CK II - Eldership succession problem due to females becoming voters without being appointed

[Evangeline]

One line summary of your issue
Eldership succession problem due to females becoming voters without being appointed

Game Version
3.0 Holy Fury

What expansions do you have installed?
Jade Dragon,
Monks & Mystics,
The Reapers Due,
Conclave,
Horse Lords,
Way of Life,
Charlemagne,
Rajas of India,
Sons of Abraham,
The Old Gods,
The Republic,
Legacy of Rome,
Sword of Islam, All of the above

Do you have mods enabled?
No

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
When starting as Soso in 769, I cannot give people the title "venerable elder" (except males) - it says there are no eligible candidates (because all the people over 50 are female and I don't have feminist laws currently). However, all females over 50 somehow become voters for my succession and are called "Elder" Soandso. Even sending them away from my court doesn't change their status as elders. So that means I have no way of appointing them or appointing others, and yet my heir is determined by this group of women - who don't even have rights in my religion or government.

Please fix this so that only the elders I appoint (or who are at least eligible for appointment) can vote on my heir. Or alternatively, allow me to appoint elders regardless of their gender, it just needs to be consistent.

Steps to reproduce the issue.
Start as African tribal, always reproducible when starting as Soso. One needs to wait a few years or so for the electors to automatically fill with women who reach the right age and get the title "elder" even though they have not been appointed.

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[Evangeline]

Postscriptum: only reproducible if you don't have old men you can make into elders.

But now I've found an additional bug: my elders keep voting against me (with the reason "negative opinion of the scoundrel on the throne") even though their opinion of me is actually POSITIVE. Another user has already submitted this bug, so I'm just confirming that it occurs in my games, as well.

 

[cumber]

According to a dev reply to questions in Dev Diary #106, the pre-existing Venerable Elder honourary title has nothing to do with the new Eldership succession. The same dev diary says "Under Eldership, only the six oldest and most learned characters in the realm will be allowed to pick the ruler’s successor". So you're not supposed to be able to appoint your elders, that part is not a bug.

 

[michx0]

So, to sum up:
1. You don't get to appoint elders. They are chosen based on age and other factors. Honorable title has nothing to do with it.
2. They don't have to be in your court, all people in your realm are eligible. So, when you sent them out of your court, they probably stayed in other court in your realm.
3. To be pleased, they need >+25 opinion or other things (being councilor, fulfilled demand). They expect you to do some serious ass kissing, I guess.
4. There are six of them max, not all.
5. Women in your realm live longer. Maybe you should take seduction focus.

 

[Evangeline]

Ahhh it's how learned they are, so I guess it's their learning trait that's important. How come none of these features are explained anywhere in-game?

But anyway, plus 25 opinion being the cut-off point SHOULD be a bug, not a feature - much too high. Especially in the very beginning of the game when you still have super crappy random traits, it's extremely hard just to get them to +15 or so. To think that they intentionally vote for the LEAST capable ruler for the realm unless you bring them over 25 makes no roleplay sense for them, either.

Not being able to appoint women as "venerable elders" also makes zero sense then - if they are important enough to decide who rules the realm, then it should also be possible to give them this honorary title so that they like me better.

By the way, the real problem was as a child ruler, because you can neither take the seduction nor the carousing focus and with crappy diplomacy stats (due to being young), the "sway" command is more likely to do harm than good.

 

[michx0]

Ahhh it's how learned they are, so I guess it's their learning trait that's important. How come none of these features are explained anywhere in-game?

There is some influence, not so much really.

+25 should be OK, I guess. They expect you not to just be neutral but really care and give something to them. If you are child, you still have good 50 years ahead, aren't you?

If there were more than 6 of them - definitely a bug.

Well, I found something weird. In the script for eligibility of voters all checks are like this:

additive_modifier = {
value = 4
is_vassal_or_below_of = FROMFROM ---> FROMFROM is the TITLE.
...
}

except one:

additive_modifier = {
value = 8
vassal_of = FROMFROM
age = 37
culture = FROMFROM
religion = FROMFROM
OR = {
has_job_title = job_chancellor
has_job_title = job_spiritual
}
}
- but "vassal_of" should be used against character, not title, I believe. Maybe this line somehow messes loading the script.

 

[Evangeline]

Thank you so much! I've played on with the eldership succession and one more thing I've noticed is that when I (as a duke) inherit a county within my realm so that I control it directly again, I go through a period of suddenly only having three (discontent) elders and then a month or so later, it updates to suddenly being six again and most are content.

Another thing that is DEFINITELY a bug: the tooltip for eldership succession says "Women can inherit, but only if there are no eligible males". But the system does not at all discriminate, the electors often prefer women to very eligible men (and I can also vote for women instead of men), even though I have no feminist laws researched yet. So there must be something wrong with the gender checks somewhere, both for the electors (unless that is intended) AND for the successors that are voted into power.

When letting a game run for a while, you'll also notice that after a bit of time, the percentage of female rulers in tribal Africa goes up dramatically - male successors are not preferred despite of backwards laws.

(Lol, I sound really anti-feminist even though I'm a female player!)

 

[Evangeline]

Oh, and since you mentioned that the game is also supposed to check religion and culture being the same: it certainly does not, my electors are usually NOT my culture (making it harder to get over 25 opinion), and Arumba played Soso yesterday and had Muslims who somehow became elders and then kept voting against him and he couldn't get rid of them.

 

[michx0]

Oh, and since you mentioned that the game is also supposed to check religion and culture being the same

Most additive modifiers don't check religion and culture. In fact, I believe the weird one I mentioned above is the only one (edit. THE ONLY ONE), and it checks, again, if elector is the same religion/culture as the title (??? I don't think titles have religion and culture, only characters and provinces, so it must be also bug)

 

[Serenity84]

Elective always ignored the agnatic-cognantic selection. Works the same with feudal elective too. You can nominate women, but they will prefer men I think. I haven't noticed a gender preference with eldership though

 

[Evangeline]

Well, then the bug is the tooltip, which should simply be changed to say that in agnatic-cognatic eldership, both men and women are eligible. That this bug (incorrect tooltip) isn't new doesn't mean it's not a bug.

 

[michx0]

Afraid I can't recreate the situation with multiple voters. Characters that are no longer voters still called "elders" but there are no more than 6 of elders-voters at the same time. Characters no longer in my realm get excluded from voters as it supposed to be.