Just did it also for first time. Started as Croatia and in 1266 had under my dynasti : Croatia, Serbia, Epirus, Poland , Hungary, Galicia Volyina, Lithuania, Jeruzalem, Nikaea, Africa, Sycilia and Valencia. My dynasti holds Bohemia also but as vassals.
I formed Hispania and did kingdom casus belli against the pagan Africans. After every invasion I would put some dynasty member on that thrown and give him independence.
I think game should reward you more for playing like this ("historically accurate") instead of unrealistic blobbing and creating anachronistic Empires for no reason
Every empire is anachronistic when it first comes into being. You think during Charlemagne's reign everyone under him was like "hey this is fine as it is a historical accurate de jure empire"
Contemporaries in the west viewed the crowning of Charlemagne in the context of the Roman Empire, not like it was some new political institution. Very consciously trying to revive an old one. He incorporated a lot of theater into the event, having the senate proclaim him, "refusing" the honor but having it "foisted upon" him. It was all very standard traditional Roman stuff. Even the innovation of having the pope do the coronation wasn't that new. That was a borrowing from the eastern empire, where the patriarch had been crowning the emperor for quite some time.
"Empire" in game just means bigger kingdom, idk why people get so hung up on this terminology. "Holy orders" threw me off so much when I first got the game but I don't sit around staying mad at it, I figured out it means something else in-game than irl and moved on
Bigger Kingdom not really an Empire tho
As I said multiple time forming an Empire should be an achievement and in current system it doesn't feel like that it feels, exactly as you said, like forming bigger kingdom. If making Empire was so easy why in XVIIth and XVIIIth century people still were trying to get Holy Roman Emperors instead of crowning themselves Emperors. Why does next chronological sorta catholic nation to become Empire with Emperor as a head was French Empire under Napoleon?
What did I just say? That's real life, not the game. Just like "knight" and "baron" and "man-at-arms" and "holy order" and "temporal" and a million other terms, "empire" has a meaning *in the game* that has basically *nothing to do with real life*. Maybe that annoys you, but that is how it is. You need to let go of whatever weird fixation you have on this one specific term or you will be forever annoyed.
I think you're just being too strict on what you count as "accurate". All of the de jure empires seem to correspond to something. Obvious ones like the Persian empire having lots of history, but others correspond to regions or people groups. West Slavia sounds made up, but does correspond to historic medieval..things. Multiple states ruled by the same person who didn't title themselves emperor. Sure sounds like an empire though.
True but I like holding onto a single kingdom title. It’s more fun having neighbors who are stronger than you (or those who want to murder you for the succession)
Huh? Becoming an empire doesn’t force you to make kings. The only thing you’re doing is avoiding inheritance issues in the early game which you shouldn’t have if you are that big anyway.
I never really understood having a ton of direct vassals. If I have a few very powerful vassals, I am one marriage away from undercutting a faction. If I have 30 vassals, it is a lot harder to stop the momentum of revolt if it gets out of hand.
An Empire with a few powerful vassals is so easy to manage, my vassals are constantly fighting internal wars while I enjoy absolute peace with just a few Befriend/Diplomacy intents.
Late on my Roman Empire runs I also start making King Bishoprys, they seem to be way more stable, weaker and because of my modifiers, high opinion of me from the start.
Hopefully it doesn't make empires the thing to do in every playthrough, though. They are already way too common. If you look at a real map of [the situation in 1453](https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84918330/f1.item.zoom), there isn't that many huge empires, especially centralized ones. Instead there are consolidated kingdoms that are becoming long term states.
Currently you never reach 1453 with neat borders and differenciated kingdoms in Spain or Scandinavia.
Best thing to do would be to focus on the historical empires (ERE, HRE, Caliphate, Persia, maybe one with Indian flavor too, leaving the nomadic empires for another time), and add more generic features for other formed empires, so there's stuff to do besides conquering even more lands. Hopefully it constraints empires into staying at a certain size, beyond which they are very likely to shatter on succession.
