How do I appoint a City or Bishopric a vassal?

[Beerwolf]

Do I even need one? Seems I can give people in my court land or a fancy title, but not make them a vassal. I have a vacant City and Bishopric but can't seem to assign anyone to it.

[sercera]

In almost all cases, granting someone a landed title makes them your vassal.
Not sure what exactly you're referencing wrt "vacant City and Bishopric" ...
A mayor automatically becomes a vassal of whoever owns the county (assuming the city isn't the main holding in the county) and same for a bishop (with the same assumption as well.)

Or if by chance you mean the vacant city and bishopric are just vacant holding slots, then you have to build those holdings before you can assign a mayor/bishop (if you don't keep them for yourself) ...

[Drab]

If you right click on someone and "grant landed title" to them, baronies, cities and temples are on the bottom of the list.

Also, you can have the AI create a new person to rule the holding by opening the holding like you were going to build something there and there is a little castle symbol to click (3rd button) to create a ruler.

[haidunia]

As to why you need it, it's to get rid of the "wrong type of holding" malus, giving you serious penalties in tax income and levies... so... No, you don't have to hand them out, but you should.

[dv]

Originally posted by sercera:

A mayor automatically becomes a vassal of whoever owns the county ...

Not by default.
If you own a barony/city/temple in a county and give that barony to an unlanded character (e.g. with the create new vassal command), the new baron/mayor/priest is your direct vassal, not the count's. The count gets a negative opinion modifier of you because he wants that baron as his vassal.

If you grant a county to another character, all your baron level direct vassals in that county go with the grant, assuming they hold no titles outside that county.

If a baron level character holds multiple baronies in different counties, things get complicated.

[Random]

Generally you will want to generate a new character to give the holding as opposed to granting it to some upstart in your court.

Unless you are landing blood relatives, but that would be to real holdings like count/duke etc. If you click on the wrong holding notification icon it should take you to the province where the issue exists select the church/city in question and there will be a button to generate a vassal. Do so, as the new guy will only have positive opinion of you and no relatives to get upset over.

9/10 this will keep the guy under the appropriate count/duke however just to be sure click on the province owner and ensure they have no negative opinion modifiers stating they "want control of X" if so you will want to right click on the guy and select transfer vassal. then give the guy (usually at the top) to the rightful owner as you will get their money by proxy anyways via tax on your correct direct vassal.

[Beerwolf]

Thanks guys, I got the answer to my question, which was basically to select the landed title option and scroll down to the Barony or Bishopric. I assumed landed title was for the whole land and when I glanced at the list previously I did not realise I could scroll down.

I built a Bishopric which is why it was empty and when I captured a county I believe I got rid of the vassal to the city as he hated me so much.

And 'dv' when you say 'things get complicated', yeah I noticed that once I pressed the Play button.