Help! Too many "family" head vassals, crippling my vassal count

[nebnezzar]

I was the Holy Roman Empire, and had a claim on the Byzantine Empire through parent's marriage.

After pressing my claim and defeating Byzantine Empire, I suddenly inherited ~100 of the family head vassals, which put me way over my vassal limit.

This has crippled my income to the point where I have -50 gold cash flow per month. I have formed all possible kingdoms and consolidated vassals, but I am still way over my vassal limit due to these unlanded family head vassals.

Is there any way to get rid of these vassals? I cannot seem to find a way to transfer them as vassals to anyone else, nor can I grant them independence.

 

[Willy Waggler]

2nd tier admin authority law gives +100 vassal limit, then 2x that with next tiers.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

I cannot seem to find a way to transfer them as vassals to anyone else, nor can I grant them independence.

That's odd, because even the basileus is able to grant unlanded house heads independence (effectively destroying the family). They're not de jure vassals of anything, so there shouldn't be an issue. What does the tooltip say when you mouseover "grant independence"?

 

[nebnezzar]

That's odd, because even the basileus is able to grant unlanded house heads independence (effectively destroying the family). They're not de jure vassals of anything, so there shouldn't be an issue. What does the tooltip say when you mouseover "grant independence"?

The "grant independence" option was grayed out, and I apologize but I did not think to check for a tooltip explaining why.

The problem seems to have resolved itself, when my ruler died, the realm split into the HRE and the BE under partition succession. When I reconquered the BE using the claim of the inheriting HRE emperor, there was no longer any administrative or family vassals. I'm not sure why the first war generated such a mess with the vassals and the second did not. I will see if I can recreate the issue on a subsequent game.