Is holding more than 2 duchies as king or emperor worth the opinion penalty?

[PuttBlug]

It's been bothering me how you can't use more than 2 duchy buildings as most of them are really powerful, have any of you ever held more than 3 duchies and if so did you find it worth the opinion penalty?

[Razorblade]

I have never found the need, personally.

That being said, opinion is a largely useless stat when vassals are best controlled with alliances and delegation, so I don't see why this strategy wouldn't work.

[CrUsHeR]

Kind of depends on your faith.

Example for muslims, they have exclusively great virtues: Temperate, Just, Generous.
While their sins are terrible: Gluttonous, Arbitrary, Greedy, Drunkard.
So ideally all your heirs have at least two of these, giving you a massive headstart in opinion. IIRC - Just even doubles as "great virtue" for faiths with Legalism, although it is the only somewhat hindering trait for Realpolitiks.

For comparison, catholics would have to be Chaste, Compassionate, Honest... a very poor combination for any ruler. Even worse, Lustful, Callous and Deceitful are sins, despite all of them being acceptable secondary traits for any ruler.

Clan Vassals also expect an alliance, which you can easily get by marriage with your many daughters and sisters due to polygamy. They also always accept negotiable alliances (e.g. brothers after succession, or re-negotiate previous marriage alliance) even if they wouldn't in feudal realms over political concerns (is claimant, low opinion, etc)

So now everyone loves you due to your virtues and alliances. Some extra duchies held don't change this.

[CrUsHeR]

A different question though:


How can you hold more than 1 duchy title before Primogeniture?


The general "Meta" is to only hold your one capital duchy as long as you're locked into Partition. Outside of this duchy, you can also hold as many extra counties as your domain limit allows. Just no additional duchies, because you lose these on every succession.

Of course there are some workarounds, like disinheriting all except one child, having only bastards and legitimizing the best one, etc. Or revoking titles after every succession.
But this is all very sub-optimal, takes up time, causes stress, and distracts from the most obvious straight path of spending all your time forging claims and taking new lands.


And there is one thing which is more of an exploit: You can use Elective on your primary home kingdom (at least with Scandinavian Elective), then hold one additional Kingdom. But you don't add Elective to this kingdom.

Result is that your primary heir, if he gets elected to your primary elective kingdom, gets to keep literally every title within the elective realm, and he gets the second kingdom from partition. Extra sons get nothing, unless there is anything to inherit outside these two kingdoms.

[RDR]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από CrUsHeR:

A different question though:


How can you hold more than 1 duchy title before Primogeniture?


The general "Meta" is to only hold your one capital duchy as long as you're locked into Partition. Outside of this duchy, you can also hold as many extra counties as your domain limit allows. Just no additional duchies, because you lose these on every succession.

Of course there are some workarounds, like disinheriting all except one child, having only bastards and legitimizing the best one, etc. Or revoking titles after every succession.
But this is all very sub-optimal, takes up time, causes stress, and distracts from the most obvious straight path of spending all your time forging claims and taking new lands.


And there is one thing which is more of an exploit: You can use Elective on your primary home kingdom (at least with Scandinavian Elective), then hold one additional Kingdom. But you don't add Elective to this kingdom.

Result is that your primary heir, if he gets elected to your primary elective kingdom, gets to keep literally every title within the elective realm, and he gets the second kingdom from partition. Extra sons get nothing, unless there is anything to inherit outside these two kingdoms.

I am currently holding about 5 or 6. The opinion malus is manageable.

As you have said, just keep one male heir. It is not that difficult to do. The third son will usually take vows (ie be made a monk), the secondary heir will most likely require disinheriting but it is hardly a big deal. Just disinherit and then give him a few holdings to keep him happy.

Obviously perhaps culture/faith combinations may make this harder/easier.

FYI I don't know how disinheriting/taking vows/etc affects your ability to forge claims or take land???????? As for stress, I find it becomes meaningless if you ensure your ruler is forgiving (as it is a virtue, so that helps with opinion) and have a half decent spymaster.

BTW : I would suggest using other methods of claiming land other than forgery. Normal holy war is great because you can claim whole duchies (and their associated holding in one go), or press other peoples claims and vassalise. Asking the pope for a claim (dutchy level and above only iirc) also works well.

You can also give pretty much all your titles away before death, just ensure you grab the know-yourself perk and you will have a years warning.

Hope some of that helps.

