Estates

Topic

Estates

Base estates

Burghers

Clergy

Nobility

Cossacks estates

Cossacks

Dhimmi

Tribes

Dharma estates

Brahmins

Jains

Vaishyas

Marathas

Rajputs

Domination estates

Janissaries

Eunuchs

Estates management tab.

Estates are factions within the nation that influence domestic politics. Estates apply modifiers at the national level and may grant one-time bonuses or bonuses to specific provinces. They have two basic attributes: influence and loyalty; which depend on the amount of land they hold, event choices and several other factors.

The influence and loyalty levels of an estate determine their power within the country and how they "react" to the player's actions with them. These can be seen in the nationwide bonuses or penalties provided by the estate, outcome effects of certain interactions provided through the estates, as well as their rebellion strength if worse comes to worst. Estates which grow too powerful can bring a disaster upon the nation. This may come into effect by the estate seizing control of the country or breaking it apart.

Estates can be granted privileges, which grant additional bonuses, but come with a price. Privileges can shape your nation in the early stages, but will likely become a burden while your country centralizes its power and grows its administration. You can influence your estates by granting and revoking privileges, and by ceding them lands or confiscating them.

The lands that are not owned by any of your estates is your crownland. Having more crownland means having a more direct control on your lands, but reducing the power of estates. Having less crownland means your estates will like you more and will be more impactful, but you will have a lesser control on your lands and your subjects.

There are a total of 13 estates, though most nations have access to 3 estates. The exact number may change during the campaign and depends on location, government and religion. Conquered provinces will change the distribution of lands in your realms. It is possible to add more estates to the game and change conquest behavior via modding.

Each state begins with its own distribution of lands, and for some its own already active privileges, which can be changed during the game.

Access to estates

Not all nations have access to all available estates. The reasons can vary from not being in the right geographical area, not being of a certain religion and so on – further details on this are available under each estate's section.

Additionally, some government types do not have access to the estates mechanics at all (they have other mechanics instead):

• Pirate Republic
• Siberian Native Council
• Sich Rada
• Native Tribe
• Revolutionary Republic, Revolutionary State and Revolutionary Empire
• Colonial Nation

Estate modifiers

Note: Most of the values mentioned here are fully moddable.

• Loyalty is a measure of how willing the estate is to aid in the nation's government. It is a modifier that trends slowly towards a base value, the loyalty equilibrium, which is 30 per default and can be increased by the share of lands it controls and changed with privileges, government reforms and loyalty modifiers from other sources. The speed of decay depends on how far from the equilibrium it is (further = faster). Loyalty scales from 0 to 100, and is separated into three tiers: disloyal (0–29), neutral (30–59), and loyal (60−100). Loyalty determines what effects the estate confers. When disloyal, an estate confers only penalties; when neutral, it confers a single bonus; and when loyal it confers one or more additional bonuses. The strength of the effects is determined by the estate's influence. Loyalty is affected by various national factors, events, decisions and territorial grants and revocations.
• (Estate) influence is a measure of how much power the estate has over the nation's government and scales from 0 to 100. Influence determines the strength of the national effects conferred by the estate's loyalty through four levels: 0−19 / 20−39 / 40−59 / 60−100. These levels modify the effects by a factor of 0.25 / 0.50 / 0.75 / 1. Moreover, if an estate's influence is 100 and its loyalty is below 50, the nation is at risk of the estate seizing power in a coup, in the form of a disaster. Each estate has a base level of influence, and is affected by privileges, various national factors, events, decisions, and the land share of the estate. Influence does not increase or decrease over time. If an estate's influence drops to 0, it will grant no nationwide effects but will still appear in the Estates interface.
• Territory . Even though your estates have a certain share of the realm land, no province is explicitly owned by an estate. An estate territory is thus represented only by the share of the realm land it holds. See the crownland section below for ways to increase and reduce the land shares of the estates and the crown
• Influence (calculation) is based on how much an estate controls the development in the country. Influence of an estate increases by 0.5 for every 1% of the land it controls, up to a maximum of 40. The Dhimmi and Tribes estates have modifiers that lower this factor (0.25 for each 1% for the Dhimmi, and 0.2 for each 1% for the tribes).
• Loyalty equilibrium (calculation) is based on territorial grant/revocation. Loyalty equilibrium of an estate increases by 0.2 for every 1% of land it controls.
• Privileges are a set of actions that can be taken towards estates, typically either giving something to the estate or requesting something from it. Interactions affect the estates' loyalty and influence in various ways, and almost all of them reduce maximum absolutism.
• (Estate) Disasters occur after an estate gains high influence levels (100). The estate disaster will begin ticking if the associated estate has less than 50% loyalty and the nation is not at war. Unless lowered, this will eventually trigger its associated disaster. During an active estate disaster all other estates will lose influence and loyalty.