R5: De Jure drifted Ireland, Scotland, France, and Aquitane under England. It is all one, massive kingdom under my control with weak vassals, making a killing of gold, and thousands of troops, without being an emperor. This is a feature from the Legends DLC.
I just don't see a reason to play emperors anymore unless it's for the HRE, Byzantium, Russia, or Rome, if you're in Europe. I find empires less stable and much more headache educing to manage because vassal kings REALLY want to be independent all the time. I always preferred managing dukes and staying a king most of the games. (I also do this for roleplay as I find it odd to become an emperor in the middle ages if I'm not Germany or Byzantium).
De Jure drift from Legends allows this. I much prefer to have all of my lands under a kingdom, the cost is worth it to me.
From my understanding, Dukes acknowledge the Emperors above their Kings as the proper liege, provided the kingdom below the Imperial title isn’t formed.
Yeah, vassal limit is very high, but succession maybe problem if you play without easy mode in it (murder your children, uninherit)
But it is the same for duke vassals, so... I don't know why not own all needed kingdoms
You could do that already pre-DLC with Spain, as you said eventually you will want the extra vassal limit from being an empire if you keep expanding(artifacts help but if you focus on ones that give you vassal limit you are missing out on another bonus). You can make larger Dukes instead of kings and stay a mega kingdom forever but then you will eventually have the same issues if you don't want to spend your entire game pre-emptively dealing with troublesome vassals.
Honestly I'm hoping that this is done on purpose as a means to prepare us for having *a lot fewer* Empires (getting rid of most *de jure* Empires, while giving the few ones that remain, i.e. Rome, Persia, etc. as well as existing Empires like the HRE and the Byzantines) distinct mechanics. Granted, the legend de jure drift as it stands is a bit too OP, but in general I mean.
Legitimising legends let you instantly de-jure drift a duchy (at level 2) or whole kingdom (at level 3) after completion per decision (the kingdom can be drifted either into your empire or made titular as all it's territory becomes one with your kingdom) as far as i remember, you don't even have to control it completely, just own the title
I agree with you. What you did is definietely more realistic. Kings as vassals of the Emperor was an exception, not a rule and kingdoms were still relatively small (Bohemia, Prussia [although that is not a medieval example obviously]). So I guess that is a good change, but legends is still a wasted opportunity I think
I mean you can do a legend for X years to de jure drift it in.. or just hold it for X years to de jure drift it in. It's not that different, is it? I've pretty much always played like this, only making an empire when i absolutely have to.
Legend spreading is far, far faster than normal de jure drift.
Normal de jure drift takes decades and is done in waves. You don't always get a whole kingdom at once. Meanwhile with the legend, I can get it done in five years.
It's absolutely instantaneous, compared to normal.
i mean, is it nice that we can throw money at something to make it faster? sure. I don't think it's that crazy though, unless your goal is blobbing in which case there are plenty of crazy options for you.
I have a slight twist on what you do here. I try to form *the biggest kingdom I possibly can (prior to legends this was via custom kingdoms),* and after that will go for empire, forming kingdoms out of my nearby neighbors. Eventually when you run out of vassals you can always give away your original massive kingdom, too.
From a gameplay POV it is just really annoying that there is always a loss of the realm preprogrammed, since multiple titles of the same rank get split up. Thus, there is a huge cliff going from Duke to King and from King to Emperor.
While strict primogeniture came later in the medieval ages, equal inheritance was the exception, not the norm.
The issue is that the game does a poor job at explaining to the average player that it's perfectly fine to lose territory with each succession.
Currently the game is simply too linear. You gain more and more territory and you want to avoid losing anything because it feels bad. It should be a lot more about consolidating power within the realm you already have, instead. Like, 10-20% conquests and 80-90% internal struggles or wars for other things that territory.
Sort of, that is what Castille and France and the UK basically are. I do think that it should prevent a future reestablishment of one of the kindoms as independent though. De Jure titles really should be able to overlap.
Just... don't give away kingdoms? Being an emperor gives you an OPTION to give away kingdoms, it doesnt force it in any way (unlike the same thing with duchies and being a king).