[PuttBlug]

Right now I'm playing as the Sassanids and being zoroastrian it's pretty easy to get those trinkets which give +5 opinion with every zoroastrian character. That's 20 opinion total if you manage to get 4 of those incredibly useful items. I'm thinking that it would be worth it to hold at least 3 duchies myself, maybe 4. I guess playing as a culture or religion that doesn't have access to such items would be very difficult. Imagine having a new ruler, - 40 opinion from being over the duchy limit and also having to deal with the short reign opinion penalty. You better hope your MAA are elite tier and fully upgraded then.

[CrUsHeR]

Hope some of that helps.

I'm aware of the various exploits, or unsavory methods to avoid having more than 1 heir.

Just saying that the normal, clean gameflow doesn't really allow more than 1 duchy until primogeniture.

And honestly, before i start disinherting kids, or run that election exploit, i'd rather use a mod to give myself primogeniture at the earliest occasion.


Some of the duchy buildings are pretty great, though. I prefer military academies for the Knights.

[VoiD]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από CrUsHeR:

A different question though:


How can you hold more than 1 duchy title before Primogeniture?


The general "Meta" is to only hold your one capital duchy as long as you're locked into Partition. Outside of this duchy, you can also hold as many extra counties as your domain limit allows. Just no additional duchies, because you lose these on every succession.

Of course there are some workarounds, like disinheriting all except one child, having only bastards and legitimizing the best one, etc. Or revoking titles after every succession.
But this is all very sub-optimal, takes up time, causes stress, and distracts from the most obvious straight path of spending all your time forging claims and taking new lands.


And there is one thing which is more of an exploit: You can use Elective on your primary home kingdom (at least with Scandinavian Elective), then hold one additional Kingdom. But you don't add Elective to this kingdom.

Result is that your primary heir, if he gets elected to your primary elective kingdom, gets to keep literally every title within the elective realm, and he gets the second kingdom from partition. Extra sons get nothing, unless there is anything to inherit outside these two kingdoms.

You can give other children their inheritance while you're alive.

IE: If you have 2 sons and 2 duchies you'll need to conquer 2 extra duchies (or revoke from your vassals) and give them to your 2nd son.

If the succession tab is still telling you that your heir will lose some counties, then you need to give the 2nd son some extra counties as well, once you set everything right your sucession won't make you lose any titles.

If you have more sons, as I usually go over 10 in most generations, then just multiply what you want your main heir to inherit by the number of sons and start conquering/revoking a LOT of stuff.

If realm split is inevitable you can also conquer lands outside of your dejure imperial lands , from random foes, in random lands you don't really care about and let them have those random kingdoms instead, worst case scenario you'll have a very influential dynasty full of splendor generation and near permanent allied kingdoms bordering your empire. If you want to have their titles as the dynasty head you can simply click a button and get a claim on them at any time.

PS: Tiny kingdoms like Crete and Venice are great for splendor generation, and very easy to conquer/form.

[RDR]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από CrUsHeR:

Hope some of that helps.

I'm aware of the various exploits, or unsavory methods to avoid having more than 1 heir.

Just saying that the normal, clean gameflow doesn't really allow more than 1 duchy until primogeniture.

And honestly, before i start disinherting kids, or run that election exploit, i'd rather use a mod to give myself primogeniture at the earliest occasion.


Some of the duchy buildings are pretty great, though. I prefer military academies for the Knights.

Fair enough. Not really what your question asked though.

When you use a word like "clean" you impose a very subjectively specific set of limitations upon your options. I would argue that "clean" and "Meta" (the term used in your first post) are not really compatible.

You don't want to use disinherit, take vows, revoke, grant before die or any other form of inheritance management that I am aware of. All good btw, just making sure I understand your perspective. We all play differently, so not judging your playstyle, outside of saying it is different to my own.

If you don't want to use any form of inheritance management than the problem is much harder. In short make sure you control the higher level de-jure kingdom, and than have enough surplus duchies to give your surplus heirs. The succession tab should help with this. You could also try not having kids until later in life, should keep the number of heirs down. You may be able to add duchies to the de-jure kingdom you hold (sorry, i cant remember what it is called but it essentially does what I described, you can do counties and I think duchies aswell) in order to control what goes where.

Outside of that, just live with it and re-acquire the duchy after the succession. If you don't want to just revoke without a reason, set your spymaster to work, get a hook and then revoke.

I don't really believe any of the above will suit what you are looking for, but just in case it is of use I added it. The best solution is probably just to mod it or beeline for primogeniture.

FTR : From my perspective I don't see any real semantic difference between disinheriting and primogeniture, they are the same thing by different names. In both cases extra heirs are disinherited. The second just doesn't come with the penalties of the first.

