Elective monarchy - there's no need for anti-pope cuz I am God.

[Lessing]

To have them all be of your dynasty (but not powerful superdukes), you need A LOT of people of your dynasty, in a decent sized kingdom.
For that you need the lustful trait.
You get penalties with all clergy when you have the lustful trait, so your taxes are less and there's a higher chance you don't get any taxes from certain people, if they're more loyal to the Pope. Also, wouldn't you have an opinion malus with all title claimants (most people of your dynasty)?

This is very short-sighted. You can just land someone of your dynasty (remote relatives), and they'll produce new kinsmen like rabbits. Even bishops produce children if you marry them to other people. That way, you get a huge supply of dynasty members. The problem is that you dont want to assign a new bishop once one dies because this would kill your game fun in mere minutes.

Enjoy your stable realm ruled by doddering old women... And cats.

That's kick-ass.

 

[unmerged(445219)]

If you want to be really gamey, create a "super baron" which owns every single extra barony in your kingdom, or multiple super barons. Create a "super mayor" as well, or multiple of these. Both of these are under your direct control. Give the counties to bishops. Since baron level vassals do not revolt, you still get the benefits of feudal troops from them. The mayors will exponentially grow their cities, once they finish growing one, they will just invest that gold into the next one. County level holdings are held by the bishops, which do not revolt either.

The super-barons will be of your dynasty, bypassing the fertility malus of a large court. Even if they have a claim on your kingdom, it will eventually fade away leaving a relations bonus for the same family.

 

[ShovelMonkey]

I don't play this game for stability or to win. I play to watch my dynasty and tinker with my vassal's to watch their dynasties evolve. I play to have FUN in the Dwarf Fortress sense of the word. But each to their own...

 

[Lessing]

If you want to be really gamey, create a "super baron" which owns every single extra barony in your kingdom, or multiple super barons. Create a "super mayor" as well, or multiple of these. Both of these are under your direct control. Give the counties to bishops. Since baron level vassals do not revolt, you still get the benefits of feudal troops from them. The mayors will exponentially grow their cities, once they finish growing one, they will just invest that gold into the next one. County level holdings are held by the bishops, which do not revolt either.

The super-barons will be of your dynasty, bypassing the fertility malus of a large court. Even if they have a claim on your kingdom, it will eventually fade away leaving a relations bonus for the same family.

That will bring horrendous penalties because baron level vassals can only hold a very few holdings until their demesne limit is breached. If you are unlucky, a mayor dies and is succeeded by a mayor with low stewardship who has a demesne limit of 1. If he holds as little as 2 cities, he gets a feisty malus to income.

 

[unmerged(445219)]

That will bring horrendous penalties because baron level vassals can only hold a very few holdings until their demesne limit is breached. If you are unlucky, a mayor dies and is succeeded by a mayor with low stewardship who has a demesne limit of 1. If he holds as little as 2 cities, he gets a feisty malus to income.

If you are in a place with low-tech levels, you would have to limit barons to 2 holdings. Even at two holdings though, it is very effective at growing new conquests. Starting in a location with level 2 legalism though, you can go for 3 holdings. As long as their capital is in a legalism 2 area, they will get the +1 bonus.


The new patch depending on how it works with republics will change all of this though.

 

[toniagree]

My post is to shed some thoughts on catholic elective monarchy system. As such, I am not going to spend time to discuss the "gamey" problem. This is just to tell you about one of my many experiences with CK2. If you find this interesting and have not tried it before, do it. If you are so experienced, well share your experience... or suck it up.

Anyhow, to those who had constructively criticized, thank you!

I agree this system is pretty flawfull. The following situation in the same game above explains: Poland third ruler is a lustful sinner, so as the result, relationship with bishops dropped like an inflated balloons. The country had to sit through roughly 14yr of short reign, doing nothing. Poland's war capacity is reduced to fluctuating 20-21k vassal levy, and income drops to 40-50g. The worst part? Nearly 5000g spent and 6 Popes had to be assassnated before a "fit" Pope takes the throne. Only then can the country keeps moving, turning the tide of the current wars.

Truely, elective monarchy with only bishoprics is the best for realm stability (I have a few counts, but because they are all gavelkind (CA now is medium), so I dont care 'bout them). At the same time, it's the worst for religious gameplay.

In the same game I mentioned, HRE is also elective monarchy, but somehow had passed absolute authority. Yet, no "lower authority" war has been fought in HRE (that's pretty sick.) Also, because I only fight excommunicated war against catholic rulers, HRE is left uncheck; and as the result, Poland is having a super gigantic grey blob (original HRE + 90% Hispania) with nearly 200k levy as its neighbor.

So my conclusion is: elective monarchy is far too stable. It has downsides, but it's far too stable.

