Adding the choice of which heir we want to play as

['Ciusi]

I don't know if there has been a similar suggestion here before, I'd be happy to hear what you think about it.

Reading about regencies, I realized that playing as a vassal is quite an interesting experience, but the game mostly leads me to become independent because it's a bit of a challenge. And once I'm independent, I hardly go back to being a vassal again.
So I thought it might be interesting if we could choose which heir we want to play as during the inheritance process. The titles would be distributed by default, but instead of continuing to play as the primary heir, we could choose a second or third in line who inherited only some county and continue to play as them. It would have some interesting effects on the game. If the primary heir had serious flaws, I wouldn't have to try to assassinate or otherwise remove him (which isn't very roleplaying to do every time I want a good heir), I'd just accept it and play as the younger heir, who would use the primary heir's flaws to come to power. Also, a partition would be more acceptable, rather than something the player wants to get rid of as soon as possible. It could create interesting situations and stories during gameplay (the younger more capable brother using his abilities to gain the title of the older incompetent brother, etc), it would create a lot more opportunities for regencies (if I'm an independent, I won't become a regent, and with the current high life expectancy, it's very unlikely that I'd play as an underage), it would encourage roleplay, create new challenges, and spice up the monotonous late gameplay.

What do you think?

 

[mustard11]

Possible in non-ironman: you can switch to whoever you want. I can understand why it's not available for ironman, even though sometimes it means game over even when you have other landed dynasts.

 

[thundershield]

Possible in non-ironman: you can switch to whoever you want. I can understand why it's not available for ironman, even though sometimes it means game over even when you have other landed dynasts.

That's how I play most of my games. Choose the character who is most interesting when you die.

 

[Riaman98]

Playing as a secondary heir can make game very easy unless it is a random succession, like you want your third born genius son as heir, before succession you give him all your counties except primary capital, since restrictions right now only exists for only the primary heir then you will play as your third son who has all counties except the capital and a claim for capital. There are 2 solutions to fix this problem-

1. To make succession random, you will play as any of your eligible heirs, will make very interesting with more roleplay and less min maxing.

2. To add new mechanism which restricts ability to grant titles to secondary heirs other than which they deserve from current succession/partition law.

 

[Germanicus_Caesar]

I do love this idea (I know there’s a mod for it out there) and wish it was available in Ironman.

 

['Ciusi]

Playing as a secondary heir can make game very easy unless it is a random succession, like you want your third born genius son as heir, before succession you give him all your counties except primary capital, since restrictions right now only exists for only the primary heir then you will play as your third son who has all counties except the capital and a claim for capital. There are 2 solutions to fix this problem-

1. To make succession random, you will play as any of your eligible heirs, will make very interesting with more roleplay and less min maxing.

2. To add new mechanism which restricts ability to grant titles to secondary heirs other than which they deserve from current succession/partition law.

I realize that would require some balancing. But whoever wants to abuse the mechanics is already abusing them now (disinherit every heir but one, ordering to take vows, etc.) Those mechanics are being used explicitly to make the game easier and get rid of inconvenient heirs. Being able to play as an heir other than the primary heir is on par in terms of making the game easier, and would definitely be more historically accurate and more encouraging of roleplaying than killing/disinheriting every inconvenient heir, which is what many players are doing now. On the contrary, for those who want more of a challenge it would offer a lot more options than what's available to them now.

 

[SeraphAscending]

I think choosing your heir in ironman should be possible. But in general there should probably be a mechanism to reduce the ability to game inheritance.

If you give lots of titles to children while you don't have to (i.e. not over duchy title limit or domain limit) that all other heirs get a significant, slowly decaying opinion malus and make them a lot more likely to scheme against you (and the "favorite" child). And also make disinheriting the primary heir extraordinarily more expensive the more titles you gave to your other children.

Maybe it could also play into vassal stances. Maybe courtly vassals will really disaprove of an heir that has been treated incredibly favorably despite being lower in the line of succession. "There is an order to this!"

 

[Scrambles]

I realize that would require some balancing. But whoever wants to abuse the mechanics is already abusing them now (disinherit every heir but one, ordering to take vows, etc.) Those mechanics are being used explicitly to make the game easier and get rid of inconvenient heirs. Being able to play as an heir other than the primary heir is on par in terms of making the game easier, and would definitely be more historically accurate and more encouraging of roleplaying than killing/disinheriting every inconvenient heir, which is what many players are doing now. On the contrary, for those who want more of a challenge it would offer a lot more options than what's available to them now.

I think you might have misunderstood what the post is saying.

OP doesn’t want to change anything about inheritance, but wants to be able to play as the heir that inherits the least amount of land/the title that is not primary. OP is asking to be able to play more challenging games, not less.

 

[Comrade_Boris]

I wrote a forum post about this topic a while ago (see here https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/primary-heir-and-player-heir.1546576/)

I'd love to see this implemented.

It's important to stress the difference between primary heir and player heir though, since one can designate primary heir (and thus player heir) and crown authority 4 or through elections in your primary title. What adds excitement is to be able to choose player heir separately (IE someone who may not have inherited all of the good land, gold, MAA from their predecessor). Honestly just plays into making partition succession even more fun than they already are.

