Civil wars are exhausting

[Poltergeist]

I have a line of Steward Kings. No matter what I do, upon succession, there is at least one civil war.

During the game, regardless of how many bribes I send, or my vassal's opinion of me (sometimes above 40), factions continuously form. Bribes are limited in efficacy, as the bonus doesn't stack. Murders take time, at least a year, and that's if I can actually pull it off. Ultimatums can come quicker than that upon succession. They don't care if my dread is at 60+.

I've tried converting culture, religion, etc. Religion is almost uniform, but culture is not. I spread from Iceland, to Ireland, to Scotland and am attempting to maintain a kingdom with those three areas.

My children often have bad RNG and don't get the admin line. I don't mind a civil war here and there, but constantly dealing with this as steward seems over the top. Is there a secret to stopping endless civil wars as a steward? Thanks in advance.

[nikola]

culture reform to get a trait that lowers faction forming. loyalist, ruling caste etc. are all pretty good for that. ...
Not that it will stop the civil wars ,they are a constant , but it will limit them to roughly once every 70-80 years instead of once every 20.

[Emperor2000]

Originally posted by Poltergeist:

I have a line of Steward Kings. No matter what I do, upon succession, there is at least one civil war.

During the game, regardless of how many bribes I send, or my vassal's opinion of me (sometimes above 40), factions continuously form. Bribes are limited in efficacy, as the bonus doesn't stack. Murders take time, at least a year, and that's if I can actually pull it off. Ultimatums can come quicker than that upon succession. They don't care if my dread is at 60+.

I've tried converting culture, religion, etc. Religion is almost uniform, but culture is not. I spread from Iceland, to Ireland, to Scotland and am attempting to maintain a kingdom with those three areas.

My children often have bad RNG and don't get the admin line. I don't mind a civil war here and there, but constantly dealing with this as steward seems over the top. Is there a secret to stopping endless civil wars as a steward? Thanks in advance.

You should focus your rulers on martial, because the martial attribute directly increase your levy count and more levies mean, your vassals need a higher troop count, to get the 80%.

But civil wars, are a great way to organize your realm, because you can revoke the titles of all rebellious vassal for free.

[Poltergeist]

Originally posted by Emperor2000:

But civil wars, are a great way to organize your realm, because you can revoke the titles of all rebellious vassal for free.

Interesting. Don't they have to accept the title revocation?

[Monkey89brains]

Originally posted by Poltergeist:

Originally posted by Emperor2000:

But civil wars, are a great way to organize your realm, because you can revoke the titles of all rebellious vassal for free.

Interesting. Don't they have to accept the title revocation?

They are forced to accept if they are in the dungeon, for example if after you won the civil war and enforced your demands you would be able to strip the titles easily.

[Sputnik]

I had a go at summarising the community advice on this problem a while back

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2776845816

[Razorblade]

Marry off your family members to powrful vassals for alliances. Allied vassals can't join factions.

[Celestial]

If you play Early Era Non Feudal societies the succession is a nightmare.

And until you unlock all the way to Primogeniture, your in for a rough couple hundred years.

I remember my Mongol play through, After I established the Mongol Empire, I was finished and unwilling to continue.

[Harris]

I often find myself in need to do "tyrannical" stuff aka redistribute land, make vassals drop their hooks on me, execute the by-products of the eugenics program and so on. This makes all vassals hate me non-stop.

While being a dread-based ruler doesn't solve all your problems, it surely helps to ensure you won't be fighting everyone at the same time. A good trick is to imprison all powerful vassals and basically everyone else who's trouble as your rule is nearing its end.. and their family and heirs too for the good measure. Unfortunately, it's kinda annoying as they can escape after a while and having their family hostage doesn't prevent them from causing trouble. But starting with your powerful vassals in prison is surely helpful for a fresh ruler without a maxed out dread tree yet. Good old fashioned executions work too - provided their underage kids inherit, and those can't join factions no matter what.

The downside to ruling through dread is you kinda have to specialize at it, so in my case the father was "the Impaler" and the daughter ended up as a "Child Killer".

Another observation is your domain will always be limited and you will pretty much never be as powerful as all your vassals combined. This leads to a conclusion that you should always have a strong foreign power to carry you through wars you got no business winning. Back in the day I ruled Russia as a tyrant and converted to Orthodoxy, which pretty much made Byzantium permanent ally and had it send me its doomstacks to fight my internal wars every time.

[spasti696969]

Civil wars are extremely destructive. You're spending money to kill your own people.

Now as for the game, the biggest thing people seem to overlook is granting territory out properly and creating duchies. If all of your counties are lined up de jure and all of your duchy shields are created and distributed, it will cut down massively on factions. Many of the troublesome counts in problematic factions can be gotten rid of simply by creating a duchy and then assigning them to your new duke. Puts a step between you and them and makes your problem his now (the joys of middle management).

Kingdom crowns are a bit more complex, as an emperor. There's a very delicate dance there. If you hoard the crowns on your own head you get a lot more money, but are basically guaranteed to have factions and assassination attempts. Vassals will also occasionally take it upon themselves to develop a county or convert religion, so they can even be helpful at times as a middle manager.

[Emperor2000]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

Marry off your family members to powrful vassals for alliances. Allied vassals can't join factions.

They can join tyranny wars against you, because of a bug, even you has a revocation or imprison reason.

[spasti696969]

Originally posted by Emperor2000:

Originally posted by Razorblade:

Marry off your family members to powrful vassals for alliances. Allied vassals can't join factions.

They can join tyranny wars against you, because of a bug, even you has a revocation or imprison reason.

They'll still go to war with you if you fail a revoke on them but can't actively join factions. Having a strong hook on them (strong hook only) will also keep them out of factions. And unless they have Brave or Ambitious they won't join a faction if they're Terrified of you.

[zevun]

The funny thing is that my experience is quite the opposite. I even wanted to ask if they made the game easier but after reading this post I see that they did not. I play as an emperor of Portugal with 2/3 of Spain under his control. I never saw any fractions against him or his predecessors. Maybe the thing is that all my ruler’s vassals are Portuguese and from his dynasty. Although I must admit that with Spain it is a different story because most of the lands are taken during holy wars therefore it is easy to give the land to someone loyal.

[spasti696969]

Originally posted by zevun:

The funny thing is that my experience is quite the opposite. I even wanted to ask if they made the game easier but after reading this post I see that they did not. I play as an emperor of Portugal with 2/3 of Spain under his control. I never saw any fractions against him or his predecessors. Maybe the thing is that all my ruler’s vassals are Portuguese and from his dynasty. Although I must admit that with Spain it is a different story because most of the lands are taken during holy wars therefore it is easy to give the land to someone loyal.

I'd be willing to bet that you're granting your titles out and lining up the counts properly under their de jure duchies moreso than on your earlier playthroughs, having everybody lined up properly and handing out all the duchy titles is the biggest thing for keeping vassal rebellions down. Unless you just imprison them all and rule as an absolute tyrant.