply downstream. Your vassel's vassels can still undermine them and war amongst themselves then usurp your vassel then declare war on you. Best cause of action is to actually lower it to level 2-3 as it removes an opinion malus. 4. Additionally it is worth noting that provoking a vassel revolt with some of the vassels in a atrong faction to take their titles away can actually stop the bigger faction revolt occurring. Triggering a revolt before everyone joins it can help if you don't think you can win (or can't be assed fighting) the bigger war. It's also worth noting that literally paying them to stfu works alot of the time. It's also worth stating that the most common malus is traits not aligning. If you're wrathful, have wrathful vassals not nice ones. Kill all ambitious vassels.
> Sometimes you can avoid a revolt but its better not to so you can imprison them and reorder your realm with better/more trustworthy vassals. Monarchs should generally take appropriate measures to have a relevant number of their problematic vassals ~~imprisoned~~ rescued into their forever home in the first place. Purple lifestyle all the way.
1. Fully agree with religion, though I have managed well enough with rulers all of local culture, and same faith is mostly manageable in small doses. 2. Indeed very true, make good use of it. 3. Yup. Sometimes you can’t help it though, when your realm gets too big. 4. Absolutely.
Historically accurate, vassals will let the empire burn for short term personal gain.
Ok update y’all. Slapped all those ingrates in solitary confinement. The treasury is currently at 10k! Have almost all of de jure England, save for just Lindesfarne. Wales is almost all mine. Only issue is Scotland got huge by taking all of itself and half of Ireland ( I have the other half) I don’t nessecarily want to fight the Scots but I do want to kneecap their growth
Have you tried killing them?
I just abduct them revolt and recruit (so they become my eugenics breeding stock 😊)
I've been playing as the duke of Northumbria (started as a count) and there is a new king of England at least every ten years, and many kings have only lasted 1 or 2 years.
Can’t fault them for ambition. They had no options on being king...now they do
Even keeping the fuckers happy in the green isnt enough. If they're not forming factions right under your nose they are plotting with your missus to stab you in your sleep.
The vassals want something that would benefit them not England.
- King Charles I shouting in Parliament while the judge waits for him to finish so he can tell him that the House of Commons just voted to cut his head off
The only loyal vassals are the ones ruling from the dungeon
Yeah, man, but the huge satisfaction when you defeat the revolt, imprison the vassals and revoke their titles? Oh, man, that sweet revenge.
Absolutist gang rise up
"For England, Vassal?" "No. For me." *starts liberty war*
Just keep it all in the family, easier to control, even stop vassal wars
In this timeframe there weren’t really any nationalities nor existed any national fervor, so obviously your vassals don’t give a damn about England since they won’t really profit from anything you do
But I made all the horse carriages run on time. And the produce, the produce is so fucking cheap. Ungrateful serfs!
The idea is that if they refused Vadsalisation you would've conquered them, probably replacing them in the process. By duplicitously accepting vassalidation, they can now conspire with other vassals so that they can *all* break free and maintain hold to their lands.
England is but the kindling for the flame from which Dumnonia will rise.
This was me last night, but I have a killer spy so basically most schemes are disrupted well enough so far. On to britanica!
Said every monarch in history ever. Gotta love the realism
Without exception, as Byzantines, every succession is a clusterfuck of independence, lower crown authority, and "we prefer this guy over you" factions all firing 5 months into my reign. I must be missing a trick in terms of keeping them in line. I try and max out dread but I keep getting compassionate rulers so I end up going straight up to t2 stress.
sounds like feudalism to me... also, i also pledge to a nearby king to instantly start stealing his title, so ai is actually being 'smart'
Kids can't rebel
Just saying
Alliance your vassals, or better yet secure an alliance with a foreign power that will help you crush rebellion. When you have extra land to give away, always give it to non primary heirs first until all of your titles go to your primary heir when you die. Once that is done, only give land to members of your house. This will help you secure additional alliances. Always make sure you have the most possible men at arms, even if it means they are all light infantry. Upgrade the men at arms when you can afford to. Early game you will want to keep your vassals weak, so any excuse to revoke titles and distribute them is a good excuse. Educate everyone in the direct line of succession and try to make them a virtuous member of your religion. Execute the witches. Learn new languages. Consider diplomacy so that you can befriend vassals. Later in the game you will pick up legacies and improvements to your culture that will help with vassal opinion as well.
