Custom Duchy suggestions

[TeitokuKai]

With the new create a custom duchy decision this patch I would like to create a thread for folks to share some creative or satisfying or bordergore ideas for some duchies. You can apparently carve out an initial one county duchy as an independent count anywhere and then slowly expand it out up into a four county duchy by incorporating other counties held for atleast five years.

First thought for me was to create a duchy of Napoli to separate it from Capua, gain a duchy building slot, and then perhaps absorb the surrounding counties to monopolize the regional farmlands in a sungular duchy and from there focus on creating the Kingdom of Naples.

 

[klopkr]

Just keep making line duchies and abandoning the last one to start the next one until there's a snake of duchies criss crossing the map.

 

[Blodhevn]

With the new create a custom duchy decision this patch I would like to create a thread for folks to share some creative or satisfying or bordergore ideas for some duchies. You can apparently carve out an initial one county duchy as an independent count anywhere and then slowly expand it out up into a four county duchy by incorporating other counties held for atleast five years.

First thought for me was to create a duchy of Napoli to separate it from Capua, gain a duchy building slot, and then perhaps absorb the surrounding counties to monopolize the regional farmlands in a sungular duchy and from there focus on creating the Kingdom of Naples.

yeah, i am not sure theres too many crazy good duchies to make tbh. its a maximum of 4 counties. my first thought was the same as yours to take the two farmlands there and make a duchy & expand to the best nearby.

Spoiler: Duchy ideas /w Pictures

a few other ideas could be a "River" duchy in kiev, with kiev and the one across the river & one of the magyar held ones. that way you get 4 mayor river counties with 1 farmland dn 3 plains. which gives toughness bonus as norse as well.

3 Plains Duchy for you to create next to kiev if you are aiming for a Ruthenian playthrough. Might not empower ur Kiev duchy,but it will give you a strong duchy right next to kiev with 2 major river plains counties & one regular plain.


a improved Danish Royal seat: Sjealand duchy seat, with skåne and the other 2 strong counties in skåne. leaving the 1 barony county as the duchy of bornholm.
(or make jylland the real capital)

Ireland duchy/capital, getting dublin & the southern coast which would be all plain & 3 of them coastal. or Dublin,leister,olster,oriel - dublin main.
(ossory,ormond,dublin,leister)

And a Genoa focused duchy to truly make it powerful, get Corsica and Sardinia and you got quite a strong small kingdom

 

[tanktop tiger]

I would have liked that, since they are finally adding something to the duchy, we could create a royal endowment for the heir to the throne that always reverts to the crown—more realistic aspects of what it means to have high crown authority and to gradually incorporate "royal" territory, albeit with limitations. Or at least allow modifying the title laws of your vassals, adding viscounties, the French apanage, lordships (which can only be direct subjects of the crown), implementing Salic law wherever you want, etc. Also, the ability to elevate a duchy to an intermediate title between king and duke, such as prince.

 

[TeitokuKai]

After glossing over the map and thinking up some scenarios I'm compiling a small list of some interesting ideas and some map-painting satisfactions. This also includes expanding and reshaping existing duchies rather than creating new ones from scratch.


-Create a defensible silkroad corridor duchy consisting of Khara Khoja(Qocho), Toksun, Chami and maybe Boro Burgasu. A duchy surrounded by mountain and desert corridors that could form some sort of defensible enclave. Also could be the duchy that forms the defensive gateway against Mongol Invasions into the Tarim Basin and Tibet. It's also noteworthy to found a castle holding as an adventurer in the empty oasis barony of Alak-Nor if you're in the region.

-Carve Samarkand out into a duchy independent of Bukhara, or alternatively expand Osrushana including Bukhara and switch (de jure) capital to Samarkand. Turning the holy site location of Samarkand into it's own duchy seems like a very worthwhile endeavour.

-Combine Badakhshan, East Tokharestan and Bamian to hoard the mines and and the buddhas. Also add either Balkh or Waksh if playing Zoroastrian and it's a holy site.

-Carve out Quriltay specifically to remove the protrusive county from Muyunkum. Either by itself or by adding it to Syr Darya. To improve the border aesthetic of de jure drifting Muyunkum into Zhetsyu. Contains the point of interest barony of Talas as a sidenote.

-Monopolize the Loire major river by combining all the surrounding counties.

-Not particularly aesthetic but merge Cordoba, Seville, Granada and an interconnecting county.

-Expand Kairouan with either Mahdiya or Tunis to give it a coastline. Will split up Duchy of Tunis if absorbing County of Tunis.

-Exchange Kurmina to Mema and Massina to Jenne to concentrate terrain types around the Great Mosque of Djenne.

-Create in either the County of Siwa or County of Figuig an isolated oasis duchy with but a single corridor of access.

-Split away Sheikhdom of Uwal from the the Duchy of Bahrain to form the small island nation in the Persian Gulf.

-Add the County of Arnheim to the Duchy of Utrecht to connect the semi-exclaved duchy. Or add the County of Holland to the Duchy of Utrecht for bordergore.

-Make Middle Seaxe Part of the Duchy of Kent to concentrate high value counties together. Take note that it will turn Essex rather unnoteworthy.

-Turn Iceland into three/four separate duchies. Allows for creating an isolated Kingdom of Iceland encompassing just the island. Could extrapolate this anywhere to create a realm composed entirely of single county duchies held personally to maximise holding duchy buildings without suffering from vassal opinion maluses.

-Absorb or expand the duchy of Syrmia to streamline out the single county duchy along the Danube.

 

[bdolishny]

With both custom duchies and custom kingdoms enabled, you could make a kingdom with 10+ single-county duchies. That's 10+ military academies, for 750% bonus knight effectiveness.

This opens up so many possibilities. Start as an adventurer, and spend 150ish years going around, raising enough gold, prestige and faith, and make 10 separate duchies over a couple generations. Then settle down, reform a culture with Only the Strong, and maybe Right to Prove, and then spend a casual 240,000 gold.

Alternatively, get an easy -100% (I think it's maxed at 90%) reduction to MaA upkeep!

The things we can do with this power...

Anyone else got any fun ideas with this?

*You could even get the Frugal Armorers, since -60% is still 690% knight effectiveness. With 10 military academies and 10 blacksmiths, that's 100 more knights and 60 more men at arm size. Finally a use for that tradition*

 

[Riaman98]

I just discovered this mechanic today, can anyone explain me how to get new duchy to bigger than just a mere county, and how to make the old duchy disappear. I wanted to spartenos napoli run, napoli is a great county but a sub county to duchy of capua.