Are Small Kingdoms really better than big empires?

[BreadnButter]

i am no expert on playing this game, in fact i got it about a month ago and have only played like 30 hrs, but i am finding that i am having a lot more succesful playing small kingdoms like munster rather than empires like the holy roman empire. So that brings me to my question are small kingdoms a better choice than big empires?

[Turncloak]

No, an empire is superior, you get superior technology gain since the revamp of the tech tree. I'm pretty sure you can claim a larger demense size also. being such a large empire has its downsides though, if you are inexperienced and cannot control your vassals they will rize against you.

[BreadnButter]

actually the dense thing comes from your stewardship 2 stewardship= 1 dense size, but otherwize yeah i kinda agree with you. Like i said before i am not the most experinced player so that is probaly why the holy roman empire is harder for me to play

[Turncloak]

Yes, and it also comes from your title, Emperor rank gives you more as far as I know.

[la_nague]

ofc its harder when you have like 10 powerfull vassalls and another handful of small ones.

Keeping an empire intact is fun, too, but i usually prefer to start small and make my own empire.

[Mark]

been playing old gods as norse emperor , have kingdoms of denmark , sweden, norway, and finland as vassals , started the game with gotland and have only held gotland. so even with far more powerfull vassals then yourself its deffinatley manageable (50k+ Norse army raiding gives sooo much money, ive had my fleet come back with 4k gold from spain b4).

biggest help i had with man power is the retinue. i have a 7k standing retinue and as norse u can just have them pillage all year round and they will more then pay for themselves as well as any replenishing from wars. and retinues are beast for long sustained wars, as long as u have the gold that is.

[Mr. Hanky]

Empires are VASTLY superior to small kingdoms, but you really need to know what you're doing or you'll be be dealing with rebellions quickly. Starting as the HRE will be extremely difficult. I would recommend starting as the Byzantine Empire, but if you start with the standard 1066 start be prepared for a nasty war with the seljuks.

The biggest reason empires are superior is claims/expansion. It is easy to expand quickly as empires generally have a lot of de jure provinces. Also, since you can control kings as vassals, all you have to do is find someone with a decent claim to someone else's throne, invite them to your court, give them a minor landed title in your empire, and declare war for their claim. When the war is done, they will be king of said kingdom, and your vassal, bringing the entire kingdom under your sway. You won't even have to deal with new vassals, as they will all hate the new king instead of you. Of course, that king will be a considerably powerful vassal, but at least he'll love you for a long time because you made him king.

[Moofrog]

Exactly. Small kingdoms and so forth are good for learning the pike. Like Ireland is the best place. Or also Iberia i found quite easy playing as a Moslem Leader. The Casus Belli makes it so easy to get Holy Wars and then u get the entire Duky or Kingdom even afterwards. Big Empires are mightier but harder to control. Because you have to keep track of so many vassals and Plots. Yeah so counts and dukes, independt ones even, have it harder from the beginning. But you learn good lessons. Kingdoms and empires are easier. Especially when u just want to go on a military rampage you get so much more Troops. But managing the whole thing is something else.

One good thing about starting small is. If u act clever u are the one choosing your new allies and vassals etc and shape your new Duchy , Kingdom or even Empire to your own liking.

Set yourself some fun goals. Try out different approaches. Thats the beauty of it. Also the Game of Thrones Mod is really fun. As a Targaryan you got dragons and basically torch your enemy armies to the ground :)

[Moofrog]

As an annotation. Because of the Holy Wars and the Jihads I ended up with half of Iberia and with the whole of Anatolia - snatched it right out of the hands of the Byzantine Empire and i was on the way to conquer the rest of it till i cannot remember what happend :D

[Derrick01]

In my opinion the game only gets truly fun when you have to manage a huge empire, especially if you're an experienced player. Juggling a large amount of vassals and their opinions of you, while keeping dangerous factions from forming, while keeping all of your children happy, while managing infrastructure and technology, while keeping an eye on powerful neighbors who are just waiting for you to slip up.....that's where the real action comes from.

I get bored early on when I only have a few counties but for whatever reason I can't attack anyone for a while. I end up just kind of sitting there watching the game time tick away until something happens since there's so little to worry about internally at that time. Right now I'm managing an empire that makes up all of Spain and pretty much all of north-Africa and I'm loving how little downtime there is. Especially with France right next to me keeping me on my toes.

The only really, truly frustrating part for me is when a new king takes over for me and like 15 of my 26 vassals just flat out hate the new king right away for whatever reason. I end up spending about 40 minutes with the game paused while I try anything I can think of to get them to like me before they form a massive faction and revolt.

[Tim]

Yes.