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[Maldevious]

Anybody have suggestions for controlling the vassals? I need some advanced tips. It's not easy running 1/3 of the Europa you know.

Try to keep it in the dynasty if you can, it gives some relational bonuses. Only give vassals one county and one duke title at most if possible to keep them weak. Try to get Medium Crown Authority. Look for people with the same religion and culture as you if you have to go outside the dynasty. Avoid people with the ambitious trait like the plague, it's -50 relations with lord (it is a beige trait, the picture is a dream bubble with a crown in it). Look for unmarried old people who are content (beige trait, picture is a bowl and a spoon) and chaste (green trait, two rings) if you want to have a shot at getting the title back via inheritance (i.e. you'd like to own the land later but not at this time). If a vassal rebels and you imprison them, you can strip one title from them without your other vassals getting mad. Try and throw a tournament or hold a feast if you have the money.

That's how I'm playing at this point in time.

[Rakonas]

I strongly recommend against the same-dynasty thing. Terrible idea all around. People in my dyansty always rebel 100x more than random guys I hired off the street to be dukes and counts.

[Maldevious]

Pretty much anyone can end up rebelling. Same dynasty gives you a small bonus to relations. If you keep them weak, it doesn't really matter if they do rebel.

[Maldevious]

And my King, at age 78, just sired his 16th child, a bastard with a courtier. Sixteen children by 4 women. Should make for an interesting succession.

[Rakonas]

Pretty much anyone can end up rebelling. Same dynasty gives you a small bonus to relations. If you keep them weak, it doesn't really matter if they do rebel.

Relatives always rebel more in my experience because they're ungrateful douchebags and think one of them should be king instead. They also have +relation bonuses with each other.

[Dutchling]

I strongly recommend against the same-dynasty thing. Terrible idea all around. People in my dyansty always rebel 100x more than random guys I hired off the street to be dukes and counts.

That's because you give land to people with claims. Never give land to people who have claims on your titles. If you start as Sicily in 1089 you have four of five cousins with no claims on your land to whim you can give all the land you like. When they do rebel, they will try to call the others to arms though, which is a problem if they do not like you as much as the revolter.

Giving land to your dynasty will also increase your dynasty score and as each child will get 10% of his mothers and 10% of his fathers dynasty score as prestige at birth it can be a very good idea to keep all the land in the family. In my Rurikovich MP I got a kid with 600+ starting prestige because I married another Rurikovich :).

If you have doges (only make doges if you can make their count tier vassals lord mayors instead of counts) they usually want to marry but don't do it themselves o you can get a free +15 relations bonus for fulfilling his ambition.

Keeping someone in your dungeon at all times is good so you can release him for a free +110 relations bonus.

If someone revolts and calls a few vassals to arms those other vassals will not go in your dungeon if you win your war. To get them in the dungeon (so you can revoke a title) just march your army to their capital and try to imprison him. You will not get any tyrant penalties and if they raise their flag in rebellion you can just siege their land and imprison him.

[Leatra]

Hmm. I always tried to have fewer vassals and it ended up in few but strong vassals. It was easier to keep them happy but when they rebel things got difficult.

Try to get Medium Crown Authority.

Um... Why? Higher authority gives a relationship penalty but doesn't vassals fightining without your permission makes your army weak?

[Catastrophic lolcats]

You got it backwards. Medium Crown Authority STOPS infighting between your vassals. Also lets you revoke titles of any heathens or heretics in your realm. It's by far the best level of authority.

[Leatra]

Oh, right. Derp.

I always set it high since it stops you from losing lands to outsiders. But I guess I'll set it to medium from now on. Half of my nation is rebelling anyway.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

I haven't been playign CK2 very long but it didn't take me long to pick up the kingdom management part of it. I guess it's due to the other Paradox games I've played. 

Basically you want to make your vassals as weak as possible, because in the end they don't seem to help you at all. The main brunt of your army should be your own personal levies and some mercs if it's a particularly hard battle. Vassals bitch hardcore if you raise their levies for too long so don't be relying on them at all. 
Vassals should really only have one county and if they're lucky or apart of your dynersty with no claims should also have a dukedom. If a vassal ever gets too strong force them into rebelling by rasing their levies and making them the Court Jester, you can then revoke their title.

Crown Authority is optimial at Medium but I like to leave it at high to cancel out some of the micro-management of making sure my vassals have heirs.

So far the hardest part of CK2 is the whole inheritance system and how to exploit it for your own gains.

[Lord Dullard]

Tips:
1. Set your feudal taxation level to 'None' unless you're really hurting for money. Money is not hard to come by in this game, and the amount you'd get from taxing vassals is better spent in the relationship bonus. Your own demesne will generate plenty of money as long as you invest in money-generating villages and make sure you upgrade your own holdings (i.e. the capital holding in a county, not the cities/baronies/churches built there) first.

2. Yes, go with Medium authority. The best part of this is being able to revoke the titles of heathens/heretics for free. Revoking somebody's title and replacing them with a hand-picked vassal who has the 'content' trait and a high relationship with you will give you a staunch ally and remove a thorn from your side at the same time.

3. Managing vassals: give gifts freely. Again, this ties in to the 'invest in money-making infrastructure' thing, but I find that liberally lining the pockets of my vassals every so often will stave off the vast majority of problems way before they can occur.

