Domain Limit is absurdly high

[Æthelwulf]

Does anyone else feel like domain limit in this game is totally ridiculous? you can get up to 13/14 with very little effort of any kind, which honestly should not even be possible. I think the absolute max possible should be 10, that'd be as a lategame emperor with techs and dynasty legacy perks. Having a domain of 5 or 6 should be something that is rare and only achievable with 20+ stewardship.... most characters on the map should have a maximum of 3 holdings honestly.

In a game that's trying to model feudal society it's pretty crazy that it literally just doesn't matter what your relationships with your vassals are like. When you personally hold 8 or 10 castles it doesn't really matter what anyone thinks of you. I hate this and hope they cut domain limits literally in half at some point, or at least add an optional rule so i can still earn achievements since mods like that break them.

[The Rextinguished Gentleman]

Before you upgrade to king, yea.
But if you're a king or emperor you can only hold two duchies before significant penalty.

High stewardship rulers can easily hold 5-15 counties or baronies, depending on traits/buff, and that's barely a scratch.

There are duchies with 2 counties, there are duchies with 9 counties. It really depends.

Also, as a king, you DO get that Fuedal feeling, imo.

I'm sure there are mods to further limit land ownership, but "playing tall" is a popular game strategy for people who want to limit their land grab. especially in regions like Bohemia (8 counties) or Sicily (5 counties).

[Harris]

One of the very brief and concise dev diaries mentions they will change innovations from boosting your domain limit to giving you more building slots in existing settlements. It will make tall play even more powerful as before or allow you to have both economy and military buildings in the same place.

While we're at it, it's not just about domain limit, because counties are not born equal. If you happen to have a mine or a cathedral in your county you will likewise be more powerful than all your neighbours combined and won't have to care about vassal opinion.

I would argue against this being unrealistic, because the core of liege - vassal relationship is protection for gold/levies contribution. So as a king you're basically a crime lord. Why would someone pay you protection if they are stronger than you? Why wouldn't they challenge your rule or go independent instead?

Rus is a good example of this. You found a Varangian capital in Kyiv through a decision, and then you have a city that is more advanced and making more profit than all the undeveloped wasteland around combined - so the minor chieftains around you are left with no choice other than becoming your vassal.

Of course, a realm where only the king is powerful is arguably weaker to foreign invasions, but if you have an empire where every duke is rich and powerful and up to his own devices, ending the empire becomes the matter of a single dissolution faction.

[bulbatrs]

Originally posted by Rex:

Before you upgrade to king, yea.
But if you're a king or emperor you can only hold two duchies before significant penalty.

High stewardship rulers can easily hold 5-15 counties or baronies, depending on traits/buff, and that's barely a scratch.

There are duchies with 2 counties, there are duchies with 9 counties. It really depends.

Also, as a king, you DO get that Fuedal feeling, imo.

I'm sure there are mods to further limit land ownership, but "playing tall" is a popular game strategy for people who want to limit their land grab. especially in regions like Bohemia (8 counties) or Sicily (5 counties).

you don't have to make duchies, break titles and rule the best land. that seems to be the most optimal strat

[Crowkeeper]

No.

[Moose_knuckle]

Nope

[Poompaxhotl-Mardxvar]

Nay.

[Kimlin]

Aren’t they already reducing domain size in T&T?

[Kimlin]

Originally posted by Kimlin:

Aren’t they already reducing domain size in T&T?

Domain Limit Rebalance & Building Slot Revamp​

After the big economical AI update that came in the Friends & Foes update, one point of feedback that came up frequently was that it felt like rulers had too few vassals left - this is obviously an issue in a game about personal relationships. We don’t want to limit the AI in arbitrary ways, so we took a look at the game and one of the things we found was that Domain Limits, on average, were very high, even for mediocre rulers. Most of the ‘problematic’ Domain Limits we found to be coming from Innovations, which gave a total of 4 Domain limits over the course of the game. Stacking Stewardship was also a bit too good compared to any other skill.

Because of this, we’ve removed two instances of Domain Limit increase from Innovations (you now get +1 Domain Limit in the Tribal era, and +1 in late medieval), and we’ve increased how many points of Stewardship you need for +1 Domain Limit to 6 from 5… BUT!

[PDX-Trinexx]

Originally posted by Kimlin:

Aren’t they already reducing domain size in T&T?

Yep. We're reducing the domain limit across the board in a few ways and making individual holdings more meaningful in exchange.

[Æthelwulf]

Originally posted by PDX-Trinexx:

Originally posted by Kimlin:

Aren’t they already reducing domain size in T&T?

Yep. We're reducing the domain limit across the board in a few ways and making individual holdings more meaningful in exchange.

how do you guys feel about implementing a hard cap that's not possible to exceed without a 100% levy and tax penalty? something like 10 or 15?

