Suzerainty should be title based not character based.

[klopkr]

In CK2 the system of stacked lieges failed to be able to represent situations like normandy being a part of france controlled by the king of england as a vassal of france. Titles were subordinate based on the characters rather than the title themselves which is not necessarily accurate historically. I think it's extremely important for the devs to get this right as soon as possible before later systems come to rely on the old CK2 method.

The most elegant solution to this is to make every title have it's own independent suzerain and allow rulers to own these as such.

Let's take england and normandy as an example: Normandy exists as a title set as a vassal to the kingdom of france. Once Billy the Bastard takes over england he gains a king title and all the land in england as an independent realm. After all it was never really owned by france. Normandy though never officially left france either and is still set as a vassal to france, it just happens to be owned by a character that is also an external king. What this would cause is all the lands of france to be applicable to normandy as a vassal but not england. William on the other hand would still be a vassal of france but only in regards to his french holdings. This semi-vassal status would effect a number of outcomes that could be largely based on the laws of the liege (france).

The laws regarding this would be along the following lines:

Wars: Vassals can't declare war / Vassals can't declare external wars that will gain them higher titles than their liege Vassals can only declare external wars / Vassals can declare all wars (default)

Liege authority: All vassal land is always a subject to the top liege / The liege can allow some vassals to have external lands of lower rank / The liege can allow vassals to have any external land / Vassals can gain external lands if they gain a higher title than their liege (default) / all external wars by vassals result in external lands.

If you gain or have a title higher or equal to your liege than all external lands you gain will automatically not be a subject of your liege. Otherwise before declaring war or during the peace deal a check box could allow you to choose if your land will be subject to your liege (and in the case of multiple possible leiges to select which one)

Lieges and vassals with external lands will always have CBs on each other to either go fully independant or vassalized. A vassal with external land can still start internal wars for more land which will remain subject to the liege but the liege will have the option to interfere unlike usual.

This can lead to decently proper representation of things like the 100 years war, rulers half in an out of the HRE, kingdoms owning lands inside other empires and kingdoms that are still independent. It would also cut down on unnecessary border gore.

I would suggest showing these relationships on the map by representing lands controlled by a character with some independent land being fully outlined by borders on the map but the colours of counties being that of the de facto top liege. For normandy this would look like a border between france and normandy but the provinces would have the same french colour unlike those in england.

 

[delta180]

I like the idea, but I am not sure about liege authority, I think that the ruler of the duchy should have to fight a war to become independent from the parent country, so England would have to fight France in order for Normandy to no longer be considered part of France and instead be considered part of England ect...

 

[klopkr]

I like the idea, but I am not sure about liege authority, I think that the ruler of the duchy should have to fight a war to become independent from the parent country, so England would have to fight France in order for Normandy to no longer be considered part of France and instead be considered part of England ect...

Doing so should be the standard unless the laws are absolutely vassal favouring or the liege releases them.

 

[klopkr]

I've been thinking about how this would play into pushing claimants recently as I have been doing that a lot in ck2.

I feel like these kinds of laws are the perfect way to nerf some of the power of pushing claimants while also adding more depth and fight to using them.

When you push a claim, what happens to the new land should depend on your liege authority. More often then not, the land you push a claim for outside your ream should not become part of your realm. Instead you might share a vassal with another suzerain (vassals in and out of the HRE) and may not have much control over their new lands. On the flip side you can't lose their lands inside your kingdom if you push a title at the same level or above yours. So you might push a claim for william the bastard on england and set him up as an independent king in england but still your vassal in normandy. This would also make it still possibly advantageous to put one of your vassals on a foreign throne to meld your realms together. IT would also give you reason to push claims that are of higher rank than your own.

A ruler who's claim you push should be VERY grateful, especially depending on the rank.

Finally I realized that you could represent the struggle to end this practice well in game with this set of laws by making only possible to end the practice of your vassals having any outside rule by declaring war on the vassals themselves or their lieges to bring their lands into your fold before you can change your law so no lands can ever leave your fold again. But doing so could also make it so that i you push a claim for a higher title of your vassals with the final law set to always make vassal lands your subject you would instead usurp the same or higher rank title your claiming for your vassal as your own and instead grant the all vassal titles in that land.

That way there's a certain paths the player can take to gain from or resolve the issues of mixed suzerainty.

Most realms would start off with the default system of vassals being able to gain external land on their own and when you push a claim. As a vassal you could try to fight to gain all this land as your personal land and fight your liege(s) to remove your land from their suzerainty. As a suzerain you would be either using your vassals as your minions carving up internal lands of other suzerains for you so you can eventually declare war on both your vassal and their other suzerain to make them solely your vassal, gainning all that gobbled internal land into your own. Your goal could be to either continue to use this double suzerainty to your advantage or slowly change the laws so that all your vassals are always only your vassals. Doing so would give you a new expansion path, pushing higher tier claims for vassals and getting them yourself. To do so you would need to 1 change your laws many times and 2 have fought wars to internalize all your vassals. The less you use vassals to gain outside lands through double suzerainty the easier it is to gain the advantage of pushing and gaining your vassals claims.

On the flip side vassals and other realms can fight you to take your internal vassals for themselves alone. Vassals with equal or higher rank lands outside of yours can also use your vulnerability to fight you for more of your vassals too so everyone is somewhat pitted against each other.