Crownland

The land of a realm which has access to estates is divided among all the estates, and the crownland, which represents the land you directly control. These lands are not represented by specific provinces in game (and neither are the lands of the other estates).

The share of crownland in the realm is linked to a series of bonuses which provide better benefits the higher this share is (as your realm becomes more centralized).

Crownland						Reform Progress Growth
0	−50	+0.40	−20%	+150%	−	−
1–4	−40	+0.30	−20%	+100%	−	−
5–9	−30	+0.20	−15%	+100%	−	−
10–19	−15	+0.10	−15%	+50%	−	−
20–29	−10	−	−10%	+25%	−	−
30–49	−	−	−	−	−	−
50–59	+5	−	−	−	−	+20%
60–69	+10	−	−	−	−	+40%
70–79	+15	−0.01	−	−	+1	+60%
80-99	+15	−0.02	−	−	+1	+80%
100	+15	−0.05	−	−	+1	+100%

Most nations start the campaign with a base value of 30% crownland. The Papal States are one of the few exceptions, instead starting with 50%. Nations such as those listed above which do not use estate mechanics receive no crownland modifiers, positive or negative.

Changing crownland

The game offers several ways to increase or decrease the amount of crownland:

Seize land

The Seize Land estate interaction can be used every 5 years and provides an instant 5% boost to crownland. The button is only available when a nation is not at war, has no active revolts and no rebel-controlled provinces. All estates lose 20% loyalty and a share of controlled land in proportion to the existing amount of land that they have (so that the ratio of land between estates doesn't change). If any estate's loyalty drops below 30% due to this, rebels will spawn. The amount of rebel stacks is ${\textstyle {\frac {1+{\text{number of owned areas}}}{10}}}$. The type of rebels depends on the disloyal estate. If there are multiple disloyal estates, the type of each rebel stack is randomly chosen between the rebel types of each disloyal estate. The rebels will spawn in provinces which have the highest supply limit of all owned provinces in their area and which have a land connection to the capital or are in a state. All provinces in the area in which rebels spawn get +10 local unrest.

Some privileges exempt an estate from the seizing land interaction. An exempt estate will neither lose land nor loyalty :

Burghers:

• Burghers Crown Possessions
• Rise of the Burghers

Clergy:

• Inwards Perfection
• All 5 Bishophrics of the Livonian Order
• Clerical Inwards Focus

Nobility:

• Increased Levies
• Golden Liberty
• The 2 Tribal Centralization Privileges of Jolof
• The 2 Danish Nobility Privileges of Norway
• Consolidated Noble Contracts
• Villeinage

Cossacks:

• Establish the Cossack Regiments

Dhimmi:

• Dhimmi self government

Brahmins:

• Brahmins Inwards Focus

Jains:

• Jains Crown possessions

Vaishyas:

• Vaishyas Crown possessions

Marathas:

• Increased Levies
• Maratha Military Leadership

Rajputs:

• Establish the Rajput Regiments

Janissaries:

• Recruitment by Merit
• Grant Hereditary Ranks
• Guarantee Privileges

Eunuchs:

• Eunuch Land Rights
• Allow Personal Fortunes
• Single Whip Law

Some Government Reforms make it so that certain Estates no Longer spawn Rebels when seizing Land from them :

Burghers:

• Curtail the Burghers, Tier 7 Reform, available for all Governments

Clergy:

• Curtail Clerical Privileges, Tier 4 Reform, available for all Governments
• Most Holy governing Synode, Tier 4 Reform available for Russia
• Head of the Patriarchate, Tier 4 Reform available for Russia

Nobility:

• Puppet the Nobility, Tier 2 Reform, available for Monarchies that have completed Espionage ideas

Marathas:

• Maratha army, Tier 5 Reform, available for all Governments

All Estates:

• Abolish the Castes, Tier 4 Reform, available for all Sikh countries
• Oprichnina Forches, Tier 2 Reform, available for Russia
• Holy Imperial Monarchy, Tier 1 Reform for the Holy Roman Empire

Other:

• Royal Favoritism, Tier 3 Reform for Monarchies, Reduces Loyalty loss from seizing Crownland by 5%
• Holy Imperial Monarchy, Tier 1 Reform for the Holy Roman Empire, Reduces Loyalty loss from seizing Crownland by 5%
• Attorney General, Tier 6 Reform for Republics, makes you unable to seize Crownland
• "Enforced Autocracy" Government reform, available for Russia, allows the ntaion to Seize Land from a specific estate.

