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.
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.
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