As I read the ACKS rules, NPC realms will typically include much smaller dominions (micro-domains, really) than PC realms. A PC has little mechanical incentive to subinfeudate vassals until their domain reaches the maximum size of 16 (6-mile) hexes (under some circumstances, there may be a slight advantage to pushing down the costs of stronghold and garrison management before that point). The PC then has a motivation to give vassals dominions so that the overall size of the realm can grow. In contrast, the Realms by Type table on p. 240 (v. 20) shows that by the time a typical NPC realm reaches 16 hexes, it is subdivided into three additional levels of governance, so a count ruling a 16 hex realm rules over a group of marches, that in turn consist of a group of baronies (each 1 hex in size on average), and even the baronies are divided into individual manors.
Alex has said in the past that those distributions are based on (A) historical patterns and (B) the need for force projection capability–if the count consolidates power at the county level, his troops are too far away from disturbances at the local manor level. I think we can add another motivation historically, which is maintaining the loyalty of followers by providing them with appropriate power bases of their own–in a setting where land is dominant as wealth, a skilled knight, especially a skilled knight with some troops that follow his banner, will only stay loyal if he has his own land.
I’d like to see the rules create the same incentives for PCs to create vassals as NPC rulers apparently do. I see two possible approaches, based on maintaining loyalty and (quickly and abstractly) providing for local force projection.
- I think that retainers should suffer a major hit to their loyalty if they don’t receive (at least the offer of) land when their liege rules over enough land to subdivide. Basically, that means that as soon as a PC has their own hex that they’re ruling, they should need to offer manors within that hex to their retainers in order to avoid a hit to loyalty. Also, if the PC rules more than 1 hex, retainers will start wanting to rule entire hexes of their own, and so forth, with the penalties cumulative: If a PC rules 1 hex, then retainers without land get a -2 mod; if the PC rules, I dunno, 5 hexes, then retainers without a full hex get a -2 mod, retainers without any land get a -4, etc… In order to keep their retainers happy, PCs will need to divide their realm up in ways similar to the way NPCs do. Of course, very charismatic PCs with fanatically loyal retainers can ignore this, at least for a while, but that’s part of the benefit of being charismatic and having fanatically loyal retainers. Also, some retainers may decline offers of land–if a fighter has a thief retainer, the thief may be more interested in setting up a hide-out and being a spymaster than in ruling a manor. That’s fine–as long as the fighter offers the manor, the thief will feel valued and rewarded, even if the thief declines it (or asks for support in establishing a hide-out instead…)
- From the force projection standpoint, I would incorporate this into the domain’s morale checks. Basically, if the domain is overly centralized, morale should suffer because the local peasantry know that bandits can start operating and by the time the far-off count’s troops arrive, the bandits will slip away, etc. This also means that a strategy of simply not having retainers until you need them for vassals won’t work well.
By adopting these (or similar) approaches, PCs will have incentives to set up realms that are parallel in structure and organization to NPC realms (or historical realms), instead of following a different PC-only path of building a large domain before adding any vassals.