Agnatic-cognatic inheritance in the game and in reality

[Falkenhayn1]

The CK II has one historical inaccuracy, which is quite annoying. This is an implementation of agnatic-cognatic inheritance.
In the interpretation of the game, under such laws, the daughter inherits if she has no brothers. But in reality, in such systems, the younger brother was more likely to succeed, and the turn of women came only in the absence of male heirs.
I suggest fixing this. Of course, this will cut off a number of gaming features, but ... that's the history.
Perhaps this should be made a separate rule in the presets. Or maybe there should be not three inheritance systems, but four - a cognatic, agnatic-cognatic historical, agnatic-cognatic with extended daughters rights, a full cognatic
And please do not forget that in Russia at that time there was an agnatic system. I hope you take this into account.

 

[Shadoon4]

The CK II has one historical inaccuracy, which is quite annoying. This is an implementation of agnatic-cognatic inheritance.
In the interpretation of the game, under such laws, the daughter inherits if she has no brothers. But in reality, in such systems, the younger brother was more likely to succeed, and the turn of women came only in the absence of male heirs.
I suggest fixing this. Of course, this will cut off a number of gaming features, but ... that's the history.
Perhaps this should be made a separate rule in the presets. Or maybe there should be not three inheritance systems, but four - a cognatic, agnatic-cognatic historical, agnatic-cognatic with extended daughters rights, a full cognatic
And please do not forget that in Russia at that time there was an agnatic system. I hope you take this into account.

I think you talked yourself in a circle there. Agnatic-Cognatic works exactly the way you described history working. I think you meant that if a male non-son heir was available (a brother or cousin) daughters would not inherit the title.

 

[Falkenhayn1]

I think you talked yourself in a circle there. Agnatic-Cognatic works exactly the way you described history working. I think you meant that if a male non-son heir was available (a brother or cousin) daughters would not inherit the title.

Yes, you're right, thanks for clarifying

 

[Serenity84]

But in reality, in such systems, the younger brother was more likely to succeed, and the turn of women came only in the absence of male heirs

Ehh...that's how it's in the game too under agnatic-cognatic. Also a younger brother obviously doesn't exist "if she has no brothers"

One thing that isn't implemented in game though is Salic law. In practice it didn't really become relevant until the 14th century as before that a male heir always existed. But the way it was interpreted meant that titles couldn't even pass through women, even if they had sons to inherit them. This started as a way to cheat people out of their rightful inheritance (as the custom had fallen into disuse since Carolingian times), but it became the standard for the follow centuries.

 

[Falkenhayn1]

Ehh...that's how it's in the game too under agnatic-cognatic. Also a younger brother obviously doesn't exist "if she has no brothers"

I told about younger brother of the (died) ruler.

 

[noblehunter]

I really hope inheritances get messier in CK2. A person inheriting by the strength of law alone is a much later concept. Coronations are a good start but it still makes the process too easy.

If there’s any uncertainty about an inheritance, the first question for vassals and powerbrokers shouldn’t be “who is the rightful heir?” but “which claimant will win?” or “which will most benefit me and mine?”

 

[fodazd]

My personal opinion: I hope for a system where the inheritance laws are sometimes not so clear-cut about who the "rightful heir" will be. If like in the above example, a daughter and a brother of the previous ruler both want to push their claim, then CK2 would just give the title to one of them immediately, and the other would have to start a faction. I think a system where a title can be "contested" for a while and not "officially" belong to any one character (or maybe belong to more than one character at the same time) would do a better job to simulate a succession crisis than the CK2 system does, where it is always perfectly clear who "rightfully" holds the title and who is the "rebel".

 

[SchwarzKatze]

I mean, maybe we can get more refined options, expanding the "gender" and "type" we have now.

For example, under gender, there can be one field for "heir gender" and "lineage gender", so you can get "semi-Salic" by having "heir: agnatic" and "lineage: agnatic-cognatic".

And under agnatic-cognatic, there can be different degrees of male-preference, for example, is a brother preferred to a daughter? Is a first cousin preferred to a daughter? Stuff like that.

And the primacy settings don't have to be gender-related: you can have a breadth-first primogeniture where the second son comes before the first son's son, should he die before succession.

Another thing I'd love to see is title "memory", where succession depends not only on the current holder, but his predecessors as well. For example, if the (agnatic-cognatic) Countess of Norfolk married the Count of Suffolk and their son inherited both title but then died without issue, currently both titles will go to a male member of the house of Suffolk, even if the Countess had uncles. If succession takes account of holders, then the County of Norfolk can trace the succession back through the countess (instead of her husband) to a male relative of the house of Norfolk.

 

[CollapsingHrungDisaster]

I mean, maybe we can get more refined options, expanding the "gender" and "type" we have now.

For example, under gender, there can be one field for "heir gender" and "lineage gender", so you can get "semi-Salic" by having "heir: agnatic" and "lineage: agnatic-cognatic".

And under agnatic-cognatic, there can be different degrees of male-preference, for example, is a brother preferred to a daughter? Is a first cousin preferred to a daughter? Stuff like that.

And the primacy settings don't have to be gender-related: you can have a breadth-first primogeniture where the second son comes before the first son's son, should he die before succession.

Another thing I'd love to see is title "memory", where succession depends not only on the current holder, but his predecessors as well. For example, if the (agnatic-cognatic) Countess of Norfolk married the Count of Suffolk and their son inherited both title but then died without issue, currently both titles will go to a male member of the house of Suffolk, even if the Countess had uncles. If succession takes account of holders, then the County of Norfolk can trace the succession back through the countess (instead of her husband) to a male relative of the house of Norfolk.