 

[Handzum]

Agreed. It would be fun in an Ironman game to purposefully play the 4th son, and trying to claw your way up again, forming a cadet dynasty.

 

[Pigposting]

Honestly that WOULD be nice since ck3 and ck2 lackee the "step down from power" mechanics outside of winning crusades or willfully losing an elective succession.

But there's a hacky way to soft restart in ironman:
-Land a distant relative you want to play as later
-Disinerit spam until you run out of heirs (forcing them to take vows also works)
-Die (this causes a game over)
-select your relative in the new character select screen
This actually doesn't disable ironman. You can continue with your left overs, preferably after you gave your target character land and gold.

 

[Riaman98]

Honestly that WOULD be nice since ck3 and ck2 lackee the "step down from power" mechanics outside of winning crusades or willfully losing an elective succession.

But there's a hacky way to soft restart in ironman:
-Land a distant relative you want to play as later
-Disinerit spam until you run out of heirs (forcing them to take vows also works)
-Die (this causes a game over)
-select your relative in the new character select screen
This actually doesn't disable ironman. You can continue with your left overs, preferably after you gave your target character land and gold.

by the way you dont even need to disinherit anyone for that, having a primary heir out of dynasty can still make your next character an underdog, but OP wanted to start as an underdog make a new house despite their liege being of same dynasty.

 

[ck3enjoyer]

I always roll a dice or simply switch to the most interesting underdog character instead of playing my primary heir. For example I have this perfectly groomed son, genius and handsome, but instead of playing him I will switch to his rival brother with 2 outskirt counties and try to survive while roleplaying heavily. So in a way I am trying to beat myself, probably because the game rarely presents real challenges organically. (to be fair AI got better lately in 1.7 patch, but still)

 

[y8r4G0xz3fFkXdGXyJ4V]

Playing as a random heir is the best. It's the only way I can play. I would love it to be an official game option. You actually have to care about all of your children (well, the heirs at least) because any of them could be your spiritual successor. Or role play and favour certain kids. Then, when you inevitably draw the outcast, the next chapter becomes a revenge story. The push and pull is far better for storytelling than just steamrolling with the primary heir IMO.

 

[Arngrim]

Honestly that WOULD be nice since ck3 and ck2 lackee the "step down from power" mechanics outside of winning crusades or willfully losing an elective succession.

But there's a hacky way to soft restart in ironman:
-Land a distant relative you want to play as later
-Disinerit spam until you run out of heirs (forcing them to take vows also works)
-Die (this causes a game over)
-select your relative in the new character select screen
This actually doesn't disable ironman. You can continue with your left overs, preferably after you gave your target character land and gold.

Yes, the point is that it would be nice to have the ability to pick next PC witout the shananigans - It would be more immersive if all the siblings aren't disinherited due to some weird circumstance, right?
I honestly don't understand why this is not already an option, I mean, you can start the game as an empire if you want to play easy, most people do the opposite and start as counts or dukes.

 

[FishieFan]

All we'd need for this change is just paradox to decouple achievements from ironman, they did it for vic3 which uses some ck3 engine seeing as both have the notification bubble.

 

[johnty5]

It'd definitely be interesting if, on the "You have died" screen, as well as having the "Continue as King MySon Sonson" button at the bottom of the pop-up, there was also a "Continue as random landed heir" button that essential rolled a dice and put you in control of one of your landed non-primary heirs.

It'd make for an interesting way to keeping the game interesting over time. It could even be enforced as a game rule.

I wonder if there's a way to switch characters via a modded event/script? If so - it might be possible to mod this functionality in.

 

[Emperor 1997]

All we'd need for this change is just paradox to decouple achievements from ironman, they did it for vic3 which uses some ck3 engine seeing as both have the notification bubble.

Victoria 3 is their best Game, because of the Achievements are no longer locked behind Ironman and the AI is a lot better than CK3, because the AI in Vic3 don't rival someone, who they have Good Relations with(Because it is blocked by the Game), in CK3 they do.

In my recent Game in CK3, A lot of my Mayors have declared the Head of Faith their Rival, because they have losing a Board Game(Paradox, should this really possible for the AI to rival their HoF, because they have lost a Board Game?) and the HoF have them instantly excommunicated, until he has excommunicated my character's friend, after this he has lost his head.

 

[FishieFan]

It'd definitely be interesting if, on the "You have died" screen, as well as having the "Continue as King MySon Sonson" button at the bottom of the pop-up, there was also a "Continue as random landed heir" button that essential rolled a dice and put you in control of one of your landed non-primary heirs.

It'd make for an interesting way to keeping the game interesting over time. It could even be enforced as a game rule.

I wonder if there's a way to switch characters via a modded event/script? If so - it might be possible to mod this functionality in.

You can already swap using console, the successful crusade event, and any further modifications of it. Plenty of mods use it already

 

[johnty5]

Plenty of mods use it already

Ah, cool. Which mods? Would love to check the code for how they're doing it.