I'm not sure of the exact rules. With smaller realms, I always found elective to be more unpredictable, but in the HRE it's laughably easy to pick and choose your successor.
Benefits of Gavelkind?
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I'm not sure of the exact rules. With smaller realms, I always found elective to be more unpredictable, but in the HRE it's laughably easy to pick and choose your successor.
I thought that the big trouble with Elective & please correct me if I am wrong is that your chosen heir needs to hold a title. This means that they can pick up all sorts of unhealthy traits especially if your old king stubbornly refuses to die. A big advantage of gavelkind and primogeniture is that you can keep your chosen heir safe and away from temptation.
I don't find managing your sons too difficult under gavelkind. As others have said all you need to do is betroth or marry off the extra sons and then make them bishops
I don't find managing your sons too difficult under gavelkind. As others have said all you need to do is betroth or marry off the extra sons and then make them bishops
One more thing about elective:
If your only title is a titular kingdom with no de jure land then you are the only one who gets a vote and no one complains about not being an elector because they aren't entitled to vote being non de jure.
My only title was King of Naples. To form that I held 2 duchies already and then it takes 100 years for them to assimilate and become Naples de jure. So for the first 100 years as the Kingdom of Naples I was the only one who was eligible to vote. And I kept those 2 duchies as my own. The first duke I had was Apulia and it took me maybe 25 years after forming Naples to get that. So it was more like 125 years where I was the only eligible voter.
The opposite of that is if you formed the kingdom of Sicily and the only duke titles in your kingdom were held by you. Your counts would get a negative modifier because you hold all of the elective votes yourself. Once you have a duke under you with a vote that modifier goes away.
My first choice is always elective. Seniority provides some good benefits as well. some games I like to play that way. Gavelkind is sometimes my early game law first 20-40 years then I switch it. The one that I completely dislike and I cannot find any significant benefits for is primogeniture. All of your non primary heirs gets a -20, the rest of your dynasty gets a -5 but there is no vassal bonus at all.
If your only title is a titular kingdom with no de jure land then you are the only one who gets a vote and no one complains about not being an elector because they aren't entitled to vote being non de jure.
My only title was King of Naples. To form that I held 2 duchies already and then it takes 100 years for them to assimilate and become Naples de jure. So for the first 100 years as the Kingdom of Naples I was the only one who was eligible to vote. And I kept those 2 duchies as my own. The first duke I had was Apulia and it took me maybe 25 years after forming Naples to get that. So it was more like 125 years where I was the only eligible voter.
The opposite of that is if you formed the kingdom of Sicily and the only duke titles in your kingdom were held by you. Your counts would get a negative modifier because you hold all of the elective votes yourself. Once you have a duke under you with a vote that modifier goes away.
My first choice is always elective. Seniority provides some good benefits as well. some games I like to play that way. Gavelkind is sometimes my early game law first 20-40 years then I switch it. The one that I completely dislike and I cannot find any significant benefits for is primogeniture. All of your non primary heirs gets a -20, the rest of your dynasty gets a -5 but there is no vassal bonus at all.
I'm 100% confident that you can also nominate unlanded people. For example just today I nominated my newborn son immediately after birth (my first genius ever!).
Giving your heir a title of his own is only a measure often taken to increases his election chances since it a) grants him his own vote and b) apparently allows him to form more political connections.
Giving your heir a title of his own is only a measure often taken to increases his election chances since it a) grants him his own vote and b) apparently allows him to form more political connections.
This is completely right. Any of your children, even daughters with agnatic/cognatic succession, can be voted for.
Yes, I tried. And You won't convince me
Rather I don't have problems with heirs - even if I am not tutoring them (I am always trying to find best tutor, off course some bad traits may appear, but later there is always chance to cancel them with specific events - like feast or hunting). And I prefer to keep them landless or marry other pretenders to domesty / foreign Duchess (depending from his position as heir). Also as I wrote I am mostly using Gavelkind as primary when got 2 kingdoms. In one of my games in Kingdom of Sicily I had 1 county (for example often Benevento as his owner tends to revolt or was just revoking that) with Gavelkind and Primogeture Italy with 2 Duchies - Lombardia and Toscany (in Toscany I had capital with baronies, more holdings in my hand due to Gavelkind - but with primogeture law so this couldn't split). If someone in Italy revolted there he was easily smashed with better trained southern armies mixed with my personal one (especially those from capital where my marshals or stewards got county tasks). What was good for me, those with Gavelkind were more loyal. Also what is important - if I will have to I can always switch into Elective law if king will be strong to handle it (for now I didn't have reason to do that, I didn't have imbecils and even weak trait isn't so bad comparing to profits with laws) - and later change into Gavelkind again - dynasty vassals are happy when You change into Gavelkind granting You really nice boost into relations (at the beginning I was affraid of that but it seemed they like Gavelkind mostly...)