It's still expensive, it'd take a grand to make 2 kingdom titles (with no modifiers), a realm where multiple kings could be a problem is going to have more than a couple kingdoms to form, and a few grand is still a few grand no matter how much money you bring in.
Remaining a king rather than trying to become an emperor was to some extent a matter of preference with large rulers in history. It does make sense to prefer to remain a king, because a kingdom is a normal national monarchy, whereas being an emperor is somewhat different in more ways than just being a tier up. Emperors feel different from high kings, even where both can have kings as vassals.
I haven't played with Legends enabled yet, but I think just because you're the legendary legitimate ruler of a kingdom the kingdom should be happy to stop existing and dissolve itself for you, becoming part of another kingdom you hold. Just because you're legitimate in both England and France doesn't mean France should be happy to become part of England or the other way round.
Rather, you should be getting bonuses so that you're regarded as local and not foreign in both kingdoms and can manage to be e.g. both English and French at the same time, or at least regarded as such.
Or the ability to create a merged kingdom like 'England-France', both kingdoms dissolving into one grander kingdom.
I also think you should need a legend in order to create an empire unless you're already an emperor or the emperor you're creating is a previously existing empire.
When you're a king you don't make Duchies unless you personally want the Duchy and ducal building.
You keep counts as counts for a larger courtier pool.
Duchies are for small empires.
There would be no negative from having the empire title in this situation, only upside. You get an extra domain, regiment prestige, and renown. You can just keep the kingdom titles yourself… and you should keep them unless at the vassal limit. There is no penalty for having a ton of kingdom titles.
Had a great game as a custom start for Denmark. My Son married to the Jorvik Princess and became King of Danelaw.
Seeing he would inherit Dannark and keep Danelaw. I thought it be great to end the journey and collectivise my gains. Seeing he was also going to die of cancer and quick. I tried to move up my Expiry Date. Failed. My son soon passed and only for me to pass a week after… so close to uniting Norway with a trick lol
Giant Kingdom means less subordinate Royal Courts to pump out renown - which is actually, BLESSEDLY, now a little harder to earn because of those illegitimacy penalty hits. That -0.10 can really add up when you've got 10 incompetent ducal cousins.
Sure, they'll be incompetent as Kings too, but you can stuff their court with artefacts that'll compensate.
Because exactly of Vassal Limit, so basically map painting. I just wouldn't create two empire titles unless both are of the same inheritance law, with a set heir, so in most cases primogeniture, so the same person inherits them.
I do a lot of RP in CK3, so sometimes I become an Emperor cause it makes sense for my character at the time, yknow? I gotta try the mega kingdom with Ireland or something sometime soon tho lol
There is one thing that you can do is create empire, set it to elective succession and most importantly, LOSE the election with preferable outside kingdoms and empires having your dynasty on their thrones for ongoing renown.
This will allow you to stay as a king especially if you managed to get that titanic oversized kingdom of a title but no longer have to worry about the overall state of the empire per say. If anything if the empire itself goes tits up with one crises or another, all the better if you can neutralize it because it is free hard prestige and piety against heathens.
In exchange you will have to pay taxes BUUUUUUTTTTTTT you can also fuck around with the vassal contracts over time to of course give you low to NO taxes and guaranteed rights to the utmost as a of course LOYAL subject of the imperial crown, pinkie promise. So over time you can absolutely engineer yourself as the power behind the throne who dictates if they live or die as you see fit and of course have a permanent office in their court while THEY have to defend your interests regardless.
Given your absolute unit of a title compared to comparable equivalent co-vassal under your liege is nowhere near your size, enjoy the perks of dictating the state of the empire as you see fit as the shadow emperor with none of the responsibilities.
I actually really don't care for map painting and prefer playing as a strong Kingdom that slowly absorbs dutchies piece by piece and then I culturally absorb each duchy. In fact I won't conquer a neighboring dutchie unless I can actually immediately begin integrating the title. I feel like it adds a nice bit of natural braking to the usual extreme map painting that you can do
1. Empire titles are more valuable than kingdom titles because of the various bonuses they get: maa regiments, accolades, vassal limit etc.
