Disinherit heir mechanic

[Faulty]

This is so lame!



But it got me thinking about what a disinheritance mechanic would look like. I think the ability to force a bishopric on the heir, or a decision to declare your heir to be a bastard, both sparking an attempt by the heir to gather support from your vassals to launch a civil war and reverse the decision (and execute you) would be great.

The procedure and limitations could be:
- Taking the initial decision would give the ruler the "arbitrary" trait since he is going against the law of the land to suit his own desires (adding the "liege is arbitrary" penalty to vassal opinions)
- It would also give him an amount of tyranny scaled to crown authority, maybe 20 x crown authority (so medium CA gives 40 tyranny, autonomy gives 100) - Henry VIII did this sort of thing all the time and no one rebelled openly (he just killed everyone who disagreed)
- If the heir now dislikes the king he sends an invitation to all title holders in the realm inviting them to join his conspiracy
- If he has maybe 2/3s or better of the manpower of the king, he launches the rebellion, and "bastard" gets removed from him
- If he wins, his holding type changes to monarchy (I don't know how this works exactly but you know what I mean), he executes the ruler, and then he inherits everything normally. If he happened to be a different dynasty it's game over!
- If he loses, he gives all titles to the ruler (getting rid of the bishopric if he was given one), gets a strong, inheritable claim on all titles, and flees to a foreign court. All the title holders who joined him become traitors.

 

[louda]

I like this idea

 

[NewbieOne]

There should be a way to remove some people from the sucession chain without changing the general rule of primogeniture or gavelkind succession. This should be especially true for people who are more distant relatives of a monarch who has no surviving children or siblings, so it's a matter of tracing bloodlines among cousins (War of the Roses Lancaster and York style).

But the following should be strong causes for disinheriting (even without penalty):
– plotting to kill the father (this is obvious), let alone a failed assassination attempt;
– non-plot declaration of war against father for top title; also lower titles and other CB's;
– any sort of murder but especially close relatives (Kinslayer), infants, own wife etc.

Also having certain undesireable traits should make the vassals and subjects more understanding, e.g. imbecile, slow, 0 martial score. Or something situational like the other son having twice better stats.

People should also be somewhat understanding if you put your younger brother ahead of an infant grandson, possibly with some special arrangement to make the grandson preferred heir ahead of the brother's own heirs.

 

[Me_]

Also having certain undesireable traits should make the vassals and subjects more understanding, e.g. imbecile, slow, 0 martial score. Or something situational like the other son having twice better stats.

I think it should be inbred, incapable, dwarf, imbecile (but not slow), kinslayer and excommunicated. Also being a heretic or of different religious group. After all, it's not 18th century - the inheritance laws were not all that rigid and removing people from the line of succession happened a lot more than the game allows.

 

[Kimberly]

People should also be somewhat understanding if you put your younger brother ahead of an infant grandson, possibly with some special arrangement to make the grandson preferred heir ahead of the brother's own heirs.

Perhaps this could be more easily solved by being able to select your preferred regent in case of an infant king, instead? The selected regent would sure appreciate it, but of course selecting a greedy+ambitious regent may not end well. (For more ideas on expanding regency, see forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?655035-Regent-and-Guardian.)

 

[Zireael]

I agree with NewbieOne and Faulty.

 

[icon41gimp]

It's called elective.

Stop trying to remove ALL risk from the game, jesus.

 

[Me_]

It's called elective.

Stop trying to remove ALL risk from the game, jesus.

Using elective is removing all risk from the game, my child. It is more overpowered than the Mongol Hordes.

 

[Faulty]

It's called elective.

Stop trying to remove ALL risk from the game, jesus.

I don't know what you mean by this

 

[Tuerai]

Honestly, I just grant my heir the bishopric using the console, and then fire the console command to recalculate succession.

 

[icon41gimp]

I don't know what you mean by this

If you want the freedom to be able to select your heir choose elective. Elective comes with the risk that you won't be able to get your candidate the votes needed.

If you want the stability of a guaranteed line of succession choose primogeniture. Primogeniture comes with the risk that your first born will not be the optimal heir.

You seem to want the best part of both succession models with absolutely none of the downside. How is that remotely balanced gameplay?

 

[Faulty]

Civil wars, rival claimants in enemy courts, bad traits and tyranny = none of the downside?

Anyway the pic in the op was a kingdom with seniority, that heir I wanted gone has much better traits than my first-born, I was roleplaying.

 

[Me_]

If you want the freedom to be able to select your heir choose elective. Elective comes with the risk that you won't be able to get your candidate the votes needed.

There is no such risk.

You seem to want the best part of both succession models with absolutely none of the downside. How is that remotely balanced gameplay?

Nobody said that disinheriting should be free.

 

[Alyiakal]

There is no such risk.

I'm a huge fan of elective, and I know how overpowered it can be, but this is simply not true. Not everyone plays optimally in raising the best possible heir, having super diplomacy kingdoms, or properly prunes their vassal holdings to ensure no one vassal has too much power. There is an element of risk involved. What makes Elective overpowered is that those who know how can eliminate that risk.

That said, I'd rather deal with Elective's risks rather than Primogeniture pretender wars (no pretenders under Elective), Seniority's super short reigns (choose your youngest capable, of age child/cousin/nephew/niece), or Gavelkind's demesne splitting.

 

[unmerged(228153)]

The super secret to elective succession is making all the electors Prince-Bishops.

It's not a very good secret. And on top of that, there's the +20 opinion modifier for running Elective Monarchy - it should be half as high, I think. As it is, that's enough to nullify the "Short Reign" or "Foreigner" modifiers, and that seems implausible to me.

It is also impossible to bribe the electors, which is kind of a pity; that would be an element of risk not as easily neutralized.


EDIT: The other super secret method is to gain a titular primary title, then ensure you have no de-jure titles of the same rank. That means no de-jure duchies/kingdoms, which means no electors besides you. Why share the power, etc.