Dead Daughters

[daftrhetoric]

My ruler wed the Reina of Castilla, Asturias, Leon, and Portugal. She was a political liability with terrible stats and the frail trait. After years raiding against Al-Andalus and Aquitania to tip wars in her favor my ruler's genius daughter with huge base stats succeeded. She died in battle despite personal combat skill 6 at the age of 16. A great loss, but my other daughter succeeded. With a personal combat score of 3 this brawny daughter died in battle at age seventeen. Somehow succession skipped my ruler's third child by the Reina, a son and heir to my titles, and her titles are now held by a slow, stubborn distant cousin. Thankfully he's chaste and closeted and my son's weak claim will be contestable after a costly assassination plot.

Some questions:

1. How is the Reina's only son's claim weak?
2. Why didn't the realm get divided between heirs in these agnatic-cognatic gavelkind successions?
3. It seems improbable that both daughters, one a strong combatant the other nigh indomitable, would die in battle within months of succession against a field of commanders my ruler had already cleared of danger. Are there hidden combat mechanics about sex or youth? I did read the message text to find their killers; both had personal combat skill of 2.

Suggestions:

1. External Inheritance laws need to be externally visible. This is a problem I've had before when I needed to gain titles within foreign de jure kingdoms and empires before the information was available. In that case it was reasonable that the information wouldn't be available. In this case it is absurd.
2. I never put my ruler on the battlefield until he's produced heirs. The AI pretty significantly sabotaged my dynasty by ruining members under its control. This is a reasonable candidate for change.

 

[Mike Louis]

Unless your ruler's wife kingdoms had protected inheritance via the crown laws screen, your son should've been already King. In RL, screwing a legitimate heir out of their inheritance was grounds for succession wars. From the looks of things, the RNG pulled a King David on you and gave your two daughters a honorable death in battle via the Uriah gambit, thus clearing the way for your only son to gain his rightful thrones once that cousin in law has been dealt via conspiracy.

 

[Simmy93]

Do you know how often people died in battle? Hundreds, thousands at once. Just because they didn't wear a pretty crown people think an important target dying in war is weird. RNG ripped you a new one, but it isn't totally out of the realm of the feasible that women, leading battles might be a clear target. "Isn't that the Crown-Princess?" "So it is, how'd you see?" "She's literally the only woman out here, let's break her legs."

 

[daftrhetoric]

Unless your ruler's wife kingdoms had protected inheritance via the crown laws screen, your son should've been already King. In RL, screwing a legitimate heir out of their inheritance was grounds for succession wars. From the looks of things, the RNG pulled a King David on you and gave your two daughters a honorable death in battle via the Uriah gambit, thus clearing the way for your only son to gain his rightful thrones once that cousin in law has been dealt via conspiracy.

Honestly I would have just preferred being able to inherit my first child, my genius daughter. I'm playing as a merchant republic which makes this utterly impossible; another questionable nuisance, as though money is allergic to women.

 

[daftrhetoric]

Do you know how often people died in battle? Hundreds, thousands at once. Just because they didn't wear a pretty crown people think an important target dying in war is weird. RNG ripped you a new one, but it isn't totally out of the realm of the feasible that women, leading battles might be a clear target. "Isn't that the Crown-Princess?" "So it is, how'd you see?" "She's literally the only woman out here, let's break her legs."

It's also patently evident that personal security is the first priority of human existence. That a genius from one of the world's most powerful families wouldn't be able to recruit guards that she could control and trust or make good decisions about personal safety is silly.
There's a reason most national militaries have emerged as appendages of the royal guard and not the other way around.

 

[Mike Louis]

@daftrhetoric, Providing your character is still young enough, I'll have him get a new wife ASAP. If your character is on the wrong side of 50 though, I'll make one of your younger brothers (if you have any) the new Don..I mean heir to your patrician house.

 

[Mike Louis]

It's also patently evident that personal security is the first priority of human existence. That a genius from one of the world's most powerful families wouldn't be able to recruit guards that she could control and trust is silly.
There's a reason most national militaries have emerged as appendages of the royal guard and not the other way around.

From the looks of things, perhaps one of your family's republican rivals decided via the RNG to use the Sony Corleone variant of the Uriah gambit against you (cue the Godfather theme) .

 

[daftrhetoric]

From the looks of things, perhaps one of your family's republican rivals decided via the RNG to use the Sony Corleone variant of the Uriah gambit against you (cue the Godfather theme) .

You're upping the level in the thread. It's more like Connie was the war hero. It's even more like the Corleones were trying to expand to Nevada and the Barzinis fucked the chances of the whole Italian-American community at growth and ever becoming legit.

Let me also mention that more than organized crime, more than the classical plutocratic-patriarchal heritage of America or the story of Italian families and society in America, The Godfather is a story of PTSD. Michael suffers from extreme PTSD and becomes a maniac bent on ruining his much more reasonable father's hard work.

 

[Mike Louis]

You're upping the level in the thread. It's more like Connie was the war hero. It's even more like the Corleones were trying to expand to Nevada and the Barzinis fucked the chances of the whole Italian-American community at growth and ever becoming legit.

Now the only thing missing is your son whacking your game's version of the Barzini's and telling that cousin / Carlo "Now you must answer for the murders of my two sisters!" before having his henchmen kill him. The scene then ends with the Iberian capos...I mean vassals kissing your son's ring.