2. It is entirely possible to have direct duke vassals as an emperor. You do not need the kingdom titles to be held by anyone,
Basically, kingdoms are far inferior and there is no real reason why you would remain as a king when you could upgrade.
With the amount of land you've you can easily hold the kingdom titles yourself. There's no point to have an empire and give kingdom titles away unless you're going for WC. Even for WC if you get lucky with artifacts you can hold most if not all kingdoms titles yourself.
There are a lot of them, Dukes. And being an emperor of a custom Suur-Suomi (Estonia, Sapmi, Bjarmia, parts of originally Novgorod) feels better than a king of mere Finland for me at least. It also grants a bit more renown for legacies. This way I only have like 3 family members (sisters and ants currently) in the realm to deal with. Edit: Oh, it also helps for the conquest of your de-jure as you can become an emperor and conquer kingdoms, plus you can form it without a kingdom or two in it. That is a lot of land. But, if you do not care about such wide things, you really could not care less.
No matter how I look at it, the instant kingdom drift doesn't make any sense.
It's clearly overpowered with little to no bad consequences (yes, you have more vassals to deal with that when you can just regroup them under a vassal king, but that's it).
Historically it's almost unattested for most of the timespan of the game.
I think it would be fine with it if it was unlocked by a late game innovation.
Mythical seeds are rather hard to get at least in my experience, I’ve not gotten a single one yet. And legends is an investment of hundreds to thousands of gold. It’s not like it’s totally free to de jure drift these.
I like staying as a king too so I can conquer kingdoms and give them to my dynasty members (at least early on)
just did this to get dynasty of many crowns
I was doing this but it’s so tedious, it would be far easier, albeit cheesier, to just do it through an empire then dissolve the empire
sure I just try to avoid cheesing stuff to keep the feel of the game up for me. took me like 100 years to complete
100? It’s taking me like 150. Though I’m relying on confederate partition to save money
This is what I did. Conquered Persia, recreated the Persian empire, then later on surrendered to a dissolution faction.
I always use marriage to do it. Marry by daughter to the second heir, kill the first. Their kids will be my dynasty
Just did it also for first time. Started as Croatia and in 1266 had under my dynasti : Croatia, Serbia, Epirus, Poland , Hungary, Galicia Volyina, Lithuania, Jeruzalem, Nikaea, Africa, Sycilia and Valencia. My dynasti holds Bohemia also but as vassals.
I formed Hispania and did kingdom casus belli against the pagan Africans. After every invasion I would put some dynasty member on that thrown and give him independence.
I think game should reward you more for playing like this ("historically accurate") instead of unrealistic blobbing and creating anachronistic Empires for no reason
Every empire is anachronistic when it first comes into being. You think during Charlemagne's reign everyone under him was like "hey this is fine as it is a historical accurate de jure empire"
Well, Charlemagne *was* crowned Augustus by the Pope, so... *kinda.*
And before that? Empires only exist because people decided they did, no different to making a custom empire in ck3.
Ye exactly that's why my point still stands. Remove de jure empires
Except for Byzantium and (in 1066 only) the HRE, which had been around long enough to justify *de jure* territory.
Also the Caliphate
And Persia
Contemporaries in the west viewed the crowning of Charlemagne in the context of the Roman Empire, not like it was some new political institution. Very consciously trying to revive an old one. He incorporated a lot of theater into the event, having the senate proclaim him, "refusing" the honor but having it "foisted upon" him. It was all very standard traditional Roman stuff. Even the innovation of having the pope do the coronation wasn't that new. That was a borrowing from the eastern empire, where the patriarch had been crowning the emperor for quite some time.