Since each estate loses 20% loyalty on seizing land, it is advisable to call a diet immediately before doing this. The extra 5% boost to loyalty will help prevent rebellions caused by any estate's loyalty dropping below 30%.

Sale of titles

The Sale of Titles estate interaction can be used every 5 years to sell 10% of the crownland to the estates. The button is only available when a nation has no active revolts and no rebel-controlled provinces and the crownland share is at least 10%. All estates gain 10% loyalty and the sold crownland is distributed to the estates in proportion to the existing amount of land that they have (so that the ratio of land between estates doesn't change). The country gains ducats equal to X years of income multiplied by the sum of the land shares which all estates had before the button was pressed. X is 2.5 during the Age of Discovery, 2.0 in the Age of Reformation, 1.5 in the Age of Absolutism and 1.0 in the Age of Revolutions.

The "Ottoman Siyasah Tax System" government reform, available for the Ottomans, makes it so that X is always 2.5.

The "Grant Land to the Monasteries" Government Reform, available for Orthodox Nations, also increases Patriarchal Authority by 5% when selling Titles

The "Enforced Autocracy" Government reform, available for Russia, allows the ntaion to sell Titles to a specific estate.

Developing provinces

In most circumstances, each development click increases the crownland by 0.2%.

If one or more estates have zero (or near-zero) land, the amount of crownland gained per development click may be significantly lower than 0.2%, because what actually happens with each development click is each estate loses max(0, 0.2% * estate influence / total estate influence) land to the crown. When all estates have a significant amount of land, the overall gain in crownland is 0.2% (as above). However, if one or more estates have zero (or near-zero) land, then the floor at zero bites, and the amount of crownland gained per development click will be reduced - perhaps significantly.

Some privileges exempt an estate from loosing crownland from developing provinces :

Burghers:

• Rise of the Burghers

Clergy:

• Development of Temples

Nobility:

• Villeinage
• Expand the Fortifications

Cossacks:

• Freedom of the Steppes

Dhimmi:

• Development of Communities

Tribes:

• Freedom of the Steppes

Brahmins:

• Development of Temples

Jains:

• City expansion Privileges

Vaishyas:

• City expansion Privileges

Marathas:

• Promote Marathi Development

Rajputs:

• Promote Rajastani Development

Gaining new provinces

Gaining new development through conquest or integration of subjects moves the land share of each estate towards an equilibrium which is determined by the relative influence of the estate compared to the other estates. The crown is considered to have an influence of 60 + absolutism in percent. How fast the land share moves towards this equilibrium depends on the amount of newly acquired development compared to the total development of the country.

Privileges

Some privileges reduce the crownland by 5% or 10% when they are granted. This land share is added to the land of the estate which is granted the privilege. Revoking the privilege does not restore the crownland.

Estate Statutory Rights

The event Estate Statutory Rights has the option to grant the privilege of the same name to an estate. This privilege increases the crownland by 30% when granted, but it increases the minimum autonomy in fully cored state provinces by 25%. It can only be revoked after 20 years.

Events and mission

Several events change crownland or estate land shares. The Austrian mission Balance the Estates and the Burgundian mission Appease the Estates give +5% crownland.

Crownland equilibrium

Every nation that has at least one estate has an equilibrium for crownland. This equilibrium for crownland is calculated by the estates' collective influence and the nation's current absolutism. Each time the nation's total development changes by conquest or annexation, each estate receives or loses crownland in order to approach their personal equilibrium, and this in turn reflects the crown's equilibrium as a result. The larger the relative change in development, the larger the relative drift towards each party's equilibrium.

The crown's equilibrium of crownland is essentially what remains after each estate's equilibrium is calculated. The formula for how much a specific estate's share of land changes after a change in development is as follows:

${\text{landShare(after)}}={\frac {{\text{landShare(before)}}\cdot {\text{development(after)}}+{\frac {{\text{SpecificEstateInfluence}}\cdot {\text{development(new)}}}{{\text{sumOfAllEstateInfluences}}+0.6+({\text{absolutism}}\div 100)}}}{{\text{development(after)}}+{\text{development(new)}}}}$

• landShare is always between 0 and 1, expressed as a percentage in game.
• development(new) is the difference between the nation's development before conquest/integration (development(before)) and after (development(after)). ${\text{development(new)}}={\text{development(after)}}-{\text{development(before)}}$
• An individual estate's influence is always between 0 and 1, expressed as a percentage in game.
• Unlike the normal effects of absolutism, the raw effects of absolutism on this formula are not capped at 100.