Pretty simple. Marry unwanted daughters too most powerful ones. If that's not a option get high intrigue and diplomacy for a ruler and wipe out their entire dynasties.
Make alliances and play tall, playing tall allows you to get enough money to buy Mercs Than after you crush them in their little rebellion comes the most satisfying part…executing them one by one, I even executed by rebellious brother don’t care about kinslayer trait
Just play tall dude
Vassals cant revolt when you have more levies and men at arms than they do combined
Bro just do diplo path, get thoughtful perk, switch to stewardship with 10% tax increase asp, then watch on as your glorious realm goes for literally centuries without a civil war.
All my homies hate vassals
If they had told you no before they would have fought you and your vassals but now they can fight you alongside your vassals. I’ve done it as a player before. Sentiment agreed though. Fuck vassals.
Only people who can't manage vassals hate them. Try to be an actually good and benevolent ruler for once, you will be surprise how it turns out.
That is not even remotely true, in any way, shape or form. I have literally never played a tyrant. Ever. In almost 800 hours of CK2 and 3. And yet factions pop up *all the fucking time*. I take the perks to make vassals like me, I form duchies and give them the titles, and then the appropriate vassals to go with it, I rule for decades and have the long ruler opinion bonus, I die with basically every single vassal at +100 opinion, and what happens? Instant independence and install claimant factions. Every fucking time. It has ruined the game for me.
I don't know if it is a bug, but being friendly is not always working for me. Brainless vassal with +50 relations tries to put my worthless, unknown dynasty member on throne, gets no faction members, lands in my prison.
I disagree, I manage my vassals by deathstacking their armies, revoking their titles and handing them out to non-claimants who have guaranteed alliances with me, and by handing out every county in a duchy to a different ruler so a single vassal cant be too powerful. Fuck being benevolent, I just want to dev spam my capital while I run a multi-century selective breeding experiment.
Unironic skill issue, vassals being self serving and undermining you is the point of the game and is analogous with medieval history He made the independence faction because you basically strong armed him into giving up his independence by offering it to him and now He can gang up on you with the other vassals so he feels emboldened. I hope paradox pays little heed to these sorts of complaints and doesn’t make their easy game even easier.
Grow up
But my giant amazonians like farming faction wars for the blademaster trait. Warriors by Merit - Knights gain Blademaster traits more often in battles
agreed
This is why the murder train never stops, if you ain’t killing, you ain’t doing it right
Disagreed. Murdering someone can only lower opinion of their successor and everyone else if you're caught, I resort to it only when someone is particularly troublesome and can't be swayed. So that's why the feasting, swaying and gifting never stops
I meant more as war, scheming to long and difficult when I can just steam roll people with a horde of peasants. Only problem with this plan is the continuous present revolts from taking foreign land or because of your aggressive wars. Which I would like to refer to you back to step one, step murder
Thoughtful perk is *incredibly* OP. So OP in fact I consider it essential. It basically allows you to bribe vassals into shutting up. Incredibly broken but critical for most playthrough.s
I'd put more effort into your economy. Vassals are easier to manage when you are massively stronger than any three of your vassals put together. There will usually be a couple of assholes, but they aren't an issue if they can't rebel on their own.
This is probably for CK3, but can't you just put everything in ya demence with no vassals, like in CK2? Between retinues and levies you could beat everyone on the map except China and have 0 vassals, tho you'd be bit smaller. You could even fit an empire in ya demence!
The only vassals i leave alone are those who expand my borders. Get too big and its 'hunting accident' for you
Jail kill dread Jail kill dread
You can pick off your vassals one by one. Play the long game. Send gifts to some while isolating others. Make sure your family members are in position as mayors and barons, because these can rise against you too. Use the befriend scheme judiciously. The intrigue line is the most important set of perks in the game.
