help a vassal at war

[calabacina]

If a duke of mine is attacked by a country with which I am not at war, can I do nothing to help him? I see the "invader" army as gray...

[Deylendor]

This "country" must be part of your realm for it to be gray.
So no. You can't help your dukes in their wars unless its a peasat uprising and you happed to see it. There are no notifications for such things.

[calabacina]

its weird, isnt? I mean if a duchy is part of a bigger realm with an dangerous big army it would seem logical to me that this was somehow reflected in the game. Im missing something?

[Deylendor]

Did you get any notification at all? What realm are you playing? Did you check the attacker if he isn't just a vassal of your attacked vassal who is fighting for his claim? Do you have an option when selecting on of the warring parties to select "end vassal wars"?

[calabacina]

I am the king of the kingdom of Genoa, a realm that I invented starting as Genoa, basically it is the northwestern Italy more Corsica and Sardinia. I didn't get notifications (or maybe I didn't see it, it would be nice to have a record of all notifications, like some kind of diary let's say). My vassal is duke of Piedmont and I have discovered now that he started the conflict, and he does so because he wants to have all the duchy de jure under his rule.

and in itself it also seems logical to me, what does not seem so logical to me is that I as monarch cannot intervene in the conflict...

[Deylendor]

There was a discussion on that particular game-play choice they made at paradox - not able to intervene militarily in any wars besides peasant uprising that your vassals are part of.

The end of it was that CK3 is designed for you to be able to do what the AI does as much as possible and vice versa.
So if we want to intervene in our vassals wars any more that demanding to end their wars - e.g. going to war ourself with the party of our choice, the AI should be able to do the same - e.g. OUR LIEGE going to war against US when we try to take de jure land for ourselves.

My take on that is this:
I see the reason why the decided against allowing to intervene. But I see a path how they could do it. IF my liege likes me more than the other guy he won't go to war against me.

Now we have a system in place where you give away land to characters you like .. just to see them getting owned by the AI and there is little to nothing you can do about it. Except there is. Follow the De Jure rules and don't set up situations where such causes of war can occur.
Or not giving a damn about your vassals wars is one way. Then there is always crown authority lv3.

[calabacina]

thanks a lot, pretty new to the game ;)

[Snowieken]

Usually you can go to the agressor and ask to stop the war, but that won't always work and you can't do it indefinitely.

Originally posted by Deylendor:

Now we have a system in place where you give away land to characters you like .. just to see them getting owned by the AI and there is little to nothing you can do about it. Except there is. Follow the De Jure rules and don't set up situations where such causes of war can occur.

Another idea is to not give titles to people with claims, that helps too. But then again, vassals tend to marry into each other's families a lot, and after a few generations everyone tends to have claims on everything.

Since the lands stay mine anyway and it is kind of unavoidable until you can maintain high crown authority, I learned not to care too much about intervassal war (I tend to go for at least crown authority 3 anyway, as soon as I can afford it).

[Deylendor]

That is exactly how I to tend to view the game now Snowieken. Let them fight. I would do the same in their shoes. I don't even go for crown authority 3 to stop the intervassal wars nowdays. I do it for the increased taxes.

[Snowieken]

Don't get me wrong, I still find it annoying, as I like to choose who I give lands to as a ruler. Also, when you don't pay attention for too long as there is not a clear notification, vassals can rapidly get too powerful.

EDIT: Had a case just a few days ago where I gave land to my son (and groomed heir at the time, genius, 20+ diplomacy and stewardship and 10+ in everything else) and I made the stupid, stupid mistake to let him be vassalized by one of my dukes. A while later I saw them fighting, "war against the tyranny of", couldn't do anything to stop it. He was heavily outnumbered, so after the war the "outliving a child" popup quickly came up because the duke executed him for rebelling. That was very, very painful.