Absolute crown authority, how do?

[Chuck]

Going above 2 usually causes problems for me, and i would like to get to 4 because im the EMPEROR and i WANTIE ABSOLUTE CROWN AUTHORITY! But anyone who has been able to keep absolute crown authority, how did you do it? Do you have to deal with liberty factions all the time or is there some secret to controlling your vassals that i dont know about?

[The Former]

Make as many people like you as possible, and forge strong alliances. If your numbers are strong enough, liberty factions will never be able to raise an ultimatum against you. Doing this in-realm is always best because you're also taking away potential faction members. Allies can't join factions against you, and those who like you enough won't (I believe).

[Zsrai]

I find Absolute easier in smaller realms since smaller number of vassals are easier to manage. I dunno if I'd bother in an Empire spanning from Lisbon to Moscow or anything though.

[brownacs]

A plentiful supply of dread won't hurt either.

[Chuck]

so should i just head down to my dungeons and just lay waste to all of my prisoners for dread?

[Razorblade]

Marry your family members to enough powerful vassals that no faction is able to fire.

[Chuck]

usually i do that, just marry my children off to my vassals' children. Although, having 100 dread is real nice. I got max crown authority, and all of my vassals are too terrified to try anything. so i just fight non-christians. I can execute them for 10 dread each, so a holy war is a great way to replenish dread if i find people trying to step out of line. and if they step out of line and revolt anyway, i can revoke their titles, and then execute my vassals for like 20 or 30 dread. Ireland will be great empire. itll just be built on a pile of corpses.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Chuck:

so should i just head down to my dungeons and just lay waste to all of my prisoners for dread?

That helps, but be careful. Dread will prevent factions, but gaining it through tyrannical acts can encourage other means of subversion that can be far worse...

[Kazden Soza]

Some of things I do is once my current leader is close to passing on I make sure to increase the opinion of my vassals as when my son takes over there will be a bonus to how much they liked the previous ruler. Also making sure they have good traits that give opinion bonuses and strategic alliances.

If your heir can go diplomacy it is better for larger empires. The higher your diplomacy the more your vassals will like you.

A good perk pick of "Thoughtful" from the diplomacy tree is awesome as a single gift with this perk can make a vassal leave a faction. Though this is harder if you take over a child leader. If that happens a quick war or raid for some "evil" people to sacrifice for dread. Though if you rule through fear alone it can lead to rebellions later on so I only do so in emergencies.

If you do get a faction that wants lower crown authority let them have it when they demand. It will only be 10 years and you can put it right back at tier 4 and by then the situation should be much more stable.

In your vassal menu your vassals are in order to how powerful they are. Start with the top and start swaying or gifting your way down. You should always be swaying or befriending vassals. I always aim to have a 50+ opinion rating especially with the powerful ones.

Doing all of these I can keep the tier 4 high crown authority permanently. Normally though I run at the tier 3 crown authority since I only want my vassals to stop fighting each other but I don't mind if they help in expanding my realm on the outside.

[Chuck]

the way ive been able to do this so far is:
max dread all the time (just go on a holy war with someone of a hostile or evil faith and you should have enough tyranny-free prisoners to rip through)

if some vassals arent terrified to the point of not causing issues, thats when to start befriending them, or look for alliance potential (having high fertility helps, so you can have plenty of kids to marry off)

if they revolt anyway, call your allies(or win yourself) and once you win, revoke their titles and give them to close family. Usually you can negotiate alliances from there

point is, keep a strong army because war is inevitable, and it never hurts to have a powerful alliance outside of your empire, such as the byzantine empire ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Min]

Being emperor and having option to pass Absolute crown authority means that by that time you must have huge levies and good quality men at arms , for me there are no such vassals who can even oppose me by that point , execute some people to keep dread as high as possible have sufficient income for armies or murder vassals who have big military power

[wei270]

ok first and formost people can't rebel against you if you have strong military power, there for you should keep maximu territory, and those territory should be your best territory.

second you remove large pentality if you give your vessels land based on dejures, always try to do that.

next is try to get vessels to like you, you can do that with rising your blue stats each 1 in blue stats is +1 in opinion,

also very important is if you have the religion buffs like consecrated blood or crusading house all vessels of the same religion will have huge opinion buff with, more than enough to off set the short reign penalty.

the last tip is have your heir raise his prestige higher prestige = higher opinion, that means you give him land and titles, but the game restrict your opinion when it comes to landing you r heir, you by pass this by start landing across generation, because there is no restriction in giving land and title to your grandson.

later when you have genius on all your children, they will have better and better stats each generation, and with the religion + prestige bonus you will almost never have rebellion during transition.

[VoiD]

Reject Feudalism, return to monkee