Examples of equilibrium

To give examples of the above formula in action, below are the calculations for a nation with three estates, the most common situation encountered.

#1	#2	#3		Crownland equilibrium
60%	60%	60%	0	~25%
20%	20%	20%	0	~50%
20%	20%	20%	100	~73%

In the first example, each estate with 60% influence and no absolutism, the crown's share of land will approach 25% with enough change in development, either rising to the number or lowering to it. The further the crown's percentage of crownland lies from the equilibrium, the greater their movement towards that number. Conquering 50 development while at 50% crownland will give a larger movement than at 29% crownland.

Privileges

If your government has estates, you can grant privileges to them. Privileges are bonuses/penalties conferred by estates in exchange for favors, represented by a modification of their influence, loyalty equilibrium, and/or share of land, among others stats. Most of these bonuses/penalties are modifiers which last until the privilege is revoked, while others are one-time effects which are applied each time such a privilege is granted. While a privilege is active, it may trigger an event.

Note that most privileges also reduce your maximum absolutism. The 5th idea of Court ideas, Respected Authority, reduces this penalty by 20%.

You can have up to 6 privileges active at the same time for each of your estates. Removing a privilege is only possible if the Estates Loyalty is higher than their Influence (Except if the "Puppeteer the Nobility" Reform is enacted) and reduces the loyalty of the corresponding estate by 20. Some of the privileges have a duration. A few of these are revoked automatically afterwards, while others have to be manually revoked. Monopoly privileges trigger an event at the end of it asking you to renew the privilege (giving you again the corresponding one-time bonus). If the monopoly is not renewed, it continues to give its production efficiency penalty until it is manually revoked. Some privileges are automatically removed if their requirements are not fulfilled anymore.

Here is a list of privileges of the base estates.

Agenda

Once every 5 years, you can Summon the Diet, which increases the loyalty and the influence of all estates by 5%. This influence modifier lasts 20 years (and stack for every Diet held in the meantime, for an effective maximum bonus of +20% influence). When you do so, an event happens, where three estates propose an agenda, a kind of mission you must fulfill before a deadline, and the Diet asks you to choose one among them. Resolving an agenda grants between 10% and 20% loyalty to the corresponding estate, among other bonuses. Failing an agenda (i.e. not resolving it in time) will decrease the loyalty equilibrium of the corresponding estate by 5% for 20 years, among other penalties. These agenda are akin to the old mission system, where many missions turned around solving current issues (like recovering manpower, gaining prestige, improving relations with a neighbor, etc...).

The Reforms "Livonian Elective Monarchy", "General Estates" and "Supremacy of the Diet" disable the Estate Influence Gain from calling the Diet. Additionally, "Supremacy of the Diet" awards the Nation with Republican Tradition for calling the Diet.

The Supremacy over the Crown privilege can summon the diet without player input, as long as no agenda is active. This action does not affect the loyalty or influence of the estates, beyond fulfilling one of the agendas it offers and its resulting reward. It also does not affect the timer for which the player can summon the diet, so if the privilege summoned a diet while the player had the option to summon one, the player can immediately summon a second diet as soon as the first diet's agenda has been resolved.

Several Government Reforms disable the Diet. These Reforms are "Livonian Constitutional Monarchy", Royal Favoritism", "Parliamentarism", "Protectorate Parliament", "American Republic", "Federal Republic", "Theocratic Democracy" and "Regionally elected Commanders". All of these Reforms (except for "Royal Favoritism") instead have a Parliament.

Strategy

The below is one of many player suggested strategies for Estates. Bear in mind, due to the dynamic nature of the game, it may unfold differently for other players.