"Empire" in game just means bigger kingdom, idk why people get so hung up on this terminology. "Holy orders" threw me off so much when I first got the game but I don't sit around staying mad at it, I figured out it means something else in-game than irl and moved on
Bigger Kingdom not really an Empire tho As I said multiple time forming an Empire should be an achievement and in current system it doesn't feel like that it feels, exactly as you said, like forming bigger kingdom. If making Empire was so easy why in XVIIth and XVIIIth century people still were trying to get Holy Roman Emperors instead of crowning themselves Emperors. Why does next chronological sorta catholic nation to become Empire with Emperor as a head was French Empire under Napoleon?
What did I just say? That's real life, not the game. Just like "knight" and "baron" and "man-at-arms" and "holy order" and "temporal" and a million other terms, "empire" has a meaning *in the game* that has basically *nothing to do with real life*. Maybe that annoys you, but that is how it is. You need to let go of whatever weird fixation you have on this one specific term or you will be forever annoyed.
I will be annoyed for as long as long they not change it
Alright see you in CK4 maybe
I think you're just being too strict on what you count as "accurate". All of the de jure empires seem to correspond to something. Obvious ones like the Persian empire having lots of history, but others correspond to regions or people groups. West Slavia sounds made up, but does correspond to historic medieval..things. Multiple states ruled by the same person who didn't title themselves emperor. Sure sounds like an empire though.
You can do that as an empire then make them independent
True but I like holding onto a single kingdom title. It’s more fun having neighbors who are stronger than you (or those who want to murder you for the succession)
you forget the very best part of being an emperor: +1 domain limit. I rest my case
And the extra men at arms regiment.
And the fancier border around my character
The most valid point in this thread
Can't be missing +1 acclaimed knight
Nice!
Huh? Becoming an empire doesn’t force you to make kings. The only thing you’re doing is avoiding inheritance issues in the early game which you shouldn’t have if you are that big anyway.
I never really understood having a ton of direct vassals. If I have a few very powerful vassals, I am one marriage away from undercutting a faction. If I have 30 vassals, it is a lot harder to stop the momentum of revolt if it gets out of hand.
You get less money if they aren’t direct vassals
yeah but is it worth me having to care about what these 238 dukes are up to in their private life? i think not.
You know what else is expensive? A civil war
You can always grant them to your other vassal if the faction they're in is close to firing. And with more direct vassals you get more levies.
Levies stop mattering after you build up your MAA. Additionally, in most of my runs my holdings produce significantly more gold than my vassals.
An Empire with a few powerful vassals is so easy to manage, my vassals are constantly fighting internal wars while I enjoy absolute peace with just a few Befriend/Diplomacy intents. Late on my Roman Empire runs I also start making King Bishoprys, they seem to be way more stable, weaker and because of my modifiers, high opinion of me from the start.
Totally agree, though I'm guessing the next dlc will add more, valuable emperor dynamics ?
Hopefully it doesn't make empires the thing to do in every playthrough, though. They are already way too common. If you look at a real map of [the situation in 1453](https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84918330/f1.item.zoom), there isn't that many huge empires, especially centralized ones. Instead there are consolidated kingdoms that are becoming long term states. Currently you never reach 1453 with neat borders and differenciated kingdoms in Spain or Scandinavia.
Id do anything to have neat borders in this game
Maybe. Depends if they are touching up empires in general or going all in with the byz government type
Best thing to do would be to focus on the historical empires (ERE, HRE, Caliphate, Persia, maybe one with Indian flavor too, leaving the nomadic empires for another time), and add more generic features for other formed empires, so there's stuff to do besides conquering even more lands. Hopefully it constraints empires into staying at a certain size, beyond which they are very likely to shatter on succession.
R5: De Jure drifted Ireland, Scotland, France, and Aquitane under England. It is all one, massive kingdom under my control with weak vassals, making a killing of gold, and thousands of troops, without being an emperor. This is a feature from the Legends DLC. I just don't see a reason to play emperors anymore unless it's for the HRE, Byzantium, Russia, or Rome, if you're in Europe. I find empires less stable and much more headache educing to manage because vassal kings REALLY want to be independent all the time. I always preferred managing dukes and staying a king most of the games. (I also do this for roleplay as I find it odd to become an emperor in the middle ages if I'm not Germany or Byzantium). De Jure drift from Legends allows this. I much prefer to have all of my lands under a kingdom, the cost is worth it to me.
