What Makes a Good Vassal? (CK3 Vassal Management Guide)
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Vassals should generally be selected according to their traits, culture, religion, attribute scores, and relation to you.
Existing vassals can be managed by keeping them weak, establishing Crown Authority 3 and 4, and forcing partition inheritance.
If necessary, you can also replace vassals by revoking titles or marrying your dynasty members to them, creating children of your dynasty. Marriages with vassal families will form alliances, as an extra bonus.
What To Consider When Selecting Vassals
#1: Traits
Good vassal traits include Content, Trusting, Humble, Patient, and Craven. The first four give liege opinion boosts, which will make your vassals like you more.
Content and its tooltip, with +20 opinion of the vassal’s liege
Craven characters are more easily intimidated by your Dread score. These vassals are less likely to act against you in general.
The Craven trait. Some traits have hidden effects not shown in their tooltip
Bad traits are roughly the opposite – Ambitious, Arrogant, Impatient, and Brave could cause some trouble. The first three lower liege opinion, so vassals will dislike you.
Content and its tooltip, with -15 opinion of the vassal’s liege
Brave characters are less easily intimidated and will be more likely to act against you.
The Brave trait is another example of a trait with hidden effects
Greedy vassals who have claims on your titles might also try to take them from you more often.
This Greedy vassal has a few title claims, and is more likely to act on them due to their personality
#2: Culture & Religion
Having a different culture can cause characters to have negative opinion modifiers against each other, if cultural acceptance is low.
The opinion debuff caused by low cultural acceptance
The culture of the county is important, too.
If the vassal’s culture isn’t the same as the local one, cultural acceptance will also affect popular opinion.
A small popular opinion debuff caused by two cultures’ acceptance scores
This mismatch allows locals to form a faction and rebel against the realm. The top liege has to deal with these uprisings sometimes, so it might be your problem!
A peasant rabble faction, created by low control and popular opinion in a county
Religion functions in a similar way, and mismatches between you and another character can reduce their opinion.
The opinion debuff caused by differing religions
Similarly, a county with a different religion to its vassal will have reduced popular opinion.
A popular opinion debuff caused by two cultures’ different religions
Factions created by religious differences are essentially the same as those created for cultural reasons, but under a different name.
#3: Attribute Scores
Choosing vassals with high attribute scores will fill your court with skilled characters.
You can kill two birds with one stone here since your most powerful vassals will demand a council seat. If they’re already good at the job, your council will be much more effective.
A council with skilled vassals
Just be careful with vassals who don’t like you.
If they’re highly skilled they’ll have an easier time plotting against you or fighting you, especially if their Intrigue or Martial scores are high.
A council with many councilors who dislike their liege
#4: Family & Friends
Family members can make good vassals since they tend to like you already. Family may also have higher attributes and better traits depending on how you play, which is good for your council.
A skilled son and heir as Marshal
Filling your realm with family could cause you problems if you have a large empire, since you’ll have fewer marriage options.
Characters from the same dynasty are beginning to show in the arrange marriage list
Depending on their personality and claims, family members can often plot against you too.
So giving them more power or making them Spymaster isn’t always a good idea!
The player narrowly escaping murder, with a low-opinion family member as Spymaster
Friends, on the other hand, tend to plot against you less often.
The only downside is that your relationship won’t carry over to an heir when you die, unlike a few family bonds.
A friend and vassal
As above, it’s still advised to pick family and friends who have good traits and attributes. An Ambitious claimant is much more likely to steal your throne!
How To Manage Your Vassals
Keeping Vassals Under Control
Most players avoid creating large vassals with lots of power.
This is so that they can’t overthrow you or become independent.
To prevent this, try to offer dukes one or two counties with many of their own vassals, rather than every county within the duchy.
A vassal being offered more counties and a duchy title
You can also prevent vassals from warring with Crown Authority Levels 3 and 4. This won’t prevent faction wars from happening, but vassals can’t try to take land.
The Crown Authority Level 4 tooltip
To stop vassals snowballing via inheritance, add “Forced Partition” to their vassal contracts. You can sacrifice a bit of income or troop power for this if you have no hooks.
A vassal with Forced Partition checked in their contract
Replacing Vassals
If you end up with bad vassals, you can replace them with another character.
The fastest way to do this is to revoke a vassal’s titles. You can find this option by right-clicking on a vassal and selecting “Revoke Title.”
The Revoke Title option is highlighted under “Vassalage & Court”
Successfully revoking a title means you will gain it.
You can keep the title or give it to another vassal.
A title has been successfully revoked from this vassal
Revoking titles when the vassal hasn’t committed a crime gives you Tyranny, resulting in a general opinion debuff.
A Revoke Title action which would cause the player to gain Tyranny
Vassals can also refuse to give up their title. In this case, they’ll rebel against you, and they may bring other vassals who dislike you.
A war caused by an attempted title revocation. Several other vassals have joined due to low opinion
If you don’t want to risk a war, you could also murder your vassal by plotting against them.
However, their heir will inherit, who may not like you either.
A murder plot is being started against a vassal
Another option is to marry your family to this vassal or their heirs.
You can form an alliance with some of your vassals this way, or replace their dynasty with yours depending on the marriage.
This vassal’s heir is from the player’s dynasty rather than their own
Samantha is a Scottish writer, editor, and lifelong gamer living in Czechia. She loves to travel around Europe and enjoy the outdoors, as long as it's not too hot! She can usually be found constructing her next CK3 dynasty, carving some tails in Monster Hunter, or enjoying a horror show or two.
