Vassal Stances in CK3 explained

Vassal stances in Crusader Kings 3 play a crucial role in influencing how your vassals feel about your actions and decisions as their liege. Each stance has its own set of likes, dislikes, and preferences, which can greatly impact your gameplay. By understanding and accommodating their preferences, you can minimize the effects of vassal stances and maintain positive relationships with your vassals.

Quick tips: Vassal Stances
  • Familiarize yourself with the different stances and their preferences.
  • Fulfill desires based on vassals’ stances.
  • Be mindful of actions that each stance dislikes.
  • Improve relations with vassals through persuasion.
  • Assign powerful vassals to council positions.

What are Vassal Stances?

Vassal stances in Crusader Kings 3 represent how vassals feel about their liege’s actions and expectations. There are six different vassal stances: Courtly, Glory Hound, Minor Landholder, Minority, Parochial, and Zealot. Each stance has different likes, dislikes, heir preferences, and favored traits. These stances influence how vassals react to certain actions and decisions made by their liege.

Where to see vassal stances for each vassal?

To see the vassal stance of a vassal in Crusader Kings 3, you can open the character’s profile, go to the ‘Vassals’ tab, and view the vassal stances listed next to each vassal’s name.

First yellow arrow show Vassal’s stance
Second yellow arrow show overall stats of Vassal’s Stances

How vassal stances affects your gameplay?

Vassal stances in Crusader Kings 3 primarily affect the opinions and reactions of your vassals towards your actions as a liege. They influence how vassals feel about various aspects of your rule, such as court positions, titles, feasts, wars, crown authority, religion, culture, and more.

Vassal stances do not directly impact other game features, but they play a significant role in managing your realm and maintaining positive relationships with your vassals.

How to minimize effects of vassal stances?

To minimize vassal stances problems and maintain positive relationships with your vassals in Crusader Kings 3, you can follow these strategies:

1) Understand Vassal Stances: Familiarize yourself with the different vassal stances and their likes and dislikes. This will help you tailor your actions to please specific vassals.

2) Accommodate Their Preferences: Try to fulfill the desires of your vassals based on their stances. For example, Courtly vassals appreciate court positions and invitations to feasts, while Glory Hounds enjoy offensive wars and participation in tournaments. Adjust your actions accordingly to gain their favor.

3) Avoid Actions They Dislike: Be mindful of the actions that each vassal stance dislikes. For instance, Parochial vassals dislike high crown authority and major wars, while Zealots dislike sinful traits and lieges asking for gold from their head of religion. Minimize these actions to prevent negative opinions.

4) Use Sway and Befriend: Utilize the sway action to improve relations with vassals who have negative opinions of you. Befriending vassals through personal schemes or the Befriend Perk can also increase their loyalty and improve their stance towards you.

5) Appoint Councilors Wisely: Assign powerful vassals to council positions to keep them engaged and satisfied. This can help maintain positive relations and prevent them from joining factions against you.

6) Lower Crown Authority: If you have vassals with stances that dislike high crown authority, consider lowering it to appease them. This can help prevent negative opinions and potential rebellions.

7) Promote Cultural Acceptance: If you have Minority vassals, use the Promote Cultural Acceptance Steward action to target their culture. This can improve their opinion of you and prevent potential conflicts.

8) Balance Power and Territory: Avoid holding too much duchies yourself, as it can result in penalties and negative opinions from your vassals. Distribute land to loyal vassals who can effectively administer it, keeping them satisfied and preventing power imbalances.

By implementing and thinking about these strategies, you can effectively manage vassal stances and maintain a stable realm.

Main differences between vassal stances

The main differences between vassal stances in Crusader Kings 3 are as follows:

1) Courtly: Likes court positions, dislikes giving titles to lowborn characters.

2) Glory Hound: Likes offensive victories, dislikes high crown authority.

3) Minor Landholder: Likes low crown authority, dislikes revoking barony titles.\n4. Minority: Likes promoting cultural acceptance, dislikes high crown authority.

5) Parochial: Likes constructing holdings, dislikes declaring non-trivial wars.

6) Zealot: Likes virtue traits, dislikes sin traits.

These are just a few examples of the differences between the vassal stances.

Here are icons of vassal stances
Source: Oficial Wiki

Each stance has its own set of likes, dislikes, heir preferences, and favored traits, which influence how vassals react to your actions as their liege. Which you should see bellow:

All differences between vassal stances

1) Courtly: Courtly vassals like being given court positions, creating titles, and being invited to feast activities. They dislike giving titles to lowborn characters, marrying lowborn characters, and disinheriting non-disputed heirs. They prefer heirs with high Diplomacy and are favored by vassals with high Compassion, high Sociability, and low Greed.

2) Glory Hound: Glory Hound vassals like partition succession laws, victory in offensive wars, and being invited to feast activities. They dislike high crown authority and defeats or white peace in wars. They prefer heirs with high Martial and are favored by vassals with low Compassion and low Honor.

3) Minor Landholder: Minor Landholder vassals like low crown authority. They dislike high crown authority and lieges who revoke barony titles. They prefer heirs who follow the same faith or culture as the liege and are favored by vassals with the baron title rank.

4) Minority: Minority vassals like using the Promote Cultural Acceptance councilor task. They dislike high crown authority and lieges who convert the faith or culture of a county. They prefer heirs with a different culture or faith from the liege and are favored by vassals whose faith is considered hostile or evil or have low cultural acceptance with the liege’s culture.

5) Parochial: Parochial vassals like constructing or upgrading holdings, being made guardians of close family members, and using the Domestic Affairs councilor task. They dislike high crown authority and declaring non-trivial wars. They prefer heirs with high Stewardship and are favored by vassals with high Rationality, low Boldness, and low Sociability.

6) Zealot: Zealot vassals like virtue traits, constructing or upgrading Temple holdings, succeeding with the Learn Language scheme, and going on pilgrimage activities. They dislike sin traits and lieges who ask the head of faith for gold. They prefer heirs with high Learning and are favored by vassals with high Vengefulness and high Zeal.

Which problems should I have if I doesn’t understand vassal stances?

Understanding vassal stances is crucial for effectively managing your realm in Crusader Kings 3. If you lack understanding of vassal stances, you may encounter problems such as discontented vassals, negative opinion modifiers, increased likelihood of rebellions, and difficulties in maintaining stability within your realm. I’ve recommend to familiarize yourself with vassal stances to ensure smoother governance and better relations with your vassals.

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About article
Last edit: 16/10/2023
Article is actual with curent version of Crusader Kings 3 (1.10.2)
Author hours in Crusader Kings 3: 121
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Martin
I'm Martin, the main creator of this site. I love city builders, transport, and war strategy games. So I create this site to share my love with others! Let's make Tycoon games great again!