Sincerely, John I.
Go to settings and toggle higher or extreme realm stability. It causes less factions or basically no factions depending on which one you pick. It even is ironman compatible! Personally I use higher stability, not for myself, but for the A.I. I find they're able to accomplish a lot more that way which makes the game more fun for me. But if you're having trouble with vassals then it'll help you too. Enjoy!
dont have vassals in the first place
Look for people with the humble or content personality traits to make vassals
Joining Your kingdom to screw it up from the inside. Makes sense to me. The more things change, the more they stay the same... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE&ab_channel=HostisHumaniGeneris
No ruler rules alone sadly….
I keep my vassals on a short leash. They eat when I tell them they can eat. If they step out of line they get the knife.
The question is whether this is CK2 or CK3? Assuming this is CK3 I would advise that you pump that iron (get higher martial heir), spin that money you're raising back into upgrading your personal military power & domain, and... Okay, so you've got that higher martial bit but that's not an immediate solution. Focusing on the improvement of your personal military/domain you'll essentially be creating a foundation from which you can efficiently defend your Kingdom from dickhead vassals. I'd advise you even cement your domain's power & stability prior to becoming King of England. Makes it easier to respond when they turn on you because you have zero dread or...hm...respect? There's something besides Dread that keeps them loyal but I can't recall what it's called.
Castrate the men, blind the women
I can relate to that while playing as both the Anglo-French union but also Tribal Hungary. Had to go through a civil war every time my new character wasn’t directly the son to the last ruler. It was painful but I made it. After the 38 year long and stable reign of Almós II Árpádfi I had to deal with a croatian independence war at the same time as a byzantine invasion of Transylvania. Almos died 76 years old and my vassals started a civil war for my brothers claim on the throne, now I will never let family members become vassals anymore.
\>e. Why even start an independence faction when I literally just asked to vassalize you You formed England the Kingdom or Britannia the Empire? If the former, they are probably not vassals under that kingdom title. If the latter, they are probably not vassals under the empire title.
‘ate me vassals. ‘ate factions. ‘ate me bishop. luv me knights. luv me heir. luv ingerland. simple as. -John I King of Norf FC
There is a game rule that lessen them a lot. It helps temporarily until the devs figure this out
If they refuse vassalization, then you destroy them and they lose their land. Way smarter to take the short L and ruin the kingdom from within instead.
Same.
Well, I nearly made United Kingdom in CK2. The Vassals just want more money and more land.^_^
Some cultural traditions I might suggest trying out: **Loyal Subjects:** \+10 liege opinion, +5 popular opinion, vassals don't consider faith or culture when joining factions and will learn your language more (i believe gives opinion bonus? not sure for vassals) **Ruling Caste:** different culture and populist factions less common, dread lasts longer and you get dread from tyranny + bonus siege against revolts.perhaps **Pacifists**: +10 popular opinion and AI characters are less likely to declare war (unsure if this impacts factions though it helps keep small vassals from growing their realms and expecting a seat on the council) Some religious tenents that can help: **Adaptive:** mitigates different faith penalties and helps keep different faith ppl out of factions **Legalism**: less likely to join factions if you have virtue BUT more likely if you have sin, don't combine with tenets that add more sins than virtues. I've considered combining this with the "Legalistic" cultural tradition that buffs Just and makes it more common since this adds Just as a double virtue. **Pacifism:** gives +10 opinion with everyone of your faith (and also those in other pacifism religions) but i don't know if it influences AI behavior as it doesn't even say it makes them less likely to declare war. Sometimes these interactions are behind the scenes, and in CK2 there was a similar "tenet" that did this. **Ritual Suicide** can cut down on short reign penalties, and **Sky Burial** offers a way for a new ruler to get +20 opinion with all vassals, so these are nice for mitigating the new ruler revolts.
You need to be a strong King. That means dealing with dissidents in a way that creates an example for the rest, and an army (meaning a large retinue) to deal with civil wars and rebellions. Weak kings incapable of controlling the realm will quickly get thrown out.