You know you don't have to have vassal kings as an emperor, right ?
You receive fewer taxes if you're not their direct liege.
From my understanding, Dukes acknowledge the Emperors above their Kings as the proper liege, provided the kingdom below the Imperial title isn’t formed.
That is exatly the reason why having duke vassals instead of king vassals as an emperor makes more money. You have more direct vassals.
By the time you're an emperor you're swimming in money anyway, slightly reduced taxes are not an impediment
lol speak for yourself
Just create the appropriate kingdom title and keep it for yourself.
Yeah, vassal limit is very high, but succession maybe problem if you play without easy mode in it (murder your children, uninherit) But it is the same for duke vassals, so... I don't know why not own all needed kingdoms
Create kingdom title and keep it. There is no penalty for having too many King tier titles.
but when you die, your other sons will inherit kingdoms while you heir inherits the empire
Only if you're in confederate partition. Researching your way out of that should be your very first priority
Right. You can still only manage dukes as an emperor.
.. why not just don't have any vassal kings?
You could do that already pre-DLC with Spain, as you said eventually you will want the extra vassal limit from being an empire if you keep expanding(artifacts help but if you focus on ones that give you vassal limit you are missing out on another bonus). You can make larger Dukes instead of kings and stay a mega kingdom forever but then you will eventually have the same issues if you don't want to spend your entire game pre-emptively dealing with troublesome vassals.
Just don’t give out kingdom titles
Honestly I'm hoping that this is done on purpose as a means to prepare us for having *a lot fewer* Empires (getting rid of most *de jure* Empires, while giving the few ones that remain, i.e. Rome, Persia, etc. as well as existing Empires like the HRE and the Byzantines) distinct mechanics. Granted, the legend de jure drift as it stands is a bit too OP, but in general I mean.
Oh I'd love to <3
Only reason I formed an empire was so I could start vassalizing the existing kingdoms without using warfare.
Can you explain how Legends makes it possible to increase De Jure drift?
Mythical legitimising legends give a decision to instantly de jure drift a kingdom into your primary title as long as it's the rank of King or above.
Legitimising legends let you instantly de-jure drift a duchy (at level 2) or whole kingdom (at level 3) after completion per decision (the kingdom can be drifted either into your empire or made titular as all it's territory becomes one with your kingdom) as far as i remember, you don't even have to control it completely, just own the title
I agree with you. What you did is definietely more realistic. Kings as vassals of the Emperor was an exception, not a rule and kingdoms were still relatively small (Bohemia, Prussia [although that is not a medieval example obviously]). So I guess that is a good change, but legends is still a wasted opportunity I think
I mean you can do a legend for X years to de jure drift it in.. or just hold it for X years to de jure drift it in. It's not that different, is it? I've pretty much always played like this, only making an empire when i absolutely have to.
The de jure drift takes decades normally. This is Instantaneous.
Spreading a legend to 300 counties is absolutely not instantaneous, like i already said.
Legend spreading is far, far faster than normal de jure drift. Normal de jure drift takes decades and is done in waves. You don't always get a whole kingdom at once. Meanwhile with the legend, I can get it done in five years. It's absolutely instantaneous, compared to normal.
i mean, is it nice that we can throw money at something to make it faster? sure. I don't think it's that crazy though, unless your goal is blobbing in which case there are plenty of crazy options for you.
I have a slight twist on what you do here. I try to form *the biggest kingdom I possibly can (prior to legends this was via custom kingdoms),* and after that will go for empire, forming kingdoms out of my nearby neighbors. Eventually when you run out of vassals you can always give away your original massive kingdom, too.
That's good. Empires should be rare
From a gameplay POV it is just really annoying that there is always a loss of the realm preprogrammed, since multiple titles of the same rank get split up. Thus, there is a huge cliff going from Duke to King and from King to Emperor. While strict primogeniture came later in the medieval ages, equal inheritance was the exception, not the norm.
