Is there supposed to be a downside to the march contract?

[ShepherdOfCats]

"march contract" for feudal contracts says you get bonuses to levy and garrison (I forget the details but they're kinda strong buffs, and then it says, "*but* you pay 50% less in taxes."'

Is it supposed to be 50% more taxes? Getting all these buffs and paying 50% less taxes sounds like there is no downside. It also doesn't require a hook or trade off to enact, apparently? I guess you can just demand it of your liege and he's like, "okay, sounds good to me."

[Elriadon]

I think it's supposed to be that you generate less taxes, so you receive less gold than normal and so does your liege. Still worth it.

[Kimlin]

Reading the wiki it actually looks like there is no negative for the vassal who takes the March contract. The negative to the tax is for the liege. I never realized how good that is.

[ShepherdOfCats]

Originally posted by Kimlin:

Reading the wiki it actually looks like there is no negative for the vassal who takes the March contract. The negative to the tax is for the liege. I never realized how good that is.

Yeah I didn't either. Never really payed much attention to the special contracts (other than maybe revoke protection) but the march contract seems kinda broken in favor of the vassal. Since the game lets you demand it without a hook or a concession in some other area, seems like a freebie.

[ShepherdOfCats]

Originally posted by Eltar:

I think it's supposed to be that you generate less taxes, so you receive less gold than normal and so does your liege. Still worth it.

Is it 50% less tax generation? Maybe I read that wrong. Don't have the game running but I will double check.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

Marches have a very specific purpose as being a powerful military force for the realm (generally on it's edges to serve as a first-line of defense or a powerful offensive tool). They pay less taxes (so they can focus on building up and improving their military and fortifications) in exchange for providing extra troops.

Since your liege always gets a percentage of your levy, any boosts to your levy directly benefit the liege, so he's trading tax income for increased levy.

[VoiD]

From a liege's perspective, I'd say it's never worth it, for a vassal, it's a great deal.

Levies are broken in CK3, they are worthless, their only purpose is to create more weight and generate attrition to your real troops, so you're trading half their income, which isn't a lot in the vassal system tbh, for...Nothing?

[bulbatrs]

Originally posted by VoiD:

From a liege's perspective, I'd say it's never worth it, for a vassal, it's a great deal.

Levies are broken in CK3, they are worthless, their only purpose is to create more weight and generate attrition to your real troops, so you're trading half their income, which isn't a lot in the vassal system tbh, for...Nothing?

levies are not worthless. if you think they are, well get good.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

Originally posted by VoiD:

From a liege's perspective, I'd say it's never worth it, for a vassal, it's a great deal.

Levies are broken in CK3, they are worthless, their only purpose is to create more weight and generate attrition to your real troops, so you're trading half their income, which isn't a lot in the vassal system tbh, for...Nothing?

levies are not worthless. if you think they are, well get good.

lol

[captain403]

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

levies are not worthless. if you think they are, well get good.

Once I have a good field army of 'real' troops, I use the levies to form the siege army while the field army either does other things, or sits close by NOT taking the attrition the siege army does, but is ready to intervene if the other side tries to lift the siege.

[ShepherdOfCats]

Originally posted by kaiyl_kariashi:

Marches have a very specific purpose as being a powerful military force for the realm (generally on it's edges to serve as a first-line of defense or a powerful offensive tool). They pay less taxes (so they can focus on building up and improving their military and fortifications) in exchange for providing extra troops.

Since your liege always gets a percentage of your levy, any boosts to your levy directly benefit the liege, so he's trading tax income for increased levy.

Okay so this kinda explains the logic behind it, I just don't know how well it would play in practice. I enacted a march contract and my taxes to my liege dropped from 0.2 to 0.1, maybe, late game it makes enough difference to be able to build up your holdings, but for now that's trading 0.1 gold for some incredible buffs, heavily weighted in favor of the vassal.

not trying to be argumentative. yours is a point I hadn't considered.

I guess as a liege you could enact it for your friend/alliance vassals temporarily to buff their levy contributions to make-or-break faction strength against vassals who hate you. Combined with other efforts you could maybe stop a faction from going into revolt.