Does feudalism suck?

[mcv]

My impression was that feudalism is supposed to be better than tribalism, so when I played a game as Rurik the Proto-Russian Norse guy, I assumed that switching to feudalism and orthodoxy would be a good idea.

First time I switched to orthodoxy turned into a gigantic mess, as I couldn't attack any of my pagan neighbours anymore, and my vassals left. Reload an older save and try again. I waited longer to convert to orthodoxy: until I was almost ready to turn to feudalism. Converted to orthodoxy (Georgian missionaries were pressuring me), later converted to feudalism, and now I can barely raise armies anymore.

It turns out that despite me switching to feudalism, all my vassals are still tribal. I lost one of my two kingdoms (Ruthenia) due to gavelkind, and have part of my realm rebelling, and this may not even be a crippling problem by itself, but I notice that with every county I get back from a vassal, I get a warning that it's of the wrong type. It has a castle and a temple (as you'd expect from the switch to feudalism), but the capital is a tribe.

It also seems I can't raise troops from my vassals anymore. I can't call them as tribal allies because I'm not tribal, but the total levies I can get from all my vassals together, it about 500 troops.

So I nominally control a vast territory of land, but it seems I have to use only my own demense troops to defend it. And they too went down from 4000 to 1500 after the switch to feudalism. I'm frankly amazed that I manage to put up a fight at all, but it seems clear something went terribly wrong here.

Should I forget about witching to feudalism? Should I postpone converting to Orthodoxy?

It's currently 957, and my short-term goal is to establish the Empire of Russia (I'm currently king of Rus, and was king of Ruthenia until recently), and to do that, I need to crush some more pagans to the east (most notably Perm), but I can't really fight pagans like this, can I? Also, the Holy War CB is probably not going to do me much good if all remaining pagans are Suomenusko.

I gues I should have stayed unreformed tribal pagan, and just use the once-per-generation Subjugation CB to expand more slowly? Maybe I'm just expecting to expand too fast.

[Shai-Hulud]

Feudalism is far better. What's happening (someone might be able to answer better) is all your s h i t t y tribal light infantry is being replaced by the superior feudal (mainly heavy infantry) levees. There are a few years here that can be really painful after switching to feudal.

Your vassals might not have the requirements to switch to feudal like you do. You may see that some did. They all will when they have the requirements. You can help this by upgrading your vassals hill forts before YOU switch to feudalism. You can upgrade their other holdings but lvl 4 hill fort priority.

You can somewhat alleviate your issue by raising all your tribal levees before converting to feudal. Your feudal reinforcements will fill up but you will still have the troops to defend yourself

Convert to orthodoxy when a majority of your vassals have high opinion of you, and you aren't at war. This will let you demand conversion on most of them, and then revoke title for no orthodox opinion hit on the few heathen vassals left.

You don't necessarily need to slow down, just keep in mind all that Russian land is d o g s h i t so close to the 867 start. I would upgrade your own holdings massively before going feudal. Same with your vassals.

Not sure what DLC you have but beware of that pagan attrition and the fact they can call event troops with prestige AND piety (DLC dependent on piety I believe). I rage quit my last Russian Empire game after me AND Byzantium were wrecked by two Samuensko OPMS.

[Random]

the problem is religion honestly more than the government type.

Your vassals were X while you converted to Y, and when you adopted fedualism they saw you as a heretic lord trying to push your beliefs upon them and thus didn't follow.

If however you reformed a pagan religion, the majority of those with the pagan religion will swap along side you to the new religion. a reformed religion will allow you to adopt feudalism as a pagan while retaining all the good stuff that the religion gives you (eg, germanic can continue to raid other religions using ships).

you need to be aware of the upgrades to your holdings when adopting feudalism. at level 2 most buildings upgrade to the equivalent level 1 of the fedual holding, while at level 4 they goto level 2.

If however you convert without some upgrades you will be starting from scratch as well as starting with an empty castle that needs to replenish its initial supply, potentially putting you well behind. However if you survive basically the first year of adopting feudalism, your army quality will be much better than any who did not convert, and you also will be able to revoke titles from tribal vassals as they will be considered savages, with no rights.

Feudalism doesnt call vassals to your aid like alliances, instead you take reserves from everyone that you need to gather, but they are your own troops to command. I personally wouldn't convert to feudalism until I was atleast a very powerful king or almost an emperor.

[Hanz]

Just as me yesterday. Played as Bohemia, reformed slavic religion and then I went feudal. As a tribal king I was 4000 my men and cca 8000 from vassals (and next cca 6000 from warrior and holy warrior raising). So I was local hegemon with potential 20 000 army.