4. Same-dynasty thing is okay as long as you make sure not to give titles to people who have claims against you, since that causes problems.

5. Make any changes to Crown Authority and Inheritance when your current character is well into middle or old age. Do NOT change laws with a young character who just inherited! BIG MISTAKE. They will immediately start out with a 'short reign' penalty, and if you add negative penalties for changing laws on top of that, you're going to have people rebelling left and right. Remember, change laws with old characters. Not only are they far more likely to be able to manage the discontent caused by legal changes (long reign positive modifier), but that penalty will also disappear entirely as soon as they kick the bucket and you start out as your heir.

6. GIVE GIFTS TO THE HEIRS OF YOUR VASSALS! I can't stress this one enough, and it is a hugely overlooked trick. It can be expensive to give gifts to powerful vassals. Usually this isn't a problem for me, because I invest heavily in money-making early in the game, but in the middle of a big war when you need mercenaries, or if you've just spent a ton of money on building, sometimes it isn't plausible to pay two hundred gold to some schmuck just because he has a few titles. But there's a trick you can use for managing your kingdom in the long term. Untitled heirs only cost *20* gold to bribe, and the positive modifier you get from gifting them will be just as large, if not LARGER, than the one you would get by gifting your vassal.

7. If your vassals are pissy because you have direct vassalage over a count who is part of their de jure dukedom (or a duke who is part of their de jure kingdom), transfer the vassal to them. It will remove the negative penalty and put a positive one in its place.

8. Likewise, try NOT to have counties that you don't have ducal titles in. Dukes get pissed off if you have control over a county in their de jure territory. Personally I prefer to target the richest duchies and just take the whole things for my personal demesne; that way I don't have to deal with either the 'wants control of...' or the 'desires the duchy of' penalties from anybody.

9. Prune the heirs of your vassals wisely. Let's say you have a powerful vassal with two sons; the heir (oldest) is ambitious and envious, and the younger is content. Which one of those two do you want to inherit? Remember: it's much easier to successfully plot against a young, powerless child or teenager than a powerful duke. Kill off that little snot before he grows up and causes you serious problems.

10. As a counterpoint to the above, if you have an old vassal who doesn't like you with only one heir who also doesn't like you, sometimes it isn't worth the trouble of bribing the heir if they have a lot of bad traits (envious, ambitious). Trying to bribe envious/ambitious people into submission is often not worth it. Just kill the heir and wait for the title to go to YOU when the bastard duke/count dies, then reassign it to somebody more docile. Problem solved.

Edit:
11. Oh, and one last thing. Sometimes, if you imprison a rebellious vassal, you won't be able to revoke all of their titles (for some reason the game will usually only allow you to revoke one - unless they're a heathen, then you can go hog wild). In that case just let them cool their heels in the prison for the rest of their worthless life, and either kill off their heir(s) or make sure they're well-bribed and happy with you.

[hemmingjay]

Today at 12:00 CST Gamestop is selling 500 copies of CK2 for $9.99 each online http://www.impulsedriven.com/id/flashsales/spotlight/?AFFID=eml_i05172012_09&CID=eml_i05172012_09

If you know someone who has been waiting have them try their luck with it.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Not bad, though it was on Amazon for 15 dollars and you didn't have to run your luck trying to get a copy.

Anyone keep up to date with the dev notes? Any statements about future expansions? I think we're all itching to play Pagan, Muslim, Papacy and Republics.

[Rakonas]

I strongly recommend against the same-dynasty thing. Terrible idea all around. People in my dyansty always rebel 100x more than random guys I hired off the street to be dukes and counts.

That's because you give land to people with claims. Never give land to people who have claims on your titles. If you start as Sicily in 1089 you have four of five cousins with no claims on your land to whim you can give all the land you like. When they do rebel, they will try to call the others to arms though, which is a problem if they do not like you as much as the revolter.

Giving land to your dynasty will also increase your dynasty score and as each child will get 10% of his mothers and 10% of his fathers dynasty score as prestige at birth it can be a very good idea to keep all the land in the family. In my Rurikovich MP I got a kid with 600+ starting prestige because I married another Rurikovich .

In my most recent game as Andalusia, my close relative was the emir of Beja and had plots every 2 months to take the crown, despite having 30+ relations with me. The only claim he had was for a county title, which I believe he forged himself. Honestly I'll just stick with my current policy unless I'm doing a gimmicky game as it works very well and I tend to not get many rebellions with good management. Perhaps giving county titles only to relatives with no claims would work flawlessly since they couldn't possibly forge claims on you, though.
In regards to the usefulness of powerful vassals, there are some scenarios where powerful vassals can be good. If you don't have high crown authority (or whichever one it is that makes vassals unable to declare war at all) and are bordering an area rich in small independents, then a powerful vassal can actually expand without your direction. In one of my Norse Rus games I remember the duke of volhynia expanding most unexpectedly into eastern europe when I expected his power would make him try to take the throne instead.

[Felius]

Today at 12:00 CST Gamestop is selling 500 copies of CK2 for $9.99 each online http://www.impulsedriven.com/id/flashsales/spotlight/?AFFID=eml_i05172012_09&CID=eml_i05172012_09

If you know someone who has been waiting have them try their luck with it.

Can I register it on steam or gamersgate afterwards? After a few terrible experiences with Impulse/Gamestop I'm avoiding acquiring more games that I need to download through them.