Best home capital province/duchy for future empire of Hispania?

[M-30W]

I've started a game from CM as Kingdom of Asturias with a goal of pushing out all muslims and forming the Empire of Hispania. What would be the best capital province and its duchy?

[al_x_ator2411]

Usually the best duchies are the ones with the most counties.

So Barcelona, but that belongs to Aquitaigne in some starts. It's also somewhat far from Asturias.

Castille is the biggest duchy you can easily get.

Aragon suited me fine in my Hispania campaign (great mountain defense but no sea). But I also have RD and was able to unlock more slot holdings.

Seville is also large but much more to the south and will probably take long to acquire.

[jfoytek]

So it depends on your play style there are two differnt and effect ways to play CK2

- Method 1 I refer to as wide... Which means you want as many counties as possible so you can have as many city vassals as possible and you fill empty holdings with city's to become a money making machine and then buy mercenaries as needed....

- Method 2 I refer to as Tall.... Which means you utilize the Capital County and Capital Duchy bonus's for troop making ability as much as possible bye!
A- Ensureing your capital county has as many Castle Baronies as possible...
B- Ensuring the entire duchy has as many Castle Baronies as possible...

So depending on the above your looking for different things in Method 1 you simply want large duchy's with lots of provinces...

Where as in method 2 you want either duchy's that already have alot of baronies or duchys with alot of empty holdings that you can transform them into baronies...


Personally I prefer Method 2, As I find the mercenary method to be lacking in effiecency. Granted Method 2 can be costly to raise your entire levy... You dont have to raise them all if you dont need em and if you do... the negative upkeep for a few months is far cheeper then the cost of a merc band anyway!

[M-30W]

Originally posted by jfoytek:

So it depends on your play style there are two differnt and effect ways to play CK2

- Method 1 I refer to as wide... Which means you want as many counties as possible so you can have as many city vassals as possible and you fill empty holdings with city's to become a money making machine and then buy mercenaries as needed....

- Method 2 I refer to as Tall.... Which means you utilize the Capital County and Capital Duchy bonus's for troop making ability as much as possible bye!
A- Ensureing your capital county has as many Castle Baronies as possible...
B- Ensuring the entire duchy has as many Castle Baronies as possible...

So depending on the above your looking for different things in Method 1 you simply want large duchy's with lots of provinces...

Where as in method 2 you want either duchy's that already have alot of baronies or duchys with alot of empty holdings that you can transform them into baronies...


Personally I prefer Method 2, As I find the mercenary method to be lacking in effiecency. Granted Method 2 can be costly to raise your entire levy... You dont have to raise them all if you dont need em and if you do... the negative upkeep for a few months is far cheeper then the cost of a merc band anyway!

So with Method 2, you own all the baronies in a province?

[jfoytek]

Originally posted by DarkLaplander:

Originally posted by jfoytek:

So it depends on your play style there are two differnt and effect ways to play CK2

- Method 1 I refer to as wide... Which means you want as many counties as possible so you can have as many city vassals as possible and you fill empty holdings with city's to become a money making machine and then buy mercenaries as needed....

- Method 2 I refer to as Tall.... Which means you utilize the Capital County and Capital Duchy bonus's for troop making ability as much as possible bye!
A- Ensureing your capital county has as many Castle Baronies as possible...
B- Ensuring the entire duchy has as many Castle Baronies as possible...

So depending on the above your looking for different things in Method 1 you simply want large duchy's with lots of provinces...

Where as in method 2 you want either duchy's that already have alot of baronies or duchys with alot of empty holdings that you can transform them into baronies...


Personally I prefer Method 2, As I find the mercenary method to be lacking in effiecency. Granted Method 2 can be costly to raise your entire levy... You dont have to raise them all if you dont need em and if you do... the negative upkeep for a few months is far cheeper then the cost of a merc band anyway!

So with Method 2, you own all the baronies in a province?

Yes...

Castle Baronies not Temples or Citys....

For example I stole Rome from the pope before he ruined it one play thru and I had 4 Castles in Rome all enjoying the Capital Bonus(50%) and Marshal Bonus!!! Thats some serious troop capacity.... and then with the other 8 baronies / county's in the capital duchy(25%) your really racking up the troop count....

[M-30W]

Originally posted by jfoytek:

Originally posted by DarkLaplander:

So with Method 2, you own all the baronies in a province?

Yes...

Castle Baronies not Temples or Citys....

For example I stole Rome from the pope before he ruined it one play thru and I had 4 Castles in Rome all enjoying the Capital Bonus(50%) and Marshal Bonus!!! Thats some serious troop capacity.... and then with the other 8 baronies / county's in the capital duchy(25%) your really racking up the troop count....

I didn't know the capital bonus works on all baronies in the capital province.

[jfoytek]

Originally posted by DarkLaplander:

Originally posted by jfoytek:

Yes...

Castle Baronies not Temples or Citys....

For example I stole Rome from the pope before he ruined it one play thru and I had 4 Castles in Rome all enjoying the Capital Bonus(50%) and Marshal Bonus!!! Thats some serious troop capacity.... and then with the other 8 baronies / county's in the capital duchy(25%) your really racking up the troop count....

I didn't know the capital bonus works on all baronies in the capital province.

now you do :)

[Merkatz]

I'd like to add that the 'wide' strategy is even better with coastal counties since you get the town market and port building chains. If you have a vassal MR you can also help upgrade their trade posts in your coastal counties.

[al_x_ator2411]

I try a conbination of both methods. I choose a big duchy (more than 3 counties). I spam castles in my capital county (it needs empty slots for that) and keep all other counties in it and build extra cities there.

[M-30W]

Originally posted by al_x_ator2411:

I try a conbination of both methods. I choose a big duchy (more than 3 counties). I spam castles in my capital county (it needs empty slots for that) and keep all other counties in it and build extra cities there.

That came to my mind. It seems useful to use the capital for troop farming while using other counties for cash.

[BlitzBob NoPants]

In my Asturias/Visigothic playthrough I had my capital in the default place. I formed the kingdom of Leon before I managed to capture Porto. When I did I moved my capital to Porto which turns out to works really well later in the game since it meant that the de jure kingdom of leon annexed both Asturias and Galicia.

This meant that I basically had a few titular kingdom titles to throw around to cut up the kingdom of adalusia so it doesn't become too powerful when you make it a vassal when you get the empire title. If you just use the titular titles to split andalusia you won't get the negative "Wants the duchy of Porto -25" modifier either.

Other then that I really enjoyed Porto as my capital because it is of course coastal and your enemies would have to walk across your entire empire before finally reaching your capital. I do suggest making the duchy below Porto a merchant republic for a large amount of ship levies close to your capital. I also should point out I have reapers due so I could increase the amount of building slots in my capital province.