• Some privileges may seem meaningless since they provide no benefits yet increase influence and/or loyalty. These however can be used to push the loyalty equilibrium above 50% so that it would be easy to seize land whenever the action is available or to revoke privileges as the Age of Absolutism arrives.
• Generally, it is advisable to stay above 30% crownland at all times, as tax income is usually pretty important in an early game economy.
• The 'Seize Land' action should be taken whenever possible as low crownland causes penalties while owning 50% or more starts earning material bonuses. Try and seize land when loyalty is above 50%, since the action will reduce loyalty by 20% to above 30%. Otherwise, if this pushes loyalty below 30% it triggers a revolt. Frequently seizing land allows you to assign more privileges without suffering from low crownland. Also, using privileges instead of land to boost their influence will generally make them happier.
• Avoid assigning privileges that make you lose crownland unless you plan to keep them for a long time since you can seize 5% land every five years (assuming loyalty is higher than influence each time you do seize it).
• If you continue seizing land, by the time the Age of Absolutism arrives, you'll be above 75% crownland which gives a 15% boost to maximum absolutism and provides automatic autonomy reductions.
• You should strive to have all 3 'Primacy of ...' privileges, because monarch points are very important. Closer to the Age of Absolutism you can consider revoking these as they each cost a 5% reduction in absolutism.
• The 'Strong Duchies' privilege for the Nobility allows you to have two extra diplomatic relations. This is especially useful for vassal-heavy strategies.
• It is almost always worth it to go for agendas as they can provide substantial benefits and guide you in the right direction. Some agendas give claims on entire areas, including provinces you can't fabricate claims on, and even subjugation casus belli.
  • To that end you can use 'Summon the Diet' and even slot in 'Supremacy over the ...' (needs Emperor), which has the added benefit of making all your estates more loyal.
• Granting 'Monopoly on ...' can be a nice alternative to loans depending on your interest per annum (you get about 80% of the goods production income you would have made over the next 10 years).
  • Granting and maintaining monopoly privileges can also serve as a cheap way to gain mercantilism every 10 years as it comes up for renewal, especially for the less valuable commodities like grain, where Soldier's Households makes more sense than a manufactory.
  • Granting monopolies is also the most useful method to increase loyalty above influence as they provide 10% loyalty yet cost no influence.
• It is quite difficult to start an estate disaster, but if an estate disaster does begin to count down, there are multiple ways to prevent it from firing.
  • Check if there are temporary modifiers on their influence that are about to run out.
  • Keep their loyalty above 50, or be in a war (prevents the disaster from gaining progress).
  • Seize land or revoke privileges that grant influence.
• If the Nobility estate becomes too influential or otherwise difficult to control, and you are at the appropriate reform tier, consider introducing the Parliament government reform (requires Common Sense), which will get rid of the estate in one stroke. This does, however, also get rid of Supremacy Over the Crown.
• Because of how equilibrium works, nations with four or five estates will naturally have a lower equilibrium, making it harder to maintain high crownland before the Age of Absolutism.
• If the country takes land directly in a colonial region, even if that land is transferred to a colonial nation one day later, this counts as development changing and estates and crownland will be affected. With this in mind the "Concede Colonial Region" peace option can be dangerous if used to seize a large colony, as it can cause a significant drop in your share of crownland for no direct benefit. You may wish to consider having your colonial nation receive the provinces directly in the peace deal.
• At least 10 years before the Age of Absolutism, hence when Global Trade fires, start revoking the estate privileges so that you have a high maximum absolutism cap soon after the start of the age. Having too many privileges in the late game can be crippling to administrative efficiency due to the penalty to maximum absolutism which most privileges give. Having a lot of crownland allows you to keep more privileges until the end.
• Even if you enter the Age of Absolutism with 100 maximum absolutism with your preferred choice of estate privileges already, you may still wish to trigger the Court and Country disaster. In addition to the 20 extra maximum absolutism you may wish to use for more privileges, absolutism beyond 100 will raise the crownland equilibrium even higher, allowing easier maintenance of high crownland bonuses.
• If you are aware of what your approximate crownland equilibrium is, you can take advantage of the next time you anticipate a significant shift in your development, either through conquest or annexation. A significant rise in development will allow a significant movement towards equilibrium, allowing very low crownland to rise dramatically, sometimes by as much as 15%, the equivalent of seizing land three times.
  • If your strategy often involves an early war with the expectation of large conquests, like France versus England or Byzantium versus the Ottomans, you may consider leveraging your crownland much more heavily than would usually be expected, such as taking the 'Primacy of...' privileges and selling crownland, while declining the Estate Statutory Rights event. A successful war from this position can raise crownland to near 20%, leaving the country in a much more manageable position while you strive to raise your crownland in earnest, while getting the benefits of these privileges more quickly and with fewer overall seizures of crownland than avoiding dropping below 30% crownland. If doing this, it is advised to avoid granting any privileges that raise estate influence until after the large conquest has concluded.

Achievements

Czechs and Balances

Starting as Bohemia, grant at least two privileges to each estate while having at least 50% Crown Land.

Factionalism

Have 3 different estates in your country with at least 70% influence each.

References

Mechanics

Customization

Nation designer • Random New World

Ages and Institutions

Ages • Institutions

Innovativeness and Technology

Innovativeness • Technology

Defense

Fort • Zone of control