And my question is: why hasnt HRE broken? It's elective, it's absolute, it's HUGE. Poland experienced regressing periods now and then when sinned king and holy pope take the thrones, but HRE seems to blob ever bigger. I have watched stacks (PLURAL!) of 50k steam-rolling the muslims continuously to the point that I now have to marry my daughters to muslim rulers to assist them against HRE. That's, imo, little too much for a religious game.

 

[Alyiakal]

Well, the key to the elective monarchy with P-ABs is that you don't need to elect lustful sinners (unless you want to sabotage your realm). You'll likely have multiple kids, siblings, cousins, etc, who are eligible to be elected. The odds of all eligible electors of your dynasty being completely awful is almost non-existent. I contend that the only time you should run into trouble is when the Pope calls a crusade. Essentially, you are damned if you join, and damned if you don't. If you participate, that will only make the bishops like the Pope more, whereas if you don't participate, you'll get the penalty to opinion for "not crusading". You could join the crusade and then send absolutely no one to the fight, but you still run the risk of having the Muslims show up and attack at that point, especially if the crusade goes south.

Also, you can have whatever crown authority you want, because Bishops and Doges don't care about crown authority; only feudal vassals will complain.

As for the HRE, the +20 opinion boost from elective somewhat offsets the -30 from Absolute Authority. That and there are always some loyalists to the kaiser hanging around. As the blob gains steam, the new additions the empire will be more loyal to the kaiser as well (for that generation).

 

[Gqarz]

Elective is way op in this game that is true. It is overpowered because the player has too much control in an elective framework. For elective to have any disadvantage, vassals would have to become more disagreeable, just like real-life people. Everyone wants to control the monarchy. As such, everyone should back a claimant (regardless of personal character) due to the fact they are all trying to do what the player is trying to do, advance their dynasty. This is not modeled well in the current system. Vassals can be bought, impressed, etc. too easily. Yes, a gift of gold works nicely to keep a vassal from rebelling, but when it comes to having your son in law on the throne.... all bets are off. The fact remains that any victorious successor to the king would then owe favors to the people who elected him. This cannot be modeled in CK2 without the introduction of some new mechanics. I think it would be nice that under an elective system when your new character takes the throne, there would be a succession of events that fired in the first few years that would represent these nobles calling in the favors they should expect in return for their votes. Yes, the player should be able to say no, but not without some MAJOR (-50) at least malus with the noble you are turning down and at least (-20) with all others who voted for you. Also, there should be a minor relations penalty with all nobles who didn't want the current successor. This might take some of the steam out of the elective juggernaut that makes things so unrealistically stable.

Oh, I almost forgot. In situations where one claimant may have more votes but another may have a sizable military force, perhaps some SERIOUS temptation to forcibly change some of those votes should be introduced. Also, under elective, the player should have a serious penalty for having too many votes. (over and above the current -10 per extra duchy)

 

[Lorehead]

This really sounds like an exploit of the AI programming to me. If a ruler tried anything like this in real life, what he would have gotten would not be perpetually loyal prince-archbishops who just did whatever he wanted and never tried to increase their own power. If nothing else, this whole deck of cards should absolutely collapse the moment someone manages to excommunicate you. You don’t even have any of your family in positions of power to be your allies!

 

[justin6477]

This really sounds like an exploit of the AI programming to me. If a ruler tried anything like this in real life, what he would have gotten would not be perpetually loyal prince-archbishops who just did whatever he wanted and never tried to increase their own power. If nothing else, this whole deck of cards should absolutely collapse the moment someone manages to excommunicate you. You don’t even have any of your family in positions of power to be your allies!

If you have vassals other than Prince-ArchBishops, they can actually be difficult under elective. God forbid you have multiple claimants outside your realm, in which case they might elect someone else even if it's nothing but Prince-ArchBishops.

Personally, I've resigned myself to using them for the 2 county duchies. It gives the realm some stability without being too crazy.

 

[Bad_Haggis]

It would be nice if Byzantium or the New Roman Empire functioned a bit like this, if you could choose the successors to Duchies and Kingdoms if you have high crown authority.

 

[unmerged(473020)]

Notice that your last 3 options all help with vassal opinion. However, pure clergy vassals cannot give you as much money or troops as a mixed realm. Stability: high, but gold and levies somewhat low.

This is where I am. I'm in control... It's the 1400's now so every succession isn't a civil war... But I had a back-to-back King deaths and suddenly went from a 48 year old. well-respected King of Scotland/Ireland/Wales and most of England to his very young grandson in 15 minutes... And that unexpected double-death threw a lot of plans into havoc, including to minor succession/lower authority wars.


Honestly, I love the game much more when I'm struggling from a horrible situation, like the time my young king of France died in battle with only a daughter heir. That was a long slog back into power.