I keep screwing up my kingdoms within a few years of starting. What am I doing wrong?

[Jeremydudeman81]

I've watched countless hours of tutorial videos. I pick a realm to start with and spend an hour setting things up before i even unpause the game. I marry my heirs for alliances/good traits, I get my court and knights settled, I try to make a plan to increase my holdings, but I have so little gold I really can't do anything. I set up a tiny war to get a new county or duchy, but a year into the war I'm broke and going further in debt. Half my vassals hate me at the start, and I can't sway them fast enough to stop them from starting a faction to kick me out. I give them wards, I can't afford to gift them because I have no gold. I sway who i can but it takes 6 months just to get from -100 to -85.

[Purest Warrior]

If you are new to the game, I'd recommend starting small. Don't start with a kingdom and get thrown into the politics and management of being a big cheese right off the bat.

Pick an independent county or chiefdom with similarly weak rulers around you and start subjugating your neighbours or pick a lowly vassal of a larger realm and start clawing your way to power. That way you'll get eased into having vassals of your own, one by one.

[MishaTX]

That or pick a duchy. They're small enough that you don't have a whole bunch of stuff you need to immediately take care of, and big enough that you can still grow without too much trouble. As you get more familiar with the gazillion things you can do in this game and how they tie together, perhaps go for one county starts.

But don't be a king or an emperor for your first game. That stuff gets overwhelming in a hurry!

[jpcerutti]

Use ALL the options to deal with vassals, not just swaying or gold, AND do not be afraid to kill them if you need to. Handing out a council position, granting a duchy to a good vassal AND assigning your worst vassals to them instead of you, granting the marginal vassal a title or vassal, getting a hook on them - many, many ways besides gold & swaying.

Letting a small faction revolt can be a good thing. You have to keep it manageable, but conquering and revoking the rebellious lets you reassign the land to somebody who will be a better vassal - and starts with a relation bonus because you gave them title & land.

Set up vassals that give you relationship bonuses. The patient. The humble. The Just. Family.
Either pick a ruler to start that has better relations with their vassals and/or traits that make for a good ruler, the brave, the just, the gregarious, or use those 400 custom points to design one.

[mutantmuppet]

also just because the AI pushes you towards wars don't rush into them. Build up your MMA's gold and county/duchy first. Alliances and a good maa build will stop people attacking you and give you the time to grow your own base first

[Razorblade]

Foreign Alliances and Opinion are generally a noob trap. Marry your family off to your vassals instead, as Allied vassals cannot join Factions, regardless of opinion. If you run out of family members, start handing out Duchies so that you have less direct vassals, as vassals-of-vassals cannot join Factions either. Then, with your realm stable, you can focus on building up your Men-At-Arms.

Generally speaking, if you're marrying outside of your own kingdom, it should be for the purpose of breeding Claims on foreign titles into your dynasty, not for necessary defense; that's what your Men-At-Arms are for.

Moreover, like others have stated, it's generally conceptually simpler to start CK3 as a Count or Duke, as internal problems (i.e. Factions) are generally far more dangerous than external problems. There's a reason the tutorial does not start you as a King or Emperor.

[DoktorFar]

Originally posted by Purest Warrior:

If you are new to the game, I'd recommend starting small. Don't start with a kingdom and get thrown into the politics and management of being a big cheese right off the bat.

Pick an independent county or chiefdom with similarly weak rulers around you and start subjugating your neighbours or pick a lowly vassal of a larger realm and start clawing your way to power. That way you'll get eased into having vassals of your own, one by one.

idk man, I started as King of the Franconians (Kingdom of West Francia I think it was). Seemed a lot easier to deal with because I had the power to influence the world and characters around a whole lot; I focused from the beginning on Stewardship, Learning and Diplomacy, in that order. Ended up focusing more on Learning. Knowledge is power, makes Learning languages a piece of walking cake in the park, and gold is always needed more of so always useful as is diplomatic opinions, which helps hugely with keeping the peace and any shenanigans on a very low level.

