Any reason to hand out Kingdom-tier titles to vassals as an Emperor?

[Androme]

Since there's no penalty for holding Kingdom-tier titles, I figure I might aswell hold on to all of them since it gives me Prestige.

One argument I can come up with myself is that handing out Kingdom-tier titles to people from my Dynasty will give us more Dynasty renown points, strengthening the Dynasty as a whole but giving me less Prestige. Is that how it would work? And would that justify giving Kingdom tier titles away to people from my dynasty?

[corisai]

Originally posted by Jerubius:

That's assuming a king only has dukes as vassals, and isn't mostly counts as well.

Counts vassals of king will get "non rightful liege" penalty to taxes&levies ;)

Originally posted by Jerubius:

Not to mention kings get a larger personal demesne bonus than grand dukes, which makes up for the difference if they can max that out.

We're locked with even worse form of succession then gavelkind until 1200+. Your CK2 experience isn't relevant, CK3 have quite reworked system.

Originally posted by Jerubius:

The other strength of kings is that they have a much easier time expanding, as they just have more options to eat up territory

Yes, vassal kings are better in everything then grand dukes.

[Jerubius]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Jerubius:

That's assuming a king only has dukes as vassals, and isn't mostly counts as well.

Counts vassals of king will get "non rightful liege" penalty to taxes&levies ;)

I looked it up, because I was positive that I wasn't getting non-rightful liege penalties as a king with de jure counts. That's only a feudal thing, so not applicable to other governments. Furthermore, it's 50% normal, 25% if it's de jure but 2 ranks above (so a king to count), and dukes are exempt from the penalty if their liege holds the de jure empire for the county. So this is absolutely correct under a feudal government, but not under tribal or clan governments.

[Sol]

I look at it this way - do I benefit more from having 5 dukes, or 1 king? What is my need in the moment? I would usually rather have 5 dukes - they're bad enough having Count vassals, and the whole Vassal's Vassals syndrome becomes worse when you have a king, and Vassal's Vassal's Vassal syndrome. The good news is that these issues become the new king's problems and not yours. If you have a big empire and are holding 60 duchies - my, that's a lot. Do I actually want to manage 60 duchies? I am fine with 5, but even happier with 3 duchies and maybe 8 counties.

When you have 30 dukes paying you levies and gold, that's a good thing. If you make 10 kings and give it away, you then have 10 vassals paying you levies and gold. You also create problems by owning any counties/duchies in their de jure kingdoms.

When to do it - Maybe when you have 20-30 duchies, expanded to an empire size, and decided you want to build the Spain to Burma empire. In that case, you will want to put a few king vassals scattered about, so that he has all those problems instead of you. As long as you own enough duchies to prevent him from creating any empire titles, you're good. When you put a King somewhere that has a De Jure empire title you own, he will come for it. If you put a King somewhere that has an uncreated Empire title, or an empire title that is owned by someone else, he will go for it. So, it's good to ensure when you give out a Kingdom, that you're not also giving out potential for an empire.

I have a few policies for king vassals:
1. I don't hand out any, until I can hand out one to each Council Member.
2. I only want Kings who get along with one another based on their traits. I don't want my council killing each other and weakening my realm from the inside.
3. I don't want "powerful vassal wants council position, fabricates hook" - BAM - new marshal for 25 years with 6 Martial and 3 Prowess. So, I like to make sure my Council are the only ones to have a title of significance. I follow the same rule with dukes - I create enough Duchies to own 3-5 while giving ONE to my council and none for anyone else. When I become emperor, then I can create more Duchies and dole them out to Council Kings. I give each King every duchy in their de jure kingdoms, except one, which I give to someone else. Give them something (other than me) to do, eh?
4. I hate Super Dukes and Grand Dukes - giving them a Kingdom can make them easier to control, and easier to manage. It can also compel them to give away some duchies to their vassals, which they won't naturally do as a Duke, unless they're way over domain limit.