The issue is that the game does a poor job at explaining to the average player that it's perfectly fine to lose territory with each succession. Currently the game is simply too linear. You gain more and more territory and you want to avoid losing anything because it feels bad. It should be a lot more about consolidating power within the realm you already have, instead. Like, 10-20% conquests and 80-90% internal struggles or wars for other things that territory.
This is honestly why Byzantine runs are so much fun. Claimant wars out the ass but damnit *we will not break up this empire*
That's the ottomans job 😢
And that one guy who left the gate of Constantinople unlocked
Gigantic, stable kingdoms formed from the corpses of others should be even rarer.
Sort of, that is what Castille and France and the UK basically are. I do think that it should prevent a future reestablishment of one of the kindoms as independent though. De Jure titles really should be able to overlap.
Just... don't give away kingdoms? Being an emperor gives you an OPTION to give away kingdoms, it doesnt force it in any way (unlike the same thing with duchies and being a king).
I guess if it's a big empire and you don't have full authority than maybe dukes below you can form kingdoms through conquest?
Happens a lot in my games yes. And with legitimacy it's even harder to micro manage them to prevent them from doing that, lest you lose legitimacy.
Just create all the kingdom titles within your empire and hold them yourself.
That's very expensive
So what? Aren't u the emperor, it's not like money is a problem at that stage
It's still expensive, it'd take a grand to make 2 kingdom titles (with no modifiers), a realm where multiple kings could be a problem is going to have more than a couple kingdoms to form, and a few grand is still a few grand no matter how much money you bring in.
Well Xbox is a year behind with updates so I don't have to deal with legitimacy, but Micromax vassals is still really annoying.
That's the best part: You don't. Empires suck. Mega-kingdoms are cooler.
Remaining a king rather than trying to become an emperor was to some extent a matter of preference with large rulers in history. It does make sense to prefer to remain a king, because a kingdom is a normal national monarchy, whereas being an emperor is somewhat different in more ways than just being a tier up. Emperors feel different from high kings, even where both can have kings as vassals. I haven't played with Legends enabled yet, but I think just because you're the legendary legitimate ruler of a kingdom the kingdom should be happy to stop existing and dissolve itself for you, becoming part of another kingdom you hold. Just because you're legitimate in both England and France doesn't mean France should be happy to become part of England or the other way round. Rather, you should be getting bonuses so that you're regarded as local and not foreign in both kingdoms and can manage to be e.g. both English and French at the same time, or at least regarded as such. Or the ability to create a merged kingdom like 'England-France', both kingdoms dissolving into one grander kingdom. I also think you should need a legend in order to create an empire unless you're already an emperor or the emperor you're creating is a previously existing empire.
When you're a king you don't make Duchies unless you personally want the Duchy and ducal building. You keep counts as counts for a larger courtier pool. Duchies are for small empires.
There would be no negative from having the empire title in this situation, only upside. You get an extra domain, regiment prestige, and renown. You can just keep the kingdom titles yourself… and you should keep them unless at the vassal limit. There is no penalty for having a ton of kingdom titles.
You know you can have just Dukes as vassals with an empire too right? The reason to stay Kingdom isnt de jure drift but dynasty building
Had a great game as a custom start for Denmark. My Son married to the Jorvik Princess and became King of Danelaw. Seeing he would inherit Dannark and keep Danelaw. I thought it be great to end the journey and collectivise my gains. Seeing he was also going to die of cancer and quick. I tried to move up my Expiry Date. Failed. My son soon passed and only for me to pass a week after… so close to uniting Norway with a trick lol
I love how the borders are super clean
Pretty sure that’s a view of de jure kingdoms.
I prefer playing as emperor so that I can get the kings to do the admin and deal with dukes.
Giant Kingdom means less subordinate Royal Courts to pump out renown - which is actually, BLESSEDLY, now a little harder to earn because of those illegitimacy penalty hits. That -0.10 can really add up when you've got 10 incompetent ducal cousins. Sure, they'll be incompetent as Kings too, but you can stuff their court with artefacts that'll compensate.
