Is it really worth creating duchies?

[Dratgon]

Is it worth creating duchies once you own two, have lots of prestige and your vassals & kingdom are fairly stable. I have 3 duchies not yet created within my de jure kingdom.

When I expand every 10-20 years or so and also not creating duchies in the conquered land.

But should I create any new duchies?

I can think of a couple of pros/cons:

Why you should:

• Counties missing a duchy will give you slightly less money/men (which I don't really need)
  
  
• You get prestige (which I don't need)
  
  
• The title owner get claims on counties inside of the de jure duchy (useful if counties are not within your realm)
  
  
• High Partition succession purposes (@Totally Innocent Chatbot))
  
  
• Vassal limit (@Totally Innocent Chatbot)

Why you shouldn't:

• Costs money
  
  
• Consolidates power, decreases the power difference to the liege (you)
  
  
• Can be lost in war, more land lost than if only county

[Narrowmind]

I tend not to unless I need to, and of course you should too, as they give you prestige and limit your vassals.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

It's useful for succession purposes. Under High Partition succession, the general rule of thumb if you hold only one Kingdom or higher title is "one duchy per son". If you don't want to deal with elective succession laws or get up to any other inheritance shenanigans, creating extra Duchys can be useful to ensure you keep all the stuff you want to keep upon succession. If you personally hold land in two Duchys that you plan on keeping, and you have the money and Prestige to spare, you can temporarily delete the second Duchy title, create one you don't care about for succession, then re-create the second Duchy title once you take over as your heir.

Apart from that, it depends on how big you plan on growing. The main use later on for creating additional duchy titles, apart from succession, is to give them out to vassals who don't hold the entire duchy personally, so you can reduce your total number of vassals and stay below your vassal limit. While this will reduce your income a bit, it also means fewer potential rebellious subjects to deal with, as the extra counts will have to deal with their new Duke instead of you when they're angry.

[Dratgon]

Good points!
Hadn't considered the succession aspect of this.
I'll add them both to the list

[NorPhi]

I think factions like claimant and liberty as well as some shemes are restricted to the direct liege. Keeping 5 dukes in line is much easier than 15-30 counts.

[UnnamedKiller]

i have conquer the whole map many time. i dont create duchy. since i conquer the map too fast. i just make king title and assign to my vassal, this way my vassal will make duchy. if u make duchy holding alot duchy will create negative opinion unless u are a duchy only.

the way i play in during lifetime of first king create Empire title. this way i only need to worry succession Empire and keep whoie empire intact.
king title is too limited as some land especially those island with 2 land u get 1 king title.

[teron]

Originally posted by NorPhi:

I think factions like claimant and liberty as well as some shemes are restricted to the direct liege. Keeping 5 dukes in line is much easier than 15-30 counts.

This.

Also it means if you have a faction issue, it is possible to create a duchy and move counts you that are being a pain into it. Then give the title to someone that has more desirable traits, since they will get a major opinion boost for getting the title. With the annoying counts being his problem.

Thus by spending gold to restructure the realm, you can delay factions which can lead to them being a non issue. Since time gives more time for the short reign opinion malus to wear off.

It can also be a way to get rid of people that have hooks on you by transferring them to someone else. Since it removes their annoying using hooks to get on council since indirect vassals are not eligible.

Bonus points to this is if you are transferring them to be under their rival/someone that has a claim on them. I use this for the rare times vassals that get a strong hook on me.

[garthurbrown]

I don't know what the rest of these people are on about, but yes, you want to create duchies to get the prestige, limit the number of vassals you have to deal with, & get better taxes/levies for being "rightful liege".

[garthurbrown]

"Can be lost in war, more land lost than if only county"

A duchy title doesn't have to exist for it to be contested in a war. Wars are against de jure duchies, not titles held by a duke.

[NorPhi]

I think he meant wars for claims. You cannot claim a duchy that doesn't exist but once ducal conquest or de jure claims are unlocked that a very poor excuse. The Prestige is only relevant in the beginning of a game.

[Kimlin]

Early game it is and later game it depends on how large your realm is, how fast you expand, and your succession type. There’s always a positive to it but there’s also a cost.

[UnnamedKiller]

To think u can’t claim a duchy without a duchy it’s not much significant. Holy war duchy, conquest duchy. Can be use infinite time.

[dwarfpcfan]

There's no point in creating duchy titles beyond the necessary ones you need to create a kingdom title.

All it does is set you up with a larger number of powerful vassals as they become the liege of lesser vassals, allowing them to get more powerful armies and then jerk you around with factions.

ideally you want to have as lots of weak vassals, 1-2 county counts and once you reach Empire level then things usually sort themselves out as a couple of those vassals do some land grabbing and form duchy titles of their own but by then you've outpaced them so much that it won't matter.

[Narrowmind]

It's weird so many say things like this, because what you're talking about is prevented by thr vanilla game through vassal limits. More vassals is harder to satisfy than less vassals. And yeah, the titles are nice on a new ruler when you're grinding up to illustrious.

[NorPhi]

No, really strongly disagree. You want as few vassals as possible. The number of powerful vassals is fixed, it'S always 4 or 5 (can't remember). You've only 3-4 Duchy vassals? Great, now some random mayor or baron thinks he's powerful enough to demand stuff from you (that's actually hilarious because you can just kick them out with no penalty and re-roll until you got one with nice stats). Also there's a vassal limit. If you are above it they pay like 50% less taxes or so.

[dwarfpcfan]

Originally posted by Ratlegion:

It's weird so many say things like this, because what you're talking about is prevented by thr vanilla game through vassal limits. More vassals is harder to satisfy than less vassals.

It's very rare you'll reach your vassal limit if you do an even half decent job managing your kingdom, tech up and especially with royal court when you can create court artifacts that can increase that limit further.

I've done entire runs with multiple empire level titles and a single ruler holding 15+king level titles and I've never reached my vassal limit.

Originally posted by NorPhi:

No, really strongly disagree. You want as few vassals as possible. The number of powerful vassals is fixed, it'S always 4 or 5 (can't remember).

the number of what the game calls a powerful vassal is fixed, not actual powerful vassals. I.E vassals with armies large enough that if they band together they can have a chance to force you to accept their demands.

conversely if you have say 20 count level vassals with 1-2 counties, they spend 90% of their time fighting each other to try and grow, leaving you free to concentrate on strengthtening your own position in the kingdom. And their factions, if they form them will be pitifully weak and succeptible to manipulation.

By then time you reach empire level, you'll have dukes as powerful vassals but by then you'll easily have had the time to build a force that can crush them easily if they try to rise against you.