[Illusion17]

I'd honestly be pretty annoyed if you couldn't. If I'm going to invest into stewardship over another lifestyle, I want it to have a serious benefit other than a few strong individual perks such as this is MY domain and fearful troops. Stewardship is all about being able to take better care of your realm, so being able to handle more individual holdings is a natural extension. It would demolish stewardship if they nerfed max holdings without also nerfing the base holding amount. Instead of reducing the max holdings while keeping the average holdings the same, they should reduce both max holdings and average holdings if it's a problem.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Illusion17:

I'd honestly be pretty annoyed if you couldn't. If I'm going to invest into stewardship over another lifestyle, I want it to have a serious benefit

Right now Stewardship is overperforming, and T&T is evident of that, how they're giving more stuff to Diplomacy, Intrigue and ofc Martial to keep them competetive.

Its "serious benefit" is the ability to accomplish anything other lifestyle can. Bribe agents, send gifts, hire mercenaries. And the gold is also inherited unlike prestige and piety which are individual. Stewardship's straightforward and well-rounded nature makes it intrinsically better than anything else.

What I think Stewardship should be doing for you is percentage bonus on your holding taxes rather than the ability of having more holdings. While numbers-wise your profits would be similar, this change would:
- give you a need for more vassals, and by extension interacting with them
- break you out of a stewardship loop where every single ruler of yours must have high stewardship just to be able to keep and use all those vast holdings.

[TB]

TLDR: We have too much money in CK3 and combined with other issues the game is trivial to play.

Currently getting lots of money is super-easy in CK3 and when you have the money the vassal opinion is almost meaningless anyway as you can always bribe them with gifts and be golden. This way I am able to hold "too many duchies" and cause tyranny with little worries. And should some vassals rebel anyway they will be far to few to be a threat and will be dealt with easily.

Together with the overpowered genetics, various bonus stacking and poor AI the game is worryingly trivial to play to be honest and I am starting to lose hope the devs will be able to balance it. Royal Court made the game even easier with plenty of the bonuses and now accolades are coming to add even more. I hope I am wrong but I am not optimistic atm.

I really need more challenge (and no I am not going to "roleplay" to create challenge myself as I truly despise that with passion - I need a good basic, challenging gameplay loop). And I write this as a pretty bad strategy player that struggles in other similar games such as Civilization 4. So far my only band-aid is to hunt achievements but it's no magic pill either.

[UnBreakable]

Its the most op strategy in my opinion secure a lot of domains and pass to a single heir as a legacy rinse repeat and in 2 or three generations nothing can stop you

[Illusion17]

Originally posted by Harris:

Originally posted by Illusion17:

I'd honestly be pretty annoyed if you couldn't. If I'm going to invest into stewardship over another lifestyle, I want it to have a serious benefit

Right now Stewardship is overperforming, and T&T is evident of that, how they're giving more stuff to Diplomacy, Intrigue and ofc Martial to keep them competetive.

Its "serious benefit" is the ability to accomplish anything other lifestyle can. Bribe agents, send gifts, hire mercenaries. And the gold is also inherited unlike prestige and piety which are individual. Stewardship's straightforward and well-rounded nature makes it intrinsically better than anything else.

What I think Stewardship should be doing for you is percentage bonus on your holding taxes rather than the ability of having more holdings. While numbers-wise your profits would be similar, this change would:
- give you a need for more vassals, and by extension interacting with them
- break you out of a stewardship loop where every single ruler of yours must have high stewardship just to be able to keep and use all those vast holdings.

Personally, I normally will only invest in a stewardship lifestyle during the early game. I normally want my first few leaders to be martial in order to expand my realm to the point that my courtiers, knights, or vassals have an individual with high martial to control my armies. I want my next few leaders to focus stewardship in order to improve my realm and consolidate control within it. From there on out I want pretty much every leader I have to invest in learning until I've gotten primogeniture. The middle learning path is just so good because of how effective it is for increasing your learning while also ensuring your other stats aren't neglected. Having genius characters combined with learn on the job is almost always enough to not even have to worry about having domain limit issues.

Stewardship itself is very strong, but I don't feel it edges out martial or learning by that large of a margin once you actually have an established realm. The individual perks in the tree on the other hand are a different story. I'll maintain that it is MY domain combined with fearful troops is practically broken early game. Investing in stewardship itself is invaluable early game, but I just find it has diminishing returns later. When my leaders are averaging 15-20 stewardship base, I don't see a need to focus back on it with the exception of for the perks within the stewardship lifestyle. If I do have an especially cursed leader, I'll normally just grant one of the sub barony's to a noble of local culture. You can nab it back later with no consequences and I normally prefer to invest in counties with multiple keep slots in order to maximize localized growth and existing development.