Also decided to become mega christian, because high Learning fit so well with Religion and Piety and Devotion, and suck up to the Pope to get more monies from him. Being well liked by your Prince-Bishop also makes him pay HUGE monies to you btw, due to him supporting you, this I think can probably be a little surprising, but it is quite significant. Founding Knights Templars has also been an incredible advantage in wars as I can just call on thousands of FREE hardy templars to help out, which makes an enormous difference. One of my main focuses in the game has been to look at characters all the time, checking their opinion, making them go towards 100, arranging marriages and tons of alliances. Everyone is at 100 now (except a very very few that is like 40-80). Whenever there was a war against me I would call my allies and they'll get swarmed. Whenever they get into a war and ask me to help, it's just like, fine, I'll go fight a bit, doesn't hurt really. Although in the beginning my knights died like flies even when I outnumbered the enemy like 8 to 1, which was a little strange I have to admit.

[AdmiralPiett]

Originally posted by DoktorFar:

Originally posted by Purest Warrior:

If you are new to the game, I'd recommend starting small. Don't start with a kingdom and get thrown into the politics and management of being a big cheese right off the bat.

Pick an independent county or chiefdom with similarly weak rulers around you and start subjugating your neighbours or pick a lowly vassal of a larger realm and start clawing your way to power. That way you'll get eased into having vassals of your own, one by one.

idk man, I started as King of the Franconians (Kingdom of West Francia I think it was). Seemed a lot easier to deal with because I had the power to influence the world and characters around a whole lot; I focused from the beginning on Stewardship, Learning and Diplomacy, in that order. Ended up focusing more on Learning. Knowledge is power, makes Learning languages a piece of walking cake in the park, and gold is always needed more of so always useful as is diplomatic opinions, which helps hugely with keeping the peace and any shenanigans on a very low level.

Also decided to become mega christian, because high Learning fit so well with Religion and Piety and Devotion, and suck up to the Pope to get more monies from him. Being well liked by your Prince-Bishop also makes him pay HUGE monies to you btw, due to him supporting you, this I think can probably be a little surprising, but it is quite significant. Founding Knights Templars has also been an incredible advantage in wars as I can just call on thousands of FREE hardy templars to help out, which makes an enormous difference. One of my main focuses in the game has been to look at characters all the time, checking their opinion, making them go towards 100, arranging marriages and tons of alliances. Everyone is at 100 now (except a very very few that is like 40-80). Whenever there was a war against me I would call my allies and they'll get swarmed. Whenever they get into a war and ask me to help, it's just like, fine, I'll go fight a bit, doesn't hurt really. Although in the beginning my knights died like flies even when I outnumbered the enemy like 8 to 1, which was a little strange I have to admit.

Start in Ireland, aka "Tutorial Island"

[Sgt. Sarge]

Put all your points into martial, crush your enemies, and hear the lamentations of their women.

[Jeremydudeman81]

I actually had a good start with Wessex. Was slowly expanding, slowly getting my vassals to like me, everything going well and then Typhus killed my whole family.

[Delta-Kilo]

If you must start out in a fully-fledged kingdom, there's a few things to remember. Your objective, especially starting out, is survival. Check on what your vassals actually want (title, positions, territorial claims, etc). If it isn't absolutely vital for you to hang onto, let them have it, you can always take it back later. That goes for the Liberty Factions too. If you have to lower taxes for a bit to get them to back off ousting you, do it. Wars are more expensive and risky.
Finally, don't forget to use all of the tools at your disposal. Yes if you have the funds, a few carefully placed bribes can keep things in check while you sway others. If not, don't forget you can throw dinner parties for about the same cost of a bribe and it can raise the opinions of dozens of vassals. Marriage alliances within your kingdom is a useful tool, as others have pointed out, and are usually easier to arrange than foreign ones. Also, especially if you are a Christian faction, keep the church on your side. The more your bishop likes you, the more funds and troops are at your disposal. Keeping him happy often times is all you really need.

[Fighter of the Nightman]

Your biggest issue seems to be going into debt. You don't want to grow your Men at Arms too big if you don't have the gold to support it while it's activated you'll always be losing gold when they're active which means you have a timer before you go bankrupt. You can see the cost of each one both peacetime and activated on the military page.

Before you declare war make sure you'll either be profitable with your activated army or at least that you have enough to pay wages until you win the war.

Bankruptcy gives a lot of really bad modifiers.