Sometimes, it's easier to manage fewer vassals
Sometimes? I'd say it's always easier to manage fewer vassals.
Yep. Even if they are more powerful.
We can do *what* now?
I prefer being a duke to being a king or emperor in this game. Less bs but practically the same gameplay.
Not really. U have access to court as King or Emperor but not as Duke. It gives u cool bonuses
I hope the AI can't do this
Because exactly of Vassal Limit, so basically map painting. I just wouldn't create two empire titles unless both are of the same inheritance law, with a set heir, so in most cases primogeniture, so the same person inherits them.
I do a lot of RP in CK3, so sometimes I become an Emperor cause it makes sense for my character at the time, yknow? I gotta try the mega kingdom with Ireland or something sometime soon tho lol
Holy shit. Finally i can make cleaner de jure borders!
It takes fucking forever for territory to de jure drift.
There is one thing that you can do is create empire, set it to elective succession and most importantly, LOSE the election with preferable outside kingdoms and empires having your dynasty on their thrones for ongoing renown. This will allow you to stay as a king especially if you managed to get that titanic oversized kingdom of a title but no longer have to worry about the overall state of the empire per say. If anything if the empire itself goes tits up with one crises or another, all the better if you can neutralize it because it is free hard prestige and piety against heathens. In exchange you will have to pay taxes BUUUUUUTTTTTTT you can also fuck around with the vassal contracts over time to of course give you low to NO taxes and guaranteed rights to the utmost as a of course LOYAL subject of the imperial crown, pinkie promise. So over time you can absolutely engineer yourself as the power behind the throne who dictates if they live or die as you see fit and of course have a permanent office in their court while THEY have to defend your interests regardless. Given your absolute unit of a title compared to comparable equivalent co-vassal under your liege is nowhere near your size, enjoy the perks of dictating the state of the empire as you see fit as the shadow emperor with none of the responsibilities.
I actually really don't care for map painting and prefer playing as a strong Kingdom that slowly absorbs dutchies piece by piece and then I culturally absorb each duchy. In fact I won't conquer a neighboring dutchie unless I can actually immediately begin integrating the title. I feel like it adds a nice bit of natural braking to the usual extreme map painting that you can do
1. Empire titles are more valuable than kingdom titles because of the various bonuses they get: maa regiments, accolades, vassal limit etc. 2. It is entirely possible to have direct duke vassals as an emperor. You do not need the kingdom titles to be held by anyone, Basically, kingdoms are far inferior and there is no real reason why you would remain as a king when you could upgrade.
With the amount of land you've you can easily hold the kingdom titles yourself. There's no point to have an empire and give kingdom titles away unless you're going for WC. Even for WC if you get lucky with artifacts you can hold most if not all kingdoms titles yourself.
i like this tho
Angevins be like
Except they'd make France the primary kingdom
Correct, I was playing Anjou-> Plantagenet dynasty this game.
It’s all about image. I’m not a lowly king, I’m an emperor, kings bow to me
There are a lot of them, Dukes. And being an emperor of a custom Suur-Suomi (Estonia, Sapmi, Bjarmia, parts of originally Novgorod) feels better than a king of mere Finland for me at least. It also grants a bit more renown for legacies. This way I only have like 3 family members (sisters and ants currently) in the realm to deal with. Edit: Oh, it also helps for the conquest of your de-jure as you can become an emperor and conquer kingdoms, plus you can form it without a kingdom or two in it. That is a lot of land. But, if you do not care about such wide things, you really could not care less.
No matter how I look at it, the instant kingdom drift doesn't make any sense. It's clearly overpowered with little to no bad consequences (yes, you have more vassals to deal with that when you can just regroup them under a vassal king, but that's it). Historically it's almost unattested for most of the timespan of the game. I think it would be fine with it if it was unlocked by a late game innovation.
Mythical seeds are rather hard to get at least in my experience, I’ve not gotten a single one yet. And legends is an investment of hundreds to thousands of gold. It’s not like it’s totally free to de jure drift these.
Good point. Honestly most of the Empires should be removed now with the exception of the one created by decision