Every time I start a new game, my vassal always rebel within like the first 5 or so years. Why does this happen? I've looked up on the wiki that I need to take away some of their titles, but they say No and then have an uprising. It happens no matter what place I pick. Right now I'm playing Brittany, for like the 5th attempt, and my vassals decide they hate me, and I lose half my land along with half my levies.
Crusader Kings 2 – How to Stop Vassal Rebellions in Crusader Kings 2
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Best Answer
Go to the Intrigue screen, then look at the Threats tab at the bottom. This gives you a list of nobles, along with the odds of their rebelling per year. You want these numbers to be as low as possible, of course! Mouse over the "rebellion chance" to see why they're rebelling. The usual cause is a low opinion of you, but other factors can come in, like their relative power to you or distance to your capital. Make sure that you're more powerful than your vassals (a large, demense full of well-developed counties will help), and in their front yards, and they'll stay in line.
Nobles usually rebel because they don't like you. To make them stop rebelling, get them to like you.
A noble's info screen will have their opinion of you; mouse over that number (if they're threatening to rebel, it's probably negative!), and see why they don't like you. Look at the reasons, and see if you can fix them. (They have a 60% chance to rebel, and they covet your lands? It might be worthwhile to give them one of the titles they want. That will remove a -25 penalty, and give them a +20 or better bonus.) Note that once somebody rebels, all of your nobles get a penalty to their opinion of you. If one guy is rebelling, expect him to tempt more people to rebel.
Ways to increase a noble's opinion of you:
Ways to remove them as a threat:
(Time-consuming, risky, heir may be just as bad) Plot to kill them. It will be time-consuming to gather plot power, and then there will be a delay—on the order of months—before each assassination attempt occurs. (On the plus side, you'll retry failed assassinations automatically.) There's also the risk that one of your fellow plotters will spill the beans, which will give them -100 opinion of you and usually make your target respond in kind and plot to kill you.
Check your major opinion penalties before you plot to kill: if the main penalties are things like "Too many duchies" or "Desires that shiny county of yours", then these will be inherited by your target's heir and you'll have exactly the same problems after the unfortunate demise. But if your target's problems are things like "Ambitious" or "Greedy vs. Honest", then it's a personal problem and the heir should be different. (Go check the heir to make sure he's actually different – children raised by their parents often have similar personality traits.)
How to organize your kingdom to reduce rebellions
Your personal demesne should consist of two duchies, plus all of the counties in those duchies (or less, if your demesne limit is lower; use larger duchies if you have a large demense. Tangentially, a high Stewardship will increase your demense limit and also improve your income.). This means several things:
To avoid Super-Dukes (and thus make rebellions hurt much less), try the following:
To really reduce the chance of rebellion, make sure your dukes have their capitals near your capital; "distance to capital" can be a major contributor to rebellions. To set this up, start with a Courtier and give them a county near your capital; they'll set their capital there, and have a lower chance of rebellion. Now give them a duchy (and possibly other lands); their capital shouldn't move. Alternatively, you can move your capital to a more-central location to keep it roughly equally close to everyone.
(Note: I haven't tested the last advice about forcing a vassal to have a capital somewhere near you. You are permitted to move your capital once per generation; I'm not sure if — or why — your vassals, as AI players, might move their capital.)