Crownhold Vassals, Royal City, and Dominion
Treaty order after hegemony: doctrine, tributaries, Admiralty, and why a bonus tooltip can still lie.
Crownhold’s diplomatic layer is not the opening clicker. You discover countries with expedition ships, you trade, you build hegemony, then Steam asks for a first vassal treaty (Oaths of Fealty). v1.0.2 then named Vassal Doctrine and Royal City in clearer tooltips. The 18 August endgame note added an Admiralty upgrade that increases Dominion gain and fixed a bug that would not grant the Admiralty bonus (Steam also typo’d “Amdirality”). This page is spend order for that layer. Narrative siege names stay on siege and warfare. Ship verbs stay on trade and exploration.
Public stats on 20 August 2026 put Oaths of Fealty near 58% — common once expansion 10 and the Guarded Pass exist, not a secret. Dominion and Admiralty complaints in Steam discussions (“bonuses not working,” “Royal Admiralty upgrades seem to do nothing”) are why you update first and hover second. A tooltip that does nothing after the 18 August patch is a remaining bug, not a wiki recipe we can invent.
Order of diplomatic verbs
- Discover — Foreign Shores, then The Known World. Discovery points from expedition ships. Without countries there is no one to vassalize.
- Trade — Open for Business, then Crown of Commerce (hegemony). Influence is the currency that makes treaties more than flavor.
- Treaty — Oaths of Fealty. First vassal treaty. Hover the prompt. Pay the standing the panel names. Do not prestige the map to “retry diplomacy.”
- Doctrine and city — Vassal Doctrine and Royal City received tooltip passes in v1.0.2 because players could not read them. Open those panels. Buy the node that names the pain in front of you (influence, tribute, city standing). We do not publish fake % tables.
- Dominion and Admiralty — late operation. Dominion is not gold. Admiralty is the upgrade family that is supposed to raise Dominion gain. If the 18 August notes said the bonus was not granting, update. If it still does not grant, mail support; do not download a trainer.
Trade hegemony and vassal treaties sit next to each other. Hegemony is commercial lock. A treaty is a diplomatic spend once those countries exist. Skipping deals because an arsenal unlocked is how influence starves and the treaty looks “broken.”
Royal City versus the keep
The keep is hour-one gold. Royal City is a named late target in official patch text, not a second castle you build in expansion 2. Treat it like the royal court: a workplace or doctrine object that matters after countries exist. Buildings still owns the court, harbor, and arsenal roster. This page owns the diplomatic spend once those buildings have something to talk to.
If a village looks like a city, it is probably still a stone hamlet from the walkthrough. Hover the label. Crownhold is bad at putting the important noun in the architecture and good at putting it in the tooltip.
Tributaries and stuck commands
Players reported a Tributary Command bug after launch. We do not have a developer patch note that names that string yet. Practical order: update to the latest Steam build, hover the tributary panel again, try a different vassal if the UI offers one, then write [email protected]. Do not prestige to unstick a tribute slider. Prestige rewinds expansion progress and can throw away the treaty you just signed — how to prestige.
Decrees are not tributaries. A law prompt is decrees. Community threads about permanent decree bonuses mean some laws persist; hover to see whether a bonus is timed or kept. Mixing a permanent law with a tribute command is how you spend the wrong resource.
Admiralty, Dominion, catapults
Steam’s endgame post added tooltip hints for catapult autofire and how to unlock certain endgame upgrades. Autofire is a control, not a DPS sheet. Dominion gain is the Admiralty job. If Royal Arsenal crafts exist, staff that workplace like the guild — siege and warfare — and do not assume Admiralty is an arsenal recipe.
Launch-week threads also said Dominion bonuses were not working before or despite the 18 August fix. The wiki position is: the official note claimed a grant fix; your client after that build is the test. If numbers do not move, it is still a live bug. We will not invent a workaround that edits saves.
How to spend when every node looks like 100%
Same rule as prestige unlocks. Buy the bottleneck on the current banner. If the banner is a treaty, buy influence and doctrine. If the banner is a sea lock (No Ship Shall Pass is a title-only achievement), buy ships and Admiralty, not another peasant. If the banner is Royal City, read the city tooltip before you dump stone into a tenth village.
Related progression in this dropdown: late-game, buildings, resources. Related guides: map for where countries sit, three monuments so a city landmark is not mistaken for Legacy in Stone. Tools: achievements for Oaths of Fealty. Updates if Mikula names another diplomatic string.
This is not a PvP vassal tier list. Crownhold has no ranked ladder. The ranking is which diplomatic verb is gated by which currency, and which official patch already tried to make the tooltip tell the truth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common Crownhold questions.
When do vassals appear?
After countries exist and you can sign a treaty. Steam’s Oaths of Fealty is the first vassal treaty, commonly after expansion 10 and the Guarded Pass.
What is Royal City?
A late name clarified in v1.0.2 tooltips. It is not the opening keep. Hover the panel; we do not invent a building recipe.
Admiralty does nothing. Is the wiki wrong?
The 18 August patch added Dominion gain via Admiralty and claimed to fix a grant bug. Update first. If it still does nothing, it is a remaining live bug — mail support.
Will prestiging delete a treaty?
Prestige rewinds expansion progress. Confirm the reset before you abandon a map that just signed Oaths of Fealty.