Crusader Kings 2 Buildings
Cultural buildings are special buildings constructed in castles that are specific to the county's culture.These correspond to cultural retinues; the retinue receives the benefit of cultural buildings in the capital holding in addition to its own unique features. Cultural buildings become inactive (but are not destroyed) if the holding owner has the wrong culture.
An often-overlooked feature for new players is the ability to build new holdings in your (and your vassal's) provinces. These are the empty slots next to the castles, bishoprics and cities already built.Here are some tips as to the best way to utilize these extra slots.Cities:You want cities, cities are the best. You want every open slot in every county you personally own to be filled with cities. The ideal county has one castle (your holding) one bishopric (required) and the rest cities. Cities provide the most tax income and are much more reliable than bishoprics (who might give their taxes to the pope if they don't like you).Once you have upgraded all the economic buildings in your personal holdings, make it a point to fill your empty slots with cities to further boost your income.
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Extra cities in your capital also mean room for more universities, which means better tech for you.One last tip: When a city is finished, go ahead and build one of the 100-gold economic buildings there before handing it off to someone. That will help the mayor kick-start their income and give you more in the long run.Castles:There is only one reason I can think of to build a barony level castle: Landing a claimant. If you have someone in your court who has a claim you'd like to press, you need to land them first. Otherwise they won't become your vassal when you win the war.Rather than giving away one of your personally held counties, or going through the trouble of revoking a title to give it to the claimant, you can always build a brand new castle and give it to them once it is finished constructing. I highly advise to build these in your vassals' holdings if and when you need to build them at all.BishopricsThe only time I could ever see wanting to build these is if you really needed to make someone a bishop right now.
The primary case for this is to remove a child from the line of succession (since you can't nominate children when in free investiture). This is an alternative to just revoking a bishop's title, where you value not getting that -20 vassal opinion more than the large chunk of gold it'll cost to build the holding. Like with castles, these are best built in vassal holdings as you want all your own slots to be filled with cities.Parting notesThis is written from a feudal catholic ruler's point of view.You can build cities in your vassal's counties, but I don't see this as ideal as you'll rarely get a return on your investment and just make your vassal richer. If your vassal gets wealthy enough, they might build their own holdings.
The problem with castles in the capital is that you miss out on all the universities. Those tech bonuses can really stack and you need to stack them heavily if you want to have stuff at level 5 long enough to benefit from it.What might be an interesting alternative is to have two capitals. Your offical capital stacks cities and universities and is home to your steward for collecting taxes.
Your 2nd capital stacks all castles and is home to your marshal training troops. Best of both worlds. And if your military capital is next door to your economic one, the tech should bleed over pretty readily. Just stick a uni/monastic school in the mandatory bishopric/city there to hasten the spread. I usually build cities in coastal counties, as they make the most money and also provide tons of ships, which are crucial to win many a war (plus I don't like walking in real life all that much, why force my men to do it?), but castles inland.What can I say, I simply find it more regal to survey my domain and see the royal banner dancing in the wind from a thousand castle towers.
Plus when we're already at building new holding money, it's not like I'm actually strapped for cash and need those extra taxes.Also, Mayors are assholes and while I don't really need them anymore at a certain point, I do prefer to have a strond levy at my direct command.As far as landing claimants go, a Barony is convenient, but it's not the only way. It'll mess up direct vassalage and if the claimant keeps the Barony, he'll start desiring the county and ducal title that belong to it.If the claim is for a duchy, you can give the claimant a county from your demesne (to which you hold the de jure ducal title to). You retain a strong claim on that county and can thus simply revoke it without much fuss and indeed without a drop in opinion.You can hand out the county the second before you accept the surrender and it still counts, so there's not even a drop in income or levies.So I really think it's more a matter of opinion or style, rather than a definite how-to. You can hand out the county the second before you accept the surrender and it still counts, so there's not even a drop in income or levies.I was always afraid to test this. Good to know.What can I say, I simply find it more regal to survey my domain and see the royal banner dancing in the wind from a thousand castle towers.
Plus when we're already at building new holding money, it's not like I'm actually strapped for cash and need those extra taxes.When we are talking capitals, I don't just want cities for money, but also for the tech bonus.As well, in the age of retinues more money is always useful. I always want to have the income to replenish a heavy loss to my retinue in case of the worst.
Crusader Kings 2 Buildings
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I don't just want cities for money, but also for the tech bonus.Universities are pretty expensive though. I usually invest in the Monastic School upgrades as soon as I have cash not needed for more vital upgrades and have my Court Chaplain Research Culture Tech in the Capital from Day 1. It's not like he has anything else to do and Culture is the only tech that matters in the Capital, since Military and Economy apply to each county individually, but Culture Tech is global and based on the Capital.You could argue that Baronies do more to increase your Retinue Cap than Cities do, but I haven't done the Math. Like I said, once we go building new holdings State Treasury is so choke full of dough, even a sizable Retinue Upkeep isn't going to make a big dent for long. Do a quick ROI (.edit for clarity - Return on investment) calc in your head.
If building the income holding in your castle costs 100g for 1g/year income, that's a 1% return on investment per year. If you build a new city for say 600g, they have a base income of 12g. Depending on your tax rate you may get 15%/25%/35%/45% of this income. But its also affected by the mayor's stewardship. Let's assume 25% tax rate, then you get 3g/600g investment which is only.5% ROI.
This might seem like a poor choice until you realize that the other 9g/year still stays within your realm. Slowly upgrading the holding for hundreds of years.Beyond that, you have to factor in the other considerations:Another mayor in your realm gives you: another potential plotter, another potential councilman, additional levy, more land in a county that must be sieged before an attacker gets full warscore for occupying that county, also consider trade zone increased income affecting the calculations. Towns directly increase trade zone value, which has a multiplicative effect on all other towns in the trade zone, and all other trade posts in the trade zone.