I have a bunch of courtiers with 12+ martial, mostly invited from other courts where they hated their liege, so there’s no shortage of decent commanders. Sure could use a better spymaster, though.
BTW, Pro Tip: If there’s children in your realm who have strong claims on your territory, offering to educate them in your own court is a nearly foolproof way of “fixing” the problem. 
I wouldn’t spend 700 just to get a claimant to join me, generally speaking, but I’m a builder, and I believe it’s very worth it in the long term. However, contrarily to a previous player, I build towns in priority, because they make a lot of money, and money-making improvements. Yes, the retinue is important, but with money, you can build more retinue-making buildings, and hire mercenaries and so on.
Thinking of which, I wonder whether a claimant would stay your vassal after a successful war if he was a mayor instead of a baron, or if at the contrary he would become independant and keep your town.
I think good stats in a spouse make up for a loss of prestige. Having the same culture is also convenient. For instance she could raise children and give them a better financial skill without changing their culture. However, an administrative skill might be better for the extra holdings in your demesne.
Wow, siege warfare sure takes forever in this game. I promised my genius nephew a title when he begged me for one, thinking I’d have a new county very soon, but instead it took TWO YEARS – now he’s got a -50 malus for “breaking a promise” even though I’ve given him the county now! Grrrr.
At least I fixed the eventual succession crisis by appointing two sons as bishop heirs; now my demesne will be split evenly in half instead of leaving the crown prince with only ONE county.
Well, the Welsh lady became independent when I went warred for her, though she wasn’t landed yet. Soon I’ll have a new county in Ireland to grant her (actually I have to give it to her husband, for some reason she’s “not eligible” for a land title) plus my niece is matrilinealy betrothed to her son, so we’ll see what happens.
Another question: How long do alliances with other kingdoms last? The CKII wiki is annoyingly unclear about that.
That’s because they’re actually sieges unlike most games which are castle assault games. You’re literally camping outside, killing supply lines, and generally starving them out until they give up.
You can assault, but you generally only do that once you’ve blobbed out into a mega-empire. In one of my world conquests I have a bunch of stacks of 20-30k units and every time I declare a war, run over and assault everything and then peace in 2-3 months.
As people seemed confused by this, I save scummed to go back and try to figure out what happened. My best guess is that the Emperor of Alba title went to some distant cousin (probably the King of Scotland) so for gameplay purposes, that was my dynastic heir, not my underaged son who inherited the Duchy of Ulster and all of the provinces in it.
I took a lesson from the whole debacle and worked to eliminate all of the ducal titles in Ireland. As Britanny (a Kingdom with only a single Duchy in it) taught me, if there is only one other Duke in the Kingdom, you have complete control over the succession if you have elective succession. You lose some ongoing prestige that having some vassal Dukes would get you, but having complete control over the succession (and my power base in Ireland) is totally worth it. What bugs me a bit is that ages ago when I conquered Wales, I made the mistake of leaving half of my demesne in Wales and giving up a bunch of counties in Ireland. Now whenever I go to war I have to do some fancy maneuvers to get everything onto a ship and arrive at the target simultaneously (and when the King of England rebelled, my levies there were useless at the beginning because if I raised them he could just obliterate them.
Being an Emperor makes the game ridiculously easy to expand wholesale. I now control an empire that spans from the Kingdom of Rus in the northeast, all of Scandinavia, Britain and Spain, as well as the Kingdoms of Brittany, France and Aquitaine. The trick is to keep them all from rebelling. Mercenaries help a lot there.
As long as you have family ties to the ruler of the other nation. If he (or she) is of the same dynasty as you, you remain allies indefinitely. If it’s through marriage then I think that you or your children need to be married to the other ruler or his children.
Oh, the wiki has this to say on the Marriage page:
Yeah, that’s what I was unclear about, how long these alliances last before the relationship becomes too distant. My current alliance with England is based on King Gudrod’s half-brother’s wife, which seemed kinda tenuous, so I had my fourth son marry the daughter of a duke who’s the current heir apparent. Hopefully that should protect me from the Southern Menace for awhile.
I’m rather baffled by some of these lines of inheritance, though – for instance, the King of Norway’s heir is NOT his eldest son (who I could marry to my youngest daughter if I so chose, not matrilinealy though) but some other Duke who doesn’t seem to have any family ties at all!!! How in the world does that work?
The Kingdom of Norway has elective succession. This means that the current King and all of the Dukes get one vote as to who the next King will be (and holding multiple voter titles does not give you multiple votes). Gaining control of an elective monarchy through marriage is more difficult but the current King’s children do get claims on the Kingdom which you can press through war, so it is possible.
It’s very difficult to hold multiple Kingdoms that all have elective succession too. That’s what makes being an Emperor so nice. The Kings are still your vassals no matter who gains the Kingdom.
I think as far as alliances go, either you’ve got one or you don’t. It doesn’t matter if the parties are the ruler, a sibling or a child. It can be a good idea to have multiple marriages across the generations to prevent the alliance from being dissolved by an inopportunely-timed death, but having more or closer marriage ties doesn’t boost their opinion any further or make them any more likely to join one of your wars.