And now? I have 900 men! And cca 600 from vassals! So I have max. 2000 soldiers and lands from Altmark to Kiev and from Baltic sea to Byzantine empire. After that feudal reform I fighted with one of my weak vassal, but he is tribal so I had to hire mercs. I play iron man so I am afraid this reform ruined ma game and my neighbors will attack me soon. It was huuuge mystake.

[mcv]

I have actually been able to demand conversion of a number of vassals. Not all of them, though. So whenever a rebellion hits (which understandably has been more common recently), I revoke their titles and replace them with Orthodox vassals.

But I can see how the switch to orthodoxy was the real problem here. It's harder to attack pagans and I don't get the event troops anymore. But converting territory is going remarkably quickly.

I haven't upgraded my (nor my vassals') holding much, partially because as tribal pagan, I was permanently short on cash, I need my prestige for event troops, and because of the halving of the building levels after switching to feudalism. It just seemed wasteful, but maybe I misjudged that.

So now the question is how to continue. Reload a game from before I converted, and go the reformed pagan route instead (that means attacking Poland, I guess)? Or persevere in this game. I think I already survived my first year in feudalism, but the lack of feudalism in my vassals seems to be a problem.

(Having lost Ruthenia hurts of course, but without an empire, that was inevitable, and once I get my army back, I can probably retake it.)

I figured I already was a powerful king and nearly an emperor, considering I had two kingdoms. I don't seem to be so powerful anymore, though.

[Captain_Narol]

With 2 kingdoms, you could (and should) have created a custom Empire, that way you wouldn't have lost one in the gavelkind succession (the son inheriting Ruthenia would have been a vassal of the new emperor)

[football5680]

Captain Narol a écrit :

With 2 kingdoms, you could (and should) have created a custom Empire, that way you wouldn't have lost one in the gavelkind succession (the son inheriting Ruthenia would have been a vassal of the new emperor)

You need 3 Kingdoms or a realm size of 180 to create a custom empire.

[Random]

yeah, you wont have 180 holdings in a tribal area, there is at most 2 holdings in each teritory due to a temple. custom empires are a feudalism thing, but a normal empire isn't that hard to get in a tribal area with conflicting religions (conquest is pretty good).

Rus as an empire is rather small compared to others, so it's not too difficult to create, but raiding as a rus tribal is borderline garbage. norse germanic have it way better due to ship raiding and alot of coastal provinces; making money and prestige very easy to acquire.

What the OP needs to focus on most is now converting his existing vassals to orthodox so that they follow him into fuedal, also he needs to raise the obligation laws so that tribal vassals give him more troops, and thus reduce their own military strength to prevent revolts.

[Kraek]

A good leader never goes too far ahead of his followers..


1- Indeed, the religion part is one thing. For all your tribal vassals care, you went crazy and the opinion modifiers wrecks your levies from them. As a feudal ruler, you must see to get good relations with your vassals, especially the de jure ones from your kingdom, and then empire.
Same religion, same culture (reasons pro and ♥♥♥), good traits, high state diplo... they really arent luxury.


2- The bigger you are, the more you must ensure your vassals can follow in feudalism. They must have their primary holding upgraded as well to stone hillfort iv, or they stay tribal. They require 2 things: to have the tech (which must spread... so build up your duchy structure and appoint dukes) and money to build (read: best that you pay for it for them)

Always keep in mind, there is no rush to go feudal. Agnatic gavelkind is a pain, but a manageable one. Hospitals are nice but not essential.. The tech lag behind is something that will become a small problem to win battles effeciently, but only many centuries later in the game. As tribal emperor you have all the prestige you'll ever need.

As a reformed tribal pagan you can finish the game. So take your time, raid, upgrade, raise tribal armies like crazy and when your followers are ready, only then adopt feudalism.

[mcv]

How does a custom empire work? I don't think I've ever heard about that. I thought my only option was the Russian empire, which requires that I take Perm and a few others.

I did notice that raiding was mostly pointless. Maintainance for my army is ridiculously expensive (is that more expensive in tribalism than in feudalism?), and the only place where I can win any money is the occasional temple.

In previous all-feudal games I never had any trouble controlling my empire, so I guess it's the tribal vassals that are the problem now. I had no idea I had to help them meet the requirements for feudalism too. I thought they'd switch when I switched.

Paying for their upgrades is a bit hard, because I was constantly short on money. That's a bit part of the reason why I wanted to switch to feudalism: I was hoping cities would boost my income.

I do think I have more income now, so I guess I could now upgrade my vassals' hillforts. It's going to be that or go back to an older save and stay tribal pagan for a lot longer, and drop the pretense of being a civilized country.

[Valentine Michael Smith]

mcv a écrit :

I did notice that raiding was mostly pointless. Maintainance for my army is ridiculously expensive (is that more expensive in tribalism than in feudalism?)

just don't use your entire army to raid. Raiding gives money and prestige which are both useful currency for tribals. Send out ~500 man squads to just plunder the loot that isn't protected by fort level for good income as well.