So much this. Janky inheritance madness is the cornerstone of medieval drama, and this game lives and dies on the strength of its characters' drama

 

[Al Davoodi]

I think we will get all gender laws in Ck3 and maybe the hersies will able that players will have the choice about all gender laws and enatic i would guess, enatic was added as proper law in Holy Fury even the debate about enatic laws popped up right from the start of Ck 2

 

[Pyoro]

I suspect that in the name of "playability" and so on they'll stick with fairly clear-cut systems. Because a lot of players - especially the map painting type - would probably quickly get frustrated with all the succession business and troubles of keeping titles together, particularly if they introduce random factors/factors beyond player control.

Despite this (more or less) being a primary feudal feature that kept Europe fractured, well, since the fall of the Roman Empire. So I'm all for it, but don't expect to see it happen at this stage. I feel confident they aren't going to dumb down CK2, but I'm skeptical that they're willing to increase complexity with such fine-tune stuff.

 

[noblehunter]

I mean, I don’t want to need a degree in medieval jurisprudence to understand this game. Part of me would be really happy though.

 

[CollapsingHrungDisaster]

I mean, I don’t want to need a degree in medieval jurisprudence to understand this game. Part of me would be really happy though.

I think the acceptable level of dynastic complexity is in large part contingent of CK3 actually having a working tutorial. It seems like Paradox have got better at this since Stellaris (not played Imperator though so can't corroborate that), so... fingers crossed?

 

[Federalist girl]

My personal opinion: I hope for a system where the inheritance laws are sometimes not so clear-cut about who the "rightful heir" will be. If like in the above example, a daughter and a brother of the previous ruler both want to push their claim, then CK2 would just give the title to one of them immediately, and the other would have to start a faction. I think a system where a title can be "contested" for a while and not "officially" belong to any one character (or maybe belong to more than one character at the same time) would do a better job to simulate a succession crisis than the CK2 system does, where it is always perfectly clear who "rightfully" holds the title and who is the "rebel".

Not a bad idea. I usually like cognatic succession myself, but succession wars were very much a thing. I like making succession more fraught and dangerous -- that was a risky time for a realm.

Who would the player play in that scenario? Although it would be interesting if the game gave you an option of which claimant to switch to when your character died.

 

[noblehunter]

At its core, the problem is that computer programs need consistent rules and playable games need to be comprehensible. Neither was a priority for the period as law developed organically and according to the needs of the moment.

Though that’s significantly less true in Southern Europe and Byz.

 

[fodazd]

Not a bad idea. I usually like cognatic succession myself, but succession wars were very much a thing. I like making succession more fraught and dangerous -- that was a risky time for a realm.

Who would the player play in that scenario? Although it would be interesting if the game gave you an option of which claimant to switch to when your character died.

In my personal opinion, I would like to be able to pick who to continue playing as. I made another thread about it: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...we-be-able-to-play-as-secondary-heirs.1261456

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

I mean, maybe we can get more refined options, expanding the "gender" and "type" we have now.

For example, under gender, there can be one field for "heir gender" and "lineage gender", so you can get "semi-Salic" by having "heir: agnatic" and "lineage: agnatic-cognatic".

And under agnatic-cognatic, there can be different degrees of male-preference, for example, is a brother preferred to a daughter? Is a first cousin preferred to a daughter? Stuff like that.

And the primacy settings don't have to be gender-related: you can have a breadth-first primogeniture where the second son comes before the first son's son, should he die before succession.

Another thing I'd love to see is title "memory", where succession depends not only on the current holder, but his predecessors as well. For example, if the (agnatic-cognatic) Countess of Norfolk married the Count of Suffolk and their son inherited both title but then died without issue, currently both titles will go to a male member of the house of Suffolk, even if the Countess had uncles. If succession takes account of holders, then the County of Norfolk can trace the succession back through the countess (instead of her husband) to a male relative of the house of Norfolk.

I'm not sure how likely any of this stuff is to get implemented, but I agree with all of this. I'd really like to see succession given a lot of love to provide more options that model the different ways things played out in the time period.

 

[Metanetwork]

CK2 has 5 gender succession laws but CK3 would need at least 7:

• Agnatic succession: only patrilineal relatives can inherit.
• Agnatic-cognatic succession: a maternal grandson has a stronger claim than his mother and aunts.
• Male-preference: daughters can inherit if there is no son. A daughter's claim is stronger than her sons'.
• Cognatic: male and female relatives inherit on equal grounds.
• Female-preference, enatic-cognatic and enatic would work as above but in reverse.

Other succession laws could decide the weight that age, order of birth, proximity of blood, and/or consent of the voters have on the final result (with a preference for candidates with the same religion and culture). Succession laws could progressively become more codified over generations, as the lack of codification can lead to a war between claimants. The results of these wars, in itself, could lead to more codification (eg. If two claimants had technically equal claims by law, and one fulfills X condition that the other claimant did did not, then X condition is codified as giving a weight difference).

Conflicts between near-equal claimants could be solved by wars, co-rulership, splitting the lands, or renounciation from one of of the claimants.

 

[Amalamanhado]

About sucession law, one thing I would like to see is an agnatic option where adult relatives of the dead ruler have a preference over infant direct heirs, especially with Muslims, pagans and nomads. So if a ruler died having an infant son and adult brothers, one of the brothers would be more likely to inherit or if the first son died leaving a child and then the ruler died leaving adult sons, in the current system his infant grandson would inherit, but outside Christian Europe, the adult sons would be more likely to succede either by right or might.