[Bordric]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Pain...:

It's been bothering me how you can't use more than 2 duchy buildings as most of them are really powerful, have any of you ever held more than 3 duchies and if so did you find it worth the opinion penalty?

Sometimes I will depending on my goals. As established leader it is a non issue for the opinion hit just my heir may have some issues with with the opinion hit.

[Bordric]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Red E:

FTR : From my perspective I don't see any real semantic difference between disinheriting and primogeniture, they are the same thing by different names. In both cases extra heirs are disinherited. The second just doesn't come with the penalties of the first.

This right here, primogeniture is just a way to cheat other children out of inheritance. It is not liked by sibling understandable and although easier to manage of course I don't think it is clean at all.

But even with primogeniture I will still disinherit a bad heir. Without missing a beat then marry him off to some baroness or countess across the world. LOL

I have no problem nor think it clean or unclean to use whatever option that is viable to remove heir or his siblings from taking big junks of land. Up to and including attacking a sibling that took land on the rulers death and putting it back under my control.

I would find it unclean to use a mod to cheat to primogeniture but that is just me.

[PuttBlug]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Bordric:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Pain...:

It's been bothering me how you can't use more than 2 duchy buildings as most of them are really powerful, have any of you ever held more than 3 duchies and if so did you find it worth the opinion penalty?

Sometimes I will depending on my goals. As established leader it is a non issue for the opinion hit just my heir may have some issues with with the opinion hit.

Yeah I guess before holding 3 or 4 duchy titles it's a good idea to have a strong economy and MAA army just in case you can't placate your vassals after succession.

[Сааребас]

The real question should be, why do you want that?

Renown boosts can be held by any of your dynasty.
Income boost is short term because your domain should take care of that.
Artifact creation boost, you only need one.
Development boost only needs your culture.

Etc, etc.

You could temporarily hold one to decide what building(s) should be there, but that's about it.

Aside from all that, you should always try to placate vassals if possible and more importantly be military strong enough to defeat your vassals if push comes to shove.

[PuttBlug]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Пьяный Медоед (Се:

The real question should be, why do you want that?

Renown boosts can be held by any of your dynasty.
Income boost is short term because your domain should take care of that.
Artifact creation boost, you only need one.
Development boost only needs your culture.

Etc, etc.

You could temporarily hold one to decide what building(s) should be there, but that's about it.

Aside from all that, you should always try to placate vassals if possible and more importantly be military strong enough to defeat your vassals if push comes to shove.

Money shouldn't be an issue even before 900 or early after the 900s if you're playing as clan or feudal but there are certain duchy buildings like the ones which reduce stress gain that are really useful. If you stack 3 or 4 you never have to worry about it ever again.

[Сааребас]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Pain...:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Пьяный Медоед (Се:

The real question should be, why do you want that?

Renown boosts can be held by any of your dynasty.
Income boost is short term because your domain should take care of that.
Artifact creation boost, you only need one.
Development boost only needs your culture.

Etc, etc.

You could temporarily hold one to decide what building(s) should be there, but that's about it.

Aside from all that, you should always try to placate vassals if possible and more importantly be military strong enough to defeat your vassals if push comes to shove.

Money shouldn't be an issue even before 900 or early after the 900s if you're playing as clan or feudal but there are certain duchy buildings like the ones which reduce stress gain that are really useful. If you stack 3 or 4 you never have to worry about it ever again.

You can easily accomplish that with artifacts, whether they be court or inventory ones.
Also if money isn't an issue here are also plenty of ways to reduce or even remove it.
With the right guests you don't even have to wait for a couple of months before the activity finally starts.

I understand the utility but fail to see the necessity.

[PuttBlug]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Пьяный Медоед (Се:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Pain...:

Money shouldn't be an issue even before 900 or early after the 900s if you're playing as clan or feudal but there are certain duchy buildings like the ones which reduce stress gain that are really useful. If you stack 3 or 4 you never have to worry about it ever again.

You can easily accomplish that with artifacts, whether they be court or inventory ones.
Also if money isn't an issue here are also plenty of ways to reduce or even remove it.
With the right guests you don't even have to wait for a couple of months before the activity finally starts.

I understand the utility but fail to see the necessity.

There are instances when you have to gain stress like educating someone or a random event that force you to throw a feast or go on a hunting trip, but these aren't always available. Also artifacts with good stress reduction aren't always available or when they are, there are other artifacts that are better at renown gain, opinion, health, lifestyle exp gain that aren't available from duchy buildings which give -10% stress gain at tier 1 each.

It's a min max strategy which most of the time forces me to use other artifacts than the ones that reduce stress gain.