How to make those bastards serve me?

[Jedi Bruno]

Oh, and another thing: almost all of my generals are dreaded bastards, my King has 10 Dread points!!
I mean, my army is the most cruel ever!!
I never take prisioners, only if I had catch the faction heir or something that can give me more than 6000 florins.
I utterly smash rebels and sack everyone. Sometimes I even exterminate them if their population is too high.

[Rhyfelwyr]

In games where I've had a bad reputation I never managed to get vassalls. However, I got my reputation up in my Turkish campaign, and had both Egypt and Hungary as my vassalls, althought they soon backstabbed me.

You can get your reputation back up, if you can be bothered, I'm not sure its worth the trouble. Anyway, if you do hope to just:

Always occupy conquered settlements
Always release prisoners
Keep good relations with factions
Set low taxes
Get high chivalry Generals
Make alliances and keep them
Attack factions with bad reputations

EDIT: Also better change this thread title before a mod sees it...

[Askthepizzaguy]

WHAT are the benefits of having a vassal?

What exactly do you get in return that could possibly equal their actual territory?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

WHAT are the benefits of having a vassal?

What exactly do you get in return that could possibly equal their actual territory?

Their territories are added to your total. Which means that if you are blitzing you can conquer regions without actually capturing them. And you get most of their money.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Pizzaguy no like. Bad Medicine.

Their "alliance" can be broken and you will be at war with them again. I've become a vassal before and backstabbed my lord.

Besides, what good is peace and prosperity when we can build a glorious new future on the broken bodies and charred corpses of the vanquished?

[Jedi Bruno]

Perhaps one thing good is that you can get some unique buildings if you have enough patiance

[Askthepizzaguy]

Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?

No, seriously that's perhaps the best reason I've been given so far. Much like Rome, where you could get excellent Scipii temples if you conquered them late. Getting the best temples from each faction allowed diversity in construction.

A pity your empire needs to be one religion. I'd love to see Orthodox cathedrals, Catholic cathedrals, and Islamic Mosques as well, all coexisting in the same town and offering a religious tolerance public order bonus to offset the religious penalty for not having a state religion.

[Veho Nex]

Besides, what good is peace and prosperity when we can build a glorious new future on the broken bodies and charred corpses of the vanquished?

In my sig now

[Askthepizzaguy]

In my sig now

I didn't know you had a sig. I thought you were an autonomous collective.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

DENNIS:
You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship: a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN:
Oh, there you go bringing class into it again.
DENNIS:
That's what it's all about. If only people would hear of--
ARTHUR:
Please! Please, good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN:
No one lives there.
ARTHUR:
Then who is your lord?
WOMAN:
We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR:
What?
DENNIS:
I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...
ARTHUR:
Yes.
DENNIS:
...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
ARTHUR:
Yes, I see.
DENNIS:
...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,...
ARTHUR:
Be quiet!
DENNIS:
...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--
ARTHUR:
Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

Honestly, that does sound like a good sig. Just be sure to quote the source.

[Procrustes]

In games where I've had a bad reputation I never managed to get vassalls. However, I got my reputation up in my Turkish campaign, and had both Egypt and Hungary as my vassalls, althought they soon backstabbed me.

You can get your reputation back up, if you can be bothered, I'm not sure its worth the trouble. Anyway, if you do hope to just:

Always occupy conquered settlements
Always release prisoners
Keep good relations with factions
Set low taxes
Get high chivalry Generals
Make alliances and keep them
Attack factions with bad reputations

EDIT: Also better change this thread title before a mod sees it...

And don't use assassins - they take away chivalry and give you dread. This annoys me - I'm supposed to just sit there and watch a bunch of priests (or imams if I'm a Catholic faction) and other nasty guys running around my territories without knocking them off? No way.

[Askthepizzaguy]

And don't use assassins - they take away chivalry and give you dread. This annoys me - I'm supposed to just sit there and watch a bunch of priests (or imams if I'm a Catholic faction) and other nasty guys running around my territories without knocking them off? No way.

Then put them underneath your boot and STOMP them.

Surround the idiot agent in question with up to 8 little units on all sides. Then, once you're sure the agent cannot move (click the agent and look for yellow movement regions) STOMP HIM LIKE A BUG!!!

(move one unit into the middle of your donut of death)

Agghhh.... ughhh.....

Mmm... what a satisfying noise.

Cheating? Let's just say my soldiers 'captured' this foreign agent and held him on suspicion of espionage. Any non-spy or assassin isn't hidden anyway, and should my men choose to arrest this foreign mischief maker, that's my business.

Then, to the chopping block. I've no more space in my jails.