Even if you aren't able gain enough support right away to put yourself on the throne, you may get to cast the deciding vote between a powerful new ruler and a weak and ineffective one. If it's not currently the succession law you now have a reason to form or join a faction to change it to feudal elective. If your de jure kingdom (and/or empire) uses feudal elective succession then as a duke you now get to vote on who gets to be the next ruler. In the mean time you can turn your attention to any weak claims you can press or claims that will expire when you die. For example, if your current king is both popular and powerful, you can patiently wait for a weaker king to come to the throne before trying to lower the crown authority. This means that you can look for other easier to acquire counties to add to your realm, and safely put off gaining control of the de jure counties for later. As long as you hold the title you'll still have a claim and there's no big advantage to controlling county in your duchy over one outside of it. Sure you can't go to war over the duchy's de jure counties right now, but there's no hurry. Having a ducal title is also worth twice a much as county title to your dynasty's prestige, which determines the prestige every member your dynasty is born with. Other nobles will like you more, and can spend it to fabricate claims and other actions. Having more prestige makes things generally easier. Given that your realm can now be bigger and include counts as vassals this means you can earn more prestige as a duke than you can as a count. Your vassal's titles also give you prestige, the same as if you held the titles yourself. PrestigeĪ duke title gives twice as much a prestige as county title. Being a duke lets you have a bigger, richer, and more powerful realm than you could have as a mere count. Once you're no longer over your demesne limit you can scheme to add even more counties to your realm without having to worry about making a bad problem even worse.
As a duke you can give away your extra counties to (hopefully) loyal family members. The penalties for going over your demesne limit are fairly severe, and as count there's not a lot you can do about it. In a game about building your dynasty, arguably better marriage prospects is the biggest single advantage of holding a ducal title. You can gain better alliances, and maybe even bring a new title into your dynasty. You'll be able to marry them off to off to characters with better attributes and better claims. Better Marriage ProspectsĪs a relative of duke your sons and daughters will have a significantly larger pool of a potential spouses. Here a list of advantages of being a duke over a count that come from the title itself. As a lowly count, given a choice of having the title or having the de jure counties without the title, I'd rather have the title.