Just to add, the “heir” as listed in the character screen actually isn’t all that important for non-player characters. It’s basically just who the game would jump to if that character died while being played. If the primary title is elective, the heir will automatically switch to whoever has the most votes IF they’re a dynasty member. Otherwise I think it reverts to the dynasty member who is set to inherit the next most important of your titles. You can only get the non-dynasty heir game over state if none of your titles are inherited by a dynasty member.
Your King of Norway’s random duke heir is probably part of some far-flung branch of the Yngling dynasty and is the heir either because he’s currently leading the election for King or because there’s a non-Yngling currently leading and the random duke is poised to inherit one of the lower titles.
It took me a while and several readings to understand (I think) what you explained here.
Does this mean that I can’t know for certain who will be the next elected king, because the game will always show a relative of the current king, whether or not he’s leading in the votes?
For instance, I notice that the duke Y, first cousin of the current king, is indicated as heir, I plan accordingly (say, a marriage), get the current king murdered to further my goal, and then surprise, the new king is the completely unrelated Duke X who was in fact leading the votes unbestknown to me?
I was about to ask the same question. Every time I check, it seems like there’s a different person indicated as Norway’s heir. England’s the same way.
In fact, half of England suddenly went into revolt, which is being led by the Duke who was set to be the new king, and whose daughter I just married to my second son – awkwaaard!
It just changes who’s listed as the heir in the character screen. If you mouse hover over the crest for the title, it’ll tell you what the line of succession is for the title itself. For elective titles, it’ll be the current top three vote-getters so that’s how you’d figure that out. The heir and the person who is first in line for the primary title are usually the same person, but not so if someone from outside the dynasty is currently leading the voting.
I can explain why she became independent. It’s one of two things.
First, you cannot vassalize anyone with a title equal to yours. If your highest title is duke (or petty king, or shah, or whatever duke-level title your culture uses), and you press duchy-level claim for someone, when you win the war there will be no circumstance under which the territory will end up in your realm. The new duke will be independent, and have a +100 relationship bonus with you.
Second, you were not her liege to begin with. Only landed characters can be vassals. Unlanded characters can be in your court, but they are NOT vassals. If you press a claim for an unlanded person, they will become an independent ruler at the end of the war. However if you give that person any land prior to the war, they will remain your vassal, as long as their new title is not equal to or higher than yours.
A very effective method of expansion (only if you’re a king!) is to use any extra territory you come across as a hook to bring people into your realm who have duchy-level claims. For example, anytime you have the opportunity to revoke a minor barony, (for example, when they rebel and you imprison them, or when you catch them plotting against you), look around at the foreign duchy titles next to your realm. There’s almost always at least one that has a very unhappy, unlanded person who is willing to join your court. Give this ambitious second-son the title you just revoked, press his ducal claim, and presto! Your realm just grew by 3 or 4 counties!
I really think it’s better to give them one of your own counties in your capital duchy (once you’re a king). Once you finish pressing their claim you can just plot to revoke and get it back. Sometimes they go to war with you over it, but you basically just have to sit on the county for a month* and get it back and that’s usually sufficient to win the war. The “pressed my claim” bonus is so massive you basically never have to worry about opinion with them again, even after a quashed rebellion and title revocation.
Ah, that does make it easier to figure out what’s going on. Thanks.
Huh…all this time I thought I was king, only to discover I’m just a lowly duke. How embarrassing!
So, umm, how do I declare myself a real king?
It’s… complicated. Sort of, it’s easy once you understand it but hard to describe. There’s a button when you select a county that shows you the duchy it’s in. You’ll want to tick the box that says “show de jure” or something like that. You’ll see that your duchy is part of the Kingdom of X. Click on the Kingdom and it will show you that.
What you need to do is own (personally or through vassals) over some percentage of the land in the kingdom (I believe over 75%?) as well as own a certain percentage of the duchies in the kingdom (I think it usually amounts to two or three). After that you can pay some prestige and a lot of gold to “create” the title, which makes you a king.
The other option is “usurping” the title, which you may have to do if it happens that the region you’re in already has a king. This is more complicated, but instructions for how to do it should be over the “usurp” button if you hover over it in game. It’s basically the same as creating a title, but the requirements are a bit more stringent and there are restrictions that may prevent you from doing it. I.E. If it’s that person’s last title you can’t usurp it unless you own 100% of the land in that kingdom.
You can also create/usurp duchies in this way, and create empires (an empire is just a grouping of kingdoms the way a kingdom is a group of duchies).
If you hover over the Create/Usurp button, it will tell you exactly what’s needed to acquire the title. It’s normally 50%+1, some gold and possibly piety.
Right, I was thinking of empires, which is 80% of the land to create.
Though you do need to own at least two duchies to become a king. (Also, never hold more than two duchies yourself for any reason).
Edit, though a couple titualar kingdoms and empires have special conditions you need to meet like the
Roman Empire
What happens if you own more than two duchies?
Also, with the eventual succession, when my second son inherits the Duchy of Galloway and two of its counties, does that mean he will actually split off and become independent?
Your vassals will hate you for having more than two duchies. The malus is greater the more extra duchies you have. This is only an issue if you’re king-level or above. Strangely, if you’re emperor, they don’t seem to mind you holding extra kingdom titles.
If you’re a duke (or petty king or equivalent title) with more than one duchy whose titles are going to be divided between your heirs, then all your various dukedoms will be divided into independent realms. All the more reason to move away from gavelkind and/or acquire a kingdom.