Bonus: If any other duke not on my council becomes a king, or would become a king, I view this as an immediate issue to deal with - otherwise "powerful vassal demands council position" starts happening again. If I have kings on my council, Dukes will fall in line and stop begging for a council spot. Most of the time.

[Bermag]

I am currently holding entire Empire of Scandinavia, Parts of Scotland with a vassal king (which has lost part of his territory twice) , Ireland and most partos of Pomerania, Frisia and some other territories. Have elected succession on Empire, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Ireland (have not yet created kingdoms for Sapmia and Estonia) and hold those kingdom titles myself. Has feudal goverment.

For my duches in Pomerania I was only getting 12.5% of levies (normally 25% on de jure). I get 6790 levies from vassals. Created Kingdom of Pomerania and that made my Pomerania duchies give med 25% since I am now their de jure liege but still only get same amount of levies. Then I give away Pomerania to one of my vassals in Pomerania. Then total levies went up to 8351 even if I am not de jure liege (and he has 12.5% levies).

Reloaded and tried to give away Sápmi and get less levies giving away kingdom. With Estonia I got slighly more levies. Ruler of Spami had a war going on though which maybe explain it.

But not sure what my conclusion is :).

[corisai]

Originally posted by Shadow:

I have a few policies for king vassals:
1. I don't hand out any, until I can hand out one to each Council Member.
2. I only want Kings who get along with one another based on their traits. I don't want my council killing each other and weakening my realm from the inside.
3. I don't want "powerful vassal wants council position, fabricates hook" - BAM - new marshal for 25 years with 6 Martial and 3 Prowess. So, I like to make sure my Council are the only ones to have a title of significance. I follow the same rule with dukes - I create enough Duchies to own 3-5 while giving ONE to my council and none for anyone else. When I become emperor, then I can create more Duchies and dole them out to Council Kings. I give each King every duchy in their de jure kingdoms, except one, which I give to someone else. Give them something (other than me) to do, eh?

1. Irrelevant. Penalty "not in council" easy to counter with sway/friendship and bribes (in worst scenario). Much more efficient to bribe&befriend 3-4 kings then tons of dukes.
2. Irrelevant as long as you make sure that would-be-king don't have excess claims & succession will fix traits quite soon.
3. Yean, fake hooks are broken - another reason to use "More settings" mod and disable them.

[acehawk]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Shadow:

3. Yean, fake hooks are broken - another reason to use "More settings" mod and disable them.

Or just murder/imprison/revoke him. On the rare occasion this happens to me it's basically an instant death sentence for the guy.

[acehawk]

As for the overall discussion, I do Dukes only until I hit vassal limit, then I give out smaller kingdoms as needed to stay below it, then I eventually transition to ONLY King tier vassals as much as possible, because anything smaller just isn't worth the modicum of effort.

Grand Dukes are too much micromanagement to be worth it, I have almost more gold than I can ever spend by the point this becomes relevant. I use Golden Hooks (super OP early-mid game) and I maximize taxes and minimize levies from all my kings (except for strategic border guys that I make into Marches for supercharged autoconquest.)

Who needs levies when you can hire ALL the mercs for every single war?

As for factions and such, in my latest game I have 27 king tier vassals and I barely remember the last civil war I experienced. I think it was 4 or 5 emperors back right after a succession because I forgot to max dread. I roflstomped them with my man-at-arms and mercs, then revoked from the troublemakers and granted it to more deserving family members.

All land I give out is given to family members. If you grant enough land to each of your children then your primary heir inherits everything you hold directly, even under confederate partition iirc. With high partition it gets downright easy.

Also, you get more perks with familial vassals than has been stated, you get a variety of minor benefits which generally add up to a more stable realm. You have various powers over them as house head and dynasty head, they all benefit from your dynasty perks (such as faithful magistrates), they will tend to all be of your religion and culture and they will aggressively spread both! That's a huge deal by itself actually.
Also, breeding programs are a lot more effective when you have a huge extended family to seed hard to get traits through, like Pure Blooded. Turns into a natural reservoir of genetic stock, since landed characters breed better than unlanded ones.