[Random]

you lose about 1 gold a month with tribal levies, however the goal of doing a larger raid is to actually seige down holdings. once you successfully break into the place you will receive a lump sum of about 40gold for each holding, meaning potentially 120 per county raided. even if it costs you 24-36 gold upkeep to do that over 2 years, you come out richer money wise, not to mention the 120 prestige + any gained from the actual combat (usually about ~10 each).

You then sail home or whatever and its instant profit, and quite a bit to work with for upgrading your holdings, then you go straight back out and do it again.

As for the custom empires/kingdoms that is part of the charlemagne dlc, and it gives you an intrigue option to create your own kingdom or empire if your realm holds sufficient land/holdings to justify it (35 holdings (i think) + 3 duchy titles for kingdom and 180 + 3 kingdom titles for an empire.

custom kingdoms can be quite useful for dividing problem kingdoms for later use as vassals (england for example), leading to 2 vassal kings where there previously would have been 1 powerhouse (that likely would've caused issues with internal warring).

Custom empire uses however are sort of rare, as its usually easier to make the normal empire, however it does have its place, like for zunists making an empire instead of having to take 80% of persia from the arabian empire or all the indians with their powerful holy order, you can just make a custom empire between them allowing you to be stronger (see retainers).

[Captain_Narol]

Oops I was wrong, it's 3 kingdoms to form an empire so you couldn't.

Here's the exact infos from the CKII Wiki :

"With the Charlemagne DLC, rulers can create a custom de jure empire. This decision is available to independent kings with 8000 prestige as well as either 180 holdings in their realms, or else 3 kingdom titles. Custom empires are named after, and take the color of, their creator's primary kingdom (although they can be renamed with the customizer DLC). When formed, all kingdoms either held or entirely controlled by their creator become de jure vassals of the new empire, so long as their original de jure empire does not exist."

You also need the Charlemagne DLC, so if you haven't it your better option is to form the Russian Empire as soon as possible. For that you will need 80% of the Russia/Ruthenia/Perm de Jure Area AND 2 kingdom title.

[Kraek]

mcv a écrit :

How does a custom empire work? I don't think I've ever heard about that. I thought my only option was the Russian empire, which requires that I take Perm and a few others.

I did notice that raiding was mostly pointless. Maintainance for my army is ridiculously expensive (is that more expensive in tribalism than in feudalism?), and the only place where I can win any money is the occasional temple.

In previous all-feudal games I never had any trouble controlling my empire, so I guess it's the tribal vassals that are the problem now. I had no idea I had to help them meet the requirements for feudalism too. I thought they'd switch when I switched.

Paying for their upgrades is a bit hard, because I was constantly short on money. That's a bit part of the reason why I wanted to switch to feudalism: I was hoping cities would boost my income.

I do think I have more income now, so I guess I could now upgrade my vassals' hillforts. It's going to be that or go back to an older save and stay tribal pagan for a lot longer, and drop the pretense of being a civilized country.

With charlemagne you can create your own empire if you have 3(?) Kingdoms. But so far i've never done this as they are more expensive than the de jure ones (like the russian). I can see the value if you happen to have 3 kingdoms but not the de jure req for the de jure empire. Frankly.... just see you expand in your desired de jure realm first and put some effort in it dammid :p.

Your income as a tribal is very low, you can never grow money. Your sources are:
-raiding(with small armies, 500 or less, go for free loot not sieging. Loot feudal realms if you can(so conquer a corridor to them), tribals are only good if they have a temple)
-ransom prisoner(your plotting vassals, war captives, ...)
-war ( siege with raiding parties flipped to conquer after razing)
-business focus (but you tend to live less long due to stress)

The army maintenance is an issue. Wars must be quick and efficiently won. But war many and war often. You have those cb for a reason :).


As for the money.. this does make a huge boost after going feudal.... but you need loads of stolen money first,before making your own

[mcv]

Ah, I don't have the Charlemagne DLC yet, it seems.

On raiding: it was my impression that I need to send a large enough force to successfully besiege the settlements. I get money when the settlement falls, and a lot more for a temple than for a fort or tribe.

I've occasionally had a councillor raise raiders, but that never resulted in a large enough force to take settlements. Does sending a smaller force still have some use?

Of course for Rus, another problem is that there are barely any worthy raid targets within reach, so I ended up ignoring the entire raiding game.

[mcv]

This guide: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=371452340 suggests I could have done most of what I've been trying to do with just my initial ruler Rurik. Unlike the comments here, the guide recommends converting to Orthodox early (though presumably after conquering enough pagans to found the Russian Empire). Though the guide is a bit out of date.