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unmerged(24304)

Sergeant
Jan 5, 2004
98
0
In my current game as Byzantium, on a quest to centralize power:

I fought and won a civil war vs. all of my vassal princes except Ioannes Dukas, and took a boatload of titles by force.

I gave all the prince titles (and many counts) to my heir, Ioannes, thus reducing my badboy score considerably. By the end of the civil war, my badboy was still a high negative on Ioannes' loyalty. However, the regular awarding of new prince titles kept him happy.

All of the Counts remaining in the empire were vassals of Ioannes, not Emperor Konstantinos, so Ioannes served to insulate the Counts from the effects of my high badboy. Basically, I fought the civil war, while he kept the little guys in line.

When Konstantinos died, Ioannes inherited, and was in possession of an immense number of titles. My badboy was still rather high, so Ioannes in turn granted a huge number of titles to his chosen successor, thus lowering my badboy to acceptable levels. I can even fight additional badboy wars, knowning that Ioannes has few years left.

When Ioannes dies, his heir will be able to "launder" the Prince titles again, along with having a great deal of flexibility in setting up whatever vassal system he desires.

While I think the "designated super-heir" is actually realistic (Diocletian did it, after all), it reveals a flaw in the game's structure.


ANALYSIS:

The problem lies not in the inheritance or granting of titles. Rather, it is in the ability to create a "Prince of EVERYTHING", who while only having a few personal demesne provinces, has literally DOZENS of vassals reporting to him, without penalty.

A lesser problem is the ability to grant many valuable Princedom titles to a single vassal, beyond anything making sense.


RECOMMENDATIONS:

The demesne limit should include VASSALS, along with directly controlled provinces. From what I've read, this was how the system was originally described to operate. A Prince should only be albe to have a few Counts as vassals. Or, a compromise could be applying the demesne limit to both vassal and direct provinces -- i.e. if your demesne limit is 3, you can own 3 counties, plus have 3 vassals.

Additionally, a prince should not have more prince titles than his demesne limit, as a prince with 3 counties, 3 vassals, and titles to 15 other principalities is ridiculous.
 
Upvote 0
This is handy exploit only if your ruler is damn old and dies soon and you have big amount of prince / duke titles to give away. Which is true usually only for Byzantine Empire.

If you need to keep say 20 prince titles of the 25 available to your realm on your chosen successor for twenty years, the hurt prestigewise is significant, as kings gain prestige from having many different dukes / princes as vassals so Prince of Everything-and-Someone's-Mother is gives bonus for only one title, while if the titles would be spread out, you would get prestige bonus from all of them.
 
If you need to keep say 20 prince titles of the 25 available to your realm on your chosen successor for twenty years, the hurt prestigewise is significant, as kings gain prestige from having many different dukes / princes as vassals so Prince of Everything-and-Someone's-Mother is gives bonus for only one title, while if the titles would be spread out, you would get prestige bonus from all of them.
It's not really a significant prestige hit. The king will not be getting the prestige he would have had those duchies be given to other vassals. But, the duke will be getting extra prestige for each title he holds. (Kings get extra prestige for each king title they hold, dukes for each duke title, etc.)

In effect, you are forgoing prestige for yourself, and giving it to your heir.