Help me understand Administrative Government

[Iskander]

So I've managed to press my claim of the Byzantine Empire and as a result of the civil war, many governors had their themes stripped from them. I paused the game, took my time to organize and get things sorted, but now I'm confused: What are the benefits to handing out themes/despotates to my vassals? (or what are the downsides for not granting themes to governors?) A vast majority of the titles are in my possession and I'm not sure what the benefits are to handing them over.

[Lancival]

1. If you hold all of the themes yourself, you will suffer from the "too many duchies" opinion modifier with your vassals.
2. The theme types grant various bonuses local to the duchy (e.g. civilian administration gives extra development), and only themes granted to governors can have these designations.
3. Governors have a "governor" efficiency which can boost gold/levies by 50%, and only duchy-level governors (or higher) will gain governor trait experience (which increases their governor efficiency, and also gives a couple of stats to make them better councilors).
4. Each landed member of your house boosts your personal influence generation. (And they will also generate influence themselves to help further strengthen your house). So appointing house members to governorships is a good way to get passive influence income.
5. Governors can borrow troops from each other and declare war on other realms, so they can help expand the empire faster. (This does lead to some border gore though).

[Iskander]

Thanks for your answer!
I did realize later on that I was running a mod that removes the "too many duchies" negative opinion, so that prompt was removed in my case. I think I'll need to remove that mod, I just think the threshold is too low, but eliminating it is too extreme.

All the other points make sense as well.
I'm now doing a run where I start as a Governor and work my way up, instead of invading and claiming the Empire title, as that overwhelmed me with too much going on at once.

[llder]

Originally posted by Lancival:

1. If you hold all of the themes yourself, you will suffer from the "too many duchies" opinion modifier with your vassals.

4. Each landed member of your house boosts your personal influence generation. (And they will also generate influence themselves to help further strengthen your house). So appointing house members to governorships is a good way to get passive influence income.

Hey, quick question regarding point 4: I have the kingdom of Sicilie and part of the Byzantine Empire. I've not yet transferred to Administrative Government. I'ev got to many duchies. Should I grant duchies to my childern so they get landed.

[NANI YO?! B-BAKA!!!]

The most important thing of the goverment duchies aka themes, duchy have thier own Imperial Army aka MAA. So with every extra theme you hold, the more MAA you can have.

But with influence you can "steal" ur vassals imperial army aswell (for one war? i guess).

Pretty much you want to steal maa of your vassals when u sit in "peace times" so they have less army strength to oppose you, while you have more

[Steffan]

Originally posted by Iskander:

So I've managed to press my claim of the Byzantine Empire and as a result of the civil war, many governors had their themes stripped from them. I paused the game, took my time to organize and get things sorted, but now I'm confused: What are the benefits to handing out themes/despotates to my vassals? (or what are the downsides for not granting themes to governors?) A vast majority of the titles are in my possession and I'm not sure what the benefits are to handing them over.

Scheming is second nature of that government. Prepare for a lot of faction politics.

There are several ways to keep your vassals away from factionalsm:

1. Marriage
2. Strong hooks ( a good spymaster can be invaluable)
3. You can disown the weakest vassals and usually, they won't put up a fight (you get some indication of it).

The Stewardship line helps you inrease your domain, the diplomacy makes your bribes more effective.

My advice is avoid giving up Kingdom tier titles. Keep your vassals weak.

And yes, influence is the king. The more you have, the better.

Keep an eye on the succession. For that purpose, click on the imperial coat of arms in the right lower button on your screen. Make sure your preferred candidate takes the throne. I personally always give him a good duchy, make an alliance and then proclaim the person as a co-Emperor.

[llder]

Originally posted by NANI YO?! B-BAKA!!!:

The most important thing of the goverment duchies aka themes, duchy have thier own Imperial Army aka MAA. So with every extra theme you hold, the more MAA you can have.

But with influence you can "steal" ur vassals imperial army aswell (for one war? i guess).

Pretty much you want to steal maa of your vassals when u sit in "peace times" so they have less army strength to oppose you, while you have more

But don't you still get the penalty for holding to many themes?

[NANI YO?! B-BAKA!!!]

Originally posted by llder:

Originally posted by NANI YO?! B-BAKA!!!:

The most important thing of the goverment duchies aka themes, duchy have thier own Imperial Army aka MAA. So with every extra theme you hold, the more MAA you can have.

But with influence you can "steal" ur vassals imperial army aswell (for one war? i guess).

Pretty much you want to steal maa of your vassals when u sit in "peace times" so they have less army strength to oppose you, while you have more

But don't you still get the penalty for holding to many themes?

You do, but having much more MAA will make ur vassal much harder to rebel due to lacking of military power.

Also you dont have to hold 6 extra duchy, just 1-2 can work to. You can easier workaround those -15/-30 malus.

Or as i just said, "steal" thier imperial army, where you dont get malus for it i think.

If you want to min/max then u can:
-gather +dynasty opinion on ur artifacts,
-place on every goverments your own dynasty. (It will aswell make you getting tons of influence, while ur heir would have alot of influence right away after sucession).
-found witch coven in ur family. Witches have +20 opinion to another witches
-make witch virtuose with religion reform
-With castration/blinding "culture" of Greeks, you can easly keep ur dreed at maxed if you want to go that way.