I have too many duchies... can I just give them to my heir?

[Beast]

So I just captured about 4 dutchies... I already have 2 as a king and all my vassals don't like that I have so many dutchies...

Would it be easy for me to just pass them to my heir, who will then have like 6 dutchies? Or does that affect how his vassals would look at him and cause other issues? (I mean... before he comes king, once he is king I would have to repeat the process I assume.)

Thanks!

[CrUsHeR]

If you have no other sons in partition succession (who would otherwise inherit the titles), then yes you can give them to your heir.

However you cannot give him just the duchy titles if he doesn't have any counties within those duchies. Because of the "de jure requirement" game rule, the titles would be automatically destroyed.

[vortex_13]

Why not just give them away to the vassal that controls the area? They're completely useless to you otherwise.

[JBrown247]

Destroy them

[NorPhi]

I never land my heirs, causes way more problems than it solves. Maybe distant relatives like nephews, just no one who has a claim already but even then you completely lock yourself out from marrying vassals to keep them quiet, unless you are going for that inbreed achievement.

If you allow for vassal wars, give them to counts of powerful vassals. Weakens the vassal and preoccupies everyone with murdering each other for the territory.

[Beast]

Originally posted by vortex_13:

Why not just give them away to the vassal that controls the area? They're completely useless to you otherwise.

Well I am getting the hang of things with this game so I am not sure what I should do with them. I figured keeping them in the family name meant that others couldn't claim them or would give some kind of prestige bonus (these are assumptions, I have no idea).

Is destroying them a better option then?
Giving them to vassals means those vassals gain power... powerful vassals are where civil wars start right?

[Beast]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

If you have no other sons in partition succession (who would otherwise inherit the titles), then yes you can give them to your heir.

However you cannot give him just the duchy titles if he doesn't have any counties within those duchies. Because of the "de jure requirement" game rule, the titles would be automatically destroyed.

You are right, seems like whenever I give duchies over they also receive the county titles.

[Emperor2000]

Originally posted by NorPhi:

I never land my heirs, causes way more problems than it solves. Maybe distant relatives like nephews, just no one who has a claim already but even then you completely lock yourself out from marrying vassals to keep them quiet, unless you are going for that inbreed achievement.

If you allow for vassal wars, give them to counts of powerful vassals. Weakens the vassal and preoccupies everyone with murdering each other for the territory.

But then your dynasty will not get any renown, my dynasty makes over 50 renown per month and this with only dynastic vassals(and a few non-dynastic vassals) and no dynasty members outside my realm.

The Castle Keepers Tradition and the Renown from the Royal Court are too powerful.

And this after only 20 years ingame.

[NorPhi]

Your direct offspring will have an implicit claim that becomes a pressed claim if your character dies and the offspring in question did not inherit the title. Pressed claims are inherited as unpressed claims by a characters primary heir. So close family tends to have claims and they will press them against other family members. Depending on your culture and religion there are some restriction on who can press a claim but those seem to not apply for claimant factions. I personally thing it is a very bad idea to share power with close family, it tends to backfire.
You can keep powerful vassals in check with alliances, either negotiated or through marriage. Any character who is is allied to you cannot join a faction. Same for characters you have a strong hook on and characters you befriended (lovers, and soulmates as well I think). The befriend scheme is normally locked behind the befriend perk but there is an hilariously overpowered tradition called "Ritualised Friendship" that just unlocks it for every character of your culture.
You can actually select which lands are granted with a title, you only need to grant a single county, not all of them. I tend to hand them to random nobles of my culture (or the local culture if I plan on hybridizing cultures) and then pick the one with the best skills/traits to get the duchy with the others becoming vassals. This will eventually result in the duke attempting to revoke titles up to his domain limit which results in a tyranny war and him being deposed. Keeps them busy for a while. If you plan on just "storing" a title for later, search if you've a character with the Eunuch trait.
Renown from family members is negligible, the royal court went totally overboard with how much renown is generated.

[Emperor2000]

Originally posted by NorPhi:

Your direct offspring will have an implicit claim that becomes a pressed claim if your character dies and the offspring in question did not inherit the title. Pressed claims are inherited as unpressed claims by a characters primary heir. So close family tends to have claims and they will press them against other family members. Depending on your culture and religion there are some restriction on who can press a claim but those seem to not apply for claimant factions. I personally thing it is a very bad idea to share power with close family, it tends to backfire.
You can keep powerful vassals in check with alliances, either negotiated or through marriage. Any character who is is allied to you cannot join a faction. Same for characters you have a strong hook on and characters you befriended (lovers, and soulmates as well I think). The befriend scheme is normally locked behind the befriend perk but there is an hilariously overpowered tradition called "Ritualised Friendship" that just unlocks it for every character of your culture.
You can actually select which lands are granted with a title, you only need to grant a single county, not all of them. I tend to hand them to random nobles of my culture (or the local culture if I plan on hybridizing cultures) and then pick the one with the best skills/traits to get the duchy with the others becoming vassals. This will eventually result in the duke attempting to revoke titles up to his domain limit which results in a tyranny war and him being deposed. Keeps them busy for a while. If you plan on just "storing" a title for later, search if you've a character with the Eunuch trait.

Close family is easy to control, if you are the dynasty head, because you can force them into an alliance with you, with your house head hook.

And the tradition "Ritualised Friendship" can be used to make all your vassals, your friends and after your character has died, your new character gets an opinion bonus, who is calculated with the total opinion of the vassal of your old character.

[Panthaz89]

If we are talking about duchies in feudalism with built duchy buildings then keep them they are too valuable to not keep most of the time and holding several duchy capitals heavily outweighs the opinion penalty. If its still tribal then it really doesn't matter too much.

[Ashling]

Originally posted by Jim, Earthworm:

Giving them to vassals means those vassals gain power... powerful vassals are where civil wars start right?

If a vassal feels entitled to a Dutchy they'll hate you for having it. Same with if you have a de jure vassal/count of theirs that should belong to them, so if you have a count inside the de jure dutchy of a Duke that they don't own (there's a map mode for dejure land, so all of that stuff), you'll want to transfer the vassal count to him (but there is a thing in the game called de jure drift where the de jure land change to better reflect where a title's land is in actuality, so you shouldn't feel obligated to maintain de jure borders, it just helps).

If a vassal has enough land the create a dukedom, they'll create it anyways. So, while, yes you'll get a more powerful vassal (and less money/manpower from the holdings), the trade off is stability (in that the vassal no longer hates you) and it simplifies interactions (1 duke is easier to manage than 3 or 5 counts). Every choice can be for a good reason, so don't feel like there's only one way to play the game.

[VipreRX]

I pass out duchies to my sons as they come of age based on inheritance since they're going to inherit them anyway. I marry them off first. After that it's their problem. I never land my primary heir though unless it's a county in the main duchy.
Alternatively, if I hold none of the counties in the duchy personally, I find the Count of the duchy capital county and give it to them.

[UnnamedKiller]

Originally posted by JBrown247:

Destroy them

dont destroy them it cost prestige, give them to AI who dont own the title they will destroy. let them use their prestige.

[JBrown247]

Originally posted by UnnamedKiller:

Originally posted by JBrown247:

Destroy them

dont destroy them it cost prestige, give them to AI who dont own the title they will destroy. let them use their prestige.

gud ider