Going feudal and upgrading / building new holdings

[Lessing]

From what I gathered from the CK2 wiki, vanilla allows upgrading all your demesne tribal holdings to castles, and allows for easy/cheap building of new temples and cities.

In CK2+, I can only upgrade my tribal holdings if I got a lvl 4 wall, and building cities / temples in a county that only has a castle (upgraded from tribal holding) costs the regular price. (Playing as Saxon king)

Is there anything to balance how CK2+ apparently removed a lot of the ease in going feudal? (And I'm saying that assuming I've properly read the CK2 wiki). If vanilla allows you to get a temple and a city for cheap, then that would be a massive advantage. Just wondering what the strategy is here.

 

[Rylock]

You can get cities and temples prior to going feudal -- use the "Settle Tribe" job for your Steward to look for a city spot in a province which doesn't have one, and have candidates with a theological education in your court who will volunteer to found a temple.

Upon going feudal, in any province where you establish a castle you can cheaply build its first city or temple for the first hundred years. Right-click on the county title and you should see a decision. That's far cheaper than paying the standard price by clicking on the empty holding slot (I'd put the decision there instead, but I can't).

 

[Lessing]

Ah thanks, that way to find a decision is entirely new to me. I see it takes 10 years or more, but for 100 gold... at the cost of -50% tax... hm.

But I still have to upgrade all my tribal holdings to level 4 walls to even get castles in the first place. That's quite a hurdle. Will my vassals upgrade their tribal holdings in a timely fashion? The AI loves to waste money on feasts.